The Queen's Rival (49 page)

 

T
he powerful forces of the clergy in Rome threatened excommunication in response to Henry’s claim that he would break with the Church over the issue of divorce from Katherine of Aragon. On one side of him, Anne Boleyn pleaded and cried, threatening to withhold her favor forever, which drove mad a man accustomed to having everything he desired. On the other side were Henry’s son and Bess—a ready-made family, taunting his heart and his conscience with a choice of lust or love.

“It is true, sire, if you were to marry the Lady Tailbois, it would give legitimacy to the Duke of Richmond and ease him, with no difficulty should you choose, into the line of succession,” Thomas Cromwell cautiously advised. “And Mistress Anne is still most unpopular with the people.”

Since the disgrace and death of Cardinal Wolsey, and the death of another confidant, the Earl of Essex before that, and with Brandon and Mary living away from court much of the time, Henry now relied almost exclusively upon Cromwell to help him navigate the turbulent waters of divorce, annulment, and excommunication—not only with Rome, but with his conscience.

Katherine was left alone now at Richmond with only a few of her servants. It was her punishment for continually refusing to say she had slept with Henry’s brother, Arthur, an admission that would have rendered her marriage to Henry invalid and provided grounds for annulment, and also for refusing to accept that Henry would eventually divorce her. Meanwhile, Henry, Anne Boleyn, and his court were luxuriously installed at Wolsey’s elegant former London palace, York Place, where they meant to pass the spring without the queen. He was no monster, he assured himself daily. But he had a choice to make, and that choice no longer included Katherine of Aragon. He would have to decide which way to go once the divorce was granted.

Yes, he could marry Bess. That would make things simple. It would calm so much of what tortured him as well. A part of him still did love her after all these years. He had satisfied himself about that question last April when he had gone to Lincolnshire with Harry.
But Nan
. . . Fiery, unpredictable, sensual Nan, how his blood did burn for her! Yet had his passion become real, enduring love? Or was it simply still his pride and that love of the hunt that had always ruled him?

Henry had written to Bess, asking her once again to come to court. He needed to see her again now that her yearlong mourning period was at an end. He needed to be with her as they once had been to see if the love between them could extinguish the passion he felt for Anne. Bess had written back that she would come for the May Day celebration. And yet, he thought now even as he waited, perhaps memories were just that—something better left to the corners of the heart and not paraded up to the vulnerable center.

His plans for a law passed by Parliament to bring his son into the line of succession would certainly destroy his chances with a woman like Anne—if he planned to marry her and have sons with her. But if he did not do it, Harry would not be assured his rightful place—a place for which Bess had sacrificed so much.

So there was a risk either way.

Henry glanced beyond the window glass and down into the vast gardens below, full of neat brick pathways and conically shaped juniper trees. Anne was there with several of Katherine’s former ladies, now her attendants, along with Henry’s own Groom of the Stool, young Henry Norris. When he saw the handsome, dark-haired Norris, Henry’s smile fell. The look was intense between Nan and the boy. They were laughing, and she had touched her hand playfully to his chest. Henry leaned back in his chair as Cromwell droned on, delving into details he did not care to hear. So the king was not the only man at court with a passion for Anne Boleyn, he thought, jealously focusing on Norris.
Come to court soon, Bess
, he thought again as he had so many times already that day.

“My Lady Tailbois, there is a gentleman downstairs. He says he is your neighbor, although I do believe I would remember him if he were.”

Stout and silver-haired beneath her gabled hood, Mistress Fowler stood in the doorway to the music room, and Bess looked up from the virginal where she had been listening with the music teacher as her daughter played a piece. Elizabeth stopped playing and looked toward the door as well.

“Has this gentleman a name?” Bess asked with a hint of irritation at how flustered the married woman was apparently by the prospect of the waiting guest.

“He called himself Lord Clinton, my lady. But I did always believe Lord Tailbois, God rest his soul, to be the only nobility around this area.”

Bess stood and straightened her skirts.

“Shall I show him upstairs?”

“I shall come down. Where is he now?”

“In the foyer, my lady Tailbois. I tried to show him to the drawing room, but he insisted this was not a social call.”

Bess rolled her eyes, irritated to be called upon by a stranger who clearly was not any more pleased to be in her house than she was to have him here, whatever his reason. There was enough to do maintaining a family and a household this size without being bothered by mundane interruptions. Bess did not descend the stairs gracefully, rather taking each step with purpose, and also a hint of irritation as the hem of her skirts swirled at her ankles. But as she reached the landing, she saw him. The sight of him stopped her fully. He was familiar, though a total stranger. And all the activity in her house, servants moving about, children laughing—all of it ceased in that moment.

He was tall, young—magnificent. He was stunningly prepossessed for someone his age, as he held his gloves in one hand, glancing at the Tailbois coat of arms on the wall beside the door and thus giving her an instant more to take in the details of his extraordinary face. He was twenty, perhaps younger, but he exuded such command that age was irrelevant. His square face, dominated by sleepy, seductive ice blue eyes, was framed by strong brows and tamed waves of wheat-colored hair, which she watched him casually rake back from a broad, smooth forehead as he waited. He had a slight whisper of a beard at his chin, and, below his nose, only enough of a mustache to show he could grow one. When he glanced up and saw her, Bess had reached the bottom step and paused, gripping tightly the polished banister with the hand that still wore her wedding band. She felt not entirely connected to her own body. It was as if she were viewing herself and this man from an outside perspective. And then, seeing her, he smiled. The gesture was refined, small, with just a slight turn upward of his lips. Bess saw a spark of impishness in it, and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners.

He bowed crisply to her then, linking his hands behind his back as he did. “My Lady Tailbois, I am Edward Fiennes, Lord Clinton, your neighbor to the south.”

“I had no idea I possessed a noble neighbor to the south,” she said, not certain at all the moment she spoke them what words she had actually said. He made her feel more foolish and girl-like than she had ever felt before, even with the King of England.

“Our lands adjoin each other’s, although it is at a rather great distance. I often dealt with your husband on border issues.”

The mention of Gil reminded her of too many things she did not wish to think about at this moment, and she saw by the sudden slight frown on his face that he sensed that.

“I am most sorry for your loss last year, my lady. Please accept my condolences. Lord Tailbois was a fine and great man.”

“He was indeed. Thank you.” She moved down the final step and faced him. He was tall, but not in Henry’s imposing way. This man—this Edward—seemed to her perfectly proportioned, as if a sculptor had fashioned him, knowing to what a widowed woman, with no prospects of passion, would be drawn.

“Would you like to come in, take a cup of wine perhaps, and rest after your ride?” she asked him, struggling with the words and feeling instantly awkward. She had not been a young, uncertain girl for a very long time. And yet there was a sense of destiny in her question, like nothing she had ever felt in her life—as if she had known him, or been meant to know him, all along.

“Thank you,” he replied, moving forward with her. “Several of the sheep that graze out on your pastureland have in recent days wandered onto my adjoining property, which is much closer to that thick stretch of deep woodland than yours is.” He shifted his weight casually from one leg to another, but he did not take his eyes, his sleepy, piercing, exquisite eyes, from her. “I am afraid several of your sheep have been killed on my land. But just this morning, my man and I caught the fox red-handed and took him down.”

“Thank you,” Bess said softly, still trying to process his claim.

“I cannot say, of course, if there is more danger to your animals, so perhaps we might consider some sort of barrier along that far pastureland.”

“Perhaps I should ride out and take a look at it myself,” Bess said.

His eyes met hers. There was still that tiny upturn of the lips she saw even then. It was not so much a smile, she realized now, but rather a spark of satisfied self-possession. “Under the circumstances, it would be much wiser for my servants and me to accompany you, if you mean to do so.”

“Lord Clinton, I have my own servants, and we have only just this moment met,” Bess demurely said, knowing that she sounded like a child, rather than the confident mother of four children she had become.

Edward Fiennes’s smile widened at that, and the crinkles beside his sleepy crystal blue eyes deepened, making her feel, for a moment, utterly foolish for the way she knew she was staring at him. “That much is true,” he concurred. “However, if you and your children were to agree to accompany your good neighbor to the May Day celebration in the village next week, we would be strangers no longer.”

It had been more of a statement of logic than a proposal, and Bess felt powerless to contest. It was so logical, in fact, that she laughed.

“May I take that as your acceptance, Lady Tailbois?” he asked, arching a brow as his crooked smile deepened.

It was not brash arrogance that he showed, she thought, but simply utter self-confidence. She had not felt anything like this, the pull of a smile, and her heart beating swiftly, for a very long time—not since she met the king for the first time, all those years ago.

Anne Boleyn was playing a game with his heart better than a game had ever been played, and Henry did not like it at all. He craved her, he dreamed of her, he fought for her, and he was willing to surrender everything for her, if she would only surrender just a small bit of herself in return. But even that she continued to withhold as the great lure.

Henry stood now at the edge of his grand tennis courts at Richmond Palace, dressed in an elegant russet-colored doublet accented with heavy slashed sleeves, a grand sable collar, and a gold medallion. He was every bit the elegant ruler, yet always a man underneath. He was watching his son compete against the boy’s older and stronger uncle, the thirty-three-year-old George Blount, who, in spite of the difference in age, had remained Richmond’s most faithful companion. Harry was growing into such a magnificently strong and handsome boy that it startled Henry sometimes to see him like this, tall, athletic, and healthy, because it kindled hope.

And it kept his memories, and questions, of Bess alive.

The pope in Rome had continued flatly to refuse Henry’s call for the annulment no matter what threat he dangled, and as he waited to be with Anne fully, Henry could not help continuing to consider Bess—and the possibility of making her his bride instead. She had not come to court for the May Day celebration after all, but she had sent him a gift of local Lincolnshire wine like the kind they had shared on his April visit following Gilbert Tailbois’s death, along with a letter, which had pleased and enticed him. Bess was still such an alluring and beautiful woman. And unlike Katherine, Bess had produced three healthy sons and a daughter as well. His mind played at the scenarios daily. Could he, after all this time, marry his son’s mother and make her queen?