by Diane Haeger
She had been childish. She stroked Jane’s forehead tenderly now and heard a rustling of fabric beyond the doors. Servants were speaking in hushed tones. Let them talk, Mary thought, uninterested for the first time in eavesdropping. She was meant to be here with Jane. In spite of how they came together, Jane had loved Thomas, and Mary’s heart went out to the pretty young girl at Eltham who had run through the gardens with her those many carefree years ago.
She was bleeding to death.
Thank the Lord God. . . . At last, an answer.
Muriel Knyvet lay motionless in the bed she had shared with Thomas, listening to the piercing wail of the newborn infant and very slowly feeling the life drain from her body.
She had refused food for days, refused the doctor’s potion to slow the bleeding. This was her answer. She had not looked at his child, had not touched him. Muriel already felt gone from this world. He would be someone else’s to raise. As would her daughter. Elizabeth . . . Only the stray thought of her little girl, the image dashing across her mind, brought any sense of regret at all. Her Bess. But her eight-year-old daughter had been fathered by her first husband, John Grey, who also had died. With no tie to Thomas, sweet Bess was the only thing she would miss of this world. But, by her father, her precious girl was Lady Lisle, a viscountess. A solid match would be made for her by the king—a suitable guardian found before that. She would have a brilliant life. Pray God, though, that she would not fall in love with her husband.
Muriel closed her eyes, felt death’s pull and welcomed it.
Three weeks after the death in childbirth of Muriel Knyvet, and a month after the death at sea of her husband, Mary returned to her apartments from matins and saw the tall, weary-looking man in a soiled green and white seaman’s uniform. He stood in silhouette against her window, gazing out across the horizon beyond Greenwich, at the tall ships at anchor on the Thames. Outside, a heavy rain beat against the windowpanes, shaking the fogged glass. Hearing her, he turned. His beard and mustache all but obscured his more tanned, handsome face, yet his eyes had not changed, nor had the look of knowing between them. Without thinking, Mary dashed toward Charles, wrapped her arms around his neck and, overwhelmed by pity and love, began to weep.
Without fear any longer, or concern for the women who watched them, he stood there and held her tightly. His doublet and cape were rain soaked, but she could still feel the warmth of him through the layers of satin.
“I do not know what made me come here like this. I only knew I had to do it,” he said huskily.
She touched his face, his beard, his lips. “If you hadn’t, I would have come to you the moment I knew you had returned,” she whispered into his long, matted hair that smelled of sweat and rain.
The carefree, honeyed richness of his voice, the charming smile were gone. Jane and Lady Guildford appeared at the door, their lips parted in surprise. By his haggard condition, they both could see that he had come straight from his ship. He had not even pulled off his gloves, nor removed his hat with its pale green plume. Rainwater pooled at his feet.
“Leave us,” Mary said without turning around.
Joan Guildford took a single step forward and tried to object. “But, my lady—”
“Do as I say.”
After they heard the door click and close behind them, Mary drew off his hat and tossed it without thinking onto the floor. Then she ran a hand back through his matted auburn hair.
“It was not your fault,” she soothed, framing his bearded face with her small hands.
“I was there, I saw it. That was bad enough.”
He dropped his arms from around her as Mary very gently kissed each of his cheeks.
“Thomas was in God’s hands. All of you were.”
She saw a little vein throb in his temple. She could not have imagined seeing him, of all people, like this. Like the rest of the court, he had been changed by what had happened.
Mary kissed his face then with a soft, gentle press of her lips.
Charles closed his eyes. Though he did not object, he did not move to take her into his arms again.
“Edward is still out there at sea,” he finally said, his deep voice breaking. “He has vowed not to return, not to look upon the king again, until he has avenged Thomas’s death.”
“How could he expect to do that when the French ship burned right along with his own?”
“He feels responsible, Mary. We both do.”
Looking up at him, seeing the desolation in his eyes, rimmed now with gray, Mary tried very hard to hold back her tears.
Suddenly, Charles moved to touch her face. “Don’t cry for me,” he murmured on a heavy sigh. “I don’t deserve it.”
“I am crying for us all. So many things were meant to be different.”
As he pressed a kiss tenderly onto one cheek and then the other, he felt that the moment and the tenderness bore all of the love in his heart. “If Henry knew I was here now, he would surely have me banished.”
“He would likely kill us both. But I don’t care,” she declared with all of the defiance of a young, untested heart.
“You are a brave, honorable, wonderful man, and I want to be with you. . . . I am meant to be with you. I know it.”
The objection on his tongue dissolved into the echo of her words. This mattered to him. Becoming someone better mattered in the shadow of her young, devoted gaze. Slowly then, a breath at a time, he pulled her close and drew her onto the bed with him. He kissed her once again, although this time neither of them even tried to resist. They were alone, both unmarried, and full of passion for the other. Mary opened her mouth to him, his tongue like fire as he trailed a path down from her throat to where the straight edge of lace met the rise of her breasts, and she wound her arms around him. Skillfully, he continued to arouse her with his mouth and fingers, caressing upward from her thigh. And she yielded, wanting this, wanting him. She did not realize for a moment then that he had lifted his head, arching over her, in a sudden attempt to stop himself.
“You are not one to be used like this,” he declared on a ragged breath.
“Why do you not let me be the judge?”
“I must judge for us both,” he countered, then turned onto his back and closed his eyes.
He was telling her it was too soon. And though she did not want to believe it, he knew that Mary believed it too.
They lay together like that, a powerful intimacy begun between them. Mary laced her fingers with his and inhaled the scent of him. Powerful. Manly. Undeniably sensual. Then she moved a fingertip across the large onyx ring he wore on his finger. She had noticed it before and wondered at it. Bordered by silver, it was flat and round like a mirror.
“That is a magnificent ring.”
“It is the only thing I have of my father. When I was a boy and would wear it to think of my father, the king used to say that if I looked very deeply I could see myself reflected back in it. Not just as I was, but as I wished to become.”
“That sounds awfully poetic for a man like my father.”
He watched her gaze at it in the openly fascinated way of a little girl, and he bit back a charmed smile. “So what do you see in it?”
“Promise you won’t laugh?” Mary looked at him earnestly, her eyes wide. “I see myself . . . and all I wish you to become with me.”
“That is a great deal to see in such a small thing.”
“Perhaps it is because I want very much for it to be there.”
Her mind and her tongue were as quick as any adult, but he saw that her spirit and her innocence were still that of such a child. The combination had a powerful effect on his heart.
God help him for how completely in love with her he had fallen. Charles began to gaze at the black onyx along with her as if they could conjure the images both of them sought.
“And do you see what my father saw?”
“I see you reflected back at me.”
He felt foolish—a lovesick boy. This was not how his life was suppos
ed to be. He was meant to be ruthless in order to gain the advantages he still craved. Since Henry had yet to make him a marquess or an earl, the only path to significant riches was still women. He would be expected to marry again soon. No one at court would understand what he and Mary felt, and even if they did they would not respect it. Anything like love between them was still, and always would be, forbidden. Yet in spite of all that, in spite of everything, all that they both fought against and feared had already happened.
He had known it was true, of course. He had only needed to wait for proof. The Earl of Surrey stood stealthily watching Lady Guildford and Mistress Popincourt leave Mary’s apartments only moments after Charles Brandon had entered them. His angular face and smooth silver hair had been hidden by the shadows in the curtained alcove at the end of the corridor. He met the Duke of Buckingham there, still his partner in the same cause.
“So then? Is it true?”
“If not yet, it soon shall be,” the earl said distastefully, still cautious not to be overheard. No one likes the man who brings bad news, Sophocles said, and Thomas Howard lived by that maxim. He believed that absolutely, so he must take the utmost care in this.
“Is it not time that the king was told? Time that both Brandon, and Wolsey for his complicity, support and silence in this sordid affair, were diminished in His Highness’s eyes?”
The Earl of Surrey paused suddenly, looking at Buckingham. In spite of the fact that he had even married Buckingham’s daughter to enhance his position, the duke had long been Surrey’s keenest rival for place and power—the only duke at court. No matter how they joined in this, Surrey must never forget that. “Your Grace trusts me enough suddenly to plan an ambush with you?” he sneered.
“I trusted you with my daughter, did I not?”
Thomas Howard shook his head. “Ambition does make odd bedfellows.”
“Not so much ambition, Thomas, as self-defense,” Buckingham corrected with a strangely complicitous nod. “If we do not tell the king, and he discovers it some other way, we may look as guilty as Wolsey is about to.”
It had not been a social invitation. Charles knew that well enough as he sat in one of his uncle’s exceedingly uncomfortable tapestry-covered chairs in a room equally designed to make him uncomfortable. Nevertheless, when Thomas Brandon issued his nephew a summons, his appearance was nonnegotiable, for all of the times Charles had gone there, hat in his hand. There was always Anne and her welfare to be concerned about, no matter what else. As usual, Thomas kept him waiting. Charles knew, of course, that his uncle did this to set him off his game. But this time Charles was determined not to be unnerved by whatever the old snake felt it necessary to say in person.
Ten days after his return to court from sea duty, Charles looked up casually as Thomas Brandon came with labored steps, leaning heavily on a silver-tipped walking stick, into the room at last. He was purposefully imposing, in a costume of claret-colored velvet with black slashings and a heavy jewel-studded neck chain. Stiff-backed and stone-faced, his uncle sank into the chair facing Charles. He drew up a waiting goblet of wine, drank from it, then at last spoke.
“Well, then, to the point, shall we?”
“The sooner the better,” Charles replied blandly.
“It does not do the family name at all well for you to be making so indelible a mark at court these days and continue on with no title whatsoever.”
“Difficult for me to do otherwise when you acquired everything of value in the family, Uncle.” The sounds of servants walking past in the corridor beyond the door filled the sudden, awkward silence as Thomas Brandon’s stare went cold.
“I also acquired power enough, Charles, to see to the offer of a wardship for you and with it the potential use of a title all your own.”
Charles struggled not to show his surprise. Thomas Brandon had never done anything for anyone without there being strings attached. Everyone at court knew about the death of Sir John Grey, Viscount Lisle, and the subsequent passing of the little girl’s mother, Muriel Knyvet, in childbirth. The daughter had therefore inherited a title and fortune. A great unease began to snake its way up Charles’s spine. There had been enough jockeying for the acquisition of her guardian-ship since his return to set court tongues wagging.
“Elizabeth Grey?”
“The very same. And I have it on good authority that His Highness will grant it.”
Charles involuntarily sprung from his chair. “I do not wish that particular title.”
Thomas arched a single silvery brow in surprise. “You are too good to be Viscount Lisle, are you?”
“To access the title I must become betrothed to her.”
“That is how it customarily works.”
“Lady Grey is but eight years old!”
“At least you shall not need to question her experience.”
Thomas Brandon was delighting in this predicament, Charles could see by his indelicate sneer and the finger he placed beside his chin. “You seem rather unappreciative, my boy, for one with few similar options.”
That much, he realized, was true. While his company was well favored by the king, Charles was still the poor relation among the most intimate circle, and no number of positions Henry bestowed upon him changed that fact. In spite of all he had obtained in the last few years, this opportunity was not to be matched.
“And, after all, it is only a wardship we are acquiring for now. Not a wife.”
Charles studied him for a moment. There was not a single thing he actually liked about his uncle. “We?”
“You know my policy well enough. Of course it shall be a loan for the time being. But with John Grey’s sizeable fortune stuffed into your coffers you shall at last be able to return to me everything you and Anne owe me, and then some.”
“My own uncle charging me interest?”
“Let us not forget that I took pity on you, boy, back when there was no one else. If not for my kindness all these years, you would be tending hogs in Cheapside, and that sister of yours would be begging in the streets with a mask over her poor scarred face.”
Charles was unsure if he felt more revulsion or anger at that particular moment. This key opportunity was more like a deal with the devil. “I must have time to think.”
“Considering other options?” Thomas asked pointedly because he knew well enough there were no other options available. He let the question hang there for a moment, then he lowered his gaze to add, “Do not confuse my goodwill with affection, Charles. You may be my brother’s son, but he is my brother long dead. Since another Brandon is to remain at court in the company of the king, he shall do so appropriately titled, and not as my poor relation. In your current state you are an embarrassment to me and a drain on my coffers. I shall expect you to take the offer by week’s end so that I may submit it to the king’s offices for approval.”
Thomas Brandon stood with his nephew only then, like a punctuation mark to all he had said, and proceeded toward the door through which he had come. As always, the meeting was terminated without so much as a polite farewell.
“So, then. Tell me all about Mary.”
“The princess Mary?”
“The very one you speak about ceaselessly when you are here.” His sister sweetly laughed, and then touched his knee.
“Yes, the very one.”
As he always did after he had seen his uncle, Charles cleansed his heart and his mind by a visit with his sister, Anne. They sat together in the cozy little fire-stoked nook near the door, made comfortable by two padded chairs covered in tapestry fabric, and two goblets of rich Gascony wine.
“Well, let me see. . . . After my accident in the tournament, she and her companion did bring a confection to my chamber. And then we spoke for what seemed an eternity after my return from the sea, until the same lady did draw her from her apartments, she said, for propriety’s sake.”
“That would be Mistress Popincourt?” Anne chuckled more boldly. Jane’s behavior at court was no secret to Bran
don and thus his sister knew every detail he knew. “Mary loves her, Anne. So I must also.”
She turned back to her brother’s gaze. “So then, is Her Grace as caring as she is lovely?”
“Every bit, I am afraid.”
“Does she yet know your heart?”
“No, and she shall know nothing beyond my attraction to her. I would not do that to her. Besides, that exercise in futility does not become my court reputation as a profligate at all,” he joked. Yet the cavalier tone he had long maintained when Mary was the subject slipped away just a little. Partially, he knew it was because pretense was difficult with Anne. Partially, it was because he was bursting to tell someone his heart and, in all the world, his sister was the only one he trusted fully.
“If my memory serves me,” she observed without a judging inflection, “the lady Mary will be seventeen just before Lent. There seems not so much difference between you now.”
“No matter what I feel, she is the king’s sister. Her age will change, the rest will not.”
“Yet are you not his closest friend?”
“I and approximately ten other gentlemen are his closest friends.”
“I fear you give yourself too little credit, brother.”
“And you give me too much,” he declared, drawing up her hand and kissing it tenderly. “Although I love you with every fiber of my being for it, the truth is I have been insuf-ferably self-indulgent these past years. I am a man with a reputation at court. I have done things for my own advancement that most find objectionable at best. No, my lady Mary is not to be sullied by the likes of me. The king trusts me with her and I should like to keep it like that.”
“And what if she actually returns your affections, brother? What then?”
“It would mean not a thing more than it does at this moment. You know perfectly well her life is not her own. Nor is her heart. I owe every bit of the favor her brother has shown me for remembering that.”
