Queenbreaker: Perseverance (The Queenbreaker Trilogy Book 1) (29 page)

Greenwich
Palace, Greenwich

July
1533

Written
from Greenwich

This
2nd day of July

Dear Madam----
 

I hope this finds you and
father in perfect health.

The King’s sister, the
Duchess of Suffolk has died this morning. Anne has been with the King since the
Duke of Suffolk came with the news. I have heard that the King is wretched and
blaming the Duke for it.

The Duke returned to
Suffolk Place on the next tide—to hide til the King’s grief cools says
Madge. The Queen complained to Lady Lee that as the Duchess was not expected to
live out the year, the King’s grief seems overdone to her.

We expect to hear that
departure for Progress has been postponed, but the Queen’s Chamberlain Sir
Edward Baynton continues preparations.

It is to be a short
Progress as Anne expects to take to her chamber at the end of August.
 

I am settled in Lady Mary
Howard’s lodgings. I am respected by her servants—if not by the lady
herself.

I
grabbed the knife and shaved that last part from the page. My parents did not
need to know that. Not from me. Let Madge inform them. She lived for bearing
bad news.

I
inhaled a deep breath of jasmine scented air, steadied my hand and continued.

My
former bedmates—Mistress Holland and Lady Joan Percy—were sad to
see me go, but rejoiced at my good fortunate.

Joan
had clung to my neck like a deer tick, til Bess pried her off.

“She’s
not leaving court,” said Bess, voice tart with irritation. “You will see her in
an hour for pity’s sake.”

Joan
stifled herself with a last sniffle. Bess rolled her eyes.

“She’s
frightened Marshall will give Seymour your place and you’ll never come back.”

Joan’s
eyes rounded. “I am not.”

Bess
frowned. “Yes. You are.”

“Bess
won’t have Seymour,” I told Joan. “But I won’t return, Joan. So ready yourself
for a new bedmate.”

Now,
I regretted my boast. Whoever that might be, they would have a luxury I did
not. My very first night in her lodgings, Mariah had pointed at a pallet laid
out by the fireplace. I had assumed it was meant for her maid.

“I
have terrible dreams sometimes,” she told me. “I toss and kick and beat the
pillows. I would not want you to be hurt.”

Of
course, she lied. She slept, soft and soundless as moonlight.

We
settled into a prescribed routine. We retired to the same chamber every
evening, but spent not a moment in each other’s company during the day that was
not arranged by the Queen. In the mornings after Mass, we attended the Privy
Chamber, partook of the Queen’s private entertainments.

Mark
Smeaton played the lute or guitar. John and I danced with no one else. Mariah
danced alone. Come afternoon we would walk Urian through the gardens, around
the empty tiltyard, in silence.

In
the evenings we joined whatever revelry the Queen or King had
ordered—plays, gambling, dancing. There though, John and I were
circumspect. His father watched us, frowning at any brief interaction demanded
by good manners. In the safety of Anne’s privy chamber, we laughed at the
Earl’s grim doggedness.
As did Anne.

“Are
your father’s eyes sore, Lord John?” she asked one day.

“I
don’t believe so, Your Grace.”

“Well,
he squints at you and Mistress Shelton as if he had a peck of stys in both
eyes.”

“He
squints at things he wishes he did not see, madam,” John said.

“Ah,”
she murmured. “A fat old churchman once looked so at me. I brushed it off like
the rain and went on with my business.”

“I
shall do you likewise, Your Grace,” John said and squeezed my hand.

A
subtle smile played Anne’s lips. “I am sure Mistress Shelton is glad of it.”

My
eyes wandered away from the letter. A breeze entered one of the open windows,
lifting the gauzy linen panels stitched with golden dragonflies hanging from
Mariah’s bed.

One day John and I must have a room like
this.

I
left the writing table and curled myself in the window seat, savoring the
afternoon warmth seeping through the leaded glass. Clouds hugged the tree line.
I traded a toothy smile with my thin reflection.

Court life fits me.

Persephone,
hooded and tied to her perch, chuffed at my nearness. I still marveled at
Mariah’s audacity. No one kept a hunting bird in
their
chambers. It was unsafe, unsanitary,
bizarre
. An
eccentricity only the daughter of a duke could indulge.

“Your
mistress is a spoiled witch,” I told the bird. “Just like you.”

Scratching
sounded at the half-open door. I turned and saw Janet peered around it, eyes
wide.

“Mistress,”
she murmured. “Lord John de Vere asks for you.”

I
leapt from the window seat. I meant to step into the outer room, but one of
Mariah’s new chamberers leaned over the grate, tossing sprigs of rosemary on
the fire. Then the bull-necked porter appeared, bearing an armful of fresh
logs. He bent to place his load in the basket and they exchanged whispers.

Anne’s
eyes and ears.
Well, they’re here for Mariah, not me.

“Send
them away,” I murmured to Janet. “Then show Lord John in.”

Janet
blinked. “In…here?” she said, eyes boring into mine trying to shift me away
from my decision.

The
Queen does it! I nearly said. And had done even before she married the King. It
was a French habit to invite intimates—even male ones—into the
bedchamber for privacy. It was the highest mark of favor one could receive. And
now that I had chambers fit for such company…

“Here,”
I affirmed and arranged myself beside the fireplace. “Leave the door open.”

Janet’s
look relented. She went out and a moment later John stood on the threshold. He
wore a brown jacket slashed at the sleeves and tall riding boots. A large gold
stud winked from his ear. He pulled off his broad leather cap and bowed.

I
folded my hands to curb their trembling. There was a boy in my room and he was
not my brother.

John’s
eyes roamed the chamber before settling on mine. “Is this wise?”

“Completely,”
I said. “I wish some privacy. Janet will be at the door should we need
anything.”

He
glanced at Janet who turned and set herself just outside the door.

John
stepped within the bedchamber. The falcon chirruped.

“Good
day, my lady Persephone,” John said, going to her and stroking her snowy chest
with the back of his forefinger.

“You
know the bird?”

John
grinned. “Mariah’s favorite creature in the whole world. She used to take her
to Mass at Kenninghall when her mother wasn’t about. And launch her at the
priest if he sided with the old religion.”
  

A
grin swept my lips. I could almost like her for that.

“I
did not know she was so taken with the new doctrine,” I said.

John
quit petting the falcon and joined me by the fireplace. “She was a firebrand
for the New Learning.
She and Surrey.
The Duke loathed
it, but what could he do? He’d set the whole thing in motion to curry favor
with the King and turned his children into true believers.”

“But
not yourself?”

Disdain
colored his eyes a moment.
“New learning, old learning, it’s
all book learning.”

I
fumbled for a smile.

“But
as a poet, my lord, surely you read the works of your peers and past masters?”

John
sighed, tossed his hat on the bed. “Not if there’s a deer in the meadow.”

I
twisted a handful of my skirt. “But do you not contribute to the secret
Richmond book?”

John’s
brow leapt. “That thing? It is a book of scandal.” He leaned a hand against the
mantle. “You know it was what that thief was seeking.”

My
smile went stale. “But they did not find it.”

John
grimaced. “I hear they tore the room apart—carved up the mattress, pulled
up the brickwork.” He stamped on it. “Frances said it looked like the Vandals
and the sack of Rome.”

Sacked?
The only thing I’d disturbed was the bird.

Tore up the brickwork? I wouldn’t know
how. What in God’s name had happened after I left?

Unless
it was part of Mariah’s story, a lie like the theft of her jewels. Madge had
said she’d told it to cover her possession of the intended item of the theft. I
had taken those two books, now tucked away somewhere in Anne’s keeping, neither
of them the one.

Who else wanted the book so badly they’d
turn out Mariah’s chamber? And if they’d come in after I had done, did they
know I’d been there ahead of them?

Fear
crawled up back of my neck.

What if they think I have it?

“—
purely
incompetence,” John said, snatching my attention
back. “Mariah is known to be clever, so people think she cannot be a fool.”

“How
has she been foolish?”

A
disdainful twist puckered his lower lip. “She was never good at Hide and Seek.”
He walked around the bed, pulling the curtains aside. “She was always the first
to be found.”

“Maybe
she wanted to be caught,” I said. “By you.”

John
laughed. “Not since she came out of leading strings.”

“But…but
were you once not promised to her?”

John
rolled his shoulder in perfect imitation of me. “De futuro, mistress. Her
father always kept one eye on Richmond even as he cajoled my father into
agreeing our match.” He shook his head as if dispelling such a scene. “I was
always Norfolk’s second choice for Mariah.” His reckless grin reasserted
itself. “A boon for you, Mistress Shelton, as I’ve brought you a gift.”

“I’ve
lost my taste for ginger,” I teased. “I am sated on sonnets, as well.”

John
drew out a gold chain from under his shirt collar.

My God.

A massive ruby ring
the size of a robin’s heart dangled from
the end of it. Sunlight struck the stone, scattering bloody crimson flecks
across his hand.

“A
replacement for Marshall’s theft,” he said.

“It
is magnificent,” I breathed, as it beckoned my hand with a joyful scarlet wink.

It
was larger than Father’s family ring, but clearly sized for a woman’s hand. The
stone rested between two rearing stags crowned with roses. Engraved beneath
their feet, I made out some Latin,
Perseverantia
omnia vincit
.

“Perseverance
conquers all things,” I whispered.

A
little shiver swept me. God’s hand was on this. My hands bunched behind my
back.
 

“Such
a jewel exceeds the bounds of
Pass-the-Time
.”

John
regarded me, saying nothing.

Heat
crept up the back of my neck. Another moment of his silence and it would
overtake my face.

“And
if it does, would you still wear it?”

A
ring would have been enough proof for any other maiden at court. They would
have taken the gorgeous thing to their hearts and then John to
their
beds, and considered the thing done. But a ring alone
meant nothing. Like vows whispered in a rose garden.

John
extended his hand masterfully catching the light again. This time it plunged to
the heart of the stone and I felt myself looking into my own. It was almost
flawless, but for the tiny scratch Tom Clere had left behind. When would it be
completely healed?

The day I marry Lord John de Vere.

“I
would, my lord,” I softly said. “But only with the Queen’s permission.”

His
hand closed around the ring, putting out its hypnotic light.

“My
father has warned me away from you, again.”

My
chest went taut, as if he’d yanked my laces. I struggled a moment to draw
breath then asked, “W-what did he say?”

John’s
lips twisted. “He says that if I do not avoid your company, he shall see the
King sends me off to fight the wild Irish. Where a sword or dysentery will do
for me. He did not seem to have a preference,” he quipped.

“He
would truly do it?”

John
shrugged. “I have a younger brother. I would be no loss to him.”

An
ache started behind my eyes, as if they’d been open, unblinking, for too long.