The King's Mistress (11 page)

“Why? You said yourself that we might do what we will.”

“I promised your father, my vixen, that is why.”

I took a deep breath, feeling confused and a little angry. For reasons I did not understand at the time—what fourteen-year-old girl understands frustrated desire?—I wanted to punish him.

“Why is my mother so against our betrothal? What is between you?”

“Your mother?” Janyn frowned in puzzlement, but as I watched he rose and stood at a little distance, his expression changing to one of unease. “Let us not speak of your mother.”

“No one wishes to speak of my mother, and yet she is at the center of everything that is happening to me. Even the Lady Isabella perceives that. I am sent from my own home because of Mother’s response to our betrothal. Do you think this has been as nothing to me?”

“It is your parents who should explain.”

“And if they will not? It colors everything for me, Janyn. I yearn to be happy, but I fear that there is some hidden threat to our joy.”

He took off his hat and raked a hand through his hair, a gesture of discomfort that I had not witnessed in him before. Perhaps my seeming unkindness was in truth a way to evoke a response from him.

“I had thought to speak of this after we were wed.” He’d sat back down on the bed, his hands limp on his thighs, head lowered. “I was selfish. Fearful lest you choose your mother over me.”

I thought I would be a great fool to do so. But I said nothing. I needed to hear what he had to say.

“Your mother is an unhappy woman, Alice, and she blames others, never herself, for her unhappiness. She expected your father to lift her out of her darksome moods, and when he did not, she began to resent him. She punished him by telling him that another husband would have been able to save her.”

“Yes, she could speak in such wise to my father. And being the good man that he is, he would suffer it without complaint to others.”

“He is a good man and a kind friend,” said Janyn, “but Dame Margery does not see beyond her own hunger. She does not see that she has been blessed with a loving husband and a good life. She has instead poisoned her life. She has taunted your father by favoring his friends in ways meant to embarrass him and inflict pain.”

“And you were one of those men?” I guessed it by the sting of his words, the pain in his voice.

“To my great discomfort, yes.”

“I overheard my grandparents say she is jealous of me. Did she love you?”

“Perhaps she told herself that she loved me, but she knows nothing of my heart or soul, Alice. I think it far more likely that she envies you the life she imagines you leading in my household, more exciting than hers, more gowns, more jewels.”

I could not argue with his depiction of my mother, but sensed him holding his breath, hoping he’d said enough to satisfy me.

“That is why you avoided our home?”

He grasped my hand and pressed it to his cheek. “Yes. Margery desired me, Alice, and she assumed that I desired her.”

“Did you ever love her, Janyn?”

To his credit and my immense relief he did not rush to respond, but looked inward, remembering. He slowly, sadly shook his head.

“She is a beautiful woman, and she knows how to give a man her full attention so that his heart warms to her. I have no doubt that I made a fool of myself praising her when I first beheld her. But it took little time for me to understand that she has nothing to give—she sucks the life from all who love her, and hoards that love, giving nothing in return. I thank God that I was never such a fool as to fall in love with her.” He looked into my eyes. “You need have nothing more to do with her, my love. No one would expect you to do so after her unnatural behavior toward you.” He reached out and pulled me close, holding me in what felt to me a fiercely protective embrace. “I pray that you believe me.”

It explained all the secrets my parents had kept from me regarding our betrothal. “Now that I know why they behaved so, I am no longer afraid.”

“Do you regret pledging yourself to me, Alice?”

“No. You need never doubt me.”

He held me close for a moment, and I felt his heart pounding. When he released me I stepped back and took a deep breath.

“Will I meet the dowager queen?” I asked.

Janyn seemed relieved by the shift in subject. “You shall, and very soon. She will be on progress to London shortly after we are wed, and as she is most eager to meet you she will pause for the night at our home north of the city. We shall, of course, be there to greet her.”

My heart fluttered. It did sound exciting. And perhaps once I had met her, observed Janyn’s behavior with her, I might be reassured. I prayed it would be so.

“What of my grandparents? Will you tell them about my parents being guests at Castle Rising, and your friendship with the queen mother? It will be difficult to say nothing, and surely Father will wish to speak of it with them.”

Again Janyn hesitated. I feared that his friendship with the dowager queen was not merely a matter of privacy, but one of secrecy and loyalty, and that he meant to guard the secret with his life. In the next breath he assured me that he had intended all along to tell Dame Agnes that very day, while we dined. He said that Grandfather already knew, but had sworn to keep it a secret, even from his wife.

“There
is
danger, Alice.”

I crossed myself. Grandmother, too, would be sworn to secrecy, I thought.

It was precisely so. Dame Agnes bristled when Janyn spoke of the importance of secrecy, insulted that he would consider her so simple as not to understand.

“Befriending the she-wolf,” she tsked as we walked home afterward. “I question his judgment, Alice, and that of Dame Tommasa’s kin. The dowager queen has been trouble since the day she landed on this island. He is your betrothed, so I shall say no more against him. But be careful around that woman, Alice. Have all your wits about you when in her presence.”

“Do you think I will be easily influenced by her?”

Dame Agnes glanced at me and her expression softened. “No, not you, dear Alice. And it is plain Janyn loves you. That is all that matters.”

Her reassurance was affectionately meant but sounded insincere. The rich food curdled in my stomach, and I went to bed with a terrible ache in my belly that night. But as my thoughts turned to Janyn himself,
his kisses, his willingness to answer my questions about Mother, I felt better. I fell asleep imagining lying beside him in that great bed.

S
HORTLY AFTER
dining at my future home in the city, Janyn, Gwen, Grandfather, and I rode out to the country house, Fair Meadow. The house nestled in a gentle valley, surrounded by woodland. The undercroft was built of stone, the upper stories of wood. What it lacked in elegance it made up for in spaciousness and such pretty views I wished the window openings were larger. Janyn teased me when I said so, swearing that I hoped to freeze us in winter so that we would never step out of bed. His eyes caressed me and I laughed and kissed his hands. I was very happy.

My parents dined with me at the home of my grandparents several times over the course of the summer. Mother was subdued, Father loquacious. Janyn was always otherwise engaged. Her presentation to the dowager queen had apparently inspired Mother to resume speaking to me. She admired my gowns and asked about the horse and the house in the country, going out of her way to avoid Janyn’s name. When Father spoke of the honor of being guests at Castle Rising, Mother said little, but her eyes shone. I noticed that she had several new gowns as well, one of a silk that looked like the reflective surface of a lake, and I guessed it to be costlier than anything she had ever owned. Father must be bribing her to behave.

I saw Mother in a different light now, as my equal rather than my elder, as the competitor who had lost. But when my grandparents stole worried glances my way, I wondered whether I would someday regret my victory.

• 1356 •

M
Y WEDDING
day dawned sunny and cooler than it had been so far that season. I had slept little and could not eat for the roiling of my stomach at the thought of lying with Janyn that night—so I would have been shivering with chills no matter what the weather.

Gwen, Nan, Dame Agnes, and her maidservant, Kate, dressed me. The red escarlatte gown had been so well fitted that I could freely move about, dance a jig, reach and bend, despite how it hugged my body like a second skin. The color brought a blush to my cheeks on a day when I might otherwise have lacked it. I wore a delicate circlet of gold and pearls, a gift from Dame Tommasa. My slippers were of red satin and a leather that had been tanned to match the dark gold of my surcoat, made from Janyn’s betrothal gift to me.

“You are a vision of beauty,” said Dame Agnes, almost choking on the words as her eyes filled with tears.

Gwen held a small mirror so that I might see myself. I turned back and forth, twisting and bending, standing on tiptoes and crouching. I could see only tantalizingly small parts of the costume at one time.

“Would that we had a larger mirror!” I said.

When someone knocked on the door, Kate went to see who it was while the other three hid me from sight with their bodies.

“Dame Margery,” the maid said, stepping to one side.

My stomach fluttered. I had wondered when Mother would appear, for I knew that no matter how she felt about this marriage she would not forgo an opportunity to be, if not the center of attention, then very nearly so.

The others moved away, as if unveiling me. Mother stood in the doorway, uncertain of her welcome. In her finest silk gown and a crespinette sprinkled with pearls she looked as much a bride as I did, except that her fair hair did not fall free.

I stretched out my hands to her. “Mother. I am glad you are here.”

As if distrusting my gesture, she tucked her arms behind her. Taking a few steps closer, her pretty pale gray slippers peeping from beneath her hem, she gave me a little bow, then turned to Dame Agnes and did the same.

“I shall leave you with your daughter while Kate dresses me,” said Dame Agnes. “Would you like Gwen to leave as well?”

Mother shook her head. “I should like her to stay as witness that I have come in peace.” Her voice held a sharp edge with which I was familiar. She felt ordered about, unappreciated, and would soon lash out at someone in retaliation. Probably me, the person she apparently blamed at present for her unhappiness.

“Peace?” I softly repeated. “We are not at war, Mother.”

“Your father thinks otherwise, Alice. Come now.” She moved over to the window, her silk gown richly rustling as she walked. “There are things I must tell you.”

Dame Agnes bowed out of the room with her serving maid. Gwen busied herself with tidying the chamber.

Now Mother reached out to examine my surcoat, feeling the two layers, then lifting my skirts a little to see my shoes.

“You’ve done well for yourself, Alice. Such rich cloth, fine leather, silver and gold. And pearls in your hair.” She frowned as she touched her own headdress. “You have studied me.”

I’d had no part in choosing the pearls, but there seemed little point in correcting her. “I do not think it unnatural for a daughter to emulate her mother,” I said, working to keep my voice soft, calm.

She waved away the comment. Her eyes bored into me, hard and cruel, as she said, “I must tell you what to expect tonight.”

Had I not already been apprehensive about the bridal bed, her look and tone would have made me so. “There is no need. Dame Agnes has told me all that I need to know.”

Mother raised an eyebrow. “So she said. But she does not know your betrothed as I do.”

“What has that—” I realized what she was implying and my hand flew up toward her face.

She caught it and laughed. “Were you unaware that I knew Janyn? How could you think your parents would agree to your betrothal to someone they did not know?”

I thought for a moment she had not meant to imply what I’d thought she had, that Janyn had wooed her and possibly even bedded
her, but she glanced over at Gwen to see if she was listening and then I remembered her wishing my maidservant to witness our conversation. She was teasing me while cleverly choosing her words so that to Gwen she would sound almost loving. Mother was a skilled performer.

“You want only to ruin my wedding day by sowing doubt, Mother. I’ll hear no more.”

“But you must! You must know what your father made Janyn promise. From what Dame Agnes has told me about your feelings for your betrothed, I fear you will be disappointed. There will be no lovemaking until you are sixteen. That is what I meant—Dame Agnes did not know of it, so she could hardly tell you—prepare you.”