Page 43 of The Favourite

“Well, but …” Jane sat back down again, feeling quite flummoxed. For some reason, she had been expecting an argument on this score. She knew the courtiers’ rooms at the palace were poky and small. Was there really room enough in his quarters for Celestia’s attendants? She regarded him uneasily. Besides, he must be aware that there was no question of wresting the child from her arms. Jane had not even summoned the nerve to hold her yet. She swallowed. “I do not yet feel quite sure of myself—”

“You are the child’s mother and naturally know what is best for her,” he interrupted in bored tones. Jane’s face flamed. He was right of course; that was the line she ought to take, but she felt so hopelessly out of her own depth. “Come!” He held out his hand to her. “Let us go and visit now with our tiny, red-faced daughter.”

“My lord …” Jane murmured reproachfully, but she stood up and rounded the table all the same, taking his hand. As he dragged her toward the staircase, she noticed, here in the country, he did not bother so much with his affectations. His stride was firm and brisk as he towed her along the passageway.

“And while we walk,” he said firmly, “I will convince you of our need to return forthwith to court. Firstly, there is your somewhat tenuous position to take into account, my dear.”

“My position?”

“While it’s true, the Queen made great concessions to secure your role as wife and mother, we should not ignore the fact you have several rivals vying for her favor. Mistress Bartree was quick to pick up your offices and take them for her own,” he pointed out and Jane stiffened. “I cannot fathom her appeal, personally,” he mused aloud, “but perhaps she fills the gap left lately by Lady Doverdale.” He glanced at Jane, clearly looking for corroboration.

She cleared her throat. “Lady Doverdale was forced to retire as Mistress of the Robes due to the increasing stiffness of her joints,” she murmured.

“Ah yes. I expect her son-in-law is quaking in his boots, that she might now expect to occupy a place at his table.”

Jane thought fleetingly of Lady Martindale’s big, brutish-looking husband. She could not imagine the Marquess of Martindale being scared of anyone, even Lady Doverdale.

“Lucky for you,” Alisander continued conversationally, “Magnatrude Bartree is a sour-faced old bitch and Queen Armenal likes a pretty face or two around her.”

“Lucky for you, you mean!” Jane retorted, feeling needled by the coarseness of his language.

He stopped on the stair above her. “Why Jane,” he said, turning toward her with a lazy smile, “are you flattering me?”

Jane glared at him. “I’m sure you are well aware of your own appeal, my lord!”

“Why, so I am,” he conceded, “but I was not at all sure that you had fallen victim to my charms.” His eyes roamed over hers and he tutted. “You are so lamentably reserved, wife.”

“In any case, you have told me I am pretty, and now I have told you the same,” Jane said, scrabbling for composure. She was sure she was beet red by this point.

“Quite right,” he agreed. “It is good to know one’s own worth. Armenal would be foolish indeed to lose such a pretty pair of courtiers as we.”

His eyes were still alight in that strange manner that made Jane nervous around him. She bit her lip and nodded in agreement, though that was not what she had meant precisely.

“I like the way you do this,” he said, lifting a hand to her bosom, but hovering it above rather than touching the prickly rash that had sprung up on her décolletage. Jane gaped at him. He liked her dreadful, unsightly red blotches? “I can feel such heat from you, Jane; it radiates out like a furnace.”

“It—it is happens when I grow agitated,” she told him defensively.

He nodded. “I know. Shall I tell you a secret?” Jane stared at him, quite tongue-tied by this claim to like the thing about her that vexed her the most. “I should like to feel you all hot and flushed beneath me, giving me all that heat. I feel sure you would warm my whole body with it.”

Jane was not sure at this point if what she felt was disbelief, horror, fascination, or a strange mixture of all three. The look in his eye was so … She made a strangled noise and it seemed to snap Alisander out of his strange trance. “Well, another time perhaps,” he said and seized her hand once again, sweeping her along in his wake as they swept up the flight of stairs.

On reaching Celestia’s rooms they found her three attendants sat in a huddle in front of the fire, folding linens. The oldest, and presumably the most senior, immediately sprang to her feet and started toward them, a forbidding expression on her face. “The child is currently sleeping, my lord, my lady,” she started dismissively. “I do not think—”

“Yes, they do that a lot, don’t they?” Alisander said agreeably enough, but something about his tone had Jane turning her head sharply to look at him. “What is your name?”

“It is Lingard,” she said stiffly. “Mistress Lingard.

“Well, you are standing in our way, Lingard,” he said briskly, brushing past her. The woman stepped smartly aside, her face like thunder, and they walked through to the next room where the baby lay sleeping.

How could she be trusted to take care of something so little and defenseless? Jane stopped before the crib, looking down at the tiny figure swathed in white. In sleep, Celestia’s little face was relaxed, and she looked almost …

“Thank the gods, she looks a little less froglike in slumber,” Alisander said, interrupting her thoughts. “Last night she displayed at a singular disadvantage. Her wailing mouth seemed larger than her whole face.”

“She looks nothing like a frog!”

“Funny how her hair is so dark,” he continued ruminatively, “when your sister’s was golden and Wymer’s the color of rotting straw.” Jane shot him a furious look. “Very well, I should say, is it not strange, my dear, when your own hair is so golden—”

“My hair is not golden,” Jane corrected him stiffly.