Between Two Kings (17 page)

Anne’s maids loosened her headdress and removed it. Then they helped Anne peel off her wedding gown, her undergarments, and her elegant velvet slippers. They took her clothes into the dressing room. Then she was bathed in aromatic lavender water. Later they helped Anne put on her white silk nightgown. When the undressing ritual was complete, she was left alone in the bedchamber. She sat on the bed and held the point of her chin between two fingers, her brows fused in a small frown. She was thinking about their wedding night.

When she had accepted François’ proposal, Anne had tried not to think about the wedding night. She didn’t love François, and he didn’t love her. The last man in her bed had been her former husband Henry Tudor whom she had loved, but who had betrayed her and their children and destroyed her life.

Anne wondered whether she could find it within herself to sleep with François if she didn’t love him. Maybe she should disappear from the bedroom before François came. Maybe their union should remain unconsummated. She looked in the direction of the door, and the thought of locking herself inside the room struck her. Then Anne laughed at herself, as she knew that François would have laughed at her if he had known her thoughts. She wouldn’t run away. She wasn’t a coward and an idiot to run away from the battlefield. However, it was true that the marital bed was like a battlefield for Anne who was so full of fear that night.

Her brain was ready to explode from the many thoughts that raced through it. Anne knew that love matches were rare in real life, especially at the court and especially between the royal couples. Their marriage had political roots and was only a marriage of convenience. It was normal that a husband and a wife performed their marital duties without love. She was François’ queen and wife, and she was implicitly assumed to act in those roles.

However, thoughts of King Henry came to her against her will. Henry was now married to Jane Seymour and had spent many nights with her. Throughout their short marriage, Henry had also betrayed Anne many times with many mistresses. Somehow, Anne felt vengeful and rancorous. Why couldn’t she pay back to Henry with the same coin? She wanted to take her revenge on Henry, and felt that she must use each and every chance. Therewith, it would be better if her marriage to King François were consummated because Anne was still afraid that François could try to annul their marriage in case something went wrong and against their plans. Marriage consummation would prevent him from easily casting her aside.

A sonorous French voice returned Anne back to reality. She raised her head and saw King François standing right in front of her. She blinked and saw that he was dressed only in his long, tight, black silk robe in the Arabesque style as the fabric was slashed with birds in a highly naturalistic, eccentric setting.

“Anne,” François called.

Anne quickly sprang to her feet. She sank into a deep, gracious curtsy. “Your Majesty, I am sorry that I didn’t see you enter the room to greet you properly,” her voice resonated.

“It is alright, Anne.”

François smiled mellowly and took her hand in his own. He led her to the marble table in the corner of the room. Anne’s gaze shifted from his face to the table. The Crown Jewels lay on several ivory silk pillows on that table. The jewels were a glittering array of necklaces, including diamond, ruby, topaz, emerald, sapphire, and pearl necklaces. Anne counted the necklaces – there were nine pieces in total. Each necklace had a matching pair of earrings. Near the table with necklaces, on the Italian 
cassoni
, Anne found other jewels, including two triangular brooches, one diamond and sapphire, and one black pearl circular brooch. Three diamond, ruby, and pearl bracelets were shimmering near the brooches.

“Your Majesty,” Anne murmured, perplexed and agitated. “I assume these are the Crown Jewels.”

“Now they are yours,” François said simply. “These pieces are only a small part of the Crown Jewels. His Eminence Cardinal de Tournon arranged the delivery of these items from Paris. Nobody has worn them before you – neither Claude nor Eleanor or anybody else. I have recently expanded the collection of the Crown Jewels.” He enlightened Anne on the matter because he wanted her to know that these jewels hadn’t been worn by his mistresses.

A little stunned, she stared ahead, in the emptiness of the room. “Thank you very much, Your Majesty,” she replied quickly.

He smiled at the absent-minded expression on her face. “Do you like them?”

“I do like them, but they are far too generous a gift,” she responded.

“You are my wife and have every right to wear them,” François said.

“Then it is as Your Majesty wishes,” Anne said unfeigned.

There was a long, odd silence between them, during which both of them seemed to be searching for words. Anne glanced away at the jewels. At last, she gained enough strength to look at the king. François watched her out of the corner of his eye, a vague smile curving his lips.

As he realized what she was probably thinking about, François looked at Anne as though she had been harboring some great secret. “Anne, we don’t need to share the bed today if you don’t want it,” he said flatly.

He wasn’t the kind of man who would pressure a woman to sleep with him. He had always thought that physical love was a matter of art or at least a matter of mutual acceptance. Did they have that mutual acceptance? At that early point, he didn’t know.

The tender concern of François’ voice calmed the edges of her dark fear and hesitancy. Anne shook her head in disagreement. “We are a husband and a wife. It is normal for us.” Her voice sounded meager and strained, uttered without gesture or expression.

However, Anne couldn’t help but think about Henry Tudor. She remembered their nights together and shut her eyes for an instant. She wouldn’t think any more about that cruel beast, she swore. But those haunting thoughts didn’t want to leave her alone. Anne took a deep breath and blew it out, as though trying to recover from a wind blow.

François arched a brow. “Are you certain that this is what you want?” He didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable and to press her.

Anne managed a smile. She appreciated his patience. “I am sure, Your Majesty.” She brushed her slender hand across her bosom. Then she stepped forward. The quiet sound of her footsteps marked her agreement, and each step took her closer to him. She paused near the bed. She had to consummate their marriage because it would be better for her in many aspects.

François went to the bedside table and extinguished the blaze of the candles. Then he did the same with all the candles in the room. He did this for Anne. From his rich experience, he knew women, especially newly wedded brides, felt less uncomfortable in the darkness. “If you say so,” the King of France spelled out discreetly.

“Why darkness?” she inquired quietly.

The vivid silver moonlight filled the room, allowing them to see each other. As their eyes locked, his smile broadened and warmed the contours of his handsome face.

“I want to see you in the moonlight,” François replied softly.

“I think that it is a charming idea,” she conceded, speaking because it was better than saying nothing.

François approached Anne and tenderly embraced her. He bent his head, and his lips, at first, only brushed hers. Then they met in a soft, gentle kiss, barely touching. He pulled away and looked into her eyes. He touched his forehead to hers and drew his hands up to cradle her face. “You are so beautiful, Anne.” His voice was a deep, low baritone. “I won’t offend you. I want you to believe me.” He didn’t know why he said that and why he wished to be so tender and so caressing with her. The words just slipped from his tongue.

The moon shimmered through the window near the bed onto her alabaster skin. Their dark figures silhouetted against a background of the wall lit by the moonlight. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” Anne murmured. She felt as if her heart would crash through her thorax or stop altogether. She felt fear, despair, curiosity, and even excitement, an unusual combination of feelings.

François gazed into her blue eyes that sparkled in the moonlight. He put a finger to her lips. “Shhh,” he whispered. “I promise that I won’t hurt you,” he assured.

Anne’s lips were parted, and for François it was an impossible, inviting signal. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to him. The warmth of his skin gave Anne an instant’s warning before his lips, firm and tender, brushed against hers. François slowed the kiss, so that he could slide his fingers up her waist. He undid a button on her robe, then another and another one. Then he disrobed himself and helped Anne pull off her nightgown. All their night clothes were on the floor. He lifted her and carried her to the bed.

François drew back the heavy ivory and gold damask tapestried bedcover. Then he slightly pushed Anne back down onto the ivory silk sheet and kissed her on her lips. She closed her eyes. He was atop of her. His lips traveled down her alabaster throat, exploring her body and soon returned to her mouth.

François felt a deep and powerful ache course through him – he wanted her so much that it was painful for him, but he suppressed his wild desire and was very cautious with her. He moved his hand behind her neck and kissed her again on her lips.

Anne opened her eyes and looked at François and saw Henry Tudor. She hated Henry at that moment, and her hatred emboldened her. Anne responded to François’ kiss, and her tongue outlined the curves of his lips and then entered his mouth. Now it was she who sank willingly into his arms – she made a sign that she accepted him. She again glanced at him and saw that he wasn’t Henry – he was François. It was so strange for her.

François was so tender that Anne hardly noticed how he gently invaded her body. As she realized what had happened, she stared at him in astonishment with her large, almond-shaped blue eyes. He whispered something in French in such a quiet, silken voice that Anne didn’t understand. François smiled at her, and his mouth again crushed on hers in a soft and gentle kiss, his lips and tongue relishing her sweetness, his hands delighting in the firm flesh of her slender, voluptuous body. Then he began to move with slow and languid movements.

Although it happened not at once, soon Anne felt a fire humming in her blood, her body burning and aching for physical release. She felt as though she had been flying down and down, then up and up, but those sensations were overcoming her at a slow speed. It was so different from the sensations she had with Henry in a bedroom.

As they joined their bodies in a dance of physical love, a symphony of matrimony sounded louder and louder. Anne quickly lost her orientation in the shimmering glow of the moon, and their bodies cast shadows on the wall. The room was spinning around her, and everything seemed to flicker, like a flame caught in a draft.

At last, a wave of dark, spiraling pleasure slashed through her body, and his lips captured her quiet moan, kissing her deeply. François groaned and sank slowly down onto her warm body, again kissing her on her lips. Then it was over. François rolled over on his back, and Anne pulled away to her side of the bed. He took her hand in his and gently kissed it, then held it near his lips.

Anne shut her eyes and sighed. She thought that she remembered what it felt like to make love to a man, but she discovered that memory had lied because that memory could never compare to reality and because her experience with François was unusual. François’ kisses were unfamiliar and new. His endearments were soft and tender, delicate and caressing. There was almost no passion – only tenderness and softness from his side and acceptance from hers. The night was completely different from Anne’s nights with King Henry when their bed was a battlefield of passion, love, and later hatred.

With François, she felt a little uncomfortable and even slightly embarrassed, as though she was an innocent young woman who had just been married for the first time in her life. At the same time, she felt alive again, even if it was caused only by an act of physical love and even if it was a short-lived, impermanent sensation.

Anne suspected that François hadn’t given his physical desire free reign. She knew very well that he had lusted for many women and had many mistresses, including her own sister Mary. Given what she had known about the King of France, Anne considered François a libertine and a womanizer, devoid of many moral restraints relative to women. She thought that he was a typical Frenchman, a skillful, gallant lover with infidelity in his blood. For whatever reason, she had thought that on their wedding night he would simply have taken her as a woman, thinking only about his own pleasure. Yet, she was mistaken.

The image she had formed in her mind wasn’t consistent with what François demonstrated during their wedding night. Probably, he didn’t want to scare her, she thought. It was very unusual for Anne. Besides, she couldn’t deny that François was an experienced lover; despite her passiveness and inaction, she found their lovemaking quite pleasant. Although she was quite passive, she had also wanted François out of a pure physical desire as it had been a long time since she had been with a man in the same bed.

Anne didn’t notice how she fell asleep. While Anne slept on her side of the bed, François watched the gentle fluttering of her eyelashes, the unguarded parting of her lips. He smiled vaguely at her. He was silently speculating about their wedding night under the cover of darkness. Anne was right that François hadn’t given his emotions a free reign. He was a very passionate man by nature, and it was normal for him to physically desire an attractive woman. After all, he had always been attracted to beautiful and intelligent women, and Anne was exactly what he liked. He felt fierce desire and wild passion racing through his body. He felt a longing for her he had never known before this moment, and it was strange for him. However, he was gentle because he didn’t want to be wild and cause any discomfort for her.

In the meantime, François felt that Anne was repressed and tense with him, despite her visual and physical acceptance. He saw her hesitation and her passiveness. Oddly enough, François had been close to apologizing for causing her any discomfort, but in the end he had refrained from any words. He wanted to protect her as he would do a little, defenseless child, as there was something vulnerable in Anne, even if she desperately wished to seem strong and impenetrable in public and played the game of polite indifference and courtesy.