The Last Boleyn (25 page)

Will laughed, although Mary could see little humor in the remark. He pulled her away with some other whispered words to Staff, and as they traversed the long floor, she dared not look back.

Trumpets sounded and Queen Catherine entered with several ladies. Her women were all in black, as was Catherine. She had not changed. The huge, heavy golden and jeweled crucifix swung across her stiff bosom still. But how her daughter, Mary Tudor, had grown. His Grace must be in an expansive holiday mood indeed to allow his cast-off daughter here at court with her mother. The girl's hair had gone from reddish hue to quite dark and she was tall, thin, and serious-faced. She held her head erect and proud among all the whispers and her black skirts swished by near Mary. Mary wondered if their drab clothes were a sort of protest, a dark blot in the shifting sea of beautiful, colored silks that clustered around the dance floor. Wait until they see Anne, she thought then, Anne in her shining black silk with her blood-red slashings.

The trumpets sounded again, and her thought was fulfilled. His Grace entered, masked as the Lord of Holiday Misrule with a masked and laughing Anne on his arm and a veritable parade of costumed giants with huge steaming wassail bowls in their arms. Draped mummers with myriad ribbons hanging from their elaborate costumes and spiced cakes on silver trays followed. Eight lovely maidens skimmed by in striped garments holding wicker baskets laden with sprigs of mistletoe which they tossed to the crowd in quick handfuls. All bowed to the queen and princess, who finally managed a smile, and then the mummers circulated through the press of people passing out their cakes and ale and mistletoe.

Mary stared long at Henry Tudor and her sleek and giggling sister. She felt nothing. She could not summon up the tiniest pang of grief or remorse at the loss of her lover of five long years, and who would ever believe her? Maybe Staff would have once, but he hardly cared now. And Anne was making her own way now alone, even without father. Of course, she and Will would have to live at court but, except for being near her friend the Duchess of Suffolk, the thought terrified her.

At least starting tonight as he resumed his duties as Esquire in call of the king's bedchamber, Will would often be gone from the narrow bed they had been forced to share last night. There was beautiful little Catherine to care for, to love. Above all, to keep her sanity, she must avoid William Stafford and try to forget the women she would see him with as, even now, he stood so close to Dorothy Cobham across the room.

Will had gone in the wake of the king when His Grace departed the hall after hours of dancing and revels, leaving Mary to find their distant chambers in the far reaches of bricked Greenwich by herself. She once thought she knew the palace well, but it was only the royal apartments and larger chambers of the courtiers she had known, not the cramped quarters of this wing, back by the tiltyards and sporting fields. Weary, she found the room after two wrong turns, and pushed the door open to find her faithful Nancy waiting, warming her mistress's robe over a charcoal brazier, since there was no fireplace in the chilly room.

“I am glad to see your sweet face, my Nance,” she said to the girl. “Tomorrow night I shall have you wait outside the great hall to help lead me back to this hidden den.”

“The lord says surely your rooms are to be moved, Lady Mary. A lord and lady of the king can hardly stay in this cold hovel.” She pulled her woolen shawl closer and hunched up her shoulders. “I left little Catherine about an hour ago. She was so excited she could hardly sleep. I think she misses her little room at Plashy, but she and the Lady Margaret take well to each other. Margaret gave her a wee leather-faced doll and she fell asleep with it in her arms.” She began to unlace Mary's dress as she spoke.

“She is young and adaptable, I pray, Nance. Maybe that doll can replace the one she dropped from the fishing boat into the pond. She cried three nights over the tattered mite.” Mary stepped quickly out of her chemise and wrapped her furred robe around her body. She was so warm from dancing that she hardly felt the chill. She would be in bed and sound asleep before the icy cold crept into every corner of the room in the long hours until dawn.

“Will you be quite well, lady, since the lord sleeps in call of the king? I could stay.”

“Thank you, Nance, but I will be fine. I am exhausted and really need the time alone after the bustle of the move and the ride over the muddy roads to London. I
do
depend on you greatly, you know, but I need to be alone.”

“Yes, lady,” Nancy nodded as though she truly understood. “I be in the common hall with my sister Megan if you should need me. I dare say you could catch a linkboy to fetch me.” She opened the door to the dark hall and a noticeable draft swept past her. “If there be any linkboys in such distant reaches of this cold palace,” Mary heard her murmur as she closed the door.

She warmed her hands for a moment near the charcoal embers, then brushed her hair, listening to the crackle of the brush through her long gold tresses. She could feel the chill now. It was creeping into her. Maybe when Anne left to return to Hever those rooms would be available. She laughed aloud at the foolish thought. “Those rooms are in the queen's wing, silly,” she said, and her own voice in the now-silent room startled her.

At least when they progressed to Whitehall or Richmond or wherever, Will, as Esquire, would be certain to get her a room with at least a fireplace. “This room is as cold and sullen as the look His Grace gave me tonight with his fake ‘welcome back, dear Mary' speech,” she accused the cold chamber.

When she slid her feet into the icy sheets she wished desperately for a warming pan to dump the charcoal embers into and run between the smooth linens. She lay there curled up stiffly for a moment and got up to don her robe again. It was then she heard the quick knock on her door. Her heart leapt at the sharp sound in the silence of her thoughts.

“Who is there?”

“It is Staff, Mary. I would talk with you.”

She pulled the robe tight around her hips, but her feet would not move.

“Mary.” He pushed the door slowly open and his shoulder and head appeared far higher up the door than where she stared. She had forgotten to shoot the door bolt. She had forgotten he was so tall.

He did not wait for words from her, but took a huge step in and closed the door quietly behind him. “I had to see you, Mary. I am sorry I startled you.”

“At least you still remember my name,” she heard herself say shakily.

A swift grin lit his features. “I remember a good deal more, Mary Bullen.”

She turned away so he would not see the fear on her face, the longing, the bitter anger. “My name, as you well know, William Stafford, is not Bullen nor has it been for a long time. I believe my husband, Lord Carey, is a dear friend of yours.” She looked down at the tiny mirror she had left on the drop leaf table.

“I did it all for you, Mary—for us, holding his position like that.”

“How considerate and noble.” Her voice caught as though she were on the edge of tears. She spun to face him and was terrified to see he had come much closer. “How considerate, just like all the visits you paid us at Plashy the last five months we were there.” She stared at the tiny throbbing pulse at the base of his bronze throat. How was he always so brown in the winter months? He had changed clothes too, and how did he ever find this forsaken room?

“When I saw Will's bitter suspicions for our feelings,” he went on, “I knew it was foolish to cause you pain when I was there and much worse pain after I left. I knew he would take it out on you, and it was the only way I could protect you, even a little bit. I missed you, too.”

“I did not say I missed you.”

“You did not have to, sweetheart.” He took another step forward and, like a coward, she pressed back against the rough plaster wall next to the window. “I was so happy when I knew His Grace would allow you to come back. And when I saw you with Will tonight, I thought, what for? For the delicious torture of seeing you daily and not being able to touch you, to make love to you?”

“Please, Staff, you have to go.”

“I will. Later. Then I thought, I have to forget you and marry as the king wants....”

“The king wants you to? Whom?”

“One of the Dorset lasses he wants to come to court. I have only seen her once. But then, I realized I cannot forget you because I have desired you ever since I set eyes on you in the dusty old Bastille in Paris and knew that the blonde beauty with the smothered fire in her eyes was for me. And I have loved you almost as long as that, Mary.” He leaned close to her, not touching her tense body but placing his hands carefully on the wall on either side of her tousled head.

She closed her eyes treasuring his words, his soothing voice she had thought she would never hear again and had desired so desperately in the long hours away. She felt tears squeeze through her lashes. He was so close she could smell sweet wine on his breath.

“I kept Will's position for him, Mary, and I stayed away from his wife, whom I love and he does not, damned fool that he is, and now he owes me. He owes me that I can be near you and I will be, I will be.” He nuzzled her hair and bent to kiss her throat. A little stifled cry escaped her as he leaned gently against her. He raised his head and stared down into her wide eyes. His lips descended upon hers. He was so warm and strong. All the loneliness and pain flowed out of her as she returned his caressing, probing kiss. His kisses deepened and she felt his breath hot against her cheek. She forgot she was pressed to a cold wall in the slums of vast Greenwich and that her husband did not love her and she had fallen far from the good graces of her king. Here was all that mattered.

She lifted her arms to his broad shoulders and pressed him close in return, arching up against him. Her robe fell open but she no longer needed its furry warmth. He moved a half step away, parted it slowly and put his hands to her waist, covered only by the thin chemise. The span of his hands nearly encircled her. His thumbs moved slowly over the tiny swell of her belly. He lifted her, his arms like metal bands around her. The heavy robe dangled straight down from her shoulders to the floor. He laid her in its warm folds on the bed, strode to the door and shot the bolt. His boots thudded on the floor beside the bed and he yanked his doublet and shirt over his head as though they were one garment.

“Staff, we cannot. Will might...”

He silenced her with a hot kiss, and his hands went to her waist again. “Hush, love. Will is thinking of the king and the Carey name. None of that has anything to do with us.”

Her limbs felt like water, and a hot pulse raced low in her stomach. She wanted this so much. She wanted him and had for years. She went limp as his hands crept up to her pointed breasts and his knee rode intimately across her legs.

“I told you once that I was not a very patient man, Mary. I—and we—have waited quite long enough, but if you choose not to submit, I shall take it on myself, and you may blame me in the morning. I want you, sweetheart, to make up for a lot of lonely hours, and countless advice, and worry that your kings and father would totally ruin your life, and for a lot of your own tart words. And for the wasted years. Tonight we are going to begin catching up and it will take a long, long time for us to be even.”

His voice mesmerized her, and the flickering flames, dancing in his dark eyes, entranced her. As she held to him, his hands went everywhere. This was far different from Henry Tudor's rough caresses or Will's swift, cold possessiveness. This was madness. How often, how many years in Henry's vast bed or in Will's narrow one, had she dreamed that Staff would seize her and love her. And now it was real.

He stripped off his breeches while she smiled deep inside for the pure joy of having him look on her that way. His body hovered over her like a warm, protective roof against the cold world. She reached up and encircled his neck with her arms.

“Your face is always beautiful, my love,” he whispered, “and that is why men desire you. But it is honest, too. Honest and so clearly lovely within. That is why this man has loved you and desired you all this time. Until the late winter dawn I am going to make love to you, and I will watch your face and know you love me too. You are mine, Mary Bullen, from this time on, no matter what befalls.”

Sometime later, minutes or hours or eons, collapsed against her, he raised his disheveled head and looked down into her eyes only inches away. He smiled.

“I would almost have to say that those few minutes were worth seven years of hell, sweetheart.” He reached down and pulled her discarded fur robe over their perspiring bodies. They lay with her head tucked under his chin as he stroked her hair gently. Her free hand rested in the curly hair of his chest.

She sighed. “I have never felt so safe and content. But I am old enough to know that the real world is outside there, outside that door.”

“Yes, my Mary. But there are many doors in His Grace's palaces, and someday we may have a door of our own.” His voice broke and he hesitated. “Someday.”

She felt incredibly happy. Even if the king, her wide-eyed sister and screaming father beat down the door, she would not care —nor budge—one whit.

CHAPTER TWENTY

April 27, 1526

Hampton Court

T
he weeks, days and hours were precious now and not to be dreaded as Mary had feared: each meal, each walk through the wood-paneled and tapestried halls of Greenwich, Whitehall, Nonesuch, or Hampton—any moment she might see Staff.

Their times together were often fleeting and bittersweet, but Mary treasured each in her heart. The stares, rude barbs, and affronts to her as the king's now-cast-off mistress bothered her not at all. Anne's self-centeredness, the lack of her father's goodwill which she had once coveted—what did that matter now that William Stafford loved her and she belonged, body and heart, to him only?

They had become as clever as the king's court spies, Staff teased her. Sometimes Mary's trusted maid Nancy went between them with information about when one of them was unexpectedly free or where to meet, but usually they managed unaided. When Will, as Esquire to the Body, fulfilled his duties as royal valet and companion to the king by sleeping within call of the royal bedroom, Staff sometimes dared to come to her, but often they met in the dead of night in some unoccupied bedroom or other empty chamber in reach of whatever palace the court visited. Staff seemed to know everything: Will's schedule, what rooms in what halls were vacant, when to dare much, and when they must go endless days not chancing a tryst. Mary trusted Staff completely, as completely as she desired and loved him.

But it had been almost a week now, the longest they had not dared, and this chilly and damp late April day here at Hampton Court was starting to seep into her bones. After each time they had been together, she fed herself on warm memories of each embrace, each passionate caress, living his tender touches over and over until the memories cooled and she burned with desire for new lovemaking with him.

Mary leaned her flushed cheek on the cool pane of the leaded window overlooking the vast stretch of roofs at Hampton abloom with twisted brick chimneys in the early morning rain. This room was not a bad one really—spacious with a fireplace and a tiny sitting room attached. How the Carey living quarters had improved since they had returned from their year-long exile only three months ago! Their bouche too, the daily allotment by rank of candles, bread, wine, and beer sent to the hundreds of courtiers' rooms, had increased. Probably the result of some comment of her sister to the Great Henry rather than His Grace's true estimate of the Careys' worth. But today, the red bricks of Hampton were glazed with chilly rain and a gray fog drifted in from the river with cold, clenching hands to dampen her precious memories.

She heard her maid Nancy come and she turned to see the girl's arms full of the laundry she had gone to fetch and a bolt of shell-pink satin. “Good news, Lady Mary,” the sweet-faced, brown-haired girl beamed at her mistress as she laid the pile of goods carefully on the table. “The washer women had the linens all done and—look at this!”

Mary gazed with awe at the thick bolt of pale pink satin Nancy extended toward her. She hated to admit it, but she had longed for new gowns after a year away from court while her own sister's growing influence over king and courtiers had changed the styles gradually until her older clothes looked much outdated. Long, tapered sleeves dripping with lace were now the rage and a more bell-shaped sweep of skirt than the padded ones Spanish Queen Catherine still clung to. Mary did not care for her own pride so much that some of her clothes were several years out of style from the heyday of the king's bounty to her, nor for the terrible family pride her father espoused. But she did so want to look beautiful and fashionable for Staff and, of course, she could take no gifts or money from him or else her penurious husband, whose wealth went for Carey causes, would know.

“It is so lovely, Nance, and such a delicate color.”

“Enough for a May Day gown if we get after it fast enough, m'lady. Let's see—it be but four days away, but if we work at it and I get my sister Megan to help us a bit on all the fancy tuckings and embroidery—”

Mary slid her tapered fingers along the rosy and silvery sheen of the material. Even in this muted light it came alive with shimmering highlights when it was turned or moved. “But, Nance, where in the world did it come from? Not my Lord Carey, I warrant, and Lord Stafford does not dare.”

Tears of excitement flooded the maid's hazel eyes and she nearly jumped about in her desire to tell. “By the saints, Lady Mary, I was waiting for you to ask me and you just keep staring wide-eyed in wonder at it all. Your lady mother has come to court with your sister for May Day and she brought it for you.”

“My sister?”

“No, your lady mother.”

“Why was I not told they were coming? I should have known the king would insist Anne be here for the May revels, I guess, but, oh, why do they not tell me anything anymore? And mother should not have borne this great expense for me. Father does not give her a very big allowance for Hever anymore as she and Semmonet are the only constant householders now.” She sank into a chair at their little table with the bolt of shimmery pink satin spilled over her knees.

“Saints, Lady Mary, I thought you would be dancin' on the ceiling for it and you look like the gray sky outside. Lady Bullen said to tell you that she will see you as soon as she and the Lady Anne get settled and after she talks to Lord Bullen.”

“Good luck to her on that,” Mary said grimly.

“M'lady, I been thinking,” Nancy began slowly and then charged on in a rush of increasing speed, “since striped and inset bodices be all the rage, we could cut pieces of ivory satin out of your wedding gown you been wanting to make over, maybe even line the low-square-cut bodice of this May Day dress with the tiny pink roses off that old-fashioned, slashed wedding skirt.”

Mary smiled broadly at the slim girl hovering over her and wiped a threatening tear away with the back of one finger. “Yes, Nance, a wonderful idea. My dear mother should never have done this, but I think she knows how poorly I get on here except for—well, she could know nothing of Lord Stafford.” She and Nancy grinned conspiratorially at each other as if the empty chamber were simply brimming with spies.

“Let's do it then, Nance. This will lift my spirits on a dreary day.”

“And you will be the best-dressed lady, as well as the most beautiful as always,” Nancy chortled and gathered the washed linen from the little table to give them working room.

“Saints, m'lady, we will never manage to lay and cut this out on this little table, and we sure cannot put it on this floor. Shall we go down to the great hall or some larger table to do it?”

“No. No one wants to see Mary Carey about cutting and sewing her own dresses down there. It is just not done. Here, help me move aside these chairs and this table. This rug is clean and we shall have to be careful. If my mother should appear—which I doubt, since she will probably send for me to Anne's rooms—she will certainly understand.”

“And Lord Carey?”

“He said he was to be about when the king receives the French ambassadors so I have no idea when he will appear. Right now at least, my Lord Carey is the least of my worries.”

“Yes, m'lady,” Nancy said solemnly, studying her mistress's face for a moment before they bent to heave and slide the heavy, carved furniture to the corners of the room.

On their hands and knees, they crawled around the edge of the rippled pink sea of material spread between them, measuring, cutting. They studied the cut of earlier dresses and Mary even lay down on the edge of the satin so they could judge the tapered sleeve length before they cut. The rain beat down outside, glazing the windows and occasionally plopping into the ashes of the hearth. Their backs, shoulders, and arms began to ache as the pink cut pieces piled up on the bed.

“There, Nance. And look. Enough for a dress for little Catherine, I am certain. It does not always do for her to be wearing last season's clothes in such close proximity to the Duchess of Suffolk's little daughter Margaret. Now we will cut those strips from the wedding gown and snip off those lovely roses. You should be a seamstress and designer of ladies' gowns, Nance. What a wonderful idea to cut up this old one like this!”

Alight at the praise, the girl beamed at her mistress's words, her sweet, honest face sprinkled with faded freckles. They had worked over the eight-year-old wedding gown but a few minutes when a knock sounded at the door. Still on her knees, Nancy swung it open and an astounded little boy neither of them recognized stared down in surprise at the two women on the floor over a pretty dress they were cutting to shreds.

“L-Lady Carey?” he stammered.

“Yes. Do not be afraid to speak your piece. I am Lady Carey.”

“I be Simon the linkboy from the east hall down there,” he said, and pointed off down the corridor.

“Yes, Simon?”

“The Lady Carey's presence is requested by her lady mother, Lady Bullen in this place, m'lady. See here, one a the king's gent'men wrote it down for me. He extended to her a tiny square of parchment which he had evidently bent and wrinkled in his hot little fist.

Mary rose and took the note from the boy. “Thank you, Simon. You may tell my mother I will attend her immediately.”

The boy grinned. “Yes, m'lady, but I am not 'sposed to go back there. The gent'man already give me a copper for it.” With that, he was gone.

“Imagine paying linkboys to deliver messages these days,” Mary said as she unfolded the little piece of paper. “They used to do that
gratis
as well as light the halls after dark.”

The note said simply, “Your mother and Anne have come to court. Since they are busy and you are not, I suggest you visit your horse in the east stable block nearest the herb gardens now. Ignore the rain. Eden misses you.”

Staff, of course. Had he gone stark mad sending her a written missive like this? But, of course, it was not signed. Now, the note said. Did he mean right now?

Her heart began to hammer as she bent toward her little mirror. She saw her cheeks were already flushing pink in anticipation. “Nancy, get out my green riding dress and a shawl and hurry.”

The girl darted up and pulled the outfit from the huge coffer at the foot of the bed. “Going riding in this fog and rain, Lady Mary,” she protested gently as she shook out the skirts. “Saints, lady, this is a wrinkled mess. Your mother and the Lady Anne want you to go riding in this weather?”

“Please, Nance, hurry. I will help you with the May Day dress when I come back, all night if we must. And if my mother or sister send for me, only tell the messenger I am out and will attend them presently.”

Nancy helped her mistress change clothes quickly. “But that note,” she sputtered and then her face broke into a huge grin. “Oh,
that
mother,” she laughed and winked and they hugged before Mary hurried out the door into the long, oak-paneled hall. It was only as she went down the twisting, enclosed back stairs toward the east stables that she realized she still held the little note clasped tightly in her sweaty palm.

The rain had let up somewhat. “Ignore the rain,” he had written. Yes, she could do that now and gladly. But surely there would be others about the stables, grooms or squires. It did not matter: if they had to just pet Eden and whisper love words over the mare's back, that would have to be enough for today.

She covered her bare head with the dark woven shawl and skirted the herb gardens which would soon burst and bulge with green rows of well-tended asparagus, parsnips, peas, onions and beets. The red brick stable blocks loomed ahead a brighter red in the rain. The Tudor arms inset in stone were over the center door, but she took the gravel path around the side and darted under the overhang to flap clinging raindrops from her shawl.

She entered the warmth of the huge stables and thought instantly of the stables at home. Ian, the blacksmith, tended Hever's small stables proudly despite their meagerness, for when father was away and George gone too, there was no need to support the large number of horses they had once kept there.

The king loved his horses and his hunt hounds, and both were well cared for under this vast roof. It smelled damp here, but fresh—straw and malt all mingled with leather and punctuated with the wheeze and stamp of snorting, shifting horses in their stalls. She glanced down the long rows and saw no one. She had visited her mare Eden here before and her stall was much farther down.

“Excuse me, lovely lady, but are you wanting to ride any mount in particular? Might I be of some help? Do you think you could handle a large, eager stallion today?”

She whirled to face Staff where he stood at his ease between two tall destriers which knights rode at the tilt rail. She would have rushed to him to throw her arms around him, but he held up one hand, and she smiled in obvious wicked anticipation.

“Staff,” she whispered. “It looks empty here, of people, I mean.”

He grinned rakishly at her and raised one eyebrow. “I know, sweet lady. Most of His Grace's men are in the Great Presence Chamber and the women are all aflutter over your sister's arrival.”

“But you—how did you manage to get away?”

“I lied,” he said low and came toward her in the aisle between the stalls where she stood. “I told them I have heartburn from that wretched orgy of rich food His Grace dined those Frenchies on last night. Actually, it was not that much of a lie, lass, only to tell true, the cause of my burning heart is hardly His Grace's highly seasoned food.”

She giggled in sheer delight at his tease, despite the way he glanced quickly up and down the aisle and firmly took her elbow.

“Have you missed me?” he said out of the side of his mouth as they strolled between the two long rows of horse croups and tails.

“Of course. It has been a whole week, my Staff.”

“I know, sweet, and I hate to send for you like this at the oddest times and weirdest places.”