My Lady Jane(102)

Her green eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “I’m not sure I’m terribly lucky.”

“You’re lucky for me.”

“Oh, all right.” Her lips were a quick, warm brush against his cheek. “Good luck, Sire.”

“Your Majesty?” the steward prompted.

It was time.

He tried not to think too hard about how this one meeting would make or break them. They needed soldiers. And ships. And steel. Without the French king’s help, they could not hope to overcome Mary. Everything was riding on this single encounter. On his words.

His knees were trembling, he realized, ever so slightly. Even a kiss from Gracie was not enough to overcome his nerves.

“Remember what we talked about,” Bess told him as they moved forward through the door.

He nodded.

“Stay with that and you’ll be fine,” she said. “Stick to the plan. Play to the king’s weaknesses and your strengths.”

“I’ll do my best,” Edward said. That was all that he could do.

The King of France was nothing like Edward’s father had been. This particular Henry was a cool, collected sort of man with a well-trimmed beard who liked to wear white fur and heels that elevated his height. He was fond of dogs, but he was not an E?ian or a supporter of their cause. He was quite vocal, instead, about how distasteful he found those people who became animals, like such a thing was a matter of rude behavior. This made Edward’s position a bit precarious, under the circumstances.

Still, King Henry was proving to be sympathetic to Edward’s plight. He wanted to hear all about how Edward had lost his throne, like it was the best kind of royal gossip.

“So this Mary herself took part in the plot to poison you?” the king asked in horror when Edward reached that part of his story.

“She put the fork to my lips,” Edward answered. “But I wouldn’t take it.”

“Such brazenness,” King Henry exclaimed. “This woman attempting to murder a king, her own brother, no less. Such audacity. And however did you escape?”

Edward took a deep breath. Be yourself, Bess had told him, but what she really meant was, Be yourself unless you sometimes find yourself turning into a bird, in which case, don’t be that—don’t admit that, ever. Be a respectable Verity, for heaven’s sake.

“One of my servants smuggled me out,” he lied smoothly. “In the back of a hay cart. It was quite the terrible ordeal.”

“Ha!” The king was greatly amused by this. “A hay cart. Imagine.”

He laughed, and the members of the court laughed with him.

“So you see,” Edward continued delicately when the merriment died down. “If my sister is allowed to sit unchallenged on my throne, it will send a dangerous message to rest of the world: that any grasping, covetous woman of royal blood can reach for the crown and succeed in taking it, even from a rightful, ruling king. Then queens will start popping up all over Europe like rabbits in a garden. It will be chaos.”

He tried to sound supremely confident. Bess had coached him to say all of this about the awful precedent Mary would set and the terrifying anarchy of women, but for some reason he felt unsettled when he spoke the words, especially with Jane and Bess standing behind him, these two women who he now held in the highest possible regard.

King Henry leaned forward on his throne. “Well, that makes sense. Yes, they’re always reaching, aren’t they?” He cast a quick accusatory glance at Queen Catherine beside him. She was a notorious schemer, Edward knew from Bess, and the French king often worried that his own wife would be the end of him someday, so his son would end up on the throne and she could rule as regent.

“Yes, they reach far above their station,” Edward agreed. “And you and I both know that it is a man’s place, not a woman’s, to rule a country. Women are ill designed for such a task.”

“But you yourself put a woman on the throne, did you not?” King Henry asked, gesturing to Jane.

The court fell silent.

Edward glanced at his cousin. Her eyes were closed. Her lips moved like she was counting backward from ten.

Edward turned quickly back to the king.

“My desire was for my crown to pass to my cousin’s male heirs,” Edward explained. “Naturally. Of course I couldn’t have considered Jane a queen on her own merits.”

Oh, she was going to stab him in his sleep. At least she was being mercifully silent. For now. Edward cleared his throat. “But unfortunately, I became ill so quickly that there simply wasn’t time for Jane to produce a male heir. And in the absence of a boy to inherit the throne, Dudley persuaded me to amend the line of succession to name Jane as the ruler, to be followed by her sons, of course. A decision I regret, but there wasn’t much of a choice at that point.”

“Hmm. Well, it doesn’t matter,” King Henry said thoughtfully. “If they’d succeeded in poisoning you without such an amendment, Mary would still be sitting on your throne now, wouldn’t she?”

“Correct.” Edward raised his hands, palms up, like, What’s a fellow to do?

“And so you are here, asking for my help,” King Henry said, a gleam in his eyes as if Edward were kneeling before him in supplication.

Edward was not going to do any kneeling, of course. He straightened his shoulders. “Mary cannot be allowed to get away with such treason,” he said, meeting the king eye to eye. “I have some ships and armies of my own, of course, but Mary needs her comeuppance. I thought it would please you, perhaps, to stand with me on this matter. We could send a different message to the world: that a king will not be cowed by some conniving, middle-aged female suffering from delusions of grandeur. We are men. We are kings. We will not yield on such matters.”