The King's Mistress (61 page)

Hand in hand, my sweet young daughters danced along the garden paths, their simple, bright-colored gowns blending with the blossoms. Their hats hung down their backs, secured by the ribbons that had been tied beneath their chins. I could see that they had worn their hats in such wise much of the summer, for the sun had worked its magic on their tresses, lightening them and bringing out the highlights—Joan’s hair was almost white in the sun, Jane’s a mixture of dark blond and red.

Bella and I walked behind them, laughing as we were forced to move more briskly than we might have liked in order to keep up with the two girls.

“How much do you think they understand?” Bella asked.

“Edward remained rather vague to them. I doubt they will mourn him, particularly because they believe I shall not leave them again—the king can no longer summon me.” Even such a simple statement gave me pause, brought a tightness to my throat. I missed Edward so. “They will be sorely disappointed when I am summoned by parliament.”

“If
you are.” Bella caught my hand, though she neither slowed down nor abandoned her watch over her half sisters. She knew how frightened I was.

“Joan and Jane are two angels,” I said, forcing myself to look to my blessings, not my fears. “As are you as well.” I pressed her hand, grateful for her loving companionship.

First we visited the mews, the falconer giving the girls an account of the latest feeding.

“Each hawk believes it is king or queen of the fowls,” he concluded.

“Father was a king,” said Jane, looking very proud.

“God bless him, he was, and the best of them, Mistress Jane.”

It seemed a perfect doorway into the topic I wished to raise. From the dovecote and the stables we adjourned to a lovely spot beneath an oak, settling in a circle on spread blankets to enjoy pieces of cake that Cook had wrapped up for us. When the young ones seemed satiated, I took a deep breath and explained to Joan and Jane that their father had succumbed to the long illness that had made it difficult for him to be with them.

Joan asked, “He was not locked up in a dungeon and murdered like Grandfather?”

“Murdered like Grandfather?” For a moment I could not think who she meant.

“Your Edward’s father,” Bella whispered.

It was strange, but I had never thought about Edward and Isabella as my children’s grandparents. They seemed so far removed.

“No, my loves. I was with your father when he died.”

Jane slipped her hand into her sister Bella’s and would not look up at me but stuck her other fist in her mouth.

I was uncomfortable pursuing the question of their grandfather’s murder, yet as Joan closely watched my face with eyes so like her father’s that they made my heart ache, I sensed it was important for me, their mother, to do so. “Who told you that your grandfather was murdered?” I asked her. I could not imagine either my sister or any of the household saying such a thing.

“Mary.”

“Ah.” Of course, the poisonous Percy in our midst. I quickly countered with a comment on the way gossip ripples through the court, how Mary might have heard such a rumor. “But your father was ill. He suffered from a problem in his head that gradually weakened him. I was with him. He was not frightened. We were walking in the garden and he was at peace when God called him.”

“Do you have a problem with your head, Mother?” Jane asked.

I gathered my youngest into my lap and hugged her. “Sometimes I am quite silly, but other than that my head is healthy, my sweet.”

Joan laughed. The sound was a great relief, and I was delighted
when Jane, then Bella joined in. I felt blessed to have such beautiful, loving, delightful daughters all with me. They had few questions about Edward’s death and what it might mean to them.

“I do not think he made much impression on their lives,” Bella remarked as we watched her sisters rush off to join their cousins back in the hall. “Far less than my father made in mine.”

I put an arm round Bella and rested my head on her shoulder for a moment. “You were blessed with the most loving of fathers, Bella. Janyn adored you. He had waited so long for a child, and you more than fulfilled his dreams.”

I heard her breath catch.

R
OBERT CAME
to me after everyone else had retired and we talked far into the night, so easy with each other that I felt free to broach more personal concerns than I had the previous night. I told him about Joan’s revelation of Mary Percy’s gossip and allowed him to soothe my fears about my daughter-in-law and my regret that Joan and Jane had not known Edward well enough to miss him.

“There is no grace in regret, Alice,” Robert said. “I might spend my life regretting all the petty arguments and slights in my brief marriage, but I do not believe God would bless such a life.”

I had not known his late wife, Helena. The few years they had been together I had been busy with Edward.

“Were you very much in love with her?”

Robert dropped his head to his chest for a moment and took a deep breath, as if gathering his energies to speak of her. “We were more like brother and sister than husband and wife. A teasing affection that did not carry as far as our bed. I frightened her with my need, and eventually she closed her mind to me when evening fell. When she lay dying, she asked my forgiveness. ‘I was afraid,’ she said. ‘And I pushed you away. Now it is too late.’ I, too, was afraid, afraid to hold her as the life ebbed from her. But I did. I lay beside her and held her until her heart stopped.”

I crossed myself. “Janyn died so far away. I would have held him so.”

On the third night that Robert came to my bedchamber I greeted him with a kiss, a long, searching kiss, for all the day I had watched him, desiring him. For so long I had yearned for my early years with Edward, as his passion failed him. For so long I had dreamt of this with Robert. It was not like my desire for Janyn or Edward. There was no
recklessness, no fear or helplessness in this. I simply wanted Robert, body and soul, and believed we might be happy.

He traced the lines of my brow, my cheek, my jawline, then gathered me in his arms and carried me to the bed.

Our lovemaking was tentative at first. I could not believe my flesh was once more pressed against the warm, muscled flesh of a man I desired, and who desired me. Perhaps he, too, could not quite believe this blessing. As we explored each other’s body, our kisses and our touches grew more urgent, until the boundaries between us blurred.

I woke in the night to find the lamp still burning.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered.

I did not answer at once, cradled in the warmth of his presence. For this moment I felt content, beloved, safe. His body delighted me. It was strong and supple, the body of a man active and temperate. He was like Edward in coloring, but more like Janyn in proportion.

I wondered if it was possible that I might be so blessed as to find happiness with Robert. That I might be forgotten by parliament and left free to live out my days in peace and love. I prayed for that miracle.

To wake beside Robert in the dawn light was a sweet experience. He lay on his side, gently tracing the areolas of my nipples and smiling a smile without guile, without secrets. I had no doubt that he loved me. How precious it was to lie with a man I had chosen, a man my heart had chosen.

The days were warm and sun filled. I felt blessed to be surrounded by young ones, being coaxed out to search for a wandering kitten, to see a strange-looking egg, to marvel at the water fowl. Joan and Jane truly seemed to have accepted the death of their father with little ado. Joan had enjoyed the pomp of the court, but Jane had been frightened by the elaborate clothing and loud voices, the confusion of so many adults hurrying about her. Edward’s death meant that they would have me with them, and it was difficult for them to see that as anything but good.

I
HAD BEEN
at Gaynes almost a month when William Wyndsor arrived. I had walked out into the garden to gather flowers. My basket was filled with roses and the pale green blossoms of lady’s mantle, sprigs of rosemary and lavender.

“You gathered no such garlands for me.” William slouched down onto a bench near where I knelt. The sun picked out the silver threads
that feathered his dark hair since last we’d met. Ireland had aged him. Yet he was still a handsome man.

I felt a warning drumming along my bones when I looked him in the eyes, but could not control my tongue. “How dare you show your face here? You told Edward we were betrothed. I cannot fathom what you thought to gain, but you have forfeited any shred of trust I had in you.” I thrust a handful of roses at him. “Take these and leave me in peace with my family.”
And may the thorns prick your pride
.

He shrugged and looked toward the house. “The king is dead. It is my time now.”

I sat back on my heels, dumbfounded. “I wish you to go, William.”

A cold laugh. “I have the jewels, the ones you entrusted to the duke.”

I did not want to hear what he had said. I stared down at the ground, catching my breath. “The jewels? You? What possessed the duke to entrust them to you?”

William rose up so suddenly that I had no time to back away. He grabbed my arm, lifting me to my feet, flowers and all, and shook me. “You are my betrothed!” he shouted, his face red, his eyes wild with rage. “You dare not deny me!”

From the corner of my eye I saw a movement. “We are observed, William. Be so kind as to unhand me.”

He let go, glancing around. Robert was now approaching from the house, two male servants right behind him. I sensed more than saw someone hurrying off in the other direction. My daughter-in-law had been lurking in the garden, gathering gossip, I had no doubt.

Though I was shivering with fear, I lifted a hand to stop Robert and the other men. I hoped to avoid a confrontation between him and William. Turning to the latter, who was now fussing with his clothes, I said as quietly as I might, “Leave me now, William. When we are both calmer we shall discuss the jewels. But I tell you this—I will never consent to marry you. Never.”

“We shall see.” He managed to walk away with stiff dignity.

I sank onto the bench he had vacated, praying for calm. But I shook so violently my teeth chattered. He had my jewels, my gifts from Edward, my daughters’ dowries if my lands were taken from me. I cursed Lancaster.

“May I sit?”

I nodded to Robert. “I was glad to see you there. You gave me strength.”

“How dare he lay hands on you?” His voice was taut with controlled anger. “I have distrusted his intentions all along.”

“Yes, you have.”

“Why did you stop me?”

“I feared that if you were even half as angry as I was, you might kill him.”

We were quiet a moment, both imagining what might have happened.

“His is not the manner of a lover,” Robert said after a while. “It is your wealth that attracts him. Where was he when you were beset a year ago?”

“In Ireland.”

“But summoned here. He might have come at any time. He comes at last when you are no longer under the protection of the king.”

I sensed that Robert was speaking of a concern even more disturbing to him than what he had just witnessed. “What have you heard?”

“He has requested a list of your manors … their incomes, the livestock … as if he considers himself master of your domain.”

And he had the jewels. My nerves thrummed with alarm. “God help me.” I told Robert about the jewels.

“What will you do?”

“I do not know yet. I must think. I welcome your counsel—once you have calmed yourself.”

He nodded.

“I pray you, hold me for a moment.”

I wished Robert might hold me always, warming and reassuring me with his strength and affection. But the encounter with William had reminded me of the trouble yet to come. Parliament was not finished with me, and neither apparently was William. Robert and I needed to discuss the danger that still lay ahead.

“We can create a new life, Alice. I shall love your daughters and care for them as my own.”

He stroked my hair, then lifted my chin and kissed me.

“I believe you, Robert, and I do love you. But there is trouble ahead, and I know not what form it will take, I warn you.”

“I care not.”

I moved out of his embrace. Looking into his eyes, I saw the life I wanted. “I have lived in a wonderful dream these past days, hiding from what lies ahead. Parliament threatened me, but in such vague terms I cannot predict what they might do, on what grounds they might judge me. Even here at Gaynes they might have spies … Mary Percy, William himself. I pray that nothing happens, Robert, that I am forgotten. That we can be together.”

He kissed both my hands. “I pray for that as well. I pledge you my troth, Alice.”

My heart pounded. I wanted to complete that pledge, to bind us together. “I am so afraid, Robert.”

“Say the words and it matters not, my love. We will be together.”

“I pledge you my troth, Robert.”

We held each other. It was all I wanted, Robert’s arms round me and my children, and I prayed that God was now ready to grant me this quiet joy.

A
S
I had suspected, it had been Mary Percy who had been hiding in the garden. She was adept at listening from the shadows and understood far more than I had anticipated. She was quick to tell Jane, Joan, and Bella that William Wyndsor intended to be their new father. It might have been a more complicated tale had she waited to hear what Robert and I had discussed, or witnessed our embrace, our vows. So far only my sister and Gwen seemed aware of what had been unfolding between Robert and me.

Bella reassured her half sisters and came to me with the tale.

“So young and such a shrew. Poor John,” she murmured. “How will you rescue him? Surely you might think of something to cause her to annul the marriage?”

“It is not a good time to make an enemy of Henry Percy. I am too vulnerable.” I brought her back to what I thought was the more important issue. “Tell me, Joan and Jane did not like the thought of William Wyndsor joining our family?”