At the King's Pleasure (Secrets of the Tudor Court) (37 page)

“A well-fought battle,” Lady Compton said.

“If you call injuring an innocent party well done.”

“A pity it was not my husband who was hurt,” Lady Compton said, “but it is not his ear that needs clipping.” Anne started to turn away in disgust, but the other woman caught her arm. “I wish you many years of loveless marriage, Lady Hastings. You will now know what I have been forced to endure.”

Lady Compton walked away with a decided bounce to her step. The woman was mad, Anne decided. Not only did she believe the lies Cardinal Wolsey told her, but she thought that more than a decade of companionship and affection could be permanently undermined by such falsehoods.

Confident she had both George’s forgiveness and his love, Anne returned to their tent to await her husband’s return. She would not rail at him for risking his life. She would not criticize him for attempting to do harm to Will Compton. They would put behind them all that had happened, both today and in the past, and start anew.

But when George at last arrived, it was with a heavy step. The emotional turmoil that still seethed within him had a palpable presence. It seemed to Anne that it flowed toward her like an ocean wave the moment he glanced in her direction. It appeared that the matter was not settled, after all, nor could it be ignored.

“I feared for your life,” she blurted out, and closed the distance between them to put her hands on his chest and lift herself onto her toes until they were eye to eye.

He just stood there, a bleak expression on his face.

“You listen to me, George Hastings,” Anne said. “You are my husband. I pledged myself to love and obey you and I will do both. But I will also tell you the truth. You are as mad as Lady Compton if you let this groundless jealousy consume you. I cannot avoid Will Compton entirely, not while we both live at court, but I swear to you by all that is holy that it has been many long years since he could tempt me to be unfaithful to you. And even when he could, what was between us was never the equal of what you and I have together.”

“He still desires you. He told me so at the barriers, after I said that I meant to pummel him to within an inch of his life for having had the
effrontery to seduce you. He swore he would love you until the day that he died.” George gave a short, humorless bark of laughter. “That day, I told him, had come. If Essex had not stopped the bout so soon, I might have succeeded in my quest.”

“Or you might have been the one who died. I could not have borne that, George.”

Anne loved her husband. In spite of his jealousy and his stubbornness. He had taught her the difference between mere infatuation and the enduring oneness of true love. George was the other half of herself, not only the father of her children, but also the one person she could not imagine living the rest of her life without.

The possibility of losing his love forever if she could not convince him of her honesty filled Anne with anxiety. What if the sins she
had
been guilty of had caught up with her? What if George knew exactly when she’d been Will’s mistress and could not forgive her for trying to deceive him? What if he did not believe her declaration of love?

She wanted to shriek in frustration, but the tents of other noblemen had been pitched all around them and canvas walls did nothing to block sound. It would only make matters worse to let the rest of the court into their private business. Instead she buried her face in the front of his doublet, fighting to contain tears, struggling to keep control of her emotions and find the right words to convince her husband of her sincerity.

George’s body was stiff with tension, but as she clung to him she felt him begin to unbend. His hand came up to caress her hair, making her glad she had removed her elaborate gable headdress while she was waiting for him to return. He ran his fingers through the thick brown strands as if he found the movement as soothing as she did. And then, at last, he bent his head and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

“I forgave you a long time ago, Anne.”

She swallowed convulsively and steeled herself to meet his eyes. “But do you still love me?” she asked in a whisper.

“Always.” Then he heaved a deep sigh. “Compton loves you, too. It
may be misguided. It may be a sin. But he is as much in love with you as I am. I pity his wife.”

“After all the trouble she’s caused?”

“Even so, for as discontent as she may have been, this effort to create disharmony between us was not her idea. It came from Cardinal Wolsey.”

Separating himself from her, he fetched a flagon of Canary wine and filled two goblets. She took the one he offered her and sipped, although she had no desire for drink. The worst was past. Or so she hoped. But it was not yet time to put aside the turmoil of the day and solace one another in their marital bed. First, it seemed, they must face an ugly truth—that the most powerful man in England had gone out of his way to cause trouble for them. From what Lady Compton herself had told George, and he had repeated to her afterward, it had been Cardinal Wolsey who had convinced her that Anne was still sharing Will Compton’s bed.

“Why would Wolsey lie?” she asked, settling herself on one of the two stools pulled up to a small table. Their tent was luxurious, but too small to contain any other furniture save their bed and two wardrobe trunks.

“To cause dissension,” George said, taking the opposite stool. “Why else?”

“But I thought you were on good terms with Wolsey these days. And my brother seems to be getting along with him, too.”

“Perhaps it is Compton that Wolsey plots against.” George pondered the possibility for a moment longer. “Wolsey has always been jealous of the influence King Henry’s childhood friends have on His Grace. And as groom of the stool, Will is particularly close to the king. No few petitioners have given him generous gifts over the years to use his influence in the matter of pardons and grants of land and annuities. And he has control over the king’s privy purse expenses. It would not surprise me to discover that he regularly skims some off the top.”

“George! He’s not dishonest.”

“No, to be fair, he is not. That is simply one of the privileges he’s earned by serving at the king’s pleasure.”

She winced at the choice of words, but George did not seem to notice. He cut two slices of cheese off the wedge his servant had left for them and passed one to her.

“I was under the impression that Wolsey already controlled almost every aspect of England’s government.”

“
Almost
every aspect. Some men can never have enough power.”

“But that has nothing to do with us, not if we do not allow it to intrude upon our lives.” Setting both wine and cheese aside, she removed George’s goblet from his hand and drew him to his feet as she stood. “No one else’s business need have any effect on us.”

He allowed himself to be led to the bed and pleasurably distracted for the rest of the night. As for Anne, she tried very hard during the days leading up to the final celebrations at the Field of Cloth of Gold to convince herself that neither she nor George was Cardinal Wolsey’s pawn in some diabolical game of chess. Unfortunately, she knew all too well that no one could live at court without becoming entangled in some scheme or intrigue.

On the last Sunday at Guines, Queen Catherine entertained King Francis in her tent. Anne’s brother, the Duke of Buckingham, was also an honored guest. From her place among the ladies of the privy chamber, Anne was uncomfortably aware of his intense scrutiny. She wondered what he had heard, then realized that his interest could have been prompted by any number of things. Edward had
always
kept an eye on her.

In the hope of avoiding conversation with her brother, she fled immediately afterward to her own tent. She had no desire to run into Will or Lady Compton, either, having successfully kept her distance from them both since the day of the combat at the barriers.

Anne expected to find the tent empty, or perhaps inhabited by one or two servants. Instead Madge Geddings sat on one of the stools. Until that moment, Anne had completely forgotten that Madge had wanted to speak with her.

“My lady, forgive the intrusion.” Madge rose and dipped into a curtsey.

“Sit down, Madge. I’ve candied fruit if you—”

“No. Nothing. Please. I just. . . that is. . .” Her voice trailed off and she seemed at a loss over what to say next.

“What has Edward done?” Anne asked.

Madge burst into tears. “That is just the problem. I do not know. He does not confide in me anymore. I no longer share his bed.”

Anne had little patience for dramatics. She had her own worries. “I am sorry, Madge, but you must have known he would not keep you forever.” She hesitated, then asked, “Is little Margaret provided for? You have no fears on her account?”

“I have fears aplenty, my lady.” Her face worked as she struggled to get herself under control.

Anne felt sorry for Madge. She had truly loved Edward. Perhaps she still did. But there was nothing Anne could do to get him back for her. She made the only offer she could. “If you ever wish to leave the duke’s household, you know you can always come to me, Madge. And Margaret, too.”

Madge sniffled out her gratitude. “I have my post with the duchess still, and she does not treat me unkindly.”

Eleanor, Anne thought, had probably been grateful to Madge for sparing her Edward’s amorous interest all these years. Her sister-in-law had always struck Anne as a cold woman, uninterested in marital bliss. “The offer will remain open. You have my word on it.”

“I will consider it, if there are. . . difficulties.” Madge looked as if she wished to say more, but George chose that moment to return and so the chance was lost. Anne did not see Madge again before the English contingent left the Field of Cloth of Gold, nor did they meet on the journey back to England.

She returned to court in blissful ignorance of her brother’s state of mind.

I
n the weeks that followed the Field of Cloth of Gold, Madge’s misery increased. She wished more than ever that she’d been able to confide in Lady Anne. Edward’s behavior grew more peculiar every day.

It had always been the Duke of Buckingham’s custom to rise early and say Matins with his chaplain, break his fast, and then hear Low Mass in his chamber, followed by divine service in the chapel with the rest of the household. After that, aside from prayers before meals, the only other daily religious observance had been Evensong. Now, of a sudden, the entire household, all 150 or so, from the duchess’s gentlewomen through the duke’s private physician to the youngest page and lowliest kitchen boy, was obliged to attend five services a day. They went to Matins before breakfast, Lady Mass after, a High Mass, Evensong, and Compline. The duke’s chaplains—he had several of them, ruled over by Sir John Delacourt, his confessor—also began reading religious text during meals, putting an end to the cheerful chatter that usually accompanied food.

The duchess seemed pleased by the changes, even when the duke raised the possibility of making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a long, dangerous journey usually undertaken only by the most devout—or by
those in particular need of forgiveness. When one of her ladies commented on the heightened piety at Bletchingly, the duchess reproved her gently for the hint of implied criticism in her remark.

“His Grace has acknowledged that he is a sinner,” she added, “as are we all.” Her placid gaze momentarily fixed on Madge.

There was no condemnation in it. There was no emotion at all. But Madge felt as if she’d been stripped to her shift and set to do penance by walking barefoot to church with a paper stuck to her forehead that proclaimed her guilty of fornication. Her fingers were suddenly too cold to wield her needle. Madge abandoned her embroidery, murmured an excuse about the need to visit the privy, and fled the duchess’s chamber.

Seeking warmth, she sought the gallery with its abundance of tall, glazed windows. Because her legs felt wobbly by the time she got there, she plucked up one of the floor cushions, carried it to a corner, and settled herself there, half hidden by a pierced screen. She indulged in a good cry and afterward felt the better for it. She was just mopping her face when she heard someone come into the gallery. Before she could reveal her presence, she recognized Edward’s voice.

No, not Edward, she reminded herself. The Duke of Buckingham. She must not think of His Grace in such familiar terms any longer. She did not have the right. But it was not easy to change how she felt about him. She had loved him for a long time and still cared for him. And they shared a child, even though the duke had recently made changes in his daughter’s life, too. Young Margaret now lived permanently at Penshurst with her tutors and Madge’s mother.

Indecision held Madge in place too long. Now she recognized the slow, measured speech of Lord Bergavenny, who was married to the duke’s youngest daughter.

“I hear talk of your generosity to certain gentlemen at court,” Bergavenny said. “Is that wise?” He was older than his father-in-law and not inclined to mince words with him.

“I gave a doublet of cloth of silver to your brother, Sir Edward Neville.” The duke sounded testy. “I have Sir Edward’s goodwill. No man shall take it from me.”

Bergavenny made a dismissive sound in his throat. “Ned has no influence at court. If he did not possess skill at jousting, he’d have no place there at all.”

“He has the king’s ear.” From the concealment of the screen, Madge saw Buckingham stroke his beard, a new adornment he’d begun to grow upon his return from Guines.

“Not so much as some.” Bergavenny chuckled. “Not so much as Compton.”

The baron was baiting the duke, Madge thought. He was either very brave or very foolish.

“I trust to see the time when Sir William Compton will be glad to give me back the land I sold him.”

“
Give
it to you? That one never lets go of anything once he has it. Ask your lady sister.”

“He’s not had her for some time.” Madge knew that tone of voice. Edward was barely keeping rein on his temper.