"But why should she say it if it is not so?" Henry demanded.
"To rid herself of her husband!" Anne snapped.
"But why choose that lie, rather than another? Why not say he was married to Mary here? If she had his poems too?"
"I expect she will," I said wildly, hoping to delay the explosion from Anne. But her temper was rising up in her and she could not stop it. She pulled her hand from the crook of his arm.
"What are you suggesting?" she demanded. "What are you saying of me? Are you calling me unchaste? When I stand here and swear to you that I have never, ever looked at another man? And now you-of all people in the world-accuse me of being pre-contracted! You! Who sought me out and courted me with another wife still living? Which of us is the more likely to be a bigamist, think you? A man with a wife tucked away in a beautiful house in Hertfordshire, fawned on by her own court, visited by everyone, a queen in exile, or the girl who once had a poem written to her?"
"My marriage is invalid!" Henry shouted back at her. "As every cardinal in Rome knows!"
"But it took place! As every man, woman and child in London knows. You spent enough money on it, G.o.d knows. You were merry enough about it then! But nothing took place for me, no promises were made, no rings were given, nothing nothing nothing! And you torment me with this nothing."
"Before G.o.d!" he swore. "Will you listen to me?"
"No!" she screamed, quite beyond control. "For you are a fool and I am in love with a fool and the more fool me. I will not listen to you but you will listen to every spiteful worm that would spit poison in your ear!"
"Anne!"
"No!" she cried and flung herself away from him.
In two swift strides he was after her and had caught her to him. She lashed out at him and hit him on the padded shoulders of his jacket. Half the court flinched to see the monarch of England a.s.saulted, no one knew what to do. Henry grabbed her hands and slammed them behind her back, holding her so that her face was as close to him as if they were making love, her body pressed to his, his mouth close enough to bite or to kiss. I saw the look of avid l.u.s.t that spread over him the moment he had her close.
"Anne," he said again in a quite different voice.
"No," she repeated, but she was smiling.
"Anne."
She closed her eyes and tipped back her head and let him kiss her eyes and her lips. "Yes," she whispered.
"Good G.o.d," George said in my ear. "Is this how she plays him?"
I nodded as she turned in his arms and they walked together, hip to hip, his arm around her shoulders, her arm around his waist. They looked as if they wished they were walking to the bedroom instead of walking by the river. Their faces were alight with desire and satisfaction, as if the quarrel had been a storm like the storm of lovemaking.
"Always the rage and then the making up?"
"Yes," I said. "It is instead of the rage of making love, don"t you think? They both get to shout and cry and then end up quietly in each other"s arms."
"He must adore her," George said. "She flies at him and then she nestles. My G.o.d, I"ve never seen it so clearly. She is a pa.s.sionate wh.o.r.e, isn"t she? I"m her brother and I"d have her now. She could drive a man crazed."
I nodded. "She always gives in; but always at least two minutes too late. She always pushes it to the very limit and beyond."
"It"s a d.a.m.ned dangerous game to play with a king who has absolute power."
"What else can she do?" I asked him. "She has to hold him somehow. She has to be a castle that he besieges over and over again. She has to keep the excitement up somehow."
George slipped my hand into his arm and we followed the royal couple along the path. "And what of the Countess of Northumberland?" he asked. "She"ll never get her annulment on the grounds that Henry Percy was pre-contracted to Anne?"
"She might as well wait to be widowed," I said crudely. "We can"t let any slur be attached to Anne. The Countess will be married forever to a man who has always been in love with someone else. She"d have done better to never be a countess at all but to marry a man who loved her."
"Are you all for love these days?" George asked. "Is this the advice of the n.o.body?"
I laughed as if I did not care. "The n.o.body has gone," I said. "And good riddance. The n.o.body meant nothing, as I should have foreseen."
Summer 1532 THE n.o.bODY, WILLIAM STAFFORD, CAME BACK TO MY UNCLE"S service in June. He came to find me to tell me that he was back at court and that he would escort me to Hever when I was ready to leave. service in June. He came to find me to tell me that he was back at court and that he would escort me to Hever when I was ready to leave.
"I have already asked Sir Richard Brent to ride with me," I said coldly.
I had the pleasure of seeing him look taken aback. "I thought you might allow me to stay and take the children out riding."
"How kind of you," I said icily. "Perhaps next summer." I turned and walked away from him before he could think of anything to say to keep me. I felt his gaze on my back and felt that I had repaid him in some measure for flirting with me and treating me like a fool while all along he was planning to marry someone else.
Sir Richard stayed only a few days, which was a relief to both of us. He did not like me in the country where I was distracted by my children and interested in my tenants. He preferred me at court where I had nothing to do but flirt. To his half-hidden relief he was summoned back by the king to help to plan for a royal trip to France.
"I am desolated to have to leave you," he said, waiting for them to lead his horse round from the stables while we stood in the sunshine by the moat. The children dropped twigs into the water on one side of the drawbridge and were waiting for them to float through. I laughed while I watched them.
"That will take forever," I said. "It"s not a fast-flowing stream."
"William made us boats with a sail," Catherine said to me, not taking her eye off her twig. "They went whichever way the wind was blowing."
I turned my attention back to my desolate lover. "We will miss you, Sir Richard. Please give my regards to my sister."
"I shall tell her that the country suits you as green velvet wrapped around a diamond," he said.
"Thank you," I replied. "Do you know if the whole court is to go to France?"
"The n.o.blemen and the king and the Lady Anne and her ladies in waiting," he said. "And I have to arrange all the staging posts in England to be ready for such a progress."
"I"m sure they could trust the work to no more competent gentleman," I said. "For you brought me here with great comfort."
"I could take you back again," he offered.
I put my hand down to feel Henry"s warm cropped head. "I"ll stay here for a little longer," I said. "I like to be in the country for the summer."
I had not thought how I should get back to court, I was so happy with the children, so warmed by the sun of Hever, so much at peace in my little castle, under the skies of my home. But at the end of August I received a terse note from my father to tell me that George would come for me the next day.
We had a miserable supper. My children were pale and huge-eyed at the prospect of parting. I kissed them goodnight and then I sat by Catherine"s bed waiting for her to sleep. It took a long time. Catherine forced her eyes open, knowing that once she slept the night would come, and next day I would be gone; but after an hour, not even she could stay awake any longer.
I ordered my maids to pack my gowns and my things and see that they were loaded onto the big wagon. I ordered the steward to pack cider and beer that my father would welcome, and apples and other fruit that would be an elegant gift for the king. Anne had wanted some books and I went to pick them out of the library. One was in Latin and I took a long time puzzling out the t.i.tle to make sure that I had the right one. The other was a theology book in French. I put them carefully with my little jewel box. Then I went to bed and cried into my pillow because my summer with my children was cut short.
I was mounted and waiting for George with the wagon loaded and ready when I saw the column of men riding down the lane toward the drawbridge. Even at that distance I knew it was not George but him.
"William Stafford," I said, unsmiling. "I was expecting my brother."
"I won you," he said. He swept his hat from his head and beamed at me. "I played him at cards and won the right to come and fetch you back to Windsor Castle."
"Then my brother is forsworn," I said disapprovingly. "And I am not a chattel to be put on a gambling table of a common inn."
"It was a most uncommon inn," he said, needlessly provocative. "And after he lost you he lost a very handsome diamond and a dance with a pretty girl."
"I want to leave now," I said rudely.
He bowed, crammed his hat on his head and signaled to the men to turn. "We slept at Edenbridge last night so we are fresh for the journey," he said.
My horse fell into pace beside his. "Why didn"t you come here?"
"Too cold," he said shortly.
"Why, you have had one of the best rooms every time you have stayed here!"
"Not the castle. There"s nothing wrong with the castle."
I hesitated. "You mean me."
"Icy," he confirmed. "And I have no idea what I have done to offend you. One moment we were talking of the joys of country living and the next you are a flake of snow."
"I don"t have the least idea what you mean," I said.
"Brrr," he said and sent the column forward into a trot.
He kept up a punishing pace until it was midday and then he called a halt. He lifted me down from my horse and opened the gate into a field by a river. "I brought food for us to eat," he said. "Come and walk with me while they are getting it ready."
"I"m too tired to walk," I said unhelpfully.
"Come and sit then." He spread his cape on the ground in the shade of a tree.
I could not argue any more. I sat on his cape and I leaned back against the friendly roughness of the bark and looked at the sparkling river. A few ducks dabbled in the water near us, in the reeds at the far side was the furtive dodging of a pair of moorhen. He left me for a few moments and when he came back he was carrying two pewter mugs of small ale. He gave one to me and drew a gulp from his own.
"Now," he said, with every appearance of a man settling down to talk. "Now, Lady Carey. Please tell me what I have done to offend you."
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that he had not offended me at all, that since there was nothing between us from start to finish, nothing could be lost.
"Don"t," he said hastily, as if he could see all of this in my face. "I know I tease you, lady, but I never meant to distress you. I thought we were halfway to understanding each other."
"You were openly flirting with me," I said crossly.
"Not flirting, I"ve been courting you," he corrected me. "And if you object to that then I can do my best to stop, but I have to know why."
"Why did you leave court?" I asked abruptly.
"I went to see my father, I wanted to have the money he had promised me on marriage, and I wanted to buy a farm, in Ess.e.x. I told you all about it."
"And you are planning marriage?"
For a moment he scowled then all at once his face cleared. "Not with anyone else!" he cried out. "What did you think? With you! You cloth-head girl! With you! I"ve been in love with you from the moment I first saw you and I have racked my brains as to how I could find a place fit for you and make a home good enough for you. Then when I saw how you love it at Hever I thought that if I were to offer you a manor house, a pretty farm, you might consider it. You might consider me."
"My uncle said you were buying a house to marry a girl," I gasped.
"You!" he cried out again. "You"re the girl. Always you. Never anyone but you."
He turned to me and for a moment I thought that he would s.n.a.t.c.h me up to him. I put my hand out to fend him off and at that tiny gesture he at once checked. "No?" he asked.
"No," I said shakily.
"No kiss?" he said.
"Not one," I said, trying to smile.
"And no to the little farmhouse? It faces south and it nestles in the side of a hill. It"s got good land all around it, it"s a pretty building, half-timbered and a thatched roof, and stables in a courtyard round the back. A herb garden and an orchard and a stream at the bottom of the orchard. A paddock for your hunter and a field for your cows."
"No," I said, sounding more and more uncertain.
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because I am a Howard and a Boleyn and you are a n.o.body."
William Stafford did not flinch from my bluntness. "You would be a n.o.body too, if you married me," he said. "There"s a great comfort in it. Your sister is set to be queen. D"you think she will be happier than you?"
I shook my head. "I cannot escape who I am."
"And when are you happiest now?" he asked me, knowing the answer already. "In winter when you are at court? Or in summer when you are with the children at Hever?"
"We would not have the children at your farm," I said. "Anne would take them. She wouldn"t let the king"s son be brought up by two n.o.bodies in the middle of nowhere."
"Until she has a son of her own, and at that moment she"ll never want to see him again," he said shrewdly. "She"ll have other ladies in waiting, your family will find other Howard girls. Drop out from their world and you"ll be forgotten within three months. You can choose, my love. You don"t have to be the other Boleyn girl for all your life. You could be the absolutely one and only Mistress Stafford."
"I don"t know how to do things," I said feebly.
"Like what?"
"Make cheese. Skin chickens."
Slowly, as if he did not want to startle me, he knelt beside me. He took my unresisting hand and lifted it to his lips. He turned it over and opened up the fingers so that he could kiss the palm, the wrist, each fingertip. "I will teach you how to skin chickens," he said gently. "And we will be happy."