Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set

16

Three days later, Guy and I left Lyons, traveling overland as far as Roanne, where the Loire becomes navigable, then boarding a longboat with a cabin for the next part of the journey. A sapinière, a raft made of fir trunks, conveyed our horses and the henchmen Guy had hired for protection on the journey.

The Loire flows northward, and we might have gone all the way to Amboise by water, but our destination was somewhat short of there. “It never occurred to me to ask my uncle about Papa,” I confessed as we sailed past vineyard after vineyard on a fine June day. “I do not think they ever met.”

Idly, I watched the wind turn the sails of a windmill perched on the crest of a hill. I felt a curious contentment, in spite of all that remained unsettled. No doubt this was due to spending my nights with Guy. I had agreed to pose as his wife on our journey, for safety and for convenience.

“He was Flemish,” Guy remarked after a time.

We both knew that did not necessarily mean that Papa had been born in Flanders. The term was loosely used to refer to anyone who hailed from the lands controlled by Burgundy—Franche-Comté, Luxembourg, Hainaut, Picardy, Artois, the Somme towns, Boulogne, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The Burgundian court spent time at equally far-flung locations from Bruges and Lille to Brussels and the Hague.

“He was a merchant,” I said after another long lull in conversation spent enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face and the sight of the blue water of the Loire lapping against banks of golden sand. “He met my mother when she was in the household of Anne of Brittany. She was fifteen when they were married. They loved each other very much.”

Guy slid an arm around my waist as we stood at the door of our cabin. Poplars and willow trees now dotted the landscape. On the river, dozens of other boats plied the water, as they had all along the way. I abandoned speculation and relaxed against him, too happy to allow worries to intrude on my peace of mind for long.

At Orléans we resumed our journey by road. I noticed that several other vessels had also put passengers ashore. I thought one man looked familiar, but I could not think where I might have seen him before. There was nothing particularly remarkable about his long, narrow face or his clothing. Unable to remember, I dismissed him from my mind.

Guy had friends living just outside Orléans and chose the comfort of their manor house over a room at an inn or beds in an abbey guesthouse. We were made welcome, even though the family was away from home, but the housekeeper, knowing that Guy was not married, took care to install us in separate wings of the house.

It was just as well, I decided, settling into a sinfully soft bed. After several long days of river travel and the even longer journey that had gone before, I was so exhausted that I fell instantly asleep.

I was roused sometime later by the smell of smoke. At first I thought I was dreaming. I’d had nightmares more than once about King Louis’ declaration that I should be burnt. Then I began to cough, and realized that this was real.

Opening bleary eyes, I fought against a confusion of my senses. The room should have been full dark. I had snuffed out the candle before getting into bed, there had been no fire in the hearth, and the shutters had been closed against the dangerous things that live in the night air.

Flickering light showed beneath the door. Fire!

I rolled out of bed, landing awkwardly. Although I fought to stay on my feet, I ended up in a heap on the floor. Pushing myself up on my hands and knees, I realized of a sudden that the air lower down was less smoke filled and easier to breathe than that above. Remaining as I was, I started to scuttle toward the door.

I stopped at the sight of flames licking along the edges of the wood. The fire beyond was leaping higher and higher, cutting off any possibility of escaping that way.

The bedchamber had two windows, both opening onto a courtyard, but it was a long way to the ground. Fool, I chided myself. Any injury I sustained from a fall was less likely to be fatal than burning to death. Pressing myself even closer to the floor, I crawled toward the casement.

Curls of smoke seemed to chase me across the room. I tried holding my breath, but that only made my eyes water. Making a mask with the hem of my chemise filtered out the worst of it, but it was almost impossible to press the linen over my mouth and nose and crawl at the same time.

I began to wheeze. My progress slowed. I resorted to traveling like a snake, inching along on my belly, but I began to despair of ever escaping.

Then my hand struck the chest beneath the window. All I had to do was find strength enough to stand up and open the shutters. With an effort of will, I hauled myself onto the chest and lifted the latch. Cool air greeted me, and a shout from below.

“Jump, Jane!” Guy was there in the courtyard, both arms lifted toward me. “Jump and I will catch you.”

I dragged one leg over the casement, then the other, thankful neither bars nor glass panes blocked the way. My chemise snagged on something, but I tugged until I heard the linen rip. The crackle of flames behind me overcame my fear of letting go. Trusting in Guy’s promise, I hurled myself out and away from the burning building.

My weight took us both to the ground, jarring the arm I had broken only a few months earlier, but one look over my shoulder banished any thought of complaint. The entire chamber was engulfed in flame. Had I hesitated, I would be afire, too.

Guy’s arms tightened around me. He buried his face in my throat. “By all that is holy, Jane. I do not think I could have borne to lose you.”

Embracing him in return, I murmured incoherent words of thanks…and of love…but we had no time to indulge in tender exchanges. The entire house seemed likely to go up in flames. The blaze was already well past the point where it could have been contained by a few buckets of water.

We made our way to the stable, found the henchmen Guy had hired, and led our horses to safety. Some of my packs had been left with the mule and I hastily dressed in the first clothes I found. We spent the remainder of the night in a nearby field, watching the manor house burn. It was destroyed utterly, but at least there was no loss of life.

The next morning, after a brief return to Orléans to buy clothing and supplies to replace what we had lost, we set off again on the road south. Still dazed and disoriented by the night’s terrors, I did not realize for some time that the hired guards who escorted us were more numerous than they had been when we set out from Lyons. At least three more burly specimens had been added to their ranks.

“Do you expect to encounter robbers?” I asked Guy.

“I no longer know what to expect.” He turned in the saddle to study my face.

I forced a smile. He was not fooled, but I could tell that he was hesitant to speak. “What troubles you, Guy?”

“Have you any notion how the fire started?”

I shook my head and told him what little I remembered. “An ember?” I suggested. “Or someone careless with a candle?” Accidents with fire were not uncommon, although most people took sensible precautions to prevent them.

Guy continued to stew about it as we rode, the steady plodding of horses’ hooves the only sound in the morning stillness. Belatedly, I came to the same conclusion he must already have reached: It might not have been an accident.

“In early March, at court,” I said slowly, “I fell down a flight of stairs and broke my arm. I was unconscious for a time and had difficulty remembering afterward what had happened.”

His breath hissed in sharply. “So this is the second near-fatal accident you have suffered. Was anyone nearby when you…fell?”

“I had been talking with Ivo Jumelle when I lost my footing.”

“Jumelle!” The anger in his voice seemed out of proportion and he required several minutes to bring himself under control and speak calmly. “I told you that your father bought land with a partner, Jane, but I neglected to tell you his name. It was Alain Jumelle, Seigneur de Villeneuve-en-Laye et de Saint-Gelais, a member of the minor nobility. Ivo Jumelle is his youngest son.”

“Are you saying Ivo tried to kill me? But why? And how would his father know I had returned to France?”

“Why? After the reports of your death and that of your mother, Alain Jumelle laid claim to all the lands he and your father had purchased together. That you are still alive means he may now have to give up a considerable portion of his current wealth. As for how he knew you were no longer in England—Alain Jumelle was one of those waiting in the duke’s anteroom at Lyons for an audience with Longueville on the day you came to the French court.”

I gasped. “A horse-faced fellow?”

Guy nodded.

No wonder he had reacted with such surprise upon hearing my name. And then I remembered something else, the man with the long, narrow face I’d seen disembarking in Orléans. He’d seemed familiar to me. Now I knew why.

Alain Jumelle had been in the duke’s antechamber in Lyons. He’d been a stranger to me, but he’d known who I was as soon as he heard the name Popyncourt.

THE LAND MY father had purchased with Jumelle included a fine manor house. The entrance gate had been set into the center of a thick wall ten feet high and was wide enough to admit a cartload of hay. We rode through into a large and spacious courtyard at least an acre square. When a groom rushed out of the stables to our right to take our horses, I glanced nervously at Guy.

“What if Alain Jumelle is here?”

“We will throw him out.”

“But he is still half owner of the place. And what if the servants are loyal to him?”

“Then we will throw them out, too. He tried to murder you, Jane. That is grounds to call for him to forfeit everything in your favor. Besides, we have might on our side.” Behind us, swords rattled in scabbards as our hired henchmen dismounted.

Guy strode up to the entrance to the manor house and called out in a loud, carrying voice. “This is Mistress Jane Popyncourt come to reclaim her inheritance from her father. All those who wish to remain in her service will be generously rewarded.”

By the time we had climbed the eight steps leading to the door, it had been flung open to reveal an aged crone, her hair snowy white and her blue eyes faded and bulging. I stared at her. That small mole above her right eyebrow seemed familiar, and the way her front teeth protruded over her lower lip.

“I know you,” I murmured as she led us inside. There was no sign of Ivo or his father, or of anyone else.

“I was your governess, child,” the old woman said, “till your mother came and took you away. And a good thing she did, too.”

“You are Sylvie Andrée, the woman the gens d’armes arrested?”

“They were not just any ordinary soldiers,” she said with a cackle. “Sent by the king’s prévôt de l’hôtel they were, to question me about a crime at court.”

Finding it suddenly hard to breathe, let alone speak, I croaked out a question: “What crime?”

“Why King Charles’s murder, of course. Done in with a poisoned orange, he was.”

“That is a foolish rumor,” Guy snapped. “You should not repeat such things.”

She wagged a gnarled finger at him. “Your elders know better, boy. Do you think me a fool? I know what I know and what I know is that King Charles’s enemies killed him and then covered up the crime.”

I leaned forward and placed my hand on her forearm. “Was my mother the king’s enemy?”

“Why bless me, child! Whatever gave you that idea?”

“You were questioned,” I reminded her. “They came looking for my mother and they took you instead.”

“Ah, well. That is the way of things.”

I exchanged a look with Guy, both of us wondering if the old woman’s wits were wandering. “Why were they looking for my mother?”

“Have you not guessed?” She gestured with her free hand to indicate the luxury that surrounded us—fine tapestries, ornately carved chests and chairs, Turkey carpets, and Majolica vases. “The almighty Alain Jumelle, Seigneur de Villeneuve-en-Laye et de Saint-Gelais. He told King Louis she was to blame. Well, she did hand King Charles that orange, that’s true enough, but how was she to know it was poisoned?”

“Jumelle wanted my mother out of the way,” I said slowly, “so that he could claim lands that should rightfully have been hers. She feared he would be believed, so she ran before the gens d’armes came.”

“Jumelle had the new King Louis’ ear.” The old lady nodded sagely. “Your mother was right to be afraid, right to run. But when she left all of a sudden, that convinced King Louis that she was guilty.”

“Then King Louis was not responsible for King Charles’s death either?”

“Oh, no. No one knows who killed him. I myself suspect the Italians. They are experts in the use of poisons, you know.”

“If you knew so much about the king’s death at the time,” Guy said, humoring her, “why did you not speak out?”

“Do you think me a fool?” she repeated. “I said I knew nothing of any of it, and they believed me because I had been in the Popyncourt household only a short time. They let me go and I came back here, to Master Popyncourt’s lands.”

I exchanged a look with Guy. Sylvie seemed harmless enough, but she also appeared to be somewhat simpleminded.

“You came back here, even knowing that Jumelle would be your new master?” Guy asked.

She tapped the side of her nose. “I let him think he’d bought my silence. And then, once word came that you and your mother were dead, there was no reason for him to worry about what I knew.”

“Her story makes sense,” I told Guy after Sylvie had gone off to roust the other servants and give them orders concerning fresh linens and hot food. “Parts of it, at least. I suppose that, years later, Alain Jumelle heard my name in connection with Longueville’s.”

I was remembering that Ivo had told me he wrote home regularly but rarely had any reply. I remembered, too, how he had looked at me after he’d received a letter from his father. I wondered what it had said about me.

“I’d not have thought young Ivo capable of murder,” Guy said.

“A reluctant killer.” I frowned, considering. “It was only when I said, in his hearing, that I would return to France, even without King Henry’s consent, that he acted to stop me.”

“Do you suppose Alain Jumelle had you confused with your mother, too? And yet, why would they suppose Longueville would take an old woman for his mistress?”

I stared at a tapestry showing a hunting scene. The border was filled to bursting with flowers in a multitude of varieties. “She would have been only a year or two older than he. And nothing else explains King Louis’ contention that Jane Popyncourt should be burnt. If Maman had conspired to cause King Charles’s death, as Alain Jumelle made King Louis believe, then that would have been her fate.” I shuddered at the thought.

Guy wrapped his arms around me. “You are safe now.” Turning me in his arms, he lowered his head and kissed me. “Safe with me.”

I came to believe him when days turned into weeks and no one troubled us. Guy consulted a man of law and brought formal suit against Alain Jumelle to claim not only my inheritance, but reparations in the form of the other half of the property. While we waited for the outcome, Guy instructed me in the proper management of a country estate. During the warm summer nights, he taught me other things.

It was late July before our peace was shattered by the arrival of an urgent message from Beaugency.

FROM MY MANOR house to Dunois Castle in Beaugency was but a few hours’ ride. We arrived less than a day after receiving word that the duke was on his deathbed. Longueville had not been wounded at the battle of Marignano, but he had fallen prey to that other battlefield killer, the flux. His recovery had been slow and incomplete, with frequent relapses, each one draining his strength more than the last. A year after the French victory over Milan, his defeat at the hands of this insidious illness seemed imminent.

I’d not have recognized my former lover. His skin had a ghastly grayish pallor. His once luxuriant black hair lay in dull, lank clumps and some of it had fallen out. His physicians had been dosing him with tincture of gold given in wine, but it did not appear to have done him any good.

Longueville looked first at Guy and then at me. He managed a faint, ironic smile. “Would you have come to see me, Jane, if I were not dying?”

“Your Grace, you must not talk that way!” Tears sprang into my eyes, blinding me. I had never loved this man, but for what we had shared and lost, I grieved. I moved to the side of his bed and took one of his thin, wasted hands in mine. “You are young yet and strong. You must not lose your will to live.”

He snatched his hand away and his voice turned querulous. “Spare me your pity! I am neither a child nor a fool.”

Behind me, I heard Guy move closer. He did not touch me, but just having him near gave me strength. “You asked us here for a reason,” I reminded the duke.

It had come as a shock to realize that Longueville knew I was in France, but it had not taken much thought to understand how. By filing a lawsuit against Alain Jumelle, I had brought myself to the attention of the local gentry, and Beaugency was not that far distant from my father’s holdings. I wondered how exaggerated the story of our takeover of the manor house had become.

Ignoring me, Longueville now turned to Guy. “I have sent for a lawyer to make my will. You will receive nothing.”

“I did not expect anything, Your Grace. I have never expected anything.”

“And that is why you have been so valuable to me.” His voice grew fainter with each word and his eyes drifted closed.

“He needs to rest now,” a hovering physician whispered.

I started to move away, but clawlike fingers curled around my wrist, preventing my retreat. I looked down into the duke’s dark eyes and froze at the cold calculation I saw there.

“I have news for you, Jane. The king wants to meet you.”

My mouth went dry. “King François?”

More death rattle than laugh, the sound he made contained nothing of humor or goodwill. His grip tightened and he tugged me closer, until my face was only inches from his and I could smell the fetid stench of illness on his breath.

“I told him all about you, Jane, what you like, how talented you are. He likes to hear such tales from his friends. He likes it when they share.”

A chill passed through me and I felt my face blanch.

“He knows how you won permission to leave England, too.” Another dry, rattling cackle issued from his thin, cracked lips. How had I ever thought that mouth appealing? “A warning, Jane. He will want to know what it was like to bed King Henry.”

I sensed rather than saw Guy’s shock. Too late to silence Longueville, I stood immobile, my hand still held prisoner in his, as he pounded more nails into my coffin.

“Give King François every detail, Jane. And then demonstrate what you did for one king to the other. Do that, and he will be inclined to be generous with you. He likes his mistresses lively but submissive. A few weeks, a few months, and you will have earned his gratitude. Your father’s lands, jewelry, mayhap even a wealthy courtier for a husband.”

When the duke had finished showering me with unwanted advice, I tugged my hand free. He lacked the strength to hold me. He watched me back away from him, his smile a death’s-head, and I wondered if this had been his idea of petty revenge because I had turned to Guy and not to him. It did not matter. When I reached the door, I fled.

Guy followed me out, his face grim. He took care not to touch me. “Is it true? Were you King Henry’s mistress?”

“Guy—”

“Answer me!”

I wanted to tell him the truth, but did I dare? Guy did not want to hear that I had bartered my body for passage out of England, but would he be any happier with the knowledge that I had agreed to gather intelligence against France? And how could I explain the king’s failure to bed me without breaking my solemn oath never to reveal my mother’s parentage?

I could lie.

I was beset by a terrible temptation. I could claim the king of England was well nigh impotent and repeat that story to the king of France if he should ever ask.

Drawing in a deep breath, I met Guy’s eyes. “I have had only two lovers in all my life and have no desire ever to take a third.”

The hard lines of his face softened. When he took my arm, his grip was firm but gentle. We left Dunois Castle and the village of Beaugency riding side by side. During the journey home, I told him everything, even the name of my mother’s father.

I expected some overt reaction to this news, but Guy merely nodded, accepting it as calmly as he had the rest of my story.

“Shouldn’t you be more impressed—or appalled—that I have royal blood in my veins?”

“So do I,” he reminded me. “It matters very little when it is the result of being born on the wrong side of the blanket. That your connection to the King of England is unacknowledged makes it even less important. Then again, I am glad you had a good argument to convince King Henry to change his mind about making you his mistress.” He reached across the distance between our horses to take my hand and squeeze it.

“And the spying? That does not disturb you?”

He shrugged. “You are not an English agent now and I can scarcely object to a lie when it brought you back to me.”

I regarded him warily. “What if I am lying to you now?”

“Are you?”

“No, but—”

Abruptly, he brought our horses to a stop and turned in the saddle to face me. “The past shapes our lives, Jeanne, but it doesn’t have to rule them. If our trust in each other is strong enough, we can make what we will of the future.”

Guy was a good man, I thought. The best man I had ever known. When we were children, he had taught me how to play card games and climb trees and he’d made me laugh. As an adult, I was still learning from him. And he could still make me laugh.

“I am not certain I deserve you,” I told him.

He chuckled. “We both deserve all the happiness we can find.”

My horse shifted restlessly. I would have ridden on, but Guy brought his hand up to my face, lifting my chin until I was staring straight into his eyes. “Are you certain you do not want to return to England? You have friends there. And family, even if you cannot claim your royal aunts and uncle.”

I shook my head. “The king would be a dangerous kinsman to have, acknowledged or not, and friendship cannot truly flourish at any court.”

Neither could love.

THE DUKE DIED on the first day of August.

The summons to Amboise came some four weeks later. King François had at last returned to his château on the Loire. Awaiting him had been a petition from the Seigneur de Villeneuve-en-Laye et de Saint-Gelais, complaining about the usurpation of his estates. According to Alain Jumelle, his lands and manor had been unlawfully seized by Guy Dunois. He begged King François to settle the matter.

I would have relished a confrontation with Jumelle in front of the king, but that was not to be. Guy and I saw no sign of Ivo’s father as we waited in an anteroom of the palace.

“What is taking so long?” I fidgeted on the bench we shared and craned my head to try and see into the inner room.

The lawyer Guy had hired to sue Jumelle had told us that the king of France customarily devoted the late morning, after he had eaten alone in his salle, to audiences with both deputations and individuals. By midafternoon, he was always out of doors, walking or riding in the open air or engaged in a game of tennis or a hunt. Then he stayed up late, enjoying revels and dancing, much like his brother king in England.

It was already late evening, and still we waited.

Just as a distant clock struck nine at night, one of the king’s minions appeared and announced he would escort me to his liege lord. Guy rose to accompany me. He was told to sit down, the order reinforced by armed guards. The king had sent for me alone.

“You know what he wants,” Guy warned.

“I know what he thinks he wants.” I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt. “I will persuade him otherwise.”

Guy caught my arm. “Do you suppose it would make any difference to him if we were married?”

“It would not matter in the slightest to King François, but it would please me mightily.”

Leaving him with that thought and a quick kiss, I sallied forth into battle. I squared my shoulders and took deep breaths, telling myself that the king of France could not be any more difficult to deal with than the king of England.

I was wrong.

King François would take anyone’s breath away. Tall, broadly built, he was, as Mary Tudor had described to me, a most pleasant and charming man. His voice was low and agreeable, his countenance had a certain rugged appeal. His eyes were hazel in color, a good match for his luxuriant chestnut-colored hair, which he wore long. He was clean shaven.

“We are pleased to welcome you to our court,” King François said, taking my hand.

He stood alarmingly close.

“I am pleased to be here, Your Grace.” My stomach clenched with nervousness at the lie, but I was prepared to use every skill I had learned at Pleasure Palace to secure my rightful inheritance and still keep my honor.

“I am told you were an…intimate of King Henry.”

Forcing a smile, I put a little distance between us before I answered. “I was given a great honor as a child, Your Grace. I was installed in the royal nursery to be a companion to the royal children and help them learn to speak French. King Henry the Seventh was well aware that all civilized people prefer to converse in that tongue.”

This was not what he’d expected me to say.

“I am an intimate of the Lady Mary—your pardon, the queen of France—and her brother and sister were like siblings to me. I am older than King Henry and so I knew him as a young boy.”

Let him think me too long in the tooth to suit him. And let him know that I have heard all about his lecherous overtures to Mary Tudor when she was in seclusion during the six weeks following King Louis’ death.

Some things could not be spoken of aloud for fear of drawing unwanted attention to them. I chattered on for fully a quarter of an hour about the young King Henry, recounting escapades fifteen years or more in the past. Whatever stories King François might have heard about me, he could not now be certain that I had been the king of England’s mistress.

At length, he ran out of patience. “Why did you come to France, Mistress Popyncourt?”

“It was time to return home.” I made it sound as if this were the simplest thing in the world, as if I knew nothing of wars or politics. “I would have come much sooner, Your Grace, but for some inexplicable reason King Louis took exception to that plan.” I sighed. “Indeed, he sent most of the queen’s household home again.”

“Louis must have had more reason than that to single you out.”

I hesitated, but only for a moment. I had hoped to avoid mentioning the rumors that had surrounded King Charles’s death, but there was no help for it now. It might all come out anyway, if I ever had to face Alain Jumelle in a court of law.

I presented my case to the king in a logical fashion, telling him everything Guy and I had uncovered concerning Jumelle’s perfidy. I kept to myself the secret of my mother’s birth, and I made no mention of the promises I had given King Henry.

The fact that Maman had fled to her brother in England annoyed King François, but there was nothing remarkable about Sir Rowland Velville being there. A number of Bretons had accompanied Henry Tudor when he sailed across the Narrow Seas to seize the English throne. More than a few had stayed.

“King Charles died of an apoplexy,” he said when I finally stopped speaking.

“So I have always believed, Your Grace. My mother fled only because she felt threatened. At that time, no one could have known that King Louis would marry Queen Anne. Without the assurance of the queen’s protection, Maman must have been sore afraid.”

A grunt answered my comment. Either he did not care, or he was preoccupied with some other aspect of the situation.

“I am certain she would have returned, bringing me with her, had she lived long enough.” That was another outright lie, but the king did not challenge it.

“Why did you come here now, Mistress Popyncourt?” he demanded.

“To discover the truth about my mother, Sire, and to recover my inheritance from my father.”

“Not to resume your liaison with the duc de Longueville?”

“No, Sire.” That, at least, was true.

“And now that you are a woman of property, will you stay in France?”

This was the difficult moment, I thought, even more fraught with danger than warding off the king’s lecherous advances. Indeed, he seemed to have lost interest in making love to me.

“There is more to hold me here than the land, Your Grace,” I said carefully. “I felt affection for the late duke, but what I share with his half brother is much deeper than that. We wish to marry.”

“He has no place at court,” the king reminded me. “You could, if you chose.” A flicker of his earlier amorous interest reappeared, but it was not strong enough to seem threatening. I remembered how he had helped Mary Tudor wed Charles Brandon. I prayed he still possessed that chivalrous streak.

“If it please Your Grace, I should like to live with my husband on the land my father owned.”

To my own surprise, I had found contentment living in the country. Like Lady Catherine at Fyfield, I had discovered that there was more to life than the struggle to stay afloat in the dangerous waters at court.

Lifting my bowed head, I dared meet the king’s eyes. “The Lady Mary was my mistress for many years and is still my friend. She has told me of your generosity and kindness to her in the days after King Louis’ death, and of your understanding and compassion when she confessed to you her desire to wed the Duke of Suffolk. You helped her to find great happiness, Your Grace. Dare I hope you might do the same for me?”

The king of France looked at me askance. And then he began to laugh.

“Boldness becomes you, Mistress Popyncourt,” he managed to say, still laughing, “but you must not make a habit of it.”

“Mayhap it would be safest then,” I suggested, “if I removed myself from Amboise.”

“Go.” He made a shooing motion. “Wed your lover and settle on your estates. You’ll have no more trouble from the Jumelles.”

I fled before he could change his mind, found Guy, and left the king’s house, even though by then it was late at night. As we rode toward home, I told Guy everything that had transpired in the king’s bedchamber. By the end of my account, he was smiling broadly.

“I can almost feel sorry for His Grace. He will never know the joy I have found in your company.”

I grinned back at him. I understood now why Maman had told me so little. I had been too young to be burdened with her secrets. She’d wanted to protect me. Perhaps that was even why Uncle had remained silent all these years. I had been safe as I was, but until I met Guy again, I had lived only half a life. The most real part of being at court had been the masques I’d helped create and sometimes performed in. My belief that I was part of a family there? That had been an illusion.

But at last I had found true happiness. I had come home. I had reclaimed the part of my heritage that mattered most. I had found Guy again and my love for him felt right. I had no doubts about our future. I would not forget the people who had been part of my life for so long. I would write to Mary Tudor and to Harry Guildford and think of them often with great fondness. But the friend who mattered most to me was also my lover and soon would be my husband.

I’d once thought of Greenwich as the Pleasure Palace. Now I knew better. True pleasure combines happiness and contentment with passionate love. No place can provide that. Only a person is capable of bringing all those things into another’s life. The man who had brought them into mine rode beside me through the night. Dawn found us on our own land again and we followed its golden light all the way home.