After the meal she went to Charles’s room and was happy to find him alone, reading over the little catechism he had been given at Moseley. He took her into his arms and kissed her, then led her to the window seat.
“What a lovely room!” she said, admiring the garden below and the view beyond, down the hill and southwest, the sun slanting over the fields. “I could stay forever here!”
“Let us hope you shall not have to, and nor shall I.” Charles laughed.
“What did Colonel Wyndham say?” she asked. “Can he help you?”
He grinned, seeming more relaxed than she had yet seen him. “He has a friend who he is confident can get a boat for me, and will go to see him tomorrow. Oh, Jane, I am almost home free.”
“Yes,” said Jane. “Almost there,” and her heart contracted. “Oh, Charles, what shall I do without you?” She looked to him, love and longing welling up and filling her as she gazed on his face.
He chucked her under the chin and took her hand. “Why, sweetheart, you shall do very well, just as you did before ever I came to disrupt your life.”
Jane tried to smile but tears filled her eyes and she choked back a sob before she replied.
“But now I know what life can be, what happiness is, how can I return to things as they were?”
Charles looked down at his feet, scuffing a leaf from the sole of one shoe with the toe of the other, and he sighed.
“It cannot be helped, sweeting. You know it as well as I. You have hazarded your life for me already as it is, and now you must return to your family and safety.”
“I know,” Jane wept softly. “But I don’t want to.”
He kissed her hand and brushed the tears from her cheeks. “No more do I. But let us not think on it until we must.” He cupped her chin in his hand and kissed her. “We have tonight at least.”
“I don’t want to wait until tonight,” she said, desire racing through her at the heat of his lips on hers. “Lie with me now. I ache for your touch.”
“I need no second invitation to a repose so sweet,” Charles murmured. He pulled her to him and kissed her deeply, his hands entangled in her hair. He rose and led her towards the little bedchamber that lay a step up from the main room, but before they reached the stair, they were startled by a sudden loud clanging of bells. It was not a simple tolling of the hour but a wild clamour, and now shouts and singing could be heard. They went to the window. Smoke rose near the church steeple that stood only a few dozen paces away, but the trees obscured their view of whatever might be happening. The noise of the unseen crowd grew louder, and Charles hastened to the door of the chamber.
“Eleanor,” he said to the maid who waited outside. “Pray find out the cause of that noise. Belike it tokens some important news.”
The bells jangled on, ringing out the same cascading peal over and over. Ten or fifteen minutes passed before Eleanor reappeared, her broad face red with emotion.
“Oh, Your Majesty,” she whispered. “It is people from the village here, met to welcome a crowd of soldiers just come. They have lit a bonfire and are dancing. They are rejoicing …”
She stopped and began to weep.
“At what?” Charles prompted. She looked at him, her eyes dark with sorrow and anger.
“At the news of your death, Your Majesty. There is one great ruffian, a soldier in a buff coat, roaring that he slew you and took the coat from your body. And the villains, they drink his health and cheer him.”
She wiped her eyes with her apron, shaking her head in disbelief.
“Alas, poor people,” Charles said softly. He took the maid’s hand, and she raised her eyes to his. “Let it trouble thee not, good Eleanor, for your care and kindness outweigh what they do in their ignorance.”
Jane took her supper with Charles in his chamber, feeling like a queen as Eleanor and the other maid, Joan, hovered solicitously. Wyndham, Wilmot, and Henry joined them at the table after supper.
“I doubt not that we shall find a boat for Your Majesty within a day or two,” Wyndham said, lighting a long-stemmed clay pipe and blowing a puff of grey-blue smoke.
“And the sooner the better,” Wilmot said. “Your Majesty, being forth today I have learned ill news.”
Jane felt her stomach heave with worry. Had Charles’s presence been discovered? If he was not safe here, where could he hide, with so many soldiers nearby, and the people of the village still celebrating his supposed death?
“The Earl of Derby was arrested near Kinver after he left us at Whiteladies,” Wilmot said.
“Ah, dear God, no,” Henry groaned.
“He was taken first to Whitechurch,” Wilmot continued, “and then to an inn at Banbury. He tried to escape when he was being removed to Chester Castle, but was caught.”
“Was he killed?” Colonel Wyndham asked, his face white. Wilmot shook his head.
“No. But he is to be tried on charges of treason on the first of October.”
Charles rose and went to the window and stood staring out. The moon, almost full, was just rising golden next to the church steeple, its bells silent now. Charles exhaled heavily, and ran a hand through his hair in agitation before he spoke. “A trial that must surely end in his conviction and death.”
They sat silent for a few moments. The fire crackled and hissed, and a burning log shifted with a snap. The sweet scent of Wyndham’s tobacco mingled with the tang of the cool night air.
“And, I am sorry to say,” Wilmot continued softly, “the Duke of Hamilton died on Friday of the wounds he had at Worcester.”
Jane sent up a silent prayer for the duke, one more life given in service of the king. Was it all for nothing, this suffering? she wondered. Please, God, let it not be in vain.
“On Friday,” Charles said, his voice hollow. “The day we came to Bristol.” He bowed his head as if in prayer. “Alas for Hamilton and for Derby. God, that so many brave and good men should lose their lives for their help to me.”
“I doubt not that they go to their deaths willingly,” Colonel Wyndham said. “Knowing that the cause they serve is great.”
Charles sat and took Jane’s hand in his. She noted the other men take in the gesture. Colonel Wyndham’s eyes showed a brief flash of surprise. Henry breathed in sharply and looked away. Wilmot only raised an eyebrow and gave her a faint smile.
The king’s whore … Was that what they were thinking? she wondered.
Wyndham drew on his pipe and blew out a smoke ring.
“Before these wars began,” he said, “my father, knowing he was ill and soon to die, summoned my four brothers and me. He put us in mind of the many years of peace England had enjoyed under her last three monarchs, but bid us prepare for cloudy and troublesome times ahead. ‘I command you to honour and obey our gracious sovereign,’ he said, ‘and at all times to adhere to the crown, and though the crown should hang on a bush, I charge you forsake it not.’”
“Well remembered,” Charles nodded. “That the crown so hung upon a bush on the field at Bosworth when Richard fell, and that Henry Tudor plucked it forth and raised it once again to honour.”
“Just so,” Wyndham said. “And when my honoured father’s prophecies came true and war rent the land, we heeded him. Three of my brothers and one of their sons fell in fighting for Your Majesty’s father.” Henry and Wilmot murmured in sympathy.
“God grant that I may be worthy of such sacrifice,” Charles said, clasping Wyndham’s hand. “And live to do your family the honour it deserves.”
“Amen to that,” Wilmot said.
“Give me but ten or twelve thousand men as stouthearted as those by the name of Wyndham, Lane, and Lascelles,” Charles said, looking from face to face, “and I will return and sweep all before me, and pluck the crown from the bush once more.”
“We will stand with you, Sire,” Henry said, “when that happy day comes. But what may we do now to help Your Majesty to safety? Will we ride with you to the coast?”
“Henry,” Charles replied, �
��you and Jane have done such signal service that there are none could hope to do more, and I hope that I may live to thank you as I would. But I think that your task is now at an end.” His eyes met Jane’s, and she knew he was about to speak the words she dreaded to hear.
“Colonel Wyndham and good Wilmot have the matter in hand,” Charles said, “and I do not wish to endanger you further than I already have.”
“But surely there is something we can do?” Jane cried. She could hear the note of desperation in her voice, and saw Wyndham and Wilmot exchange a glance.
“No,” Charles said softly. “Go home and be safe. That is what you can do for me now, Jane.”
“Then we’ll ride tomorrow.” Henry nodded. “And keep you in our prayers until we learn of your safe deliverance to France.”
Jane went to her own room when the men departed, but when the house was dark and quiet, she crept down the hall to the chamber where Charles lay. She scratched softly at the door, and he opened it, his eyes luminous in the dark. He stood in nothing but his breeches, the moonlight falling softly across the white of his skin, and she threw herself into his arms, her hands urgent on his chest, his back, pulling him to her, offering her mouth up to his. He took her head in his hands and kissed her deeply, his mouth moving to her throat as she arched against him, her insides turning to liquid fire. He stripped the nightgown off over her head and cast it away, his hands caressing her breasts, sweeping down over her belly, her hips and buttocks.
“You are so very beautiful,” he murmured, and she moaned, wanting him inside her, inside her body, her heart, her soul. He knelt and pulled her to him, kissing the thatch of soft hair at the base of her belly, warm fingers sliding into the cleft of her thighs, caressing the slick wetness so that she whimpered with desire. He swept her up into his arms and carried her to the bed, threw off his breeches, knelt between her legs, and entered her so hard that she cried out. He stifled her mouth with a hand, and she gasped as he thrust, filling her, staking her to the bed with his passion.
“I cannot wait, my sweet, my sweet, you are so sweet,” he whispered, moving inside her, and she found herself arching up to him, pulling him down to her, wanting him so deeply inside her that it felt as if they were one. She tore at his back with her fingernails and he rode her hard, urgently, slamming into her so that she felt the insides of her thighs bruising from his battering thrusts.
A wave rose and rose within her, colours swam in her head, and she gasped and bucked, almost weeping with the intensity of the pleasure. The same wave was carrying him, and they exploded together, his mouth on hers, devouring her even as he groaned in his crisis.
They lay still joined, his weight crushing her, his hands caressing her face as their breath slowly returned to normal. She felt the damp of their commingled sweat cool in the breeze from the open window. He stirred to move, and she pulled him tight to her, grasping his buttocks, wanting him never to leave the haven of her body. He looked down at her and kissed her again, moving his hips against her, and she felt him rising to hardness again. She reached down and took him in her hand, marvelling as the shaft became engorged and stiff, pulsing between her fingers. She guided him into her again and he gasped as he slid into the tight scabbard of her flesh. This second coupling was slower, endless, wordless, their eyes holding each other’s even as their bodies merged.
“Oh, Jane, I love you.”
He spoke so low that she could scarce hear him, but he had said the words, and she grasped him to her.
When at last they had spent again, they lay entwined in each other’s arms, the moonlight spilling across the bed, Charles murmuring endearments through the tangle of Jane’s hair. Through the night they made love. Jane climbed astride Charles, riding him, moving herself up and down his length, first slowly so that he groaned with aching for more, then faster and faster, his hands pulling her down onto him so that she felt impaled there. She took him into her mouth as he had shown her until he grew hard again, wondered as he guided her to lie on her front and slipped a pillow beneath her belly, shuddered as he thrust deep within her, touching places she had not known existed. She wondered if she would ever feel so alive again.
At last, at long last, drained and exhausted, they wrapped themselves around each other and slept, until the first birds began to call their greetings to the morning and the golden dawn began to lighten the windows. A bird sang, and Jane thought of Juliet, waking on the morning after her wedding night.
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division,
This doth not so, for she divideth us.
Charles stirred, and eyes still closed, pulled her close against his chest. She inhaled the scent of his hair, his skin, trying to store it in her memory so that she could keep the sense of him close to her when he was gone. She lay with her belly and breasts pressed against him, her arms tight around him, listening to the growing chorus of the birds and feeling the room brighten with the rising sun. The day was coming, and could not be kept at bay, and she felt her heart breaking in her chest.
O, thinkst thou we shall ever meet again?
“Will you give me something of yours?” she whispered. “Your handkerchief? Something that smells of you for me to keep always by me.”
Charles opened his eyes and kissed her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids, before untying the handkerchief he had wrapped around his throat against the cold. He draped it around her neck, and then let his hands drift lower to whisper across her belly and buttocks. His cock was growing again, rising against her, and she stroked its length with delicate fingers. Charles laughed softly.
“You shall have that again if you wish it, too, my sweet, but I have something more lasting to give you.” He reached for his waistcoat hanging on a chair next to the bed, and pulled from the pocket a tiny leather case, studded with silver in a looping pattern. He opened it and drew forth something chestnut-sized and silver.
“My watch,” he said, putting it into her hand. “When I cast off my own clothes at Whiteladies, I gave my Garter and my George—Saint George and the dragon, you know, in gold and diamonds—to Colonel Blague to keep safe for me, and I gave my rings, my snuffbox, all the money I carried save a few shillings to the poor people who were helping me. But though I knew I ought, yet I could not bear to part with this. My father gave it me the last time I saw him.” His eyes shimmered with tears and tenderness filled Jane’s heart.
“Oh, Charles.”
She touched the little engraved silver case, overcome at the thought of his giving her such a gift of himself.
“It is precious to me as you are,” he said. “Wear us both near your heart.”
“I will. Always.” She knotted the watch into the handkerchief and pinned the little bundle to the inside of her stays, retrieved from where they lay on the floor.
“See? It will lie in my bosom.” She stroked his cheek, and he kissed the tips of her fingers. “Think of me and know that however far away you may be, yet you are part of me.”
He held her to him, kissing her lips, her face, her hair. His cock stood hard and throbbing against her belly now, and his breath was coming fast.
“May I take my farewell of thee thus?” he breathed, his hands parting her thighs as he rolled himself atop her once again.
“Yes, my love. With all my heart. Take me, for I am yours.”
They were both crying, and their tears mingled on their cheeks, the taste salty as they ran into Jane’s mouth. Their joining this time was urgent and hungry, and was over soon. Morning light flooded the room.
More light and light, more dark and dark our woes …
“You must be gone,” Charles whispered.
Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death
I am content, so thou wilt have it so …
Jane knew that the moment of parting she had dreaded could be put off no longer. She knew she must rise, but buried her face again
st his chest once more.
“Don’t forget me.” Her voice was thick with grief.
“Oh, Jane, I couldn’t if I tried,” he murmured, his voice husky in her ear. “You have given me my life. You are my life, as much as my breath and heartbeat.”
CHAPTER NINE
JANE’S GREY MARE WAS SADDLED, THE PILLION GIRDED ON, AND the Wyndhams’ servant Peters stood holding its bridle. They were leaving the strawberry roan for the king, and Jane thought she heard its nickering from the stable. Henry swung himself into the saddle and held his hand out, and with Peters’s help, Jane climbed up and settled herself on the pillion, her feet on the little planchette and her skirts smoothed down over her legs.
“Go with God,” Colonel Wyndham said, “and may your way home be safe.”
JANE AND HENRY WOULD TAKE A DIFFERENT ROUTE HOME, BOTH because the more direct route was shorter than the way they had come, and because it would be safer not to pass through Bristol, Cirencester, Stratford-upon-Avon, and all the other towns where they had ridden with Charles, on the chance that someone had noted and wondered about the tall dark servant and might recall them. They travelled more slowly, too, as they could not switch off the heavier weight of the two riders between the horses. They rode north from Trent as if towards Castle Cary, but turned east after only a few miles, and at the end of the first day’s travel they had reached a village called Mere.
The George Inn was the sole place of lodging, and Henry had no sooner procured them two rooms and ordered supper than Jane heard the thunder of horses’ hooves on the road. There was a shouted order, the jangle of bridles and creak of leather as men dismounted, laughter, voices, and the sound of still more horses. The door of the inn flew open and several booted Parliamentary officers strode in and hailed the landlord.
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