The Secret Bride (44 page)

“Could you not have knocked, Brandon?” he asked on an irritated sigh. But he accepted Charles here in his midst like the brother he had become, and made no effort to have him removed.

“Louis is dead, and Mary now is widowed by it!”

“That is customarily how it works,” he said drolly. As he rolled onto his back he slapped his new mistress’s bottom, and she gave a little groan. “Get dressed,” he ordered her as he sat up and reached for his own dressing gown lying in a crimson silk pile at the foot of the massive bed. Charles lingered over them, not watching as the young girl slipped from the covers, plucked up her dress, petticoat and shoes and disappeared silently through a small door beside the fireplace hearth.

“All of those years to see her married to someone proper, and it is over in three months’ time?” Henry sighed, heading for the velvet-covered closed stool beside the bed and urinating into it as if there was no one else in the room.

“I am not certain she is safe there now, though. The dauphin—now King Francois—has a reputation and it was no secret when I was there that he had designs on Mary.”

“Mistress to the King of France was not exactly what I had in mind next for her.”

His grooms approached with a selection of ensembles for him to consider. He nodded at a blue velvet with gold slashes, and the others were swiftly withdrawn as a cup of wine was brought on a silver tray.

“Nor is that Mary’s desire, I think I am safe in saying,”

Charles said, and Henry shot him a glance. “I mean only that he is an arrogant sort and the queen is far too proud to serve anyone as a convenience.”

“Yes, that would be my sister.”

“A delegation should go to France for the funeral.”

Henry smiled, then sipped his wine. “And to support her in her grief?”

“She should be supported, even if it was never a love match.”

“Of course. She will be vulnerable now no matter what, as Katherine was here after Arthur died, and there should be someone there to look out for her just now.” The dresser silently drew a pair of gold-colored hose up over Henry’s muscled legs and a thin linen shirt over his chest. “You are rather fond of Mary, are you not, Charles?”

“I have known her since we were children. She is like a sister to me.”

Charles stood still, betraying nothing as Henry seemed suddenly to study his expression and, quite likely, his sincerity. “You have been there before. You know the various players. If Mary is in any sort of danger now I would trust you to assess it for me.”

He had said the word “trust” with more than a little insinuation. A warning, yet unspoken.

“I feel her loss too, Charles. Her light, that sparkle here at my court is sorely missed. By everyone, me especially.”

“You do not write to her often.”

He sighed. “It would be difficult for me with her life there now, as Margaret’s is in Scotland. I knew I needed to let them go, both to their destinies, and not soften about that.”

“Go to France with me, Harry. See her.”

“I could not, without a grand undertaking, an entourage as big as my army and months of planning. For what it would cost England to present myself to my new brother, I could finance a war,” he chuckled, amusing himself suddenly. But Charles heard the note of regret in his voice as well. “No. You go to France for me, Charles. You will make certain our Mary is safe. You will handle things there exactly as I would. Whatever you do, however, you must not antagonize Francois. We are too in need of the French alliance, no matter how arrogant he is, or how he might bait you.”

“He may be powerful, but you are the only sovereign who has power over me.”

“He has our Mary, though, until negotiations for her return and the remittance of her dowry can be finalized. We must not forget that. I have heard how that young wolf covets all the beauties at his court, especially since there is no one there any longer powerful enough to object. No doubt you will seem a white knight to her now that Louis is dead and she no longer has his protection.”

“I will do nothing to disappoint Your Highness.”

“You have changed and matured a great deal, Charles, since those wild days with Margaret Mortimer,” Henry declared on a sly smile, yet with a gaze full of commitment, friendship and the many shared years between them. “I trust no other so much as you.”

After Charles had bowed and gone, Henry called for Wolsey, who entered the king’s apartments in a swirl of scarlet cassock and cap. A heavy gold pectoral cross hung from a gold chain at his chest as he stood before the king. Henry turned back from the fireplace hearth and looked at him. “Have you heard everything?”

“Indeed, sire.”

“And do you concur with the thinking, or has he a personal reason to go to France?”

“I do not believe the new king will let our Mary leave, even if she is not pregnant, but especially if she is,” Wolsey said. “She is too valuable a bargaining chip now. I am told that he would happily marry her to the noble Claude de Lorraine so that he may keep her there at the French court for himself.”

“So Brandon told no lie in that.”

“Not from what my sources say, sire. And if she
is
pregnant, by some chance, she could be in grave danger. Francois will not want competition for his highly coveted crown now that he has already had his first taste of life as king.” They both knew that her child, if it were a boy, would supercede Francois automatically in the line of succession. Unless some untimely accident prevented his birth.

“Then I am right to send Charles to see that she is safe, and perhaps even to bring her back if he can. The Prince of Castile had wished to renew his suit in the event of Louis’ death. Perhaps, considering our options, that would be a good match after all.”

“Did Your Highness not promise your sister the freedom to select her own next husband?”

“I would have said anything to get her on that ship, Wolsey, you know that. Besides, I am king. Obviously I can decide something like that far better than a woman! The Prince of Castile was a sound choice for her then and he would be an even better choice for her now. I want you to write a letter to Mary. She will take it better, coming from you, and I know you have the greatest ability to be judicious.”

He nodded. “As you wish, sire.”

“Tell her that she is to do nothing impetuous, and that she must take great care with my French brother. I do not trust Francois, but he is the king, and at the moment, we need his alliance.”

Dear as their friendship was, they both had known Charles Brandon for a long time. No one, Henry thought privately, changed that much when they had led the wily, self-indulgent youth that Brandon had. It was better to let Wolsey handle this. He trusted the cleric completely in all things.

An hour later, Wolsey stood before two of his friars, who had been summoned to his apartments. “You are to personally deliver the king’s letter to his sister, the Queen of France.

And then you are to speak privately with Her Majesty. Warn her. Tell her that King Henry seeks to arrange her marriage to the emperor’s grandson after all.”

To be forewarned is to be forearmed in any good war,
he thought. But he did not tell the friars that.

Eighty-two days and nights of wishing Louis XII did not even exist, so that she could return to England, and to Brandon’s powerful, reassuring arms. Now Louis was dead. Mary, who was called La Reine Blanche already, stood alone in stark white robes, a black cap and veil, gazing at his waxen body lying in state, in the great hall at Les Tournelles. Ringed around his bier were monks softly chanting low monotonous requiem prayers. Louis had been garbed in a crimson velvet robe, crown and gold scepter across his still chest. She saw his pride, even in death.
If only you had known me when I was younger,
he had so often said. Her eyes were filled with tears for a man who had made an unlikely friend in a marriage that had lasted such a short time.

“You mourn as if you actually cared for him,” Louise de Savoy imperiously remarked as she came up beside Mary in the irritatingly stealthy manner her son always used. “Lovely show.”

Mary shot her an angry stare as a throng of mourners and eager spectators was kept at bay, huddled silently back a distance near the door.

“You have no idea what I felt for His Majesty.”

“True.” She gave a small shrug standing in a sweeping black dress, edged extravagantly with satin and pearls. “I am rather good with my imagination. And I still cannot envision any sort of true, shall we say, receptivity toward an old man as he was, from you.”

“Ah, of course. You are afraid I am pregnant with the king’s child,” Mary exclaimed. “That would ruin everything for you. Now, when you lasted through his former two queens.”

“Unless you are very certain Louis was capable of a miracle, I would advise you to contain Your Majesty’s insolence with me.” Louise’s expression went very tight just then, anger seething from every part of it. “After all, after your period of mourning, if you are not very clearly pregnant by the king, it shall be my son, not yours, who shall be formally crowned King of France, and you shall be useless once more, a dowager without children.” She fingered the large ruby suspended from a gold chain at her throat. “An ugly word, ‘dowager.’ ”

Louise de Savoy repeated it with more emphasis and a slightly wrinkled nose, as if she had tasted something sour. “Speak the truth,
ma fille
. If there is a chance you were made pregnant—perhaps not with Louis’ child—then with some bastard you mean to hold up as—”

“Cease this, I bid you!” Claude cried out, her skin gray now and etched with sorrow, her voice echoing across the silent chasm.

Mary touched Claude’s shoulder in response. She did not believe she was pregnant by the king. From the time of her last courses, Louis had been unable to fully do his duty to her in a way that would make that likely. Neither, in his brief time in France, did she think it probable that she could be carrying Charles’s child. Even so, she knew when it came to that, that nothing was entirely impossible, and she must remain cautious.

Gazing into the face of such an embittered woman as Louise de Savoy, whose ambition had aged her well before her time, announcing a pregnancy from either man who would still unseat her son might almost have been worth the undertaking of such a ruse.

For the moment, though, Mary would not protest too much. Not until she knew for certain whether she carried either man’s child.