‘My dear, I would never have spoken if I’d thought for one moment that your dear mother had not confided in you. Now, the best thing to do is to ask her, isn’t it? I was never one for speaking out of turn. It can do too much damage.’
Since damage seemed to be what Lady Anne Seymour thrived on, her refusal to go into details only added to Ginny’s confusion, even after the more recent shocks of finding that her parents cared less about her moral behaviour than about their personal acquisitions. As for her father’s infidelity, Ginny felt sick with shock, not only because he’d been unfaithful, but because he’d always made such a fuss about other men’s lapses, except the king’s. Who was she to believe these days when so many around her were self-seeking, hypocritical, and untrustworthy? She would not open old wounds by asking her mother, and Molly was not the one with whom to discuss such a private matter even if she had known about it, for Molly would not speak about Lady Agnes’s affairs to her daughter, though she had been expected to report Ginny’s affairs to her. But Maeve would know, almost certainly.
* * *
They left Elvetham Hall at first light, refusing the invitation to stay there again on the return journey on the pretext that she would be calling at D’Arvall Hall instead, now that the days were lengthening.
Her arrival at Lea Magna, though unexpected, was heart-warming and calming after the disturbed night just past. With Molly to take charge of the accommodation and her mistress’s creature comforts, Ginny’s first call was on her stepdaughter and a reception that made the travails of the previous day worth while. The child was ecstatic, not only remembering Ginny’s name but eager to show her what else she had learned in her absence, new words, using a spoon and pusher, hiding from her nurse, the names of some early flowers and birds, and how to dress her puppet, if somewhat roughly. Ginny spent most of her time with Etta in the large garden where crocuses and daffodils were pushing through the soil, where spiders hung their dewy webs and ducks and swans came to be fed on the lake. And Ginny felt both the contentment and longing of having a child and wanting one, too.
Breaking all her father’s rules, Etta was allowed to spend two whole days, dressed warmly, in the spring sunshine, exploring every part of the house both outside and in, with no less than four guardians in attendance and her bedtime rituals watched over until sleep came with sweet exhaustion. Not once did the child mention her father, and although Ginny introduced the name whenever she found the opportunity, there was no response other than a thumb tucked into the little triangular mouth.
But when Etta was asleep, Ginny and Molly took a candle to the upper room under the sloping roof that no one used, where a stack of old portraits leaned against one wall as if waiting to be hung. ‘There’s sure to be one somewhere,’ Ginny said, ‘because Master Holbein told me she sat for him soon after their marriage. He put her name and date on it, too, so we can’t mistake it.’
‘Are we looking for a fair-haired woman, do you suppose?’ Molly said, placing the candle on a dusty table. ‘Judging by Etta’s, that would make sense.’
‘I should have asked Master Holbein while I had the chance. But what interests me, Molly, is how no one seems able to say anything much about her except that she was wealthy and popular, and that she spent more time at court than she did here. I want to know how beautiful she was.’ And why my husband finds it so difficult to let her go. ‘I think I deserve to know more about the competition. Bring the candle up closer. There’s one here that looks quite new. This is it, here’s the name above. Lady Magdalen Raemon, AD 1537. So this is her, Molly. Look!’
‘But this one is not fair haired, my lady. She’s as dark as Sir Jon.’
‘Is it the light? Let’s move it out. Lift!’
They sat the heavy gilded frame on the table and placed the candle nearby, moving their heads from side to side to avoid the shine, to study the colours, the marvellous detail of reality, of texture and tone, as only Holbein could do. The face of a voluptuously lovely woman stared out over their shoulders, gowned in deep red shining silk and rich, golden, fur-edged sleeves, a small French hood perched at the back of her head showing the sheen of black hair swept from her forehead, stopped by the crescent-shaped biliment of pearls and diamonds, then the heavy fall of velvet over one shoulder and down the back, wealth showing in every facet. Black eyebrows curved like delicate bows over lustrous dark-brown eyes hinting of the excitement of being studied at length by a man. She was quite magnificent. Any man would have fallen in love with her for her beauty alone.
Ginny stared, then the truth stole upon her like a sudden storm cloud on a summer’s day, wiping out every other explanation but one and chilling her heart with the sting of it. ‘Put it away,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve seen enough.’ Trembling with sudden realisation, she covered her face with her hands and stood there while Molly complied, then put a gentle hand on her shoulder.
‘It might not mean what you think,’ she said. ‘There may be another explanation. Come now. Come away. You’re tired and not thinking straight.’
Ginny could not speak. Molly was mistaken. She was thinking very straight. Dry-eyed and white with shock, she was glad then to have had Molly with her, a woman to whom she could speak in confidence about what she had just discovered, who would not try to pretend there had been nothing significant to see. A dark-haired beauty, as lovely as they’d said. Etta’s mother. Etta, whose hair was as pale golden as the Princess Elizabeth’s, with the true colouring of the Tudors. There was only one explanation. The king had used the first Lady Raemon in the same way he intended to use the second, the new wife of a man he could trust to oblige him in this most disgraceful royal habit. She had been willing to place some trust in Jon, at last, but how could she trust a man who owed his favour to this kind of betrayal? Poor little Etta. Was it any wonder Jon wanted so little to do with her? Another man’s offspring.
In the comfort of her room, Molly wrapped a blanket round Ginny’s shoulders as she sipped the hot posset that her maid had made for her, deciding what best to do, with or without Sir Jon’s approval. ‘He won’t like it,’ she said, ‘but I’m going to take Etta to London. She will live with us there. We’ll find extra rooms for her and her nurses at Whitehall, or we’ll open up the house that Sir Jon has at Westminster and live there. If my sister Maeve can do it, so can I. Etta needs me and she needs her father, too. He cannot keep her hidden away like this as if she was not a part of his world. And I need her too, Molly. She’s our family. She should be with us.’
‘My lady, it’s going to create the most enormous problems, isn’t it?’
‘No bigger than those that already exist, Molly. We’ll find ways round them.’
‘Is it worth Sir Jon’s anger, my lady?’
‘What can he do? He’ll not take her back without me and I think I’d rather be with Etta than with him, if this is the kind of thing he’s capable of.’
Molly did not need to ask what she meant by ‘that kind of thing’ when it was obvious that her mistress now disbelieved in her husband’s protection from Henry’s attention. He had allowed it to happen to one wife and he had agreed to let it happen to her. Or that was how it seemed.
I am no more eager than any other man to be cuckolded, even by the king, he had told Ginny, nor do I particularly want my wife to be his whore. And she had believed him, agreeing against her will to put some kind of trust in him. What was she supposed to believe, now that she’d seen with her own eyes what he had not the courage to tell her himself? Well, then, she would take the child where he could see her oftener than he wished, to remind him of the perfidy that Lady Seymour had warned her of. She would make him be more open about the child’s true parentage and count Etta as one of the rewards the king had already bestowed, and try to make amends, somehow, for the time he had lost with her. Etta, short for Henrietta. Sir Jon had probably chosen the name himself, but as to whether he had grieved for the beau
tiful wife who had never truly belonged to him, well, that was still impossible for Ginny to know. Had she, like herself, been coerced into a terrible situation and died as a result of it?
* * *
They stayed overnight at Hampton Court Palace on the return journey before going on to Maeve’s spacious town house. This was not a development either Maeve or her husband, George, had expected but, true to form, they understood why Ginny had brought the child with her, for they had known all along of the relationship between Etta’s mother and the king, as well as Sir Jon’s reasons for keeping the child at Lea Magna. To proclaim her identity in London would be to show the world how he had shared his wife, without disclosing the reasons. If Sir Jon chose not to tell Ginny what they were, then how could her sister and brother-in-law interfere in what was not their business? George, however, had reservations about the scheme, and he was not averse to saying so, after Ginny’s departure. ‘I know what I’d say if my wife took my child away from its home without my permission,’ he said, pulling the willowy Maeve towards him.
‘Whatever it was,’ she whispered, ‘I’d be able to handle you.’
‘After a good beating?’ he said, lapping at her lips.
‘Before or after. No matter.’ Their smile tangled into the kiss.
The arrangement, however, offered no problems to Maeve and her bevy of nurses who cared for the young Betterton family. Edwin was Etta’s age; Aphra was two years older and as level-headed as her parents. In many respects, this was exactly what little Etta needed, though Ginny had not said exactly what had prompted this sudden decision, except that she needed the child with her, nor was there time to discuss with her sister the disturbing matter at which Lady Seymour had hinted. Ginny preferred not to talk about the portrait of Magdalen Osborn either, and her own mistrust of Sir Jon that had deepened so rapidly, for she knew she might have wept in the telling. The arrangement was only to be a temporary one, for as soon as Sir Jon opened up his grand house situated by the river only a few minutes’ walk from where Etta was staying, they would settle in there as a family at last. In theory.
Enquiries at the palace of Whitehall revealed that the king and his entourage had returned from Greenwich at midday, though the first person she met there was not Sir Jon, but her brother Elion, with a look of a very proud man on his charming face. He hardly needed to be asked. ‘A knighthood,’ he said, modestly turning away from the groom who led Ginny’s mare to the stables. ‘Yes, for me.’
So the rewards had begun. Was she now at greater risk, or less?
‘I’m so happy for you, dear one,’ she said, kissing his cheek. ‘Sir Elion D’Arvall. Sounds good. And Father? Did he...?’
Elion’s eyes twinkled, and she knew the answer. ‘Sandrock,’ he said. ‘He’s being allowed to buy it at a good price. It’s his for the asking. He’s as proud as a peacock.’
Ginny smiled at the analogy, but now the news that should have pleased her for Father Spenney and Ben’s sakes had a sour taste. ‘And Paul?’ she said.
‘No, not this time. Cromwell thinks Paul will have to wait a while longer.’
‘Cromwell? What does he have to do with it?’
‘Don’t be naive, Ginny. He has everything to do with it. He’s the one who suggests who is to be promoted and which properties they’ll be given. His lists are as long as my arm, lass. And he’s at the top of it. He’s been made Earl of Essex.’
Ginny didn’t mind being called naive, but felt she would not be the only one to show astonishment at this sudden rise into the high aristocracy by a commoner, even one with the talents of Sir Thomas Cromwell. ‘Earl of...? But I thought he was in disgrace over the latest marriage problems. Isn’t he?’
‘Apparently not, love. Rewards are usually for services given. They don’t grow on trees, you know. That’s why Paul doesn’t qualify. Well, not in Cromwell’s book anyway. Father qualifies for his services to the household department.’
‘But I thought it was for...well, you know.’
‘That’s what he wants you to think,’ Elion said, pulling her arm through his as they walked towards the steps. ‘But he was in line for this well before the king saw you. I suppose he thought it might come quicker if he had a daughter in the king’s bed, but he hasn’t, has he? Not yet. Or am I wrong?’
‘No,’ she said, watching their feet on the stone stairway, climbing...climbing. ‘You’re not wrong. And now it looks as if I might get away without having to, doesn’t it, while Kat Howard is keeping him occupied?’
‘She’s not in his bed, Ginny. Be on your guard. You know what he’s like.’
Yes, she knew what he was like by now, and the thought made her shudder.
* * *
Elion’s warning came not a moment too soon when the king’s page brought her a message requesting her presence in the king’s room that same night, after which Ginny could only assume that Mistress Howard was indisposed. Frantic with worry, she tried to find her husband to discuss with him what to do, with no great hopes of cooperation after her recent findings, but to no avail. Sir Jon was not to be found, nor had he come to see her since her return, so there had been no chance to tell him about Etta. Elion, she recalled, had not asked where she’d been either, and her father would be overjoyed rather than helpful. Molly was the one to offer her the benefit of some well-tried practical assistance.
‘Valerian root and hops,’ she said prosaically, ‘with a few other things. It always works. With that dreadful wound on his leg hurting him, he won’t need any persuading to drink deeply before he tries anything. Now, you just keep talking about his favourite things and keep his goblet topped up, and slip this powder into it as soon as you can. It dissolves quickly. And it won’t taste of anything in the wine. He’ll be asleep before you know it, then you can go and tell Thomas Culpeper with a smile to get him into bed. Now, let me take a look at you. Yes, it’s your hair he’ll want to see. They always do, don’t they?’
Ginny had not wanted to smile, but Molly’s motherly concern, as well as her apparent knowledge of lusty men, brought a gurgle of nervous laughter to the surface. She wore a nightgown of soft white lawn with embroidery round the neck under a robe of fur-lined brown velvet, her long white-gold hair making a cape around her shoulders, its paleness almost equalled by Ginny’s pallor. ‘I never thought it would come to this, Molly,’ she said, trembling.
‘It won’t,’ said Molly. ‘You’ll be back here inside the hour.’
‘I thought Sir Jon might have come to see me, after his return.’
Molly embraced her lovingly, holding her close, like a mother. ‘There’ll be a very good reason,’ she whispered. ‘I know your feelings are all over the place, my lady, but there are some times when you’ll have to give him the benefit of the doubt. There’s usually an explanation for most things.’
‘It’s the explanations I’m afraid of,’ said Ginny ruefully.
* * *
But it was not the valerian and hops, with a few other things, that prevented Ginny from fulfilling the king’s hopes that evening, for her long march through the corridors of Whitehall behind the royal page was intercepted by the one she had, in her thoughts at least, been maligning since leaving his home at Lea Magna. She recognised his lone silhouette and hurried stride from some distance away and felt her anger and disappointment in him waver before she remembered the reasons for it.
His single glance at his wife switched to the page, who hesitated. ‘Go back to the king,’ Sir Jon told him. ‘Lady Raemon won’t be needed.’
‘But, sir,’ the man said, ‘His Grace will—’
‘No, he won’t. His Grace is asleep. He’s been put to bed. Go.’
The page hurried off, leaving Ginny speechless with surprise and relief. With a sob, she covered her face with her hands and stood shaking like an aspen leaf as his arms went round her, holding her tight against
his body. ‘You didn’t come,’ she cried into the front of his doublet. ‘I couldn’t find you. This isn’t a hoax, is it, like last time?’ The hard strength of his arms was almost too sweet to bear, after the past few hours.
‘It’s no hoax,’ he said. ‘He’s out like a light. Even that short journey tires him.’
‘But why...?’
‘Shh! I’ll tell you later. Come on, let’s get out of this draughty passage. Shall I carry you?’
‘No, I can walk. Just.’
Since yesterday, her thoughts on what she might say to him had been dark and vitriolic, and probably wounding, too. To them both. Now it was only his presence she cared about more than the why and the wherefore. Whatever else had been put to the test, her trust in him, his motives, his past, were now less important than being here with him and the knowledge that he had appeared at the last moment like a knight in shining armour to keep her from the king. He wanted her for himself. Surely that was why he’d come for her.
Molly had not expected to see her mistress quite so soon and could not refrain from an astonished, ‘My, that was quick!’ Hastily, she took her leave, though not too fast to see the tears of joy running down her mistress’s cheeks and the hungry look in Sir Jon’s eyes as the candlelight set a metallic sheen upon his wife’s hair.
Despair, disappointment, and bitterness had raged so strongly through Ginny since their last meeting that she could never have believed how contrary her body could be and how easily it could turn against her thoughts, making her do what she’d sworn in her heart not to do willingly, ever again. Nor would she have believed how fast the turnabout could be from anger and humiliation to a desire as fierce as his. Mindless with a hunger that had seethed and been ignored for days, she cradled his head in her arms for the taste of his face in the shadowy chamber, exploring him with her lips as if to see and hear him was not enough after so long a starving. Wet with tears, her face was mopped by his fingers and the broad mouth that laughed with audacity and relief. ‘Mine,’ he whispered. ‘Mine tonight, my lady. Did you think I’d let you go to him?’
Betrayed, Betrothed and Bedded Page 16
