Wolf Bride
Authors: Elizabeth Moss
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Erotica, #General, #Historical
Elizabeth Moss was born into a literary family in Essex, and currently lives in the south-west of England with her husband and young family. She also writes commercial fiction under another name. For more information about her, visit her blog at: www.elizabethmossfiction.com
Wolf Bride
Elizabeth Moss
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Jane Holland 2013
The right of Jane Holland to be identified as the Author of the Work
has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 444 75243 4
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written her fair neck round about:
‘
Noli me tangere
, for Cæsar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.’
Sir Thomas Wyatt, ‘Whoso List to Hunt’
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
January 1536, Greenwich Palace, near London
The soft giggling from within the queen’s chambers could be heard all the way along the corridor to the gardens. If they were caught, Eloise thought, the penalty would be death. Lady Margaret might be standing guard on the door to the west wing, against the king’s approach, but there could be no secrets at court. Already the courtiers were whispering of the queen’s infidelities, though discreetly, not in so many words, fearing the king’s anger if the news should come to his ears.
Eloise had been sent to the queen’s privy chamber with a pure white ermine mantle to guard Her Majesty against the cold. Now she did not know whether to knock and risk the queen’s anger at being disturbed, or go back to the bedchamber with her mission undischarged.
The queen’s fur mantle draped over her arm, Eloise flattened herself against the wall and peered through a crack in the ancient oaken door. She had hoped the rumours were not true, or that the gossipmongers had exaggerated. Yet what she saw was enough to condemn the queen twice over.
Radiant in a billowing gown of yellow silk, Queen Anne was sitting on a man’s knee beneath the casement window. The man was Sir Henry Norris, one of the king’s own Gentlemen of the Chamber. His arm was tight about her waist. She was protesting, but with a smile on her face.
‘Your lap is too hard for a lady’s comfort, Sir Henry. Let me down before you do me some mischief!’
‘I have never heard you complain before that a man was too hard, Anne.’
The queen laughed, leaning back against him. Her slim white throat was adorned with pearls, a strand of wayward hair peeping out from under her black velvet hood.
‘I do not know why I allow you to speak to me in such an insolent fashion, Sir Henry.’
‘Do you not?’ he murmured in her ear, and Eloise saw the hand at the queen’s waist slip upwards, cupping her breast in an openly possessive gesture.
Queen Anne gasped, and slapped away his hand. ‘One of these days . . .’ she began warningly.
‘One of these days you will go too far, Norris, and find yourself out of all favour,’ a deep male voice finished for her, and the queen looked up, smiling gratefully.
There was another man in the chamber, Eloise realised. She watched this man kneel before the queen, and jolted with horror, recognising him from his profile.
Sir Thomas Wyatt, a gentleman of courtly disposition, and a poet of great wit and intelligence. Surely he too was not involved in the queen’s dangerous inner circle?
Sir Thomas had always seemed so well mannered and quietly spoken. Eloise refused to believe he was one of those ambitious courtiers who surrounded Anne like hungry dogs whenever the king was absent.
Wyatt was murmuring, ‘Forget Norris’s insolence, and permit me to amuse you instead, my sweet lady.’ His hand brushed Anne’s cheek, an intimate touch which suggested they were more than mere friends. Certainly if the king had been present, that touch alone would have earned them both a pass to the grim Tower of London. ‘Do you have some small token I could borrow? A jewel, perhaps?’
Anne looked deep into Wyatt’s eyes. Then she smiled, slipping a large emerald ring off her finger. It glittered greenly in the sunlight. ‘The king gave me this as a gift at New Year,’ she confided. ‘Will it do?’
‘It is perfect.’ Wyatt’s voice seemed to waver, becoming husky. ‘Like its wearer.’
‘Will it be returned to me soon? I do not begrudge it to you, Sir Thomas, but the king may notice its absence.’
‘You may have it back if you can find it, Your Majesty.’ Sir Thomas Wyatt hid the ring behind his back. ‘If you cannot find it,’ he murmured, ‘I will be forced to claim a forfeit from you.’
Watching through the crack in the door, Eloise saw him shift the ring from one hand to the other. Then he presented both closed fists to the queen.
‘A challenge?’
Queen Anne gurgled with teasing laughter, still seated with indecent intimacy on Norris’s lap. She leaned forward to choose, her bosom on show, then hesitated a moment, biting her lip as though in doubt. Her wavering hand hovered first above one fist, then the other.
With a sudden lightning stab, she chose the left hand. ‘That one!’
Sir Thomas turned his hand over. His palm was empty. Queen Anne gave a little cry of disappointment.
‘You were unlucky this time, Your Majesty,’ the poet murmured. ‘For if you had chosen the right hand . . .’
Slowly, he opened his other hand; the emerald ring was nestled there, gleaming. Before she could snatch it back, Wyatt clenched his fist again.
‘A kiss,’ he reminded her softly.
The queen’s eyes widened, and a tiny ripple of fear seemed to move through her countenance. She did not refuse him though. Sir Henry Norris made some small noise of protest but Anne ignored him, leaning forward with her gaze on Wyatt’s face. At that moment she looked like a woman dazed, unable to resist the temptation before her.
Eloise stared too, unable to believe her eyes. Surely the poet would not dare kiss the queen on the lips?
The sound of running feet in the corridor made Eloise turn, springing back guiltily from the door.
She had only meant to peep through for a moment, but had found herself caught by the scene before her. Now it seemed to her that the rumours of infidelity might be true after all. If the queen was flirting with courtiers like this behind King Henry’s back, it might have gone beyond kissing with one or two of them.
Eloise shuddered. The horror of what might happen to Queen Anne when the king discovered the truth did not bear thinking about.
It was Lady Margaret, a few years her senior and already one of the queen’s most trusted ladies-in-waiting, who had interrupted her. Margaret was agitated, holding up her gown to run, her cheeks flushed, her unbound hair flying about her face.
‘Out of my way, girl!’ she gasped, pushing Eloise aside. ‘The king is coming! The king is coming!’
But she had been heard from within. A second later, the door to the queen’s privy chamber was flung open. Flushed and with her eyes sparkling, Queen Anne stood on the threshold. She pulled in her jewelled skirts to let Norris and Wyatt pass, ushering them out of her private quarters.
‘Hurry!’ she whispered, watching as the courtiers slipped down a shadowy side corridor that led out to the queen’s privy garden.
‘Where are my ladies?’ she demanded, turning to Margaret.
‘In the rose chamber, Your Majesty.’
‘Quickly, then,’ Queen Anne insisted, hurrying along the corridor into the rose chamber. With deliberate dignity, she seated herself near the fireplace. Her colour was high, yet she did not seem too discomposed by the king’s sudden arrival. The sound of men’s voices could be heard in the corridor now. ‘Fetch me that embroidery.’
While Anne set a few lopsided stitches into her embroidery frame, Lady Margaret bent over her mistress, whispering urgently in her ear.
‘Henry will suspect nothing if we can only keep our heads,’ the queen replied sharply.
‘Yes, Your Majesty.’
The flustered lady-in-waiting tidied Anne’s black velvet hood, pulling back her hair so her slender neck – so admired by King Henry in the early days of their courtship – could be more clearly seen. Anne sat straight in the chair, gazing down upon her embroidery with apparent absorption, her sallow cheeks lit with a blush which was already fading.
Her chief women, who had been lounging at their ease on velvet cushions strewn across the floor, rose in a whisper of silk at the king’s approach and arranged themselves about the queen’s chair.
Eloise hurried into line with the other maids of honour, shaking out the crumpled folds of her court gown. Hers was made of yellow taffeta, for they had all been instructed to wear yellow that month, in celebration of the death of old Queen Katherine, who had been the king’s wife before Anne.
Eloise had only come to court a few years before, a northern girl with little taste for court life. To her father’s relief, the new queen had seemed willing to accept her as a maid of honour, where the old queen, Katherine of Spain, had not been interested. Even so, Eloise was not blinded by gratitude. She did not think it wise of the queen to risk her husband’s displeasure in this dangerous way, flirting with his courtiers behind his back.
She could almost understand Anne’s flirtation with Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was a poet and stirringly handsome with it. But not Norris, an older courtier whose appearance and manners were far less appealing. Besides, her position was already dangerous. It was rumoured that the king was growing bored of his new wife, even though he had disrupted all of England – and even split with the Holy Roman Church – to divorce Katherine and marry Anne instead. There were whispers that he was looking elsewhere for a wife, and all because Anne had failed to bear him a son and heir.
Perhaps the queen had fallen in love with Wyatt, Eloise reasoned. That would explain her flirtatious behaviour. A woman in love must follow her heart.
But could Her Majesty be in love with two men at once?
The door to the queen’s apartments was flung open, and King Henry entered the room, accompanied by Sir Thomas Cromwell, one of the most feared and hated men in the country.