would appear just before he smiled. His doublet, of dark
gray velvet, was of the simple style he
preferred, with a narrow collar at the throat. The
sleeves were slashed to reveal the white shirt,
tied at the wrists and collar. His hose showed his
legs, thick with muscles, the ever-present
sword sheathed in black enamel resting on his
thigh.
Leaning on his elbow, he plucked the grass from
his teeth, the tip chewed flat. It reminded
Deanie of a cigarette, and she swallowed against the
craving for nicotine that had been plaguing her for a
week.
"What did you ask?" His tone was insolent, a
grin behind the voice.
"Me?"
He nodded, absentmindedly brushing a small
clump of dirt from her hem. They had rarely
touched each other, except for his offering of a
courtly arm or her tapping his hand in excitement
as they spoke. The single exception was when he
kissed her forehead, a lapse in his customary
control. Yet a tension ran between them, a strange
awareness of each other that seemed to expand and
intensify with each passing day. It was as if they were
in ceaseless physical contact, alert to each
other's every move. When he entered a room, she
knew before looking up that he was there. When she
retired with the other ladies of the court, he could
feel her absence without being told she was gone.
Deanie closed her eyes to remember her question,
knowing she could not possibly gather her thoughts with his
face so close, every detail becoming so
familiar, so fascinating. She would never grow
tired of watching him.
As her eyes shut, her fine brows furrowed in
thought, she missed the sudden gentleness in his
expression. The harsh lines seemed to vanish as
he studied her face, drinking in each
feature: the light blue veins on her
eyelids, the tiny freckles on her nose.
He thought of the way her eyes would widen, brown and
luminous, whenever he supplied her with yet another
aspect of court life.
She was vulnerable here, away from all with which she
was familiar. For the first time since he had arrived
at court ten years earlier, he felt
overwhelmingly protective of another human
being. Before he'd been unattached, unencumbered
by the gentle strings of affection. His duty was to the
king and to the families who called Manor
Hamilton home. No other thoughts had softly
plagued his sleep. No radiant smile had
rewarded his smallest of gestures.
Now there was Deanie.
Everything about her was enchanting. The dichotomy
of the dark-haired beauty was enthralling to him, a
strength mingled with delicacy, a determination touched
by uncertainty.
Perhaps she trusted him simply because he alone
knew of her past, where she came from, of the
miraculous journey that had led her to England,
to 1540 ... to him.
It would mean nothing if he could not protect her
from physical danger, from the very real perils of the
court: the petty jealousies, the power-hungry
courtiers who would ruthlessly destroy a life
simply to enjoy more useless luxury.
Sitting before him, she closed her eyes, as
unaware of the menace swirling about her as she was of
his own open expression. He realized with a jolt
that he loved her. His breath caught in his throat
as he mentally articulated the concept.
I love her.
Before he could ponder the revelation, make sense
of the rush of emotions pounding through his veins, she
opened her eyes, beaming.
"I remember! I was about to ask you why the king
made Cromwell the earl of Essex when he
clearly can't stand the guy."
Kit blinked, as if startled, and rolled over
on his back. He closed his eyes against the sun.
Against Deanie.
He paused before he could answer, breathing
heavily as if he had just run a great distance.
Deanie watched his broad chest rise and fall,
the unfamiliar look of confusion on his face.
Kit, who seemed to know all there was to know about
everything, suddenly looked as lost as a
little boy at a state fair.
He took one deep lungful of air, and
once again his face wore the usual controlled,
composed expression.
"I believe he maketh Cromwell an earl
so that his fall, when it occurs--and mark my words,
it will," he said, raising an eyebrow to Deanie,
"will be all the more dramatic and devastating because of the
height."
"You mean," she said softly, "he's setting
him up just to knock him over?"
He nodded once, and Deanie whistled through her
teeth.
Kit could not help but smile at himself, at the
inevitable parallel his words had just drawn. Like
poor beleaguered Cromwell, Kit wondered if
he had unwittingly set himself up for a colossal
fall.
They lined the Great Hall, all the ladies and
gentlemen of the court. Off the hall, on the
domestic side of Hampton, the massive
kitchen and all its wings--including the larder,
dry-fish room, spicery, pastry room, and the
buttery--lay in pristine order. The hundreds
of servants stood in neat, motionless rows, as still
and solemn as the scoured pots and neatly arranged
spoons, awaiting inspection from the queen. Her
jewel-studded slippers might not pad beyond the great
hall, but, just in case, every attendant was scrubbed
and ready.
King Henry held Anne of Cleves at a
formal distance, more regal than was absolutely
necessary. His face did not betray his distaste, for
above all, Henry took enormous pride in his
ability to perform his royal duty with unfailing
elegance and dignity. When he glanced at his
bride, which he did as infrequently as possible,
his pursed lips would twitch under the reddish
mustache, and the great beard would tighten, as if the
king were making a superhuman effort not to be ill.
Deanie was in the low curtsy she had been
practicing with another new lady-in-waiting, a
chirpy, plump teenager named Katherine Howard.
Deanie had been stunned to learn that Mistress
Katherine, who reminded Deanie of a typical
school cheerleader, was the niece of Thomas
Howard, the creepy man who had been in the maze
when she first met Kit. It seemed impossible that
bubbly Katherine was in any way
related to Norfolk, who had made clear his
disapproval of Deanie by making peculiar huffing
noises whenever he passed.
Her eyes were lowered, just as Kit had
instructed. She was not to look up until the queen
addressed her directly. Deanie could not see
her yet; she was lingeri
ng over each and every member of the
court. The hall was stifling in the unusual afternoon
heat, made all the more uncomfortable by the layers of
heavy clothing. The windows were sealed against the threat
of fresh air. She tried to take a deep
breath, but the corset bound her ribs and the breath was
stopped short.
I'm going to faint, she thought with alarm.
Kit stood directly behind her, bowing low
along with all the other titled peers. Deanie, as
a new lady-in-waiting as well as his cousin, was
allowed the privilege of standing with their ranks.
He saw her shoulders begin to slump forward, and very
quietly, without disturbing the sword at his side
or elbowing a grizzled duke standing barely a
foot away, he reached toward her and firmly
gripped her waist.
She didn't jump at the sudden sensation of a
pair of strong hands bracing her. It was as if she
had been expecting his help. He steadied her for a
few moments, her full weight in his grasp.
He knew that if he let her go she would tumble
to the ground.
He also knew how completely she trusted him.
It was the longest physical contact they had ever
enjoyed, had ever allowed. The queen was approaching
more quickly now, nodding to her ladies, graciously
bestowing smiles upon her subjects.
Deanie let the corner of her voluminous
skirt fall and caressed one of his hard hands,
giving a soft squeeze. He smiled, understanding
her signal. With a returning press, he withdrew
his grasp. The bones in her hand had felt fine and
delicate in his, gentle hands to be cherished.
Warmth flooded Deanie's face, a tenderness
that threatened to bring a tear to her eye. And then,
too late, she realized the queen was before her.
Snapping back to reality, Deanie tried
frantically to recall what she was to do next.
Damn! They had practiced just that morning,
Deanie and Mary and Cecily and Katherine.
Then it came to her: She was to sink deeper into a
curtsy. In her haste, she'd forgotten that she
had let go of a corner of her gown to touch
Kit's hand. The toe of her slipper caught the
hem of her skirt, and in the blink of an eye,
Deanie plopped unceremoniously to the ground.
For a moment all was quiet, as a stunned,
startled hush fell over the entire hall. One
lady allowed a soft gasp to escape her mouth.
Someone--probably Thomas Howard--snorted in
disgust.
Kit stepped forward to help her rise, placing
a foot on the swirling train of her gown.
Muttering apologies to the king and queen, he
lifted her halfway to a standing position, when
suddenly the material he was unwittingly standing on
began to rise with its wearer. Both Deanie and
Kit slammed to the ground, his sword clattering
beside them.
Deanie scrambled to stand, leaning on Kit's
shoulder for leverage. With a dazed Kit still on her
skirts, there was no hope.
Suddenly a single booming laugh filled the
hall. Henry, his face flushed with glee, threw
back his head, pounded his hands together, and roared with
genuine, unaffected laughter.
"By God," he shouted, the peers beginning
to smile among themselves, relieved at their
sovereign's delight. "'tis the best jest we
have seen in years! Ha! Mistress Deanie and
Hamilton, we most heartily thank ye!"
The king then dissolved into a fit of hilarity,
tears streaming down his massive face, his
bejeweled doublet shaking with unrestrained glee.
At last Deanie and Kit were able to stand and
face the queen.
She was not at all what Deanie had
expected. Instead of some foreign, exotic beast,
Anne of Cleves--in spite of her
strangely shaped headdress and high-necked
gown, thick with gold thread and belted under ample
breasts--was one of the most friendly, unabashedly
kind-looking people Deanie had ever seen. She was
certainly not attractive. Her nose was large
and crooked, her skin slightly pockmarked, and
her eyebrows, heavily plucked, rested over
droopy eyes.
But then she giggled, an infectious, girlish
laugh, and clasped Deanie's hand.
"Mistress Deanie," she said in her
ponderous accent. "I too must give thee thanks
for making my most gracious husband happy."
Kit hastened to explain that his cousin was
very new to the court and had yet to learn its ways.
He apologized, bending over her hand, causing the
queen, like every other female, to blush with pleasure
at his charms.
The king was still howling with laughter. The queen, before
continuing the reception, whispered into Deanie's ear:
"I hope, Mistress Deanie, that since we
are both so very new at this court, we shall become
special friends." Then she left to conclude her
royal progress.
Deanie, still startled by what had happened, felt
herself smile. She liked the queen, no matter
what the king or even Kit felt about her.
Another thought crossed her mind: Even in a
world of mucky, foul smells, Anne of
Cleves sure did stink.
One of the king's ministers was not in the Great
Hall. His absence was a glaring omission, one the
king had specifically planned, one the king
particularly relished.
Thomas Cromwell paced in his chamber,
ignoring the plush, fur-trimmed collar that
tickled his cheek. Downstairs the queen was receiving
the other peers. Cromwell, as the newly titled
earl of Essex, should have been there, beside Norfolk
and Suffolk and Hamilton. Instead, the king had
ordered Cromwell to work on the annulment
proceedings, even as the queen, oblivious to her
impending fate, played the role of genteel
consort.
It mattered not that the workings of England could grind
to a halt at the king's every whim and fancy, that a
fine day could find the king and his Privy Council
galloping the countryside in search of a beast
to slay for mere sport.
Cromwell was not to be allowed the honor of
receiving the very woman he had made queen.
The quill in his hand snapped in two.
Cromwell knew what the king's conduct toward
him meant; he could read the ominous writing on the
stone wall. He had seen his sovereign act this
way before; his once-blazing enthusiasm for a
subject could pivot overnight into deadly,
sometimes irrational hatred.
It had been that way for Anne Boleyn,
another woman Cromwell had made queen.
She had once been the center of the king's
universe; then, within hours it seemed, Henry
told of his loathing, how she had bewitched
him, how the very sight o
f the woman he once adored
made him physically ill.
Like the quill in his hand, Anne Boleyn had
ended in two pieces, her dark head separated from
her slender body by the executioner's sword. At
the time, members of the court had remarked on the
king's marvelous kindness in hiring an expensive
but expert swordsman from France to make his former
wife's death swifter, and presumably less
painful, than it would have been had he relied on a
native headsman with a dull, thick English
ax. Nobody dared to mention that Henry had already
procured a divorce from Anne Boleyn. He
had been free to marry again, free of his second
wife. Her death had been a stroke of
malevolent spite from an enraged sovereign.
Others had been executed, good men, great men.
There were too many to count now: Thomas More and
Bishop Fisher and Lord Rochford. Like a spoiled
child grown weary of a shiny new trinket, Henry
would toss aside men, turning his back on those
who had served him most faithfully.
Cromwell knew the pattern. He had
assisted the king on countless occasions, winning a
conviction of treason here, usurping a peer's land
and worldly goods there, always expeditious in condemming
last week's favorite to the Tower.
And soon it would be Cromwell himself.
It was no fault of his that reports of the
Cleves woman had been grossly inaccurate.
His own ministers had attested to her beauty and
wit, that she would be in every way a most perfect
wife for the great Harry of England. If anyone was
to blame for the deception it was that German artist
Holbein, whose magnificent portrait of the
sister of the duke of Cleves that had whet the king's
considerable appetite in the first place.
But the king became infuriated when Cromwell
suggested that the culpability lay with the painter.
"He is an artist, Cromwell," the king
sneered. "I, above all, understand the artistic
mind. 'Tis no fault of his." Unspoken,
but implied by the king's glare, were the words "How
canst thou, naught but a blacksmithy's son,
know of art and beauty?"
Cromwell had arranged the marriage, and now
the king would find the means with which to make him pay.
In his mind he envisioned the reception below, the
bobbing ladies and bowing gentlemen, the eyes
meeting in silent awareness that Thomas
Cromwell, the earl of Essex, was absent. It
would begin now, his slide to ruin.
Who would take his place? The duke of
Norfolk, Thomas Howard, would be eager as a
puppy to please the king. He had managed
to extricate himself from that disastrous niece of his,
Anne Boleyn, by becoming her most vocal
detractor once he saw the king had tired of
her. By licking the king's boots, Norfolk was
again in favor, backed by Catholics alarmed
by Cromwell's dissolution of the monasteries.
The king had been happy enough to take the riches
of the dissolved monasteries. His lavish court had
all but bankrupted England, and someone had to pay.
The monies had replenished the royal coffers.
Now the king blamed Cromwell. The Catholics
blamed Cromwell as well, and they heaped on
added reproach by throwing in Anne of Cleves, a
follower of the heretic Martin Luther. Never mind
that she had played the part of dutiful Catholic
since arriving in England.
Cromwell alone would be blamed, accused, and
condemned.
Now Norfolk was pushing another niece--how
many did he have?--toward the king in hopes of
securing permanent favor. Katherine Howard was
but fifteen, pretty enough in a plump, sluttish
way. He was right, that Norfolk. Whoever
supplied the king with an antidote to the Cleves
woman would reign supreme at court, topped
only by the king himself.
His fist came down on a stack of parchments,
documents drawn up by his clerks to win an
annulment. Once that was achieved, Cromwell's
time would be up.
Unless ...
He recalled a few days earlier, in the
king's chambers, the expression on Henry's
face as he looked upon the new woman, that cousin
of Hamilton's, the wench from Wales. The
royal countenance had been hungry, lascivious.
She was indeed extraordinary in appearance. The
king liked women of spirit, with flashes of wit,
women who could amuse his regal humor. He
professed to love virtue in a woman, although
what he really loved was gaiety and vivacity.
Hope began to blossom in Cromwell.
He would control Hamilton's cousin,
present her to the king as a precious jewel on
black velvet. It may actually work
to his advantage, the Cleves union, for the king
would be so eager to rinse the bitter taste of Anne
from his mouth that any dainty tidbit would be all the
more delectable.
What was her name? Ah, Mistress Deanie
Bailey. A common name, but it would be regal enough
Once Upon a Rose Page 9
