Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Read online

  ‘I shall have Mistress Carey as my partner. Shall you send for George and have another Boleyn for your partner? We could have a matched pair.’

  ‘Jane Parker can play with me,’ the queen said coolly.

  ‘You did that very well,’ Anne said that night. She was seated by the fire in our bedroom, brushing her long dark hair, her head tipped to the side so that it fell like a scented waterfall over her shoulder. ‘The bit with the hands was very good. What were you doing?’

  ‘He was measuring his hand span against mine,’ I said. I finished the plait of my fair hair and pulled my nightcap on my head and tied the white ribbon. ‘When our hands touched I felt …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was like my skin was on fire,’ I whispered. ‘Really. Like his touch could burn me.’

  Anne looked at me sceptically. ‘What d’you mean?’

  The words spilled out of my mouth. ‘I want him to touch me. I am absolutely dying for him to touch me. I want his kiss.’

  Anne was incredulous. ‘You desire him?’

  I wrapped my arms around myself and sank onto the stone windowseat. ‘Oh God. Yes. I didn’t realise this was where I was going. Oh yes. Oh yes.’

  She grimaced, her mouth pulled down. ‘You’d better not let Father and Mother hear that,’ she warned. ‘They’ve ordered you to play a clever game, not moon around like a lovesick girl at twilight.’

  ‘But don’t you think he wants me?’

  ‘Oh, for the moment, yes. But next week? Next year?’

  There was a tap on our bedroom door and George put his head around it. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘All right,’ Anne said ungraciously. ‘But you can’t stay long. We’re going to bed.’

  ‘I am too,’ he said. ‘I’ve been drinking with Father. I am going to bed and tomorrow, when I am sober, I shall arise early and hang myself.’

  I hardly heard him, I was staring out of the window and thinking of the touch of Henry’s hand against my own.

  ‘Why?’ Anne asked.

  ‘My wedding is to be next year. Envy me, why don’t you?’

  ‘Everyone gets married but me,’ Anne said irritably. ‘The Ormondes have fallen through and they have nothing else for me. Do they want me to be a nun?’

  ‘Not a bad choice,’ George said. ‘D’you think they’d take me?’

  ‘In a nunnery?’ I caught the sense of the talk and turned around to laugh at him. ‘A fine abbess you’d make.’

  ‘Better than most,’ George said cheerfully. He went to sit on a stool, missed his seat and thudded down on the stone floor.

  ‘You’re drunk,’ I accused.

  ‘Aye. And sour with it.’

  ‘There’s something about my future wife that strikes me as very odd,’ George said. ‘Something a little …’ he searched for the word. ‘Rancid.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Anne said. ‘She’s got an excellent dowry and good connections, she’s favourite of the queen and her father is respected and rich. Why worry?’

  ‘Because she’s got a mouth like a rabbit snare, and eyes that are hot and cold at the same time.’

  Anne laughed. ‘Poet.’

  ‘I know what George means,’ I said. ‘She’s passionate and somehow secretive.’

  ‘Just discreet,’ Anne said.

  George shook his head. ‘Hot and cold at once. All the humours muddled up together. I shall live a dog’s life with her.’

  ‘Oh marry her and bed her and send her to the country,’ Anne said impatiently. ‘You’re a man, you can do what you like.’

  He looked more cheerful at that. ‘I could push her down to Hever,’ he said.

  ‘Or Rochford Hall. And the king’s bound to give you a new estate on your marriage.’

  George raised his stone decanter to his lips. ‘Anyone want some of this?’

  ‘I will,’ I said, taking the bottle and tasting the tart cold red wine.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ Anne said primly. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Mary, drinking in your nightcap.’ She turned back the covers and climbed into bed. She inspected George and me as she folded the sheets around her hips. ‘Both of you are a good deal too easy,’ she ruled.

  George pulled a face. ‘Told us,’ he said cheerfully to me.

  ‘She’s very strict,’ I whispered in mock-respect. ‘You’d never think she spent half her life flirting in the French court.’

  ‘More Spanish than French, I think,’ George said, wantonly provocative.

  ‘And unmarried,’ I whispered. ‘A Spanish duenna.’

  Anne lay down on the pillow, hunched her shoulders and pulled the covers into place. ‘I’m not listening, so you can save your breath.’

  ‘Who’d have her?’ George demanded. ‘Who’d want her?’

  ‘They’ll find her someone,’ I said. ‘Some younger son, or some poor old broken-down squire.’ I gave the flask to George.

  ‘You’ll see,’ came from the bed. ‘I’ll make a better marriage than either of you. And if they don’t forge me one soon, I’ll do it for myself.’

  George passed the stone flask back to me. ‘Drain it,’ he said. ‘I’ve had more than enough.’

  I finished the last swig of drink and went round to the other side of the bed. ‘Goodnight,’ I said to George.

  ‘I’ll sit here awhile beside the fire,’ he said. ‘We are doing well, aren’t we, us Boleyns? Me betrothed, and you on your way to bedding the king, and little Mademoiselle Parfait here free on the market with everything to play for?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We are doing well.’

  I thought of the intent blue gaze of the king on my face, the way his eyes travelled from the top of my headdress down to the top of my gown. I turned my face into the pillow so that neither of them could hear me. ‘Henry,’ I whispered. ‘Your Majesty. My love.’

  Next day there was to be a joust in the gardens of a house a little distance from Eltham Palace. Fearson House had been built in the last reign by one of the many hard men who had come to their wealth under the king’s father, himself the hardest man of them all. It was a big grand house, free of any castle wall or moat. Sir John Lovick had believed that England was at peace forever and built a house which would not be defended, indeed which could not be defended. His gardens were laid around the house like a chequerboard of green and white: white stones and paths and borders around low knot gardens of green bay. Beyond them lay the park where he ran deer for hunting, and between the park and the gardens was a beautiful lawn kept ready all the year round for the king’s use as a jousting green.

  The tent for the queen and her ladies was hung in cherry-red and white silk, the queen was wearing a cherry gown to match and she looked young and rosy in the bright colour. I was in green, the gown I had worn at the Shrove Tuesday masque when the king singled me out from all the others. The colour made my hair glow more golden and my eyes shone. I stood beside the queen’s chair and knew that any man looking from her to me would think that she was a fine woman, but old enough to be my mother, while I was a woman of only fourteen, a woman ready to fall in love, a woman ready to feel desire, a precocious woman, a flowering girl.

  The first three jousts were among the lower men of the court, hoping to attract attention by risking their necks. They were skilled enough, there were a couple of exciting passes, and one good moment when the smaller man unhorsed a bigger rival which made the common people cheer. The little man dismounted and took off his helmet to acknowledge the applause. He was handsome, slight and fair-haired. Anne nudged me. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Only one of the Seymour boys.’

  The queen turned her head. ‘Mistress Carey, would you go and ask the master of the horse when my husband is riding today and what horse he has chosen?’

  I turned to do her bidding, and I saw why she was sending me away. The king was coming slowly across the grass towards our pavilion and she wanted me out of his way. I curtsied and dawdled to the doorway, timing my departure so that he saw m