At the King's Pleasure (Secrets of the Tudor Court) (4 page)

Ned claimed the dice and took his turn. “I’d not mind a taste of Spain,” he said as he rolled a six, collected the dice, and tried again. “That Salinas wench is a pretty young thing.”

Only a handful of Spanish-born servants remained in Catherine of Aragon’s household. Four were women, but only two of them were from noble families, Maria de Salinas and Inez de Venegas.

“So she is,” Will said, “but Lord Willoughby d’Eresby has his eye on her. And I hear Lord Mountjoy plans to make Mistress de Venegas his second wife.”

“It must be nice not to be obliged to wed a fortune.” Ned rolled a five, then another to win. If he rolled a five on the next toss, he’d lose. When a six came up instead, he continued to play.

“Some of the queen’s English ladies have both beauty and wealth,” Will remarked.

“Most of them also have husbands.”

“I was thinking of widows. One in particular. Have you taken note of Buckingham’s sister? Sir Walter Herbert’s widow?” She was a bright spot in an otherwise dull assortment of ladies-in-waiting.

“She is too old to suit me,” Ned said with a laugh. He was all of twenty-two, several years Will’s junior. He rolled a twelve and lost.

“Would that age were the only difficulty! You know the duke’s opinion of those of us who were raised with the king.” Will rolled a three, then a four.

“Aye. Upstarts. Fortune hunters. He stops just short of calling us baseborn curs. He’ll never approve of you, Will. Besides, didn’t I hear that he’s cast a line toward George Hastings?”

“I’m surprised the noble duke thinks a mere baron good enough for his sister.” He tossed the uncooperative dice back to his friend.

Will’s thoughts remained with Lady Anne while Ned took his turn. He did not know why the duke’s sister piqued his interest. She was no great beauty and, as Ned had rightly pointed out, she was no longer young. She might even be barren, since she’d borne her first husband no children. But there was something about her that appealed to him and had from the first moment he’d noticed her among the queen’s ladies. She had a freshness about her that made her stand out.

Perhaps, he thought, it was because she seemed to take a genuine interest in her surroundings. Lady Anne never affected boredom, as so many courtiers did, but was always looking around her, as if she eagerly anticipated each new experience. She responded to the ongoing pageantry of court life with unfeigned delight. And she had a wonderful laugh.

But she was not for him.

Ned handed over the dice and Will promptly lost again. “God’s bones! I’ll have to pawn my new doublet if this keeps up!”

His friend laughed and took another turn. “I’ll give you a chance to win it all back the next time we’re in the tiltyard. Or we could wager on another kind of jousting.” He nodded his head toward the still-closed door.

“On the king’s prowess?” Will grinned. “Have a care, Ned. That comes perilous close to treason.”

“Only if you underestimate His Grace,” Ned shot back. “But that is not what I meant. I had in mind a competition to see which one of us can entice a certain laundress into bed first. You know the one I mean.”

Will did. The wench had a bold stare that made a man certain she’d be willing. But where was the challenge in that? He’d never had any difficulty convincing women to couple with him. Nor had Ned. Still, he shook his head, rejecting the wager. “The game’s not worth the candle.”

“You’re slowing down, old man,” Ned taunted him.

“Not slowing. Just changing course,” Will corrected him. “The beginning of this new reign means more than an escape from the old king’s tightfisted ways. We may lack titles and land, Ned, but we have the king’s ear. We have his trust. At his pleasure, he can grant his friends anything and everything.”

“You want a title?”

“I’d rather have land. And annuities. And lucrative wardships. I inherited a dilapidated old manor house in Warwickshire from my father. One day I’d like to rebuild it into a great mansion.”

Ned gave this due consideration, then said, “I’d rather be a baron like my brother. Or better yet, an earl.” He laughed. “If such things are to rest entirely upon the king’s pleasure, then is it not possible that one of us might even be elevated to the level of a duke? That would give old Buckingham a turn!”

Will reclaimed the dice and continued to play, hoping his luck would change. Commoner all the way to duke? He smiled at the thought. Not likely!

E
dward had been right, Lady Anne thought as she watched King Henry dance a pavane with his Spanish-born queen. Although the measures were slow and formal, all gliding movements designed to show off the dancers’ skill, His Grace had a bounce to his step that put one in mind of a large, enthusiastic puppy.

The king had not quite lost the plump features of boyhood. He had the size of a man, towering over everyone else in the great hall, but his face was round and rosy, the skin so fair as to be the envy of any woman. Instead of a beard’s shadow, only the finest, fairest golden down showed on his flat, clean-shaven cheeks. Some of his features were delicately cast and his blue-gray eyes, small mouth, and cleanly made lips gave him an almost cherubic look. He was only saved from a too-feminine appearance by a strong, square chin with a deep cleft in it and a high-bridged nose.

His Grace laughed as he danced to the sound of rebec and lute, shawm and sackbut, delighted with himself and with his bride. And why not? They were young and beautiful and had everything they desired. The diamonds sewn onto their clothing sparkled in the light of hundreds of wax tapers. The king’s mass of red-gold hair glinted, too.

Catherine of Aragon was much shorter than her husband and nearly
six years older than he was. A plump, dainty little woman, she had large, dark eyes and neat, regular features in an oval face. Her complexion was as fair as the king’s and she wore her long, thick, reddish-gold hair loose under a Venetian cap, a luxury only permitted to virgins and queens. That hair was a deeper shade of auburn than King Henry’s. When the queen wore it down, as she often did, she looked more like a child of ten than a woman of twenty-three.

The king and queen danced together in the great hall at Greenwich, surrounded by courtiers who were almost as vividly appareled as they were. Anne’s brother, as always, wore particularly fine clothing. The Duke of Buckingham’s crimson gown was heavily studded with pearls. He had taken care, however, not to outshine the king. Both Henry and Catherine were attired in cloth of gold.

From her quiet corner, Anne enjoyed both the spectacle and the opportunity to match faces to names. She was still very new to the royal court and, after spending so many years in Wales, where Walter’s lands had been located, remained a bit uncertain as to who was who.

As her brother had predicted, she and her sister, Elizabeth, had been appointed to positions at court as two of the new queen’s eight ladies-in-waiting, a select group chosen from the highest ranks of the nobility of England. The other six were all the wives of earls—the countesses of Derby, Shrewsbury, Essex, Oxford, Suffolk, and Surrey. Their duties were light and largely ceremonial, consisting of such things as offering a bowl of washing water to Her Grace before meals, but Anne was required to live at court, at least part of the time. The ladies-in-waiting served in rotation, except on state occasions. Then all eight of them were required to attend the queen.

When she was not on duty, Anne was free to spend her time elsewhere. For the most part, she chose to remain in proximity to the queen. Although Queen Catherine spent an inordinate number of hours on her knees in prayer, her household was also the center of all the most amusing entertainments at court. King Henry enjoyed the company of his bride and her women and brought with him to her
apartments all the witty and athletic gentlemen, some nobly born and some not, who were his boon companions.

At other times, Queen Catherine and her ladies provided an admiring audience when the king played tennis or bowls. They also attended tournaments and disguisings. The latter entertainments were always splendidly mounted by the king’s master of revels. But above all else, Anne loved the dancing. Her foot tapped in time to the music, stopping only when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man approaching.

She did not acknowledge him, although she knew full well who he was. Strange as it seemed to her, he had his own distinctive smell, just slightly different from other men who wore the same musky scent and dressed in the same fabrics. She never failed to recognize it.

“None of the other dancers are so graceful at executing the steps as you are, Lady Anne,” Will Compton murmured in his low, compelling voice. “Will you do me the honor of being my partner for the next set?”

As it was considered bad manners to take your partner’s hand while wearing gloves, Compton slipped his off with the grace and speed of a trained courtier. Then, with his left hand, he doffed his hat, a fine, plumed bonnet with a garnet pinned to the band. He bowed to her as he extended his right hand in her direction.

“You are bold to ask, sir.” She continued to avoid looking directly at him, but as it was also bad manners to refuse an invitation to dance, she did not plan to hold out very long.

“Ah, my lady, you wound me to my very soul. I am but a humble supplicant, hoping for a crumb from your table, a touch of your gentle hand, a kiss from—”

“Master Compton, you forget yourself.” Anne did turn then, fighting a smile.

Like most of the men with whom King Henry surrounded himself, Will Compton was pleasing to look at, a strapping specimen of manhood with a broad chest and good legs. His eyes were hazel, his hair golden brown. He was close to her own age, but far more experienced in the ways of the court.

He was also one of the men her brother disdained—the schoolfellows of His Grace’s childhood, his opponents when he’d learned to joust, and now his closest companions, whether it be for a day of hunting or a night of revelry.

“Come, my lady,” Compton persisted. “Let us show the others how a passamezzo should be performed.” The pavane at an end, the musicians were about to play a faster version of that stately dance.

“You cannot mean to suggest that we should outshine the king,” she quipped, permitting the barest hint of a smile to show on her face, “for surely His Grace is the most skillful of us all . . . at everything he does.”

“It would be politic to say so, to be sure,” Compton agreed, his eyes alight with good humor. “And yet, to show off your skills to the world, my lady, I would gladly risk offending my liege lord.”

“What? Would you endanger your career at court?” she teased him. “Mayhap even your life?”

“For you, my lady, I would slay dragons.”

She had to laugh at that. “Then perhaps I do not wish to risk
my
life.”

Suddenly serious, he stepped closer to whisper in her ear. “Is it true that you are to wed Lord Hastings?”

“You are impertinent, sirrah!” Anne tried to step away from him but he caught hold of her hand.

“You feel it, too. You must. There is a strong attraction between us.”

“I do not know what you mean.”

As soon as she spoke, she realized it was a lie. Being this close to Will Compton put her in mind of soft feather beds and long nights with the hangings closed tight.

“He’s not good enough for you,” he said.

“Nor are you,” she shot back. Compton was gently born, but he had not even been knighted yet, while she was the daughter of one duke and the sister of another.

“I can make your life far more interesting than he ever will.”

The heated feel of her face told Anne that she was blushing, but she managed to make her voice as cold as an icy morning in January. “I am
to marry Lord Hastings, as you have heard. Therefore be gone, Master Compton. There is nothing for you here.”

“Are you certain?” he whispered.

Before she could reply, he surprised her by obeying her command. He slipped away as quickly and quietly as he’d appeared, leaving her to stare after him in dismay.

Furious with herself, she tamped down the maelstrom of feelings his nearness had aroused. Wicked man! He knew that harmless flirtations—Compton would no doubt call it “courtly love”—were acceptable behavior. But this encounter had borne little resemblance to the chivalric ideal in which a knight worshipped his lady from afar. Compton wanted to bed her. She had no doubt of it.

Perhaps, she thought, if the difference in their rank had not been so great, he might have offered to marry her. But that was clearly impossible. He was too inferior in station and too poor to compete for her hand, even if she wanted him to. And she did not, she assured herself. She was content with the plans her brother had made for her. Within a few months, she would marry George Hastings.

Lord Hastings would make her an excellent husband. True, she had spoken with him only a handful of times, but he was pleasing to look at and courteous. And she did not intend to remain dependent upon her brother forever. Nor did she wish to be exiled to the drafty old castle in Wales where she’d lived with her first spouse. Or rather, she amended, where she had lived with a handful of servants while Walter had spent the bulk of his time hunting, and swiving his mistress.

Anne was well pleased to be done with that dull and stodgy existence. She had a place in the lively, intoxicating whirlwind that was the royal court and she meant to keep it.

One of the queen’s lesser ladies, a fair-haired, blue-eyed woman with a sweet face, approached Anne when the music stopped and the dancers broke apart. “It might be wise to remain in company,” Lady Boleyn murmured, “lest you provoke evil rumors. He watches you, even now.”

“Who?” Anne asked. “Compton?”

Bess Boleyn laughed softly. “Your brother the duke. He was born, I think, with a suspicious nature.”

“Say rather that it was bred into him.”

In common with many others at court, including the woman standing beside her, the Stafford siblings were descended from noblemen who had been condemned for treason for choosing the losing side at some point during the seemingly endless conflict between the houses of Lancaster and York. Anne did not remember her father. She’d been an infant when he was executed.