At the King's Pleasure (Secrets of the Tudor Court) (31 page)

“I have done you a disservice, Anne,” George said. “I should never have listened to your brother.”

She blinked at him in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“I refer to your banishment to Littlemore Priory. I should have known better than to doubt your honesty.”

“Do you mean to say that now, only now, you have decided to believe me?” Anne did not know whether to be offended or simply astonished. “What caused this change of heart?”

“Compton’s behavior these last few months.” He shrugged and said no more, but he did not have to.

The way Will Compton had befriended her husband after his return from Compton Wynyates had worried Anne at first. Will had sought George’s company instead of hers, making her wonder if he was playing some cruel game. So many of those she encountered at court, and in her family, too, had devious natures and only one ultimate goal—to
do what was best for themselves. Still, the two men had been friends in their youth, before Anne had come to court, and it had not been impossible that they should be so again.

Anne told herself she was grateful that Will had listened when she’d told him that, henceforth, she would cleave only to her husband. He was helping George advance at court by bringing him closer to the king’s inner circle. He no longer found occasion to be alone with her, although he did sometimes watch her with longing in his gaze. If only the wretched man did not appear so frequently in her dreams, she would be able to put her folly behind her once and for all time.

“Compton’s wife’s with child again,” George said after a short silence during which he poured each of them a goblet of fine Rhenish wine.

“May God grant them a son.” Anne accepted the wine and sipped. She wandered closer to the bed. “I have been thinking that I would like to leave court for a time.”

“Leave court?” George looked profoundly shocked by the suggestion. “Leave the queen’s service? But I thought you were happy here.”

“I was. I am.” Anne sighed and climbed the little steps that led to the featherbed. She doubted she could make him understand her restlessness, but she offered a reason that she hoped would make sense to him, one that had the added advantage of being true. “I miss our children.”

“We can bring them to Stoke Poges, now that my mother has removed to Leicester, or even to the London house.”

“But there I would still be at Queen Catherine’s beck and call. Unlike you, George, she clings to old suspicions. She thinks, and rightly, that the king wished to make me his mistress all those years ago. It matters little to her that nothing came of it nor ever will.”

George hoisted himself onto the bed beside her and arranged the bolster more comfortably behind his back. “At least your sojourn at Littlemore spared you that.”

“I had already spared myself.” Relieving him of his goblet and abandoning both it and her own on the small table on her side of the bed, Anne took George’s hands in hers. They were good hands. Strong
hands. Gentle hands. She gave them a squeeze. “I was with child myself at the time—our first child. I told Will Compton so after the king sent him to our chamber. The moment His Grace heard of my condition, he would have lost interest in me, but Edward’s intervention prevented that from happening.”

George blanched. Anne did not need to remind him that he’d doubted that child’s paternity, or that the baby had been stillborn. Neither of them was ever likely to forget the harsh words they’d exchanged. But she could forgive. She shifted one hand to his face.

“I do not wish to dwell on the past. And I have discovered in this past year that life at court no longer holds the appeal for me that it once did.”

“Then I will strive to free you from your duties here.” George bent his head to seal the promise with a kiss.

Anne responded instantly. She gave herself to him willingly, taking as much pleasure as he in the carnal acts that followed. Later, when he was snoring softly beside her, she touched her fingertips to her belly and wondered if she might, once again, have caught a child. If she had, she vowed, she would not abandon her newborn babe to nurses and governesses. Not this time.

N
othing was ever accomplished quickly at court—unless it was at the king’s pleasure. They were still at Greenwich more than a month later. In spite of the cold weather, the king went hawking every day, leaving it to Cardinal Wolsey to manage the government of England on his behalf. His Eminence was not pleased by George’s desire to return to Ashby de la Zouch.

“You are no use to me in the country,” Wolsey informed him.

“I am little use to you at court. I will never be one of His Grace’s intimates.”

“You can keep me informed of what those intimates do, Compton in particular. I understand you have become passing close to your wife’s lover.”

“They were never lovers,” George said through clenched teeth. “That was a false conclusion my esteemed brother-in-law leapt to years ago.”

The cardinal’s eyebrows shot up, but he did not contradict the statement. “The fact remains that you are useful to me here. You and your wife may visit Ashby de la Zouch if you must, but you will both return at the beginning of July.”

Why July? George wondered, but he did not ask. The cardinal’s
orders, like the king’s, were not something one disobeyed without consequences.

With a heavy heart, he returned to his lodgings to tell Anne the news. She would be glad to hear that they would soon be with their children, and deeply disappointed when she learned that the visit would be but a temporary respite from their duties at court. He would not, he decided, tell her that Wolsey seemed bent on orchestrating Will Compton’s downfall.

T
he court was at Greenwich again when Lady Anne returned from an all-too-brief sojourn at Stoke Poges with her children. A great joust was soon to be held at Greenwich to entertain foreign ambassadors and show off King Henry’s newly completed tiltyard. Afterward, there would be a splendid banquet.

Anne’s unpacked boxes and traveling trunks were still cluttering the lodgings she and George shared when she received an unexpected and unwelcome visit from her brother the duke. Edward was angry about something. His voice was sharp when he ordered Meriall and the other servants out of the inner chamber. Ignoring him, Anne calmly took over the task of placing satin cases lined with buckram into a wardrobe chest. The coverings protected the clothing inside both during travel and in storage.

“Are you pleased with yourself, Anne?” the duke demanded. “You have made me a laughingstock.”

A glance over her shoulder showed her a red face and clenched fists. Whatever had upset him, it was no trifle, but she had no idea what it could have been. “I have done nothing to you, Edward. I rarely even think about you.”

“You wrote to Wolsey.”

Anne’s hand stilled on one of the leather cases used to transport her jewelry. She had only ever written one letter to the cardinal. “That was years ago,” she whispered.

“You should have made your complaints to me!” the Duke of Buckingham bellowed.

She whirled to face him, her temper flaring to match his. “You were the one who sent me to Littlemore Priory! You were the one who condemned me without a hearing. You, as much as Littlemore’s wicked prioress, were responsible for the death of my first child!”

Taken aback by her heated attack, he went on the defensive. “How was I to know there was such evil there? Knyvett told me the prioress was very strict with her nuns. I thought that would be in your best interests.”

“In my best interests to be put in the stocks like a common scold?” She shuddered at the memory.

Edward’s face worked. He’d never taken insults to the family honor well. As she pondered his extreme reaction, Anne realized that he had not known about her punishment at the hands of Prioress Katherine Wells. It was the fact that she’d chosen Thomas Wolsey to confide in that had provoked his ire.

The two men had long been antagonists. Anne had not witnessed any incidents herself, but everyone at court had heard stories of their petty vindictiveness toward one another. Once, when Edward had been holding a basin of water for the king to wash his hands in, Wolsey had had the effrontery to wash with it after His Grace had finished. At once, Edward had tipped the ewer, so that the dirty water spilled all over Wolsey’s shoes.

“Thanks to your complaint,” Edward said, “there has been a visitation at the priory by agents of the local bishop.”

“Only now?” It had been nearly seven years since she’d written that letter.

“Wolsey took great pleasure in informing me that numerous irregularities were uncovered,” Edward continued, “along with the fact that I made several generous contributions to the place. Had I known how
immoral the nuns there were, I would never have sent you to Littlemore. Why, the prioress herself bore an illegitimate child!”

“That must have shocked you, Edward—a man who has at least three bastards of his own.” Abandoning the unpacking, she sank onto a chair, her hands tightly clenched in her lap.

Ignoring her sarcasm, Edward blundered on. “One of the nuns has been sneaking out to go into Oxford to lie with a married man.”

Juliana, Anne thought. She hoped the young nun had found some happiness in breaking her vows. She would surely know none now. She felt nothing but deep pity for Juliana and her sisters. If they had not been forced into taking the veil, they might have had husbands and families and homes of their own. Instead they stood condemned for taking what pleasure they could from the life they were forced to lead.

Dame Katherine was another matter.

“Has the prioress been removed from her post?” she asked, interrupting her brother’s rant on the subject of priests who fathered children.

“She is being given a chance to atone for her sins and remains where she is.”

“And her daughter?” Long ago, Anne remembered, she’d hoped that Dame Katherine would lose custody of the little girl as punishment for the death of her own child.

“Daughter?” Edward looked blank.

“The illegitimate child the prioress bore—what happened to her?”

“Oh. Dead these several years. But that does not mitigate the sin. While it was alive, both prioress and priest sold plate belonging to the priory to provide for their bastard.”

How calmly he spoke of children dying! Anne did not regret the visitation she’d set in motion. Littlemore had needed reform. But she said a silent prayer for the soul of Dame Katherine’s little daughter. And she found it in her heart to pity the prioress for her loss. In time, she might even forgive her.

As for Edward, Anne supposed her revenge against him had also, somewhat belatedly, been accomplished. She had written to Wolsey of her brother’s contributions to Littlemore and Hinton, hoping to
embarrass him when one or both were revealed to be unworthy of charity. Wolsey had indeed taken him to task. And apparently let word of his poor judgment leak out at court. Anne had expected to feel satisfaction at this moment. Instead she was ashamed of herself. Revenge was
not
sweet. It left a sour taste in her mouth. And she did not relish answering questions from curious courtiers about her own time at Littlemore.

“How much is generally known?” she asked.

“That I gave money to a whore!”

“But not that you sent me there?” Was it possible that could remain secret?

Without warning, Edward seized her wrist and jerked her to her feet, gripping her cuff so fiercely that one of the pins holding cuff to sleeve was driven deep into her skin. “I am the one Wolsey conspires against!” Edward shouted. “Not you!”

Anne held herself immobile, biting her lip to keep from crying out in pain. After a moment, Edward flung her away from him. She staggered and nearly fell, staying upright only because she was able to catch hold of the edge of a nearby table. She cradled her throbbing wrist. A trickle of bright red blood stained the cuff.

“Conditions at Littlemore can have no more than a passing effect on your reputation, Edward. You have no reason to be so wroth with me. You have no real connection to the place. And you did not father Dame Katherine’s child.”

Edward looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “It takes very little to cause harm.”

“As I know better than most.”

Such impotent fury shone in her brother’s eyes that Anne feared he might strike her. Instead, he leaned in close, until they were nose to nose. His voice came out as a low, threatening growl. “Never presume to meddle in my affairs again.”

With that, he stalked out of her chamber. Because her legs could no longer hold her upright, she sank, trembling, back into the chair.

Her hand moved protectively to shield her belly. She had suspected
for some weeks now that she might once again be with child. Her thoughts had been much on children of late, even before she’d learned the fate of Dame Katherine’s daughter. Will Compton had just received a letter to inform him that his wife had given birth to a second daughter in distant Warwickshire, and to warn him that the infant was sickly and not expected to live.

Childbirth was always chancy, for both mother and infant. And in this particular year, there was also a dreadful contagion spreading throughout the land. It was called the sweating sickness. Some of those who contracted it were in good health one day and dead the next. Anne had been struck down by the sweat herself a few years before her marriage to George. She had been fortunate to survive, or so she had been told by the physicians Edward had sent for from Bristol to attend her at Thornbury.

For that kindness, Anne realized, she probably owed Edward her life. She sighed. She wished now that she had never written that letter to Thomas Wolsey. But who could have predicted how powerful the king’s chaplain would become, or that he and Edward would develop such an enmity between them?

She cheered herself up with the thought that at least the worst was over. The cardinal had used the information she’d given him to deliver a blow to the Duke of Buckingham’s pride. Edward would sulk. Then life would go on as it always had.