Royal Mistress (10 page)

Jane was fortunate, as her friend Sophie often said, that she never felt downhearted for long. And so perhaps one day, Jane mused, she would find love again with someone new, and the thought buoyed her homeward steps and took her mind off her unfulfilled life with William Shore.

W
ill pulled down on his short jacket, a fashion that tended to ride up and reveal too much of his buttocks for his liking. Then he ran his fingers through his thinning brown hair before replacing his bonnet at a jauntier angle and walking into William Shore’s well-stocked shop on Coleman Street. The first person he saw, helping a young woman choose bed linens, was Jane.

But faster and hungrier than a flea finding a dog, William Shore was at the new customer’s elbow. He bowed low, recognizing Lord Hastings.

“Good morrow, my lord, and indeed you are right welcome in my establishment. May I help you find something?” William saw he had not held the nobleman’s attention, and his eyes followed Will’s gaze to Jane. At first annoyed, he surmised his bold-eyed wife instantly attracted this noble lord with her seductive smile, but then a profitable thought overtook his resentment as he more rightly assumed this prominent customer, having noticed Jane at her father’s window two weeks ago, had been thus lured to her husband’s shop. How right he had been to insist Jane flaunt his wares for the king’s train, for it had brought no less than the king’s chamberlain to his door. For once he thanked God for his attractive wife.

“Lord Hastings, I am honored.” William groveled.

“Master Shore, I give you God’s greeting,” Will said, bringing his attention back to the awkwardly tall mercer; it was as though the man had outstripped his boyish legs before he had learned
how to use them. “I am certain I have come to the right place, as I saw the lady yonder seated in a window above Master Lambert’s mercery while the king rode along the Chepe. I was immediately taken with her beauty . . . I mean, beautiful . . . gown,” he corrected himself. “I knew I must seek out the same cloth for Lady Hastings, and Master Lambert was kind enough to direct me here.” He paused for a second, looking again at Jane and then braved the question: “Is she . . .”

“My wife, my lord? Aye, I am proud to say she is, and Mercer Lambert’s daughter,” he gushed, confirming Will’s unhappy suspicion. “Mistress Shore!” the mercer called, an unusually disarming smile alarming Jane as she turned toward her husband’s voice. “I beg you come and greet our illustrious visitor and king’s chamberlain, Lord Hastings.” He reached out a welcoming arm to her and drew her possessively to his side. Jane curtseyed and folded her hands demurely in front of her as William rambled on. “She is my wife of a six-month or more. My dear, this gentle lord noticed your green and golden gown while you watched the king’s return from France, do you remember? It is astonishing—and flattering—that a person of your rank, Lord Hastings, who must have endured such a long and arduous journey in the service of king and country, would have noticed a piece of my cloth that day.” He rubbed his hands together. “But then that Italian silk is the finest I have, and I can understand how you must have been smitten with it. Let me show it to you now with pleasure.”

Will Hastings barely smothered a laugh at the mercer’s delusions that the cloth and not the wearer had attracted his attention. Then he saw Jane bite her lip and lower her head to cover her embarrassment, and he knew the young woman had no such delusion. As William turned to lead the way, she looked up at the nobleman with a mixed expression of shy curiosity and frank appraisal. Bold wench, Hastings thought, loving the way one cheek dimpled when she eventually smiled. He was a man
well acquainted with the art of seduction, and he only needed a few seconds with which to study her from the top of her elaborately rolled turban to the tips of her tiny crakows, peeking from under a suitably workaday gown. It would never do, Jane’s father had told her, to outdress the customers, although the cut and quality of the grosgrain spoke eloquently of the good taste of the merchant. She wished William might learn that lesson; her husband’s drab gowns often bore vestiges of what he had eaten, marring the cloth.

Aye, thought her admirer, she is worth a second look. She was wed, ’twas true, but that had never stopped Will Hastings in his search for his next conquest. Why, she might even please Edward, he suddenly thought. But he would overcome that obstacle later.

He would have been dismayed to know how Jane had assessed him in return. A handsome-enough man but, like William, past his prime, she thought, although she appreciated the look of admiration he had given her. Lord Hastings! she thought with a faint thrill. William, Baron Hastings was flirting with her, she was sure of it. He had purposely sought her out; that was as plain as a pikestaff. And then her agile mind grasped a titillating nugget: sweet Jesu, he was Tom’s father-in-law, she thought, astonished that she had managed to attract both men. So what if I do flirt with Hastings, she told herself; it would serve Tom right. Oh, how bored she was and how ripe for love. Then she saw William scowling at her, and she put on her most formal face.

“Excuse me, my lord,” she said, curtseying once more, “but I must return to my customer. I pray your lady wife enjoys my husband’s silk as much as I do.”

Before Will could stay her with a whispered wish for another meeting, Jane had walked off, leaving him wondering if she had surmised his interest in her or not. Reluctantly turning to follow the eager Master Shore, he did not see Jane’s surreptitious backward glance; it might have cheered him.

“S
o fair and with a fine wit, your grace,” Will enthused upon returning to Westminster Palace and finding the king in his privy chamber, having his thigh-high boots removed by Sir Walter Hungerford, one of his many squires of the body, while another preened the feathers of Edward’s valuable falcon on its customary perch near the high tester bed. After receiving soft, pointed shoes in exchange for the boots, Edward dismissed both men and selecting a plump capon leg from a platter, he stuffed it into his mouth.

“Her name is Jane Shore, the daughter of a mercer, John Lambert, and wedded to a dullard of another,” Will continued, describing Jane in detail. “She is as dainty as a woodland flower and yet I sense a stalwart strength in her that will not wilt unless sorely pressed. I like a woman with a will of her own, and I doubt her whippet of a husband is man enough for her.”

“And you are ready to step in and supply her need,” Edward teased, laughing and wiping his greasy chin. “Christ’s nails, Will, you sound besotted already. I would meet this paragon.”

Will chuckled. “I think not, Ned,” he answered softly, using Edward’s family nickname only when they were alone. “You will snatch her from me before I can properly woo and lie with her.”

Edward raised an eyebrow. “That fair, eh, Will? Now my curiosity is indeed piqued. Where is this Shore’s shop? Maybe I shall have to see her for myself.”

“All I will tell you is that it is not in the Mercery.”

Will grinned at his master’s indignation. A dozen years separated them and yet they had become fast friends during Edward’s nine months of exile in Flanders six years before. He had first served Edward’s father, Richard of York, as a squire and had transferred his Yorkist loyalty easily to the magnificent young earl of March when Richard had been killed at Wakefield and Edward had won the day for the Yorkists at Towton. After Edward was crowned in June 1461, Will was one of the first recipients of the Order
of the Garter, and from that time on, he had served Edward as chamberlain and confidant. Ten years later, Edward had honored Hastings with the command of the left flank at Barnet and of the right flank at Tewkesbury, when the Lancastrian army was finally routed. It was with Will that Edward shared thoughts politic and acts pleasurable. Will had brought to Edward’s attention more than a few ladies with whom the king had enjoyed a roll in the sheets. When Edward had tired of one, he passed her on to Hastings or, of late, his stepson Dorset. It was Will who had found lovely Elizabeth Wayte, mother of two of Edward’s bastards, a worthy husband, who had quietly removed the lady from court after Edward tired of her.

“Besides, Ned, did you not promise your queen you would desist from philandering while she awaits the next child?”

Edward pouted. “I thank you for reminding me. Bessie has been in a black humor of late, and I suppose I should not cause her any distress.” However, the ever-watchful Will saw a gleam in his sovereign’s blue eyes that told him Edward was not averse to breaking his promise. “But she will be confined soon, and while the cat’s away . . .” He took another bite of meat, smacking his lips.

“You are insatiable, my liege,” Will protested, but he laughed. “By my troth, if Jane Shore likes me not, I swear I will bring her to you, if I can pluck her from her husband’s clutches. He seems quite proud of her.”

Edward ran his fingers through his red-gold hair, still thick and glossy after thirty-three hard-lived years. Will envied the king’s good looks every time he caught sight of his own reflection and noticed the sagging cheeks, flecks of gray in his hair, and middle-aged spread. Aye, he doubted Hans Memling would choose him for a model these days, but in his prime his looks had been admired, he knew, and even still, he had no trouble attracting women. He refused to believe it was his status.

“Then I wish you God speed with the lady,” Edward drawled,
sprawled out on the chair; his six-foot-three-inch frame was never comfortable in any seat, as he would often complain. “You had best move swiftly with your conquest, my friend, for are you not due to return to Calais in the New Year? It would not do to have the town’s captain away for too long, or Anthony Rivers will be breathing down your neck and wresting the port back for himself.”

Will had been eyeing a flea hopping erratically across the cloth on the table, and he now slammed his hand down and extinguished its pesky existence. “That popinjay!” he cried at the mention of his nemesis’s name. “Is he not content to have the governorship of his nephew, your heir? The man is insufferable in his ambitions. I understand he is undertaking a pilgrimage to Italy as we speak to seek holy intervention in his wife’s sickness. He has already been to Compostella. If the rumors are true and he is your sister’s lover, then he should go with all speed to confess his adultery to the Holy Father. It might help him with the Almighty. He pretends piety in public but in private he plays his wife false. I for one shall be glad to see him gone for a while.”

“Have a care, my friend. You are speaking of my family. Anthony is the queen’s favorite brother, and it would not do to annoy Elizabeth more than you do now.” Edward laughed. “You are jealous, admit it. Rivers is a better jouster, better poet, and better-looking than you, my lord, and, more than mere rumor, he
is
Margaret’s lover. Besides, we have all gone on pilgrimages—albeit not so far. I do not grudge him that.”

Seeing Hastings glower, Edward bit his tongue, regretting he had stirred up the bitterness that had surfaced between his trusty councilor and Anthony Rivers upon the transfer of the captaincy of Calais four years before. Perhaps he had been hasty at the time in taking the honor from Anthony to give to Hastings, he mused, but Edward considered Hastings the more capable of keeping the garrison readied and loyal. Why could everyone in his immediate circle not get along, he often wondered. He was tired of playing
mediator. Elizabeth disliked Will, Will disliked Tom Grey, who returned the favor, and even his brothers George and Richard were constantly quarreling. It really was very tiresome, but he was too lazy to do anything about it, if the truth be told.

Edward decided to bring the subject back to Mistress Shore. “Lambert? Was he not one of the miserly mercers who reluctantly loosed his purse strings for the French expedition? Mayhap I should pay Master Lambert a royal visit to thank him personally for his pennies and enquire after his daughter at the same time.” Edward tossed back a cup of wine, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and watched his friend’s face fall. “Nay, I am jesting, Sir Lovelorn. She is all yours. I warrant she will not do for me. I like not poppets for partners in bed.” He suddenly sat up and slapped his forehead. “Christ’s nails, this lady sounds like the one Tom waxed poetic about before we went to France, do you not remember? Golden hair, green eyes, and standing less than five feet. Aye, I am certain she, too, was a mercer’s daughter.”