at least dress first?’ the duke drawled, with a lazy smile.
‘Your mother will have clothes enough for you,’ Charles retorted. ‘Do not wear my patience too thin. My guards will escort you from the estate. I do not wish to look upon you a moment longer.’
Buckingham’s smile broadened as he swept a deep bow, then strutted from the room, the four yeomen following close behind.
‘Forgive me, Your Grace, but was that wise? That villain would have murdered the King, stolen the late Queen’s jewels. He is as deadly as a serpent – more so, now that he is out of your grasp.’
Charles smiled and patted Felton’s arm. ‘You have ever been a loyal servant, John. I will make sure you are rewarded richly for your pains – yes, even though you protest,’ he added. ‘But you must trust me in this. I am not so foolish – or so forgiving – as you suppose. I spoke truth when I said that I do not wish to see my father vexed at such a time. He is dying.’ The prince turned anguished eyes to Frances. ‘The very thing that we tried to prevent by staying an earthly hand has been inflicted by a heavenly one. My father will not leave this place alive.’ He struggled to master himself.
‘I am sorry, Your Grace,’ she replied, with genuine feeling. Despite everything she had suffered at the King’s hands, she could not but share his son’s sorrow.
‘You must rest assured – all of you – that when I am king, I will suck the lifeblood from Buckingham, just as he meant to suck my father’s from him. Not by violent means,’ he insisted, catching Felton’s expression, ‘but by gradually depriving him of his power. That is what drives him, even more than riches. I will see him suffer the torment of knowing he will never claw back what he has lost.’
Frances knew the prince was right and admired his perception. Being stripped of his influence would be a greater torture than anything that the Tower gaolers could inflict upon the duke. Yet still she felt that gnawing, almost primeval desire for revenge. She would pray that God might forgive her – that, in time, He might lead her down a more righteous path.
‘I must go to my father now,’ Charles said, interrupting her thoughts.
Frances and Kate dropped a deep curtsy as he walked from the room. Left alone with her old friend, Frances felt suddenly afraid. Had she believed her husband’s words? She had imagined the horror in Kate’s eyes as he had spoken them. If so, she could surely never forgive her.
Frances was startled by the warmth of Kate’s hand in hers. She looked up and saw that her friend was smiling. ‘I have missed you, Frances,’ she whispered.
CHAPTER 62
27 March
‘Is your wife here, Tom?’
‘She is, Your Grace,’ Thomas replied. He led Frances to his master’s bedside and she lowered herself onto the chair. Her husband had been shocked at hearing of her voyage to France, of everything that had passed since then. But his anger at the risk she had taken had soon been replaced by admiration for her courage – then joy and gratitude for the outcome. Any hurt he had felt at her concealing it from him had dissipated when the prince had told him how he had ordered her to say nothing of it, even to him.
At first, the King had bemoaned his favourite’s absence, but the constant steady presence of his son had soothed him, as had that of his master of the buckhounds. Frances had thrilled to see how, freed from the duke’s corrupting influence, James’s esteem for her husband had flourished once more. He had asked for him constantly these past three weeks.
He had asked for Frances, too. When she had first been summoned to attend the dying King, she had refused, fearing it was a trick. But the prince had convinced her that his father’s request was genuine – that he knew of no one else who might ease his suffering. The irony was not lost on her that a king who had spent so much of his life hunting down witches had summoned one to attend him in his final days.
‘I have brought more of the tincture, Your Grace,’ she said now, pouring a little of the mixture into a glass and diluting it with water. ‘The gardens here have kept me supplied with all manner of precious herbs.’