The hairs along Ginny’s arms prickled. Her scalp crawled. No...no, not that! Were her parents so insensitive that they could subject her to that? With an ageing king? And Sir Jon, too? Had he agreed that, for his rewards, he would allow his wife to be used? Her head reeled with the onrush of questions. She felt nauseous as a wave of cooking smells assaulted her nostrils. Where was Elion? Maeve? They would explain.
From above her, a fanfare of trumpets blasted out across the hall to tell them that supper was about to begin, for however much the king pretended that his informal visits needed no pomp or ceremony, he would not have been impressed if his hosts had taken him at his word. It was too late for Ginny to explore the details of the matter that would affect her for the rest of her life.
Amongst those who had come with the king that day, there were few who were unaware of the coolness between Mistress D’Arvall and Sir Jon Raemon, and now some had even placed bets on how long it would take him to thaw the lady who must have some very serious reasons for her dislike. She must rate herself very highly, they thought, to place herself so far beyond his reach when he was one of the most eligible of the king’s gentlemen, wealthy, accomplished, intelligent, and devastatingly good-looking. So it was with some anticipation that the handsome couple was observed together at the table where their demeanour could be judged and the stakes raised accordingly.
But as if in unspoken accord, neither Ginny nor Sir Jon would give them the satisfaction of having anything to gossip about, and to all eyes it looked as if Ginny was prepared to accept the role being thrust upon her, whatever it was, and to be the meek and submissive daughter her father required. The truth was that she would not shame her family, or Sir Jon, in public before the king, although what she did in private would be an entirely different matter. Knowing her as they did, her family was not fooled, and nor was Sir Jon, who did not know her half so well, but had observed her more keenly than she realised. He had seen how her father had spoken to her, how she had paled and how he would not have minced his words. Having gained some idea from their brief talk together how her mind was so set against him, he was thankful, but not optimistic, about her show of obedience.
The lavish supper passed off without incident, King Henry’s occasional references to Ginny’s talents and Sir Jon’s eagerness being taken good-naturedly by them, while she raged inside at all those who sought to manipulate her life for their own selfish ends. There was a point during the banter when, under cover of the noise, Sir Jon murmured to her, ‘Well done, mistress. I know what this is costing you in restraint.’
‘Do you, Sir Jon? I very much doubt it.’
‘Believe me, I do. They’re like a dog with a bone. They’ll let it go eventually.’
Warming to his role as matchmaker, and assuming that Ginny would be of the same mind as any young woman ripe for marriage, Henry lost no time after supper in bringing the two of them together in a public manner intended to show off his great benevolence, as if his motives were entirely selfless. Upstairs, in the beautiful oak gallery, he took Ginny by the hand while beckoning Sir Jon to stand close by, past the silk-clad legs and crackling skirts, the smiling faces and nudging elbows, causing a silence to descend as he took centre stage. ‘Mistress D’Arvall,’ he said in his rasping tenor, ‘since this sluggard has not seen fit to find you for himself, I present him to you now for your approval. It is our wish, and that of your parents, that you and Sir Jon should plight your troth at some time during our visit. You, sir, are most fortunate. Mistress D’Arvall is a prize worth winning.’ He looked down at Ginny with such unconcealed lust that, for once, his next words only squeaked and had to be repeated. ‘He will...ahem...he will make you a good and honest husband, mistress. We commend him to you.’
‘I thank you, your Majesty, but...’
‘Sir Jon, you may take the lady’s hand.’
With every eye upon them, Ginny placed her fingers lightly on Sir Jon’s rock-solid palm to support her curtsy as the applause and smiles added yet another layer of finality, already too deep for her liking. She felt the net closing around her and pulling her wherever Sir Jon went and nowhere she wanted to be. Certainly not at court and certainly not anywhere near the husband of the woman she had come to admire. She would be moulded to other men’s lives, given over to their desires with all her dreams of love fading in one handclasp. He took her hand to his lips, bowing courteously, putting on a good act, Ginny thought, of being pleased by the king’s generosity. Her own eyes were downcast, her heart heavy with foreboding, for this handsome creature who had once rejected her would surely have a woman of his own somewhere, maybe one of those watching this charade. Their hearts would probably weigh as heavy as hers. Perhaps they had already planned how to deal with it.
Heavy-hearted or not, Sir Jon concealed it well as he led her through the crowd to meet well-wishers, to acknowledge smiles, slaps on the back for him, and kisses for her from those she would now have to learn to like. Drawn this way and that, parted from Sir Jon, she came face-to-face once more with her brother Paul, his friends already laughing at his witty remarks, the content of which Ginny could easily guess. She would have smiled and moved away in search of her sister, but Paul would not allow the chance to escape him and, leaning heavily against her with his lips close to her ear, he mimicked the king’s words of a moment earlier. ‘He’ll make you a good and honest husband, mistress,’ he said in the reedy royal tone. ‘And do you see that lust in my eyes, too, sweet wench? I’ll have you in my bed tonight, sweet Virginia. Sir Jon won’t mind if I have you first, eh?’ Laughing at his own adolescent jest, he swung her round by the waist in a parody of a dance until she was caught and held by Maeve, who would not share Paul’s sport at her expense.
Nor did George, her husband, whose hand held the back of Paul’s embroidered collar as if he were an ill-trained pup. ‘Go and sit down, D’Arvall,’ he said in a low angry voice. ‘The wine’s gone to your head, lad. You’ll go too far one day if you’re not more careful.’ He gave him an ungentle shove into the arms of his companions.
‘I said nothing!’ Paul protested. ‘I was only...’
Sir George turned back to the two sisters and saw by Ginny’s white face that her brother’s ‘nothing’ was far from the truth. People moved away sympathetically, leaving them to find a bench at the end of the long gallery beneath a dark portrait of their grandfather. ‘What is it, Ginny?’ Maeve said. ‘What did Paul say?’
‘He said...well, he seemed to be saying that this is all for the king’s convenience and that Sir Jon wouldn’t mind. Which is what I’d already begun to suspect. Is it true, Maeve? Is this what the king does when he takes a mistress? I’ve not been at court long enough to know how these things are done, but not for one moment did I imagine the king would already be in need of a mistress when he’s only been married a month or so. Tell me it’s not true.’
The brief glance exchanged between Maeve and her husband was loaded with anguish. ‘Listen, love,’ Maeve said, taking Ginny’s hand upon the rich green brocade of her skirt. ‘We hoped Mother would have made the position clear to you by now. And Father, too. They know how these things go.’
‘The position? You mean, it’s true? He’s expecting me to...?’
‘Well, yes. When the king intends to take a mistress, he prefers her to be a married woman so that when she bears a child, there’s always a husband to give it a name, so that it won’t be a bastard. Bastards can cause a bit of a problem, you see, later on, with claims of royal prerogative, so he tends not to recognise them these days. It’s easier for him.’ She paused, hoping George might continue.
‘It was like that with Mary Boleyn,’ he said, ‘Anne’s sister. She was married off to William Carey before her children were born. They didn’t have any choice and Carey didn’t care for the arrangement, but he accepted it. It’s happened with others, too. He doesn’t have affairs with unmarried women anymore. It’s too ris
ky.’
‘So he’s persuaded Sir Jon Raemon to agree to marry me so that I can be on hand? And he knew I’d have to accept the situation because Father would demand it, if he was offered bribes, too? And Mother? How could they do that?’
‘Henry tried the same thing on with George and me, but I quickly became pregnant and I never got as far as Henry’s bed, thank heaven. He took it in good part, but now he’s seen you, Ginny, and he’s got Father to assert his authority because he knows how much Father wants Sandrock Priory and this is the carrot he’s using. I don’t know what he’s offered Sir Jon, but if I were you, I’d not assume he had to be bribed heavily.’
‘Of course he must. He didn’t want me three years ago,’ Ginny said heatedly. ‘He’s been persuaded to change his mind.’
George would have said more, but Ginny was in no mood to accept that Sir Jon’s change of heart might have had much to do with the beauty she had become. Even in a roomful of Henry’s select courtiers, Ginny and her sister stood out like perfect blooms in a winter landscape. And he had seen a look on Sir Jon’s face that he’d never seen before, not even for the late Lady Magdalen Raemon. She had been a beauty, but Ginny had a rare loveliness that took men’s breath away and made wives nudge their husbands peevishly when their eyes lingered too long in her direction. At eleven years her sister’s senior, Maeve had a more mature loveliness and a serene nature that Henry had once found more to his liking than Queen Anne Boleyn’s fault finding. But by that time, she and George were deeply in love and George had never been one to let the grass grow under his feet. He had not even waited for Sir Walter’s permission to marry his daughter, and it had taken the birth of his first grandchild to soften his heart towards them.
‘Ginny, listen,’ he said. ‘We’ll help. It doesn’t have to go all the way. Sir Jon will find a way round it, as we did.’
‘By getting pregnant as fast as possible...yes...well, thank you for that, George. I’m sure you meant it for the best but, as it happens, I don’t want to go to bed with either of them.’
‘Is there someone else, Ginny?’ Maeve said, watching the approach of Sir Jon and wondering guiltily why any woman would not want to go to bed with him. What a virile creature he was, for sure.
Ginny stood at Sir Jon’s approach. ‘It would make no difference now if there was, would it?’ she said, looking directly at him, intending him to understand the question as well as the reply. ‘It’s a risk we both must take, husbands and wives.’
‘Congratulations, Raemon,’ said Sir George, standing to meet his neighbour. ‘It’s been an eventful day. Would it help for you and Mistress D’Arvall to find a quiet corner where you can talk in private? I can show you...’
Forgetting Sir Jon’s views on her manners, Ginny was already moving purposefully through the parting crowd, leaving some stares in her wake at her determined expression. With the intention of shaking him off by weaving in and out of groups, darting through doorways, round corners, and into a series of linking rooms, she glanced over her shoulder to see if she had lost him and bumped, with a din that echoed off the panelled walls, into a servant bearing a tray of drinking glasses. The crystal splinters seemed to wet the floor with glittering fragments, bringing forwards a rush of servants to clear it and stranding Ginny in an island of clear flagstones. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘That was my fault.’
‘No, mistress. Mine entirely. Oh...sir?’ the poor man said, indicating Ginny’s plight, ‘could you...er...assist? Ah, thank you, Sir Jon.’
Before the request could register with her, she was being swung off her feet by strong unyielding arms that held her hard against a velvet doublet with, just above her forehead, a white linen collar edged with blackwork, a neatly bearded jaw, and the scent she recognised as dangerously male, indefinable, and unique. ‘Now, my flighty bird,’ he muttered, swinging her round, ‘is this where you were leading me? Over here, was it?’
Above her, the plasterwork ceiling tilted and revolved. ‘I was not leading you anywhere,’ she scolded, clutching at her skirt as they passed through yet another doorway. ‘Put me down, sir. I can walk!’
‘Following Henry’s instructions to take you in hand, mistress,’ he said, striding ahead as if he knew exactly where they were going.
‘He didn’t say that!’
‘He did to me. He knows of your reputation. Perhaps your father warned him.’
‘I don’t need to be taken in your hand or anyone else’s,’ she said, gasping at the pace. ‘Put me down!’
With the squeak of an iron door latch and a noticeable fading of light from the wall sconces, she was carried into the small private anteroom overlooking the chapel and tipped without ceremony onto the cushioned bench. There was no room for her to manoeuvre a way out. The heavy door clicked shut and, before she could protest about being alone with him in the semi-darkness, Sir Jon was beside her with one arm along the back of the bench and his knees intimately wedging her in. Down below them in the body of the chapel, distant candles in tall wooden stands shed a glow over the altar and panelled reredos, the step, and very little else. In the dimness, Ginny strained her senses to pick up the messages of his body and the face too close to hers. She had never before been lifted and carried by a man, or held helpless in a small space, not even in the dance where she could move away easily. Now her instinct told her that talk was her best defence. She drew breath, too audible in the closeted space.
She could not see what was about to happen in time to prevent it. With characteristic speed, he pulled her towards him, tipping her head against his shoulder and covering her scolding mouth with his lips in a kiss that, if she’d been less of an innocent, she might have anticipated. A man did not usually sit so close to a woman with his arm across her back for no very good reason. Meant, she was sure, to silence her, his kiss sent a shock through her body of a kind she had never known before, tasting of mastery and a world of experience that had little to do with her own relatively uneventful years. She would have struggled to free herself but, for that moment, nothing existed but the sensation of his mouth moving over hers, the soft brush of his beard on her chin and the hard pressure of his arms across her back. Making it clear that her participation was not required, he moved one hand to take a fistful of her hair, sending another shock deep into her body as it instinctively recognised the male force of his desire and her helplessness against it. Her lips parted under his fierce grasp and a quiet yelp of fear escaped them. His mouth lifted at once, his arms slackened and she was held upright, her hair released.
Dazed and shaken, Ginny moved away as far as she could, resisting the temptation to adjust her hair or wipe her tingling lips. She would not show him how she was affected. ‘So,’ she whispered, ‘that’s taking me in hand, is it?’
‘It’s a start,’ he said huskily. ‘You let that tongue of yours run away with you in public again and I’ll stop you. That’s as good a way as any.’
‘Indeed, that’s as great a threat as ever I heard, Sir Jon.’ She stood up. ‘Now let me pass.’
‘Sit down. We haven’t finished.’
‘In which case, sir, perhaps you can explain to me how much you know about the king’s intention to make me his mistress. Am I really the last to know of this?’
‘Let’s get this straight, shall we?’ he said, taking her chin in his hand and turning it towards him. ‘We are both pawns in this game, mistress. The king offers me a wife and I accept. He offers your father a good marriage for his daughter and he accepts. Neither of us has much of a choice, with or without the rewards you’re so concerned about. We do as we’re told. There’s nothing new in that.’
‘Oh, wait a moment. What I’m so concerned about is not so much the rewards you’re being offered as my role in this particular charade. You see, I do like to have some say in who fathers my child, when I have one. I would say that was reasonable, wouldn’t you? Otherwise I’d
not be much different from a breeding mare that has no choice in which stallion covers her. Would I?’
‘So you don’t see it as an honour to be the king’s mistress? Many women would.’
For a few seconds, Ginny struggled to find words to counter the crassness of his question. Henry was forty-nine years old, monstrously overweight, and suffering from a painfully ulcerated leg, bad temper, and bouts of depression. He was probably the most unattractive bedfellow any woman could possibly be saddled with, yet she knew that there were women who would climb into bed with him if they thought the rewards were great enough. The possibility was a favourite topic of conversation at court, although Ginny’s closeness to Queen Anna, the lady from Cleves, had afforded her little understanding of the process, except the initial flirting. She had believed this to be relatively harmless coming from a newly married king, and certainly she had never taken her own involvement seriously. She had not been the only maid to be sent letters and jewels. Fifteen-year-old Anne Basset, daughter of Lord Lisle, had been given a horse and an embroidered saddlecloth, much to her lady mother’s delight. ‘His Majesty has a new wife,’ Ginny said, ‘of whom I am fond, sir. I would be shamed, not honoured. You, apparently, see things differently. You stand to gain. I stand to gain the title of king’s whore. That leaves you unmoved, does it?’
His reply was not quite what she’d expected. ‘Believe it or not, mistress, I am not as eager as you seem to think to propel you with all haste into the king’s bed.’
‘Yet you accept his offer—me—without demur. He must have made the position clear to you.’
‘I accepted the king’s offer because it suits my purpose. I need a mistress for my home at Lea Magna, a stepmother for my daughter, and an heir of my own.’
‘Thank you. How very honest. Three years ago, it didn’t suit your purpose.’
‘Correct. Things change.’
Betrayed, Betrothed and Bedded Page 6
