Brazen (30 page)

“T
HE
E
ARL
OF
S
USSE
X
IS
YOUR
NEW
BEST
F
RIEND
,”
MY
FATHER
says by way of hello.

Robert Radclyffe is as old as the king and doesn’t look as well for it. But today is the opening day of Parliament, so I assume my father is speaking metaphorically.

“He said, right in Privy Council,” Father says, “that if all the king’s children are illegitimate, the son ought to be first in line to the throne.”

He pauses. Waiting for that information to sink in. I feel an echo of that surge of triumph I felt at my wedding. Making my father proud. Becoming something bigger than him. Better than my mother.

But ambition is what’s broken my friendships. I won’t let it break me, too.

“Jane Seymour will have a son,” I say.

“That’s not a given.” My father approaches me. “Neither of his other wives have. There may be . . . reasons.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“You must. Because you are the only person married to his only living son.”

“His son is not the king. And probably never will be. Margaret is heir apparent.”

“Margaret Douglas will never be queen, nor will any of her offspring.”

“But how do you
know
?” My voice is shrill and I hate it. “How do you even know what will happen tomorrow, much less ten years from now? Or even one?”

“None of us knows what will happen tomorrow or next year or ten years from now.” Father is so close I can taste the menace behind his words. He’s looking down his nose at me. I’ve seen him stand this way with my mother.

“What we have to be,” Father says carefully, his voice low and dangerous, “is prepared. For anything. A new act of succession has been proposed in Parliament. It will remove Mary and Elizabeth from the line to the throne. It will also give the king the right to name his heir. If Queen Jane doesn’t give him a son—and soon—your husband could be next in line.”

“I don’t want to be queen.”

I don’t want to be anywhere near that throne or the thunder that rolls around it. I don’t want Fitz to be, either. I want us to live our lives together in obscurity. Far from prying eyes and tongues desperate for gossip. Free.

“You say that today. But as you point out, things change in an instant. We must have everything in place for the ultimate eventualities. You, my dear, must be as good and as careful as you can be. The perfect picture of courtly grace. A princess. One so unlike his own daughters that he can’t help but make you his.”

“I don’t want to be
his
.” I lift my chin. “I want to be mine.”

Father stops still, a frightening little tower of animosity.

“That’s exactly what
she
used to say. ‘I am my own, I belong to no one.’”

It’s the first time anyone has mentioned Anne Boleyn. And he can’t even say her name.

“I learned from the best.”

For a moment, I think he really is going to hit me.

“Those are dangerous footsteps to follow, my dear.” His face is so close to mine, I can see the pores of his skin, the tiny sprouts of beard that come late in the day.

“It is a path you set me on. You and she collaborated to get me here. She was my queen.” She was my friend.

“Now you have another.” Father steps away, as if wiping any tarnish of the former queen from his hands. As if it were that easy. “You will come to court in July.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“I’m afraid you have no choice. You need to be seen. Before the king forgets his son is married. His memory only operates at his convenience. If you are at court, he will know you exist. Not to mention you will be closer to young FitzRoy’s bed.”

That is the only thing he could possibly say that might sway my decision. For my father, it is a business deal, something he can sign and seal, and then it happens. For me, it is more like hunger. My need to be with Fitz is so strong I might consider defying my own principles to achieve it.

“The new queen will need new ladies,” Father says, and pecks me on the cheek without touching me with his hands. “You will be nothing if you’re not at court.”

I am no more able to defy him outright than I am to defy my mother. Than Fitz is to defy the king. I cannot tell my father no.

I do not tell him yes.

But he leaves thinking that I have.

I
SPEND
MY
DAYS
AV
OIDING
MY
FATHER
AS
MUCH
AS
I
CAN
. H
E
’
S
waiting for the opportunity to insert me into Queen Jane’s household. I am waiting for Fitz to come and tell me we have a place to live. Together.

Away from court.

It is late afternoon, and I’m sitting by a west-facing window, catching the angling light on my book. Reading the lists and poems and scribblings. Avoiding the verses written in by Thomas Wyatt.

There’s a swift knock, and I have just time to stuff the book into my pocket before the door opens and Hal strides in. He is nineteen and a father and a poet in his own right. But I can still see the little boy in his eyes. The one I used to run to when my mother went into her rages.

“Hal!”

He pulls me into a swift hug. “We haven’t much time,” he says.

“For what?” I’m suddenly worried. A little twinge of terror. What can possibly happen next?

Hal smiles then. “It’s a surprise.”

He’s ordered a litter to carry me and closes the heavy curtains so I can’t see where we’re going. I peek out between them, and start to feel nervous as we head southwest.

Toward Whitehall.

Toward the court.

I wonder if Hal would take Father’s side in this argument. He always takes Father’s side against Mother.

I close the curtains and my eyes until we stop and Hal flings the heavy velvet aside and I see a brick gatehouse, four stories tall, its narrow windows glittering in the setting sun. St. James’s Palace.

“Fitz wanted to get you up at dawn,” Hal says, helping me down. “But he hasn’t been feeling well and slept late. He decided the sun
set
would be almost as beautiful as the sun
rise
.”

Fitz’s coat of arms hangs in the gatehouse, showing that he is in residence here. The lion of Richmond and the yale of Somerset and the arms of France and England crossed by a silver band, proclaiming his illegitimacy.

And his motto:
Duty binds me.

This place is his and yet not his. He inhabits it, but doesn’t own it. Just like his life.

An usher in blue-and-yellow livery escorts us through a courtyard into the relatively new palace. It used to be part of Eton College, but the king took it over, with an eye on the great park next to it. He walled up the park, tore down the buildings, and began to build his own. The presence chamber is a grand gallery, lined with windows and tapestries. The room is empty and cold, even in June, so I move to the fireplace to stay warm. Carved into the surround are emblems. Lover’s knots, combining the letters H and A. Henry and Anne. An oversight in the king’s campaign to erase all evidence of her.

I turn away.

The door opens again, and Madge enters, already talking. “So you have no idea what all this is about?”

“Madge!” I start to go to her but stop again when I see who stands behind her.

Margaret.

She is as still and as poised as ever. Her back straight, her neck elongated. She looks the part. Looks like royalty. She always has.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t get Thomas to join us for this expedition.” Fitz enters from the other end of the room.

Hal laughs. “You should have seen the looks on their faces, Fitz.”

Fitz’s laugh grinds in his chest.

“Perhaps next time,” he says. “I’ve ordered an outdoor feast in a fairy bower.”

“You’re getting fanciful in your old age, my friend.” Hal locks his arm around Fitz’s neck. Fitz widens his stance and puts his hands on Hal’s chest to try to break free, but Hal wrestles him to the floor.

Easily.

We all stand for a stunned moment, until Hal pulls Fitz back up into an embrace.

“Happy birthday, Henry,” Hal says.

“Birthday!” Madge cries. “No wonder this calls for a celebration.”

I had forgotten the days. Or lost track of them. I slip between my husband and my brother and kiss Fitz quickly.

“I didn’t get you a gift,” I tell him.

“I’m giving you one,” he replies, and looks at my friends one after another. “What’s broken can almost always be mended.”

He takes Margaret’s hand and puts it over mine. “Be friends, ladies. Life’s too short to be enemies with those you love.”

With that, he turns and leaves the room. Margaret and I look at each other, still holding hands. She smiles tentatively.

“Friendship will always bind us,” I say. “Even when we disagree.”

She squeezes my hand. “I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”

Fitz leads us through the guard chamber and out into a world sweet with sunshine. The wall that King Henry built around the park keeps the deer and game within it, while keeping the crowds and stench of London out. It’s like a little Eden. Perfect and beautiful and cut off from the evils of the world. Fitz really has created a little fairy bower for us to feast in.

The table is covered with a damask cloth and set with gold and glass. The wine is like liquid rubies, and there are venison and strawberries and marzipan.

Madge steps between me and Margaret and grabs one of our hands in each of hers. “Your husband has given us the best gift,” she says, swinging our arms. “Happy birthday, Fitz!” she calls, and lets go my hand to swing Margaret around and send her spinning.

Madge turns to me and grabs both of my hands. “It’s a shame you love your husband, Duchess, because if you didn’t, I certainly would.” She whips me around into a dizzying whirl, the trees and sunlight blurring into flashes of light and shadow until I trip and tumble and she falls on top of me, giggling hysterically.

Hal grabs Madge around the middle to pull her off me, and both of them pause when she’s on her feet, his hands still on her waist. I’m left on the ground, watching them watch each other.

Until Hal says, “I love you.”

Madge takes a step back, and his hands drop to his sides. “I know.” She helps me up and then turns back to him. “I just can’t—” She swallows. “I can’t stand any more heartbreak.”

Hal presses his mouth into a line and nods. “I understand. I just had to tell you.”

When Madge leans in to kiss his cheek, he closes his eyes and draws a long breath through his nose. Drawing her in. Tasting her.

And then he lets her go.

Madge turns swiftly and pounces on a piece of marzipan shaped like a rampant lion. “I declare we start this feast with the final course and work our way backward.”

Margaret dips a strawberry in cream. “Why start with meat when there are sweeter things to be had?”

Hal pours the wine and begins regaling us with stories about Fitz when they lived together at Windsor.

“We had greater feasts than Priam’s sons of Troy!” he cries.

“In active games of nimbleness and strength,

Where we did strain, trailed by swarms of youth,

Our tender limbs that yet shot up in length;

The secret groves which oft we made resound

Of pleasant plaint and of our ladies’ praise—”

“Ladies?” I ask, turning to Fitz, whose color has returned in a flash of red.

I am not jealous of some dalliance that Fitz had when he was thirteen, but of the ease with which my brother forms a verse. The words he conjures are sweeter than the marzipan that dissolves on my tongue.

“Perhaps that was later,” Hal says, wrapping an arm around my waist and kissing me on the cheek.

“With dazed eyes oft, we by gleams of love

have missed the ball and got sight of our dame.”

That tennis game. My first kiss. I look up to see Fitz staring at me. Laughing.

Madge smirks. “You’re blotching, Duchess.”

I wiggle away from Hal and go to Fitz. Press my body up against his and whisper in his ear, “You told him?”

“Only that I couldn’t take my eyes off of you,” he murmurs, and nuzzles me, sending tickly shivers down my neck.

“Perhaps we need to send these young lovers upstairs,” Madge says, and she and Hal devolve into an exchange of bawdy remarks and sexual innuendoes that has them howling with laughter while Margaret tries to keep a straight face and fails.

“I still can’t take my eyes off you,” Fitz whispers. “Or my hands.” His fingers slide along the curve of my waist. There is no need for distance. No need for pretense. We are just . . . together. The prying eyes of court and country are well outside the walls.

Fitz backs up and starts patting my skirts.

“What are you doing?” I laugh.

“There is something large and heavy on your person,” he says, chuckling, and spreads his palms wide to stroke them down my sides—waist to hip to thigh. I laugh again, but want to grab him, kiss him, lose myself in him.

He finds my pocket and snakes a hand in before I can stop him, pulling out my book. He holds it gently, tracing the cover with his index finger.

I look at it with his eyes. It has begun to wear ragged at the corners, and a little bit of the spine has started to give.

“Your words,” he says, smiling.

“And others’.” I reach for it, but he holds it out of my grasp, turning to the first page. The list.

“‘Poetry,’” he reads aloud. “‘A nice ass. Power. Good kisser. Good dancer.’” He looks at me with a raised eyebrow. “What is this?”

“Just a list.” I reach for it again.

“A list of what?” he asks, holding it high over his head, the other hand on the small of my back, pressing me close to him. He knows my bones turn to water when he touches me there.

“Things.”

“What things?” he growls in my ear, and then kisses me and all my fight is gone.

Like a monkey, Madge leaps up and snatches the book out of his hand, laughing. “Your subtle charms won’t work on me, Richmond,” she says, waving it in his face.

Fitz reaches for it, but she swings it behind her—out of his reach.

And right into Hal’s.

He opens it back up again, reading it while dancing away from Madge’s fingers.

“‘Not ugly, smelly, narcissistic, vain,’” he reads, and then stops, Madge crashing into him. “‘Or married.’”

“It’s a list of attributes,” Madge says, snatching the book back. “Of what we were looking for in a man we’d fall in love with.”

“I see,” Hal says.

“I’m sure you noticed, I scratched
married
out.”

They face each other for a moment, neither one willing to speak or look away.

Madge breaks the silence. “I’d put it back in again now.” She hands the book to me.

“Do I meet the rest of your criteria?” Hal asks, adopting a comic air. “Do you think I have a nice ass?” He turns, pretending to look.

“Your ass is poetry, Surrey,” Fitz says, and slaps it.

Madge and I stare at each other, wide-eyed for a moment, and then she starts to laugh.

“My poetry is poetry,” Hal grumbles.

“Then you must regale us with more,” Margaret says, and seats herself at the table, plucking another strawberry from the bowl. Hal launches into another bit of verse and Madge rolls her eyes, but a little wickedness shows up in her smile when she steals Margaret’s strawberry and drops onto the bench beside her.

Fitz pries the book from my hands and puts his arms around me so he can read and kiss me at the same time.

“‘Charming, good-humored, quick-witted.’” He pauses. “‘Must get along with friends.’”

Peals of laughter from the table startle us away from each other, and Fitz grins, pulling me close again. “I think I can do that.”

He closes the book and gives it back to me.

“I don’t have all these attributes,” he says. “I can’t dance, I am not a poet.”

“Those don’t matter.”

“I have little ambition.”

“That was Margaret’s word.”

“And my body isn’t as healthy as it once was.”

He’s telling me something I don’t want to know. So I kiss him, hard. Searching for answers to the questions I’m afraid to ask. About his place in the succession, about his father, about Baynard’s, about his illness.

I tell myself I’m imagining it when I put my arms around him and find fragility. The knobs of his spine. The sharpness of his jaw. His shoulder blades like wings beneath his doublet.

“Fitz—”

He buries his face in my neck and I raise my face to the sky just turning pink—all words forgotten.

Then he turns away, suppressing a cough until he can’t hold it back and the force of it bends him in half.

Hal jumps up, but Fitz straightens and rasps a commanding, “No!”

He sounds like his father. And we are silent. Staring.

Fitz wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, his eyes bright with pain.

“No, Hal.” His words come from deep within his throat, but his tone is softer.

He will not look at me.

He takes a breath and it doesn’t catch, so he smiles.

“We still have much to celebrate.” He reaches for my hand and leads me to the table. “A little of that wine, if you please, Surrey.”

Hal sweeps a goblet off the table and pours the wine with a flourish before handing it to Fitz on bended knee.

We all laugh and sit. None of us talks about it. Or about Margaret’s position in the succession. Or love or parents or executed queens. We feast on rich food and one another’s company until the sun is well and truly set and the stars appear overhead and the summer night washes us clean of everything but hope.