The Queen's Rival (29 page)

This was an evening of celebration in honor of both the queen’s pregnancy as well as the Treaty of London, which Cardinal Wolsey had painstakingly negotiated between England, France, and the papacy. The peace was to culminate in the formal betrothal of the two-year-old English Princess Mary and François, the three-month-old French
dauphin.
It was whispered that these events had set Wolsey on a course to realize his ultimate dream of one day becoming pope. The celebration following High Mass was to be massive.

From the first moment she saw Henry, Bess felt her anger slip away. He was magnificent as always in jeweled green brocade and a heavy medallion suspended from a thick gold chain around his neck. His eyes twinkled and he tipped back his head, laughing openly at something one of his companions said. Tall, lean, devastatingly handsome, Henry looked even more, she thought, like a young lion ready to devour the world.

Even from a distance, Bess had never seen the king look happier, healthier, or grander. As he saw her draw steadily near, Bess could feel Gil tense beside her. These past months in the king’s absence had continued to deepen their friendship. Kindled at first by his illness, the relationship had been enriched by their steady companionship, and a healthy dose of his gratitude.

But tonight everything once again was changing.

Or perhaps, she thought as she looked at the king, it would merely change back, return to what it had been for that brief, magical time that now seemed as if it had not happened. At least that was what Bess prayed from the moment she saw him, his face and smile turned to her in the candlelight. A long line of liveried servants laid out a sumptuous feast for the group gathered in York Place, Wolsey’s personal palace in the city. The theme was Roman, with great purple pillows, tasseled in gold, tossed onto the floor before low tables draped in gleaming purple silk. The walls were covered with long sheets of fluttering gold silk so that the entire room resembled the inside of a great columned temple.

“I shall stay when he comes to greet you,” Gil said with surprisingly stiff resolve. “The queen will not like him speaking alone to a beautiful girl. The cardinal says she likes that less and less these days, especially when she is with child.”

Bess knew by the way he said it that there would be no dissuading him, even though she had dreamed of nothing so much as seeing the king alone. Gil was going to be her protector whether she liked it or not. An instant later, Henry was upon them, his smile still broad and carefree as he took up Bess’s lightly trembling hand. The first thing she felt was the cool press of the gold from his many rings on the backs of his fingers. As she dipped into a curtsy, he kissed her knuckles gently. The sensation of his moist lips as they lingered against her skin was seductive, and she tried not to react as she rose and their eyes met. Still, she felt the shiver deeply as they looked at each other.

“It has been too long, Mistress Blount,” the king said charmingly as he continued to hold her hand.

“I would agree with Your Highness.”

She heard Gil’s groan of displeasure beside her.

“You look stunning, as always,” he said flatteringly.

She was blushing and she knew it.

“Your Highness is most kind.”

“Only observant, mistress, that is all.” The king rocked back on his heels for a moment as he glanced over at Gil appraisingly. “So then, Master Tailbois, it has been some time, but you look well recovered, no worse for the wear.”

“Thank you, Your Highness. Perfectly well.”

The young king’s voice went slightly gruff then. “Wolsey tells me you were the only one in his household stricken the last time.”

“Apparently that was so, sire.”

“How fortunate you were then to have had Mistress Blount and Lady Carew to care for you. I am certain their care only added to the speed of your recovery.”

“I should think undoubtedly, Your Highness.”

“It would be the only thing
I
would relish about falling ill, to be certain.”

It was an odd little exchange, Bess thought, for she heard some small hint of rivalry in it. Odd it was indeed that the King of England would behave that way with Gil, whose experience with women consisted of his platonic friendships with her and Elizabeth. She glanced over at Gil to see if the king’s feelings were mutual, but she saw only the tall, lanky, kind-faced friend from her youth. There was at least some comfort in that, she thought.

Then, suddenly, the king redirected his attention to Bess, drawing her back in. “Mistress Blount, if you could spare but a moment before we dine, I find I could use your counsel on a matter of some urgency.”

The way he was looking at her sent a tremor sharply through her body. “Anything I might do for Your Highness.” She struggled with the words.

“Come with me,” he directed her, nodding coolly to Gil as he turned to leave.

“Take care, Bess,” Gil called after her, but she did not turn around. She knew what expression she would find in his eyes if she did, and just now Bess had no desire to see it.

She thought she had lost the king when he moved with long strides around the corner and into the corridor ahead of her. One flash of his jeweled velvet surcoat, and he was gone. But then as she turned the corner, trailing after him, she found him, cloaked in the shadows of a small paneled alcove. Forcefully, he drew her against his hard, lean body and wrapped her up in his powerful embrace. Anticipation arced through her as he pressed her against the cool limestone wall and leaned in against her. She was excited by their recklessness, terrified, and even so, overcome with pure lust. Her thoughts whirled in her mind, mixing with hot desire as Henry’s mouth came down hard, parting hers. They did not speak. There were only the directions from his forceful hand and the demand from his hard body pushing against her.

Bess moaned softly as Henry fumbled impatiently with his codpiece first and then her voluminous skirts, the layers of underskirts, and lastly the drawers. She felt his tongue on her neck as he grasped her hips powerfully and lifted her up onto him.

Bess pressed herself against him as he moved, feeling her own feverish arousal in the dark, dangerous alcove where any moment they might be discovered. Pleasure and pain wound themselves up tightly inside her, hard and fast, until his huge body went rigid; then the next instant he groaned and slumped with a great sigh against her.

Less than ten minutes later, they swept back into the banquet hall, a full pace from each other, yet both filled with the reckless passion of the other.

“Mistress Blount?” A sweet-toned female voice came from behind her as soon as they were engulfed by the crowd around them and quickly separated.

Startled, Bess pivoted back and saw Mary, the king’s petite, beautiful sister, now the Duchess of Suffolk, standing behind her, dressed in an elegant blue velvet dress with wide hanging sleeves and a plastron of gold brocade down the front.

“I almost did not recognize you,” said Charles Brandon’s new young wife. “You have changed a great deal since I went to France and returned. You have grown up.”

“I thank you, Your Grace. Your beauty is unmatched now as always,” Bess answered with the well-schooled aplomb five years at court had given her.

“So my brother chose a wise one this time,” Mary observed, and so sweetly that at first Bess did not catch the veiled slight. “You might actually be good for him. If there were not the small matter of the queen.”

“I would never do anything to dishonor the queen,” Bess declared quickly.

“I bid you, in matters of the heart, be cautious with the word ‘never.’ I have learned quite well the danger in that.”

Bess sought to say that she loved him only as her king. But with her face still flushed from moments ago in the darkened alcove, and her dress still slightly tousled, she simply could not force herself to lie so boldly to her lover’s own sister. Bess wondered how Mary knew, as she had only ever been discreet since the brief liaison began, and she had not breathed a word of it to anyone. Yet it was clear that Mary did know. Perhaps it was the king who had confided in his sister. Everyone at court knew they were immeasurably close—that Mary had been the only one ever to boldly deceive Henry VIII and not face his wrath. He could be a gentle and kind man they said, but the King of England did not abide betrayal. She must always keep that in mind, Bess thought. The young woman who had so briefly reigned as Queen of France had risked everything for love with Charles Brandon. Although she was young, Bess was just beginning to understand that particular enduring kind of feeling for a man.

“My brother wishes you to dance with us in the masque he has arranged after supper,” Mary said as she looked at Bess appraisingly. “I had planned to dissuade him for the queen’s sake—family loyalty and all of that. I should not allow myself fondness for one of you, but perhaps exceptions can be made.”

“
One of you
?” Bess dared to repeat, forced to remember that there were other women besides Katherine in Henry’s life before her, but as the words lay unanswered on her lips, the trumpets sounded the call to dine.

The moment and the question were both lost then as Mary smiled graciously at her before she turned away.

Bess took the seat to which she was directed near the king, though she was not seated directly beside him. That honor went to Cardinal Wolsey. On his other side sat Charles Brandon, returned to prominence now, having been forgiven. Still, the king and Bess watched each other from a distance. It was a seductive dance of flirtation as music, laughter, plumes of candle smoke, and the rich aroma of spiced and cooked meats permeated the air of the beamed and vaulted hall.

As the evening progressed, she would catch Henry’s glance upon her, only to see him run his tongue slyly along his lower lip, smile, then turn to Wolsey with a calm expression. It did not take long for Bess to join the little game. In response, she pressed a bite of lamb between her teeth, letting a bit of the juice drip down her chin. When she knew the king was watching, Bess trailed a finger over her lips, then pressed it into her mouth and let it linger there.

She felt a burst of triumph when she saw him shift in his chair, take a long swallow of wine, then exhale deeply. While Bess was still largely inexperienced, she knew her growing love for Henry made her want to do anything, everything, that would please him. And she would be a swift learner, she had promised herself. Bess Blount longed to be the perfect student.

“My wife was good at the king’s little game as well,” Nicholas Carew said, observing Bess’s behavior. “Pity she does not put that much effort into my desires.”

He put a hand on her knee then, and she quickly slapped it away. “I am still a rake, lovely Bess,” he slurred with a wink. “It is what I do best—that is, at least for now.”

Nicholas, who had never tried anything untoward before, was clearly drunk. Elizabeth was on his other side, chattering away and laughing so loudly with Lady Fitzwalter that she had not heard her husband or seen his advance. Nicholas seemed to see what she was thinking.

“Even if she could hear me, my lovely young wife would not care. I can never be the king, so I can never really matter to her.”

Bess’s glance cut from one to the other of them as the full implications of his words settled upon her, and she felt the heavy burden of an awful realization. The music and laughter were growing increasingly loud, and the aroma of cooked meat was quickly becoming nauseating. She could not have heard correctly. She had put all of her trust in Henry.

“Are you trying to suggest that Elizabeth and the king had more than a court flirtation or perhaps . . . a dalliance?”

“Oh, I am not suggesting it,” he said ruefully. “I am stating it quite boldly, as fact. Jane Poppincourt and then, of course, Lady Hastings before her. Fool girls all thought they could tame the mighty King of England.”

“I do not believe you. His Highness is not like that at all. Besides, Elizabeth would have told me if she had been something significant to him. If she had actually been his”—she felt herself choke on the word—“his mistress.”

“Would she now?” He arched a pale brow and paused for a moment as Bess’s world seemed to stop. The nausea deepened, and the taste in her mouth was sour like bile. She had all along understood that a king took lovers and had indiscretions; she was not that much of a fool after a bit of time at court. But to Bess’s mind, a mistress was something more, and Henry had supported her notion. It implied some element of the heart being involved, an emotional attachment, and the moment she had fallen for Henry, Bess had not wanted to believe he had ever given that to anyone but the queen. “She certainly never told me either.”

“Then how do you know it to be true?” she shot back, anger suddenly pulsing past the shock and nausea.

His blue eyes narrowed upon her, and his words became glacial. “Because the great Cardinal Wolsey came to me himself and ordered me to marry her by command of the king, who had tired of her.”

Carew drained another goblet of wine, then beckoned the steward standing with a large silver flagon behind them. “You see, while the king does play, he knows he must pay. Her father, Sir Thomas Bryan, my friend and now my father-in-law, is too close to our little inner circle not to have made a fuss after the king had her, especially for as long as he did, without her being well married off. Alas, I was available and so duly elected.”

She had never heard Nicholas sound so caustic. This was nothing like the carefree Carew she had come to know. Bess’s head was spinning with dark, dreadful thoughts. That it all could have been so calculated, so unbelievably cold . . . Elizabeth and Nicholas were both so young and golden that Bess had always assumed if it had not been quite a love match, it was at least a sound one between them.

All of her assumptions were tumbling down like cards around her. Elizabeth was not the girl Bess had believed she knew so well, and Henry had openly lied to her about having taken mistresses. The thought doubled around in her mind: An occasional lover was one thing, but a mistress—a true lover who had one’s heart and who was steady and constant—was a very different thing.