Those eyes swept over me without much interest and fixed on Robert. “Dudley, they’re looking for you.”
No my lords, no obeisance. Merely a blunt Dudley.
Robert bowed to me as fairly as he would a lady at court. “Au revoir, my little seamstress. Colby,” he nodded to the man at his side.
Colby sent another gaze over me, an assessing one this time. Likely he tried to decide why Robert favored me with his courtly bow.
Was I a mistress, friend, Northumberland’s servant? Colby’s reddish brows drew together as he tried to reason it out.
Robert, already finished with me, swept from the room. Colby, with a final baleful glance at me, which I met with my head high, followed in his wake.
Later that day Jane, likely for the first time in her life, stood up to her mother and father.
William Paulet, who had arrested Aunt Kat and Master Parry that fateful night four years ago and who’d had a hand in the trials of both Anne Boleyn and Lord Protector Somerset, arrived in the hall, where I continued to sew, with a casket in his hands. He moved to Jane, where she stood near her father and Northumberland, and bowed to her.
“What is that, my lord?” Jane asked, her tone barely curious, though she was, as ever, deferential.
For answer, Paulet opened the box. Jane flinched as she gazed down into it, her hand stealing to her throat.
Not until Paulet lifted the heavy pointed circlet studded with jewels did I understand—he held the crown of the monarchs of England.
“I did not ask to see that,” Jane said rapidly. “Why have you brought it?”
Paulet regarded her without expression. “To see how it fitted, Your Grace.”
Jane backed a step. “I will not put it on. It is not time. I did not ask for it. Please, do not make me.” Tears clogged her voice, but her spine remained straight, no more fainting fits.
“You must take it boldly,” Paulet answered, some kindness in his tone. “Soon I will have another made to crown your husband.”
Jane stilled. Her tears ceased to flow, drying on her face in the July heat. “My husband?” she asked in bewilderment.
“Aye, Your Grace,” Paulet said. “Your husband, who will be king beside you.”
Jane flicked her gaze from the world-weary Paulet, who waited calmly for her response, to the dukes of Suffolk and Northumberland, who stood side-by-side like the conspirators they were.
“There is no need to make a crown for my husband,” Jane said clearly. “Guildford Dudley will never be king.”
Father and father-in-law went slack-jawed, as though they’d heard a dog suddenly speak English.
Northumberland was the first to recover. He moved quickly to Jane, reaching a long hand to rest on her shoulder.
“Guildford is your husband,” he said, as though explaining to a child. “Of course he will be king. He is married to the queen.”
Jane faltered beneath her father-in-law’s stern gaze, but her neck remained unbent.
“I am queen because my mother is the daughter of King Henry’s sister,” she declared. “I am Henry’s grandniece—his sister’s blood is in my veins. Guildford is a Dudley. He is not royal-born, and God has not decreed him king.”
Northumberland glared at her a moment then turned away with a snarl. “Suffolk, tame your daughter.”
It was not the Duke of Suffolk but his wife who sailed from the doorway to Jane and slapped her across the face.
“You will obey your father,” the duchess commanded. “He has made you queen, Jane, so that the reformed religion may continue, unencumbered. You do not want Mary and her popery to rule us all, do you?”
Tears trickled down Jane’s cheeks, but she stood resolute. “I will never deliver England back to the Pope.” She wiped the tears from her face, the pearls in her hair shining in the summer sunlight. “I will be queen, yes, but only if Guildford is never king.”
Northumberland regarded Jane incredulously. He had underestimated her, I saw from my vantage point, a grave mistake.
However quiet she was, however beaten into obedience she was, Jane was a Tudor. She shared with Elizabeth, Mary, Henry, and Edward the conviction that God’s will alone had brought them to the throne.
