Queenbreaker: Perseverance (The Queenbreaker Trilogy Book 1) (41 page)

Fitzroy
flung him off.

“I
will not ask again,” he growled so like the King I flinched.

John
shrugged.

Fitzroy’s
eyes leapt to me. “What’s your name, wench?”

I
hesitated, hoping John would answer the insult in kind. But John only stood by,
a little grin peeking from his lips.

“This
is Mistress Mary Shelton, Your Grace,” Surrey said. “One of the Queen’s little
Norfolk cousins.”

Fitzroy’s
scowl deepened as much as his scrutiny. “I know you,” he slowly said. “You’re
the one Clere cast off for my cousin Lady Grace Lisle.”

My
hands trembled to tear those rosebud lips from his face.

Fitzroy
snorted. “Taking up Clere’s leavings de Vere?”

John
folded his arms. “You took mine,” he said. Fitzroy’s neck went a shade beyond
scarlet.

“Oh,
Mistress Shelton’s hardly that,” Surrey quickly said. He gave Fitzroy a blithe
smile. “The Queen means to marry her to Suffolk. A double wedding I’m told with
you and my sister.”

Surprise
shattered Fitzroy’s scowl. “I won’t share my day with Suffolk.”

Surrey
shrugged. “It is the Queen’s design, my lord.”

Fitzroy’s
scowl returned. His ginger eyebrows collided. “And by whose design does
Mistress Shelton wear the ring I gave Mariah?”

Surrey’s
insouciant smile wilted. Fitzroy had not been put off the scent. He snatched my
hand, held it up for all eyes.

“Who
gave it to you?”

Fitzroy’s
growl carried. Heads turned our way.

“Perhaps
we should find more privacy, my lord,” Surrey’s silky voice suggested.

“I
will have an answer here and now,” Fitzroy snapped and shook my hand in my
face.

Fitzroy’s
fingers ground my tendons against bone. I bit my lip before I cried out.

“John,”
I managed through the pain. “Answer him.”

John
regarded Fitzroy with the detached look of a hunter, judging the place to land
the deathblow. “Why don’t you ask Mariah?” he drawled.

“Whoreson!”
Fitzroy’s shout broke the peace of the chamber.

John’s
lip curled. “Hardly so, my lord. I was born on the right side of the blanket.”

The
music faltered. Conversations stopped.

Surrey
grabbed Fitzroy’s arm. Tom Clere materialized from the press and grabbed the
other.

“Out,”
Surrey hissed at Fitzroy’s ear. Fitzroy set his feet.

Master
Cromwell, the Queen’s Chamberlain, and Lord Oxford erupted from the crowd and
converged on them. Fitzroy saw their coming and relented.

“Stay
away from Mariah,” he hissed at John as Clere and Surrey pulled him away. “Stay
away or I swear I will kill you.”

Cromwell
and the Chamberlain pursued Fitzroy out the door. Lord Oxford grabbed John’s
arm.

“I
did not humble myself for this,” he spat, grey eyes blazing.

“It
was Fitzroy’s doing,” John said. Lord Oxford shook his arm.

“Fitzroy
does not rule your tongue, boy. Get you gone before the King hears of this.”

John’s
eyes flew past his father, past me, to Anne. A look passed between them I could
neither gauge nor decipher. But neither seemed disturbed, worried,
angry
or any of the hundred other things such a scene must
provoke.

John
pulled his arm from his father’s grasp, bowed and walked away without a word or
a look for me. My eyes clung to him, knowing constancy must be rewarded. But he
passed out of the Presence Chamber without ever glancing back.

“Remember
that, mistress,” Lord Oxford’s scornful voice hit my ear like a blacksmith’s
hammer. “Remember his leaving you thus, and look not for his return.”

Greenwich
Palace, Greenwich

September
10th 1533

Mrs.
Marshall grabbed my wrist the instant Lord Oxford walked away.

“What
did you do?”

“N-nothing,”
I stammered. “I swear it.”

“That
was hardly nothing,” she hissed, pulling me into the gallery. Behind us
Smeaton’s lute leapt to life, the other players followed so that the chamber
could resume its business. That business now included gossiping about the
affray.

“Who
gave you that ring?” she demanded as soon as we had some tiny privacy.

Of
course she’d seen it. I’d brandished it like a sword on the battlefield.

Panic
froze my tongue. What was the right course? I knew nothing of Fitzroy and
John’s quarrel. Only that it concerned Mariah.

And
that Fitzroy would kill John for it.

Mariah.

I
gasped as something wilted behind my breastbone.

John cannot care for Mariah.

It
wasn’t possible. He could never hide it.

Couldn’t
he?

No! Not from me. Not from Bess, and Jane
Seymour, and every other wagging tongue at court. Not from watchdog Madge. Not
from eagle-eyed Lady Rochford. Not from Marshall herself.

But
Madge and the Queen thought Mariah might have a lover.

Not John!

John loves me.

Every
poem declared it. Every action, every word, every look, every touch, proved it.
Then why would Mariah give him her ring?

I
stared at it, fast around my finger, as though it could tell the tale.

Why
hadn’t John defended me against Fitzroy’s abuse?

The
dormant snake in my belly spat fire. It was not true. It could not be true.

“Mistress
Shelton.” Marshall shook my shoulders. “Are you witless? Who gave you that
ring?”

“N-no
one,” I said. “I w-won it. Cards. Pope Julius.”

Marshall
threw me away. My back struck the wall. “You best concoct a better story,
mistress. Something nearer the truth so you might be believed. Because that
ring,” she said, putting her face in mine, ”belonged to the King’s mother. It
was Fitzroy’s betrothal gift to Mary Howard.”

_____________

I
searched Greenwich beginning in the places John was least likely to go. I
needed time to gather myself. I required eternity.

Mariah’s
betrothal gift burned my breastbone.

The
heart beneath cried: Cast it away! Throw it in the river. Toss it down the
middens!

I
slapped my chest and rejected the calls. The ring’s provenance did not make it
less mine. It was my wedding ring. I had accepted it in good faith. I would not
give it up. Not even if the King commanded it.

Cold
rain pelted my head as I walked into the Inner Courtyard. I welcomed its sting.
It cleansed the taint of Fitzroy’s meaty fingers on my wrist, Marshall’s sharp
nails in my arms. And as that pain slackened the fear withdrew enough for a
sliver of hope to shine.

I
was not a fool. I had not misread John’s poems to me. His poems spoke of us.
Only us. I drew a long breath and summoned the lines. None of them came.

“Be
calm,” I spoke to my heart. “Be calm and you will remember.”

But
I did not. The words eluded me, hounded from capture by fear. But they proved
he loved me! I needed to feel them in my hand. Their reality would staunch my
doubts; cool my panic. The rain streamed down as though the Thames itself had
been emptied and poured back to earth. My headpiece wilted. I hiked my
waterlogged skirts and ran for my lodgings, praying the rest of the court still
crowded Anne’s chambers and would not see my disarray.

I
ran halfway up the stairs and stopped short as someone blocked my way.

“Jesus
God!” I gasped.

Tom
Clere held up his hands.

“Mary,
I only ask a moment—“

I
grabbed handfuls of skirt, tried to dart past him. He sidestepped and hemmed me
against the wall.

“Mary,
please. Please hear me out. You must return the ring to Fitzroy. You don’t know
the trouble it will bring you if you do not.”

I
glared at his pale, tense face through a netting of wet lashes.

“What
more can you do to me?” I snapped.

Clere
shook his head, lowered his arms. “Not I. I mean you no harm. You’re not one of
them, Mary—I barely am. They will close ranks to save themselves, and
leave you to take all the consequences. You must return the ring and keep quiet
about…about how you received it.”

His
tiny hesitation told me he knew exactly how I’d received it.

“I
received it honorably, Master Clere,” I declared. “From a man who keeps his
word.”

Clere’s
stricken face froze like a death mask. “I-it does not matter how the ring came
to you, Mary,” he rasped. “Just get rid of it.”

“Never,”
I hissed and spun away from him. His hand caught the crook of my arm. I made my
fingers talons to scratch him off.

“Please
forgive me.” His blue-green eyes flashed scarlet and gold as the torchlight
flared.

 
My heart hammered so hard my entire body
shook. “What?”

“I-I
listened to what I thought was wisdom.”

“W-wisd-dom?”
My tongue fumbled the word as though it were sharp at both ends. “From Surrey,
I’m sure.”

 
Clere winced, but didn’t deny it. “He
said that now your cousin was to be Queen, your prospects were so much brighter
than Sir Robert Clere’s second son. Was that untrue?”

I
wriggled my arm and he tightened his grasp. The mournful look cracked, and his
face leapt to life—fervent for my understanding.

“I
believed it,” he plunged on. “How could I not? You won your place at court over
Gabrielle and Emma—no help from me, from anyone. Within the month you
were playing Pass-the-Time with every gentleman worth the name. You were a
success. A marriage must soon follow, said Surrey. The Queen would see to it.
She’d find you a rich courtier to please your parents, someone young to please
you.” His fervency faltered.

“And—and
then he said he would get me an heiress for wife—the King’s own cousin.
Tell me how I was to refuse?” His eyes implored even more than his voice. “Tell
me. How can I make you believe me?” He leaned closer. “Prove me.”

“Prove
you?” The words felt wrong on my tongue, foreign, unwanted. “What proof could
you ever give me to soften what you’ve done?”

His
head flailed. “Anything Mary. Ask me for anything. The most precious thing I
possess.”

I
stared at his bloodless face, barely knowing it. Misery dogged every feature, every
ragged breath he took. This was not the bright, carefree boy I’d once loved.
This was his material opposite—the pathetic creature that had abandoned
love for fortune.

“As
you’ve said, you’re just a poor knight’s second son,” I sneered. “You have nothing
precious.”

The
intended rush of pleasure did not come when his eyes dropped to the floor.
Instead, my stomach instantly rolled as though afflicted with
mal de mer
. I stamped my foot, reminding
my body I stood safely on land, but the rolling only quickened and sickened me
more.

“Christ
on the cross,” I swore. “You are a knave and a liar. Your only credit is your
connection to Surrey.” I looked him in the eye. “So end it. Break with Surrey.”

Clere’s
eyes darkened as the tears dissolved. He loosened his grip on my arm and let
his hand travel to my wrist. His thumb drew a tiny circle against my skin. That
small touch stole my breath as it always had. The rolling in my stomach slowed.

“Do
it,” I pressed. “Break with him—for the whole court to see.
Publicly—at morning Mass—when the King or Queen attends. Do that
and I will believe you mean what you say.
”

Our
eyes held as the storm intensified. Rain beat the flagstones just steps away.
The heavy air pressed us, pressed Clere to make an answer. His mouth opened,
lips poised on a word then his eyes slunk away like a whipped dog.

“He
is my best friend,” he quietly said.

“Friends
do not betray you.”

He
flinched. “Sometimes they do.”

    
“Once!” my voice struck
like the axe on Tower Hill. “Then they are friends no more.”

Clere’s
head dropped, dark hair falling over his forehead. His hand slipped away,
leaving a warm, tender spot that quickly cooled.

“I’m
sorry, Mary,” his ghost-pale voice drifted by me to lose itself in the maze-work
of Greenwich. “I’ll be sorry unto death.”

“So
you should,” I cried. “I hope you suffer for it til you’re cold in the grave.”

____________

A
cool wind rushed up the stairwell, chilling my soaked hair and shoulders as I
walked away from him. I blamed it for my trembling.

I
did not look back. Not once. I never wanted to look on Tom Clere’s wretched
face again. I rubbed my wrist free of his lingering touch.

“It
would not matter if he’d done it,” I growled. “It would have changed nothing. I
am John’s wife. And Clere will always be Surrey’s dog.”

I
hurried to my lodgings, eager for a dry costume. I rounded the last corner and
saw Janet crouching just outside my chamber door, face barely visible above the
tall pile of clothing in her arms.

“I
need a fresh gown,” I snapped. “And shoes that aren’t slick as ice.
And my hair.
You’ll have to—Wait. What are you doing
with my clothes?”

Her
arms were piled with my dresses. Janet’s jaw worked, but not to open her mouth.
Her watery eyes swiveled toward the open door of my lodgings. Mariah’s
bull-necked porter emerged bearing the chest the Queen had given me at Windsor.
Anne’s golden initials winked at me.

“What
are you doing?” I shouted at him as he turned left out the door.

“M-mistress,”
Janet burbled. “The Duke came an-and said—he ordered your things removed.
He said to do it straight away. I had no chance to send you word—“

“What
is the delay?” a gruff, imperious voice demanded.

The
Duke of Norfolk’s beak preceded him out of the door. Mariah’s porter ducked his
head, avoiding the Duke’s venomous glare. He turned it on Janet who fell to her
knees. Then he saw me.

Norfolk’s
raptor nose wrinkled. “Your presence is no longer required here, mistress,” he
barked. “My daughter has new arrangements. Return to your old lodgings.” The
Duke turned round. Janet threw herself aside, but not in time to save the train
of my apple green dress from his heavy boot.

_____________

The
instant the Duke left the hallway, I dove for the door.

“Mistress!”
Janet cried.

I
ran to the fireplace. The grate had not been swept. I didn’t care. I threw my
knees in the ashes and reached up the flue, sliding my fingers along the
bricks.

…
Three, four, five.

The
fifth wiggled at my touch. I pulled it out, wiping soot across my skirt and
reached inside for the little bundle with my clean left hand.

Nothing.

I
slid my hand back til my nails scratched the cold inner wall.

The
poems were gone.
All of them.

Stolen.