Tarnish (23 page)

“Don’t, George.”

“Well, you don’t seem to be interested in women anymore. It’s the only logical conclusion. You can’t sweet-talk me or bully me or inveigle me like you do my sister. Though I have to say that whatever it is you’re doing with her finally seems to be working.”

Wyatt casts a quick look at me, his eyes wide with shock.

“He’s not doing anything with me!”

I step away from them both. Away from George’s insinuations and Wyatt’s sexual appetites.

“Oh, I don’t expect he’s
sleeping
with you.” George shudders obviously.

“Then what do you expect?”

“George—” Wyatt doesn’t move. His eyes are on me. Ashamed. He doesn’t want me. No matter what he says.

“I expect a little more deference from my baby sister.” George pushes me hard enough that I fall into Wyatt, who wraps his arms around me to keep me upright. The smell of night air and almonds engulfs me.

“Try a little harder, Wyatt.”

George turns away with a stumble, narrowly avoiding spilling the entire contents of his goblet over the poor Danish woman, who looks ready to scream or kill him. Or both.

“Excuse me, madam,” George says, doffing an invisible cap and bowing gracelessly over his shoes, his wine decorating her hem. She doesn’t move, frozen in horror. He raises his face and peers at her closely, only inches away from her nose. Her eyes grow more round and she leans backward, barely able to keep her feet below her.

“Yes,” George mutters. “Yes, a female. Despite the mustache. You nearly had me fooled.”

He clucks his tongue as if she’s been naughty and showily grabs her hand for a kiss. Then, with a flourish that nearly unbalances him, he staggers out the door. The woman sags with relief and wipes her hand furiously on her skirts. I pray she doesn’t understand English.

“Don’t listen to him,” Wyatt murmurs. His arms still encircle me. I want to lean back and rest my head against his chest. Breathe him in.

Instead, I release myself and speak without looking at him.

“He’s drunk. And he’s my brother. I never listen to him.”

“Probably for the best.”

I wish I could see his face. Something George said chafes the corner of my mind.

Wyatt takes my elbow and steers me away from the crowd. “He does speak the truth about one thing,” he whispers.

“What’s that?”

I hold my breath and look at him, his face so close to mine. He’s going to tell me his sexual appetites do lean toward men. He’s going to tell me I need reining in. He’s going to tell me—

“That woman does have quite a mustache.”

32

W
YATT HUMS A TUNE—HIS VOICE DRAMATICALLY OFF-KEY—AS WE
approach the donjon through the middle courtyard. He’s looking very pleased with himself. I’m still nauseated over George’s insinuations. And something else. Something that has lodged itself deep in my chest.

“Well, that was certainly a success.” Wyatt’s cockeyed grin tells me he has another plan up his sleeve.

“That, Thomas Wyatt, was a dismal failure.” I stop moving. I don’t have the energy to face any more.

“Forget George. He’ll feel better tomorrow.”

“Father’s coming home tomorrow. None of us will feel better.”

Wyatt hesitates. He takes a deep breath and attempts to guide me to the stairwell. To the queen’s rooms.

“No,” I say. “No more.”

“It’s the place to be seen.”

“I’m not sure I want to be seen.”

“You do, Anne. You can’t back out now. Even the king talked about you.”

Whatever has settled in my chest flutters a little. Like a living creature stirred by longing.

“What did he say?”

“Just that you had the darkest eyes he’d ever seen. He couldn’t keep his own off the little jewel you gave me.”

He fingers the black ribbon. My
A
is hidden beneath his collar. Against his skin. I want to touch it. I want to ask for it back. So I say nothing.

“Neither could Percy.” Wyatt’s voice is wary, and his stillness unnerving. As if he hopes to contradict any expression of joy on my part. Or take the opportunity to point out again that Percy could never love me.

“Oh.” I won’t give him the satisfaction.

“Did we make him jealous?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”

Wyatt doesn’t say anything. I can’t meet his eyes, his criticism. So I continue talking.

“He walked away. Left the tiltyard. I haven’t seen him since.”

“It sounds like he’s jealous.”

“Or maybe he just hates me, Wyatt!” I finally look up at him. “Maybe he just thinks I’m a whore like all the rest do.”

Wyatt holds his breath, growing even more still, then says with a sigh, “Jealousy can make a man act in baffling ways, Anne.”

“Well, I’m baffled.”

“That’s why we started this in the first place, is it not? To make the others jealous? To make them want what is between us?”

“There is nothing between us.” My throat constricts. I look down to where my hands are pressed against my skirts.

“Of course. All I am is the flag on your ass.” The bitterness in his voice may be my imagination.

I take a deep breath.

“Maybe this deer is ready to be caught.”

Wyatt turns away and walks farther into the darkness of the courtyard.

“A deer ready to be caught is a deer resigned to the slaughter.”

I shudder at the thought.

“Don’t be morbid, Wyatt.”

He stops, the bare specter of a silhouette. “You know how I feel about Percy.”

“My father is coming home tomorrow.” I catch up to him. I hate the pleading in my voice. “I don’t have time to wait. Percy is my best chance. My only choice.”

“You do have another choice, Anne.”

Wyatt’s voice has pitched to that rolling bass he gets when he’s trying to be seductive. He lowers his face just inches from mine, one corner of his mouth curved into a dimple.

“Don’t say it again, Wyatt,” I tell him. He doesn’t mean it. All my defenses collapse, and I shrug away from him. “Just don’t.”

“Fine.” He straightens, raises both hands, empty, as if to show he has no hold on me. “You don’t need me? You’re on your own.” He turns and walks away. Leaving me. Letting me go. Abandoning me.

I wait until he’s gone. Until I can no longer hear the echo of his footsteps or the dolorous reverberation of my own heart. Only then do I enter the palace, which has become suffocatingly crowded. People are crammed into every corner, Danish courtiers piled into guest quarters and the English relegated to houses and inns round about.

Everyone has eaten too much and had too much wine and lies about, lazy with gluttony and self-satisfaction and war. The tapestries in the queen’s rooms are sagging with the moisture of a thousand breaths. The place is full of ladies in heavy gowns and men in padded doublets, throwing dice and fumbling with cards slick with sweat.

I sit down, uncomfortably, next to Jane. Her cerulean gown that looked so vibrant in daylight now matches the shadows beneath her eyes. George has thankfully fallen asleep in the corner, head lolled back against the wall, and she gazes at him, her face full of pain and tenderness. Wyatt sits down to cards with Henry Norris and two Danish men. I don’t watch them.

The queen arrives, agitated. Not her usual serene self. After acknowledging everyone’s deference, she sits. Fidgeting. She’s like Jane. Without her sewing in her lap, she doesn’t know what to do with her hands.

She catches my eye and an idea appears in her face.

“Mistress Anne,” she calls, over the lolling bodies and lazy voices. “I hear you play the lute and sing.”

I don’t know who could have told her. Not my sister, certainly.

I wonder, suddenly, if it was the king. And I feel a hum. All the way from his privy chamber where he talks politics and war with the Danish king.

“A little, Your Majesty.”

George has woken up and leers at me. Wyatt doesn’t even glance my way.

“Will you?”

I move to the foot of the dais on which the queen sits. I pick up a lute and caress the smooth ebony veneer of the neck. I try to get away with just fiddling with the strings and plucking out harmonies that blend into each other. None of the sots listens. None of them matters.

“A tune we recognize, if you will, Mistress Boleyn.”

I hear rustling from the duchess’s confederacy.

The only song that comes to mind is in French. I hesitate. Surely the court cannot deny the art of the country, even while they are lusting for the blood of its inhabitants.

And this song is perfect.

It reminds me of what Wyatt said. That I am destined to be like the heroine of a ballad.

I sing the first verse. The meeting. Boy. Girl. Love at first sight. It’s obvious these two will never be together. I pause and catch Wyatt watching me. I roll my eyes at the ridiculous premise, and he looks away.

The next verse; the girl tells the boy that she is already promised to someone else. The boy tries to convince her to run away. He says how much he loves her—the way she smells and the color of her eyes.

I risk a glance from the strings, and my eyes go to the card table. Wyatt is studying me. Sadly. I look away and see, by the door, Henry Percy. I get the sense he’s been watching me the entire time. Ever since I started to sing.

He’s wearing a russet doublet and deep-blue sleeves matched in color by the lozenges of lapis lazuli in his heavy double collar. His cap is the same russet velvet, but edged with gold braid. His cheeks look almost hollow in contrast to his sharp cheekbones and raw-edged jaw.

My fingers fumble the first note of the bridge and I feel a compression of panic. I look down at the lute. It isn’t mine. I don’t recognize it.

I come to the verse in which the heroine of the story tells the boy she will always remain his, and then drowns herself so that her spirit can do so. Then comes the repeating line,
à toi pour toujours
—“yours forever”—the sound trilled like ripples of water on the lowest notes of the lute.

I waver on the high notes, my voice out of practice. Hardly Orpheus. I glance again at Wyatt, afraid he’ll be laughing at me, ready to criticize. My gaze meets his like a lock tumbling into place, and there is no laughter in his eyes. I realize I’m singing the song he was humming earlier.

My fingers stumble again, and I look to the door in time to see Percy disappear through it.

I stop, unable to finish the last verse.

“Thank you, Mistress Boleyn,” the queen says. There is a hard note of irony in her voice. “That’s quite enough.”

I hear laughter on the far side of the room. The Duchess of Suffolk has her hand diagonally across her mouth, and her eyes are viciously merry.

George appears to be laughing with her. Wyatt will not look at me.

“Shall I play something on the virginal, Your Majesty?” Jane asks. She has risen and stands next to me, her fingers splayed to keep from biting them.

“Yes, Mistress Parker. Perhaps you can find us something more cheerful.”

Jane bites her lip and nods. She grabs my hand, giving it a quick squeeze.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

I look at the empty doorway.

“Me, too.”

I don’t rival Orpheus at all. I am unable to recall even the living.

33

I
DON’T NEED A WHITE FLAG.
T
HIS TIME, THE DEER SHALL DO THE
pursuing. I put the lute beside the dais and make my obeisance to the queen, who nods sleepily. Every line of her age and tiredness shows.

I hear the voices from the card table as I pass by on my way out. The crack and slap of cards. The mutters. It sounds like Wyatt is winning. I don’t look.

James Butler steps in front of me.

“Where are you going?”

His grip is surprisingly gentle on my arm. I barely look at his face as I pull away.