The Last Boleyn (39 page)

Mary moved back a step in the cluster of silken skirts about her and curtseyed low with the rest. She kept her eyes on her sister's golden slippers as Anne lifted her emerald skirts and they climbed the stairs. Anne's tiny feet halted.

“You do remember my dearest sister, Marie, Your Grace?” she heard Anne's lilting voice say in flawless French. “She is a widow now, and I am pleased to bring her back to see you again as one of my ladies
d' honneur
.”

There was a silence and Mary stood unwillingly, her long nails biting into the palms of her hands.

“But of course, the beautiful, golden Marie. How wonderfully these twelve years grace your face and form since I saw you last, Marie.”

Mary swept him another low curtsey, but she could not force a smile to her face. Henry Tudor cleared his throat and tugged gently on Anne's arm behind Francois.

“My sister has been anxious to see her French king again,” Anne added directly at Francois. “Tonight, after you are rested, you will see much of each other.” She lifted her foot to the next step as Henry Tudor began to recount for her the skills of the two kings on their fine hunt.

“Charmed,
ma
Marie, charmed,” Francois du Roi repeated as he turned away from Mary and went on up the vast stairs.

Mary loosened her fists. She could have killed Anne. What possessed her to embarrass her, to hurt her like that? She should have believed Staff as usual and not defended Anne to him. The girl was dangerous and her whims were to be feared. She would never argue with him on that point again.

Mary could see Staff now and she held her ground although he was still far down the steps and most of the English women had attached themselves and climbed to the reception in the Great Hall. In her room she had hidden brief notes to both Staff and her father in case she had no chance to explain to them exactly what Anne intended in the way of final entertainment for the French flies in her fine spider's web of revenge. If she had to ask someone else to fetch the notes, there were only two she thought she could trust.

She smiled to acknowledge George's hello to her as he hurried up the steps in a crowd. His Jane had already draped herself on the arm of a much-improved Rene de Brosse, who, Mary remembered uncomfortably, had tried to undress her one afternoon at Amboise. At least George could not care less what Jane did, Mary reminded herself. He might even approve of Anne's plan for massive seduction if it meant Jane would bed elsewhere. She turned to scan the remaining men for Staff again and saw her father making straight for her.

“Mary, walk with me. Did Francois remember you after all this time?”

Her voice went instantly cold. She suddenly feared father would not rescue her from the dire plan if she told him of it. “Yes, father. But he is much changed.”

“Well, of course. So are we all, Mary, and you would be the first to tell me so. But now, to it—how did Anne snap back so well after her temper tantrum when she heard there was to be no visit from the queen's court? She looks fabulous and she is spouting enticing plans for the evening. Do I have you to thank for her fortunate recovery of spirits?”

“I was with her much, father, but I do not wish to claim any responsibility for her plans.”

He narrowed his eyes as he caught her tone. “At least she saw the wisdom in my advice to her to buck up,” he said.

“No, father. To tell you true, she saw revenge in this path. She has every intention of getting even with the French ladies who declined to come to Calais.” She watched his face to see if he caught her meaning. Staff hovered near on the other side of her cousin watching her, but she dared not rush to him as she wished. His dark head turned away in earnest conversation with someone shorter.

“Go on, Mary. You are afraid. What sort of revenge?” She faced him squarely but kept her voice low in the buzz of noise around them in the hall.

“After dinner and the entertainment, then mass seduction if I understand her aright.”

“Judas Priest!” he said, and Mary's eyes widened with shock as his serious face broke into a grin. “That would set the French bitches back on their pretty heels!”

“Father, please, she cannot just...”

“Mary, hush. Tell me this. Does she include herself in the scheme? Will she at long last bed with His Grace, I mean? Well?”

“It seems so.”

“In that case, I do not give a tinker's damn if she has the whole lot of them hung up by their thumbs outside her window. That is what I have been urging. If this brought her to it, so be it.” His eyes refocused on Mary's distraught face. “And you, Mary?”

“I think it is horrendous, and I am ashamed to my very soul that you seem to approve!”

“I meant, what role does Anne see for you in all this?”

Mary could feel herself color under his scrutiny. She would lock herself in her room and say she was ill. She would have no part of it even if they cast her off from the family forever. She would tell Staff and they would flee into the countryside to live in exile from England.

“Has she suggested that you, ah, entertain Francois?”

“I have said enough. I am sorry I thought you would wish to speak with Anne for her vengeful actions. I will be in my room. I am quite unwell.”

He seized her wrist tight while he turned and smiled at someone behind her. “I will let you go now to compose yourself, Mary, but do not make me fetch you for dinner. Everyone is starved. They will be washed and eat very soon. And now, I intend to talk to William Stafford, so you need not greet him. Go straight to your room.”

He let go of her wrist, and she had no choice but to lift her head and walk from the hall. She did not even dare to glance in Staff's direction, and her father clearly meant to cut her off from any aid Staff could give. She prayed that he saw their confrontation and would somehow get to her to ask what was amiss. If the feasting and banquet began, she might never tell him of her plight until it was too late for his interference with Anne and her father—and the sloe-eyed Francois du Roi.

In her room she shoved her note to Staff in her bodice and tore the one to her father to ragged bits. She cast them into the swirling chill air outside her tiny window. She could clearly hear the surf pounding on the rocks far down the cliffs to which the vast white castle clung. Screams of sea gulls pierced the wind as it whistled around stone corners and into lofty crevices. She took a huge gulp of fresh air to clear her head. Whatever they did to her, she would not bed with the French king or give him one moment to think she would.

The thoughts came distinctly to her now. She and Staff must not wait to be wed, hoping for some miracle. She was deeply ensnared by who she was and her ties to the Boleyns, but he had loved her and waited for her all these years despite the danger. A secret wedding it would have to be, but they would never dare to wrest it from them once she was his wife. They might send them to exile from court—so much the better. She would be a manor wife at Wivenhoe the rest of her days and be well quit of their treacheries and traps. Little Harry might be lost to them if they were not careful, but he seemed almost a stranger to her now. At least, thank God, he did not see the other Boleyns either, tucked away at Hatfield. And little Catherine must be taken with them. The rewards of two loving parents would be rich compensation for the loss of plush royal surroundings and a tutor shared with the king's niece. If they could only flee tonight!

Two quick raps sounded on the door. She slammed the tiny window shut and dashed to yank on the latch. “Oh! Master Cromwell.”

He bowed his close-cropped sleek head, his hat held in his big hands. “Lady Mary, I apologize at having startled you. Maybe you were expecting someone else. Your father asked me to fetch you to dinner.” His quick eyes went past her, surveyed her little room, then scanned her from slippers to bodice. Suddenly, Mary wished she had not chosen the dress so carefully. Cromwell's gaze flickered over her once again and snagged where her full breasts revealed deep cleavage above the taut thrust of her bodice.

“Are you quite ready, Lady Mary?”

She stood woodenly facing him with her hand still on the door latch. “Yes. I guess I am ready.”

He did not budge for a moment as she made a move to leave her room. “You look most ravishing, but that is hardly unusual,” he observed in his quiet monotone, and his eyes darted over her again. “Your father said you might not be feeling well, but I am pleased to see no such evidence. If you were ill, I should feel obliged to sit with you until you were strong enough to go to the hall.”

Her throat felt dry and she was suddenly hot all over with foreboding. Reluctantly she closed the door behind them. “I am certain your king would miss you if you did not appear at the feast, Master Cromwell.”

He flashed a smile at her and, to her terror, took her arm above her elbow, his fingers scorching through the tight-fitted satin of her sleeve as though her arm were bare. “Surely there must be some rewards and compensations for my loyal service to His Grace, even if it is just to accompany the most beautiful woman of his court to dinner.”

The hair along the nape of her neck rose as a chill swept over her, but she could not stop her words. “But His Grace gave you my husband's lands at Plashy three years ago.”

His face did not change but a tiny flame sprang into each flat brown eye. “I pray you do not hold that grant against me, sweet lady. If it would not anger His Grace, I would gladly give it back to you for your kind thoughts and, shall we say, your good graces.”

She instinctively pulled her arm from his hand. “I meant not that I wished you to give me the lands, Master Cromwell, though I am certain the king would give you anything you could want to replace them.” They were in the hall now among other faces she knew and she almost dashed away from him to hide—anywhere. But instead, she stood pinned by the probing stare of those small hard eyes.

“If the king would give me anything I want, Lady Rochford, I would be a happy man indeed.” His gaze dropped to her low-cut square neckline and she turned away abruptly.

“Here, Mary, sit here,” he said, calmly taking her satin-covered wrist firmly. “Your sister, the Lady Anne, wishes you to sit near your family so when the masque begins, you will be close.” He pulled out the carved chair and bent over her as she sat. “You look faint, Lady, and I should not like to have to carry you to your room. Or at least, I should say, your father and the Lady Anne would not like that.”

Mary's thoughts darted about in her brain, but she could find no way out. Damn her father! He knew she would not stand still for his orders, but he gave her into the care of this man. Did Cromwell know he was being used too, with her as bait? He was to coerce her into obedience and in the bargain he could sit with her and eye her hotly and touch her. What further had they promised to him? Surely he would not dare to think that the sister of the future queen could be for him!

“The room has been beautifully decorated, has it not, Mary? And would you not call me Thomas, please? I would wish to be an aid to you and a friend if you would ever permit me. It is difficult I know to be a woman alone in the vast court even when one's people are the premier family.”

“
Because
one's people are the premier family, more likely, Master Cromwell,” she heard herself say pointedly. She slid far back in her chair as she felt his knee brush her skirts.

“The first course looks lavish and massive, does it not, my lady?” he said as though she had remarked about the food. He leaned close to her again. His eyes feasted on her face and shoulders as she sat tensely coiled like a spring ready to jump from her chair. “I only ask you not to forget that I have given you a sincere and heartfelt offer of help at any time, Mary. You are very afraid of me it seems, and I am sorry for that. I would rather have things otherwise than that between us—not here, perhaps, but after all of these fine goings-on when we are home.”

She refused to answer him and stared down into her dull gold reflection in the polished plate before her as Francois du Roi lifted his first toast of the long banquet to his dear Henri of England.

Mary felt exhausted after the dinner, dancing, and the elaborate charades. Cromwell did not ask her to dance and seemed content the rest of the evening to sit back and keep a steady eye on her as she danced with Norris, Weston, her brother and even Rene de Brosse. She considered trusting George with the note for Staff, but he raved incessantly about the fabulous job Anne had done with all the plans, and she was afraid. Then Francois claimed her before them all, and she dared not refuse the dance. Besides, she had not seen Staff since the lengthy dinner had been completed. She had so hoped he would get to her in the dancing as he had so often done. She wondered desperately if they had dared to lock him away to be certain their plans were not foiled. Her mind skimmed numerous escapes and discarded them as impossible. Her best defense, if it came down to facing either Francois or Cromwell in some awkward situation, would be her simple refusal. She must hold to that.

The pantomimes of mythological subjects were riotous and even the crafty Cromwell laughed a bit. Anne played the damsel in distress to King Henry's rescuing knight, and Mary played Venus emerging from the sea made by other nymphs flapping blue and golden bedsheets before her like the rolling waves of the ocean. Francois and Henry re-enacted their spectacular meeting on The Field of the Cloth of Gold of twelve years ago, but some half-drunk Frenchman asked for a replay of the fated wrestling match where the French king threw his dear friend Henry, and Anne suddenly stood to end those revels. To Mary's utter relief, her father took her arm and Cromwell bowed to them both and disappeared in the noisy crowd.

“How dare you set him on me!” she began the minute they were out of the press of people.

“Calm down, Mary. You are getting as nervous as Anne used to be. Let him have his little rewards for serving the Boleyns. He is a good ally to have. Any fond dreams he may have about you will amount to nothing. Be nice to him. I hardly gave him permission to bed with you, so do not look so outraged.”