by Karen Harper
Mary could see Staff now and she held her ground although he was still far down the steps and most of the English women had attached themselves and climbed to the reception in the Great Hall. In her room she had hidden brief notes to both Staff and her father in case she had no chance to explain to them exactly what Anne intended in the way of final entertainment for the French flies in her fine spider’s web of revenge. If she had to ask someone else to fetch the notes, there were only two she thought she could trust.
She smiled to acknowledge George’s hello to her as he hurried up the steps in a crowd. His Jane had already draped herself on the arm of a much-improved Rene de Brosse, who, Mary remembered uncomfortably, had tried to undress her one afternoon at Amboise. At least George could not care less what Jane did, Mary reminded herself. He might even approve of Anne’s plan for massive seduction if it meant Jane would bed elsewhere. She turned to scan the remaining men for Staff again and saw her father making straight for her.
“Mary, walk with me. Did Francois remember you after all this time?”
Her voice went instantly cold. She suddenly feared father would not rescue her from the dire plan if she told him of it. “Yes, father. But he is much changed.”
“Well, of course. So are we all, Mary, and you would be the first to tell me so. But now, to it—how did Anne snap back so well after her temper tantrum when she heard there was to be no visit from the queen’s court? She looks fabulous and she is spouting enticing plans for the evening. Do I have you to thank for her fortunate recovery of spirits?”
“I was with her much, father, but I do not wish to claim any responsibility for her plans.”
He narrowed his eyes as he caught her tone. “At least she saw the wisdom in my advice to her to buck up,” he said.
“No, father. To tell you true, she saw revenge in this path. She has every intention of getting even with the French ladies who declined to come to Calais.” She watched his face to see if he caught her meaning. Staff hovered near on the other side of her cousin watching her, but she dared not rush to him as she wished. His dark head turned away in earnest conversation with someone shorter.
“Go on, Mary. You are afraid. What sort of revenge?” She faced him squarely but kept her voice low in the buzz of noise around them in the hall.
“After dinner and the entertainment, then mass seduction if I understand her aright.”
“Judas Priest!” he said, and Mary’s eyes widened with shock as his serious face broke into a grin. “That would set the French bitches back on their pretty heels!”
“Father, please, she cannot just...”
“Mary, hush. Tell me this. Does she include herself in the scheme? Will she at long last bed with His Grace, I mean? Well?”
“It seems so.”
“In that case, I do not give a tinker’s damn if she has the whole lot of them hung up by their thumbs outside her window. That is what I have been urging. If this brought her to it, so be it.” His eyes refocused on Mary’s distraught face. “And you, Mary?”
“I think it is horrendous, and I am ashamed to my very soul that you seem to approve!”
“I meant, what role does Anne see for you in all this?”
Mary could feel herself color under his scrutiny. She would lock herself in her room and say she was ill. She would have no part of it even if they cast her off from the family forever. She would tell Staff and they would flee into the countryside to live in exile from England.
“Has she suggested that you, ah, entertain Francois?”
“I have said enough. I am sorry I thought you would wish to speak with Anne for her vengeful actions. I will be in my room. I am quite unwell.”
He seized her wrist tight while he turned and smiled at someone behind her. “I will let you go now to compose yourself, Mary, but do not make me fetch you for dinner. Everyone is starved. They will be washed and eat very soon. And now, I intend to talk to William Stafford, so you need not greet him. Go straight to your room.”
He let go of her wrist, and she had no choice but to lift her head and walk from the hall. She did not even dare to glance in Staff’s direction, and her father clearly meant to cut her off from any aid Staff could give. She prayed that he saw their confrontation and would somehow get to her to ask what was amiss. If the feasting and banquet began, she might never tell him of her plight until it was too late for his interference with Anne and her father—and the sloe-eyed Francois du Roi.
In her room she shoved her note to Staff in her bodice and tore the one to her father to ragged bits. She cast them into the swirling chill air outside her tiny window. She could clearly hear the surf pounding on the rocks far down the cliffs to which the vast white castle clung. Screams of sea gulls pierced the wind as it whistled around stone corners and into lofty crevices. She took a huge gulp of fresh air to clear her head. Whatever they did to her, she would not bed with the French king or give him one moment to think she would.
The thoughts came distinctly to her now. She and Staff must not wait to be wed, hoping for some miracle. She was deeply ensnared by who she was and her ties to the Boleyns, but he had loved her and waited for her all these years despite the danger. A secret wedding it would have to be, but they would never dare to wrest it from them once she was his wife. They might send them to exile from court—so much the better. She would be a manor wife at Wivenhoe the rest of her days and be well quit of their treacheries and traps. Little Harry might be lost to them if they were not careful, but he seemed almost a stranger to her now. At least, thank God, he did not see the other Boleyns either, tucked away at Hatfield. And little Catherine must be taken with them. The rewards of two loving parents would be rich compensation for the loss of plush royal surroundings and a tutor shared with the king’s niece. If they could only flee tonight!
Two quick raps sounded on the door. She slammed the tiny window shut and dashed to yank on the latch. “Oh! Master Cromwell.”
He bowed his close-cropped sleek head, his hat held in his big hands. “Lady Mary, I apologize at having startled you. Maybe you were expecting someone else. Your father asked me to fetch you to dinner.” His quick eyes went past her, surveyed her little room, then scanned her from slippers to bodice. Suddenly, Mary wished she had not chosen the dress so carefully. Cromwell’s gaze flickered over her once again and snagged where her full breasts revealed deep cleavage above the taut thrust of her bodice.
“Are you quite ready, Lady Mary?”
She stood woodenly facing him with her hand still on the door latch. “Yes. I guess I am ready.”
He did not budge for a moment as she made a move to leave her room. “You look most ravishing, but that is hardly unusual,” he observed in his quiet monotone, and his eyes darted over her again. “Your father said you might not be feeling well, but I am pleased to see no such evidence. If you were ill, I should feel obliged to sit with you until you were strong enough to go to the hall.”
Her throat felt dry and she was suddenly hot all over with foreboding. Reluctantly she closed the door behind them. “I am certain your king would miss you if you did not appear at the feast, Master Cromwell.”
He flashed a smile at her and, to her terror, took her arm above her elbow, his fingers scorching through the tight-fitted satin of her sleeve as though her arm were bare. “Surely there must be some rewards and compensations for my loyal service to His Grace, even if it is just to accompany the most beautiful woman of his court to dinner.”
The hair along the nape of her neck rose as a chill swept over her, but she could not stop her words. “But His Grace gave you my husband’s lands at Plashy three years ago.”
His face did not change but a tiny flame sprang into each flat brown eye. “I pray you do not hold that grant against me, sweet lady. If it would not anger His Grace, I would gladly give it back to you for your kind thoughts and, shall we say, your good graces.”
She instinctively pulled her arm from his hand. “I meant not that I wished you to give me
the lands, Master Cromwell, though I am certain the king would give you anything you could want to replace them.” They were in the hall now among other faces she knew and she almost dashed away from him to hide—anywhere. But instead, she stood pinned by the probing stare of those small hard eyes.
“If the king would give me anything I want, Lady Rochford, I would be a happy man indeed.” His gaze dropped to her low-cut square neckline and she turned away abruptly.
“Here, Mary, sit here,” he said, calmly taking her satin-covered wrist firmly. “Your sister, the Lady Anne, wishes you to sit near your family so when the masque begins, you will be close.” He pulled out the carved chair and bent over her as she sat. “You look faint, Lady, and I should not like to have to carry you to your room. Or at least, I should say, your father and the Lady Anne would not like that.”
Mary’s thoughts darted about in her brain, but she could find no way out. Damn her father! He knew she would not stand still for his orders, but he gave her into the care of this man. Did Cromwell know he was being used too, with her as bait? He was to coerce her into obedience and in the bargain he could sit with her and eye her hotly and touch her. What further had they promised to him? Surely he would not dare to think that the sister of the future queen could be for him!
“The room has been beautifully decorated, has it not, Mary? And would you not call me Thomas, please? I would wish to be an aid to you and a friend if you would ever permit me. It is difficult I know to be a woman alone in the vast court even when one’s people are the premier family.”
“Because one’s people are the premier family, more likely, Master Cromwell,” she heard herself say pointedly. She slid far back in her chair as she felt his knee brush her skirts.
“The first course looks lavish and massive, does it not, my lady?” he said as though she had remarked about the food. He leaned close to her again. His eyes feasted on her face and shoulders as she sat tensely coiled like a spring ready to jump from her chair. “I only ask you not to forget that I have given you a sincere and heartfelt offer of help at any time, Mary. You are very afraid of me it seems, and I am sorry for that. I would rather have things otherwise than that between us—not here, perhaps, but after all of these fine goings-on when we are home.”
She refused to answer him and stared down into her dull gold reflection in the polished plate before her as Francois du Roi lifted his first toast of the long banquet to his dear Henri of England.
Mary felt exhausted after the dinner, dancing, and the elaborate charades. Cromwell did not ask her to dance and seemed content the rest of the evening to sit back and keep a steady eye on her as she danced with Norris, Weston, her brother and even Rene de Brosse. She considered trusting George with the note for Staff, but he raved incessantly about the fabulous job Anne had done with all the plans, and she was afraid. Then Francois claimed her before them all, and she dared not refuse the dance. Besides, she had not seen Staff since the lengthy dinner had been completed. She had so hoped he would get to her in the dancing as he had so often done. She wondered desperately if they had dared to lock him away to be certain their plans were not foiled. Her mind skimmed numerous escapes and discarded them as impossible. Her best defense, if it came down to facing either Francois or Cromwell in some awkward situation, would be her simple refusal. She must hold to that.
The pantomimes of mythological subjects were riotous and even the crafty Cromwell laughed a bit. Anne played the damsel in distress to King Henry’s rescuing knight, and Mary played Venus emerging from the sea made by other nymphs flapping blue and golden bedsheets before her like the rolling waves of the ocean. Francois and Henry re-enacted their spectacular meeting on The Field of the Cloth of Gold of twelve years ago, but some half-drunk Frenchman asked for a replay of the fated wrestling match where the French king threw his dear friend Henry, and Anne suddenly stood to end those revels. To Mary’s utter relief, her father took her arm and Cromwell bowed to them both and disappeared in the noisy crowd.
“How dare you set him on me!” she began the minute they were out of the press of people.
“Calm down, Mary. You are getting as nervous as Anne used to be. Let him have his little rewards for serving the Boleyns. He is a good ally to have. Any fond dreams he may have about you will amount to nothing. Be nice to him. I hardly gave him permission to bed with you, so do not look so outraged.”
“Hardly gave him permission!” She was so beside herself, she sputtered her words. “Get away from me. I am going to my room to spend the night alone. If you even entertained the slightest thought of asking me to visit the chambers of Francois du Roi, you can go to hell, and take Cromwell with you.” She spun away and ran for the safety of her room, gathering her full skirts as she went. To her profound dismay, couples were strolling the branching halls of the old castle, talking low and laughing, stopping in the dimness between wall sconces to kiss and nuzzle.
She yanked open the door to her room and scanned the small chamber quickly before she entered. The hearth fire had been lit, and fresh wine and fruit in a gleaming silver bowl sat on the small polished table. How desperately she wished she would find Staff sitting on her bed with his rakish grin, but she knew deep inside they had sent him somewhere. She shot the lock on her door and leaned against it. Whatever messengers they sent to ask her to go to Francois, even if it be the greedy-eyed Cromwell or Wolsey’s ghost in its winding sheet, she would refuse.
She pulled her gown off her shoulders and breasts and shrugged out of it. She and two other ladies shared a maid, but she would not need her services. She would be deep in her bed before the girl came to help her undress. She twisted the gown around her waist so she could see the laces and untie them herself. She stepped out of the masses of brocades and satins and layers of petticoats and wrapped herself in her black satin bedrobe, bought with father’s money, unfortunately. From now on, she would go naked and starve first.
She downed some wine and was amazed to find it was as fine as what she had been drinking at the feast. How unlike the wine and ale that had been left in her chambers the last week while the men were away. Tomorrow she would find Staff early and tell him everything. She would also make him believe that not only did she fervently wish to marry him as he had asked, for she had told him that clearly enough before, but that she would wed with him as soon as possible.
She poured more wine but slopped a considerable amount on the table when her hand jerked at the knock on the door. She held her breath, but she could hear her heart beat in the quiet above the low crackle of the fire. She pulled the black silk tighter around her.
“It is I, Mary, Jane. Will you not open the door?”
Then Jane was not with Rene de Brosse, Mary thought jubilantly. Could she trust Jane with the note to Staff? She and Anne had never gotten on, especially lately, so perhaps...
“Mary, I know you are in there.”
Mary shot the bolt back and opened the door. Jane Rochford stood there, indeed, but the velvet arm of Francois du Roi was draped over her half-bare shoulders. Mary’s eyes grew wide and she almost slammed the door in their smiling faces.
“See, Mary, I have brought you a wonderful present.”
“Merci, merci beaucoup, cherie,” Francois said in Jane’s ear and bent to kiss the white skin of her shoulder. She giggled. Francois’s hand went to the open edge of Mary’s door. “I came to reminisce about old times, golden Marie,” he said with a wink. “Be gone, be gone, madame charmante,” he ordered the starry-eyed Jane and slowly pushed Mary’s door back toward her as she stood like a statue.
“May we not recall old times tomorrow, Your Grace?” Mary heard herself say smoothly, and she fought to force a smile to her lips. “It is late and I am rather tired.” She was aware that Jane had halted but a few yards away in the dim corridor. If only there were someone else about to call to.
Mary either had to fall backward or loose the door, for Francois leaned the weight of his bent arm hard into it. He wore a black velvet robe
intricately etched in silver filigree. He strode close past her into the room, but she staunchly held her place at the door.
He surveyed the room and then turned back to face her. “See, my sweet, we match again, oui?”
“What, Sire?”
“Just like the evening we first met when the genius da Vinci dressed you to match your king. At the Bastille. Do you not remember?”
“Yes, I remember, but that was not the first time we had met.”
“Really? I could not have forgotten another.” He smiled and she did not.
He raised a graceful arm to her chamber. “Then do you not recall a little room like this one where we used to meet on chill winter afternoons? Close the door, si vous plait, ma Marie. You are letting in a terrible chill and, if you are so tired, you had best take to your bed.”
Still she did not move. He approached slowly and swung the door closed himself. It thudded hollowly. “You are shy after so many years, oui? It has been long. I have missed you.”
Mary smiled then, for the lie was so bold she could not resist. Suddenly, her fear left her. This man could do her harm, no doubt, but not in the way he once had.
“I was sorry to hear of Queen Claude’s death, Your Grace. I hope you are happy with your new queen. My sister was disappointed she could not come to meet us.”
“Oui, of course. But it is a tiny problem that she is Henri’s ex-queen’s niece.” He hesitated. “What is it they call Catherine now?”
“The Princess of Wales, Sire.”
“Ah, oui.”
“So that means you are on the former Queen Catherine’s side of family necessity,” Mary continued.
“Well, my sweet, family necessity can be bent where one’s own heart is involved.”
“Exactly, Your Grace. And tonight I must explain to you that the family necessity which has me here in this room with you must be bent. I am sorry if there have been misunderstandings, Your Grace.”
