Royal Mistress by Anne Easter Smith Page A

Hastings’s hand and so urged himto pick up the bolts and not waste any more of the baron’s time.
    “My promise will not be forgotten, mistress,” Hastings assured her, watching William and his apprentice struggle to the stairs with their load. “I will invite you to the hunt very soon, if that be your wish. You do ride, I suppose?”
    “And well for a lady, my lord,” Jane remarked. “My father did not fail my sister and me in our education, but my husband has no time for books or hunting. My father took me on a chase once, and I should like to go again.” She was astonished by her forwardness already and did not dare spend any more time in conversation with him but hurried to the staircase and was gone without a backward look.
    I have no doubt you would, but I wonder how much you will enjoy being caught, Jane Shore, Will asked himself, his loins responding to his imagination of the scene.

    R ichard, duke of Gloucester, stepped out of a shop along goldsmiths’ row in the Chepe, where he had commissioned a new collar for himself fashioned with the king’s favorite souvent me souvient ornamentation. Recognizing the White Boar badge of his two retainers, several citizens stopped to stare at the king’s youngest brother and marvel how unlike they were to look at.
    “Spittin’ image of ’is father,” one man reminded another as they moved on. “Remember York? He wasn’t tall neither. And both with dark ’air and that worried look. ’Tis uncanny.”
    Richard lifted his hand in salute to the bows he received and shared a quick laugh with his companion, Robert Percy. They had no sooner called for their mounts to be brought forward when a small cart piled high with bolts of cloth and pulled by two strapping youths turned the corner of Bread Street, followed by a merchant—a member of the guild of mercers, judging from the color of his gown—and a diminutive, veiled woman by his side.
    Momentarily distracted, Richard and his friends failed to seethe group of unkempt thugs who ran across the street to swoop upon the cart. Jane saw them coming and screamed to Richard’s group, “Behind you, sirs!” before she ducked into the shop doorway that the duke had recently exited. Alerted, Richard and Robert whipped out their daggers, and Gloucester’s escort, believing it was their lords who were the target, pushed the two noblemen back against the shop walls and protected them with crossed halberds.
    But the robbers were more interested in the bulging purse that was giving William Shore’s waistline an unnatural shape. Hastings had paid him the full value of the cloth despite William’s halfhearted refusals, and William had prayed he and his merchandise would make the short trip back to Coleman Street unmolested. He had been right about a disgruntled army after the French expedition, and London was rife with crime. Unemployed and starving soldiers loitered in alleys and on street corners, looking for a carelessly or even carefully secured purse, or a piece of jewelry sparkling on a cloak or a bonnet that was easy picking for a desperate man with a knife or a club.
    Too late, William attempted to bury the purse among the silks and satins, and instead shouted “Stop, thief!” miserably into thin air as the three robbers made off with the prize, hared down Bread Street, and disappeared into an alley.
    “My money!” he wailed, shaking his fist at his bemused apprentices. “Why did you not stop them, you good-for-nothing wastrels? I have a good mind to deduct your wages.”
    The two young men were picking themselves up from the dirt and looked at their master in dismay. Richard and Robert hurried over to help pick up the scattered cloth and Jane ran to William’s side.
    “Do not berate the lads thus, husband,” she cried, standing on tiptoe to add height to the weight of her words. “They were as helpless as the rest of us—nay, they were more helpless in that they were yoked to the cart. Never fear, Jack and