Jeanette lay beside her unwanted husband in a bed in the house that the Salisbury family had taken on the outskirts of Calais, feeling like a caged hen. Thomas had left for Ghent yesterday, escorting the Queen, and she had been unable to speak with him before he went. Lady Katerine had remained in Calais, claiming an ague, although in truth there was nothing wrong with her. She just wanted to be near the King.
William rolled over and put his hand on her shoulder to turn her towards him, and she sat up, tossing her hair over her shoulder. ‘There is no point in us lying together,’ she said. ‘I will not conceive whatever you do. I would have done so by now, the number of potions your mother and grandmother have forced down my throat – and yours come to that. And do not even begin upon the anointing of other parts!’
He flushed and looked away.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I know all about those, but it hasn’t made any difference.’
‘But it might. What if I just want to lie with you because you are my wife and I have the right to claim that debt?’
Nosewyse leaped on to the bed between them and gave William a whiskery lick. He pushed the dog away, but not roughly.
‘But I am not your wife, and it is a sin,’ Jeanette said with a side glance at her treacherous dog who had quite taken to William. ‘How many times must we return to this? If you must, then you must, but do not expect my joy or God’s approval. There are plenty of women in the camp if you have a need. Go and visit one of them.’
For a moment she thought he might indeed force her, but then he made a sound of disgust and raised his hands in capitulation.
‘You know your mother wants for nothing because she has the King’s ear,’ Jeanette said. ‘Why do you think she is still here when the Queen has gone to Ghent?’
‘Because she has an ague,’ he answered defensively. ‘She and my father have long been friends with the King – since well before I was born.’
‘It has become much more than friendship,’ Jeanette said. ‘I have seen her standing beside him with her hand below his belt, and he did not push her away. She persuades him to do as she wills. How do you think our own marriage was brokered?’
His blue eyes filled with fury. ‘Do not say such things about my mother!’
‘I am only telling you what everyone knows,’ she said. ‘It’s becoming increasingly obvious.’
He glared at her. ‘If you say anything like that again, I will beat you – I mean it. I have the right, and no one would blame me.’
She looked him in the face. ‘But I am not your wife, and you do not have the right.’
‘That is not true—’
‘You know it!’ She thumped her fist on the bedclothes, and Nosewyse jumped on to the floor. ‘Dear God, we both know it! Even if by some terrible miscarriage of justice we are forced to remain together, there will always be that question hanging over your heir – should you manage to beget one. I am poison for you, William; do you not understand? Accept it, and help us both. Let the marriage be annulled; find yourself a compliant wife who does not have a history – or reputation – like mine. I mean it.’
He shook his head, his expression crumpling into misery. ‘I cannot.’
‘Why not? Of what benefit am I to you?’
‘It is about loyalty,’ he said. ‘I owe my allegiance to my family. What allegiance have you ever shown me?’
‘You were pushed into this as much as I was,’ she said with scornful impatience. ‘Do not speak of loyalty. What do we owe either of our families between us? If you were free, you could wed again, to someone more suitable. You wouldn’t keep being pushed into a room with me and told to make an heir. Be a man in a way that matters.’
He glared at her, gathered up his clothes, and slammed from the room.
Jeanette stared at the vibrating door and bit her lip, aware that she might have goaded him too far. He had been forced into her chamber by his mother and grandmother, in the hope that he would get her with child, but the sowing had been hers and he clearly disliked what she had planted. Whether he would think on it was another matter. She suspected he would just lock it away behind yet another slammed door.
Although she had not managed to speak with Thomas, she knew he had gained a potentially large ransom to fund his court case, but first he had to obtain official recognition of that ransom and an offer from the King, and while Katerine of Salisbury was busy in the royal bed, there was small chance of that.
Nosewyse looked at her and whined. ‘Oh, be silent,’ she said crossly, and folded her arms around her upraised knees.
‘Will you not come and play dice with us?’
Sitting by himself in a window seat in Edward’s private chamber, William looked up as Edward joined him. ‘I am out of sorts,’ he said. ‘Go on without me.’ He didn’t want to socialise after the verbal bruising he had just received from Jeanette. Why couldn’t she be reasonable? He tried his best and she spurned him at every turn.
Edward sat down beside him and stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankle. ‘I thought you’d retired early to be with Jeanette.’
William shook his head. ‘No,’ he said dully. ‘Or at least I did, but then we quarrelled. We always quarrel.’
‘Jeanette can be difficult,’ Edward said almost ruefully, ‘but she can be warm and fun, and she is shrewd and perceptive. She reads me like a book at least! I am sorry you and she are at odds.’
