The Secret Bride (26 page)

“Why has he not come to see me yet, Jane? He has been returned for hours. Here in this same house, near enough, yet not intent.”

Mary paced up and down the plank floor of her withdrawing chamber, wringing her hands, near enough to the door to seize upon it herself if Brandon should call. But as the afternoon passed into the pale gray of early evening, he did not.

“I want to be angry but the confusion stops me. He cannot still be angry about the way we left things.”

“And yet a great deal has happened,” Jane softly countered. “You heard, as did I, that the king now seeks to marry him to Margaret, the emperor’s daughter, as a double political match with your own.”

“That old mare had better get in line behind the child to which he consigned himself before he left!” she unkindly declared.

Jane’s laugh was a stifled giggle that erupted into a deeper joyous snort of pure, mischievous pleasure. It was the first time Mary had heard the joyous sound in a long time and she saw just a glimmer of the old Jane in it. She looked at her friend and smiled too. “Well, it is true. Ah, such a choice he has before him.”

“There would be no choice if he could have
you,
” Jane said.

The vast great hall, paneled in rich, heavily polished oak, was decorated for a celebration. Rose and ivy garlands were woven through the hammered gold chandeliers and, laced on the tabletops, candles made the gleaming silver platters, salt-cellars and goblets glow with a magical elegance. The room—and the gallery above where the royal musicians played—was strung with green and white Tudor silk banners bearing the emblem of Henry VIII in gold thread sewn above his motto, True Heart.

Mary’s stylish, elegant dress of white silk and red velvet rustled as she walked, with Jane, Lady Surrey and Lady Guildford, into the hall. She paused for just a calculated moment on the landing. Pearls and rubies glittered from a gold rope across her breastbone. As she always did when she first entered a room, she was searching for Charles. She could not still her heart for how much she wanted to see him after so long. So much had changed. Mary yearned to seem grown to him, a mature woman at last. Inside, she felt like a child for how nervous she was. Candlelight glinted in her long, shining hair unadorned tonight by a headdress, but just a circlet of matching rubies and pearls. Mary cared nothing now for his commitment, or her own. Her face lit when she finally saw him, with those still-shining eyes, longer hair and newly scruffy beard. And seeing him, she instantly forgave him everything—the women, the ambition, his other children and his sordid past.

Seeing Mary as well and without showing a moment of hesitation, Charles turned from Lady Monteagle and made his way steadily through the crowd toward her. As she came to the bottom step he met her there amid the commotion of other guests, music and laughter, rendering the moment wholly private.

“You look stunning,” he said in a soft, yet powerful voice.

She felt her mouth begin to tremble. What was it about this moment that made her want to weep? Stay calm, she told herself. Show him you have grown, that you are no longer a little girl.

“Congratulations on your victory in France.”

“It was His Highness’s victory.”

“You command his troops.”

“I was at
his
command.” He looked down at her, the smallest smile on his face beginning to break through the formality and tension of the moment. “But I did rather surprise myself, at that.”

“And did you despise all of the French as much as you thought you would?”

“There are a few with tolerably good form, like Mistress Popincourt,” he said with a little note of humor.

It was only then that Mary noticed the distinguished-looking man standing beside Charles. He was tall, slim and extremely elegant, his carriage as formal as if he were posing for a painting. He wore his silver hair brushed away from his face and long against the nape of his neck where it curled up just slightly. He had a neat little silver triangle of a beard on a perfectly shaped chin, and eyes that could be described only as glacial blue.

“Your Highness, may I present one of the king’s prisoners, Louis d’Orleans, duc de Longueville.”

“No chains? No iron bars?” She bit back a smile. “How very civilized of my brother.”

“I am among a few privileged prisoners, Your Highness,” he responded smoothly in English, although his deep voice was laced heavily with his country’s melodic accent. “We are fortunate enough to be treated as guests in your fine country until my release can be negotiated.”

“He has become something of a friend in our time together.” Charles smiled, his own eyes gleaming from that clever spirit that he would never lose. He was weary, she could see that, but the Charles Brandon she loved was still magnificently before her.

“And how have you found your accommodations thus far?” The question was a surprise as it came not from Mary, but in French from Jane Popincourt. When Mary looked back at her friend, she saw an expression on her face she had not seen since they were young and Jane had fancied herself in love with Henry. Her smile was girlish and broad and, to Mary’s surprise, she was blushing slightly. Even Thomas Knyvet had not brought that out in her.

“They could not be more splendid when I am in proximity of such beauty,” he replied, his eyes on her now as they looked at one another as if they were the only two in the room.

Without even asking, yet with a clear sense of knowing, the duc de Longueville extended his hand to Jane as a new song was begun in the carved wood gallery above them. He led her then into the sea of other dancers, leaving Mary and Charles alone again.

“I have missed you more than you will ever know,” he said so deeply that the sound of the words took her breath away, and yet his posture was still formal, his smile polite.

“The summer has changed you.”

“Have I grown while you were away?”

“Into an even more startlingly beautiful woman than you were before.” He touched her hand down near her hip. She felt his restraint and his urgency, but the small movement symbolizing so much was hidden by the folds of her skirts. “I must see you privately.”

“My wedding date has at last been set.”

“I met your bridegroom myself.”

“At the same time you met
your
next bride, I hear.”

“Word travels with surprising speed.”

“Poor Charles.” Mary smiled. “So many women to choose from. What will you do? A little viscountess? A foreign regent?”

“Would that it might be you.”

“We shall live with what is, and hope that one of us is clever enough to think of something better. What else can we do?”

“Will you meet me later?”

“I will need to wait until Mother Guildford has gone to bed. She sleeps near my door and Jane always says she can hear a pin drop.”

“Or a wayward princess trying to escape?” He smiled with amusement. “Doubtless the king, concerned about his prized sister’s chastity, was the one to see to that sleeping arrangement.” They both glanced over at Lady Guildford sitting beside a paneled pillar, happy with a full crested goblet in her hand. “And if she enjoys a bit more wine than usual would she not sleep the better for it?”

“What makes me think you are just the candidate to see to the loosening of a woman’s defenses?” Mary smiled, not expecting him to respond. “You would need an accomplice since Mother Guildford is very steadfast about what is placed before her.”

“Do not tell me she cares how others find her behavior.”

“We, none of us, see ourselves quite as others do. Yet I know how I always see myself when I look into your ring. It seems forever since I have done that.” She picked up his hand. “It is gone?”

“A casualty, I’m afraid, lost on the battlefield of France,” he smoothly lied, because he could, and because she would never understand what had happened at Lille. Yet he was struck by the expression on her face, telling him that his ring had really mattered to her. The guilt he felt, seeing that, was enormous. Charles tried to press it back, an annoyance, as he had always been able to deal with guilt before, slough it off like old skin. But it stayed this time, unmoving, rooted more deeply because of the honesty in her eyes. He tried to turn from the discomfort. “I will wait for you in the alcove just before the landing on the floor beneath your apartments.

Come when you are able.”

“I don’t know when that will be.”

“I will wait all night if I must.”

“And if we have only a moment?”

“I will take whatever you are able to give to me,” Charles said as the Duke of Buckingham approached them.

“Ah, careful, you two! The court is liable to start talking.”

“Are
you
not a part of that court?”

“I don’t start gossip, my lady. I am far too busy making my own scandals,” he said boastfully.

“If you will excuse me.” Charles bowed to him perfunctorily on that note and with the slightest scowl. “I am off to see that Lady Guildford has more wine. I see that her cup has been empty for ages.”

They met near dawn in a little curtained alcove off the landing. Mary knew she risked everything stealing away like this.

The king would forgive neither of them for putting her betrothal, and her chastity, at risk. But her love for Charles was a strong thing. It overwhelmed her heart and her life.

Now as he held her against his broad, flat chest, she thought how one of their first encounters had been in a corridor not unlike this, with her grandmother and mother, years ago. She had not known it then but she had fallen in love with him that day already.

Still, no one knew. Her heart was her own. It was the only thing about her life she could keep, and she would guard it as covetously as any jewel.

Charles pulled her more tightly against him, and she felt his heart pounding as he kissed her tenderly at first, almost as if she might break beneath the weight of his passion for her. But she drank in the musky scent of his skin, wanting him to kiss her again and again, more deeply, as though he would never let her go. The ring . . . the betrothals . . . women and secrets, all were forgotten in the dusky early light with all of the candles and sconces long extinguished. The only sound was the howl of a damp, chilled autumn wind that rattled the leaded windows across the hall. He touched her cheek with the back of his hand, the turn of her neck, then very gently the cleft between her breasts. Again he kissed her with moist, practiced lips. “I am so in love with you,” he murmured.

“It is good to know that I am not alone in it.”

Henry was on top of the world, and he knew it. At last, he allowed himself to believe that he, not Arthur, had been meant to rule England. Not only had he vanquished the skeptical rulers in Europe, he had respect as a leader himself now from them. He had finally achieved what his father had not—a firm date for Mary’s wedding. On top of that he believed he had found an English bridegroom for the emperor’s daughter and meant to try to arrange that. A double wedding would bind the two rulers tightly and ensure an eventual victory over France. It was all the more crucial to forge an alliance with Maximilian because Katherine’s father, Ferdinand, had made peace with Louis XII.

Things had changed, but one constant with Henry was his devotion to those he loved. Upon his return from France, he had also seen to several elevations of those closest to him.