The Queen's Rival (17 page)

A soft rap sounded at the door then. A moment later came the voice they both knew well. “’Tis Bess. Are you all right? May I come in?”

“Please do not tell her of it!” Elizabeth begged Gil in an urgent whisper.

“But she is our friend. Does she not deserve to know? Besides, is she not likely to hear about it anyway?”

“That will only be gossip. You were my friend first, Gilly. Pray, have you not some loyalty for that?”

Elizabeth straightened herself on the edge of the bed and wiped away her tears with the palms of her hands, but her nose was red from her weeping, and she still could not quite catch her breath. Her body was still trembling as Bess opened the door and came inside.

Beautiful as a painting, Gil thought as she drew near. He noted the remarkable angles of her face and the widest cornflower blue eyes he had ever seen. Yes, her eyes still stunned him. Her small, soft mouth was one he had dreamed of kissing more than once. She was, quite simply, perfection. He had thought that from the first moment, and in her year at court, his opinion had gone unchanged. Unfortunately, it seemed fairly clear to him that Bess Blount did not return his affection.

“What has happened?” Bess asked him, concern spiking in her eyes and causing the words to come quickly as she sank onto the bed beside the two of them. It was close enough for Gil to smell the scent of lavender on her skin. Controlling the physical reaction he always had to her was a challenge. He drew in a breath to steady himself before he explained.

“She is betrothed to marry Nicholas Carew. She was told of it only tonight.”

“Told, not asked, by Master Carew?” Bess wanted to know.

“Informed by Bishop Wolsey and Sir Thomas Bryan of the decision already agreed to by their families.”

Bess tipped her head, and Gil saw she was trying to decide what to say. “Well, he is very handsome indeed, and he seems a nice enough sort; clever, witty. . . .”

“Nicholas Carew is an incorrigible rake,” Gil gently amended. “Women have been playthings for him since the moment he realized his effect on them.”

“I do not love him, nor will I ever love him!” Elizabeth hotly declared. “Even if I am forced to become his wife!”

“This seems so sudden,” Bess said, looking from one to the other of them as they all sat on the same edge of her small bed in the shadowy little room.

The leaded window before them was open, ushering in warm summer-night air and the chirp of crickets in the hedgerow below. For a time, that was the only sound.

“It does seem an honor, since Master Carew is one of the king’s closest friends,” Bess cautiously observed, trying to be helpful.

“I’ve absolutely no choice in it, so I might as well try to see it that way. My father certainly does.” Elizabeth looked at Bess then, tears still rolling down her cheeks in ribbons made bright by the candlelight. “It was just something of a surprise.” She sniffled, trying in vain to collect herself.

“At least you have the duration of your betrothal to know him better,” Bess offered hopefully.

“The king has commanded that we marry before his sister departs for France. My father wants the new French queen still here in England to add importance to the union.”

“You do not believe that is the reason for haste?” Bess asked with a little tip of her head and a glance at Gil that was so gentle and innocent, it made him shudder.

“What I believe is just as unimportant, Bess, as what I desire. I just did not realize how unimportant until tonight.”

“Is there someone you would rather marry? Has that upset you the more?”

Elizabeth shot Gil a little warning glance, urging him not to reveal anything about her affair with the king. But she need not have done that. She knew he was a young man of honor. Gil had given her his word, and he meant to keep it. Whatever Bess found out about the workings of this court and this king, she would do so on her own.

 

B
ess could not quite believe the honor she had received. She was to attend the new French queen in the royal party that would see her from Greenwich to Dover, then bid her farewell at the dock amid a grand procession. She did not mind at all that the honor would end there and that she would not be continuing on to France. That seemed a strange land anyway, with a language she had never learned to speak well. Better to leave that journey to a few of the older, more experienced women of the court—and to Mary and Anne Boleyn. Those churlish little sisters boasted daily about how brilliantly sweet their French sounded because the tutor their ambitious father had retained for them was actually French. Besides, Bess thought as they stood gathered where the banks of the bay met the dock and nine great French galleons were anchored, Elizabeth Bryan would need her as confidante when she returned from her wedding trip.

Poor Elizabeth; the prospect of marriage had changed her from the carefree, clever beauty who had challenged her to steal into the king’s bedchamber, and Bess missed their camaraderie. At least there still would be Gil, sweet, dependable Gil, she thought, as she felt the salt air move through the fabric drape behind her neck. She was grateful to have it cool her. The brocade dress she had chosen for today was her most elegant, but it was too heavy for August, and she regretted wearing it.

As the king and his sister walked alone out onto the long dock to where the great royal ship sat bobbing at anchor, Bess turned back to Charles Brandon. His expression said absolutely everything. All Bess had suspected was never more true than it was on his face at this moment. It was indeed far more than a harmless courtly flirtation between them. He was deeply in love with Mary.

But with the realization came pity.

How pointless it was to fall in love with someone promised to a rival with whom one could not hope to compete—a waste of not only a life, but a heart.

It really was no different, she thought, than with Jane and the duc de Longueville, the noble battlefield prisoner who was now being released and allowed to return home to his obligations in France, but returned without his far less noble mistress. Looking around her, there was enough misery to make Bess vow that she would never be so foolish with her own heart. Unlike Elizabeth and Jane, and so many others around her, she would wait with her maidenhead intact for her father to choose a suitable husband for her. He would choose wisely, she knew.

Bess had no intention of ever wearing the same bereft expression she had seen on the faces of Jane Poppincourt and Charles Brandon.

That evening after the ship had set sail for the shore at Calais, the royal party that had remained was welcomed at Dover Castle, the great twelfth-century fortress perched on the vast white cliffs. The massive castle, wrought of ancient gray stone, with a drawbridge entrance, fortress wall, and great square Norman tower, was lovely and welcoming inside. It held massive, warming fireplaces, tapestries, and a sweeping view of the sea. Bess had never seen an ocean, or taken in the pungent salt air as she did now, standing alone at the edge of the jagged, rocky cliff. The wind blew so strongly that she removed her hood and let her long blond hair dance in ribbons around her face. The early-evening wind was warm and the sensation was so freeing, she could not help the small indulgence.

“I miss her already.”

Bess gave a startled little jump. When she turned around, she was surprised to see it was the king standing there in the same magnificent black and silver doublet he had worn at supper. But without his cap, there was nothing to draw attention away from his eyes, or his handsome face, which seemed so troubled.

“Foolish, I suppose, since Mary is a grown woman with a duty to fulfill,” he added with a heavy sigh.

Bess paused, uncertain if he meant for her to respond.

“I miss my brother George as well. I know he is happy where he is, yet still I miss him,” she eventually replied with some hesitation.

“The sibling bond is deep,” Henry said knowingly.

“Like no other,” she replied in agreement.

He linked his hands behind his back and gazed out at the sea along with her as the very last crimson strip of the sunset dipped below the horizon before them.

“But I am pleased to hear that you are happy with your place at court.”

“I am indeed, sire.”

“I had a brother once. He was called Arthur,” he said a moment later. The words were so casually spoken that she thought he might have been any other ordinary young man in England making a passing reference to his brother—not someone meant to be king.

“Yes, my lord. I have heard of him.”

“He died when you were very young, but you would have liked him. You have a similar way about you.”

Bess was surprised by that, and she guiltily hoped that the little blanket she had taken had eventually found its way back beneath his bed. “Your Highness flatters me by saying so.”

“There was the same reserve about Arthur that you possess, but there was always much beneath the surface, for those who took the time to see it.”

The king’s eyes were haunting to her now as they settled deeply upon her, the warm wind stirring their clothes and hair. Such a deep and fathomless green, they were eyes Bess knew, even then, she could lose herself in, if she allowed it. He was everything a young girl from the country ever dreamed about. The thought frightened her, because he was a king, yes, but more than that—because he was irrevocably linked to another woman: his wife.

“Did the queen see what you saw in Arthur?” she asked, surprising herself. His marriage was much on her mind these days, but she found that she truly did want to know.

“You mean when Katherine was his wife? Yes, she did. We all loved Arthur so dearly.”

She watched Henry’s eyes mist with tears just before he turned and gazed back out at the sea. “I have no idea why I just told you that.”

“Yet I am flattered that you did, Your Highness.”

“Sire. Your Highness. My lord. All such wearisome appellations,” he said, sighing and sounding much older than his twenty-two years.

“Would you think me less of a flatterer, and perhaps more a fool, if I told you that the great King of England who stands before you keeps an article of his brother’s, almost as if it were a talisman, hoping to bring him back? It is a small cradle blanket in which he was wrapped as an infant. Sometimes I feel, when I touch the delicate fabric, that he is near to me again. And that feeling somehow lightens the burden of being king.”

“That is very dear, not foolish at all,” she said, meaning it. But this time she could not bring herself to pull her eyes from his. Henry’s gaze had a strange command over her, and Bess knew, at that moment, she must work very hard not to fall beneath its powerful spell. No matter the harmless, courtly flirtations she had seen, he rightfully belonged to Katherine of Aragon, Bess diligently struggled to remind herself. So strong was the sensation that his nearness brought, and so complex were her feelings, she did not think to wonder what had brought him out here in the first place to this rocky cliff to stand alone with a girl he barely knew.

“Dear.” He repeated the word with a little scoffing laugh that Bess thought surprisingly brittle. “Well Arthur loved his wife, and she loved him. They were well matched, even for ones so young.” The king seemed like an ordinary young man with weaknesses of his own. His words gave her the courage to be bold.

“And you, my lord, are you well matched with your queen?”

“Katherine was the right woman to become Queen of England after Arthur died,” he finally replied with a burdensome sigh. “Without a child, though—without a son—I do sometimes wonder if I displeased God by believing that.”

“I pray God you did not displease Him and that this next child will be a son for you both.”

Henry looked at her deeply then, almost studying her. “You really are a different sort of girl, are you not?”