The Queen's Rival (26 page)

The court was at Greenwich to escape what seemed like a coming epidemic of the deadly sweating sickness. England had not been plagued since the outbreak that had killed the king’s elder brother, Arthur. Yet because of that, concern over its return, and whom it might claim next, was never far from Henry’s mind.

Wolsey had fallen ill in September, his stout body giving way to both the fever and rash. But within the anticipated twenty-four hours, when one customarily either recovered or died, the cardinal was once again able to say Mass in the king’s private chapel. Now, as winter neared, everyone looked at one another with a combination of fear and dread at the first sign of a cough. It was better to be outside, they all believed, amid the restorative air. And so they all walked.

Gil paused for a moment, and raked a hand through his touseled dark hair. He pushed back the pain of his headache and the growing wave of nausea he secretly felt. Surely it was nothing but the copious amount of wine he had drunk last night catching up with him now. Bess wore a gown of rose red brocade with a standing collar that accentuated her graceful neck. The crescent-shaped French hood sat back on her head just enough to show her smooth blond hair above her forehead. Gil tried to concentrate on her to steady himself as Nicholas turned to him in a stylish gray velvet cloak.

“She reads from that volume nearly every day, does she not?” Nicholas asked Gil of the small red leather book of Skelton’s work Bess carried with her like a prayer missal.

“Irritatingly so, yes.”

He bit back a little smile. “I suspect you would not say it like that if it were your gift and not the king’s she carried everywhere. Pity you surrendered yours to the flames before she was ever able to make a choice.”

“Between me and the king, there will never be a choice. She is in love with him, just as every other doe-eyed girl at this court. Just as your own wife once was.”

Nicholas Carew’s affable smile fell. “You need not be caustic. I know how you feel far better than you think.”

Gil turned to him, feeling his head throb. “Do you?”

“Once he was finished with her, he forced her to marry me.”

“The king? I thought your and Elizabeth’s families arranged the matter.”

“Your Wolsey organized it, but it was at the king’s bidding. I am surprised you did not know.”

“There are many things the cardinal and I have never discussed,” Gil said, thinking about the details of his own conception, only little bits of which he knew for certain.

He wondered sometimes if anyone else knew about Wolsey’s paternity. But Gil doubted it since Thomas Wolsey’s image and authority were more important to him than anything else in the world.

“I thought you loved her,” Gil finally said. “You certainly always look upon her with great affection.”

“I have come to love her, but it is difficult to give your heart to one who can never fully give you hers in return. Elizabeth tolerates me, mainly.”

“I had no idea,” Gil said honestly.

“It would be a pity if that happened to you one day. Trust me, my friend, it is no way to live.”

“I believe it may be too late for that,” Gil replied as they looked at the two young women they loved, neither of whom could feel for them what they felt. And for both women this was because of the same man. Gil sighed, and they were silent for a moment.

“Do you believe he has any idea how many hearts he has claimed?”

“I believe he has yet to give his own heart over to anyone, so I imagine His Highness is quite clueless to those sorts of details,” Nicholas said.

The wind stirred suddenly, and a carpet of red-gold leaves blew across the darkening landscape before them. Even though it was cold, Gil felt as if he were burning up. He ran a hand behind his neck and forced himself to ignore the growing fever as he continued to watch Bess. Suddenly, she and Elizabeth turned back as if they had heard something. They were both smiling. Both were young, both were so beautiful, and both were so entirely unaware of how their commitment to another man, the king, had affected every one of their lives. As it always did when she looked at him, Gil felt his heart stir, then the familiar ache take its place. Their eyes met as she drew near. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold, and her blue eyes were glittering, even in the flat afternoon light. She reached out and took his hands.

“Let’s go exploring inside,” Bess said with a note of mischief he knew well, for he had been the one to ignite it four years earlier. “As we did that first time I came here.”

“You went into the king’s rooms when you first came here. That was not a wise plan,” he said, chuckling in response, “and still would not be, if we were to do it again.”

“Of course not, silly. That would not be wise at all. But Elizabeth has just told me that the queen leaves on the hour for a pilgrimage to Walsingham with the Countesses of Oxford and Derby to pray for another pregnancy.”

“Did she not just return from there last spring?” Gil asked. Everyone at court knew how increasingly devout and evermore serious the queen had become, particularly after the birth of her daughter.

Elizabeth lowered her eyes for a moment. “The poor queen knows time is of the essence at her age, and only God can give her a son now.”

“I have heard that the king’s sister brought the Boleyn sisters from France with her,” Gil said. The four of them began to walk back up the winding brick path toward the stone palace sprawled out like a great sleeping giant before them.

“The Duke of Suffolk has done nothing since they returned but drone on about their unparalleled beauty,” Nicholas added, rolling his eyes. “If they were to catch the eye of the king, one or both of them quite likely will be mothering royal bastards before May Day.”

“I believe you misunderstand His Highness, as well as insult him, Master Carew,” Bess said, sharply, suddenly defensive.

It was still difficult for Gil to remember that, despite Bess’s years at court, she continued to be hopelessly romantic, particularly regarding the motivations of men. She was willing to believe the best in everyone, even when faced with the most incriminating of evidence. While it was one of the many things he loved about her, it was also the thing that caused him to fear for her the most. As much as he wanted her to know the truth about the king and his penchant for women, Gil simply could not be the one to tell her. And neither, apparently, could Nicholas nor Elizabeth.

Pray God, someone, somewhere, would tell her, though, before it was too late.

Gil had been behaving oddly all day, Bess thought as she lowered her head against the wind and walked with Elizabeth ahead of Gil and Nicholas. He could be so funny and sweet one minute, then moody and temperamental the next, and all seemingly without reason.

She hated to think what she privately thought—that perhaps his father’s increasing dementia was an illness to which he might one day be susceptible. Everyone who had known Sir George Tailbois, a king’s Knight of the Body, said that his illness had begun to manifest itself in bouts of depression and sullenness, quite like Gil’s present condition. Even so, Bess was always angry with herself when the thought came to her. It felt like a betrayal. But she knew well that she was not alone at court in such unkind conclusions. People had been whispering about it for months.

Her dress swept along the pathway, soft-soled shoes crunching gravel, as she and Elizabeth linked arms. Both of them prattled on and giggled wickedly about which young Boleyn girl overdid her French accent the more, and which possessed the greater air of entitlement from their time spent abroad. Both agreed it was Anne, the fourteen-year-old younger sister with the wickedly brilliant green eyes.

The girls walked together, with the boys trailing behind, down one long corridor, then another, and up a twisted flight of stairs to a floor they rarely visited ornamented with massive tapestries. Bess waited until the two of them were entirely alone before breaking into a sudden full run. Among the things Bess valued most in her dignified life at court were moments like this when she was not required to be so proper. Skirts sailing out behind her, she ran ahead of the others now, with a childlike spirit, bidding them to catch her, or at least keep up as she had done with her siblings back home in Kinlet. Bess passed carved door after door. She was far ahead of the others when she came to an open door, through which she paused to peer.

At first she did not recognize him. He sat on the floor, head in his hands, beside the grand canopy bed—a royal bed. Yes, it was the same one she had seen four years earlier. But he did not look very royal at the moment, hunched over, clinging tightly to something. In this light, as she lingered beneath the doorway, there was the essence of a child about him, a vulnerability she had never seen past all of the puffed velvet, rich brocade, and glittering cascade of gems.

“Today is his birthday. He would have been thirty-one,” Henry said gravely. The heavy medallion and chain at his chest glittered like his startling green eyes in the pale light.

At first Bess had no idea whom he meant. Then she realized that the fabric he was clutching was the delicately embroidered cradle blanket she once had taken from this very place.

“My brother would have found you a remarkable beauty,” he said, as if seeing her for the first time as he glanced up at her with glazed eyes and a wounded expression.

Bess closed the door, moved across the room then, and sank onto the floor beside him. She could smell the wine on his breath. She felt a twinge of guilt looking at the precious little keepsake she already knew well. A part of another person’s heart should never have been open to her like that without an invitation.

“Thank you,” she replied with a small catch in her voice.

“I always think of him most when the sweating sickness is upon us.”

“Is it again now?”

She tipped her head and studied him. He was not looking at her now. Rather, his gaze had taken him across the vast paneled room, to the fireplace hearth. His coat of arms, flanked by the gods Mars and Venus, was emblazoned above.

“We used to steal away from our nurse and hide in here sometimes when we were boys. Arthur and I would always tell each other secrets here; we knew it was the one place we were not allowed to be and, as children, that felt dangerous and thrilling at the same time.”

His tone was suddenly wistful, decorated like the room, with the fabric of long-ago memories. Bess was not certain if Henry realized who was here with him, or to whom he was revealing his most precious secrets. But if he needed a friend, perhaps she could be that for him now. Some part of Henry must have thought so as well, because he continued to look at her intensely. Bess felt an oddly strong connection flare then—one that far exceeded pity.

Suddenly she was in his arms, wrapped in a powerful embrace she had not expected, and about which she had only fantasized. Bess melted against his broad, powerful chest, all reservations gone. Sliding both his hands beneath her chin and not waiting for approval, the king pressed a very gentle kiss onto her lips.

The feeling that he was two very different men—one a powerful, untouchable sovereign, the other a vulnerable son and brother—struck her again, unfastening the hold on her heart. For a moment, his fingers lingered against her trembling jaw.

“God, but you have grown from a child into a stunning beauty, Bess,” Henry said in a deep and startlingly seductive tone as the small blanket dropped onto his lap between them.

The way he said her name was seduction itself. It was almost like a growl. She loved how purely male his skin smelled. Ambergris, civet, and musk on him was a heady combination. She drew in a breath, trying to steady herself, but all she could smell was him; all she could feel was her own slim body pressed against his taut magnificent one; all she could taste was his mouth. . . . All she could desire was for him to kiss her again.

“Forgive me,” he said then as he pulled away. “It was wrong of me to take advantage of your kindness.”

“It is understandable,” she said softly, her lips still tingling.

“How can that be?”

“You’ve an entire country with which to concern yourself. It cannot be a simple task to find time enough to ponder your own heart.”

A faint smile turned up the corners of his mouth as his hand fell away from her face. “You surprise me yet again, Mistress Blount.”

“I am glad I do.” Bess tried to smile encouragingly in return, but suddenly she realized her mouth was still trembling from the way he had kissed her.
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, but she wanted him to kiss her like that again. His mouth was like nectar, and she did not want ever to be farther away from it than she was now.

“I have many friends: Brandon, Carew, Henry Guildford, William Compton. . . Wolsey, of course. Affable enough fellows with whom to drink and hunt, lads who are always willing to make mischief with me, always willing to have a good time. But none of them wants to know what troubles me. They cannot hear my heart.”