Lady Jane: A Time For Us

As You Wish

"My bonny sweet Robin! My only source of happiness!" Elizabeth wailed, clinging to Jane.

Ambrose's wife Anne, who was only six years older than Grace, struggled to help him up. Several servants helped the young woman as she tried to lift her husband.

"Whatever happened?" Jane asked.

Ambrose was now seated and drinking cider offered him by Anne.

"My leg started really hurting, so I told the others to go ahead without me, that I would catch up to them later. I sat on a stump to rest for a few minutes, then got up and continued on my way. It started raining, and I called their names but got no reply. As the rain became harder and the thunder and lightning began, I became more frantic. I kept calling for them but got no response. Eventually I heard growling and realized that a wild animal was nearby. By this time it was nearly dark, it was still raining very hard, and the throbbing in my leg was almost unbearable. I was forced to turn around and return without them. I shall never see either of my brothers again, I fear..." Ambrose choked back sobs as Anne tried to comfort him.

Elizabeth's eyes were full of tears as she looked pleadingly into Jane's. "I don't know how I can go on without him," she cried.

"I know," Jane said soothingly, embracing the Queen and patting her back. "I feel the same way about my Guilford." At that moment, they were no longer a Queen and her subject, but simply two women bonded by mutual despair.

Mary and Katherine must be notified, Jane realized. But Mary Sidney was already there, helping to comfort her brother Ambrose. "Henry has gone to tell Katherine, and a searching party has already been sent out with blood hounds," she told Jane and the Queen.

Mary was Jane's favorite sister-in-law, and the one nearest her own age. Badly scarred by the smallpox she had acquired as the result of nursing the Queen through her own illness some ten years previously, Mary nevertheless stilll had the same sweet spirit and quiet efficiency. Although a bit frightened of her appearance at first, Jane's children had quickly come to love her and consider her their favorite aunt.

Time almost seemed to stand still as the little group waited, scarcely daring to hope that Robert and Guilford would be found alive. Everyone tried their best to comfort Jane and the Queen, for whom they knew the loss would be the hardest to bear. Elizabeth, normally so stately and dignified, sobbed like a lost child. Jane felt a strange numbness, a sense of unreality, as if she were living out one of her nightmares and knew that she would awaken soon. Her arm was around Elizabeth the entire time, as the partners in misery waited for the endless moments to pass. Flashbacks of her last night in the Tower seventeen years previously returned and threatened to overwhelm Jane, only this time, it was the image of the fangs and claws of a wild beast rather than that of the executioner's block that tormented her.

Dawn was nearly breaking when two bedraggled figures barely recognizable as Robert and Guilford finally staggered in. Cries of relief and joy came from the waiting group; Elizabeth threw her arms around Robert, and Jane embraced Guilford.

"It's a miracle!" Ambrose exclaimed.

"Where were you both? We were all so worried!" added Mary.

"When the rain started to get heavy and the thunder and lightning started, we found a cave, intending to just wait out the storm and then continue hunting. The storm just went on and on, and we both must have fallen asleep eventually, because the next thing we knew, it was pitch black outside. As we had no candles or torches, we had to rely on the light from the moon and stars alone to find our way back. We got lost a couple of times," Robert explained.

"The good Lord be thanked for bringing you both safely back to us," said Elizabeth.

Guilford and Jane returned to their own quarters in silence. It weighed heavily on Jane's mind that Guilford had left for the hunting excursion without saying good-bye to her that morning. She knew that he had still been angry about the remark she had made the previous evening, and she feared that anything she said might elicit a harsh response from him.

Silently, Guilford took a bath and then ate voraciously. Jane sat staring at the same spot on the wall the entire time, discreetly glancing his way every now and then. He gave no acknowledgement of her presence. He finally finished eating, pushed the plate away, rested his head in his hands, and sighed deeply. Jane quietly stepped behind him and began to massage his shoulders. He took her hands into his own and squeezed them. She sat beside him and looked into his eyes.

"I was truly afraid that I would never again see you alive," she told him. He looked at her silently. "If I never had, I would have had to live with the knowledge that the final words between us had been bitter. That would have been a cross too heavy for me to have borne." He nodded slightly.

"Guilford, I am truly sorry for what I implied about Robert. It was cruel of me to have said that when I realize how much he means to you."

"Think no more of it, my love." He gently touched her chin and looked at her with eyes full of compassion. "I swear to you, Jane, I will do everything within my power to help your Mary. I know how much she means to you."

Jane kissed the palm of his hand. "I want you to make love to me, Guilford."

"As you wish." He grinned, and his eyes twinkled as he took her hand and led her to the bed.

At the crucial moment he started to move away, but in her mind Jane saw the storms in Guilford's eyes the previous night and the tears in Elizabeth's as the Queen had clung to her. "No, stay. Please stay," she whispered. Guilford moaned softly as he filled her, then rested his head between her breasts as she ran her fingers through his silky blond hair. Neither of them wanted that moment to end.

Whether due to effort on Guilford's part or the new closeness she had shared with Elizabeth since the night of the hunting mishap, Jane never knew, but Thomas and Mary Keyes had both been released from prison and returned to court within a fortnight. Jane was amazed to see how tall Thomas was. Mary's head came to only just above his waist when they stood together, yet they were deeply in love and overjoyed to finally be together again. Jane, of course, was thrilled for them.

Young Edward and Thomas Seymour, their parents' marriage annulled and themselves declared illegitimate, remained in their grandmother's care. They were cared for and well provided for, and Jane wasn't about to press her luck.

It was several weeks after Thomas and Mary's arrival that Jane suddenly realized that her monthly courses were nearly three weeks late. They normally came exactly every twenty-eight days. Jane thought of the night she had asked Guilford to remain within her and smiled to herself.