The Merry Monarch's Wife by Jean Plaidy

place, body in another.”
    â€œI pray you, do not mention such.”
    He touched his head lightly. “It is safe now,” he said, “and I intend it shall remain on my shoulders for the rest of my life. I will do everything to prevent the parting.”
    â€œIt is not a matter to joke about.”
    â€œMy dearest, life is a matter to joke about. It is the only way to live it.”
    He went on to tell me of his stay in Scotland, where he was crowned at Scone.
    He shrugged his shoulders. “It was no fun being King in Scotland, I can assure you. It was more like being a state prisoner. I must repent my sins, put away most of my friends, resist the merry way of life and change it for one of fasting and prayer. Odds bodikins, I’d as lief be a wandering exile far from home. At least there was some merriment in that! I was glad to leave Scotland behind and march into England. You know that they caught up with us near Worcester…and after that I wandered through England, west and south…on one occasion hiding in the branches of an oak tree in Boscabel while Cromwell’s men searched for me, even coming under the tree, but the kindly leaves hid me from view—so that oak tree was yet another that saved my life.
    â€œTwo years in Cologne…three in the Low Countries…and three in France…an exile…waiting, waiting for the call. Then on that glorious day…it was the twenty-sixth of May…my thirtieth birthday approaching. What a birthday gift! Could ever a man have a better! They wanted me back. The country was weary of the Protectors. They wanted a king on the throne.”
    I clasped my hands together. “What a wonderful life you have had,” I said. “How different from mine.”
    â€œMy dear one has seen so little of the world…and I so much.”
    â€œDoes that matter?” I asked anxiously.
    â€œIt will not…if we do not let it,” he said, and I did not realize then that that was a somewhat cryptic remark. He had told me so much…and so little.
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    ONE OF OUR MOST DELIGHTFUL PASTIMES was teaching each other our languages. I said that it was far more important that I should learn his than he mine; and with this he agreed.
    I said: “I find it very trying that I cannot hear what the English ladies are whispering about. There seems so much to amuse them.”
    â€œPerhaps it is better not to know,” he said with a sudden smile which was half humorous, half serious.
    â€œI want to know…all.”
    â€œSometimes there is greater happiness in ignorance than knowledge.”
    â€œNever.”
    â€œThink of Adam and Eve and what happened to them. Thrown out of the Garden of Eden.”
    â€œWhatever there is to know…I want to know it.”
    He was unusually silent then, but a few seconds later he was laughing at the pronunciation of some word I had spoken.
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    I PERSISTED. I did so want to master his language. I was helped considerably by Lady Suffolk, of whom I was becoming quite fond. She had been so kind and helpful and took such pains to please me. She had made me see how unbecoming the Portuguese costume was, and I never thought of wearing it now. I could see how ill it became my women. Of course, Donnas Maria and Elvira deplored my adoption of the English fashions, but they were ready to disapprove of everything in my new country.
    I was beginning to improve my knowledge of English sufficiently to enable me to carry on a somewhat halting conversation…lapsing now and then into Spanish or Portuguese. Charles was very encouraging and I often talked to him in English, with him helping me along.
    Then suddenly the happy days were over. I had known we could not stay indefinitely at Hampton Court. We would return to Whitehall and perhaps make a progress through the country. There would be more presentations, more levees and more