My Lady Jane(51)

He stifled a cough. “What animal are you?”

Dimples. “I suppose you’ll have to wait and see.”

His legs suddenly felt weak, and it wasn’t from the effect of the pretty girl. All of this exertion had been too much for him. His head was cloudy. He stumbled.

She tightened her grip on his arm.

“You’re not well,” she observed. “Do you want to stop?”

He nodded. She led him under a tree with a large root sticking out of it, where he could sit. He spent several minutes coughing weakly into the cloak. She stood a few paces away, studying him.

“Do you have ‘the Affliction’?” She looked a bit worried at the prospect of having strolled arm in arm with a diseased man.

“No.” Edward looked up at her. “No, I was being poisoned.”

Those mischievous eyebrows of hers lifted. “Poisoned? By whom?”

“By Lord Dudley,” he said, too tired now to try to think up an answer besides the truth.

“Why would someone want to poison you?”

“Because . . .” This was it. The moment he’d tell her who he was, and she’d have to decide what to do with him. “Because I’m . . .” he tried again.

“Out with it,” she urged. “I’m not sure I can stand the suspense.”

Well, if she was going to decide to cut his throat after all, at least it’d be over quickly. Best to be done with it.

“I’m Edward Tudor,” he answered. “And I need your help.”





FOURTEEN


Jane

Well. She was queen. That was unexpected.

Jane gave a half-panicked, disbelieving laugh. How could Edward do this to her? Why would he do this to her? He didn’t even believe that women belonged in leadership positions. If Edward had been in his right mind, he never would have chosen to make her queen.

That must have been it: Edward hadn’t been in his right mind. He’d had “the Affliction” boiling his brain and ruining his decision-making skills—which had until recently, in her opinion, been quite reasonable. But what could Edward possibly expect her to do with his crown?

She laughed again, although it came out as more of a sob. She was the queen. The ruler. The monarch. The sovereign. The leader. The head of state. The chief. The one wearing the proverbial pants. The person in charge. The boss. The. Queen. Of. England.

Jane had always resisted the notion that women were weaker than men, not just physically, but intellectually. Her education had been as good as Edward’s—they had even shared some of the same tutors for a time—and Jane had always excelled at whatever she put her mind to. She could speak eight languages, for heaven’s sake, and was considered by some of her instructors to be a marvel at rhetoric and reasoning. She understood the complexities of philosophy and the nuances of religion. She devoured books several times a day, the way ordinary people took their meals. She memorized poetry in Latin simply to pass the time. All this she could do as well as any man.

But could she rule a country?

Jane paced her new bedroom—a chamber in the royal apartments of the Tower of London fit for (what else?) a queen. Last night, after receiving her subjects (the thought made Jane’s stomach lurch) she’d been sent to her chambers to rest, Lord Dudley citing that a queen should not be kept up so late, and she’d need to be refreshed for a long day of queenly activities that awaited her in the morning.

Jane had been exhausted, so she’d complied, but she’d made certain everyone knew she wasn’t being sent to her room like a child. She’d shot Gifford a quick look—was he coming?—but Lord Dudley pulled Gifford aside to speak with him. So Jane had grabbed a book without checking what it was (it turned out to be Afterlives: The Hundred-Year Debate of E?ians and Reincarnation), and hurled it onto the gigantic bed when she realized it was about death.

Then it had truly hit her: Edward was dead.

She would never see him again.

He was gone.

After a long, angry cry, she hadn’t been able to sleep, so as the sun lifted and somewhere (hopefully outside) Gifford turned into a horse, she explored her chambers. The decor was annoyingly opulent. Long, silk brocade drapes framed the windows, while several wardrobes lined the walls, filled with more gowns than she could imagine wearing. In the two places along the wall not occupied by wardrobes, there was a door that presumably joined the queen’s rooms with the king’s, and a vanity with a large glass mirror, just in case she wanted to look at herself and admire how very queenly she wasn’t.

No, there were circles under her eyes from last night’s journey and devastation. Her skin, previously flushed from days in the sun, now looked sallow and drawn. Her eyes were raw from crying, itchy and red and as puffy as a pastry. Not to mention all her normal flaws.

She looked nothing at all like a queen.

The worst part about her new chambers was that all these wardrobes and vanities and drapes meant there was no space—none at all—for a bookcase. Who on earth could feel comfortable enough to sleep in a room with no books?

Edward would never sleep again, she reminded herself tearfully.

He would never read a book again.

A knock sounded and she ignored it, choosing instead to flop down in the center of her bed, surrounded by pillows and blankets, and compose a mental list of all the things Edward would never do again. Obvious things, like eating and breathing, she skipped. She was on number twenty-seven: scratching his dog behind the ears, and number twenty-eight: eating ridiculous amounts of blackberry pudding, when her visitor knocked again, then entered anyway.