The King's Mistress (43 page)

Jane caught her breath at the sight of him. She had always thought him handsome, even in the humble guise of Will Jackson, but tonight he shone like a star, the embodiment of grace and power and beauty.

Every inch a king.
Jane chuckled to herself as she recalled Charles quoting the line from
King Lear
to her on one of the nights they had shared at Abbots Leigh. And he was now, every inch of his six feet two inches, dazzlingly royal.

The crowd applauded and cheered, and Charles gave a regal nod in reply before breaking into a grin. The formal moment past, there was a stir as if everyone at once would make their way towards the king. But he turned away, his attention caught by something to his side, and the crowd stopped where it stood. Jane craned to see. What had arrested the king’s attention was a girl. A stunningly beautiful girl. The most beautiful woman Jane had ever seen, she thought. The stranger was dressed in a blue so pale as to be almost white, but with enough colour that it reflected and intensified the violet of her eyes. Her hair, a deep auburn that shone in the candlelight, hung in ringlets around her face and cascaded over the creamy white of her bare shoulders and the surge of her full breasts.

A murmur went through the room. And then Charles reached out a hand and the girl went to him. He took her hand and looked down at her, and Jane’s soul turned to ice.

“Who is that?” Dorothy whispered behind her.

“Barbara Palmer.” It was Boswell’s voice. “The king’s mistress. She arrived with her husband in February. They say she was in the king’s bed within a fortnight and has scarcely left it since, except when he was at Breda.”

Jane’s heart froze. February? She had been at Breda then. So for the last three months, while her heart had soared at the thought of seeing Charles again, he had been at The Hague, and bedding this girl.

She rushed from the room, fighting to hold back her tears. The musicians struck up a dance tune, and applause broke out. The king taking the floor, no doubt, with Barbara Palmer. She stumbled into her room, slamming the door behind her, and sank onto the floor, shaking with grief and rage.

This was the day she had longed for, prayed for, for which she had given up her life as it had been and spent the long years away from home. And now she was forgotten, lost in the crowds of fawning subjects and favour seekers. And Charles as she had known him, the memory that had sustained her through the long winter of their separation—the lazy grin, the eyes shining just for her, his voice joining hers in song—was gone, and in his place was a gilded stranger. They had been as intimate as two people could be, and now a vast gulf yawned between the king and his subject.

And with the unearthly picture of Barbara Palmer lingering mockingly in her mind, for the first time Jane felt old. On their journey, when Charles was twenty-one and she twenty-five, the difference in their ages had seemed insignificant. But now, when he was not yet thirty, with legions of beautiful young girls crowded around him, with their smooth and perfect skin, their lush bosoms, their unlined faces and clear eyes, and all of them willing to give themselves to him utterly, she suddenly saw herself as she feared others must see her—ageing, sad, pathetic. No dish to tempt a young king who might have any woman in Europe.

On a table in her room stood a miniature that Princess Louise had painted of her soon after her arrival at Mary’s court. She took it up and stared at it. She had not truly looked at it in—how long? Years? She had glanced at it with unseeing eyes, taking for granted that it represented her as she was.

Now she picked up a hand mirror and held it up, comparing her reflection to the portrait, and what she saw made her weep the more. The firm and determined chin of the Jane of then was now softened by a roll of flesh. The eyes that had stared so bright and clear were now red with tears, the lids swollen and puffy. Fine lines cobwebbed from the corners of her eyes, bracketed her mouth, cut channels in her forehead. Her décolletage was no longer the silken damask it had been, but roughened and mottled.

Jane threw the mirror onto the floor and watched it explode in a shower of silvered shards. She flung herself onto the bed and sobbed, great wrenching animal cries tearing her throat. She wanted to stop feeling, to end her existence. To hurt and kill. Charles. Mary. John. Lord Wilmot, in his grave. Barbara Palmer. All the pretty young creatures who sighed after the king and caught his eye. And most of all she just wanted to feel no more.

She gave herself up to the ocean of grief and rage, losing herself in it. The tears and the racking sobs lasted a long time, but finally she had cried all that she could cry and had no emotions left to vent.

O
N THE MORNING OF THE TWENTY-THIRD OF
M
AY
, J
ANE JOINED
Charles; his mother, Queen Mary; his aunt Queen Elizabeth; his sisters, Mary and Minette; and his brothers, the Dukes of York and Gloucester, aboard the
Naseby
, touring the ship that would take Charles back to England. The royal family dined in state, and afterward, Charles rechristened the ship the
Royal Charles
and gave other ships in the fleet names more appropriate to a royal flotilla than those they had borne under Cromwell.

There were plans afoot for a reunion of the family at Christmas, but Charles’s brothers were the only members of the royal family who would sail with him now. Nan Hyde had left Mary’s service and was travelling to England, ostensibly because her father was accompanying the king, but Jane wondered, with a glance at Nan’s belly, how much longer the secret marriage could be kept a secret.

Jane could scarcely believe that she would not be present when Charles set foot on English soil after all she had done to ensure that he might do so. But she knew that Barbara Palmer was with him, and she would have been hard-pressed not to feel miserable and bitterly resentful had she been in their company.

A
FEW DAYS AFTER THE KING’S DEPARTURE
, J
ANE’S MOOD WAS LIFTED
by the news that on the twenty-eighth of May, Sophie had been safely delivered of a healthy baby boy named Georg Ludwig.

“‘We call him Görgen,’ Sophie writes,” Mary sniffed. “Not a very English name.”

“Well, after all,” Queen Elizabeth said, beaming with joy at having a new grandchild, “the wee mite will not only be heir to his father, the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneberg, but his three uncles have no children either! He’ll be a little German ruler. Who knows, perhaps one day he’ll even be the Holy Roman Emperor!”

N
OW THAT MESSENGERS COULD TRAVEL FREELY TO AND FROM
E
NGLAND
, news of Charles’s homecoming reached Mary’s court rapidly. Jane listened as Queen Elizabeth read a letter from Charles’s friend John Evelyn.

“‘May the twenty-ninth. This day came in His Majesty Charles the Second to London after a sad and long exile. This was also his birthday …’”

Yes, Jane thought. Charles had turned thirty on the day that he had ridden into London to claim his throne. He had been but twenty-one when she rode with him, combining both the hope and impetuousness of youth with the toughness and melancholy born of the shocks and hardships he had already suffered.

“‘He rode with a triumph of above twenty thousand horse and foot,’” Queen Elizabeth read, “‘brandishing their swords and shouting with inexpressible joy. The ways strewed with flowers, the bells ringing, the streets hung with tapestry, fountains running with wine, the windows and balconies all set with ladies, trumpets, music, and myriads of people flocking the streets, so as they were seven hours in passing the City, even from two in the afternoon till nine at night. I stood in the Strand and beheld it and blessed God. And all this without one drop of blood, and by that very army which rebelled against him. But it was the Lord’s doing,
et mirabile in oculis nostris
, for such a Restoration was never seen, nor so joyful a day and so bright ever seen in this nation.’”

Jane’s eyes were full of tears as she listened. It was astonishing that everything had turned out better than anyone would have thought possible only a few months before. But she had made that glorious day possible, and she should have been at Charles’s side, not stuck across the cold North Sea and far from home.

She would accompany Mary to England soon, but Mary would not stir from The Hague until she had used her brother’s newfound power to force the Electors to confirm her ten-year-old son, William, in his position as Elector-General and to arrange for his schooling.

A
T THE END OF
J
UNE A LETTER ARRIVED IN
J
ANE’S MOTHER’S HANDWRITING
. That was not unusual; during the time that John and her father were in prison, her mother’s letters had been her main source of news from Bentley. But for some reason on this day the spidery ink on the white paper set off alarum bells in Jane’s head. She broke the wax seal and read.

“My dear daughter, it grieves me to tell you that your beloved father died yesterday, on the thirteenth of June. He had been in poor health after his imprisonment, and was taken of a sudden with an ague …”

The letter fell from Jane’s fingers and her hands flew to her throat. She suddenly felt as though she could not breathe.

“Jane, dear, what is it?” Queen Elizabeth cried in alarm.

“My father—dead.”

Queen Elizabeth, Mary, and Lady Stanhope rushed to her and held her as she wept. But she felt as though there were a wall of ice between her and them, and her mind whirled, disbelief fighting with grief and rage.

Her father, gone. It could not be. She had longed for home for so long, and though she missed her mother and the rest of the family, now she realised that home had always meant her father, and without him Bentley would seem but a shadow of itself.

“It should not have been this way,” she cried. “He risked so much and paid so dear. He should have lived to rejoice at the king’s return, with no more thought than to read, and walk, and play with his grandchildren.”

She thrust herself away from the women and snatched up the letter from the floor. Was there any word of comfort in it?

“I would have you know that almost his last words were of his dear Jane, and of your courage and the great deeds you have done for England. Others of the neighbourhood have lately been honoured for the part they played. Mr Whitgreaves and Father Huddleston of Moseley and the Penderel brothers of Whiteladies were sent for to London last week that they should receive the thanks of the king at his own hands …”

I
N
S
EPTEMBER
, M
ARY HAD AT LAST SETTLED HER SON’S AFFAIRS SATISFACTORILY
, and her household was in frenzied preparation for their departure to London. The Earl of Sandwich arrived in the
Resolution
, to conduct the Princess Royal and her entourage to England, and they would depart as soon as the weather permitted. Jane sang as she packed, and ran to ask Queen Elizabeth if she needed help in making ready. But Charles’s old aunt shook her head.

“The king has not invited me to court.”

Jane stared at her. “But surely—”

“No. He has not. And without his invitation I cannot go, for I have no place to live nor means to live on once I got there.”

“I will write to him,” Jane said, quaking with rage. “You, above all people, must be there!”

“No, no. Perhaps he has forgotten. I will wait a little longer. He has so much on his mind just now, and I would not be a trouble to him.”

Jane stared in dismay at the old lady, who would be left quite alone. She took a deep breath. “Then I will stay here with you.”

With tears in her eyes, Queen Elizabeth embraced Jane and patted her cheek.

“You are a good girl, Jane. But you must go home to your dear brother and the rest of your family. Loving you as I do, I know how much your mother must long to have you back with her.”

The bad weather cleared, and the
Resolution
put to sea, but Jane thought that perhaps they would have been better to wait. Mary and half her ladies were violently ill. The seas were rough, the ship climbing walls of glassy green water and then plunging into foamy troughs, the crew struggling to keep the vessel afloat and on course, battling with the sodden sails, desperately cutting away rigging when a mast came crashing down to prevent the ship from being pulled onto her side. Everyone was wet and cold throughout the voyage, and there was no hope of hot food. Jane was terrified, sure with each violent pitch and roll that the ship would be laid on her beam ends and swamped. Even within sight of land, the
Resolution
nearly foundered. How unfair it would be, Jane thought, to have survived these last nine years only to perish before she reached England.

At last the ship lay at anchor at Margate. A boat put out from shore, and as it drew near, Jane saw that it carried Charles and the Duke of York. Their faces were sombre as they climbed onto the quarterdeck, and Jane noticed with a start that beneath their dark cloaks they wore mourning clothes.

“Jane.” Charles raised her from her curtsy and kissed her cheek. “Pray lead me to my sister. I’m afraid I bear bad news, and she should receive it in private.”

Jane’s mind seethed with alarm. The king would only put on full mourning for the death of someone very close to him. Who could it be? His mother? Or was it possible that dear old Queen Elizabeth had died at The Hague while Mary was en route to England, and the news had outstripped them? But she only nodded and conducted the royal brothers to Mary’s cabin. Whoever had died, she would learn of it soon enough. Mary had washed and dressed and was managing to stay upright in a chair, but her face was still almost green from the effects of seasickness. She rose with a weak smile on her lips and then froze as she noted her brothers’ sombre attire.

“Who …”

She swayed on her feet, and Jane ran to give her a steadying arm. Charles and the Duke of York rushed to their sister’s side and eased her back into her chair.