by Diana Rubino
He took her hand lightly. They exchanged pleasantries, and did not mention Topaz, the King, or his tragedies. This was not the time. It was Christmas, and Amethyst was basking in the afterglow of her lovemaking with Matthew the previous night. No wretched remembrances of the past would spoil her glittering present. As for the future, well, she would worry about it on the morrow.
None of the guests commented when she sat beside Matthew on the dais. It seemed like the natural thing for her to do, but it stirred up an element of surprise when she announced her return to court on the day after New Year's Day.
"But Amethyst, we thought you would stay on with...with us here at Warwick," Emerald said as Amethyst supervised her maids in the packing of her gowns and delicate undergarments. "You and Matthew... You seem to get along so well together, and we all know what is amiss with the King."
She faced her sister, reached out to touch the young face, the fresh skin, so unblemished, aglow with the cold country air and unmarred by life's tribulations.
"Emerald, no one knows what's really amiss with the King, himself included. Anyone calling themselves as faithful a friend as I would not dream of leaving him now. Matthew and I, we have become close, for we share a common bond, but to leave court now would be unthinkable."
Her sister arched one brow. "Oh. I thought you and Matthew shared something much more deep and special than that. I was hoping you would return to Warwickshire as Lord Gilford's mistress. Mayhap his wife one day."
Amethyst stared. Was her sister especially perceptive, as were so many precocious youngsters, or had Matthew revealed his feelings to the family?
She managed an ineffectual laugh. "That, my dear, is outlandish! What would Topaz think?"
"Who cares?" Emerald echoed Amethyst's thoughts that she, so well versed in the art of diplomacy she'd learned at court, didn't dare speak. "She stated one time that if you ever marry, she hoped it would be a respectable time after King Henry's death."
Amethyst shut the lid on one of her travelling trunks. "Oh, Emerald, it gladdens me to think that Topaz cares so much for the King. After all that had transpired, I believe she has finally mended her ways at last."
Her sister said in an offhand tone, "Oh, it has nothing to do with her caring for the King, Amethyst."
"Well, what then, if not out of respect for his memory?"
"To ascertain the legitimacy of your child."
"What cheek!" Surely Topaz could not have guessed of the depth of her relationship with the King. So far as she had ever told her, she was merely a court musician. "She is overly presumptuous and should learn her place once and for all! And for you to go repeating it...Emerald, I am surprised at you. Surely you do not think—"
"Oh, no, Amethyst!" Emerald's eyes grew wide, capturing that youthful innocence that had not given way to her tall stature or curvaceous figure. "Why...you and the King! The thought is absurd!"
She laughed, her young voice cool and clear as the whiteness on the ground and capping the trees outside the windows beyond them.
"Aye, the idea is absurd. The King is who he is and I am...who I am. The thought of carrying his child is..." She remembered what she'd thought of it, how badly she'd wanted to give Henry the one wish he was living for, but now, especially now that he had Edward and her desire to bear his children had given way to a simpler wish to comfort him, she felt as if a burden had been lifted off her shoulders. "It matters not. He has his male heir and is happy...enough."
"Aye, I believe the King will be happy to see you again."
"And I him," she answered her sister, but put a question mark at the end of the sentence when she repeated it in her mind. "I shall be happy to see Henry again," she stated, and wished with all her heart that it would soon be true.
She bade farewell to Matthew on the eve of her departure, for he was leaving before dawn to inspect his tenant cottages in Dumbarton and would be gone before she rose. He was not happy at her going, but since the time was soon approaching for the boys to go to their new households in London, he was glad she would be taking them with her.
They met in a chamber in the north wing of the castle that he used when it was overflowing with guests, for it was small and afforded no view of the surrounding countryside. In fact, it faced a corner of the inner courtyard. He was waiting for her under covers of soft wool trimmed with ermine. She slipped between the sheets and removed her robe, her only garment. She'd braved the drafty halls just to surprise him.
He extinguished the one small bedside candle and as her eyes adjusted to the dimness, the room brightened in the whitish glow of the fallen snow in the courtyard below.
"Amethyst, so many things have changed since I realized how I felt about you. I perceive things, I can hear, I can feel, I can taste the wind right now. You've made me feel that there's more to life than running a castle and shouting orders and making crops grow. You've made me realize I'm alive!"
His words were so enthralling, it was a wonder he hadn't hired a lyricist to put them to music. If he'd been able to play an instrument, she was sure he'd have serenaded her with those very words. "No one has ever told me that."
"Well, that is the way I feel. I went outside today and for the first time I can see how beautiful it is. I can tell you the shape of every cloud that was in the sky today, I can tell you which way the breeze was blowing. I can tell you how many birds I saw today and what colors they were. I want to enjoy life before it is too late. I want to awaken my senses and let the world inside. I never want to lose you, Amethyst. If there is any way we can work things out, we must try."
"Matthew, I will always be a part of your life, but I could not leave Henry, not now."
"But he is not here. It is just us tonight. Let us make it last for as long as it can."
"Aye, Matthew, we do have one more night." She wrapped her arms around him with their gazes locked—she could see every feature in the whiteness of the moonlight beaming down on them from the heavens.
He smoothed her hair, his fingers playing along the back of her neck, making her quiver all over. Wordlessly, he kissed her. The scent of his body was clean, and aroused even her taste buds.
His hands were so nimble and skillful; she let herself float away as their mouths locked together. He tossed aside his linen shirt and peeled off his hose. His body then covered hers and all she could hear were their gasps and moans of delight and their heartbeats quickening together.
Her hands found and massaged him until he throbbed under her touch. She eased him inside her and he started thrusting slowly, gyrating and moving with her, stroking her, fondling her, playing her like the strings of a lute. He put her to music. Their bodies pulsated like a giant drum; their bodies attuned to each other in an exquisite blend as they exploded into crashing chords and soft, tender harmony, fading into oblivion as the music ended.
He wasn't finished yet. As his fingers entered her and circled, thrusting gently, she felt herself explode as another climax intensified into a shuddering crescendo.
She leaned over and kissed him again, her gratification giving way to another wave of arousal, as she ran her tongue over his supple body. The covers spilled to the floor and now their naked bodies were bathed in a bluish-white glow as he responded eagerly.
She pulled him to her once again, he re-entered her and once more the music leapt and swirled in an encore to a breathtaking performance that spent them both. For the first time in her life, music appeared before her eyes. Then, once again, it ended.
She was on the edge of a dream, not quite asleep, and she thought she heard Matthew talking to her. "Hal and I have not made music quite like that in a very long time, Matthew," she thought she mumbled. Then she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
When she next opened her eyes, the brightness of morning blinded her and Matthew was gone.
She noticed she had on her finger a gold ring set with a brilliant pear-shaped amethyst surrounded by tiny diamonds. She slid it off as easily as he must have slid it on in he
r sleep, and read an inscription inside. "Wait I shall," it said, all around the circumference of the band, in an infinite circle of eternity.
Would she make him wait forever? she wondered. Then she sighed and got out of bed, then lifted the robe he had considerately laid at the foot of it. It was not her decision to make. It was up to Henry to decide her fate, queen, stepmother, wife, lover if he could manage.
As she donned the garment and tried to warm herself in front of the roaring fire that Matthew had obviously lit for her before he left, she had never imagined that the idea of becoming queen could ever fill her with so much dread.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
She and the boys arrived in London a couple of days after her last night of romance with Matthew, and she dropped them at the Queen's House once more, where she was assured they would be looked after well until after the Yuletide season and the period of mourning for the court was over, when they would be able to serve as pages at one of the many palaces Henry owned.
After a fond farewell for the boys, handsome, though perhaps a tad small for their ages, she continued on to Whitehall by barge and went to her room first to refresh herself, before finally seeking out Henry that evening.
She felt as though she had guilt written all over her face for what had transpired between her and Matthew and what she found when she got to the King's rooms did little to alleviate her sense of guilt, for the only sensation she could feel upon seeing Henry was revulsion.
"How did you do while I was away, sire?"
He embraced her and she almost cringed away. How different his heavy bulk felt, his paws like those of a big bear, the fur trim of his robe tickling her chin, how different it felt from the much more compact and trim Matthew, how much more demanding and possessing was the King's touch.
But it was familiar to her, and she had in some ways missed it. Aye, she had, she insisted, and it felt good to be in his arms again, at Whitehall once more, surrounded by regalia and splendor.
"My son has an appetite like a horse! He suckles on the wet nurse's dugs like the world is coming to an end!" he thundered with pride.
She was relieved to hear him put it this way, as she was pleased to see not a morsel of food about his chambers.
"I got out and did some riding on the warmer days, walked, aye, walked miles and miles, and felt my blood flow through me again for the first time since October."
"Good, very good," she said with a nod, though inwardly she had hoped the exercise might make him more fit and trim than he appeared. "Oh, sire, it pleases me so to hear you speak this way! The folk in Warwickshire... They worry about you so!"
"No one has any need to worry any more, for I have provided them with an heir. The kingdom shall not go kingless."
"Nay, they love you, my lord. They are doubly pleased about Prince Edward."
"I must get him betrothed." He chuckled, and she knew his sense of humor had once more blessed him.
"Speaking of betrothed, my sister Emerald is to marry Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk."
He nodded. "Ah, Thomas. Good man, good man. How about your other sister, Genghis Khan?"
She grinned. "She is somber and quiet, tending her animals, and no one has come round to court her..."
He laughed. "No one has the brass whirligigs to court her. A repressed queen would make a right tyrant of a wife!"
She grinned. "You are right, my lord. She seems not interested in marriage."
"But I am, Amethyst. The New Year is upon us and I want us to finally become man and wife, king and queen." He gripped her hand, engulfing it.
She sighed and shrugged. "Are you truly over Jane, sire? Perhaps we should wait until she has been gone a year."
"Nay, I do not want to wait! I have never stopped loving you, and the passage of another year will only serve to waste more time!"
"All right, sire," she agreed meekly, wondering where that spark of excitement, that thrilling rush had escaped to. But he was already happily talking about the future and children they would have, though he did not touch her in an amorous way, and indeed, she felt no stirrings of his blood against her no matter how physically close they became.
Thus it was that on the first morning she grew ill, she knew without a doubt that her life was going to take another turn, possibly a tragic one.
The two nights she had spent with her beloved had left her with an unexpected gift, and burden. She was sure she was carrying Matthew's child.
She tried not to panic and remain calm as Henry chatted endlessly about the wedding preparations and her coronation, but when she missed her monthly flux the second time and March arrived like a lion, she was sure of it. Her dresses didn't fit, she vomited every morning, and could barely keep anything down the rest of the day. Sharp biting pains like none she'd ever known pierced her lower abdomen.
She went to the only person she could possibly tell, the one she felt she trusted most, the one who had the power and the understanding to help her, she felt sure.
She went to Henry to tell him of her plight.
"My lord, I must speak to you of an urgent matter," she whispered as they sat on the dais, Henry tucking into a chicken wing, and Amethyst not touching her plate.
He rarely danced any more, for his leg ulcer had worsened and begun to plague him unmercifully. The dais was empty, the courtiers going about their dance like there was no king at all.
No one was listening, but she didn't want to blurt things out where they could be overheard. She could barely wait until they reached their chambers. She was desperate to tell him, desperate for his help.
Her mouth opened, and the words came tumbling out. "I am with child, my lord."
His eyes widened with delight, but before he could utter a word in response, she pressed on. "I am sorry, my lord, so sorry. I know we had plans, but as you did when you became involved with Anne Boleyn, things have taken a completely unexpected turn. The child belongs to Matthew Gilford, my lord, and I am at my wits' end. I know not what to do. He is still married to my sister, although he is in love with me. He wants a divorce, and I love him, but my love and loyalty to you mean..."
She began to sob, something she did so easily these days. "Mean that I must tell the truth and ask you, my dearest friend, for help and advice. Oh, darling, I so wanted to marry you, but when you fell in love with Jane, well, I gave up hope. Then when she died, things were so different between us and, well, I have to tell you the truth. I could never do you the disservice of expecting you to act as father of another man's child."
His look of blatant shock gentled to one she believed was of compassion. He patted her hand gently, and she decided that clearly he had his own problems and so to him, this probably paled in comparison. "I shall take care of it for you."
"What will you do, my lord?" She knew he would do something—surely there was an answer she hadn't been able to come up with, but Henry would know of a solution. After all, he was king.
"Go to your chambers and I shall join you forthwith."
"But, sire, the meal is not yet over and I still have got to play my music—"
"Go to your chambers! Now!" he thundered, pounding his fist on the table, causing her to jump in shock and not wait a moment longer to do his bidding.
A few of the courtiers turned to look at her leave the chamber, but no one paid attention to the King's outburst. They were used to the King's short temper and bouts of shouting these days. Poor thing. She, like the rest of them, would never knew what was coming until it felled her like a tree.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
As Amethyst scurried down the hall, she rehearsed what she would say to Henry but all the while, she shivered in dread. He got angry at other people, but he had he'd never shouted at her quite that way before. His eyes had turned beady, his face purple.
. She felt as if he'd slammed her in the face with a rock. She did not bother to change once she got to her chamber, and sent all the maids away. She paced her empty room, the fire dying to a bed of glowing coal
s, but she did not feel the cold seeping through the leaded glass. She pulled the velvet curtains shut and watched them billow out to the tune of the wind that rattled the panes. The shock at the King's thundering reaction had since given way to numbness, and at last she sat, her fingers laced over her abdomen and the life growing inside her, and waited.
He flung open her door, slamming it behind him. She did not rise, did not greet him or kiss his hand or embrace him. She could feel his burning anger. It was as strong as his physical presence.
"I want the entire story from you now. When did this liaison begin?"
"Just... Just this past Christmas, my lord." Her mouth was dry, her tongue thick. She wanted a sip of wine desperately but did not dare even rise from the chair. "We were together on this visit, and that was the one and only time."
