Page 103 of The Favourite

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Perhaps, not surprisingly, they overslept the next morn. Jane only woke when Wat brought in the washing water and lit the fire. After he had departed, Alisander had pulled her into his arms, and she had fallen back into a deep sleep from which she had not awakened until there was a second knock.

This time, Jane woke with a start and rubbed her eyes blearily as Wat apologetically explained that Marta had arrived to dress her. Jane gasped and threw her legs over the side of the bed. Mercifully, her shift was still intact. “I am not even washed!” she exclaimed as Alisander grumbled and rolled onto his side. “Please ask Marta to grant me a few moments’ respite.”

Her thoughts scrambled desperately. “Could you bring us more hot water in a second basin, Wat? I’m afraid your master must repair to his dressing room for his ablutions.” She turned back to Alisander. “My lord, you must awake!” she urged, shaking his shoulder. “I need you to make yourself scarce.”

He opened an eyelid at that. “Make myself scarce?” he repeated. “From my own bedchamber.”

“I cannot wash and dress with you lying here, abed!”

“Of course, you could Jane,” he disagreed, but sat up and yawned, all the same. “Am I to understand you are banishing me from proceedings?”

Jane eyed him nervously. “You are far too distracting,” she confessed. “I need to be quiet and calm to ready myself and—and you are quite naked under that sheet, my lord!” she said, wishing she could comment on such a thing without her cheeks turning hot.

“Ah, I see. You do not wish this Martha to see what a fine, virile specimen you have in your bed. Well, that is understandable.” He nodded. “I will indulge your wish to jealously stand guard over me, wife.”

Jane pressed her lips together, willing herself to remain calm. She could see the gleam in his eye already. “You are very accommodating, my lord,” she replied in her most dampening voice.

“I am,” he agreed. “Fetch me my robe, would you?” He nodded toward the chair in the corner and Jane made haste to fetch it for him, wincing over the first few steps. There was a deep ache in her thighs from where he had mercilessly stretched them the previous night. Her face turned scarlet at the memory.

Turning back, she masked her discomfort and presented the robe to him. Instead of taking it, he caught her wrist instead, spinning her around and drawing her down to sit into the V of his thighs. “You seem a little stiff this morning, Jane,” he commented softly against her ear. “Are you sure you would not like me to give you a nice hard rub down here to counter the soreness?” He ran his palms firmly over her thighs, almost drawing a sigh from her lips.

“We do not have the time,” Jane answered regretfully, instead of lying that her limbs were not remotely stiff, as dignity would dictate. His body felt so nice and warm against her own, that she had the oddest impulse to curl into his lap and cry-off her return to courtier’s duties altogether. What was wrong with her?

“We could make time,” he suggested, his lips skimming her neck, his stroking hands becoming a caress of her hips.

She was disgracefully tempted but managed to shake her head with effort. “We told Marta ten o’clock, and I am not her only mistress. It would be most inconsiderate of me to delay her now.”

He sighed. “Such a dutiful subject to your Queen,” he murmured. “I wish you were half as dutiful toward your husband.” Jane’s face fell, and he said quickly, “I’m only teasing; don’t look like that,” and dropped a kiss to her cheek before urging her up to her feet and donning his robe.

She had no idea why her heart had plummeted at his words, but she was left feeling strangely disorientated as he disappeared into his dressing room. Jane washed and Marta dressed her exactly as they had practiced the previous day, with the decorated circlet on her head and her braids arranged so prettily around it. Despite their careful preparations, Jane was sadly distracted the whole while.

Marta added the final touch, an extremely scanty veil, and Jane turned to look at herself in the looking glass. The amethyst necklace sparkled at her throat, casting a pinkish glow over her skin and the blue-gray of her gown. She was still not entirely convinced about Alisander’s vision. To her mind, she looked somewhat insubstantial and almost … wraith-like.

Her whole life she had been considered a pale shadow of her much more vibrant sister. This look almost seemed to lean into that interpretation. Helen would never have worn such a shade. She would have considered it drab. She would have preferred a velvet of ruby-red velvet or a warm amber.

Jane could never think of a gown so sumptuous with its beading and luxurious fabric as drab, but she did know it was completely out of step with prevailing tastes. She was going to cut a conspicuous figure as Viscountess Bardulf. Perhaps she should have anticipated as much. “Do you think it looks well?” she asked Marta, biting her lip. The maid did not have the chance to respond, for Alisander emerged at that point from the adjoining room.

He sauntered straight over to her in a dazzling tunic of turquoise and gold. It seemed they were not to match. “What pretty shoulders you have, wife,” he said, stopping abruptly before her. Jane blinked. The neckline was high and modest, and her shoulders were the only expanse of skin on view, apart from her neck. Deliberately, he dropped a kiss, first to one exposed shoulder and then the other, making her shiver.

“It was my dress I desired for your opinion on, not my shoulders,” she said stiffly, feeling horribly conscious of Marta’s wide-eyed gaze. She knew for a fact the maid would blab their exchange, down to the smallest detail, to Osanna and Patience.

“Yes, but your shoulders are currently bare and begging for a compliment,” he replied nonsensically. “Why is it that you always turn so brittle whenever I pay you a compliment?” he mused. “Is it just me or all admirers you treat so shabbily?”

Jane flushed and darted a glance at the maid. “If I am brittle, it is because I do not think your flattery particularly apt, my lord.”

“How so?”

“You pay me compliments that do not seem remotely relevant.”

“To the situation, you mean?” he asked in puzzlement.

“Relevant to me,” she corrected him. “My shoulders are not worthy of comment, as well you know. If you paid me a compliment that I could believe for once—”

Alisander rolled his eyes. “Jane, Jane, I really dread to think what manner of compliment you would deem worthy.”

She bristled. “I am generally considered very good at organizing matters for the Queen, and—”