The Secret Bride (29 page)

“And a horrifying one!”

“You were raised all your life to expect this, as I was.”

“I beg you, Harry, anyone but Louis XII! He is an old man, and they say a disgustingly ill one! Twice widowed already!”

“And, for it, you shall be a proper queen.”

Mary found the shock of it was intense, and the bitterness rose up like bile. “You cannot want that for me! You would not want it for yourself!”

“If it were my duty I would do it without complaint.”

Mary’s face blanched. She bolted from the chair and began to pace the room, with its wood paneling and rich Flemish tapestries. Her normally well-schooled calm acceptance of her fate began now to crumble like a sand castle because she had allowed herself to believe in something better. Mary wrung her hands, not feeling them, feeling only the shock. Nothing else mattered suddenly beyond that. An old man . . . infirm, wrinkled . . . a widower twice over, used, tired . . . The images swirled in her mind in the echo of her brother’s firm announcement. Henry diligently went on to explain the details of the arrangement to her but his words came at her disjointedly. In the shadow of continuing difficulties with Maximilian, he had been negotiating a marriage with Louis XII for months, he admitted. After the line of communication had been opened regarding the ransom for the duc de Longueville, Henry had chosen to consider it. Through a papal nuncio, who negotiated on the French king’s behalf, Louis XII would have one last chance to beget a male heir. Henry, for his part, would be able to save face for how he had been strung along by the emperor. There was no way around it. The marriage with the fifty-two-year-old king was essential—and it would take place.

“Harry, I beg you!” She went back to him, her face full of pleading, her hands outstretched as if her horror alone could change his mind. “I felt ready to marry the Prince of Castile.

You know that. I was prepared for it for most of my life. . . . But this, now, such an old, sick man . . .”

“We all have our duty.”

“You married the woman you chose!”

His expression darkened and his amber brows merged into a heavy frown. “Katherine was my duty once Arthur died. My feelings one way or the other were of no consequence.”

“Will it matter to you a bit if I say that with every fiber of my being I do not wish this?”

He lowered his eyes, the brother she knew so well closing off to her then. “In truth, no.” He drew in a breath, softening by a degree a moment later with an exhale. He leaned nearer to her. “I have been made a laughingstock by Maximilian. I have been played the fool. Please understand, Mary. I make this choice not
against
you but
for
England.”

“You make it for yourself, not England,” she countered defiantly, bolting toward the door and pivoting back to face him only once she had reached it. “Even when Arthur was still alive, you got your way. Father’s favorite! Always the indulged one, the charmed one, the one that trouble never reached. And you are selfish enough to want everything for yourself. Even your brother’s wife!”

“Mary, I warn you, hold your tongue!” His face mottled red with his own fury.

“Or you will what? Bluff King Hal! That is what the people call you for how hardened you have become.”

“I command you to stop.”

“Or what? Tell me, brother Hal, will you see me tossed into the Tower?”

“Never that. But I
shall
see you made Queen of France, which apparently for some reason will be punishment enough.”

“Then you might as well finish me off and kill me, because that is what it will surely do to me anyway.”

They had not quarreled since they were children. That, and the reality that her dream of a love match was not ever going to come true, had reduced Mary to tears. After they had prayed together, she wept bitterly into Wolsey’s starched crimson cassock, and against the comforting swell of his belly, as light poured into the chapel upon them through the stained glass image of Saint Jerome.

“Tell me what am I to do, Thomas. I cannot ask him now,” Mary frantically wept.

“Surely not. For Brandon’s sake, at least.” He steepled his hands and leaned back in the chair that faced the small fabric-draped altar. “There is but one small ray of hope.”

“Tell me. Since I surely do not see it beneath the weight of the despair I feel just now.”

He paused a moment, reflecting. “Is this King of France not an older man, and quite ill as well?”

“Yes, and the thought of it adds to my torment.”

“Adds to your torment, child? Or provides you promise of salvation? As with so much of life, this salvation is what you choose to make of it.”

She saw the gleam in Wolsey’s eye and the thought came to her then. The tears dried on her cheeks and a cautious smile began to brighten her face.

“Does not His Highness wish you to be happy above nearly all other things in this world?” Wolsey asked.

“Except perhaps to use me as a bargaining chip with France.”

“Then, when his guilt is at its zenith, why not tell him you will make your peace with his choice, and with him, but at a cost. You alone, my dear, could make that bargain with the king. Forget not that your sister Margaret in Scotland is now married to her own love.”

Although twisted and difficult, a pathway out, a plan, became clear to her although she could tell no one else—not even Charles, for what extreme measure he might take to try to prevent her from one day acting on something so bold. She knew that his love for her would drive him to sacrifice her to her duty to England if she told him. Did she have enough power and courage to gain a solid agreement from Henry to let her choose her next husband once the French king died?

She knew Henry did feel enormous guilt for tying her to someone so old and ill but was that enough? Such a promise could not be extracted, and then fulfilled, without cunning, fortitude and sacrifice. But she was a Tudor. She was strong and determined and she was capable of greatness if pressed.

In France, her challenge would be to love an aged man as best she could.

“You would not tell anyone about this, would you, Thomas?”

Wolsey’s wet mouth stretched into a reassuring little arc of a smile. “Communion with one’s confessor is a private and a holy matter,” he decreed with sudden reverence. “Your secrets, my child, shall always be safe with me.”

Charles had found the vacant chamber quite by accident, but his only desire was to bring Mary here to be alone with her, as their remaining time together was growing swiftly to a close.

He had been planning a reunion since the moment they had moved yet again, this time to Lambeth. The chamber was small, a servant’s room on the third floor, decorated sparsely with only a pallet bed, a rush-bottom chair, a round table with a white tallow candle, a basin and a prayer book. The window was small and leaded with a little iron latch. It opened onto the entrance courtyard below, so that there was the constant hum of activity and the sound of horses and groomsmen below.

As Charles closed the door behind her, Mary flew into his arms and clung to his neck as if her determination and her love for him alone could chase the future away. He bent his head and kissed her and, as she always did, Mary melted against him, the spiraling sensation taking over within her.

“I want all of you so badly,” he murmured into her hair. “It takes the strength of a hundred men just now not to tear your dress away and take what I know you want to give me.”

“You know I do not want to go. . . .”

“I know.” They crooned tenderly to one another.

His mouth descended on hers again then and, through her whole body, she felt the groan that tore up from his throat as he parted her lips and pressed her onto the little pallet bed that sank beneath their weight.

“I leave you in so short a time,” she said sadly as he lay back with her, his full length, rigid thighs and broad chest, wildly aroused against her. “Let us do with one another what we can—our own communion and promise.”

Her words were unashamed, an invitation, delivered with wide eyes full of love and trust. She slid her hands down over his hips then and to the codpiece between his legs.

“You must remain innocent,” he responded hoarsely.

Freeing him from the fabric codpiece, Mary took him into her hand and Charles reacted powerfully to her touch, his neck arching as his entire body tensed. He moved with her hand then as he kissed her again, a lover’s kiss this time, opening his mouth to hers, and Mary drank in the smell of him greedily, the sweat on his neck, and the overwhelming rush of her own desire feeling how much he wanted her. She ached for more, to have him bare against her . . . the solid assurance of him inside of her, but for now pleasing him was enough to join them in a way they had never had.

The sensation of what was happening was more powerful and forbidden than anything she had ever known, and Mary surrendered to it, letting it wash over her like a wave, controlling her, dominating her. She moved, she kissed him in return . . . she tasted the moan in his throat. Then suddenly, she felt him shudder. His heart was slamming against his damp chest as she stopped, then pressed herself against the fabric of his shirt. She closed her eyes, feeling her own heart race.

“I must remain a virgin. I remember nothing about innocence,” Mary softly declared as he kissed the tendrils of her hair. “My body may be his, but you alone shall have my soul.”

Her hand tucked tightly in the crook of his arm, Charles brought his sister forward in a new dress for which it would take him months to pay. It was sewn of bright blue French silk dotted with tiny pearls, to highlight her eyes and distract from the scars. But the extravagance was worth everything to him to see the small grain of confidence it brought Anne. As they approached, Mary rose swiftly from the table at which she had been playing cards with Jane. She drew forward, smiling, hands extended, as Anne dipped into a deep curtsy.

“Now none of that,” Mary said brightly, taking Anne’s cold hands and squeezing them. “Not when I feel I know you as well as if we were sisters. Charles has told me all about you.”

“As he has told me of Your Highness, and it was with the greatest delight that I always heard his stories.”

Charles took a step back, linking his hands behind himself as he proudly watched an encounter he felt he had waited an eternity to see.

“Where are your children? I should like very much to meet them, as well,” Mary asked.

Anne looked embarrassed and cast a glance back at Charles, who moved up a pace protectively once again. “They are down in the kitchens eating candied plums, my lady,” Anne confessed.

“How delightful,” Mary said sweetly. “So we have a bit of time to ourselves. Do come and sit with Jane and me. You as well, Charles. It is warm by the fire and you have had a long ride. A glass of honey wine should warm you both nicely.”

Though she did not see it, Charles smiled at Mary, and felt an even more overwhelming surge of love for her in that moment than he had ever known before. It meant the world to him to see them together, Mary so kind and welcoming to a sister whose life these last years had been so difficult.

“If it pleases, my lady Mary, I should like to leave you ladies to yourselves. I feel a bit out of place at the moment.”