Page 32 of The Favourite

Its diminutive size was disconcerting. Certainly, she looked smaller than any other baby Jane had come across. Then again, maybe she had never encountered a newborn before? She could see no trace of Helen in the baby’s tiny features. The shock of hair on its head was dark and she could not determine the eye color, for Celestia’s eyes were shut fast.

Jane was not sure how long she spent gazing down at the sleeping child, but when she stirred from her quiet reflection and turned toward the door, she found Mistress Lingard standing there, watching her in stony disapproval.

Jane walked toward the doorway and the woman once more fell back to make way. Jane kept on walking until she reached her own room. Once there, she turned the key in the lock and sat on the bed, her thoughts in turmoil. She could not disappoint her sister or fail this child. She could do this. She would do all that was required of her. She would be a fit mother to her niece, and all would be well.

Jane sat quietly until she began to feel like a coward, hiding away like this. Then she stood and went to retrieve Viscount Bardulf’s jewels from her chest. He might insist they were now hers, but as Jane fastened the small fortune in jewels about her person, she knew she would never really believe they belonged to her. Any more than she would ever believe herself a mother and a wife.

10

After breaking his fast, Alisander summoned the household steward, who turned out to be a churlish-looking individual by the name of Simpkin. On informing Simpkin that he required a tour of the house and lands, he was confronted with a bunch of humming and hawing and “Sir Philliping” which soon grew so tiresome, he was forced to be frank with the fellow.

Given no other choice in the matter, Simpkin performed the tour with an offended, yet nervous air, and Alisander spent a dull day indeed, surveying the Kinnerton estate. Even he, who had no appreciation for such things, could recognize it was a handsome property, but he took no pride or pleasure in riding around its boundaries and surveying its many features.

It had a pretty wood, a handsome lodge, some pretty tenant cottages, and a babbling brook; but none of them raised any pride in his breast or gave him the remotest pleasure. As far as he was concerned, he was burdened with holding the place in trust for the child Celestia, in whose blood there was at least a faint trace of the ancient baronial line that had built it.

He would fulfill his responsibilities, ensuring the place was well maintained, but nothing more. He had no intention of becoming tied to such a place. Why should he? He knew only too well the perils of believing you belonged somewhere, that your fate was somehow intertwined with that of a few acres and the people who lived on it.

Such thinking was a mistake. There was a spot in Gerlais, for instance, that housed the bones of his own forefathers. It now stood lush and green, with precious little remaining of the soaring towers of Castle Bardulf. All that remained of the once fabulous edifice, was a single solitary tower, standing incongruously amidst a green meadow.

And on this hauntingly peaceful spot, a great tragedy had once occurred, within living memory, though it was hardly spoken of and scarcely even remembered these days. The truth was, that the land did not mourn his brother. It had started to heal as soon as the smoldering piles were put out. It had grown over the footings in a riotous jumble of green roots and climbers. The nearby villagers and the tenants had mourned, maybe a sennight, for the lordling who had tried to stand firm in their interests, against the edicts of a grasping government.

Then they had shaken their heads and agreed he was a bonny lad and good, too good mayhap for the likes of this world, and they had turned their hand once more to the plow and their thoughts had returned to the daily grind of their own lives.

The less scrupulous among them, or maybe the most in need, had even looted the remains of the castle under cover of darkness, scavenging for anything they could repurpose to their own ends. More than one cottage was fortified with stone that had once shored up a far grander residence.

And why should they not? Life was a struggle, particularly for the peasant. Alisander did not resent the fact they had neither inclination nor time to grieve his family’s loss, any more than he begrudged the brambles and moss that had swarmed to obscure the bones of the old castle.

He braced himself now, as the gallows loomed starkly in his mind, and Henri mounting its steps. Gods, but he had been young. Five years younger in years than he was now. He made a sound, an involuntary noise in his throat, and Simpkin halted, looking to him for instruction. “I will make my own way back to the house,” Alisander said shortly. “You go on ahead.”

“Aye, milord.”

Alisander took a deep breath and expelled the air from his lungs, along with the lingering memory. Gods, he was growing positively melancholy. This would not do. It was the country air that did it. He vastly preferred the fetid, teeming air of a town. He would turn his mind to pleasanter things. Namely, his bride and how he would go about her seduction.

That alone brought a slow smile to his lips as he began his own circuitous route back to the house. He still needed to show much patience, of course. Jane was so damnably reserved; it was no wonder she found it so hard to make friendships with others. She was something of a loner among the Queen’s ladies.

He could not even flatter or cajole her presently, for she took compliments so ill. Perhaps it was somewhat his fault, his trifling manner meant she would never accept his words at face value. Still, he was inclined to think she would react poorly to anyone’s addresses, for she always suspected the worst, namely that she was being teased.

No, that was not entirely true, he reflected with a faint frown, for she accepted the Queen’s praise with every evidence of pleasure. His steps slowed as he remembered the first time Jane had really captured his attention.

He could see it now, though he could not recall the precise gown she wore that day, or what jewels she wore about her neck, details he usually noted assiduously. Doubtless, neither had been worthy of attention, for Jane always dressed to fit in rather than to stand out. A mistake, he always thought.

Her face, though, he could remember that alright, and the overwhelming gratification she had shown when the Queen had sought her out for particular praise and named her the worthiest of commendation that day, above even one so elegant and accomplished as Eden Montmayne, and despite the presence of her far more striking sister.

The dazed joy that had dawned on Jane’s face when the Queen had praised her and bestowed a jewel of her own upon her had been a revelation, for suddenly, right in front of his eyes, the rather bland and dull Lady Jane had burst into the most vivid of color. Emotion quite transformed her.

Suddenly, Jane was so flushed and bright, that it had almost hurt his eyes to behold the adoration blazing from her own as she beheld the Queen. Was it the first time anyone had ever deemed her praiseworthy? He wondered now, as he had wondered then. What would it feel like to have someone look at you in such a way? Armenal barely seemed to notice. She took it as her due.

Jane, of course, had never realized what the Queen had been about that day, despite how glaringly obvious it had seemed to Alisander. Armenal had used her as an instrument to score off the King and defeat his machinations to advance his new favorite at court. By deeming Jane, the pick of the current crop of ladies, she had relegated the King’s choice into the shade.

He wondered, not for the first time, how Jane would feel if she ever discovered the truth, that the Queen had been making a power move that day on the chess board, using her as a pawn, before checking the King. Ever since that moment, Jane had viewed Armenal through the eyes of a devotee, never resenting her for being selfish or thoughtless. In her eyes, the Queen could do no wrong.

Alisander could read Jane with such ease, that he rather wondered at his fascination with her. There was no mystery to Jane. She had been overlooked her whole life, outshone by a more beauteous sister, and likely starved of praise and affection at home. Likely she had always felt guilty about any twinges of jealousy or resentment she must have felt and ruthlessly suppressed them in the name of duty.

He rather wondered where her distrust of men had come from. She was no flirt and had never shown the remotest interest in being courted, that he had ever seen. Could it have been that nonentity Viscount Morpington that had broken her heart at a formative age? he mused. But no, he simply could not see it. Not after her account of the attempted kiss.

No, it must have been something else. At some point, Jane had simply decided never to trust the capricious whims of men and had instead foolishly devoted herself in service of the Queen like some holy vocation. He supposed she had known a happiness of sorts or the closest approximation that one with an existence like Jane’s could feel.

She had no close friends or confidantes, and after close observation, he could see the poets and artists that so delighted the Queen, left her quite cold. Jane had no appreciation of the arts. For all her decorum, she was a practical creature. She had carved out a life for herself that was quiet and dignified and gave her independent standing at court. That had been all she desired, not truth nor beauty nor love.