My Lady Jane (17 page)

To the inhabitants of said room, G would be dismissed as a ghost. Until the following morning, when the owner of said trousers discovered their absence.

G walked to the adjoining tavern, holding his trousers up to account for the ale belly of the previous owner. He made the decision then and there to cut back on his ale consumption.

The coronation of the queen was so recent that G was fairly certain people wouldn't be able to recognize Her Majesty Queen Jane, let alone her consort. Nevertheless, G kept his head down as he crept from the back rooms and toward the bar. He was so focused on reaching the front door without assault, he almost missed the faint whisper.

“Long live Queen Mary.”

G stopped and whipped about. Two red uniforms caught his eye. The soldiers were standing at the bar, the bartender handing them brown bags full of something bulky.

Perhaps G had misheard the declaration. But no, the names Mary and Jane sounded nothing alike. Then he heard another declaration, whispered again, this time from one of the soldiers at the bar, and in a response.

“Long live the true and rightful queen.”

G froze in step. His heart tried to escape up his throat. He swallowed it back down. He knew that he must keep a low profile, although that was more of an automatic response before it was based in logical reasoning. Reason would tell him he was the queen's consort, after all. The soldiers should be under his wife's control.

And yet, here were the rumblings of treason in this random tavern just outside of London. Several more soldiers dotted the seats in the great room of the place, but they had no ale in front of them. Only food and water. G had a moment to be grateful he wasn't dressed in his usual finery, and therefore did not look out of place.

He strode to the front door, an urgency in his step that wasn't there before, and as he exited the tavern, he noticed points of light dotting the hillside.

Campfires. Tents. An encampment. Within marching distance of London. He needed to get back to the Tower, and fast. Curse his damn curse. Why couldn't he just change at will? He was a horse minutes ago. Minutes ago! He got down on all fours right there in the dirt road and squeezed his eyes shut and—

“Stand up, ye daft beggar,” one of the wobbly tavern patrons said.

G waved him off and tried to focus on the feeling of the wind in his mane, his haunches springing from the—

“Had too much to drink, that one,” another man slurred. “Thinks he's an arse!”

Realizing it wasn't going to work, G shot up from the ground. “A horse,” G said sharply to anyone who would listen. “A horse! My wife's kingdom for a horse!”

A group of drunken men looked at Gifford as if they were disgusted someone could consume so much ale.

“Peace, ye fat guts!” The largest and sweatiest of the men spat at G. “No one's gotchyer horse.”

“No, I
need
a horse.”

The large man belly laughed. “Of course ye do. Hey, Mason, get the beggar man a horse!”

The whole group belly laughed, and G thought better of telling them it really wasn't that funny, and that the man who had spoken really had the fat guts, and instead he just took off running toward the castle.

G ran flat out for a good minute, minute and a half, before he realized he would have to pace himself, and as a man, he didn't have the endurance he enjoyed as a horse.

It was going to be a long trip back to the castle.

Hours later, when he reached the gates, and spent extra time convincing the guards he really was the prince consort, he staggered into the main hall and through the series of stairways that would lead him to the queen's chamber. It was well after the queen would've given up on him for supper and turned in.

He used his fist to bang on her chamber door.

“Jane!” he shouted. “Jane, open up.”

After a few long moments, she opened the door, the vestiges of sleep still in her gaze, a long robe draped over her shoulders. At the sight of G, she pulled the robe even tighter.

“What is it?” she said primly.

He pushed his way inside and shut the door behind them.

“This is very—” Jane started to say, but G cut her off.

“My lady, Your Majesty . . . Jane. You need to call a meeting of the Council Privy.”

“It's the Privy Council, Gifford.”

“Yes. That. Call a meeting.” He sat her on the bed and told her a brief version of events, continuing even after her raised eyebrows at the part where he was in the bedroom of a brothel, all the way to seeing the troops. When he was finished, Jane took hold of one of the posts of her four-poster bed.

“But . . . but your father assured us we were fine.”

“Where is my father?” G asked. “Have you seen him today? Is he back?”

“No. I haven't seen him since he left a few days ago.”

G took a deep breath. “Look, I haven't been as forthright with you as I should, but please believe me. I thought I was acting in your best interests, and I will explain it all, but we need to call a meeting of the Privy Council now.”

She nodded, and G went to the door and shouted for the servant outside to gather the council members, and then he went back in and explained everything to his lady. The message his father had received about Mary. The fact that Mary would never accept Jane
as queen. The emergency missive he'd received that had called him away. After he was finished, Jane's face had drained of color, if that were possible for such a pale creature.

“But . . . surely we would have heard of soldiers encamped so close, especially if they were hostile to the crown.”

G nodded. “That's why I wanted to call the meeting of the Privy Council. They all ratified the king's change to the line of succession, but I feel that they have been keeping things from you, and me as well, because they didn't think we could handle it yet.”

Jane's face grew even paler, so at this point her skin was a gray color.

G took her hand. It was the first time they'd touched in days. “It will be all right. I'm sure the council knows of the advance, and has made preparations.”

Jane went to get dressed while they waited for the council to be gathered. G offered to leave and have one of her ladies come in and help her, but Jane begged him to stay (chair turned, of course) and insisted she could dress herself, because she'd been dressing herself for all these years and she certainly hadn't forgotten—

G begged her not to explain.

She finished getting dressed. G went through their adjoining door, quickly put on trousers that fit and a simple tunic, and then returned to Jane.

And they waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Hours passed. There was no hint of dawn in the sky, but it couldn't be far off.

Jane had taken to pacing her room, and G had the fleeting thought that they would have to reinforce her floor for all the pacing she had done in, what was it? Almost nine days of being queen.

Finally, there was a knock on the door.

G opened it, and there was the original messenger they'd sent. “Your lordship, I sent word to the members of the Privy Council, and well, most of them have quarters nearby, and some don't, so some had to be tracked down . . . and . . . well . . .”

“Well what?” G said. “Are they all gathered yet?”

“No, my lord.”

“That's all right. We will meet with the ones who are gathered so far.” It was getting late, after all, and he wanted to meet before the hour of horse.

“But, sir, there are . . . none.”

“None?”

“I do apologize, sir. There are none. I don't know where they are. I've asked the queen's guard to look, but I don't know how hard they tried. . . .”

Suddenly, the messenger just stopped talking and ran away.

“G?” Jane said. “What is it?”

“Stay here. I'm going to check on something.”

G stepped out into the passageway, and Jane followed close behind. He'd known she wouldn't stay.

The hallways were strangely quiet, even for the predawn hour.
At the very top of the White Tower, they stopped at a window that overlooked the direction of the encampment. G peeked his head out and saw the soldiers and the banners with an embroidered pomegranate on a bed of roses.

And then his mouth turned down. And his shoulders sagged. And his heart sank.

“What do you see?” Jane asked in a hushed whisper.

“An army at the gates.” G tried not to look as terrified as he felt. “Mary's army.”

SIXTEEN

Edward

“Are we there yet?” Edward asked for the umpteenth time.

“We're five minutes closer than the last time you asked,” answered Gracie.

“Well, when are we going to get there?”

“Another day,” she answered. “Perhaps two if you keep stopping to ask me silly questions.”

Edward sighed. After day upon day (upon day) of trudging north through the woods in the seemingly endless rain, always wet and chilled to the bone, the king was tired of walking. His feet hurt, his head ached, his injured ankle bothered him, and fits of coughing and dizziness regularly overtook him.

The poison was still killing him, he supposed.

Right now the poison was the least of his worries. A few days
ago there'd been soldiers on the road. The sight of them had filled Edward with dread, because the banners the soldiers marched under were not of the red roaring lion that marked Edward's reign, but a pomegranate on a bed of roses. Mary's insignia.

They'd been marching toward London.

Which meant things were about to get really bad for Jane.

“Can't we find a way to get there any faster?” he asked, also for the umpteenth time.

Gracie smiled over at him with false sweetness. “You know, this journey would be far quicker if you'd turn yourself into a bird and ride upon my shoulder. Quicker and quieter.”

They'd had this argument before.

“No.” Edward didn't think it proper to be carried by a woman—how would she ever be able to see him as a man if she was the one bearing him to safety? “If we could just travel on the main road . . .” he suggested.

This was also something they'd argued about.

“No,” she refused flatly. “The last thing we need is to come upon more soldiers, or even worse, members of the Pack. We have to stay out of sight.”

“Then perhaps we could acquire a horse. . . .”

She stopped walking and turned to look at him. “Acquire a horse, you say? Do you know of any nice, friendly farms just giving away their horses?”

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “You're a thief, aren't you?” At least that was what she claimed as her occupation: stealer of
chickens, professional bandit, highwayman when the need arose, cat burglar, occasional pickpocket. She admitted easily to her loose association with the law. Edward wondered how one came by that particular skill set at the tender age of seventeen, which is how old she told him she was, but Gracie didn't answer a lot of questions when it came to her past. She was somewhat evasive about her present situation, as well.

“Stealing a horse is punishable by death,” she reminded him.

“Unless you happen to know a king who could pardon you.”

She set her hand against her hip and he instantly regretted bringing up who he was. Ever since he'd confessed to being king, the girl had been moody. Oh, she seemed to like him well enough most of the time; she was kind and often merry of soul, and sometimes even wonderfully, confusingly flirtatious, but every now and then she'd remember that he was not just her travel companion but the King of England, and then she'd go quiet. Or even worse, she'd get annoyed with him.

Like now, for instance.

“Well, Sire,” She loved to call him Sire, but the way she said it made him suspect she was making fun of him. “You might not have noticed, but you're not exactly a king around here. We can't snap our fingers and have a coach with golden wheels and four fine white horses to carry us wherever we wish to go. We have to make do with our own two feet.”

Edward tried to think of a clever reply, but then he had to stop to lean against a tree, because he was out of breath.

Gracie saw the haggard look on his face and turned to squint toward the west, where the sun was quickly descending. “We should stop for the night.” She slung her pack against a nearby stump and started to set up a quick, makeshift camp.

“I could keep going,” he wheezed as she bustled around gathering kindling. “I'm perfectly capable of continuing.”

She ignored him.

“All right, then,” he conceded graciously after she got a fire started. “We can stop, if you feel you can't go on.” Even as he spoke his traitorous body sank to the ground beside the fire, craving its heat. He closed his eyes. Just to rest them for a moment.

“Are you going to be all right?” Gracie asked.

He opened his eyes and cleared his throat. “Of course. I'm perfectly fine. I only agreed to stop because I know women need to rest more often, on account of your delicate constitutions.”

She snorted. “All right, then. Wait here. My delicate constitution and I will be back soon.” She bent to remove her boots. Edward tried not to ogle her shapely feminine ankles (a sight that would have been indecent in the royal court, as a woman's ankles were considered scandalously provocative at this time), but he couldn't help staring.

She had lovely ankles, he thought. Very nice.

Gracie glanced up like she'd felt his gaze. “Would you like to paint my portrait, Sire? It will last longer.”

He flushed and looked away, which was a good thing, because then she turned her back to him and quickly removed the rest of
her clothes and was therefore completely naked for all of three seconds, which he just caught a glimpse of in his peripheral vision before a light flashed, and where Gracie had been standing there was a small red fox, complete with pointed ears, whiskers, and a bushy, white-tipped tail.

Yes, Gracie was a fox. No, really. She was. Literally. (We know. It's too good.)

The fox slipped away into the underbrush, silent as a shadow.

Darkness fell. He watched the stars come out. The rain had finally stopped, and a gentle breeze was blowing, cooling his face. An owl hooted from somewhere in the trees. It was a beautiful night. The kind of night that makes you pensive. And Edward was alone.

It should be mentioned that Edward wasn't accustomed to being alone. In his life before, it'd been exceedingly rare for him to have even fifteen minutes to himself. He'd been the glorious sun with an orbit of men revolving constantly about him. Men to watch that when he ate he did not choke. Men to help him onto his horse. Men to teach him Latin. Men to comb his hair. Men to refill his glass when it was empty, which it never was, because he had men to fill it. Even while he slept there'd been men standing just outside his door to guard him.

And now here he was, completely alone. He found this situation both euphoric (he could scratch himself and no one was looking; no one was judging him—no one!) and unsettling. (What if he choked?)

Edward could have used this time to think about many things: to consider his next move in finding Helmsley and his grandmother and a cure for the poison, to reflect on the nature of trust and betrayal and how hard it was even as king to find good, reliable help these days, to plot a way to regain his kingdom, or at the very least to worry about how his little cousin Jane was doing at that very moment, facing down Mary's army. But Edward didn't think about any of that.

He thought about Gracie. How she was a fox (but Edward was not aware of this little irony, as to our knowledge the term
fox
,
used to convey the attractiveness of a woman, was not invented until Jimi Hendrix sang “Foxy Lady” in 1967). How she was, undoubtedly, a thief (but it was all too clear to Edward that although Gracie was definitely a criminal, there was nothing common about her). And how he very much wanted to kiss her.

This last part he found astounding. Gracie was the least appropriate girl in the world for him to receive his first kiss from; he knew that. He was the King of England. She was a Scottish pickpocket. But still, impractically, impossibly, he wanted to kiss her.

She was the one, he'd decided. The lucky girl he was going to kiss.

Now all he had to figure out was how to make said kiss happen.

Usually, when Edward wanted something, he simply had to ask for it. He had no doubt that back at court, if he'd wanted a woman to kiss him, all he would have had to do is say,
Lady Suchandsuch, I
wish you to come over here right now and press your lips to mine,
and his wish would have literally been her command. He wouldn't have even had to say please.

But this was different. First off, as Gracie had so generously pointed out, he wasn't much of a king around here. Secondly, if he came right out and asked Gracie to kiss him, he had a feeling that she would laugh in his face. And thirdly, he didn't just want to kiss Gracie. He wanted her to
want
him to kiss her.

But how could he make her want him to kiss her? It had seemed to Edward that she'd been at least slightly interested in the prospect of snogging back in the barn. She'd looked at him
that way
. He shifted uncomfortably in front of the fire. But after that she'd immediately tried to get away from him. But then she'd been helping him. But then she was always leaving him alone.

Women were complicated creatures.

The bushes rustled and Gracie-the-fox stuck her head out and gave a funny little bark, the cue for Edward to turn away again so that she could dress. He stared down at his feet as the E∂ian light flashed and Gracie-the-girl snatched up her clothes and disappeared again into the forest.

When she finally emerged, she was carrying a dead rabbit and a bundle tucked under her arm. She tossed him the bundle.

Edward unfolded it eagerly. Whenever she left him for a time, she always returned with something they needed: a pair of pants, to start with (because that had been Edward's biggest shortcoming), followed by a battered cloak, a linen shirt, and a warm woolen
blanket. A loaf of bread here. A flask of water there. A slightly rusted but otherwise decent sword. And, the
pièce de résistance
—boots. A fine, supple pair of boots in exactly his size. How she had pulled that off, he had no idea. He thought it best not to ask.

This particular bundle turned out to be a pair of mismatched socks.

“Thank you,” he said, immediately kicking off his boots to put them on.

“You're welcome.” She didn't look at him, but sat down on a stump across from the fire and drew from her belt a hunting knife with a beautiful pearl-encrusted handle. Edward felt a bit sick as she made a cut in the rabbit's belly and then pulled its skin off in a single smooth motion. Before this, most of his food had been served to him already dressed and prepared and looking like food, not like some poor defenseless animal.

He remembered the field mouse he'd eaten as a bird. His stomach grumbled unhappily. He turned his attention back to the socks.

“Oh, there's a hole in the toe,” he discovered.

“Is there?” She didn't glance up from where she was now gutting the rabbit. “I suppose you'd like me to mend it for you?”

“Yes, that'd be nice,” he said, pleased. “When you get time.”

“And you've let the fire go down, so you'll be wanting me to stoke it up again.”

“Whatever you need to cook the rabbit,” he answered.

“And should I press your shirt while I'm at it?”

“It
is
a bit wrinkled,” he admitted, although he wasn't sure
how she would manage it.

There was a gross plop at his feet—rabbit innards. He gasped and looked up to find her standing over him, feet apart, green eyes furious.

“I'm not your serving wench!” She shook the skinned rabbit under his nose. “I said I'd help you, and I will, but I won't be ordered about. You're not my king, and I'm not your subject. So don't you be telling me what to do.”

He blinked up at her, taken aback.

“I wasn't—I didn't mean to give you orders, or make you do all the work. It's just that I . . .”

She folded her arms across her chest.

“I've never had to look after myself before,” he muttered to his feet. “I don't know how.”

She was still for a moment, and then he heard her move away. When he dared to look up again she was roasting the rabbit on a stick over the fire, her black curls all tumbled about her face and shoulders, her expression grave as she stared into the flames.

His heart sank. She hated him. She was probably thinking about what was the fastest way to be rid of him.

“I'm sorry,” he said softly.

She lifted her head and met his gaze, her face aglow with firelight. “I'm sorry, too,” she said at last. “I shouldn't have bitten your head off. I'm just touchy on the subject, I suppose.”

“The subject?”

“Of English kings.”

“Oh.” He gave her a weary smile. “Well, that I've noticed. But I think my head is still attached. Last I checked, anyway.”

Her dimples appeared; she was trying not to smile back. Hope flooded back into his chest. Maybe she did like him.

“I suppose it's not your fault,” she said. “You must be used to people waiting on you hand and foot and tripping over each other to serve you.”

“Yes.” But he hesitated to tell her about how often he'd felt trapped in a gilded cage by all of that attention. How he'd yearned to accomplish things on his own.

“And you spent your days passing royal decrees, not working to keep yourself warm and fed,” she added.

He shrugged. “I left most of the decree making to my counselors.” He'd always found the running of the country to be about as interesting as watching grass grow, so he'd mostly delegated it to others. It's what they were there for, he reasoned.

“So what did you do?” she asked. “Eat, drink, and be merry, all the livelong day?”

“No.” He scoffed, but he was thinking of the way he'd started each day as king being dressed by his servants, his morning meal taken in his private chambers on a literal silver platter, then off to his hours of lessons with the most impressive tutors of the realm. Then lunch. Then he'd spent the afternoons (before his illness had struck him, anyway) playing tennis or practicing at archery and swordplay. He was fairly good with the lute, too, and sometimes he'd perform little plays with his grooms. And sometimes he'd gone
hunting. For deer. And bears. And (gulp) foxes.