Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Read online

  William reached across and stroked my hair. ‘You’re a good girl,’ he said approvingly.

  I gave a little gurgle of laughter. ‘A good girl?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, unabashed. ‘Very.’

  I leaned back against his caress and his hand strayed from my head to the nape of my neck. He took it in a firm grasp and shook me gently, like a mother cat might hold a kitten. I closed my eyes and melted into his touch.

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ he said softly.

  I opened my eyes in surprise. ‘No?’

  ‘No.’ He lifted his hand to forestall me. ‘Not because I don’t love you, because I do. And we must be married. But we have to get the most we can from this.’

  ‘D’you mean money?’ I asked, a little dismayed.

  He shook his head. ‘I mean your children. If you come to me without a word of warning, without the support of anyone, you’ll never get your children. You’ll never even see them again.’

  I pressed my lips together against the pain. ‘Anne can take them from me at any moment, anyway.’

  ‘Or return them,’ he reminded me. ‘You said she was breeding?’

  ‘Yes. But –’

  ‘If she has a son she’ll have no need of yours. We need to be ready to pick him up when she drops him.’

  ‘D’you think I might get him back?’

  ‘I don’t know. But you have to be at court to play for him.’ His hand was warm on my shoulders through the linen of the shirt. ‘I’ll come back with you,’ he said. ‘I can leave a man to run the farm for a season or two. The king will give me a place. And we can be together until we see which way the wind is blowing. We’ll get the children if we can, and then we’ll get clear and come back here.’ He hesitated for a moment and I saw a shadow cross his face. He looked uncomfortable. ‘Is it good enough for them here?’ he asked shyly. ‘They’re used to Hever, and there’s your family’s own great house just up the lane. They’re gentry born and bred. This is only a little place.’

  ‘They’ll be with us,’ I said simply. ‘And we’ll love them. They’ll have a new family, a sort of family that no nobleman has ever had before. A father and a mother who married for love, who chose each other despite wealth and position. It should be better for them, not worse.’

  ‘And you?’ he asked. ‘It’s not Kent.’

  ‘It’s not Westminster Palace either,’ I said. ‘I took my decision when I realised that nothing would compensate me for not being with you. I realised then that I need you. Whatever else it costs, I want to be with you.’

  The grip on my shoulders tightened and he drew me off my stool and onto his lap. ‘Say it again,’ he whispered. ‘I think that I am dreaming this.’

  ‘I need you,’ I whispered, my eyes searching his intent face. ‘Whatever else it costs, I want to be with you.’

  ‘Will you marry me?’ he asked.

  I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the warm column of his neck. ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘Oh yes.’

  We were married as soon as my gown and my linen were washed and dried since I refused absolutely to go to the church in his breeches. The priest knew William, and opened the church for us the very next day and performed the service with absent-minded speed. I didn’t mind. I had been married first at the royal chapel in Greenwich Palace with the king in attendance and the marriage had been a cover for a love affair within a few years, and had ended in death. This wedding, so simple and easy, would take me to a quite different future: a house of my own with a man that I loved.

  We walked back to the farmhouse hand in hand and we had a wedding feast of freshly baked bread and a ham which William had smoked in his chimney.

  ‘I shall have to learn how to do all of this,’ I said uneasily, looking up to the rafters where the three remaining legs of William’s last pig were hanging.

  He laughed. ‘It’s easy enough,’ he said. ‘And we’ll get a girl in to help you. We’ll need a couple of women working here when the babies come.’

  ‘The babies?’ I asked, thinking of Catherine and Henry.

  He smiled. ‘Our babies,’ he said. ‘I want a house filled with little Staffords. Don’t you?’

  We set off back to Westminster the next day. I had already sent a note upriver to George, imploring him to tell Anne and my uncle that I had been taken ill. I said that I had been so afraid that it was the sweat that I left court without seeing them, and had gone to Hever until I recovered. It was a lie too late, and too unlikely to convince anyone who thought about it, but I was gambling on the fact that with Anne married to the king and pregnant with his child, no-one would be thinking or caring very much what I did at all.

  We went back to London by barge, with the two horses loaded with us. I was reluctant to go. I had meant to leave court and live with William in the country, not to disrupt his plans and take him away from his farm. But William was determined. ‘You’ll never settle without your children,’ he predicted. ‘And I don’t want your unhappiness on my conscience.’

  ‘So it’s not an act of generosity at all,’ I said with spirit.

  ‘Last thing I want is a miserable wife,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’ve tried to ride with you from Hever to London, remember. I know what a sad little drab you can be.’

  We caught an incoming tide and an onshore wind and we made good time upriver. We landed at Westminster stairs and I walked up while William went round to the jetty to unload the horses. I promised to meet him on the stairs to the great hall within the hour; by that time I should have discovered how the land lay.

  I went straight to George’s rooms. Oddly, his door was locked and so I tapped on it, the Boleyn knock, and waited for his response. I heard a scuffling and then the door swung open. ‘Oh it’s you,’ George said.

  Sir Francis Weston was with him, straightening his doublet as I came into the room.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, stepping back.

  ‘Francis took a fall from his horse,’ George said. ‘Can you walk all right now, Francis?’

  ‘Yes, but I’ll go and rest,’ he said. He bowed low over my hand and did not comment on the state of my gown and cape which bore all the signs of hard wear and home washing.

  As soon as the door was shut behind him I turned to George. ‘George, I’m so sorry, but I had to go. Did you manage to lie for me?’

  ‘William Stafford?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘I thought as much,’ he said. ‘God, what fools we both are.’

  ‘Both of us?’ I asked, warily.

  ‘In our different ways,’ he said. ‘Went to him and had him, did you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said shortly. I did not dare trust even George with the explosive news that we were married. ‘And he’s come back to court with me. Will you get him a place with the king? He can’t serve Uncle again.’

  ‘I can get him something,’ George said doubtfully. ‘Howard stock is very high at the moment. But what d’you want with him at court? You’re bound to be found out.’

  ‘George, please,’ I said. ‘I’ve asked for nothing. Everyone has had places or land or money from Anne’s rise, but I have asked for nothing except my children, and she has taken my son. This is the first thing I’ve ever asked for.’

  ‘You’ll get caught,’ George warned. ‘And then disgraced.’

  ‘We all have secrets,’ I said. ‘Even Anne herself. I’ve protected Anne’s secrets, I’d protect you, I want you to do the same for me.’

  ‘Oh very well,’ he said unwillingly. ‘But you must be discreet. No more riding out together alone. For God’s sake don’t get yourself in pup. And if Uncle finds a husband for you, you’ll have to marry. Love or no.’

  ‘I’ll deal with that when it happens,’ I said. ‘And you’ll get him a place?’

  ‘He can be a gentleman usher to the king. But make very sure that he knows it is my favour that has bought it for him, and that he keeps his ears and eyes open in my interest. He’s my man now.’

  ‘No he’s