Page 37 of The Favourite

“Goodnight, my lord,” she answered, and he listened to her rustling around in her starchy linens as she extinguished her own light.

11

Jane lay awake longer than she had the previous night. She did not know if Alisander slept or not, but the thought of him lying there beside her, wide awake and conscious of her every move, made her feel even less inclined to sleep. Maybe this was why he did not like his mistresses to share his bed? It was a wholly unnatural thing, to sleep beside someone you knew so little.

Then again, he did keep giving her the strangest glimpses into his private life. Why was he doing that, if not to foster some spirit of understanding between them? She could not help her thoughts from turning toward that extraordinary conversation in the solar earlier.

Jane had foolishly assumed diplomats were chosen for the love they bore for their country. But how could Alisander possibly love the Western Isles when such a tragic incident had marred his childhood? Such a thing seemed well-nigh impossible to her.

Then too, there had been that business of him being raised by someone fanatically loyal to King Wilhelm. The King who had so cruelly allowed the execution of his entire family over what, it seemed to Jane, was a wholly petty matter, the collection of tithes. There was something decidedly jarring about that, and something else was bothering her too, that she could not quite put her finger on.

She turned the conversation over in her mind until she discovered the source of her unease. It had been the part where he had said he had learned his trade as a ward of the Crown. Something about his tone told her he had not meant diplomacy; she was sure of that much.

Sir Reginald Hervey. She filed away the name for future reference. Something told her it was important. A clue to this strange man lying beside her. She felt profoundly shaken by the peek he had given her into his childhood. No wonder he thought lying over her niece’s parentage the merest trifle, after the lies he had been forced to voice, merely to stay alive.

At some point, she must have fallen asleep, for the next thing she knew she was being shaken awake and a sharp voice said, “Jane? What is it?” in her ear.

She gasped and sat up. “Naught,” she mumbled. “It was naught, just a bad dream.” His hand fell away from her shoulder, and she hugged her knees a moment, squeezing her eyes shut against the fading images. Her heart was still pounding, and she had a horrible feeling she had cried out in her sleep. How humiliating.

“Care to tell me what it was about?” he asked casually out of the darkness.

So shaken was she, that refusal did not even occur to her. “I was … trying to … hold the baby, but it turned to brittle twigs in my arms and fell apart. I could not keep it in one piece.” Spoken aloud, the dream lost a good deal of its horror for her. “Quite ridiculous of course,” she choked.

“Dreams often are, in my experience.” He paused. “However, yours sounds disturbing.”

“I am not usually so nonsensical, I assure you.”

“Dreams are frequently that way, you should not be ashamed of it.”

She turned her face toward him, though she could only see his outline in the dark of the room. “Did you ever have nightmares? As a boy, I mean. After—well—after all you endured.”

The silence stretched, and when he finally spoke, she had almost given up on receiving an answer. “At first,” he admitted. “Every time it happened, it was duly reported, and I was summoned to Lady Hervey to explain myself.”

Jane’s mouth felt dry. Lady Hervey? Was Hervey not the name of the man who had executed his family? That would mean that on his family’s death, they became his guardians. How cruel. He had not told her that before, she thought slowly. At least not explicitly. Somehow, she had received the impression he had been brought up elsewhere. “What did you tell her?”

“I made no mention of their true substance. Instead, like a loyal subject, I claimed my sleep was disturbed by fears something might befall the King. Of course, she told me this was treasonous and had her steward whip me soundly for it.” At her appalled gasp, he explained, “Because Wilhelm was King by divine right and the gods would never allow him to be displaced.”

Jane shook her head. “What was their true substance?” she asked with some trepidation.

He sighed, “Jane.”

“Tell me,” she uttered, though she did not know why.

“I was very young.”

“Tell me,” she repeated with uncharacteristic insistence.

“Stretched necks,” he admitted bluntly. Jane made a choked sound as she tried to hold back a startled sob. “Are you on the verge of laughter or tears?” he asked, sounding alarmed.

“Laughter?” Jane repeated with horror. “How could you think—?”

“Tears, then,” he said swiftly. “You must not cry for that boy, for he is long gone. He was not a nice child in any case. My brother Henri was the nice one. Little Jane would not have liked Little Alisander.”

“Yes, I would have!” she vowed recklessly.

He chuckled. “Well, I suppose if you could be fond of Lord Morpington as a child, you could like anyone.”

“Rodrey was not so very bad as a boy,” she protested.