I, Jane: In The Court of Henry VIII (40 page)

Henry VIII seemed a very unpredictable character when it came to those for whom he greatly cared. For those unfortunate few who had experienced the extremes of his emotions.

Jane felt a chill even as her heart strangely stirred at the thought of him.

She moved elegantly now, still largely unnoticed by the others, in a gown of amber velvet with a long beaded plastron. It was far different from the one in which she had first been received at court so many years ago. She felt like an entirely different person in it. What set it apart was the traditional gabled English hood, rather than the far more fashionable French hood that most of the court women—the smart younger ones, particularly—donned in deference to the queen.

Anne still preferred all things French, which Jane disliked for her memories of her time there.

And she must do everything she could to set herself apart.

Jane had taken to heart her brothers’ and Nicholas Carew’s counsel, and she had every intention now of carrying through with their instructions. She could not be more beautiful than Anne Boleyn, but she could make certain that she was a great deal more wise.

As was her custom, Jane stood in the background of the collection of brightly clad women, hidden mainly from view by the hoods of Margaret Shelton, Lady Margaret Douglas, and Lady Jane Rochford. She was watching Anne’s open flirtation now with Francis Weston and Henry Norris, and Jane was unable to believe how brazen she was in it. As Henry had spent the afternoon hawking with Charles Brandon, his other courtiers were free to attend to the queen while they waited for the king to grace them with his presence. Anne reveled, as usual, in the attention. Mark Smeaton sat nearby, quietly strumming his lute to entertain them. And, it seemed, to keep a watchful eye on her.

“Oh, now, my lord Weston,” Anne said, laughing as playfully as
a young girl, which was unseemly to Jane for how little of the girl there was left in this queen. “You would do well to take care of such playful overtures for how many spies surround us. Courtly games can be seen as much more by some.”

“When the cat’s away, we all do play the more,” Norris added flirtatiously.

“I fear Sir Norris needs not such an excuse, as he attends Your Highness far more than he does poor Mistress Shelton, even in the presence of the Great Cat,” Francis Weston quipped, seeing how Norris was ignoring his betrothed, who stood nearby.

Jane watched Anne’s expression sour. She could almost see the thoughts churning around behind her dark eyes. Jane’s sympathies for Henry increased with his wife’s every giggle. Anne was unparalleled in her self-absorption, Jane thought.

“Poor, dear Weston, I fear you indict Norris only because you want our dear Madge for yourself.”

The silence that followed was broken by muffled snickers. Weston nodded to Anne with a flourish, then said, “’Tis true that I
do
love only one in your household.”

“And who might that be?” Anne asked with a playful little smile, clearly toying with him.

“Why, Your Highness, of course,” he replied with a bashful smile and a wink.

To her credit, Anne knew the danger in such a revelation. She bolted to her feet, her smile evaporating instantly, since everyone present could hear the exchange. Silence fell like a powerful, heavy thing as she swiftly left the room, the swish of her skirts the only sound in the vast, beamed gallery.

“Well, now,
that
was awkward,” her brother’s wife, Anne, remarked in Jane’s ear, as it was her custom to say.

“Indeed it was.”

“At first I thought Her Highness was entertaining Master Smeaton, but did you see the look between the queen and Weston just now?”

“’Twould have been difficult to miss,” said Jane.

“The queen plays with fire, I fear.”

“She seems to fear the heat very little,” Jane remarked coolly.

She did not see Cromwell behind her near the door with the powerful Duke of Norfolk, who was newly returned to court from the diplomatic mission to France. She missed the conspiratorial glance between them as well, one that acknowledged their mutual feeling that the queen was destined for a great fall.

It was not until the banquet that evening that Jane finally saw the king herself.

As a statement against what she had witnessed earlier between the queen and Weston, Jane wore the king’s pendant more prominently over a bodice designed to show it off. Part of her was surprised at her own hubris in doing so. She had also chosen not to hide a scar on her neck that she had received during her fight with Anne.

Yet for all of her daring, Jane felt sheltered on the arm of her brother Thomas and her protector, Nicholas Carew. Edward and Anne Seymour followed closely behind. As they walked into the swirling mix of music, candles, and laughter, her sister-in-law had a new, haughty air about her as the family rose to prominence, but at least she was pleasant enough to Jane—her new confidante—and at the end of the day, that was really all that mattered to a girl who needed the reassurance of female support now more than ever.

Lord, but he looked magnificent. That was her first thought as the king strode regally into the room amid trumpet fanfare and cheers hailing his return. Charles Brandon and Francis Bryan, newly
returned from France, flanked him, all three elegantly dressed and bejeweled, their velvet caps plumed, laughing and joking as if they had not a care in the world.

In spite of everything against them, Jane felt her heart race as she caught Henry’s eye from the center of the crowd. She felt herself flush with as much excitement as embarrassment to be singled out with a prominent nod. Perhaps it truly was not a dream that she was meant to be someone meaningful to England’s king.

He approached Jane openly then, pulling her toward him through the crowd. He was smiling broadly as he drew her against his wide, slashed-velvet sleeve, then greeted each of her brothers and kissed the back of Anne Seymour’s hand.

“I trust, my lady, that you are enjoying your new accommodations?” he asked Edward’s wife, a woman to whom he had never publicly paid the slightest attention before now.

Jane had been in her company many times and had no idea he even knew Anne Seymour. Clearly, it was not just Jane’s own status that was rapidly changing. Still, driven by self-preservation, Jane surveyed the room for signs of the queen while Henry spoke to Anne. She was relieved for the moment not to see her.

“Your Majesty’s generosity is humbling. We have yet to fully take it all in,” Anne said with appropriate flattery and a deep curtsy.

“Since our accommodations are so near to each other now, I am certain we shall all become the very best of friends,” Henry said magnanimously. “Edward, you shall keep us on our toes in that regard?” he said, chuckling affably.

And then he saw the scar on Jane’s neck and his smile swiftly fell.

“Jane?”

She curtsied clumsily. “Your Majesty.”

“You have been injured. Pray, tell us how.”

“’Twas only a scratch, sire.”

“It may well be a lance blow to your exquisitely gentle flesh for how it wounds me to gaze upon it.”

Jane lifted her hand to cover her neck in mock embarrassment. He saw the pendant then, and she could see him putting the two elements together as his copper brows lifted in sudden surprise. “Lady Seymour, my new friend, I trust
you
shall speak the truth of this to me? Know you how this wound occurred to our dear Jane?”

Brandon and Carew exchanged a worried glance. Jane could feel the conflict thrust upon Anne, and she suddenly regretted the calculated move not to hide the evidence of her encounter with the queen.

“Speak up, girl, when your king commands!” Brandon prodded in the silence that fell.

“It came by the queen, Your Majesty,” Anne finally replied and lowered her eyes.

“The queen?” the king asked incredulously.

“She was not pleased by my good sister’s choice of jewelry, apparently, Your Majesty.”

Again Henry glanced at the pendant bearing his own image. “’Twas I, then, who caused this wound?”

No one dared at first to answer as the musicians in the gallery above played on with a lively tune. Over the music, the king said, “Jane, is this true?”

“She is the queen, sire. As her humble servant, I did not think to question her displeasure at me.”

“So I have scarred your exquisite flesh in this way by not protecting you properly.” He seemed truly to care, and that struck her. His face blanched and the genial smile was gone from his expression.

“Perhaps I should not have worn it,” Jane weakly offered, hoping he could not tell that she did not mean it.

Suddenly, Cromwell was upon them, listening intently. Then William, like a shadow, was behind him as well. God’s blood! Why was he always there, looking at her with those eyes? Silently reminding her of who she used to be when she was trying so hard to move on and become someone else?

“Would Your Majesty like me to call your physician for the lady?”

“At once, Cromwell.”

William frowned, and Jane could not bear to look at him any longer. What she felt for the king was as complex as what she felt for William. It was not an easy road any of them trod.

“This must be dealt with immediately,” the king decreed, still frowning as he nodded to Jane. “Forgive me, but I must speak with the queen. Pray, stay and enjoy your evening. I shall call upon you anon.”

Jane knew there would be no stopping him. He was angry. As Henry turned to leave, Jane’s gaze went from Henry to William. Their eyes met. His expression held jealousy; she knew hers held disappointment.

“Do you think you might actually have brought about the end of them?” Anne Seymour quietly asked Jane as they stood stock-still amid the music and revelry after the king had gone.

“Anything that happens to Anne Boleyn has been brought about entirely by herself,” Nicholas Carew said.

An hour later, a page bent over Jane’s shoulder as everyone dined and informed her that the king desired to closet privately with her. She was to go directly to the Seymours’ new apartments, which she knew connected with His Majesty’s own. Just before her summons, the queen entered the great hall and sat beside her brother, Lord
Rochford, without much fanfare, and certainly not with her customary merriment.

As Jane rose, so did Edward. “You cannot go alone in this tense new atmosphere. It would not be safe. I shall accompany you. No one will think anything of a brother and sister departing together for their accommodations.”

“Unless those people are wise enough to remember the location of those accommodations, or to notice that the king and Jane are conspicuously absent together,” Anne remarked.

Jane could feel the snap and crackle of change in the air as she and Edward followed the silent page down one long gallery after another until they came to Edward’s new apartments. At the closed door, illuminated by a flaming torch, Edward turned to his sister, took her hands up, and held them tightly. Jane could not remember a greater moment of intimacy between them in all her life. But she was important to him now. She was critical to
all
of the Seymours.

“I know this is a difficult time for you, sister. Much is expected of you from all of us without a great deal of assurance from any one, least of all the king. But we have all changed much since our naive childhood days in the Wiltshire countryside, and I think with a little sly work, we Seymours can all give the Boleyns a proper challenge.”

“It is your desire that I become queen?” Jane asked tentatively, still wanting his approval.

“With every fiber of my being. Do you wish it for yourself?”

A smiling image of William danced across her mind then, rich and full enough to be real, but Jane pushed it back stubbornly.
You cannot do that to me any longer. You made your choice; now I am making mine…
“Unlikely as I am for the role, I am beginning to
want it anyway. But you and Thomas must not forsake me in this. It is all rather daunting to go up against her.”

“We are here for you, sister. So is Anne, Carew, his wife, Elizabeth, and a silently growing faction who disapprove of that Boleyn woman pretending to be queen.”

A faction? Little Jane Seymour had her own faction? She felt herself tremble at the prospect as the page pulled back the tall, carved door, ushering in a cold gust of air.

“I assume His Majesty would prefer I leave you now and return to the banquet,” Edward joked. “You can do this, Jane,” he encouraged.

“I do care for him a little.”

“Make him believe it is more than a little, and you shall have the world at your feet,” he said.

Henry was slumped over in a tall padded chair, head in his hands in a very unroyal fashion as she approached him in the Seymours’ drawing room.

“Thank you for coming, Jane. I simply could not bear all of the merriment around me this evening.”

“Had I really any choice but to come when you commanded?”

He glanced up at her, his face in this light more lined, more aged and full of worry than she had ever seen it. “Everyone has choices. Take the queen, for example. I have just been informed that some of her decisions in my absence have been, shall we say, less than wise.” He drew her down onto his lap just then, and she allowed it. The air was charged between them. “You attend her daily. What do you know of what has been occurring?”

“My access to Her Majesty has been diminished of late,” Jane demurred, suddenly not wanting to be the one to hurt him by telling
him what she and everyone else already knew. “I know very little other than that she is not fond of me.”

Henry gently touched the long cinnamon-colored scar on her neck. For a moment, his jaw slackened and she saw the pain in his expression increase. “I am so terribly sorry. Anne can be a dangerous woman when she feels threatened.”

“I was told as much by the former queen.”

Henry tipped his head to one side, and she saw a grim smile break through the serious expression. “You really are not going to say things only to try to impress me, are you?”

“Never, sire.”

“How you do so remind me of Mistress Blount and a simpler time of my life,” he said wistfully. “But I have told you as much before.”