“And my brother?”
“He is with some of the other English gentlemen. Come, I will show you where.”
“I thank you, mademoiselle, but if there is a way to get letters to England, I wonder if I might trouble you first for some ink and paper?”
Jane wrote to her family to tell them that she and John had reached Paris, and also to Ellen Norton, telling her the truth of why she had left Abbots Leigh, and assuring her that nothing less than the future of the monarchy would have made her leave Ellen’s side.
It was afternoon before she saw Charles. He appeared in the queen’s sitting room wearing a new-looking coat of dark green, a very clean shirt, and white silk stockings. He was freshly shaved and wore a wig, its dark curls brushing his shoulders.
“Until my own hair grows back,” he explained. “I was tired of looking like a Roundhead.”
“It suits you,” Jane smiled, studying him. “And it’s certainly a change from Will Jackson.”
“I thought you might like to see the cathedral,” Charles said. “If you will not find walking outside too cold. I’ve brought a cloak for you, the gift of a friend, Mademoiselle d’Épernon, who says she can scarce wait to meet you.”
Once outside, they crossed to the vast palace of the Louvre, and Charles led Jane through the maze of corridors and rooms until they emerged near the Seine. It was cold, with a brisk wind blowing off the river, but Jane hardly noticed. She felt safe for the first time in months, and supremely happy to be once more beside Charles. He took her arm, but seemed to feel no urge to make conversation, and as much as there was to say, Jane hardly knew where to begin.
The river sparkled in the sun, and Jane and Charles, as with one accord, stopped to lean against a stone railing along the bank and take in the view of the great cathedral rising ahead on an island in the middle of the river.
“There was a child,” Jane said.
She had thought about what to tell Charles and how, but now that seemed all there was to say.
“Was?” Charles turned to her, his eyes dark with concern as they flitted from her face to her belly and back again. “Then …”
“I lost it. Near a month ago.”
“Oh, Jane.”
He took her into his arms and drew her against his chest, and she let the tears she had held back for so long flow, comforted by the murmur of his voice in her ear.
“I’m so sorry,” he said after a time. “Your brother was with you?”
“Yes. He knows of the child; there was no way he could not.”
“But did you have no doctor?”
“There was an old woman. A wise woman, a healer. She gave us shelter and cared for me.”
“A month ago,” Charles reflected. “I had not been here long then.”
“I felt so alone,” Jane murmured. “All I wanted was you with me. I didn’t even know if you were alive. I had been happy to know I bore your child, come what might, and when—when it happened—it seemed I had lost you for good and all.”
“Oh, Jane, what a shambles have I made of your life.”
“If only I had not left you when I did,” she said. “We could have been together through it all, and it would not have been so hard.”
“Yes, but we could not have known what lay ahead for either of us.”
Jane snuffled, and with the back of her hand wiped away the tears that threatened to freeze on her cheeks. Charles dug a handkerchief from his sleeve and handed it to her, and she blew her nose, and they both laughed as she hesitated over whether to return it to him.
“Keep it.” He smiled. “God knows I have little enough to give you, but a handkerchief I can spare.”
They walked on towards the cathedral, and Jane saw that the arched stone bridge that crossed to the island was lined with vendors’ stalls and crowded with people. Music and voices rose on the breeze.
“Is that some fair?” Jane asked.
“No, the Pont Neuf is always like that, the gathering place for every mountebank, pickpocket, and whore in Paris. Perhaps we’ll brave it another day.”
They continued their stroll along the river, passing a high gate that opened onto another bridge. At the centre of the island a third bridge, lined with tall houses on both sides, led towards Notre Dame, its high front jutting into the winter sky. Arm in arm they walked around the exterior of the cathedral, and Jane stared at the turreted apse, its graceful arching supports reminding her of the veins in a leaf.
“Extraordinary. When was it built?”
“It was finished about three hundred years ago. During the reign of my cousin Philip the Sixth.”
Jane recalled with a start that Charles’s mother was the daughter of the French king Henri IV.
“Yes,” he said, as if reading her thoughts, “it is odd that I should be King of England when I am as much or more French, Scottish, Italian, Danish, and German as I am English, but there it is. My mother grew up at the Palais Royal, you know, and of course the present King Louis is her nephew, so she’s back at home here.”
“And you?”
“Me? I have no home. Nor no crown or throne but in name, no army to take them back, and not a shirt to my back but I must borrow the money to have it washed.”
Inside the cathedral great vaulted ceilings soared overhead and sunlight filtered in through the clerestory windows high above. Candles burned on a tiered rack, and Charles dropped a coin into a box that stood nearby, and taking up a slender taper, lit a new candle, his eyes intent on the flame.
“In remembrance of my father,” he murmured.
They sat on a bench in the sanctuary, comfortable with each other in the silence. The scent of frankincense hung heavy in the air, reminding Jane of the smell of peat burning on Marjorie’s fire.
“I killed a man,” she said quietly. “A deserter from Cromwell’s army. He surprised us, and had taken John’s pistol and purse. He had just realised I was not a boy, and would have taken me by force, I think, did I not shoot him.”
“And likely killed you both, too,” Charles said. “You had no choice.”
“No. But I think about him—recall his face, and that instant of surprise.”
Charles nodded.
“Aye, I’ve seen that surprise. Perhaps we none of us truly believe we shall die until the time is upon us.”
The bells rang the hour.
“I would I had been there to protect you,” Charles said, taking her hand. “What a farcical bad king I am, that I can neither protect nor provide for those who have served me so bravely and so well.”
“The time will come,” Jane said. “Marjorie saw it.”
“Ah. Well, if Marjorie saw it, then I shall believe it true.”
THAT EVENING JANE AND JOHN ONCE MORE SUPPED WITH CHARLES and his little court of exiles. He seemed in good spirits, she thought, watching his face in the golden candlelight. It seemed a year since she had parted from him at Trent, the birds outside heralding the break of day, and she longed to be alone with him and in his arms.
“I pray you, Your Majesty,” she said during a lull in the conversation, “will you not tell us what befell you after Henry and I left you?”
“Why, my friends have heard the story so often already that I am afraid I shall weary them,” Charles said, glancing around the table. The company murmured denials, and little Minette clapped her hands.
“I want to hear it again!” she cried. “Tell about the man locked in his room!”
“You see”—Charles smiled wanly—“she knows the story better than I.”
He poured himself more wine and took a drink.
“Well, as you know, Frank Wyndham had good hopes that his friend could help me to a boat. But it proved that for sundry reasons, he could not, though he sent me a hundred pounds in gold. So it fell to Frank to try what he could, and he went to Lyme and spoke with a merchant there to hire a ship, being forced to acquaint him that it was I who was to be carried out. The merchant appointed a day to embark, and directed us to go to
Charmouth, a little village hard by Lyme, where the boat should come for us. And that is when I truly wished I had you with me again, Jane.”
Jane smiled not only to know that he had missed her, but to hear him declare it so.
“But as the tide would not serve until eleven o’clock at night, we had need to sit up all night at the inn and to have command of the house to go in and out at pleasure while we waited for the boat. To remove suspicion at such conduct, I hit upon the idea of a runaway bridal party. So the Wyndhams’ servant wooed the landlady of the inn with a story of his gallant master’s love for a lady whose family did not approve of the match. He told his tale so well that she swore she would do anything she could to help the couple.”
He twinkled at Jane and she smiled in amusement.
“Riding before a lady had answered so well as a disguise that it seemed best for me to continue in the person of Will Jackson. But without you, I was forced to make what shift I could. So Juliana Coningsby consented to stand—or perhaps I should say to sit—in your place.”
Jane’s happiness dimmed. She did not at all like the thought of pretty Juliana on the pillion behind the king.
“Mistress Coningsby was to play the part of the bride,” Charles said, taking up a knife and an apple and beginning to peel it, “and my lord Wilmot was the groom. We made ourselves comfortable in our room at the little inn, and full of good hope and humour, for the wind was then very good at north, and sat expecting the ship to come in, but she failed us, and there we still sat at dawn.”
He triumphantly held up the deep red peel of the apple, which he had removed in one spiralling strip. Jane smiled, and he coiled the prize down into her palm, his eyes warm on hers.
“And why did the man not come, sir?” little Minette cried, a smile of impish glee on her face.
“That was exactly what I wondered, too!”
Charles pulled his little sister onto his lap and tugged one of her curls fondly, and she gazed up at him in pleased awe. He cut the apple into quarters and removed the core as he resumed his story.
“I sent Frank’s man Peters and Lord Wilmot to know the reason of it, and we resolved to go to a place on the road towards London called Bridport, and there stay till my lord Wilmot should bring us news whether the vessel could be had the next night or no. So Frank Wyndham and Mistress Coningsby and I went in the morning to Bridport, and just as we came into the town, I could see the streets full of redcoats.”
“Oh, no,” Jane cried. “Just like at Stratford.”
“Exactly. But even worse. It was a regiment of fifteen hundred men going to embark to take Jersey. So we at once rode out of town as if towards London, much fearing we might have been discovered. When we were gone about a mile off, my lord Wilmot overtook us, he having seen us in the town, and told us there had been some mistake between him and the master of the ship.”
Minette emitted a little shriek of anticipation at what would come next, eliciting chuckles from the grown-ups.
“The ‘mistake’,” Charles continued, “was that the captain’s good wife had been at Lyme fair that day, and had heard the proclamation of the reward for our capture, and suspecting what her husband was about, and fearing what harm might come to him if he should carry us to France and be discovered, she locked him in his room.”
Minette giggled with delight. “She locked him in his room!”
Frowning, the queen put a finger to her lips and shushed her youngest child.
“Lord Wilmot said he believed the ship might be ready next night,” Charles said, “so we determined to make for Broadwindsor, a village about four miles in the country above Lyme.”
“And then what happened, sir?” cried Minette as he handed her a slice of apple.
“Many more mishaps and misadventures!” Charles replied. “But methinks the telling of this tale has been long enough for tonight. Mistress Jane and Colonel Lane are still tired after their long journey, and surely it’s time for young maids to be in bed. We’ll finish the story another time.”
The guests stood and took their leaves, and Charles led Jane to a quiet corner. Her heart beat fast as she looked up into his eyes, longing to feel his arms about her.
“My chaplain gives Sunday service at the home of Sir Richard Browne, the English ambassador,” he said. “I will take you tomorrow, if you like.”
“I would like that,” she said.
“Good.” He kissed her cheek and nodded his farewell, and as she watched him stride off into the shadows, she was conscious of John’s eyes on her.
ABOUT TWENTY OF THE KING’S FOLLOWERS GATHERED IN THE HOME of Sir Richard Browne on that icy Sunday morning. It was the first time Jane had met most of them, but everyone quite clearly knew who she was. She noted one dark-haired young lady regarding her curiously. She bowed and the lady returned her bow, looking a little flustered, before turning back to the man beside her.
“Who is that?” Jane whispered to Charles.
“Hmm? Oh, Betty Boyle. She attends the queen my mother. Her father was Robert Killigrew, my mother’s vice chamberlain.”
He did not meet Jane’s eye and she sensed there were things he was not saying about the lady, but the black-gowned cleric took his place at the head of the small congregation and there was no time for further talk.
After the sermon, Charles introduced Jane to the chaplain, Dr Cosin, a stern-faced man of close to sixty years.
“An honour, Mistress Lane,” he said. “We all have much to thank you for.”
“I wonder, Father,” Jane said, “if I could impose on you for a little private time with you when it is convenient.”
“Why, I’m most happy to speak now, if it suits,” Dr Cosin smiled.
“Shall I wait?” Charles asked, but Jane thought she sensed a hint of impatience, and shook her head.
“No, I thank Your Majesty. John can see me back.”
“I have the feeling I should leave my stole on,” the minister said, leading her to a small parlour with a fire dancing on the hearth. “You have more on your mind than chat.”
“Yes,” Jane said. The warmth of the fire felt good, and calmed her. She was silent for a few moments, gathering her thoughts, and was grateful that Dr Cosin sat beside her in silence, not pressing her to speak until she was ready.
“My brother and I faced many hardships during our journey,” she said finally.
“Walking all that way, with winter coming on, I should think so.”
“One day we met a soldier—a rebel deserter. He surprised us when John had just fired his pistol—hunting, you see—and he had us very much at a disadvantage. John had already thrown down his empty pistol and his purse and even the hare he had shot, when this soldier turned his attention to me. I was dressed as a boy so that I would be less likely to be recognised, but this man was very close to me and he saw that I was a woman. He touched me—he would have done more, I am sure, and John would have been helpless to prevent him. I had a pistol hidden beneath my coat and I shot him. Killed him.”
Dr Cosin made a noise of sympathetic alarm in his throat.
“You acted in your own defence, when there was no one else who could defend you.”
“I did. But was it not still murder?”
Jane searched the chaplain’s dark eyes, hoping for forgiveness and afraid of condemnation.
“You were defending yourself from assault, perhaps death. God knows the truth of that. Also, consider this. When a soldier goes into battle, he is doing his duty. You put off the tenderness of your sex and were acting as a soldier, defending king and crown. You were presented with the soldier’s choice. Kill or be killed. It was no sin, I think.”
“Thank you,” Jane breathed.
It was a relief to have spoken of her fears. But a much greater weight yet enveloped her heart. Could she speak of it now? She watched the snow falling outside the windows and steeled herself. She had better, she decided. For her silence was eating into her soul, and there might not be anyone else she could te
ll.
“There is another thing. When I was travelling with the king, he lay with me. I wanted him to, I didn’t care about the consequences.”
“I see.”
Dr Cosin’s mouth tightened, and Jane was afraid of his disapproval, but she had to go on.
“I carried his child. And when I was walking with my brother—the day after I shot the man—I miscarried of it.”
The pain of the memory was too much, and she began to cry softly.
“I fear God punished me for my sin by taking the babe. And perhaps for the killing of the soldier as well.”
“The fornication was sin, most grievous sin, and no question. But perhaps God sought to protect you, rather than punish you.”
“Protect me? How?”
“If the child had not died, perhaps your reception here would have been different.” Just as John had feared, Jane thought. “But more than that, the king is destitute, you know, as are all his family and supporters here. The poor queen relied on the mercy of the Frondeurs who were rioting in the streets to give her food and wood for her fire. His Majesty has no means of supporting a child, and the burden you have taken up on his behalf, already so heavy, would have been heavier yet. And the child would have suffered.”
“That’s true.” Jane sniffled and Dr Cosin put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“You have endured much for your sins already. Humbly ask God to pardon your offences, sin with the king no more, and go in peace.”
WHEN JANE RETURNED TO THE PALAIS ROYAL, CHARLES WAS nowhere to be seen. She was reluctant to keep asking after him, so she kept to Martine’s room and rested until the noon meal. Charles was present, and after dinner, sat and visited with Jane, John, Henry, and Lord Wilmot in the queen’s apartments. They had not gathered alone since they had all set out from Bentley, and it seemed unreal that now they should be sitting together in Paris.
“How very improbable that our wild scheme should have worked,” Wilmot mused, looking around the little circle. “When I consider of the number of instances in which Your Majesty was in the midst of the enemy and they saw you not, and the dangers through which you passed, it seems that surely the hand of Providence must have been at work.”
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