Ambition's Queen: A Novel of Tudor England (17 page)

“It is not without good reason, Anne,” Henry replied, entering the chamber. Anne hovered uncertainly for a moment, but had no option except to follow the king, her newfound confidence draining out of her with every step.

The meal was a desultory affair. The queen picked at her food and her eyes, full of worry, hardly left the doors, as if she hoped that Chapuys might miraculously appear at any moment. He never did. After a time, the king stood abruptly and bid farewell to his guests. He was returning to his own apartments where he was to dine with Lord Rochford and other nobles. Clearly, something was afoot and Anne was not entirely sure what that something was. She waited a few minutes after the king left before beckoning Bridget to her.

“Go to the king’s apartments,” she said. “Your friend Redcliff will undoubtedly be there—he is never far behind his beloved master. See what you can find out from him.”

Bridget nodded and quietly slipped out of the chamber and made her way quickly to the king’s quarters. Sure enough, Will was waiting outside, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, a perfect picture of anxiety. Bridget crept up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. He jumped and spun around in surprise. Concern turned to pleasure when he saw her.

“What are you doing here?” he whispered urgently, casting a glance towards the doors. “This is no place for you.”

“The queen wishes to know what is going on; the king left her apartments quite hurriedly, and Ambassador Chapuys never turned up at all. Is he in there?”

Will took a considered pause before answering. “Yes, he is. He is meeting His Majesty, Lord Chancellor Audley, Sir Edward Seymour, and of course, my master.”

A frisson of surprise danced across Bridget’s skin. “Sir Edward Seymour? Why has he been included?”

Will looked faintly startled at her question. “Sir Edward is high in the king’s favour due to his sister’s, shall we say,
association
with His Majesty. Surely you know that he moved into my master’s old quarters, which adjoin the king’s.”

“Yes, I do know,” Bridget said. “I just did not realise how far into his confidence the king had admitted him. Do you think—”but Bridget’s words were cut off by Thomas Cromwell’s emergence into the corridor, his dark face flushed an angry red. Bridget hastily retreated around the corner before the clearly distracted Master Secretary could notice her.

“God’s blood, Redcliff, I find myself caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea. The king will not come to terms with Chapuys, and many hard words have been used to both of us! He says I have overreached myself in promoting the Imperial alliance so zealously. His Majesty says he will not make any concessions to the emperor, who has been no friend to him. ‘I am not a child,’ he says, ‘to be petted and then whipped at the emperor’s whim’! Furthermore, he declares that everything is to be in writing, that Anne’s position is not negotiable, and that he will not declare Mary to be his heir. It is not for the emperor to tell him what to do with his own daughter. The queen and her family must have gotten to him, and now I find myself standing on the precipice.” Bridget heard him take a deep sigh and slump back against the wall.

Will spoke. “Master, surely the king means only to extract the maximum of concessions from the emperor? It would be folly for him not to make the alliance.”

Cromwell harrumphed and answered in a depressed tone, “I do not know, Will; perhaps I have misjudged the situation entirely. All I know for certain is that the king is very angry at me and ‘the wrath of the prince is death’ are the words that keep echoing in my head. I must find a way to allay that wrath, or at least to direct it away from myself, else I fear that my next meeting will be with the Tyburn hangman.”

“Master, do not speak so!” Will replied, shocked.

“Will, I must be realistic. Those who fail the king do not die in their beds. But,” he said, his voice hard, “I am not beaten just yet. No, not by a long chalk!” He clapped Will on the back. “Go home; I will be here a good while longer. There is much talking still to be done. I will see you tomorrow.” Bridget heard the heavy door open and a brief snatch of raised voices escaped before being swallowed up again.

Will put his head round the corner and looked at Bridget. “I supposed you heard all that?” he asked, a smile in his voice. Bridget merely nodded. They regarded each other for a moment and then the mood changed. Bridget brought her hand up to Will’s and lightly touched it. He turned her hand over, palm upwards, and softly kissed the centre. Little sparks of desire chased themselves across her skin.

“Must you go home?” she murmured. “I have barely seen you lately.”

Will laughed ruefully and reluctantly let go of her hand. “Yes, I must, and though I would rather be with you, it is not possible. For us servants, our time is not our own. However,” he said, moving towards her and pulling her close, “our time will come.” He bent his head and kissed Bridget full on the lips, his tongue darting skilfully into her mouth.

Bridget gave herself up to the enjoyment of the moment and wrapped her arms around Will, eager to draw him as close to her as possible. “God, I want you, Bridget,” he murmured, his lips shifting hotly from her mouth to her neck. Bridget arched herself against him and made a little mewling sound, like a cat, that made Will laugh.

“Sorry,” Bridget said, aware that she had broken the spell. “Do you not like that? I do not have the experience—”

Will placed his fingers upon her lips to quiet her. “Do not apologise. You are perfect and entirely too tempting. You drive me mad.” He rested his forehead against hers and for a long minute it felt as though they breathed as one.

Will was the first to move away. “Enough of this. I must go and you should return to the queen. She will think you are lost.”

Bridget smiled at him and quickly nodded her head. “Am I not lost already? But you are right, I have tarried too long, and your charms quite overwhelmed me.”

Will chuckled, his eyes dancing with amusement. “As yours have done to me,” he replied before planting a final kiss on her mouth. “Till the next time, sweetheart.” He departed.

Bridget ran her tongue over her lips and tasted Will’s kiss. Her heart beat in double time, and she gloried in the hot feeling running through her veins. Never had her old cloistered life at the abbey felt so distant from her new one at court. Had she adopted the debauched ways of the courtier? Was she now a sinner? Had she damned herself in the eyes of God? What would her old abbess, the woman she had admired most in the world, think of her stolen kisses with Will? Would Bridget tell her, or indeed anyone of how she felt? She sighed and crossed herself, a thousand doubts rapidly replacing desire in her mind as she returned to her queen.

Life continued at court without incident. It was common knowledge that the king and Chapuys had quarrelled and that His Majesty was angry with Cromwell. Wiltshire and Rochford were positively gleeful and could hardly wipe the smiles off their faces.

“The king has taken your side daughter,” Wiltshire asserted jovially. “He has demanded that the emperor recognise you as queen and he has told him, through that toady Chapuys, that he will deal with the Lady Mary as he sees fit! We have the upper hand again. The emperor will have to come to us now and accept our terms and not vice versa!”

Anne looked reflectively at her father. “Yes, it does seem that way, Father, however as we found out through the good offices of Bridget here, Edward Seymour was at the meeting between the king and Chapuys. And why should that have been, I wonder? Because he promotes that family of fawners relentlessly, that is why. Just as he once did for us. You say we have the upper hand; I still feel that I am on shaky ground.”

Lord Rochford sighed loudly and rolled his eyes. “That bloody family is all you ever talk about, Anne! As we have told you many times, little Jane and her rapacious tribe are a temporary problem; they are barely even a ripple upon the surface waters of the court. Here and then gone faster than one may blink. She is but a pale shadow of you, and as for her brothers . . . well, let’s just say that thoughts of them do not keep me awake at night.”

“Aye and we all know what does!” Sir Francis Weston remarked, sauntering into the room, as Sir William Brereton and Sir Henry Norris trailed behind him. Guffaws of laughter followed his comment, and Lord Rochford coloured slightly. Lady Rochford found Bridget’s gaze and favoured her with a knowing look. Bridget could not help but recall the scene she had witnessed between the queen’s brother and the musician Smeaton. Bridget wondered whether the queen actually knew about the liaison, as Lady Rochford assured her she did, or whether she had simply decided to turn a blind eye to the side of her brother’s life that did not please her. Perhaps she simply did not care. Anne’s closeness to Lord Rochford was well known, and Bridget imagined that nothing, not even an act the church would condemn as a mortal sin, could alter that.

“I will leave you young people to your entertainment,” Wiltshire said. “I have important matters to attend to.” The earl bowed to his daughter and departed swiftly.

Within a short time, the chamber was filled with raucous laughter as Sir Francis regaled them with one of the many tales he had accrued of his colourful life. He certainly had many female admirers and, once again, Bridget was glad that Joanna had managed to keep her maidenhead from being surrendered to him.

There was, however, no denying his charm and charisma, or his ability to amuse everyone with his stories and jokes. Joanna still looked at him with yearning in her eyes and she was far from the only one.

Sir Francis finished his story and the last of the laughter died away. Into the silence spoke the normally reserved Sir William Brereton. “I hear, from a reliable source, that Thomas Cromwell keeps to his house at Stepney, Your Majesty. Apparently, he is ill.”

The hairs on the back of Bridget’s neck stood up. The last time she had seen and heard the Master Secretary was a mere two days ago, and he had not seemed remotely sick then. Full of choler and frustration, yes. But unwell? No. Then again, she knew from her time at the abbey that seemingly healthy people could and did fall sick very quickly and sometimes died. That had been the case two years ago when the sweating sickness had swept through Rivers Abbey and carried off many of its inhabitants, including two of Joanna’s cousins and almost Joanna herself. Bridget could clearly recall nursing Joanna back to health after the terrifying illness had struck her down one quiet summer’s morning. Queen Anne had also caught the sweat a few years back and had barely escaped with her life. So, it was perfectly possible that Cromwell was genuinely ill, with the sweat or some other malady. But somehow Bridget did not quite believe it. It seemed too conveniently timed to be real.

It appeared that Anne thought so too. “Do you think this is a diplomatic illness, Sir William? Perhaps Mr Secretary needs some time to lick his wounds after recent events. The king was most displeased with him. Was he not, Bridget?”

Bridget readily agreed. “Yes, he was, Majesty. There was much shouting and Master Secretary Cromwell was himself angry and not a little afraid of the king’s ire being aimed towards him.”

Sir William clapped his hands and grunted with approval. “Excellent. Anything that discountenances that upstart is surely good news for us all. He needs to be shown his proper station in life. He has risen entirely too high for any self-respecting nobleman to tolerate. He has even in the past tried to interfere in business on my own lands! Fortunately, he did not succeed, but that kind of meddling from one such as him is not to be borne!”

“Cromwell may be meddlesome and lowborn, but he is not to be underestimated, Brereton. He is a most capable man and the king well knows it.” The quiet words of Sir Henry Norris dropped onto the heads of the conversationalists like an icy shower of rain. Rochford and Brereton exchanged a look, and Anne fixed Norris with an unblinking gaze.

“Yes, we are all well aware of Mr Cromwell’s capabilities,” the queen remarked acidly. “He has demonstrated them many times. Whatever one may think of him, he at least is a man who makes decisions, a man of action if you will, which makes him very unlike you, Sir Henry. Tell me, do you ever intend to actually marry my good cousin here?” The queen indicated a disconcerted-looking Madge Shelton. “If you do sir, you are taking your time about it. Or perhaps it is simply that you hope for better things?”

Anne’s words sucked all residual good humour out of the chamber and turned the atmosphere instantly cold. Sir Henry blushed crimson from the base of his throat to the sandy blond roots of his hair. The others all studiously avoided looking at him and Lord Rochford coughed loudly. Sir Henry opened his mouth to respond but initially no sound came out. When it did, his voice was croaky and weak.

“Majesty, I do not know what you are talking about. Mistress Shelton and I do intend to marry, but neither one of us is in any particular hurry. Is that not right, Madge?” Madge looked appalled to be included in the discussion and could barely nod her head in agreement. Throughout it all, the queen’s eyes had not left those of Sir Henry’s, and now she rose from her chair and approached him directly. Sir Henry seemed mesmerised by her and, for the first time, Bridget sensed the presence of something between them, a faint crackle upon the air, like the distant sound of a house on fire.

“You are in no hurry, Sir Henry? Only a man could make such a claim. I am sure that my cousin is in fact in a great hurry, for she is a woman. A woman does not have all the time in the world to sit around waiting for a man to make up his mind. The years of childbearing are all too brief. Madge, like us all, desires a son. But then you have already been blessed with one, have you not? You do not have the pressure of providing an heir weighing upon your shoulders. One of the advantages of being a widower no doubt. I wonder if what you would really like is in fact a widow and not a young maid like my cousin. Is that the true reason for your delay, sir? You are waiting for me to be free—”