Royal Mistress Read Free

“It was all about the Chepe in minutes, how little you think of your good name and mine. Take this for behaving like a harlot,” he said, and he struck her face hard with the back of his hand. “Leave us, and forgo your supper. You disgust me.”
    Jane let out a sharp cry of pain and ran from her father as fast as her bulky skirts would allow up to her room, where she flung herself on the bed and wept.
    “I hate it here,” she moaned into the snowy white pillow. “I wish I were dead.”

    T om Grey looked up at the maiden’s head sign swinging over the door to John Lambert’s mercery and smiled at the memory of Jane’s remark of a few days earlier. He had not been able to get the buxom, green-eyed young woman out of his mind. He was twenty years old and confident in his good looks, and what he had liked about Jane was that she, too, knew she was comely. They were well matched, he thought as he had walked away that first morning, and if he did have the chance of seeing her again, he might tell her so. His confidence had been gained by watching and aping the seduction techniques of his stepfather, the king, and his stepfather’s best friend, Lord Hastings, who, much to the frustration of his mother, began to take Tom with them when they enjoyed a rollicking evening in the taverns and stews of London as soonas the youth was old enough. His mother had hoped they would have given her pleasure-seeking oldest son sage paternal counsel on behaving like a gentleman instead.
    Thus it was with more than three years of wenching experience tied up in his codpiece that Tom now clicked open the latch on the sturdy wooden door that led into John Lambert’s flourishing mercery. Shelf upon shelf was weighted down by bolt upon bolt of magnificent silk, satin, damask, cloth of gold, silver cloth of gold, wool, velvet, sarcenet, scarlet, grosgrain, kersey and cambray, and in one corner, looking like delicate, magnified snowflakes, lengths of lace from Venice, Antwerp, and Bruges vied for a customer’s discerning eye. Gorgeous tapestries hung on the walls and fine lawn bed linens were cleverly displayed on a long table, where two women were fingering the quality and discussing the price with a sturdy middle-aged man whom Tom took to be Mercer Lambert. The wide window along the front, which in more clement weather would have been opened to the air to facilitate customers’ viewing, gave adequate light through its leaded glass panes, but the back of the shop was only lit by a wheel chandelier of wrought iron hung high from a sturdy beam. One carelessly dropped taper and John Lambert’s fortune could disappear in a fireball that would light up London. As he searched the premises for Jane, he noticed the mercer paid a small boy to sit close and watch, alerting an apprentice when a candle got near the end of its wick.
    Tom ducked behind a gaudy display of velvets and saw his quarry entering from the small garden at the back of the shop. Jane spied him instantly, and her heart raced; she could not believe he had actually sought her out. Checking that her father was still in deep conversation with the shilly-shallying buyers, she beckoned to Tom to join her in a less conspicuous corner. One of her father’s apprentices, who was fond of Jane, turned his back as Tom sidled past him to Jane’s side.
    “Master Grey, may I help you?” Jane said pertly, already intoxicated by his scent of leather and musk.
    Tom merely raised her hand to his lips, his eyes alight with humor.
    “You know full well why I am here, mistress,” he told her. “I had to see you again, ’tis all.”
    Jane raised her voice and pulled her hand away. “A short mantle for the summer, you say, sir? Let me show you the lightest of wools we have.”
    “Good day to you, sir.” John Lambert’s voice behind him made Tom swing round to face the unsuspecting father of the alluring target of his visit. “Is my daughter serving your needs? She knows as much about our wares