Lady Jane: A Time For Us

Mary

Jane was on her way to visit her only surviving sister, Mary, who was imprisoned at Gresham House, the home of Sir Thomas Greshem and his wife, Anne. Jane was accompanied by her youngest daughter, Katherine. Katherine was the only one of the three Dudley sisters to have inherited their father's blond hair, although hers was a darker shade than Guilford's; it was almost a sandy brown. Today, it was tied back with a handkerchief, and her face bore a glum expression. Grace was spending the day with Henry, Temperance was now a lady in waiting for the Queen, and Robert and Ambrose were spending the day with their father and his brothers. Katherine didn't really mind spending the day with her mother, but as she was too young to be a lady in waiting and hadn't been invited along on any of the other excursions, she couldn't help but feel a little bit left out.

"I haven't seen your Aunt Mary since she was nine years old," said Jane, who sympathized with her daughter but was glad to have the company.

"Why isn't she allowed at court, Mother?"

"Her Majesty is angry that your Aunt Mary married without her permission."

"But that was years ago! Why is she still angry?"

"I don't know, Katherine." Mary's husband's name was Thomas Keyes, and they had been married for eight years, although they had only lived together for the first couple of weeks of their marriage. Furious that they had married with neither her knowledge nor her permission, Elizabeth had immediately had both of them imprisoned in separate places. Gresham House was Mary's second prison. Her first had been with Sir William Hawtrey at Chequers.

Jane and Katherine were greeted by a servant and shown to Mary's quarters. Mary was both shocked and thrillled to see Jane again.

"My dear sister!" she exclaimed as she and Jane embraced.

"This is my daughter, Katherine," Jane told her.

"Hello," Katherine said as she curtsied.

Mary's eyes filled with tears at the sound of the name.

"Alas, how I miss our dear sister," she said. "How she would have loved to have seen you again."

"And I, her," Jane said softly. "What of our dear nephews? Do they fare well?"

"Well enough. They are in the care of their grandmother, the Duchess of Somerset, at Hanworth."

Mary turned back to Katherine. "It is really amazing how closely you resemble your poor aunt whose name you bear."

"I'm the only one in my family with blonde hair and blue eyes," Katherine told her.

"As had she," Mary said sadly.

"How did she die?" asked Katherine.

"It was said at the time that consumption killed her, but the true cause of her death was a broken heart over being separated from her husband and sons."

"Why was she separated from them?"

"Like myself, she married without the Queen's permission, and what was even worse was that she married Edward Seymour, the nephew of the King's third wife. Elizabeth was so angry that she not only imprisoned Katherine but separated her from her husband and two children as well. She died without ever seeing them again."

"Are her sons my cousins too then?"

"Indeed they are."

"How old are they?"

"Edward is ten, and Thomas is eight."

"Do you never get to see your husband either then, Aunt Mary?"

"Indeed I do not." Mary's eyes filled with tears, and Jane embraced her tenderly. She couldn't imagine the torture of being separated from Guilford for the length of time Mary and Thomas had been apart.

"I'm taller than she is, and she's all grown up," Katherine said to her mother as they traveled back home.

"I know."

"Why doesn't she stand up straight?"

"She can't. There's something wrong with her back."

"Just like there's something wrong with Uncle Ambrose's leg?"

"Not exactly. Your Uncle Ambrose was injured in battle. Your Aunt Mary was born the way she is now."

"She certainly is different from our other Aunt Mary, Philip and Robert's mother, isn't she?"

"She certainly is."

"Temperance thinks that Philip is handsome, you know."

"Temperance's mind is entirely too much on foolishness and not nearly enough on her studies. She's the exact opposite of myself at her age."

"Is love foolishness, Mother?"

"Of course not, but everything has its proper time and place."

"I'm serious about my studies, Mother."

"I know you are. You're a good girl, Katherine." Jane smiled approvingly at her daughter.

Her objective obtained, Katherine's conversation now turned to horses, parties, and dancing.

Jane told Guilford of Mary's plight that evening.

"I'll speak to Robert about it and see if he can get Her Majesty to reconsider. You know that she never can say no to him, except in reply to one question." Guilford laughed curtly.

"Her Majesty shall never marry. She fears that to wed would compromise her power."

"If my father's quest to put you on the throne and keep you there had been successful, how would sharing power with me appealed to you?" Guilford grinned cheekily.

Jane considered the question for a minute. "As we tend to agree on many issues, I suppose I wouldn't have minded so much."

"Not that it would have mattered whether or not you minded." Guilford laughed, and Jane playfully threw a pillow at him. Undeterred, he picked her up and gently laid her on the bed before climbing up beside her.

Several days passed with no word from Guilford about Mary's situation, so Jane asked him if he had spoken to Robert yet.

"He said that now is not a good time to ask her about it. I'm sorry, Jane."

"He doesn't like me anyway," Jane muttered under her breath.

"That isn't true at all. You've always had the full support of my entire family, Jane. On the contrary, it is you who dislike Robert. You question the morality of his relationship with Her Majesty, and despite the coroner's conclusion, you persist in believing that he had something to do with Amy's death."

"I wonder how much that coroner was paid to come to that conclusion, and by whom," Jane muttered.

For one terrifying moment Jane was afraid that Guilford would strike her. Instead, he wordlessly turned and walked away, shutting the door hard behind him. He refused to speak to Jane for the rest of that day, and that night they lay in bed staring at the wall on opposite sides, their bodies not touching at all.

The following day, Jane walked in the garden with the Queen while Guilford went hunting with Robert and Ambrose. Dusk approached, and the time they would have normally returned came and passed. A terrible thunderstorm drove Jane and Elizabeth back into the palace. Although neither woman said anything to the other, it was obvious that they were both very worried.

At last Ambrose appeared, his limp much more pronounced than usual and a look of utter anguish on his face. "They are gone...all is lost, I fear..." he groaned before collapsing.