At the King's Pleasure (Secrets of the Tudor Court) (30 page)

“In his mouth?” George started to ask if Compton had been in the hunting party but thought better of it before he spoke. His jealousy of the other man was unwarranted. He was sure of that now. He was determined not to make the mistake of reminding Anne of how foolishly he had behaved on the day of his departure from court.

It was late before George and Anne retired to Anne’s lodgings, which were now also his, and sent the servants away. He took her hands in his.

“King and cardinal have granted me permission to stay,” George said, “but I must have your forgiveness before I can do so. I had no business saying what I did to you before I left. Since we’ve been apart, I have come to realize that, for many years now, you have never given me the least reason not to trust you.”

When she winced, he wished he could revise his words, but there was something in him that could not quite forget what had driven him from court the first time, at the very beginning of King Henry’s reign.

A hint of desperation crept into his voice. “Anne, I would be reconciled with you. You are my wife. And. . . I love you.”

She burst into tears but, when he wrapped his arms around her, she did not pull away. “I love you, too,” she sobbed.

“Then come to bed, my sweet.” He kissed away the dampness on her cheeks.

Slowly, gently, he divested Anne of her clothing and removed his own. Then, for the first time in far too long, he made love to his wife. She responded as she always had, with generosity and passion. He had just enough control of himself to make sure of her pleasure before he took his own.

A
nne lay beside her gently snoring husband, unable to sleep as dawn crept ever closer. She kept reliving that moment in the courtyard when George had reached up and lifted her from her saddle. Caught off guard by his sudden reappearance, she had reacted without thought, reaching for him. More than that, when they’d touched, she’d felt a jolt of desire so powerful it had nearly knocked her off her feet.

How could that be? Only the day before she’d awakened in Will Compton’s bed. They’d made lazy love in the predawn hours and risen to ride out with the king, spending the entire day together, even if a hundred other courtiers had been with them, too. But then, at one look, one touch from George, it had been
his
bed she’d longed to share, his hands she’d needed to feel on her body.

Anne had not been lying when she’d said she loved him. She had not realized how much until he’d been standing right before her. And when they’d lain together, here in this bed that still smelled of their passion, she’d discovered that the physical attraction between them was still as strong as it had been in the first days of their marriage.

It was as she’d feared when she’d first given in to her desire for Will Compton—she loved them both.

Dismay warred with guilt as Anne tried to decide what to do. She was a sinner. There was no question of that. A good Christian would confess to both her priest and her husband and do penance, but she was not that brave. The best she could do was make a choice, because no matter how sincere her feelings, she could not continue to go from one man’s bed to the other’s. She looked at George again. There was really no choice to make. George was her husband. And somehow, for all the fire of Will’s passion, what she had with George was both more real and more enduring. She would not betray him again.

Resolved to remain faithful to one man from that day forward, Anne slept at last. When she awoke, George had gone, but she knew he would soon return. He had made it clear that he intended to remain at court and with her.

Anne sent Meriall to find Will Compton’s man and arrange one last private meeting. Within the hour, they were together in the chamber Will had claimed for himself at Donnington. It was a most luxurious accommodation. Anne had to force herself to avert her eyes from the enormous bed with its soft feather mattress. A small sob escaped her.

“If he has hurt you, I will kill him,” Will declared, taking her in his arms.

She pulled free, resolved to be strong. “George would never harm me, Will. He loves me.”

“So do I.” As if he knew what was to come, he sounded petulant.

Anne sighed. As ever, in Will’s company, she wanted nothing more than to fling herself at him, to enjoy once more the delights of the flesh. But she had made her decision and, heart-wrenching as it might be for them both, she knew she must not waver from it.

“If you truly love me, Will, then you must do what I ask of you now. I can never lie with you again. I should never have betrayed my husband in the first place, nor you your wife.”

“We could not help ourselves.”

Although what he said was true, it did not make what they had done together right. “I wish it could be otherwise, Will, but it is not. I must
think of my own immortal soul, and of my children, and of how devastated George would be if he ever found out what we have done.”

“I cannot bear to lose you.”

“I will still be here, Will. It is only that we can never again give in to the demands of the flesh.”

“Am I to worship you from afar? Is that it?” There was a trace of anger in his voice now, and Anne was sorry for it.

“You may ignore me if you prefer, but I will not change my mind.” She felt tears well in her eyes and knew that he saw them.

“I would do anything in my power to make you happy, Anne.”

“Even leave me alone?”

“Even that, but it will tear me apart.”

She bit her lips to hold back words of comfort. She did not dare reach out to him. Her emotions were too close to the surface, too volatile. Instead, she breathed deeply, taking in the full measure of his scent one last time before she left him.

A few hours later, Meriall brought Anne word that Sir William Compton had taken his leave of the progress and gone to pay a visit to his family seat at Compton Wynyates.

B
y dint of hard riding, Will Compton reached his home in Warwickshire two days after he left Donnington. He cursed Thomas Wolsey for most of the journey and spent the rest of it trying to figure out what the cardinal was up to. Wolsey had deliberately brought George Hastings to Donnington. There had to be a reason for that. Wolsey did nothing that was not for his own benefit. And he knew entirely too much about the private affairs of every courtier close to the king.

Will had been eleven years old when he’d been torn away from Compton Wynyates. His father’s death had made him a ward of the Crown and he’d been sent as a page to the household of the young Prince Henry. The future king had been but two years old at the time.

It had been Will’s father who had begun building at Compton Wynyates, replacing the old manor house that had stood within the moat with a redbrick mansion. He’d planned four wings around a quadrangle, but building had stopped with his death. It had recommenced immediately following Will’s marriage and the task of overseeing day-to-day construction had fallen to his new wife.

He was pleased with what he found on his return. He stopped on the stone bridge leading up to the drawbridge to look up at the
entrance porch. There, newly carved in stone, were the Royal Arms of England supported by a dragon on one side and a greyhound on the other and surmounted by a Royal Crown. Around the crown were the words
Dom Rex Henricus Octav
—My Lord King Henry the Eighth. To the right of the portcullis was the badge of the Tudors and to the left the arms of Queen Catherine, including the castle of Castile, the pomegranate of Granada, and the sheaf of arrows of Aragon. Will had needed the king’s permission to use these symbols to decorate his home. That it had been granted was a clear sign of just how high he stood in His Grace’s favor.

Wolsey’s machinations were an annoyance, he told himself. Nothing more. And he would win back Lady Anne. It only required patience and determination.

In the meantime, his wife waited for him in the courtyard. She was a little brown wren of a woman, capable and efficient, practical, and possessed of good taste when it came to furnishings and food. Unfortunately, she was utterly devoid of any interest in clothes or fashion. She wore a loose-bodied gown and a plain coif and her face was freckled from being out too long in the sun. She had taken it upon herself, so his steward had reported in weekly letters, to ride out over all the Compton holdings hereabout to oversee the welfare of his tenants. It had been a hot, dry summer and there was much suffering throughout the land. Lady Compton was attempting to alleviate what she could.

“Good day to you, husband,” she greeted him, going up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek after he dismounted.

“Good day to you, wife,” he replied. He felt no desire to kiss her back. She was not Lady Anne.

Her Christian name was Werburga, after one of England’s native saints. It was old-fashioned, like Frideswide and Ethelreda, and Will did not much care for it. He preferred women to be called Catherine, Elizabeth, Mary, Margaret, Jane, or Anne. Especially Anne. Worse, St. Werburga had recently attained considerable notoriety, thanks to a monk at Chester Abbey who had written her life story. Every pregnant woman in England now seemed to have heard of St. Werburga’s red
girdle and want it in her possession to ease the pain of childbirth. That pain was punishment for Eve’s sin, or so Will had always been told by learned ecclesiastics. It went against the teachings of the church to seek to avoid it.

Will accompanied his lady wife into the hall to inspect the changes she had wrought in his absence. He approved of what he saw. The timber ceiling and bay window he’d taken from the ruins of Fulbroke Castle, another of the king’s gifts to him, had been installed there. A minstrel’s gallery had been constructed. And the walls were now covered with linenfold paneling. Upon one hung two portraits he remembered from his father’s day. They were painted on panels and represented the first Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife. Will was unsure why his father had owned these, but they were as old as any portraits he’d ever seen at court and he prized them greatly.

“I hope this will please you,” his wife said. Her voice was soft but not at all tentative. Whatever “this” was, she was certain he would like it.

He looked where she pointed, then moved closer to peer at the scene carved on a panel. It showed both French and English soldiers and was clearly meant to represent the Battle of the Spurs.

“Since you were knighted for valor after the French were driven off,” his wife said, “I thought it worthy of remembrance.”

“You humble me, madam.”

She continued to amaze him with the progress she had made in his absence. The new chapel was all but completed and their bedchamber had been furnished with a magnificently carved bed.

“For the king, when he comes to visit,” she told him, “but in the meantime, I have felt free to sleep in it myself.” She flashed an engaging smile that he could not help but answer with one of his own.

“I will have to try it out, to make certain it is comfortable enough for a king.”

“I expected no less.”

Momentarily in harmony, they next paid a visit to the nursery occupied by their two-year-old daughter, Catherine, and then returned to the great hall to sup. Will broached the subject of potential husbands
for the girl, and found his wife in perfect agreement that young John St. Leger would make an excellent match for her.

“Unless I can find a better one,” he said with a laugh, and settled in, content for the nonce, enjoying the good food, an excellent wine, and the promise of a warm and willing wife in a bed designed for a king.

C
hristmas at court with the king and all three queens—Catherine of England, Mary of France, and Margaret of Scotland—was an elaborate affair. Lady Anne wondered why she did not enjoy it more. She even had a part to play in the Twelfth Night revel, as one of six ladies walking in the “Garden of Esperance” with six knights. The garden was mounted on a huge pageant wagon and planted with banks of artificial flowers, everything from marigolds and daffodils to columbine and eglantine. Their leaves were made of green satin and the petals were of silk. In the center of the wagon was a wide plinth, six foot square, and on top of it, within an arch, was a bush full of red and white roses and a pomegranate tree, symbols for the king and queen.

Anne wore an elaborate headdress made of gold damask with ostrich feathers, hair laces, and jeweled pins, and a purple gown with cutwork lace over a kirtle of white and green sarcenet embroidered with yellow satin. Her under sleeves were of crimson satin. The knights were all in purple, except for black velvet bonnets and crimson velvet stocks.

When the playacting, mostly done by the king’s players and children of the chapel, was complete, Anne descended with the others from the pageant wagon to dance before the king and the rest of the court. She supposed that was why she had been chosen to participate. She was as
graceful a dancer as ever, despite her advancing years and numerous pregnancies. Afterward, they returned to the pageant wagon and it was towed from the great hall by a team of oxen. The wagon was too heavy for horses.

When the king moved on to a banquet that would last many hours, Anne was free of duties for the rest of the day. She thought longingly of sleep and soon slipped away. She was waylaid en route to her own lodgings by her husband.

“Are you ill, my love?”

She shook her head. “Only tired and seeking my bed.” She smiled up at him. “Would you care to keep me company?”

“It would be my pleasure.” He took her arm and together they made their way through the rabbit warren of rooms that made up the king’s palace at Greenwich.

By the flickering torches that lit the passage, Anne saw a thoughtful expression come over her husband’s face, but he did not speak again until after they had reached their lodgings, been divested of their clothing and prepared for bed by their servants, and sent those same servants away.