“I know what you mean.” Harry lifted his hand from mine and patted me on the cheek. “Don’t tire yourself with talking. All sorts of people have been inquiring about your health. The lady Mary, the Duchess of Northumberland, your stepmother, the Marchioness of Northampton… The marchioness has an idea in her head about our Jane’s marriage, by the way.”
“Marriage?”
“She thought that we might consider matching her with one of Northumberland’s sons. Guildford, perhaps; they’re close in age.”
“But he’s the fourth son! Jane can do much better than that.”
“True. I think she was just talking to divert my attention. Anyway, we can speak more of it later. I won’t tire you with it at present.” Harry started to rise, then sat back down. “I’ve been thinking. When you get strong enough again, my dear, maybe we can start trying for another child, more often than we have lately. If, of course, you’re willing. Perhaps after what happened to Queen Catherine, you might find it risky—”
“I am willing, Harry. Very.” I took his hand in mine. “I love our daughters, as I know you do, too, but I should like to give you a son. We could name him Edward, like every other little boy in England.”
Harry smiled.
“And,” I said daringly, “even if I were not to have a child, I would like to lie with you more often. We did a great deal of that when we were first married.”
“Nearly every evening.” Harry took a strand of my hair in his hand. It was a point of pride with me that it had not faded much with age, but was still as bright as it had been in my girlhood. He stroked it, as he had before. “We were quite the pair in those early days.”
“We can still be so.”
Harry stood. “Then I must let you rest now, my dear.” He kissed me lightly on the cheek and headed toward the door. Then he turned. “I was frightened that I would lose you, Frances. I’m thankful to the Lord that I didn’t.”
So was I. I settled down to sleep, dreaming of new beginnings.
23
Jane Dudley
January 1553
Lady Page is here with your ladyship’s New Year’s gift.”
I sighed. I myself had prepared a New Year’s gift for Lady Elizabeth Page, a pair of gloves, but I knew full well this was not the present she was hoping for. She wanted her daughter, the Duchess of Somerset, released from the Tower.
It had been the surprise of my life to meet Lady Page, for only in coloring was she like her elegant daughter, the duchess. Where Anne Seymour was tall and slender, Lady Page was short and ample, what men called “comfortable,” and their differences did not end with their lack of physical similarity. Only in one respect were the women alike: they both made excellent comfits, as I had found over the past year when Lady Page first began to cultivate my favor—though I like to think I would have been kindly disposed toward her even without the jams she brought me.
Her efforts had brought her only partial success. I had prevailed upon John to let her visit her imprisoned daughter, and she now came and went from Anne Seymour’s Tower cell as she pleased, often spending days at a time there. Over the summer, she had made it her mission to “cheer up” her daughter’s quarters with her own tapestries, of the sort last fashionable in the seventh Henry’s time, and she was known to disapprove of the Turkey carpet Anne had been allowed to take with her into captivity. It bred fleas, she had told anyone in the Tower who would listen, and it had been a triumph for her in August when she had found one nestling in its folds.
Try as I did, though, I could not move John to release the duchess. It was not just that she had threatened me, he explained—though I suspected this lay at the heart of his intransigence. The duchess had plotted against him with her husband, and might plot some more if freed. If she were a man, she would have certainly been executed, as had her half brother.
I had no answer for this, for John was entirely correct. Indeed, I was not certain why I kept pleading for the duchess’s freedom, save that I pitied her in her widowhood and felt sorry for her children, especially