The Queen's Rival (20 page)

Bess saw him lean in toward Wolsey then. A moment later, Wolsey turned his attention to her as well. Her heart was racing furiously and her mouth had gone so dry that she almost wished there had been wine in the goblet instead of a necklace—almost.

“Take care, Sister. This could put the entire Blount family at risk if it goes any further,” George gravely warned in a whisper as he sat, helplessly watching the scene play out.

“Or it might bring rewards none of us can yet imagine,” Bess countered, suddenly feeling the full power of what was beginning to happen.

“He already has a queen,” Gil added flatly.

“There are other roles I might play.”

“Believe me,” Gil quickly countered. “You do not want the obvious one.”

“And why would I not?”

“It is beneath you, Bess. Beneath the life you are meant to have.”

“Who but God himself knows what I am meant to have?”

“Can you truly say you could settle for being a man’s mistress?” George asked her from the other side.

Suddenly she felt defensive, and she did not like it. George and Gil were like hostile little bookends, pressing her to feel extremes of guilt she did not truly feel—at least not yet. For now, excitement and surprise tempered every other emotion.

It felt like no more than a moment before the gleaming platters, dishes, and cutlery were whisked away and the king himself rose, in a few bold strides sweeping to the center of the banquet hall to play a tune on his lute. The conversation fell to an excited hush, and Bess straightened in her chair with anticipation. She had heard from others that the king loved to entertain his court, but she had not yet heard him. She watched as he settled into a tall chair and balanced the lute on his knee in the sudden silence. She heard a cough echo out from the crowd before he began to play a haunting tune. Bess was riveted by his skill and grace. She felt a deep ache just looking at him. Everything about him drew her. She felt hypnotized. Bess studied his face more closely—the smooth, square jaw; perfect nose; and penetrating deep green eyes.

“His Grace wishes you to sing a tune with him.”

She recognized the masculine voice behind her. It belonged to Bishop Wolsey.

“Your father has been most generous in his praise of your talent, Mistress Blount,” Wolsey said coolly.

Gil stood and faced his benefactor with a familiarity that was full of tension. “Surely no good can come of it, my lord,” he said to the cleric in response.

“Nevertheless, boy, ’tis by the king’s desire.”

Bess began to straighten her skirts and the fabric of her long bell sleeves, feeling a strange dread build in her chest, then move up to her throat. What if she sang out of tune or did not remember the words? What if she blushed too deeply for his liking or giggled or tripped over her own feet on the way to meet him? Elizabeth would know what to say. She was accustomed to this sort of thing, and she alone would know how to talk her through the sheer terror Bess quickly felt settling in.

“I do not know if I can do this,” she managed to say in a sputtering tone just as the king’s first song was at an end and he began to acknowledge the adulation with nods and a cool smile.

“I am afraid you haven’t a choice,” Gil said coolly. “The bishop is correct. If the king desires it, then it shall be. Just as everything else.”

She glanced back at Wolsey who stood unmoving, his strong face a mask of indifference as he waited for her to accept the inevitable. A moment later, Bess complied and followed Wolsey through the maze of chairs and servants and a sea of faces marked by surprise to the center of the tables, where Henry VIII awaited her. As she approached him, a tufted stool was brought and set beside his chair. Henry stood with a smile and extended a hand to her.

“I thought it might be amusing to see how you respond under pressure,” he said so softly that only she could possibly have heard.

“And if I respond poorly?”

His smile became strangely sly. “I suppose I could cut off your head.”

It was such an oddly surprising thing to say that she paused for a moment to consider whether he was serious. When he saw her expression, Henry began to laugh. “Fortunately for you, I am open to persuasion from a pretty girl.”

“Has Your Highness a dark side then?”

“Impossibly dark.”

“Perhaps I should consider myself warned,” Bess shot back swiftly.

“Perhaps you should. Yet there is a side that is equally light. The trick would be to keep me there. No one has managed that for long, so far.”

“Someone may surprise you.”

“No one I have known so far in all my years has surprised me much at all.”

She saw the jaded side of him then in their brief exchange, but his complexities only drew her more.

“Do you know ‘My Heart’s Desire’?” Henry asked her as they sat down together and the crowd once again fell to a hush.

It took her a moment to realize he was asking about the song. She nodded with what she knew was a foolish, eager-to-please smile for which she silently chided herself.

“Sing it with me then. It needs a sweet female voice.”

“I shall do my best.”

As he took the lute back up onto his lap, Bess caught a glimpse of Gil that stunned her. His expression was unusually cold as he stood to the side of the hall, arms crossed over his chest. From this distance, she thought it was even contemptuous. The odd moment vanished as Henry struck up the tune. Bess knew she must put all of her effort into her best performance, and focus only on that. Not only were her parents and Mountjoy watching, but so was Bishop Wolsey, who would be a force to be reckoned with if she did not please the king.

Their voices blended nicely and the words and tune came far more effortlessly to her than she had expected. In what felt like an instant later, it was over and the king’s guests were applauding, wisely calling for another duet from the pair.

“Well, well,” Henry said above the roar of the crowd. “I do believe you have surprised me, Mistress Blount.”

The way he said it—somewhere between admiration and desire, made Bess shiver, and she fought not to show her pleasure. “I am honored Your Highness would find it so,” she said demurely.

“Oh, I do find it so. The little token from earlier shall be your reward for making me look good before my courtiers.”

Bess remembered the exquisite necklace then, which made her blush, but she fought the urge to lower her eyes, wanting desperately to appear poised and mature.

“Your Highness does not need me for that,” Bess said with a little smile.

“You might be surprised by what I need.”

“Might I?”

“A king, after all,
is
human, Mistress Blount. Although I would thank you not to tell anyone I ever admitted that.” He leaned closer as a clever smile lengthened his lips. “Admitting fallibility makes it difficult to rule one’s subjects.”

Bess nearly laughed, but she quickly thought better of it. “The necklace is extraordinary, but will the queen not mind that you gave me something so extravagant?”

“The queen is my wife, Mistress Blount, not my keeper,” he replied with just a note of irritation. “Besides, the token is from Brandon, who asked to be remembered to you and Mistress Carew, who also received one. At least that is the story I shall maintain unfailingly. Now, shall we give them another tune?”

They both knew who had actually sent the gift. Brandon was in France, and though he was still not wed to Lady Lisle, and thus was as yet an acceptable potential suitor for many women at court, Bess knew it was not her favor he sought. The furtive glances between him and Princess Mary long ago had confirmed all that for her.

Bess’s eyes met the king’s once again. Like a lovesick fool, she could see nothing else but him. Yes, she would sing another tune with him, no matter who might disapprove—including her own family. She was absolutely powerless to deny the king anything he asked of her now, or anything he might ask in the future. Of that she was certain.

As the king and Mistress Blount sang, Thomas Wolsey watched Gil. The poor, foolish boy was in love with the girl. He had seen the signs before. But he also knew the king, and what doubtlessly lay ahead for the girl in the next year. Thomas knew Henry’s type almost better than Henry knew it himself, since the cleric had helped to extricate him from more than a few liaisons over the years.

Henry found no harm in a brief and discreet dalliance here and there when the queen was pregnant, but his conscience, or his interest level, seemed to preclude anything of the heart from ever developing. That these doe-eyed girls allowed themselves to be used for a man’s pleasure, even if some did not have much of a choice, made them unsuitable for Gil, who deserved someone untainted, Wolsey determined with a proprietary little huff. Mistress Blount had just joined those ranks.

Amid the warmth of the flaming torches and the crackling fire, Gil twisted the little pearl and ruby pendant between his thumb and forefinger. Seeing him fling it to the floor in a rage once Bess had joined the king, Wolsey himself had silently retrieved it, exchanging only a small, sympathetic glance with the boy as he did. Although Gil believed otherwise, it was actually Wolsey who had given the little token to Gil’s mother when he was young, lovesick, and equally as foolish as Gil was now. He had been conflicted in those days. Wolsey remembered his fascination with the Lincolnshire country girl, but he also remembered his own ambitious path to the Church, which had led him away from her. He knew offspring were a risk of any dalliance, and there had been other women and there were children he had sired along the way, but what he had not bargained for was coming to care for one of them—as he had for Gilbert. That lunatic father to whom the boy had been given over had brought out every paternal instinct Thomas had. Long after he had stopped loving Gil’s mother, Elizabeth, he had provided comfortably for her, for the boy’s sake, and he had promised himself then that he would protect any child of his however he could. When Thomas Wolsey came to court, the boy came with him. If it seemed more coldhearted to the Tailbois family, so be it.

Thomas shifted now in the stiff dining chair and pressed the pendant into the folds of his long coat as he watched Mistress Blount curtsy to the king, then make her way back to her seat. He saw the king watch her walk away and the crowd around him whisper about her ripening beauty. Yes, her path into Henry’s life was as predestined as his own, Wolsey thought. And while poor Gilbert may already have made the mistake of falling in love with her, he would not be allowed to waste his life, or his heart, on a girl destined to become the king’s whore—and thus the queen’s rival.

Not if he could help it.

 

A
few days before the yuletide festivities were to begin, the court trekked on horseback and carts across the cold winter landscape through vast woodlands, used in spring for hunting, to Greenwich, where the king liked to pass the holy days. Bess was excited because Elizabeth and her new husband were at last returning to court after their wedding trip. She had missed the camaraderie with her friend, and it felt like ages since she’d had anyone to confide in or share her secrets with.

When they arrived, Bess looked at the luxurious blue velvet dress that had been brought for her, laid out meticulously on her bed in the little chamber she had been assigned to share with Jane Poppincourt. The identical dress had been laid out on Jane’s bed. The style was the height of fashion, the Savoy velvet accented with gold cloth. Beside each was an intricately designed gold mask decorated with pearls and tiny jewels. Bess pressed a finger against her lips and with her other hand touched the sumptuous velvet of the dress. Tonight she and Jane were both invited by the king to perform in a masque in the queen’s chamber.