“Norfolk.” The King’s call forced him to turn from his course. “I need a word. And you must see the work of my Flemish painter.” The King gallantly bowed to Susanna in dismissal, and as she curtsied in return and turned to Parker, Norfolk jostled her, making her stumble.
Norfolk threw a quick glance over his shoulder as he did it, giving Parker a death’s-head smile. The meaning was clear. He could get at her anywhere.
Parker straightened, drawing everything in him into a tight coil. To attack, to eviscerate, to tear limb from limb—all possibilities presented themselves.
“Most poorly done, Norfolk.” The King’s words were sharp, his hand coming out to take Susanna’s elbow. “You think my rooms too small, that you must knock my painter over to approach me?”
Norfolk took a step back, and Parker had regained enough control of himself to see the fury in the King’s eyes.
Henry prized grace and elegance, courtly manners, romance. Norfolk was a boor whose only accomplishment was hunting deer and whose idea of courtly romance was to beat his wife when she complained about his mistress being given quarters in her home. He would never understand why the King had opened his court to men who were not noble, and hadn’t the self-knowledge to realize that without his title, he would never have been welcome there himself.
“My pardon, mistress.” The apology was forced from stiff lips and bore no sincerity.
“Your Grace.” Susanna gave a curt nod and stepped away from Norfolk as if he had the plague. She walked toward Parker, the bravado gone from her face now that only he could see, and he took her hand and kissed it.
He looked up and saw Henry watching him, an indecipherable look in his eye.
He lowered his own in deference. “When you have a moment later, Your Majesty, I would have a word.”
The King nodded and made a shooing gesture with his hand. “I will take care of business now, and then I refuse to leave my hunting any longer. We will speak tonight, Parker.” He turned to his desk, Norfolk by his side; but as Parker began to escort Susanna from the room, the King looked over his shoulder. “I have not forgotten what I promised you the other night, Parker. Do what you must.”
Parker bowed in response, and his eyes went to Norfolk, who stood frozen.
He smiled at his enemy as he answered the King. “I will do whatever needs doing.”
The gardens of Greenwich were magnificent.
“Like the palace gardens of the Burgundian Princes,” Susanna marveled. “The red brick of the façade is also similar to the palaces of my home country.”
Parker looked at the gardens as if seeing them for the first time. “They are fine enough.”
Susanna smiled. “You would prefer them more rambling and wild? With many colors and scents, rather than laid out in elegant rows?”
He stopped short, and stared at her. “Aye. I would prefer that.”
A shout came from ahead of them, the kind of whoop given in victory, and Parker took her elbow as they went forward. They turned the corner of the high hedge they were following, and came upon four men bent over a game of dice.
“These four look desperate enough to have a de la Pole letter each in their pockets,” Parker murmured. “And they do say misery loves company.”
The men were seated in a small open-sided pavilion, and looked incongruous in their setting. Their faces were rough from lack of a shave, and their eyes were red. Susanna guessed they had not slept the night before, nor visited their chambers to change. Their dark evening clothes were out of place in the light, snow-dusted garden setting.
Their merriment stopped as soon as they caught sight of Parker, and Susanna could see from the lack of lingering amusement in their eyes and on their lips that none of the whoops of delight she had heard had been genuine. These men were determined to seem jolly, no matter what their true circumstances.
“Gentlemen.” Parker gave a shallow bow, and Susanna followed his lead, sketching a curtsy.
“You have been scarce this last week, Parker.” The man who spoke, a young nobleman with a handsome face and dark hair and eyes, rested his chin in his palm. Susanna thought a moment or two of silence would send him to sleep. He looked hollow-eyed and his words were slurred.
“I have been kept busy by my loyalties to the King.” Parker spoke the words without inflection, but the men’s attention seemed riveted on his face.
“What business is afoot?” another asked with frightening intensity, as if Parker held the key to his doom.
They all seemed wound tight as springs, but not united. Each was alone in his misery.
“I do not discuss the King’s business openly.” The feeble sun wedged a finger of light through the low gray clouds, and Parker shaded his eyes. “But perhaps if you would speak with me privately, Neville? If each of you would speak with me privately?”
Susanna realized with a sharp pang of joy how much she’d missed the sun. Spring wasn’t far off, but this winter had dragged on for so long. It had begun early, and looked set to stay late. This weak beam reminded her that the cold would end, though. Eyes closed, she tilted her head to feel the gentle fingers of warmth on her cheeks and forehead, and smiled.
After a moment, she became aware the men had fallen silent. She lifted a hand to her eyes and opened them to find Parker and all four courtiers staring at her.
Had she done something wrong? She cast a quick look at Parker, suddenly aware again that she was on foreign soil and did not know all their ways.
But Parker did not look aghast; he looked stunned.
Confused, she glanced at the other men, who stared back at her, mouths open.
“You are illuminated,” Parker said at last, and Susanna realized the sunlight had narrowed to a thin beam, and that she stood in a small pool of pale gold that caught the bronze velvet of her gown. Unwilling to step out of its warmth, craving every moment of it, she smiled at Parker.
“You need gold in the pattern for a work to be considered a true illumination.” She lifted her hands, and felt the warmth of the sun on her palms. “But I will take this gold over the real thing at the moment. It lifts my spirits.”
“My pardon, but who are you, mistress?” The question was asked by the man Parker had called Neville, his tone hushed. He pushed back in his chair and stood.
Susanna considered her answer. It was no secret, yet Parker had consistently refused to introduce her. She glanced across to him, and saw he was looking at her with a steady, intense look she did not know how to read.
She lifted her hand, palm up, giving him permission to answer as he saw fit, and he turned back to Neville.
“I’m so tired.” The youngest one, the man who had spoken first, rose to his feet, knocking over a flagon of red wine as he stumbled to get out of his chair. “Perhaps she is an angel of mercy.” His hand, resting on the table, was in a pool of red wine, and with a cry of shock he leaped back a step, falling over his chair and landing with a thump on the wooden floor of the pavilion. He began to weep, a quiet sound in the absolute stillness. “I am in grave, grave trouble, my lady angel.”
Susanna heard the desolation in his voice. “You were tricked into accepting a letter from someone at the docks, and now it looks as though you are a traitor,” she said.
The words were barely out of her mouth when Neville leaped from the pavilion, grabbing her in a stranglehold. She felt the press of a knife below her right ear as he held her against him, using her body as a shield against Parker. “What do you know of this?” His words were snarled, wild, his breath hot and feral on her neck.
Susanna reached deep within, found calm and courage. She stared at Parker, willing him to look at her, to see beyond the gales of fury howling behind his eyes.
“Parker.” She spoke his name the way only a lover could. She hid nothing from him in that one word, and she saw him blink.
He began to stalk forward, so intense that Neville twitched behind her and his knife nicked her flesh.
Parker stopped sh
ort, his eyes on her neck, and she felt a tickle of blood running down to pool above her breastbone.
“I can help you in this matter, Neville.” Parker spoke so low that everyone strained forward to hear him. “But if you do not step away, if you do not take your filthy hands off her, I will break you. I will denounce you. I will use every resource at my disposal to have you up at Traitor’s Gate.”
Neville tensed, and then he stepped back, breathing heavily.
The young nobleman was still on the floor in a growing puddle of red wine, but the other two men had risen slowly from their chairs and were very quiet. Weighing everything, undecided what to do.
Susanna felt light-headed all of a sudden. She lifted a hand to her neck, and met Parker’s gaze.
With a curse, he closed the distance between them, lifting her up and setting her farther from Neville. She leaned into him, but he set her on her own feet and turned back, muscles bunched, and punched Neville in the face.
24
The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier: His conversation with women to be alwayes gentle, sober, meeke, lowlie, modest, serviceable, comelie, merie, not bitinge or sclaundering with jestes, nippes, frumpes, or railings, the honesty of any.
Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman: To come to daunce, or to showe her musicke with suffringe her self to be first prayed somewhat and drawen to it.
Neville looked up at him, nose bleeding, his gaze surprisingly clear and focused. “Your pardon, Parker. I am at my wits’ end. I should never—”
“No, you should not.” Parker extended a hand. “It will never happen again.” He tamped down the desire to hit Neville again as he hauled him up, and Neville must have seen the flicker in his eyes, because he stepped away hastily, fumbling for an overstitched kerchief for his nose.
“Your pardon, mistress. I … your pardon.”
Parker curled an arm around Susanna and brought her close to his side. She had been so calm, so sure of him. He could not help shuddering in a breath and stroking back her hair with his hand. He saw she had taken out a small square of white linen and was dabbing at her neck. It had almost stopped bleeding.
“I understand you are in trouble, sir.” Her gracious response had them all eyeing each other nervously.
“What do you know of our troubles, Parker?” Guildford asked.
It was an interesting little foursome, Parker thought. It did not seem they had confided in each other. Habit and the bonds of loyalty had drawn them together in their darkest hour.
“My lady”—he gestured with his hand—“the boor who just cut you with a knife is Edward Neville. He was with Francis Bryan in Paris many years ago, throwing stones at French peasants like cruel boys with the King of France.”
“We were drunk, Parker. We were fools.” Neville’s gaze slid away from Susanna, and Parker was pleased to see high color on his cheeks. Let the bastard squirm.
“Sitting on the floor is William Carey, George Boleyn’s brother-in-law.” The real reason Norfolk had picked Carey must be that his wife, Mary, had been the King’s mistress up until a short time ago.
“Then we have Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devon, the King’s cousin, and Henry Guildford, Master of the Horse and one of Bryan’s brothers-in-law.” They were a tight little group. All well-liked by the King, all perfect for Norfolk’s plan.
“Sirs.” Susanna curtsied, and his heart lurched. She was a rich tapestry in the flesh. Every color, every inch of her, glowed bright. She did look like an angel before the jaded, ragged men before her.
“Mistress.” Guildford was the only one with the presence to bow. “You are saying you know we are innocent in this, Parker?”
“I am not sure of innocent, but I know you are no traitor to the King.”
Guildford sat down slowly, and Parker saw him lean back in his chair, the most relaxed he’d been.
“You were all chosen for reasons I think you can work out for yourselves.”
“And you? Where are you in all this? Who plots against us?” Courtenay spoke for the first time.
Parker shook his head. “Not against you.”
Guildford sat up straighter, suddenly alert. “Against the King? But how?”
“Think, Guildford. Soon, someone will talk, someone will find out about the de la Pole letters and tell the King. And one by one, he will send the culprits to the Tower.”
Carey moaned.
“Then, when he has rid himself of all his loyal supporters, when he is close to despair at the perceived betrayal, suddenly de la Pole descends with an army. And the viper within, the one who sent you to the docks for those letters in the first place, strikes in the heart of the palace.”
“’Sblood.” Neville stumbled back and collapsed on his chair. “God’s teeth.”
Carey moaned again. “I destroyed my letter—it is the only proof against me. I thought the whole nightmare was over, but then I received a note under my door yesterday morning. It said a letter had been found addressed to me from a certain Richard living in France. That I shouldn’t be so careless with my correspondence.” He groped for the chair and pulled himself off the floor. “I burned that letter in the fireplace. How did they know? How do they still have it?” He sprawled onto his seat and buried his head in his hands.
“A good question.” Parker offered Susanna Courtenay’s chair, and she sank down on it in relief. His fury at Neville surged again, and he forced it away. “The only proof against you is the letter. Destroying it is all any of you need do to be free of this, if you were truly traitors, and whoever designed this trap knows that well.”
Neville cleared his throat. “I got a note under my door yesterday. Said the same thing as Carey’s.”
“But you did not destroy your letter?”
Neville shook his head.
“Guildford? Courtenay?”
“It seemed proof of some plan against the King,” Courtenay said, “and I wanted to keep it to show him, but also realized every finger would be pointed at me if I did so.”
“The plotter decided to show his hand. Increase the pressure. Prove to you that no matter whether you destroyed the letter or not, he has you.”
“You know more than you are telling us, don’t you?” Guild-ford watched him steadily.
Parker shrugged. He would not deny it. “I don’t trust you. But I can tell you this: when the King feels threatened he lashes out, and I may not be able to persuade him of your innocence. So do not talk of this or do anything foolish.”
Neville nodded in agreement. “Not even your testimony will be enough to save us if the King feels cornered. No one will hear anything from me.”
“Come, my lady, we do not have a moment to lose.” Parker held out his hand and helped Susanna from her chair. As they stepped from the pavilion, he bent down and spoke softly in her ear. “It is worse than we imagined. These four are usually calm, steady men and they are near breaking. I do not like to think how close to the edge other, less stable men of the court are, who have also been duped.”
“You think someone will confess in his cups? Or behave like Carey?”
Parker nodded. That’s exactly what he feared. “This house of cards is about to collapse.”
The music was merry, and Susanna’s eyes were drawn to the players, sitting on a raised platform at one end of the room. With surprise, she recognized the flute player, a musician from Ghent she’d met at Margaret’s court. She dropped into a curtsy and he gave her a nod, trilling high and sweet on his flute.
Parker was scanning the room, his face set in stone. It was the most honest expression at the revelry. All around them people laughed and danced, but Susanna sensed a note of desperation to the gaiety. It set her on edge and she smoothed down her dress, the finest in her trunk, and fiddled with the gold chain and pomander attached to the girdle at her waist. She knew she looked well.
“Parker.” A woman reached out and touched Parker’s arm.
She was the most exquisite creatu
re Susanna had ever seen. She could picture the woman at a pool in some green wood, talking with the trees, rising from the water like a nymph. Susanna could paint the ash wood the same white as her blond hair, the pool the same blue as her eyes, the shimmer of sunlight on the water the same pearl as her skin.
“My lady.” Parker bowed, then took Susanna’s elbow and drew her closer to him. He seemed wary.
Susanna curtsied to the woman, who did the same. Neither lowered her eyes as custom dictated.
“You have been scarce this last week, Parker. But perhaps the lady on your arm is the reason?” The woman smiled beguilingly, and Susanna held back a gasp. Her beauty was an unstoppable force. She could surely tempt birds from trees and men from their common sense.
“I would like nothing better than a week to court the lady at my side, Lady Carew,” Parker said, calmly.
“You would?” Lady Carew was taken aback, Susanna could see it in the way her eyes darted away for a moment, as if to regroup.
“Aye.” He drawled the word. “But all manner of things conspire against giving me the time I need.”
“Well.” Lady Carew turned her smile upon Susanna, who found herself unable to stop staring, trying to imprint the way the mouth, the eyes, and the cheeks all moved together to create the impression of bright interest and pure loveliness. “It seems you have succeeded where many a lady of court has failed, mistress. For Parker has never openly admitted a desire to woo before. You must give me your name.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“For now, I wish the lady who has captured my regard to remain my secret,” Parker said.
“How ungentlemanly of you, sir. Those are not the rules of courtly love.”
Parker smiled. “You and I both know there is no such thing as courtly love in this place. The rules are followed, but they have no meaning. It is mere game-playing.”
Lady Carew’s mouth pursed in a pretty pout. “You would not let the King hear that.”
“I would.” Parker took a step away, Susanna still anchored to his side. “That is my strength. He would laugh. The veneer of courtly love is thin in this place. You more than most know what truly lies beneath the surface.”
In a Treacherous Court Page 15
