My Lady Jane

by Cynthia Hand

  “Jane is a special person to me,” Edward began. “She is . . .”

  There really wasn’t a good enough word to describe Jane.

  “I have yet to meet her,” said Gifford delicately. “But I’m sure she’s very . . . special.”

  “She is.” Edward sat forward in his chair. “What troubles me, Gifford—”

  “Please, call me G,” Gifford interjected.

  Edward frowned. “What troubles me, er . . . G, is that you haven’t been at court these past years, and while I understand why”—he cast Gifford a significant look that said, I know all about the horse thing— “and I know your family to be perfectly respectable and worthy of someone as . . . special as my cousin Jane, I feel that I don’t know you.”

  Then he stopped talking for a minute because Pet, with her tail wagging, had plopped herself down right next to Gifford’s chair—Gifford’s, not Edward’s, mind you—and was staring up at the young lord adoringly. Gifford smiled down on her and reached out to scratch what Edward knew was just the right place behind Pet’s chin.

  She sighed and put her head in his lap.

  Even she couldn’t resist this fellow’s charms.

  Edward started coughing, and then coughing, and then coughing some more, so hard that his eyes watered. When the spasms subsided both Pet and Gifford were looking at him with concern.

  “Anyway,” Edward wheezed. “I want to know, G, that as her husband you will take care of my dear cousin.”

  “Of course,” Gifford said quickly.

  “No,” Edward clarified. “I mean that there will be no one else that you’re going to take care of. Ever. Only Jane.”

  Comprehension dawned in Gifford’s eyes.

  “Jane deserves a devoted and virtuous husband,” Edward continued. “So you will be a devoted and virtuous husband. If I hear even a whisper of anything otherwise I will be very unhappy. And you would not like to see me unhappy.”

  Gifford looked decidedly alarmed, which pleased Edward. He might no longer be strong, but he was still powerful. He smiled. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Gifford said. “I understand, Your Majesty.”

  “Good,” Edward said. “You’re dismissed.”

  Gifford was on his feet, already nearly to the door, when Edward called after him, “Oh, and one more thing.”

  Gifford froze, then turned. “Yes, Your Majesty?”

  “Jane is unaware of your condition. Your . . .”

  Gifford sighed heavily. “Horse curse. My horse curse.”

  “Yes. No one has informed her yet. I want you to be the one to tell her.”

  Gifford’s eyes flashed with something resembling panic. “Me?”

  “She deserves to hear it from her husband,” Edward said. As he spoke the words he thought that this sounded like a very wise idea. A kingly idea. Inspired. “You probably won’t see her before the wedding, I understand, but before the night is through, before you and she . . .” He stopped. He didn’t want to think about the end to that sentence. “You should tell her.”

  There it was again, the doomed look, on Gifford’s too-handsome face. “Have I a choice, Sire?”

  “Do any of us have a choice where destiny is concerned?”

  Gifford lowered his head. “A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm,” he said, his voice building in intensity.

  Edward stared at the young lord for a few long minutes. “I assume that means you’ll tell her.”

  “Yes, Sire,” the young lord mumbled, and took his leave.

  Edward watched from the window as, below in the courtyard, Gifford mounted his horse and galloped off the palace grounds. Edward felt good about how the conversation had gone. Then he crossed to his bed and slung himself down into it.

  Pet came over to lick at his face.

  “Off with you, traitorous dog,” he said, pushing her away playfully, but then he scooted over to make room, and she jumped up beside him.

  FIVE

  Jane

  The wedding day was upon her.

  The ceremony was being held at Durham House, the Dudleys’ London home, which meant on Saturday afternoon Jane was taken across the city by carriage and deposited, along with her mother, the seamstress, and Adella, her lady-in-waiting, into the Dudleys’ family library, which was to serve as a dressing chamber. (Only it didn’t seem as much of a library as it did an unused storage room, somewhat cleared in hasty preparation for the wedding.) Light streamed through the windows, thrown open to let in the breeze. There were bookcases (Jane could almost feel them calling out to her), a stack of wooden trunks, and The Gown waiting on a wire frame.

  “This is so exciting,” chirped Adella as she fluttered around the sunlit room, touching everything as though it were all good luck. Puffs of dust flew up at her fingers. “You’re finally getting married!”

  “Finally,” Jane said, staring at The Gown. It was gold-and-silver brocade, embroidered with diamonds and pearls. (Recall that these were the days before Queen Victoria famously wore a white gown for her wedding and forever changed matrimonial fashion.) It really was a lovely creation, and expensive, no doubt. Perhaps she’d even hear just how expensive if she were to protest this match even further.

  But Edward had asked her, and she would do this for him.

  A knot tightened in her stomach when she thought of Edward.

  Once, when she’d lived with Katherine Parr, when she and Edward had been hiding in the back of the library of Sudeley Castle all afternoon, which they often did, and after she’d started complaining about her many terrible engagements, which she often did, Edward had poked her in the ribs and said, “Such high standards, Jane. Well, I suppose you could always marry me.”

  Back then marriage had seemed to her like a silly game rather than a cage to be locked in, as it was starting to feel now. “That’d be quite a risk you’d take, getting engaged to me,” she’d replied. “You know I bring about the ruin of all of my potential suitors. Besides, I don’t think I’d like to be queen. Too many rules.”

  “Oh, come now, it wouldn’t be so bad.” Edward had tapped her upturned nose and smiled. “We’d have a jolly time together.”

  They’d both laughed like it was a joke, and never spoken of it further, but Jane had thought about it later. That he might have meant it. She’d suspected for a while that Thomas Seymour and her mother were plotting that very thing—sending her to live with the dowager queen to be educated and refined, on the off chance that one day she’d marry Edward and become queen herself.

  He was right, too. It wouldn’t have been so bad, even if it was difficult to think of Edward as anything more than her friend. She’d read about romance, about how your heart was supposed to pound in the presence of your beloved, your breath was supposed to catch, etcetera, etcetera, and she’d never felt anything like that around Edward. But she could think of worse things than marrying her best friend. Far worse things.

  But then Katherine Parr had died in childbirth, and Thomas Seymour had committed treason and lost his head. Jane had been sent back to Bradgate, and her mother had started looking for eligible husbands again.

  And now Edward was dying, and Jane was getting married tonight. Probably.

  Unless some kind of miracle happened.

  Afternoon transformed into evening, and it seemed less likely that a horrible catastrophe would befall the Dudley family and save Jane from her fate. The Gown went on, the green velvet headdress went up, and Jane’s hopes went down.

  The worst part?

  No books.

  Between all the hair plaiting and gown adjusting, Jane let her fingers drift across the book spines on the shelves of the library. History, philosophy, and science: her favorite things. Things that would save her if the wedding got boring.

  “No books.” Lady Frances smacked Jane’s hand away from the gilt-lettered spines. “I will not have my daughter say her vows from behind a dusty old book.”


  “They’d be less dusty if the Dudley family took care of them.” Jane gazed longingly at the literary cornucopia. Indeed dusty, but certainly still in fine enough shape to read a hundred times. “Maybe you’d prefer I brought my knitting.”

  “Watch your mouth. No one likes a sarcastic wife.” A strand of Lady Frances’s brown hair turned gray, as if by magic. (Not actual magic, mind you, but the magic that daughters possess over their mothers. As we all know, the only actual magic is E∂ian magic.)

  At least the wedding meant Jane would no longer live with her mother.

  After a bit more tugging and twisting and distress over Jane’s general flatness of bosom, there was a knock on the library door. “It’s time.”

  A glance at the window revealed dusk had fallen. It was night.

  “What kind of man insists on getting married after dark?” she muttered as she was ushered from the room. A boorish brute, Jane thought. That’s who.

  She shot one last longing look at the neglected books. Maybe, at least, they would come with the husband. They could make a trade. The books for— Well, she would figure out what he wanted. Besides women. Edward had said he would speak to him. Even someone like Gifford couldn’t say no to his king.

  Jane couldn’t seem to catch her breath. (And it wasn’t just that her corset was too tight, although it was. Extremely.)

  She’d always known she’d have to get married, of course. The string of destitute ex-fiancés could not continue forever.

  But to someone who’d spent time with dozens—maybe hundreds—of women, how could she compare? To Gifford, what would she be but another woman and the end to his debauchery? He’d resent her every day of their marriage, and not just because of her narrow (unsuitable for childbearing) hips and her odd red hair.

  Jane tried to drag her feet on her way to the great room, but her mother hurried her along and sooner than seemed possible, they stood near the wide double doors, both thrown open to release the sound of music and voices. Flickering candlelight cast a haunting glow over Edward, who was waiting for her. He smiled and stood when she arrived, using the armrests for support as he did. “You look beautiful, Jane.”

  “You look—” Jane didn’t finish her thought. Today he was wearing the royal regalia, the crown and coat and gold dagger, all the fashion required of a king about to give away his cousin at the altar, but underneath the layers of brocade and fur, he still looked thin. Sick. Dying.

  “I know.” He plucked the end of his fur-lined coat between his white-gloved fingers. “I look as handsome and regal as ever. But don’t stare. You’ll embarrass me.”

  Jane mustered a smile.

  “Now, Jane,” Lady Frances said after all the appropriate greetings and genuflections to the king were made, “try to be happy. This is your wedding day!”

  Jane exchanged a look with Edward and rolled her eyes as her mother and lady-in-waiting went into the great room to take their places. Jane made sure to stay out of the line of sight from the guests. As soon as she appeared, people would expect her to begin the long trek to her betrothed.

  “Jane,” Edward said when they were alone. “I wouldn’t ask this of you unless it was important.”

  “I know.” She didn’t need a repeat of yesterday’s conversation.

  “I did speak to him,” Edward said. “His nights of carousing are over.”

  “The nights of carousing that have already occurred can never be undone.” She tried to cross her arms, but the embroidered gems caught so she left her hands at her sides. If she ruined The Gown before she’d even said her vows, her mother would never let her forget it. “He’s a dissolute man, a reprobate, a—”

  She’d run out of synonyms. That was disappointing.

  “Janey—” Edward coughed into a handkerchief that was already speckled with pink.

  She waited a moment, unsure whether to help or say something about his condition, but as he stuffed the handkerchief back into a pocket, his face was red with the exertion or embarrassment or both. Instead, she jumped on to the next subject that would help take both of their minds off his affliction. “So, you saw Gifford. Prepare me: how bad is the nose?”

  A general flurry of motion came from the great room, and Jane realized that she’d moved within view of the wedding guests.

  Edward’s eyebrows raised. “I guess you’re about to find out.”

  With a sigh, Jane picked up her bouquet—White Roses of York and cowslips—and took her place by the king’s side. Arm in arm, they entered the great room. It was filled with people, all of them staring at her. What she wouldn’t give for a book to hide behind. She’d have brought a spare book for Edward, too, though perhaps he was more used to the attention, what with being king.

  Hundreds of candles lit the great room, a line of them illuminating a path to the altar, where a priest and the groom waited. There were even more candles behind them, which made it impossible to really get a good look at her betrothed.

  Together, Jane and Edward made a slow, stately march down the aisle, ignoring the murmurs about how the king seemed sickly, and how the color of her gown made her hair look court-jester red, and how odd and hasty this wedding was. Jane tried to shrink into The Gown.

  Then, much too soon, they’d reached the altar and Edward took one of Jane’s hands. “To you, Lord Gifford Dudley, I give my cousin and dearest friend, Lady Jane Grey.” Before Jane’s hand was passed from one man to the other, she gave Edward a light squeeze and blinked away the tears prickling at the backs of her eyes. This couldn’t be happening. Not really.

  “Thank you.” Gifford’s voice was deep, but his tone completely bland as he took Jane’s hand and helped her up the step where she stood before him at last.

  She looked up. And up. And nearly crushed her wedding bouquet.

  Gifford Dudley was unfairly handsome: impressively tall and well shaped around the neck and shoulders, with glossy chestnut hair tied into a short ponytail, and expressive brown eyes. And his nose. His nose. It was perfectly shaped: not too long or short, not too plump or skinny, and even the pores were discreet. There was no trace of the Dudley Nose Curse.

  Praise all the gods and saints, Lord Gifford Dudley may have had an unfortunate name, but he did not have the nose. She wanted to sing. She wanted to spin around to where Edward was taking a seat in the front and tell him all about Gifford’s perfect nose.

  It was a miracle. A marvel. A wonder. A relief. After all, she would be expected to kiss this man by the end of the ceremony, and the last thing she needed was to lose an eye. Then again, she might have expected he’d be free of the curse, or there would be a lot of one-eyed women in England.

  The elation drained out of her.

  Well, so he was handsome. Good for him. It wasn’t as though there weren’t other handsome men in the world—men who didn’t spend every night with a new woman. His perfect nose did not excuse his poor behavior.

  For his part, Gifford did not seem to find her appearance remarkable. Of course not. Few did, unless they were commenting on the hair.

  The wedding continued, and Jane dared a glance at the guests. Edward sat stiffly in his chair, his mouth drawn tight like he was in some kind of pain. Her mother sat with the groom’s family; Jane recognized Lord Dudley and his wife, who leaned away from each other, which did not bode well for the marriage Gifford must have grown up observing. Lady Dudley sat close to a young girl, who clutched a doll in one arm and gave a shy wave. Then there was Stan and his wife, both with stiff postures and haughty faces, and a young child between them, toddling on the pew. If Stan remembered his crass assumptions about Jane the other day, he gave no indication, but Jane allowed her eyes to narrow at him slightly as the priest began declaring the all wonders of holy matrimony.

  First, true love. No danger of that here. Gifford was staring over her shoulder, a bored, put-upon look on his face. Still bitter about what he and Edward had talked about, undoubtedly.

  Second, virtue. Jane snorted, drawing Looks. From her m
other especially, who developed another gray hair.

  Third, progeny. Jane blanched and went cold. She’d almost managed to forget about that part of marriage. Children. The making of. She would be expected to produce a child. Children. Plural. After all, Jane had no brother, which meant it would be her job to conceive heirs for the Grey estate. The fact that women often died having babies, or shortly thereafter—she was thinking of Edward’s mother, who’d lived only a few days before departing this world—was alarming enough, while having multiple children was just tempting fate multiple times. Especially considering her deficiency in the childbearing-hips department.

  But even that was a worry for another time. Because as the priest droned on about the joy of children, how every child would strengthen the bond between the parents, Jane realized that tonight there would be . . .

  That was, she—they—would have to . . .

  Gifford looked rather stricken, too, as though the idea of the two of them . . . creating offspring had not yet occurred to him, either.

  Jane clenched her jaw. So she had red hair and he preferred brunettes. Was she that unattractive that even someone as questionably virtuous as Gifford the Carouser would not want to— She couldn’t even think it. Not now. What had her mother called it?

  The very special hug.

  When she’d been engaged to Humphrey Hangrot, her mother had tried to prepare her for the wedding night.

  “The very special hug might be unpleasant,” Lady Frances had said. “But it’s part of the wedding night, and part of your duty as a wife. You’ll need to produce as many heirs as you can manage. The event itself will be over quickly, at least. Don’t think too much about it.”

  Jane had just stared at her mother, mortified, and later tracked down every book on anatomy that had ever been written. There were the obvious differences between a man’s body and a woman’s body, ones anyone could notice. And then, she’d discovered the not-so-evident differences. It hadn’t taken long to figure out what went where, and what a terrifying thing the very special hug must be for a woman.

  And now, as the priest announced it was time for the vows, Jane’s stomach knotted and the bouquet slipped in her sweaty hands.