Her Highness, the Traitor - By Susan Higginbotham Page 0,21
made for me in Kent. It’s almost new.”
“It should have stayed in Kent. It’s not a style that suits anyone under thirty, don’t you see? You should wear a French hood. Your hair is your greatest beauty; it should be displayed as it is now.”
In my distress at my clinging costume, I had forgotten about my dark brown, hip-length hair, which was bared for all of the court to see. “But—”
“It’s too late, anyway. Who is that young man staring at you?”
“Sir John Dudley.” He’d been knighted by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, while serving in France just over a year before. “He is my father’s ward. I am to marry him.”
“Have you known him long?”
“Since I was three. We were raised together. We are almost like brother and sister.”
Anne snorted. “My brother assuredly does not look at me the way that Sir John is looking at you.” She raised her chin. “Get Sir John over here. Do this.” She tilted her head slightly and sent a signal with her eyes.
I obeyed. My version of this was a poor one, but it actually did bring John over. I had not seen him in a number of months, as I was a recent arrival at court, and he had been there for some time now. At the tournament, he had just been another knight in armor; now that he was in his ordinary clothes, I saw he had grown lean and muscular. I felt the stirring of a feeling I did not fully understand, except to know it was not sisterly.
Men’s eyes usually lingered upon Anne; John’s did not. Instead, he nodded to her politely and turned to me, barely acknowledging her departure as someone claimed her for the dance that was just beginning. “Jane?” he said as ladies and gentleman milled around and jostled us. “You’re beautiful.”
“It’s just the dress.”
“No. It’s you. Let’s dance.”
This was odd, indeed. John was a passable dancer, but he had never been an enthusiastic one. I obeyed him without comment, however, and we joined the pavane.
I could perform all of the intricate steps without thinking about them, which was fortunate, because John and I never took our eyes off each other. The odd feeling I had when I’d looked at John earlier was spreading throughout my entire body. I could not imagine how it was not visible to the entire company. When the dance was over and we had made our obeisances to each other and to the king and queen, John took my hand and we hastened, without a word, outside the great hall and into a dark corner, where we came instantly into each other’s arms and kissed until we were breathless.
“Do you want to go back to the feast?” John whispered at last.
“No.”
John said nothing more, but took me by my hand and led me off. I knew instinctively where he was taking me, and I did not care. His chamber was not in the palace itself, but in some outbuildings built to handle the excess of courtiers. The twists and turns and flights of stairs we had to take to reach our destination did nothing to dilute our passion; indeed, once in a while we would stop our progress at a particularly inviting dark spot and kiss again. At last, John stopped in front of a door, turned a key, and guided me inside. It was the tiniest of chambers, just large enough to hold a stand and a narrow bed. There was nowhere to sit but on the bed, and after we had sat there and kissed a while, there was nothing for us to do but lie upon it and kiss some more. Nothing, once we lay down and the only thing that stood between John and me were two flimsy layers of cloth, for him to do but to strip me bare of them and then, at my soft urgings, to take my maidenhead.
I blame the dress completely.
The next day, John had a word with my father, and a month later, we were married. No one could have suspected, as we exchanged our vows and as the guests watched us shyly settle into our marriage bed after the priest blessed it, that we’d already consummated our relationship. No one, that is, except for Anne Boleyn, who had winked at me as I crept back in the direction of the maidens’ chamber late that night.