The King's Mistress (16 page)

“Oh, Ellen.”

Jane sat on the chair at Ellen’s bedside and took her friend’s hand in hers.

“Jane.” Ellen’s voice was a croak. “I’ve lost the baby. What will George say?”

“He will say how lucky he is to have you, sweetheart, that’s what he’ll say.”

“I hope,” Ellen sobbed. “Oh, Jane, I wish I was at home. I wish my mother was here.”

“Perhaps when you’re well you can come for a visit,” Jane whispered. “When you’re strong enough to travel.”

“It’s so far,” Ellen said, her voice choking. “Oh, why did I ever come so far from home? Don’t leave me, Jane. You’re all that I have right now.”

“What about George?” Jane asked, stroking Ellen’s damp brow.

“He loves me but I cannot let him see me like this. Promise you’ll stay with me.”

Jane’s mind raced to Charles and Trent and the Wyndhams, but the king’s needs paled in comparison to Ellen’s beseeching eyes. He would have to go without her.

“I promise,” Jane said, holding Ellen’s hand in hers. “I’ll stay.”

When Dr Gorge’s sleeping draught had taken effect and Ellen was soundly asleep, Jane slipped from her room. She felt a hundred years old and wanted only to lie herself down and weep for her friend’s pain and grief. But Henry stood in the hall outside her room.

“We must talk,” he said quietly as she approached. “No, not about last night. This is far more serious. He’s waiting in the orchard and we must consult about what to do now.”

Jane felt scarcely in her right mind with her sorrow over Ellen, but she knew Charles must be desperate to speak if he summoned them this way in broad daylight.

The household was distracted with the tragedy of the lost baby, and no one gave Jane and Henry a second glance as they made their way past the garden and down into the orchard. Charles was pacing beneath a great pear tree. He looked up as they approached and glanced around to make certain that no one was near.

“Truly, Jane, this is a sad turn of events,” Charles said. “But we must be gone in the morning.”

“I cannot!” she cried.

She could still feel the imprint of Ellen’s feverish hand clutching hers, and the sound of Ellen’s sobs echoed in her ears.

“I cannot leave her,” she said more quietly. “She needs me. And even if she did not, how am I to excuse it? We have planned for months that I should be here. I cannot now pack up and be gone when I am scarce come.”

“But no more can His Majesty remain here,” Henry said. “No ship is to be had from Bristol, and we must try another way.”

“And we shall,” Jane agreed, striving to remain calm. “But can we not wait a few days?”

Charles and Henry exchanged glances.

“Jane, you heard what Pope said. Every day I tarry makes it more likely I shall be taken,” Charles said.

“And Lord Wilmot is already gone,” Henry added. “He’ll be at Castle Cary tonight, and at Trent tomorrow.”

“If I do not arrive,” Charles said, “he’ll fear the worst. He might be brave and foolish enough to get Frank Wyndham to raise some men to come to find me. Such a party would raise attention. They would surely be taken before they got here, which would cost their lives, perhaps under torture to disclose where I am. And if they managed to reach here unchallenged, their presence would sound the alarm. In either case, I would certainly be captured, and many more along with me.”

Jane knew he was right, but she struggled to think of some other way.

“Jane, I know it is hard, but it must be done,” Charles said.

“Can you two not go and leave me here?” she pleaded.

Henry shook his head impatiently.

“What explanation is there for your manservant riding off in haste without you at break of day? There have been questions already, wondering looks. Such an action would be the tinder to the fire, and would jeopardise His Majesty immensely.”

“And the pass,” Charles said. “The pass is for you and your manservant. You are the greater part of my disguise, Jane. If I were taken alone, I should be undone.”

The two men pressed close to her in their agitation and desire for secrecy, and Jane felt as if she were being smothered.

“Then go you with him!” she cried at Henry. “Make up some story to excuse it! Dress yourself in my skirt and cap if you must, but leave me here!”

Charles had lowered his head at the pain in Jane’s voice, but now he looked up at her, with a new light in his eyes.

“A story it shall have to be, and I have hit on it. You shall receive a letter purporting to be from home, telling you that your father is gravely ill, his life is feared for, and begging you to haste you home.”

“That will serve,” Henry nodded. “And Pope can deliver it.”

Jane looked from one of them to the other in disbelief.

“It sounds like something out of a play.”

Charles smiled grimly. “It does in truth, but unless you can think of a better way, we shall have to try it.”

Jane fought the tears and rage that were building within her. She thought again of poor Ellen, lying limp and frail in that dark room, all joy and will to live drained from her with the lifeless child. To leave her would be callous and a betrayal of their long friendship. To tell a lie to excuse leaving her would be treachery beyond bearing, and these men, they didn’t understand. She looked from one to the other, wondering whom she hated most at the moment, and began to sob. Some moments passed. Henry glanced warily around, and Jane knew that whatever happened, they could not stand much longer arguing in the orchard, or someone would surely hear them and wonder at the strange scene. At length Charles sighed and spoke.

“Jane, there is no other way. The circumstances are hard, I grant you, brutally hard, but without you I am lost. And more than that, the kingdom is lost.”

It was true, Jane thought. There was no other way, but her mind grappled with it still.

“Jane.” Henry’s voice was as hard as the hand that grasped her arm. She looked from his steely blue eyes to Charles’s dark eyes, and saw there only the reflection of her powerlessness. For Charles she had cast her safety and reputation to the wind, and now she must abandon her dearest friend, who might be dying. Cold anger at both of them overtook her grief. She pulled her handkerchief from her sleeve, dried her eyes, and blew her nose.

“Then so be it,” she said. “I will do what I must.”

Charles moved as if to take her hands, but she stepped back and looked into those dark eyes, those eyes that had pulled her in so deep and held her still.

“I will do what I must for the future of the kingdom,” she repeated. “But as for you, Charles, you may go to the devil.”

“J
ANE
.” E
LLEN’S EYES, SUNKEN IN DEEP SHADOWS, LIT AS SHE SAW HER
friend’s face, and then darkened. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Ellen,” Jane whispered, tears welling from her eyes. “I must go. My father is ill, most gravely ill. I had a letter.”

She dropped her head, unable to meet Ellen’s eyes, and wept. Surely there was a place in hell being readied for her now for such a lie.

“Oh,” Ellen said. “I’m sorry, dear. Then of course you must go to him.”

She turned her face to the wall and Jane saw that she was trying not to cry.

“I’m sorry,” Jane whispered desperately. “Oh, Ellen, I’m so sorry, so sorry, so sorry.”

A
S JANE PREPARED TO LEAVE IN THE MORNING, SHE WAS GRATEFUL
that her tearstained and swollen face would be attributed to her grief and anxiety over her father and Ellen. The servants were solicitous, and the rest of the household was too taken up with poor Ellen to pay her much mind.

At supper the previous night Charles’s plan had been carried out without a hitch. Pope had brought a letter to Jane at the table, and as Jane had read Charles’s handwriting, informing her that her father lay at death’s door, her distress at leaving Ellen had welled up and it had not required any acting for her tears to flow. Pope had taken Charles his supper, and she had not seen or spoken to him since she had walked away from him the previous afternoon.

She stepped out the front door to see the Nortons’ groom leading Henry’s horse with the baggage, and Charles leading the mare with its saddle and pillion. He smiled at her, as if he had not a care in the world. She was stunned. How could he smile? Had he already forgotten Ellen and how deeply it pained Jane to be leaving her? Her anguished rage boiled to the surface once again, and the thought of mounting the horse behind him and putting her arms around him—she wouldn’t do it, that was all.

“Change the saddles, Jackson,” she snapped at Charles.

Henry, standing on the porch beside her, stopped with his arm midway into his coat sleeve and glanced at her in astonishment.

“I beg your pardon, Mistress?” Charles asked, keeping his eyes and his voice low after a fleeting instant of unguarded surprise.

“I’ll ride with Mr Lascelles today,” Jane said curtly. “Take the pillion from the mare and put it on the roan. Now, if you please.”

Jane felt a perverse pleasure as she watched Charles’s helplessness. Surely no one had ever spoken to him that way before. His face flushed and she saw him struggle not to answer her back, but she had him squarely. He could do nothing but obey her.

“As you wish, Mistress.”

He silently unbuckled the pillion and secured it behind Henry’s saddle, moving the baggage to the grey mare.

“Jane,” Henry began, but she cut him off.

“And may I not ride with you, cousin? Fie, why should it be a matter of such concern on which horse’s arse I am jounced today?”

Henry glanced at Charles, but said no more. He swung up into the saddle, reached down to help Jane mount, and clicked to his horse, and they were off, Charles trailing behind on the grey mare, thunderclouds brewing behind his dark eyes.

Jane had no wish to be close to Henry either, and as they set off towards Bristol she obstinately held only to the handhold at the front of the pillion rather than putting her arms around him. She kept her face turned towards the road ahead so that Charles, riding behind them, was out of the field of her view. But as they headed south, the country grew hilly. A steep hill rose before them, and as they began the ascent, Jane came near to losing her seat.

“For God’s sake, Jane,” Henry said over his shoulder, “hold on to me. I know you’re in a temper, but it’s only yourself you’ll hurt if you take a spill.”

So she held to him, hating him, hating Charles, hating herself for betraying and abandoning Ellen. She wept as silently as she could, made more miserable still by the dust of the road collecting in the wet rivulets on her face. Henry and Charles spoke not a word to her or to each other. By the time they stopped for their noontime meal and to rest the horses, her head ached desperately, her face was a grimy mess, and she thought she had never felt more unhappy in her life.

Henry laid out the food and with perfunctory politeness invited Charles to eat. Jane stalked off some distance to find a hedge behind which to relieve herself, and when she returned she moistened a handkerchief and washed her face as best she could. The men were eating in sullen silence. Jane’s body ached from the ride, and she wondered how much longer she could bear it.

“How far to Castle Cary?” she asked no one in particular.

Henry glanced at Charles and answered her.

“About fifteen or twenty miles yet. We need to change horses, Jane. I don’t care who you ride with, but the pillion must go on the roan. The mare cannot carry the load of two people so long.”

They were perched on boulders by the side of the road, atop a high hill, with a breathtaking view of the countryside below. The air was fresh and clean, a breeze sweeping away the clouds above. The road ran steeply downward, meandered through the valley below, and was lost as it climbed the next hill in the distance.

“I am truly sorry, you know, Jane,” Charles said softly. “If there was any other way—any other way—I would have taken it.”

She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. Her heart still ached for Ellen, but almost as much at the effort of holding on to her hatred for Charles.

“I know,” she said, not looking at him.

“And I am sorry, too,” Charles added, “for any offence I have given you, Lascelles.”

Henry stiffened. Jane had said nothing to Charles about Henry’s words the night before, but he must have guessed at something like the truth.

“I hold Jane in great esteem,” he continued. “This time, this journey of ours, is like nothing I could have imagined. It seems not wholly real.”

“And so the rules do not apply?” Henry spat. “Or do any rules apply to you, Your Majesty?”

Charles gazed off into the distance. “Look at this great country before us,” he said. “My country, in name. But the fact just now is that every man in England has the power of life or death over me. Breathe but a word in the right ear, and farewell Charles.”

“‘For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings,’”

Jane quoted, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes,” Charles said. “‘How some have been deposed, some slain in war.’ If Shakespeare were yet alive, he could write the tale of this our journey. Of the three of us. ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’”

“Do you mock me, Sire?” Henry demanded, springing to his feet, his voice sharp in the thin air.

Charles hastened to his side. “No. By no means, Lascelles. I only mean that for the moment, my life is not my own and I am not myself. I have no path to guide me for such a sojourn as this has been. I am a man like any other, and like any other man who is weary and fearful and in despair, I have sought solace in the arms of a lady who is tender and kind, and the nearest thing to a guardian angel I am like to see this side of heaven.”

He reached out to Jane and she put her hand in his. He raised it to his lips and kissed it. The wind whipped higher, rattling the trees and sending loose golden leaves cascading down the hill. Henry stood with his back to them, gazing out over the landscape below, and Charles spoke again.

“Before God I swear that if by His grace the day comes that I sit upon my throne and rule this land, I shall do all within my power to honour you both for what you have done for me. In my present straits I can offer no more. And if that is not enough, but give me the loan of a horse, and I will go on to Trent alone. I will make certain that you are recompensed for the beast.”