I, Jane: In The Court of Henry VIII (37 page)

“I am leaving for London by the morrow,” he told her as he dropped his hands into his lap. “There are the Shrovetide celebrations there to which I am committed, and a final session of Parliament I must attend. ’Twill be good, I think, for me to be apart from the queen for a while. But not so good on my heart that I shall be parted from you.”

“Your Majesty,” Jane again demurred as he turned his eyes heavily upon her.

He touched the back of her wrist seductively with his fingertips.

“You mustn’t act as if you do not know I have feelings for you,
Jane. Nor should you play too heartily that you feel nothing for me in response.”

“You are a married man. I am afraid I must.”

“You did not kiss me yesterday with the chaste heart you now profess.” He smiled devilishly.

“’Tis virtuous to seek purity even if we fall short.”

“Allow me to guess—Thomas à Kempis?”

Jane colored at his amused tone and cast her eyes downward yet again, expert now at displaying the humility her mother had so long desired her to cultivate. It was a signature move that seemed to work to her benefit, as her mother had promised it would long ago.

“I am only teasing you. I actually find your attempt at virtue incredibly seductive.”

He drew closer then and very gently kissed her neck just below her earlobe, and Jane felt the heat from his touch race through her body as he moved his lips nearer her mouth. Then, as the last time, he stopped to kiss her cheek with the same tender, smoldering sensuality to which her body reacted. She did not love him as she did William. Too much of their lives and memories were still bound up in each other. But at least to herself, Jane could not deny that Henry had a seductive power that intrigued her, and she could see now how so many women had compromised themselves for him. Secretly, Jane had every intention of being one of them. Although more smartly and more carefully than they had. Life had shown her that there was really nothing else, nor any reason not to become one of his women, come what may. It was a good thing he did not suspect the experience her heart had gained. She would be too much like all the others if he did.

Henry pulled back then to collect himself. Jane reveled in the
power she felt at seeing him excited. That she had done that to a man, much less the king, was like a potent drug, and already she wanted more of it. But she must remain patient. There was a role for her to play, and to win the prize she must continue to play it flawlessly.

Henry gently lifted her chin again, as she knew he would. “Do not be embarrassed, my little love, by what we do when we are alone.”

She heard the word but assumed it was a mistake. He could not be in love already.

“Yet we are never truly alone. Our God is with us, always judging our every move.”

“I shall not ever make you do anything you feel goes against God, Jane.” He kissed her lips this time and held it, but she could feel he did not mean to push her in the shadow of the powerful God they shared and were both bound to. “Ah, but how you do stir my soul! I cannot promise I will not try to convince you that the act of love between us would not be right someday.”

“It never shall be so long as Anne is your queen,” she said so haltingly that he stopped, gazing at her deeply then, the green of his eyes completely mesmerizing her.

“That is one of the reasons I must leave here for a few days. I must have time to think, Jane, to be certain how to proceed. When I return, we will speak again.”

“Unfortunately, I do not believe I shall be here when you return,” she revealed.

“How can that be?”

“The queen does not like me and I am certain she will have me sent away in Your Majesty’s absence.”

She watched him stiffen. “That shall not happen. I will not allow it.”

“It might be difficult to prevent what you are not here to see.”

“Yet to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Your relation Francis Bryan is to go to France, and Brandon has gone to see to his estates, or I would have him look after you. Anne would never dare to go against Charles. But in his absence, Carew will be a sufficient protector. No one would cavil with him.”

“’Tis true enough,” Jane conceded. She did not want to feel the sudden fear she felt at the prospect of his departure, no matter who was left behind to keep her safe.

“I have something for you I have wanted to give you for a time now,” he said. He reached up to his own neck then and unclasped something on a heavy gold chain that had been hidden beneath the collar of his broad black silk doublet.

He did not hand it to her but rather removed it from his own neck and placed it around hers. He leaned in as he hooked the chain beneath the fall of her headdress, and the musky scent of him—along with the power of who he was—became intoxicating. To Jane’s surprise, she felt that private part of her beneath her gown stir hotly when he touched her. She shifted against it, then held up the pendant at the end of the chain. When she saw that it bore a small painted image of the king himself, she was stunned to see that it was eerily similar to the one he had once given Anne when he was married to Katherine. Jane shivered at the memory, but that only made the stirring inside of her that much more powerful.

“This is so you shall never be able to forget he who loves you. Although now it seems even more essential that you wear it so that you are reminded that no harm can come to you, so long as you hold
me next to your heart,” he declared, pressing the image against her chest with his own fingers, then meeting her gaze again. “Can you not say that you love me just a little in return, Jane?”

“If Your Majesty is free to love one day, it shall be you who will have my heart.”

He clasped a hand to his own chest and gasped as though he had been struck. “Ah, she doth wound me, and yet I love best what I work for most heartily.”

Jane knew her brothers would be proud of how well she was playing the game. Yet a part of her truly had begun to hope that one day Henry might wrest himself free of Anne Boleyn. No matter how unlikely that seemed for how many times Anne had drawn him back into her web, Jane was beginning to think she might actually want him even more than Anne Boleyn ever had.

The portion of the court that had stayed behind at Richmond after the king left for London had their own Shrovetide celebrations. Anne, who had recovered from her miscarriage, presided over a banquet the size and grandeur of which rivaled anything the king himself would have designed. Jane, Edward, Thomas, and Nicholas Carew sat across from the queen as the handsome young musician Mark Smeaton serenaded Anne with a tune called “By My Heart.” Even those who favored the queen whispered how the mice did play when the cat was away. As her insufferably haughty brother, Lord Rochford, preened beside her on the dais, as though he, not Henry, were king, Anne batted her eyes and smiled girlishly at Smeaton. As she did, Carew whispered to Jane behind his hand.

“Now, you see,
that
is precisely what you do not want to do when dealing with our sovereign. ’Tis the hunt he favors, and in this case the queen is the one who is hunting Smeaton,” he joked. “She and
her brother are so close that Rochford is jealous of the attention she gives to other men, and Rochford’s wife is jealous of him caring more about his sister. It really is all quite comically incendiary.”

“Do you truly think so? I assumed she was only playing at one of those infamous games of courtly love of which everyone speaks.”

“Perhaps it is so. And yet timing is everything, they say, and a husband who seeks a reason to be rid of a beautiful wife usually does not have far to look. Apparently, that is not a lesson this queen has ever learned.”

“You believe the queen is with Master Smeaton?” Jane asked with a little gasp of genuine surprise.

“He would not be the first, and I doubt he will be the last,
if
she actually manages to keep her crown.”

“You do not believe she will?”

“Is that very question not where
you
come in?” Carew smiled and turned his attention back to Smeaton, a slim, dark-haired youth with penetrating aqua-colored eyes. His attractiveness was obvious, even to Jane. “The king has asked me to keep an eye on you in his absence, and your brothers have asked me to counsel you in behavior to win the sovereign without the use of outright seduction.”

Edward nodded in agreement. “I believe he will try to bed our sister upon his return from London,” he interjected, leaning forward to stay out of earshot of the queen.

“His Majesty vowed he would not press me,” Jane defended a little tepidly.

“Yes, that would be the likely course of events,” Carew agreed with Edward.

“Some women have done well by it,” Thomas observed, also leaning in to join the conversation. “Mistress Blount is now a countess, after all.”

“And my own charming wife lives in the lap of luxury,” Carew said with self-effacing humor.

“But for every one of those, there are a dozen Mary Boleyns who believed the way to his heart was between his legs,” Edward observed.

Vulgar but true,
thought Jane.

As a lively tune was struck, Anne joined Smeaton to sing a duet. George Boleyn appeared at their table then, and Jane was not certain what he might have overheard.

“Enjoying yourselves, are you?” he asked rhetorically, and Jane felt her heart beat a little faster, his acid tone apparent to them all. “I am surprised at you, Carew. You know what happens when you lie down with dogs.”

“I have known you long enough to realize the result is fleas,” Nicholas countered without missing a beat.

“Forgive me.” Boleyn bowed dramatically. “I had forgotten what liberty the king’s Gentleman of the Chamber feels he is afforded with the queen’s brother.”

Anger kindled brightly between the two former friends over the post that George Boleyn had wanted but Carew had won. George leaned nearer to make himself heard over the spirited music and Anne’s off-key singing. “Are you certain you want to cast your lot in with
her
?” he asked rudely, glancing at Jane. “Nicholas, be reasonable. We were the best of friends. You were there from the beginning. You saw how it was with my sister and the king. He sacrificed everything for
her
.”

Carew leveled his eyes in a serious way that Jane had never seen from the usually carefree courtier. “It appears to be a decision His Majesty regrets more with each passing day.”

“This little mouse will
not
supplant my sister!” Boleyn declared
angrily. “No matter what the trio of you do to put
her
forward!” Boleyn’s eyes swiftly darkened in the silence. He steadied himself, then added, “Well, then. I see that our friendship has indeed come to an end. I am sorry about that, Nicholas. And believe me, I am a much more agreeable friend than I am an enemy.”

Anne was flirting even more boldly now with Mark Smeaton, not seeming to care who saw them. Her wounded pride was making her careless, Jane thought. That would never be her. Every single step she took from here forward would be planned and plotted. The best part was that no one expected anything like ambition or skill of the little mouse, and Jane found that she quite liked it that way.

Jane returned to her room late after the banquet. She was exhausted, since it took a great deal more energy to maintain the image of demure innocence now that it did not come naturally to her. Edward’s wife, Anne, had come with her, and she sank onto the bed as Jane drew off her own hood. She went then and opened the carved chest at the foot of the bed where she kept all of her ornamented headdresses. She was preparing to toss it aside with the others when she caught sight of William’s blue kerchief from long ago, hidden beneath the layers of fabric.

Her heart surged in bittersweet remembrance, as it always did when she thought of him or anything that had happened between them. Anne followed her gaze to the chest, and her expression became sympathetic.

“If you are planning to master the art of being unreadable, sister, you have much more to learn.”

Jane tossed her hood on top of everything, burying the kerchief, along with the memories. “Just missing home a little, I suppose,” she lied. “It has been a long day.”

“Edward told me about the boy from Wiltshire. I hear he is at court in the employ of Master Cromwell now, is he not? That must be awkward for you since you were engaged to him for a brief time.”

“My brother would do well to keep quiet about things he does not understand,” she said more harshly than she meant to.

“Forgive me,” Anne replied. “I should not have pried like that. We do not know each other that well yet, after all. I only thought perhaps, because our two families—”

“’Tis you who must forgive
me
,” Jane said with a sigh. “I am unaccustomed to much of what has happened to me these past few days, and even though I believed I was handling it well, I clearly am not.”

“’Tis that Dormer fellow, isn’t it? The one married to Sir William Sidney’s daughter.” Jane sank wearily onto the floor in front of the open chest without responding. “I have seen more than once the way he looks at you.”

Jane wanted to tell her. She ached to tell someone, especially another woman who might understand the journey her heart had been on with William all these years. Slowly she drew out the kerchief, pressing it to her breast as if she could take in the memories that the touch of that fabric alone brought to her. Then she looked back at Anne. She was pretty, Jane thought, in an elegant, aristocratic way that made true empathy unlikely for someone like her. Yet, still, Jane felt she must tell someone.

“I have never spoken aloud of him to any woman.”

“There is a first time for everything,” Anne said with soft encouragement.

“I am going to need a stout bit of ale to even attempt it. But things have become so complicated here lately.” Jane pressed the kerchief back into the carved chest.

“We’ve got a flagon here of the king’s best wine. Will that do?”

Jane cringed a little at that thought, considering she was about to share the history of her great love for another man while not only drinking the king’s finest, but wearing his image across her heart as well. And yet, no matter what Henry had awakened in her, how she did long for William still! Jane doubted that would ever change, no matter what the future held.