Rose Bride (4 page)

He almost smiled at this show of weakness, then was disconcerted to feel the same physical reaction himself. His eyes were fixed on her, his heart beating more quickly, his cock already stiff under the thick folds of his robe. It was almost animalistic, as though his body could not be near hers without experiencing an urge to mate.

Then she bent over her sewing again, and the woman beside her glanced across at him curiously. Virgil recognised her companion as Mistress Langley, wife to one of the king’s clerks, a woman with curves generous enough to please any man – and a smile to match.

Master Langley had a short temper, so men were careful not to call his wife a whore in front of him. But it was whispered that Kate Langley had bedded many of the nobles at court, including the king himself, and most with the tacit permission of her husband. If Margerie did not wish to draw further male attention to herself, spending time with a woman of Kate Langley’s reputation was unwise. Though he doubted that Margerie would care for such advice, Virgil thought drily.

He bowed to both women, fighting to regain his composure, then continued through the corridors and stairways of the sprawling palace to his workshop. But soon he fell to remembering the delicate swell of her breasts, the narrow waist and hips that made her almost boyish in form, and began to wonder if Margerie Croft would agree to help with his experiment. For if he took the Oriental draught, and it worked, he would need to be sure of its effect on a man’s stamina as well as his ability to become aroused.

Margerie Croft was no virgin, her reputation already lost, so why not? It would be a dangerous choice though to bed a woman who had refused a chance to be the king’s bed partner.

If His Majesty should ever hear of it . . .

Virgil unlocked his workshop and stood at the open window slit, looking down on the Thames below. The wind blew his hair into disarray, but he smiled, his mind pleasantly engaged in imagining himself in bed with Margerie.

He could hardly ask any other woman at court to bed him, except perhaps her companion, Kate Langley. Any respectable woman would refuse him, and rightly so. Nor did he wish to seek out a common whore to relieve his arousal.

And Margerie was very beautiful.

He stared out at the sun dancing on the river, thinking of her sharp green eyes, and his heart sank.

This train of thought was pure folly. He had seen desire in her face last night when they were together, and observed the flush in her cheeks when she saw him again today. But desire alone did not make a woman wanton, else every lady at court would be a whore. And it might as easily have been a sense of shame that caused her to blush. He had witnessed her humiliation at the hands of those noblemen, after all, and might be afraid he would spread that story too about the court.

He should forget her. Bed a whore if he could not shake this desire. It would take more than an impressive drug-induced erection to get Margerie Croft into bed anyway.

Besides, even if he did succeed in bedding her, heaven help him if news of his debauchery reached Christina’s ears.

Lying in bed that evening, he took up the letter from Christina and broke the seal.

His betrothed
.

It was a strange and unsettling thought. Yet one he ought to have become used to by now, for the two had been promised to each other for years, having grown up as neighbours.

Odd that he had never questioned it before now.

He sat on his bed, unrolled the parchment and cast an eye down the familiar slanting scrawl of her hand. The letter was in Latin, like all her letters. It had begun as a game between them, a scholarly exercise as well as a competition. Now it was a habit, but a comfortable one.

He smiled, translating as he read.

Virgilio Christina salutem

Life is so dull here without your company, my dearest Virgil. I miss our time together, reading from the Latin poets and talking of medicine and philosophy. Do you miss me too?

My health is much improved this past year, and I have mentioned our marriage again to my uncle. He is adamant it will never take place while he is alive, of course. He says I am too sick to be a bride, and at eight and twenty years of age you are too old to be my husband. I take comfort then that he is quite old himself, and infirm, and eats rich suppers that give him gout. It would be wicked to pray for his death, but one may hope, surely?

When will you come home to see me, Virgilius? I long for you to kiss my hand as you always do, so gallantly. You see, I am not such a child as you think me. Indeed I shall soon be three and twenty. But I shall be patient. I know your work keeps you at court.

Has the king made a son on his new paramour yet? We are all agog at the news that she is not as comely as Queen Anne. Why choose a woman with a face like a thistle when he could have any virgin in the land for his next bride?

Send me gossip. And your love.

Bene vale

Virgil reread her letter, frowning slightly over the phrases that had disturbed him. Christina must have been in a wild mood when she wrote this. Did she not understand how easily these letters could be intercepted?

He checked the wax seal. Apart from his own clean break, it did not appear to have been tampered with. He would have to respond at once. Yet how to warn her to be more discreet in future without risking suspicion that he was disloyal to the king? And there was also the question of their marriage, which Christina had not mentioned in several years.

She must be aware of the difficulties that would lie ahead if they set a date for their wedding. Or had Christina chosen to close her eyes to the truth? She was not strong and he did not wish to risk hurting her feelings.

Virgil stood, carefully setting aside her letter. With his belt dagger he cut out a meagre rectangle of parchment from the roll on his desk, for the stuff was expensive and he could not spare much for letter-writing.

Then he sharpened his quill, dipped it into his inkwell, and began to write in neat small letters, composing in Latin as he went. He knew it amused Christina to parse out the more difficult Latin phrases, and the poor girl had little else in her life to entertain her.

CHAPTER THREE

Margerie heard shouts from the darkening courtyard below just as the dancing master began instructing the ladies in the latest French dance.

Jane Seymour, circling opposite her and clad lavishly in a heavy foreskirt of yellow silk, an elegant gold net encasing her hair, stopped dancing. Her rounded chin rose, a frown knitting her brows together. She glanced across at the window and shivered.

‘Draw those shutters across,’ Mistress Seymour said to nobody in particular, then snapped her fingers for one of the young maids of honour to fetch her fur-trimmed mantle. ‘Tomorrow I will request a dancing chamber that does not give onto this courtyard. We should not have our practice disturbed by every new arrival at court.’

The older ladies glanced at each other, but said nothing. Since the arrest of Queen Anne, Mistress Seymour’s demeanour had changed from that of a timid country mouse to a more confident lady of the court. Nor did anyone dare to question this startling transformation. For the whisper had long since gone about that His Majesty had settled on Jane Seymour for his next bride. Which meant Anne’s divorce or death. The latter seemed more likely now, the way the accusations against her had been mounting in vehemence.

Hurrying across the chamber, Margerie reached up to close the wooden shutters. As she did so, she glanced idly down and saw an array of carts and horses drawn up in the torchlit courtyard below. New arrivals, indeed.

Many courtiers long-absent from court had been arriving over the past few days, responding with alacrity to their summons. Everyone knew it was because Henry wished the whole court to be present when he remarried. Yet no one dared discuss it openly, not least because of the king’s uncertain temper these days. Besides, as the Greeks would say, why look a gift horse in the mouth?

His Majesty was entertaining his courtiers with the most extravagant masques and plays, with dancing and feasting in the Great Hall, and even wild debauched orgies that it was rumoured went on all night in secret rooms, as though to celebrate the king’s forthcoming nuptials before Queen Anne was even condemned.

But this was no ordinary arrival, she realised. Margerie stiffened in shock as a man, his cloak thrown back over one shoulder, plainly dressed but with a great ring glittering on one gloved finger, dismounted and limped across to help his lady down from a covered litter. Her breath caught sharp in her throat.

Lord Wolf!

And the woman in the litter must be Eloise, his new bride. The former lady-in-waiting to the queen had been recalled to court for questioning over the recent accusations against Her Majesty.

Her eyes widened.

Suddenly trembling, she steadied herself against the windowsill. She had meant to look away as soon as she recognised him, but instead found herself staring down at Wolf in horrified fascination. A young, golden-haired beauty was descending from the litter, head held high as she took Wolf’s hand, turning at once to survey the palace.

Margerie had heard of Eloise Tyrell’s beauty – the girl had caught the eye of the king himself, rumour had it, before Wolf claimed her for his own – so she was not surprised by the elegance of this young bride, clad in a dark cloak for travelling, an occasional flash of rich blue skirts beneath, her pale face utterly composed.

So this was Lady Wolf. The woman she might have become. Wolf’s bride. His lover and his new baroness.

She did not regret rejecting his offer of marriage. They would never have been happy together. But she did regret throwing away her reputation overnight. Fear of an enforced marriage had led to her wild flight to France, a flight that had brought down ruin on her head. She had spoiled her chance of a respectable marriage by giving herself to Wolf, then abruptly changing her mind. And
that
was a consequence
she did regret, with all her heart.

Her hand clenched into a fist against the wooden shutter, Margerie stared down, trying to gauge their happiness as a couple. Wolf hardly took his eyes off his new wife; they might as well have been alone in the courtyard. But Eloise looked calm, her gait steady, giving nothing away as she allowed her husband to lead her inside the palace.

Certainly the young bride did not seem frightened at the prospect of being questioned about the queen. Though Eloise Tyrell had been several years at court before Wolf took her for his wife, so it was possible she had learned how to dissemble and conceal her true feelings.

‘What is it?’ her friend Kate asked, suddenly close, glancing over her shoulder. The others had started dancing again, the dancing master calling out instructions while the musicians played. ‘Who are you looking at below?’

She turned to Mistress Langley, willing her heart to be steady, her face not to betray her anxiety. But of course her friend saw at once that something was amiss, and stared past her into the courtyard.

‘Oh.’ A shadow came into Kate’s face. ‘Him.’

‘Hush, say nothing.’

‘My dear friend,’ Kate whispered, squeezing her hand. Her sympathetic gaze searched her face. ‘You are pale. Pray come away from the window. And do not look so shocked, someone will notice.’ When Margerie failed to move, she made a sharp tutting noise under her breath. ‘Dearest, you knew he would come back eventually, for his wife was rumoured to be close to the queen.’

‘I knew, yes,’ she managed unevenly, and stumbled away from the window as Kate reached up to close the shutters. ‘But knowing he would come back to court is not the same as being prepared to see him.’

The music had stopped again. Mistress Seymour was remonstrating with the dancing instructor over some problem, but mildly, for the king’s new paramour was not a woman to raise her voice.

Kate leant in close, frowning at her. ‘But it must be ten years since he . . . You are not still afraid of Wolf, surely?’

Margerie shivered. ‘No,’ she insisted, then carefully corrected herself, not wanting to lie to her friend. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. I still dream of him some nights. It was such a terrible error. Though it matters little now: his lordship has married and can trouble me no more.’

‘That error was your mother’s doing, Margerie. You should not blame yourself. You were little better than a child, and she coerced you to lie with him.’

‘I was old enough to be bedded, and to understand the choice I was making,’ she reminded Kate sadly. ‘Wolf was young too. My mother thought . . . she thought we would suit.’

‘You mean she wanted to see her daughter marry into the nobility.’

‘We should not speak ill of the dead.’ Margerie crossed herself. ‘Bad enough I lost my mother to the plague when I was still in France. I never saw her face again after I left court. Never had a chance to beg her forgiveness for running away.’

‘You begged your father’s though, and he would not give it,’ Kate said sharply. ‘You told me he died of a broken heart after your mother’s death, but I have my own thoughts on that. If he had allowed you to come home, your father might still be alive and enjoying the comfort of your company. A man in his middle age soon withers without a female to dote on him. He should have been more forgiving; then God might have forgiven
him
for abandoning his daughter.’