Royal Mistress

by Anne Easter Smith

  “God’s will be done,” Jane said in parting, and as she closed the door behind her, she smiled. “Or is it the king’s?”

  “The king?”

  William Shore stared at his erstwhile wife in disbelief. Certes he had known of her attempts to seek an annulment, but as Dean Reynking had not yet summoned him to the Court of Arches to dispute the accusation of impotence, he presumed the cleric had given him the benefit of the doubt and had dismissed Jane, as any sensible man might a whining woman. It astonished him that Jane had succeeded without his testimony. However, the manner in which she had succeeded stunned him even more.

  “The king arranged for a papal dispensation?” he spluttered. “Pray, why would he do that? Why would he care about you—a mere mercer’s wife?” It annoyed him to watch Jane calmly pour herself some ale as though she had merely commented on the weather, and so he went to the window to stare out and organize his reeling thoughts.

  William had not yet connected his meeting with Hastings to the king. He had assumed Hastings had bought his silence so the codding old man could seduce Jane, and he had seen no reason to intervene and ruin his chance to fulfill his latest ambition to grow prosperous with the adventurers abroad. His wife’s charms seemed fair exchange for such professional advantage. He was not as short-sighted as Jane thought; he had sensed the chamberlain’s attraction to Jane from the moment the man had entered the shop on Coleman Street. Had he not encouraged his wife to go on the hunting spree, hoping thus to solicit more business at court? But today’s news that Hastings was acting on the king’s behalf was quite unexpected. Why would Edward concern himself with a subject’s unhappy marriage?

  Before he could come to his own conclusion, Jane broke into his ruminating with a throaty laugh. “Why would he care about me? Is it not obvious?” She mocked him, enjoying herself.

  Then the truth slapped him in the face and he whirled around. “Good Christ! So that is the way of things, is it? The king would have you as leman?” He gave an unpleasant laugh. “My wife a king’s whore?” he sneered. “Why, Mistress Shore, how you have risen in the world.” He glared at her with disgust. “God’s bones, but I am well rid of you!”

  “And I you, William. You cheated me long before I cheated you,” Jane retorted, setting down her cup with purpose. “You cheated me out of a loving coupling, and you cheated me out of children.”

  William ignored her rebuke. “When exactly did you fornicate first with our sovereign?” he spat. “And I am certain he was not the first.”

  It was Jane’s turn to leave fingermarks on the mercer’s face as she reached up and slapped him hard, shocking him into silence.

  “Do you remember your futile journey into Kent in February?” she asked. “Aye, I see you do. How do you think that was arranged?”

  William fondled his stinging cheek and seethed inside. He had wondered briefly at the time whether Hastings had sent him on a fool’s errand, but the man had been in Calais and so William had dismissed his suspicion. He glowered at Jane. “Wait until I tell your father,” he threatened, hoping to instill some fear in this defiant woman.

  Jane laughed. “My father has never cared for me, William. I was lost to him when I was but a child. And being as greedy as you, he may well see advantages to my being close to the king.” She picked up her cloak and flung it about her shoulders. “I came here to tell you the truth before you heard the talk in the taverns. The king has shown me more kindness in one meeting than you have in a whole year. I bid you farewell, and God speed on your new venture. You may deliver my few belongings to The Mermaid, where I shall stay for now.” She pulled off her wedding ring and placed it on the table. “Never let it be said I took anything from you.”

  “I should never have agreed to marry you.” William scowled as he watched her glide from the room. “A pox on all women.”

  Events happened so quickly for Jane after that, she hardly had time to contemplate the dramatic changes in her life. Edward’s ardent wooing flattered and delighted her. He kept his promise to the queen not to set up Jane in an apartment in the palace, as he had done with Elizabeth Wayte, but found her a small but well-appointed house near Hastings’s residence on Thames Street.

  “ ’Tis but a stone’s throw from my mother’s castle of Baynard,” Edward told her after a satisfying afternoon in his bed. “You may not want to walk too close when she is in residence, which, thank the good Lord, is not often these days. You will meet her one day, Jane, and rest assured she will know who you are. Cecily Neville has her spies everywhere to keep her eye on her ‘boys.’ She does not approve of my way of life, which is a pity, because I believe she would like you, if the two of you could sit down for a conversation.”

  Jane resolved to avoid the duchess. “Your royal mother has quite a reputation, my lord. I cannot think what I would say to a duchess, let alone she who is known as Proud Cis. Why, she could have been our queen.”

  Edward grinned. “Aye, she never lets people forget she is queen by right, much to my queen’s irritation.” He rolled onto his stomach. “Mother has never quite been the same since my father and my brother Edmund were killed. Her life is now all prayer and seclusion. However, she can still reduce me, George, and Richard to puling boys when she wants to. But enough of her, we were talking of your house.”

  Jane kneaded the thick muscles of Edward’s back, her hair caressing his shoulders, and she followed the several battle scars on his arms with her finger, trying to imagine her lover wielding his heavy sword and fending off the blows from another equally heavy weapon. How such a warrior could also be so gentle with her between the sheets she found intriguing and endearing.

  “A house of my own.” She savored the words. This was not a house of her father nor of a husband where she would be subservient, but one that she would run, where she could do as she pleased. She shivered with delight, and Edward rolled over, pulling her to him, thinking she was cold.

  “Does that please you, my dear?” he asked, fondling her backside with his big hands. “ ’Tis not a very large house, but I dare not spend any more of my hard-won French pension on my mistress.”

  Jane laughed. “The only way you know how to win hard, your grace, is here in bed.” Did she really say that? Sweet Jesu, she had dared to poke fun at the king and the failed French expedition. She held her breath.

  Edward laughed so heartily he began to cough, and Jane found herself bounced off his ample belly and onto her side. She jumped off the bed and poured him some ale. “Your pardon, my lord. I regret I was disrespectful. Am I wrong to tease your grace?”

  Edward downed the bitter brew and grasped her wrist. “ ’Tis what I love about you, Jane. You are fearless, and you treat me not as your king but like a man. You make me laugh, and you warm my heart as well as my bed.” He flopped back onto the pillow, and Jane crawled back beside him, pulling the bedsheet over them both. “But I must caution you not to speak to me so playfully in front of the queen. She does not have my sense of humor. In truth, she does not have much sense of humor at all, and so I shall come to you on Thames Street, where we can be ourselves and merry.”

  “I should like that, your grace. I should like that very much,” Jane said simply, and kissed his stubbled cheek, grateful for Edward’s love.

  Jane soon adapted to her new life on Thames Street, hiring a steward, Martin, a cook, a groom, and a chamberer, who was under Ankarette’s stern direction. Ankarette slept on a pallet in Jane’s bedchamber, unless Will was there, when she shared Cook’s and Martin’s room under the eaves. Jane relished having a separate bedchamber from the solar and used the money Edward had given her to drape the tester bed with soft silks and the walls with tapestries of mythological scenes, her favorite of which depicted the sea nymph Galatea and her young lover, Acis. When Will Hastings had visited to make sure she was comfortable, he found himself curiously reluctant to ask if she had chosen it because of his likening her to a nymph. He wondered if Jane thought on him as the spurned old giant Cyclops,
who had attempted to woo the beautiful Galatea with music and delicate foods. He could not think that Edward was the youthful Acis, however, and so dismissed the analogy, unaware of Jane’s secret passion for her Acis ideal, his stepdaughter’s husband.

  Edward spared her from court gossip for a few months while he spent time with her on Thames Street in between forays out of London, once for the annual St. George’s Day ceremony at Windsor. “I cannot wait to show you off, my rose of London,” he said one day in May, “but I shall not inflict that burden on you until I believe you are ready.” He twisted his mouth into an amused grimace. “And when I think Elizabeth can tolerate you.”

  Subtlety was not one of Edward’s virtues, and Jane lowered her head and pretended to concentrate on tying the neck ribbon on her shift to hide her shame. Aye, she was reminded again, she would be naught but a harlot in Elizabeth Woodville’s eyes. But she was the royal mistress and must accept the consequences; she would not exchange her old life for any amount of respectability. How she looked forward to Edward’s visits, responding to his ardor with an eager thirst to learn more about pleasing him and even more about her own awakening sensuality.

  However, it must be said that each time Edward left her Jane did experience a few twinges of guilt before a larger, aching regret suffused her that her lover was not Tom Grey. She pondered whether he even knew of her new status, but decided that between Edward and Will, he was bound to have been informed. Would he care? That was the question that clawed at her now that she had the leisure for such thoughts.

  Jane would have been gratified to know that the marquess of Dorset had undertaken to look into the matter of Mistress Shore. He had wandered into the Shore shop and pretended to look for some lace one day a few weeks after he had witnessed Jane leaving Westminster. “I was told Mistress Shore has the best eye for such things,” he told William innocently. “Is she here?”

  William was flustered; he detested the position in which Jane had placed him. “She is no longer my wife, my lord. I do not know where she is,” William lied. He had been told to say this by Lord Hastings no matter who the speaker. Hastings had been as good as his word, and preparations were going along nicely for William’s departure for the Lowlands. He had recovered from his outrage and was much more content celibate.

  Despite the man’s fine clothes and aristocratic air, which usually would have made William grovel for a possible sale, he wanted no reminders of his wagtail wife and hoped the courtier would leave. Bowing low, he pretended that he had another customer waiting.

  Tom closed the door quietly behind him and walked down Coleman Street toward the Chepe, his mind turning over snippets of conversation he had overheard at court: the king was certainly merrier these days; Will Hastings was seen twice at an unfamiliar house on Thames Street; and he himself had been surprised when Edward had declined a bawdy evening in the city. Could the king have found himself a new mistress? And could that woman be Jane Shore? It was unlike the king to hide his paramours, which had sometimes infuriated Tom on behalf of his mother, but there had been no evidence of a new interest, just rumors. If it were true, and Jane that woman, it would mean that her profession of love for him had been but a ruse to release her from her humdrum life. But vain Tom Grey would not countenance such a ploy; had he not seen the truth in those marvelous green eyes?

  Tom had been bored of late. Solving the mystery of the mistress might alleviate his ennui, he mused, kicking a mangy dog off the carcass of some unrecognizable animal. And if Jane were that woman, how amusing to win her back from the king. He relished the challenge, and grinning to himself, he set off toward Thames Street. A visit to his stepfather-in-law might provide a clue.

  But Will Hastings was unusually taciturn that day, neatly evading Tom’s prying questions and sending the young man away disappointed.

  “Mistress Shore, what a pleasure to see you,” her father’s journeyman Matthew greeted her in the Lambert shop one rainy day in May. Jane smiled as the man and the other apprentices gathered around to welcome her back. She guessed the word had reached them about her divorce, but they appeared genuinely pleased to see her.

  “ ’Tis good to see you all again,” she said. “Is my father here?”

  “I am here, daughter,” her father’s voice boomed down from the top of the staircase leading to the room where, only nine months before, she had sat in her green-and-golden dress to watch the king’s procession. “What brings you back? Have you run out of money?”

  Jane’s smile faded along with those of the employees, who scattered at the sound of John Lambert’s raised voice. She mounted the stairs and at the top came face-to-face with her scowling parent. “God’s greeting to you, Father,” she said pleasantly, staring her father down. How strange, she thought, for the first time I am not afraid of him. From his questions, she concluded William had not revealed her latest status. “I am here to buy stuff for two new gowns, and I would also have you recommend the best tailor. I need them a fortnight hence.”

  John lowered his voice to a hiss so he might not be overheard: “You want what? My recommendation for a tailor. How dare you, madam! How dare you set foot in my shop after you have shamed your mother and me with your annulment—falsely come by, so I hear.”

  “Then you heard wrong, sir. I was granted an annulment legally by the courts and with a papal blessing. William did not contest it. You cared not that you wedded me to an unfit husband and that I have been denied my rights as a woman and a mother. Both you and William betrayed me.”

  John ignored her accusations. “ ’Tis all over the Mercery that you have taken up with some popinjay from Westminster, selling yourself like a common whore,” he said, outraged. “Is that who is paying for your gowns? If so, I do not want his sordid money. And you will get no credit here.”

  Strangely, his scorn and belittling failed to move Jane. She suddenly felt a rush of power in front of the man who had made her feel a failure all her life. She could not resist the sweet revenge in breaking the news herself. It would be about town soon, she had no doubt, so why not begin the delicious story here and now, from the horse’s . . . nay, whore’s mouth. Her tongue relished every word of her annoucement. “The popinjay from Westminster, Father, is none other than our sovereign lord King Edward himself.” She smiled sweetly. “Are you certain you will not take his money?”

  John fell backward onto a chair, speechless for once. Jane continued in a falsely pleasant tone as she turned to descend the stairs. “I am certain Matthew will help me with my purchases. There is no need for you to concern yourself any longer on my behalf. I pray you, tell Mother and Isabel that I am well and that I shall visit them anon.”

  She thought she heard her father’s strangled “Aye,” but she could not be sure over the loud beating of her heart. It had taken a sleepless night and an act of courage to face her father, and now she finally felt free of him.

  Later, when she received her friend Will Hastings in her sunny solar, she related the story, laughing merrily over her own bravery. Will was delighted by Jane. How he enjoyed his short visits to her pleasant solar and made a point of stopping there on his way home whenever he was not needed at Westminster. He would slip in through the back garden gate in case his wife had set spies on him. Ever since Jane Shore had come into his and Edward’s lives, Katherine Hastings had nagged him about her. He knew she believed Jane was his latest conquest, and there were times when he was tempted out of impatience to lie and claim Jane was indeed his mistress. He admired Katherine’s Neville lineage and her intelligence, but he knew her for a spiteful witch upon occasion and had chastised her often for her coldhearted treatment of a servant. Jane Shore’s kind heart was a welcome respite from his wife’s sharp tongue.

  “Were you listening, my lord?” Jane enquired, amused. “Your attention seems to have flown up the chimney with the cinders. Did you hear that I stood up to my father?”

  He took her hand and raised it to his lips. “Aye, sweeting, I did. How old were you whe
n you first decided to be a rebel, Jane Shore?” Then he laughed at her astonishment.

  Edward sent a barge for Jane, not his royal barge, but it was as elegant a conveyance as Jane had ever traveled in. She now counted John Norrys among her admirers, as Edward’s squire had continued to be a conduit between the palace and Thames Street and had grown to like the sunny disposition of his master’s latest conquest. Jane always asked about his family, how his little son was faring, and complimented him on some new bonnet he was sporting. And he liked that Jane would insist on serving him ale or wine herself when he came bearing a message or to escort her to Edward. “She puts on no airs,” he had confided to his fellow squire of the body, Sir Walter Hungerford, “but is always ready to laugh.”

  Jane settled into the cushions on the curtained vessel and watched the scores of small boats, wherries, and shouts ply the brown water of the Thames. Several washerwomen were slapping clothes against the rocks on the south bank, exchanging gossip and shouting a greeting to a boatman passing by. It was only early June, but the heat had been relentless and had sent the queen and her household down the river to her Placentia Palace of Greenwich, allowing Edward to entertain Jane for the first time at a small feast he was giving in honor of the visiting envoy from Brittany.

  “I think ’tis time the court makes your acquaintance, dear Jane,” Edward had decided after a night spent in her bedchamber. “By now you are hardly my best-kept secret. I want to acknowledge you, but I needed the queen to be absent, you see.”

  Hastings hid a smile. Nicely put, your grace, he thought.

  Jane remembered now the evening at her house, when they had entertained Will Hastings as though they were a merchant and his wife. The two men had praised her cook’s culinary efforts and had laughed at Ankarette’s clumsy service as she attempted to control her shaking hands. Jane smiled to herself. Edward had been the very essence of kindness to Jane’s maid, and after a few spills, Ankarette had settled down and even earned the king’s praise and a shilling for her efforts.