“That is a great pity,” Longueville murmured. “Charles is a mere boy, not yet fourteen, with a great ugly beak of a nose.”
I turned to stare out at the darkness again. I could make out dozens of darting lights—lanterns carried by boats on the Thames. “I would like to see Amboise once more,” I admitted, “but I have no more choice about where I go than the princess does.”
“How long has her marriage been arranged?”
“Nearly seven years now. When she marries, she will be obliged to leave her homeland forever, as her sister, Margaret, did when she married the king of Scots. Mary has already said she wants to take me with her.” That would mean I’d most likely never see England again, but the alternative was even less to my liking—a pension and genteel poverty for the rest of my days. In my mind’s eye I saw myself living out my life in a little house in Blackfriars, slowly turning into another Mother Guildford.
“You might return to France instead.”
“I lack the wherewithal to travel, even if a peace were to last long enough to make such a thing possible.”
“You might come home with me,” Longueville whispered.
The flutter in my stomach, the sudden race of my heart, had me turning, lifting my face toward him. “You already have a wife.”
He smiled. “She is an understanding woman. She will not object to sharing me with you.”
“I do not wish to be…tolerated.”
His smile broadened, creating deep lines around his mobile mouth. “If she finds you even half as delightful as I do, she will befriend you.”
I felt my eyes narrow. “How many of your mistresses has she taken to?”
He laughed aloud at that. “You, my dearest Jane, are unique. You will enchant her, but not, I hope, in quite the same way I wish you to please me.”
Slowly, giving me every chance to evade him, he lowered his head toward mine. Our lips touched. He kissed me with exquisite, gentle thoroughness. Heart racing, skin hot as fire, limbs atremble, I kissed him back.
When he took my arm, I went with him through one torchlit passage, down a stairway illuminated by lanterns, and along another corridor, this one redolent with freshly changed rushes and crushed woodruff. I knew where we were headed, but I did not demur. At that moment, I wanted to lie with him more than I wanted my next breath and it had little to do with his offer to take me with him to France.
“Shall I serve as your tiring maid?” he asked when we were alone in his bedchamber. The only light came from the hearth, bathing the chamber in a rosy glow.
Without waiting for my answer, he put his mouth on mine again and set quick, clever hands to untying the laces at my back. He freed me from my clothing with a skill and a rapidity that left me almost as dazed as the magic in his kiss.
Caught up in myriad pleasurable sensations, I never thought to protest. Everywhere he touched, I tingled. It was like being caught out in a furious storm—thrilling, exhilarating, and just a little dangerous.
When he had stripped me of all but my shift, discarding my body stitchet by tossing it halfway across the room, he started on his own clothing. I touched the place his mouth had been with the tip of my tongue and tasted him there—sweet Spanish wine and something darker and more heady still.
Doublet and hose soon lay in a disorderly heap atop my bodice and kirtle, and he was edging me backward toward the curtained bed. Laughing, he reached out to catch me by the waist and lift me up onto the mattress. With a lithe movement, he positioned himself beside me and began kissing me again.
I put a hand out to stop him. “I have not…I do not—”
“I know,” he said. “I will be gentle with you.”
His kisses were soft, his breath sweet. He knew just how to dispel a maiden’s fears. The sensual aroma of ambergris surrounded us, a subtle, mossy, musky scent drifting up from the bedding.
I shook my head to clear it. “This is not wise,” I murmured, more to myself than to him.
“No harm will come to you for being with me, my dearest Jeanne. I swear it.”
“Jane.” I corrected him without thinking, then froze, remembering that he was the duc de Longueville. He was the next thing to royalty and not to be contradicted.
He surprised me by laughing again. “I believe I shall address you as ‘sweeting,’ as the English do their paramours.” The way he said the word, in English with a trace of a French accent, made the endearment sound as if he had coined it just for me.
I melted against him, tentatively joining in the love play. I touched my tongue to the side of his neck and tasted him.
We were lying inside the drawn curtains now, shielded from the rest of the world. Only enough light filtered through the gaps in the hangings to allow me to see the admiration in his gaze. That his glittering black eyes also contained a hint of amusement gave me pause, but only for a moment.
“Shall I call you sweeting in return?” I whispered, suddenly unsure how to address my lover. “Your Grace” seemed impossibly formal in private and I could not bring myself to call him by the Christian name he shared with the king of France.
“But I am not sweet,” he protested, and tumbled with me across the wide, wool-stuffed mattress until we sank together into the dip in the middle of the bed.
“Shall I choose a spice, then?” I teased him. Greatly daring, I ran my hand over his cheek. He turned his face into my palm and kissed it.
“I have always been partial to coriander.”
The name suited him, I thought. The ripe seeds had a pleasantly citrus smell.
I would willingly have played like that for hours, but with an eagerness that stirred my blood he turned his attention to making short work of my shift and his shirt. When they were gone, I had but a moment to revel in the experience of being naked in a man’s arms. Enjoying every delicious new sensation, I was just beginning to learn his body and to savor his first intimate touches on mine, when he abruptly rolled me onto my back and plunged inside me.
The building pleasure was replaced by sharp, searing pain.
He begged my forgiveness, but he did not stop.
Afterward, when his breathing had calmed and the sweat had nearly dried on our still entwined bodies, he declared that he must rest awhile. “Go and wash yourself,” he instructed, “but then come back to bed. The next time will please you better.”
He was already snoring by the time I located the basin and ewer.
7
I could assume my chemise without difficulty, but the remainder of my clothing required lacing. That made me wonder how great court ladies managed to take secret lovers. Their tiring maids, at the least, must know every intimate detail.
Struggling to keep from tripping on my skirts, I bundled my garments in front of me and crept out of the duke’s bedchamber. Young Ivo was stretched out on a pallet in front of the door. He woke with a start, stared at me in alarm, and scurried away before I could ask him to tie the points that held the back of my bodice together.
Stifling a sigh, I continued across the outer chamber. I had almost reached the door to the passageway when Guy appeared. We stood staring at each other for a long moment. Although I expected him to make some disparaging comment, he said only, “Turn around.”
With deft fingers, he laced me back into my clothes. I could sense his disapproval, but he did not utter a single word of reproach.
I bore myself proudly as I left the duke’s lodgings and made my way to my own small bedchamber, but halfway there a sob escaped me. It had begun so well. There had been such a fine building of excitement, of anticipation, and then…messy seemed to sum up the situation best.
That the duke had derived pleasure from the encounter, I knew. I suspected that I had missed out on something. I was not naive. I had heard married women talk about their lovers. The duke had taken his own release and given me none.