The King’s Mistress. Gillian Bagwell

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      “I have clean clothes, shoes that do not torture my feet, a warm place to sleep, and a belly full of good food. I lack nothing but the pleasure of your company for a few minutes. Come, sit with me.”

      He gestured to a bale of straw in as courtly a manner as if he were inviting her to sit upon a silken cushion. Jane sat and he dropped into his nest in the straw and smiled.

      “Thanks to you, my spirits tonight are higher than at any time during this last hellish week. Perhaps since I left Jersey more than a year and a half ago.”

      “But all that time you were in Scotland. Proclaimed king, and with an army at your back.”

      The king snorted in disgust. “Proclaimed king, yes, but kept like a prisoner. The only way the Scots would help me was if I agreed to swear to their Covenant, not only for myself but for all Englishmen, which was much against my conscience to do. And they kept me at my prayers from morning till night, and I swear to you that I exaggerate not one jot. Into my very bedchamber they followed me, hounding me with my wickedness. Truly, I thought I must repent me of ever being born.”

      “A foul way to treat one’s king,” Jane said.

      He shrugged. “I minded it not so much on my own behalf, but they would have me admit the wickedness of my poor martyred father, and that was beyond enduring. But the worst of it was that I was so alone.”

      He looked at her as intently as an artist might his subject, and Jane blushed.

      “Alone? Surely not.”

      “I assure you, yes. For the Scots deemed my dearest friends more wicked than I, even, and would not countenance their presence. I have been a great while without congenial company. To say nothing of the fact that I have scarce looked on a female face or form in more than a year.”

      The air between them seemed to quiver. Jane knew she should go, that somehow she had got into dangerous waters, but she could not make herself move. The king stood and came to her and pulled her gently to her feet, and she went to him as if in a dream. She shivered to feel him so near, his desire palpable, and she felt she could hardly breathe as he put his arm, her hand still in his, behind her, and drew her to him. She looked up at him, his dark eyes shining in the flickering light of the lantern, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world when his lips met hers, feeding delicately upon her. Her free hand reached around his neck and she pulled him closer, feeling the roughness of his close-cropped head in her palm. She smelled his scent and the faint musk of horses, mingled with the wood smoke from the fire and the heavy aroma of the tallow candle.

      The kiss seemed to last forever but at last the king straightened and looked down at Jane, his hand stroking her cheek.

      “I’m sorry, sweet Jane,” he murmured, kissing her hand. “I shouldn’t have, but I was quite overcome. You’d best go now.”

      Jane didn’t want to part from him, but knew that he was right. Reluctantly, she stepped back towards the door.

      “Good night. May good rest attend Your Majesty.”

      “Charles,” he whispered. “When we are alone so, call me Charles.”

      IN HER BED, JANE TOSSED FITFULLY, FEELING CHARLES’S HANDS AND mouth on her, recalling his taste and scent and the feel of his body against hers. She longed for him with every particle of her being, wished that he would creep to her bed in the quiet dark, and was quite appalled at the fierceness of her desire and her complete lack of care for any consequences that might follow should things go further between them. Between her and the king.

      JANE’S FIRST SIGHT OF CHARLES IN THE MORNING WAS AT THE BREAKFAST table. He came in from the kitchen with a large pitcher, and he caught her eye and smiled as he went to Henry’s side.

      “Cider, sir?” he asked.

      “Thank you, Jackson, yes,” Henry said.

      “Good morning, Mistress.”

      Charles’s sleeve brushed Jane’s arm as he reached for her mug, and she felt herself flushing at the sound of his voice and feel of him so close. She kept her eyes on her plate as he poured for her, but felt that Henry had given her a quick and curious glance.

      They set off soon after breakfast, with their noon meal packed in the saddlebags so that they could keep from inns and public eating houses until they reached Cirencester that night.

      It was a spectacular day, the air crisp and fresh. With Henry riding ahead of them, whistling happily, Charles reached down and pulled Jane’s hand to his lips and kissed it. She tightened her arms around his waist and felt her heart soar. The sky rose in a vast blue arc above them, before them lay a landscape tinged with rosy sunlight, and all things seemed possible.

      They soon left the village behind, and rode on between stubbled fields. The beautiful half-timbered houses of Mickleton gave way to meadowland, and then to substantial houses of pale stone as they reached Chipping Campden, its vaulted stone market stall packed with sheep, and a crowd of traders around the market cross. Leaving the town, the road sloped downward to an open valley.

      “Beautiful country,” Charles said. “I haven’t been just here before.”

      Jane longed to ask him a thousand questions, about his life, his family, his hopes and plans for what he would do once safely out of England, but didn’t want to seem too inquisitive.

      “You have seen much of the country, have you not?”

      “Yes, some. During the war, of course. And before the war, for most of the year my family moved between Whitehall, Hampton Court, Windsor, and the other palaces not far from London. But during the summers the king my father and my mother would go on progress throughout the country, staying in turn at other palaces and the homes of nobles on their way, and when I was old enough to travel, I joined them.”

      Jane imagined the royal retinue making its way around the countryside. “A travelling holiday! Where did you like best?”

      The king laughed. “Anywhere that I could get out and ride or swim or play!”

      Of course, Jane thought, his memories of those travels were all from when he had been a child. He couldn’t have been more than about twelve when his father’s royal standard had been raised at Nottingham for a battle that both sides had hoped in vain might settle the king’s quarrel with Parliament.

      “And during the wars?” Jane asked.

      “I was with my father to begin with, headquartered in Oxford, and moved where he moved. Then when I was not quite fifteen, I was made general of the Western Association, and went to take up my duties in Bristol.”

      “A general at fourteen?” Jane asked in amazement.

      “In name only, to speak truly. My cousin Rupert was really in command, but I learned much from him, and it was the start of making me into a man. And a king.” His voice was sad, and no wonder, Jane thought.

      “And then?” she asked.

      “Then we lost Bristol, and I moved westward into Cornwall, and then to the Scilly Isles and thence to Jersey, and then to France and the Low Countries. The next time I set foot on English soil was when I crossed the border from Scotland a month ago.”

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