“I would hope to give you an army of them.” She felt herself smile in the radiant glow of his joy, if not yet quite her own.
He kissed her deeply then, pressing his tongue between her lips as only William had ever done and pushing his hardened manhood against her like a declaration. Then he wrapped his arms around her so tightly that she almost could not breathe. “If only we could set to work on that task right now,” he murmured hotly against her mouth and pressed her dress sensually against the place between her legs that already was stirring for him. For a moment he moved his fingers in a rhythm that mirrored what would one day happen between them, and Jane felt a rush of excitement as their rough kiss deepened.
“I fear I should not be the maiden you desire as your queen if we did,” she replied, pulling away just enough to speak, and keeping in mind the map to success Anne Boleyn had left her.
“I suppose you’re right. For now at least,” he conceded with a sigh, straightening his codpiece. “But once the world knows of my intentions, you shall be mine, body and soul.”
“You speak as a warning that which to me shall be an honor,” she wisely said.
She saw by his pleased expression that she was playing the game exceedingly well.
An entire lifetime had led her here, and at this moment, Jane Seymour felt positively masterful.
Thomas and Edward were waiting together for her beside the fireplace hearth in one of the grand apartment’s other rooms. Edward’s wife, Anne, had retired for the evening, which Jane regretted when she saw how Thomas anxiously paced the room. Edward pounced on her the moment she closed the door behind her.
“Did he propose?” Edward asked excitedly.
“Not in so many words.”
“Did he say he was going through with the divorce, at least?”
“He said he was exploring the option.”
Edward slammed his fist against the stone hearth. “’Tis not good enough! That will only give the Boleyns a chance to redouble their efforts!”
“He did declare his love,” Jane announced meekly, hoping to placate them.
“As I am certain he has done to a multitude of ladies whom he hoped to bed!” Edward said hotly.
Jane felt instantly reduced by the boundlessness of her brother’s ambition, which rose far beyond her own.
“Now, let us not be too hasty, brother,” Thomas offered in a more measured tone. “’Tis at least a step, and our Jane has gotten further than many.”
“What do you know!” Edward spat. “This court is littered with the footprints of other women who believed they were taking steps toward a crown!”
“Well, what have you gotten us?” Thomas countered.
“Whatever has been achieved so far was due to my standing at this court, not yours!” Edward countered.
“Always you, eldest brother, greatest son,” Thomas grumbled.
“When you see Anne Boleyn a divorced woman and our own sister Queen of England, then you may boast, Thomas, and not before!”
“Are you challenging me?” Thomas growled.
“Stop it, both of you!” Jane finally put in angrily. “You speak as though I were not even here. This is my life!”
“Where on earth would you have gotten that idea?” Edward asked snidely. “You are a marketable commodity in this family, the way Anne Boleyn was for hers. You shall do as you are bid, and you shall gracefully share the spoils, since without my connections to this court, you would not even be here, nor would you remain!”
“Edward, that is quite enough,” Anne Seymour interceded from the doorway. She was in her nightdress in her bare feet, her hair tousled and loose down her back. “If I can hear you down the corridor, so can the king. Keep that in mind.” She drew near and put her arm around Jane, who could feel herself trembling now from the weight of all that had happened to her that day.
“Are you all right?” Anne asked with sincere concern that touched Jane the more for how her brothers were fighting as if she did not matter at all. But Jane could only nod for the enormity of it all.
She let Anne lead her to her own new bedchamber in the apartments then, too weary to argue. Besides, there was always that slight chance that the king might want to call upon her in the morning now that they had reached an understanding, so she must not come too fully undone and mar her face with the telltale stain of tears from continued arguments.
Jane slept a deep, dreamless sleep that night, and when she awoke, it was to the sound of horses’ hooves and the shouts of grooms from the cobblestones below her window. Jane stood at the stone window embrasure, unable, in some oddly perverse way, to tear her eyes from the scene below. The king and queen entered the courtyard together. They were dressed for riding, both in hunter green velvet, and they were holding hands as they neared two grand, sleek black horses, both caparisoned in tooled silver and held for them by liveried grooms.
It was neither disappointment nor even betrayal that seized Jane’s throat just then, making it almost impossible for her to catch her breath. Anne Boleyn was Henry’s wife, after all, or at least in the eyes of England, if not God. It was in that moment that Jane realized that she actually loved Henry—truly loved him, even if it was a love based on rivalry and duty. It was certainly not the same love she felt for William, yet there was physical pain now in watching him leave with another woman that confirmed it for her. No matter the promises, he was not to be hers. Anne Boleyn was still the victor.
She held that moment in her mind and cradled it against the pain of having lost William. She should not have let Henry touch her. She should not have allowed him to awaken her body the way she had allowed William to do all those years ago. Jane felt wanton. Used. Not because she had done anything herself that crossed the line of virtue, but because she had refused to turn away from the temptations of a married man. No, Jane surely was not the girl people believed her to be. In the game of courtly love, she had played one hand too many, and now it seemed she had lost the contest altogether.
“It is said the queen told His Majesty last night that she is with child again. Naturally, that changes everything,” Anne Seymour somberly revealed.
“Yes,” Jane agreed. “Everything will be different now.”
“I am told since the queen never liked Princess Mary, the king wished her to visit his daughter as a condition of their renewed closeness, so they have gone together to Windsor to see her.”
Jane thought of Katherine’s sweet, shy child with a bittersweet mix of nostalgia and sadness. Poor Mary, stripped of her mother, her title, and her place in the succession, all to accommodate Anne Boleyn’s voracious ambition. It seemed fitting that, to keep her place, if she could, Anne must pay court to that same child whom she had rejected.
In that, Jane was almost happy to see them go together. Almost.
“Will you be all right?” Anne asked. “I know you had hopes for a very different outcome.” They were both gazing out the window down at the king.
“I have had many hopes dashed through the years,” Jane replied stoically. “This is for the best. Particularly for little Princess Elizabeth, who shall benefit from her family remaining together.”
“I saw William Dormer at the banquet last evening. Curiously, he was not in the company of his wife. And I am told he is to remain here at Greenwich with my lord Cromwell while his wife attends the queen at Windsor.”
“It seems you are told a great many things, sister,” Jane replied with little inflection.
“My family has been at court a long time, as you know. If one is privy to good fortune, one makes connections.”
“Good fortune, indeed,” Jane said blankly.
She had danced around the edges of good fortune herself for years now, never quite allowed to dive into the pool that might have brought her total fulfillment. Perhaps, Jane thought, as she continued to gaze upon the king and queen as they led their horses into the forest beyond the palace, it was time to take what small bit of comfort she could find with the man who h
ad always held her heart. If, perhaps, he still wanted her.
PART V
Jane and Henry
A woman of the utmost charm.
—POLYDORE VERGIL ON JANE SEYMOUR
Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.
—PLATO
Chapter Sixteen
April 1536
Greenwich Palace
“You win again!”
Jane laughed at Francis Bryan, slapping her final card on the table as she sat across from him, William Dormer, and Anne Seymour, with whom she played a rousing hand of primero.
“She is suspiciously good at this game,” Francis noted with a wink, dashing as ever in a charcoal-colored doublet and matching eye patch. “If I didn’t know better, I would think our Jane had learned how to cheat.”
“I have learned a great many things these past years, cousin.”
William sent her a sudden glance full of meaning, and she looked guiltily at her cards.
Jane was so glad to have Francis returned these last months from France, and glad that he felt at ease in the company she had kept with William these past few days during the king’s absence. It helped, perhaps, that Francis had been the one to try to arrange their marriage long ago. Thus, he seemed enough of a romantic not to begrudge the star-crossed lovers a simple friendship now. If friendship was what it was between Jane and William. In spite of everything they had endured, the battles and the anger, it was unspoken between them that they both wanted to spend time with each other. With the king and queen away, she and William played admirably around the edges of courtesy, and both did their best to be cordial, but there was always a charged energy when they were in the same room like this. As they played or strolled through the gardens, dined or danced, Jane could not help but feel there was unfinished business between them. She knew that he felt it, too.
When she lifted her cards for the next hand and saw the words Arbor at sunset scrawled in ink across the queen of hearts card, Jane was not entirely surprised. William’s expression bore absolutely no evidence of the invitation when their eyes met again, but she knew it had come from him. She also knew what meeting him alone would mean for them both. Still, in spite of the risk, Jane knew already that she would go. She would go anywhere, do anything, to be in William’s arms once more. Everyone was married, it seemed anyway, or betrothed or committed. Even the king and queen had apparently reconciled.
“I understand Minister Cromwell has gone back to London,” Francis remarked to William as he played his hand and Jane folded the card in, secreting it among the others she held.
“He has indeed, my lord.”
“And yet he did not take you with him?”
“My lord Cromwell said it was a private matter that did not require my attendance upon him.”
“It is rumored that he continues to seek justifiable avenues for annulment, if not divorce, in case the queen is not brought to bed with a son this time either. I suspect Master Cromwell does not wish news of that spreading until the time is right,” Francis said.
“Think you all that the only reason the king has gone off with her now is to mark time?” Anne Seymour asked.
Jane felt herself stiffen. She did not want to think of Henry just now.
“What other reason might there be? The queen is a selfish harridan who has brought the king nothing but disappointment; she has dissipated and aged him before his time. He would do well to be rid of her,” said Francis.
“Those seem treasonous words from one who once supported her, cousin,” Jane meekly put in.
“Not so treasonous as her behavior with a veritable bevy of courtiers,” Francis countered with a sneer. “She could well lose her head for it.”
“If it were proven,” added Jane.
“They say Master Cromwell has learned well from Cardinal Wolsey’s mistakes,” Francis said. “If it happened, he will prove it.”
“Pray God that our good queen is delivered of a son,” Anne Seymour said bitingly. “That does seem her only hope.”
The April sunset was alive, filled with shimmering crimson and gold, and splashed across the broad horizon as Jane slipped alone out the side door of the east wing, hurried down the stone steps, raised the hood of her cloak, and dashed behind the row of plane trees. Most ladies who regularly attended the queen were taking advantage of the peace and freedom in her absence and did not watch too closely for one another. They were resting at this hour and would later dine with a few of the men who had been left behind as well. Still, Jane made her way carefully down the pathway, bordered by colorful vines and blooming shrub roses and concealed by the trees.
William was waiting for her on a painted white lattice-wood bench beneath an arbor spilling with lush pink roses, as she knew he would be. Her heart raced when she saw him, and he rose to his feet the moment he caught a glimpse of her. He reached out his hands and drew her tightly against his chest.
“How I have missed this,” he murmured deeply. “How I have missed you.”
Jane smiled. “As fate would have it, you see me nearly every day.”
“Not like this,” he said, smiling back at her and reaching up to very gently touch her cheek.
She thought how this was just how Henry had touched her before they kissed last time, but she banished the thought. They were such very different men.
“I know I always say this to you like some besotted boy, but I am convinced there is not another woman in all the world with as beautiful skin as yours. It is exactly like alabaster.”
“You are far too partial for your own good.”
“A man in love is always partial.”
“A man with a wife can afford no such bias.”
“What of the man who seeks a divorce?”
She tipped her head, feeling the weight of his question. “Who are we speaking of here, William?” she asked cautiously.
“I called you away to speak privately like this because my mother has died, Jane.”
“Oh, William, I am sorry!” she exclaimed, hiding the conflicting feelings of sympathy and hope behind her words.
“It was she alone who sought my marriage to Mary, she alone who withheld my sinecure, who tied my hands in my bid to marry you.”
She looked away from him, but William brought her face back around and cradled her jaw like a delicate thing in both of his masculine hands.
“My heart is yours; it has always been yours, Jane.”
She felt the desperation in his kiss and let him pull her more deeply into his arms, let him part her lips and explore her mouth with his tongue. She let him press his hardened maleness tightly against her own center, let him sweep his hands down her back to her bottom and anchor her to him intimately, arousing her with every part of himself.
Never…She would never love anyone else like this!
“I cannot let you ruin your life for my sake,” she struggled desperately to say as he kissed her again and again until she felt drunk with desire. She stroked his hair back from his temples, then ran her hands down the broad width of his back, taking pleasure in the fit maleness of him, so different from Henry.
“We have no children, or the promise of any. I will pay what she asks and confirm any story she tells,” William said huskily. “She can say I am an evil lothario, or that I neglected her, whatever will help keep her dignity. I am fully prepared to leave court and make a life with you in Buckinghamshire, or anywhere you wish.”
Unable to process what had been laid before her, Jane tried to gather her thoughts and calm her heart. What she had wanted all of her life was before her now, at last, yet the decision was not the easy one she had always expected it would be if a miracle like this ever happened.
“Do you not love me, Jane?” he asked desperately against her ear in a way that made her shiver as he drew her ever closer to his heart.
“Eternally,” she admitted, laying her head back for a moment against his chest and taking in the unique scent of him that would be with her forever. br />
“Forgive me for not asking sooner. When it seemed that you and the king might…” His words fell away as she turned to gaze into his eyes, which held such history for her.
How like him, she thought, to have a sense of propriety, even at this wild court. It was the very thing that had kept them apart all these years, and while it had disappointed—nay, infuriated—her in the past, she saw the honor in it now, and could not love him more for that.
This was a true crossroads, a choice that only she could make. Not her brothers. Not William and not the king.
“I must have time to think,” she finally said. Her hesitation did not involve her feelings for him, but she was not eager to do to another woman what Anne Boleyn so cruelly had done to Queen Katherine. She must reflect. “This has all happened so quickly.”
She knew by the way his shoulders fell and he cast his glance at the ground that he understood. His next kiss was achingly gentle, a fragile thing. As fragile as the two of them were together.
“It feels like an eternity,” William said.
She walked slowly back to the new apartments after that, deeply in thought, hearing nothing but the sweep of her own gown across the stone floor. Jane’s sense of guilt flared as she even contemplated a life with William. Mary was Lady Dormer, no matter how much she wished it to be otherwise. Anne was still Queen of England.
Jane was glad to be alone when she entered the elegant suite of rooms to which she had been moved; she was quite sure everyone would see the truth of her decision written into every part of her expression. She needed a few minutes to collect herself.
Then she saw it. It was a large ivory sheet of vellum, folded and stamped with the king’s personal seal. It seemed to bulge from an object tucked within its folds. On the front of it, one word, simply written. Jane.
And so her world mightily shifted yet again.
Thomas had fallen victim to his brother’s foul humor all morning, and he had grown tired of it. With every accolade and gift bestowed upon him recently by the king in order to impress Jane, Edward was becoming more pompous and more insufferable than ever. He was the classic older brother, always certain to remind the younger one of the difference not only in their ages, but also in their standing. Today had been one of the worst. He walked a pace behind Edward, who had been told that Jane had returned to the apartments, and Edward was fully prepared to scold her yet again for not having kept a better hold over the king when she had the chance. Thomas had thought to argue, but there really was no point in that.