Queenbreaker: Perseverance (The Queenbreaker Trilogy Book 1) (33 page)

Written
this 12th day of July 1533

From
the Palace of Greenwich

Madam—

I pray this letter finds
you and my father in the very best of health.

Tomorrow the Court leaves
Greenwich for Summer Progress. We go to Whitehall first then on to Windsor
where the Queen will pass a month whilst the King hunts from his manor at
Chertsey.

I am one of the six Maidens
the Queen has chosen to accompany her. Jane Seymour has only just left
Greenwich this morning. She held out til this last day, hoping one of the
favored Maidens might take sick, but was rightly disappointed. We are all in
the very best of health and grateful to be attending the Queen.

The rumor of Honor Lisle’s
stepdaughter being given a place with the Queen proved false. The Queen wants
no new faces about her.

The Queen shows twice the
belly she did at her Coronation. It has troubled her sleep these past three
nights. Doctor Butts was consulted. He advised the Queen to keep to her bed as
much as possible, but the Queen finds such past time too dull. She keeps to her
Privy Chamber and calls on us to dance and sing for her. Mostly she gambles
with the Countess and Lady Rochford, and curses the heat.

The Queen has asked that
Lord John de Vere attend her at Windsor—to do her little services, carry
messages to the King, and the like. Madge will tell you it has been done for my
sake. But she is mistaken. Lord John and I play Pass-the-Time, naught more.
Whatever rumors you may hear, know they spring from envy. Many ladies and
maidens crave such attention and from such a person as Lord John. Many more
think me unworthy of it. And though that may be true, I have done nothing
untoward to receive it.

I hold my family’s honor
dearer than mine own, and would never commit any gross nor lewd act to tarnish
it. You may, as always, rely upon it.

I have no more to write for
now than to ask God’s blessing upon our most gracious Queen Anne and upon you.

By the hand of your most
loving daughter,

Mary Shelton

Summer
Progress

July
1533

The
Queen’s barge raced the King’s to London. Anne laughed and clapped, urging the
oarsmen on. When we passed the agreed finish line at Tower Wharf first, she had
Lady Rochford pass out silver pennies to each man. They doffed their caps,
cheering their Queen. Anne saluted them, looking more pleased than she had
since her Coronation.

We
spent the next two days at Whitehall, resting while the King concluded some
business at Westminster.

Lord
Oxford dined publicly with the King and Queen our last night at Whitehall.
Though John and I kept to opposite sides of the King’s Presence Chamber the
entire evening, Lord Oxford’s eyes followed John the whole night.

The
next morning we made ready to continue the Progress to Windsor. The grooms and
chamberers struggled in the sluggish heat to disassemble the Queen’s
furnishings and load them on the carts.

I
stood amidst the baggage choking the Queen’s already crowded Presence Chamber
as Anne received a deputation of guild masters bearing gifts. It had been going
on for hours.

What a waste of time!

The
thought stunned me. I’d never been impatient of the demands of court before.
Never.

I must be in love.

Bess
called it the Great Impatience. “Anything that keeps you from your love is
hated—even things you once enjoyed. Nothing else satisfies like his
presence. You spend all your waking hours—which you used to spend
planning your wardrobe or hair—imagining your next meeting. And time
moves too slowly when apart, far too quickly when together.”

I
mentally checked off all of her requirements for the affliction.

I am in love with Lord John.

I
marveled. Why did I not know it before now?

Maybe
I had, but could not admit it. Not even after John had confessed his feelings
to me in Greenwich wood. The last boy I loved had tossed me away like a soiled
rag down the privy.

Never
again.
Remember what you are about. Remember!
Marriage first, all else comes behind.

John
had not seemed disappointed that I made no declaration of my love. I’d finally
given him the blackwork shirt I’d made on the eve of Progress. He’d kissed the
hands that made it and said he loved me with what, I now realized, had been a
shy expectancy. I had made some quip that he well should love me for the pains
I’d taken over his shirt. Instead of one of his witty rejoinders, he’d simply
thanked me and promised to wear it the next morning.

My
stomach churned. Had I gone wrong in withholding the words from him? My feelings
were obvious. But did he expect more?
As a girl would?

“
Imbecile! Pas celui-la
!”

Anne’s
roar shook me like an actual hand at the back of my neck.

Cousin
Mary Carey knelt beside Anne’s chair, a bolt of Cloth of Gold draped over both
arms.

The
guildmasters, a pack of stolid, bearded old men cast their eyes at the woven
mats on the floor.

“The
damask,” Anne hissed then leaned over and cuffed her sister’s ear. Cousin
Mary’s gable hood flew askew.

Everyone
flinched. Urian, lying beneath Anne’s chair, whined and crawled away.

Lady
Rochford dashed from her place behind Anne’s chair, plucked the offending cloth
from Cousin Mary’s arms and waved Madge forward bearing the correct item.

Cousin
Mary removed herself, sliding behind Anne’s chair then around it toward the
corner where the maidens sat on cushions haphazardly sewing make-work shirts.

I
sped a prayer to God for invisibility, but she took the cushion beside me. I
pretended not to see her. Cousin Mary sighed then leaned close.

“Her
legs and feet sometimes swell so much in the night we can’t get her shoes on in
the morning,” she whispered. “This morning Dr. Butts ordered her to give up
dancing.”

Jesus God
.

No
wonder she’d made such a scene. Dancing had been her chief pastime since the
Coronation. She’d slowly given up riding, archery, bowling, and every other
diversion as her condition progressed. When dicing, music, or singing failed to
sweeten her, dancing always relieved her mood. Between that and Smeaton’s
playing we’d thought ourselves
well-braced
to ride out
the last months til September.

“She
cannot give it up. ‘Tis her only pastime.”

Cousin
Mary shook her head. “The babe’s safety comes before the Queen’s pleasure. So
tread lightly, cousin. The only sport left to her is abusing her servants.”

Pity
stirred. Cousin Mary would know. She was always the first. I hoped she married
Suffolk soon. Anne would not dare strike a Duchess in public.

“Well,
mayhap the move to Windsor will cheer her,” I offered. “The air should be
cooler in the forest.”

Cousin
Mary’s frown put ten years on her face.

“Nothing
cools the air around Anne.”

Windsor
Forest, Windsor

July
1533

John
de Vere held my mare’s headstall and refused to let it go without inducement.

“A
look, Mistress Shelton. Just one and I will release you.”

I
swiveled my eyes just enough to take in his ardent face. He looked at me the
way the King looked at Anne. How could the Queen think he might love Mariah?

I
cast my eyes ahead to the front of the Progress. The black veil of Anne’s hood
waved from her open chariot. The King held his black hunter to a steady walk
beside her.

“Do
not satisfy his presumption, Mary Shelton.” Cousin Mary Carey, riding a placid
bay mare just behind me, wagged her riding crop at him. “You do not follow the
rules, Lord John.”

John’s
mouth fell open. “My lady, I protest. I have obeyed every rule. It is Mistress
Shelton who has ignored them.”

“She
has ignored you.” Cousin Mary urged her mare between us, forcing his hand off
the bridle. “It was well done of her.” She winked at me. “She knows her
worthiness and expects the man who courts her to know it too.”

Lord
John jerked the reins, bringing his hunter back on its haunches. He looked at
me a long moment. “Then I will prove I well know it.” He kicked the gelding into
a canter for the head of the line.

“What
will he do?” I asked, startled by his leaving.

Cousin
Mary’s lips turned. “What he should have done a fortnight ago. Ask Anne’s
permission to court you.”

I
almost cried out to stop him. We had not discussed such a thing, only the
relief of being out from under his father’s eye at Windsor. What would it mean?
Would his father follow through and disinherit him? Madge had said the Queen
would support a love match if it made me Countess of Oxford. But could her support
sway the Earl?
If she coaxed the King to it…maybe.
If
Lord Oxford would not be moved, would he truly send John to Ireland? The image
of John flailing in a sucking pit of Irish mud shook me.

My
mare tossed her head sideways almost pulling the reins out of my grasp.

“Careful!”
Cousin Mary cried. “Do you want to fall and lose a month abed?”

“Maybe
Lord John would bring me treats to soothe my pain,” I joked to cover my twin
frights.

Cousin
Mary laughed. “And his handsome face to while away the hours.”

“He
is
handsome.”

My
fervency made her laugh again. “You’ll have pretty babes from him.”

I
could see them.
Tiny people with his face, coloring, and
maybe my Boleyn luck.

Your
father claimed my heart then my hand riding through the Forest of Windsor, I
would tell them.

Some
might call it witchcraft, but what else was love really?

One
moment your heart is full of your own interests, the next it is bursting with
someone else’s. It is a magical thing. Can you see it done? No.
Only the result.
The longing looks, the sighs, the sulks,
the sleeplessness. Cupid’s dart was as good an explanation of the physical
mechanics as any.

I
pictured the naked cherub winging overhead, bow cocked.

Who is there left for your arrows?

The
Queen’s ladies had selected their lovers before the Progress began and none had
been cast off yet. Even Joan Percy had one of the King’s young grooms plying
her with mediocre poems. But the Queen’s lying in was only two months away. Who
could say how feelings might alter during a month’s separation?

I
hoped George did not return from France and take up with the Countess again.
She made me pity Lady Rochford.

Constancy
was not Aphrodite’s way. She moved the heart where she willed for sport it
sometimes seemed.

What if I am only sport to him? Just like
Tom Clere.

My
happiness snuffed out. Wisps of black, acrid smoke blighted the bright day.

I
put my imagined brats in a basket and threw it off of London Bridge.

“I
will think of children when I’m wedded and bedded before God and kin, and not
before.”

Cousin
Mary’s eyebrows cat-sprang up her forehead. “No one is suggesting otherwise,
coz.”

“I
know, but I do not want to raise hopes he can ruin.”

Cousin
Mary nodded. “Caution is wise. But it can take the pleasure out of love.”

Her
tongue lingered on the word pleasure.

“Is
it—is it a pleasure?” My own tongue stumbled.

Cousin
Mary waved her whip and laughed. “The finest—if well done.”

I
peeked at her beaming profile out the corner of my eye. “Was it so with your
husband?”

She
urged her mare to close the little space between us. “It is never so with your
husband,” she whispered.

“Truly?
Why not?”

Cousin
Mary showed her dimples. “There is no danger in bedding with your husband.
Where there is no danger there is no real passion. That is the secret to
lovemaking. There must be risk to properly heat the blood.”

My
eye caught on Anne’s veil, trailing her head like smoke.

“Marriage
ends passion?”

Cousin
Mary patted her mare’s sweaty neck. “It strangles it, little cousin, like a
rope ‘round the neck.”

“It
is different for Anne though. The King adores her.”

Cousin
Mary nodded brightly. “Of course he does. He’s adored all of his women.” She
leaned closer. “All of them.”

I
heard Madge’s words fall out of my mouth. “Until he didn’t.”

Cousin
Mary’s laughter silenced the jays crying above our heads. “Just so. When the
King is done with you, he is done. Anne played her chance better than I or any
before. If he’d jilted her she would still be the lady Marquess of Pembroke
with her 1,000 pounds a year.”

One thousand pounds.
I could not picture it. Every scrap of
Shelton land earned us no more than 200 a year. I peeked at the Widow Carey
still dependent on Anne’s charity for her living at court.

“What
did you receive from the King?”

Cousin
Mary shrugged. “Trifles. If I had it to do again, it would be coin for me.”

Coin? Like a common street whore?

“And
a title,” Mary appended. “So I would not have to marry for one.”

“That
is no trouble to me,” I said as John backed his horse away from Anne’s chariot
and turned toward us.

Cousin
Mary saw him too and laughed. “None at all. You love a handsome young man with
an old title. You’ve outdone me.”

“Until
you wed the Duke of Suffolk.”

She
laughed again. “Just so.”

John
kicked his horse to a canter the faster to return to me.

I
tucked a strand of wayward hair behind my ear. Joy sculpted my lips as John’s
horse neared us. I raised one brow, a teasing quip already prepared to greet
him. His face came clear of the shade. Our eyes met then parted as he rode by.
My stomach fell to earth.

He’s teasing me.

I
turned, ready to mock his horsemanship, but he had not stopped. Instead, he
kicked the gelding into a startled gallop and disappeared among the trees.

_____________

I
hated Windsor on sight. John was nowhere inside so I had lost all desire to be
there.

I
let Weston help me down from my mare, but refused his arm to walk the Queen’s
apartments.

“De
Vere’s a fool. I would never abandon you, mistress!” Weston cried, as I dashed
inside after Madge. I caught her just outside the Queen’s gallery.

I
grabbed her sleeve. “Did the Queen send Lord John on some errand?”

Madge
jerked her arm out of my grasp. “Lord God, Mistress Impatience, we’re barely
through the door.”

She
turned, intending to enter the Presence Chamber. I grabbed her black velvet
sleeve again.

“Tell
me or I’ll tear it.”

Madge’s
eyes narrowed to cat slits. “You’ll forfeit a crown.”

“I’ll
give you every coin I have just tell me where he’s gone.”

Madge
slapped my hand away. “I don’t know where he’s been sent.”

“You
lie.”

Madge
bristled. “You worthless cu—“

“Mrs.
Shelton, Mistress Shelton.”

Madge
shut her lips so fast I prayed she bit her tongue. Cousin Mary Carey beckoned
us from just inside the Presence Chamber. “The Queen calls for you.”

I
darted after Cousin Mary, leaving Madge flat-footed to follow.

“Cousin
Mary, where is he?”

Cousin
Mary’s soft blue eyes refused to look at me as we went toward the Privy Chamber
door. “The Queen sent him off to London. Why? I know not. Anne asked for you
the instant we had her settled in the Privy Chamber. She’s summoned the
family.”

The family?

They’d
arranged themselves in a loose orbit around Anne’s chair. Aunt Elizabeth and
Uncle Wiltshire held to opposite sides of the room: he by the fireplace, she in
the window seat. Lady Rochford stood in her usual place at Anne’s right hand.

“Mary
Shelton, Your Grace,” Cousin Mary announced then took her place beside her
mother.

Madge
kicked my heel and fell into a deep curtsey behind me. I tucked my chin and did
the same.

“You
may rise.” Anne’s crisp tone unnerved me.
 

“Cousin,
we have great and good news for which we know you will be grateful.”

Oh, my God.

Great and good?
That could be only one thing. Fear
departed me, evicted by a tidal wave of joy. I almost bounced on my toes like
Joan Percy.

“Indeed,
Your Grace. You will find me the most humble of your servants and kin.”

“As
you should be,” Anne drawled with a pointed look for her sister. “We are
pleased to inform you that the family has judged you worthy to be our choice.
More so than our last.”

Cousin
Mary stared at her feet. Lady Rochford, grasping the back of Anne’s chair,
stared at me. Aunt Elizabeth’s cold eyes said she disdained the family’s
judgment. Uncle Wiltshire’s smug smile claimed authorship of my good fortune.

God bless you Uncle Wiltshire. I will
well repay your favor when I am Countess of Oxford.

Anne
stroked her fulsome belly. “We have put your name to the Duke of Suffolk and he
has expressed a mighty interest.” Anne rubbed her belly again. “With God’s good
grace we will see you made a Duchess by Christmastide.”