A Love Most Dangerous (4 page)

At that moment the door to my chamber opened. I turned
immediately, thinking it would be Susan or Mary. Instead I saw Sir Richard
Rich.

He was framed in the doorway, a cold and knowing look
upon his face. Slowly and with utmost deliberation he stepped into my room and
closed the door behind him.

'What do you think you are doing?' I cried. 'I have
not asked you into my chamber. You must leave immediately.'

He did not answer but his eyes roamed from my face to
my breast. I gasped. I remembered that I had removed my outer garment and was
in my under-gown. He examined my body and his eyes grew big with appetite.

'You must leave,' I repeated. 'You have no business
here.'

'Don't I?' he said quietly. 'I think I do, Alice
Petherton.'

He smiled and leaned against the table. 'And I think
that your state of undress signifies you were expecting me.'

'How dare you?' I cried. My heart began to race and I
felt my face flush red.

He chuckled. 'I can see a blush upon your face, dear Alice. A maidenly blush. That's very appealing, very seductive.' He gazed upon my breast. 'And see
how your breast heaves,' he said. 'You must desire me every bit as much as I
desire you.'

'Get out,' I cried. I could feel the tears begin to
well in my eyes. 'Get out before I scream.'

He shook his head and as he did so a thunder-clap
sounded and the storm began to hammer upon the ground. 'No one will hear you,'
he said. 'Although a few squeals and gasps from you will season the meal for
me.'

He opened his hand and placed a thin coil of leather
upon the table. I stared at it, my eyes wide.

'This serves two purposes,' he said, picking it up and
part uncoiling it. 'I can use it to tie up your hands. Or I can use it to lash
you. I am happy to do either. I would prefer to do both.'

I tried to answer but no words came.

He leapt towards me, the leather rope swinging in his
hand. He wrapped it swiftly around my wrists and flung me back upon the bed.
Then he lunged and ripped open my blouse.

'Beautiful,' he said. 'Just as I expected.' Then he
bent his head and began to suck upon my nipple.

I cried aloud in terror and in shame. I heard him
chuckle as I did so and he pressed his weight upon me. His hand grappled with
my skirts and I felt him tugging at my under-clothes, pulling them down to
reveal my thighs.

'I'll break your maiden-head, Alice,' he said. 'There's nothing better for a man than to hear the squeal of pain and feel the rush
of blood.'

I gasped and shook my head.

He lifted his head and forced his mouth upon mine, his
tongue forcing itself between my lips. I almost bit down upon it but stopped
myself. A better idea came to me.

I forced my head back and stared into his cold, dead
eyes.

'The leather lash,' I breathed. 'Do you reserve that
only for the worst of girls?'

He frowned.

'It seems a waste to have it round my wrists,' I said.
'I thought you said it had another use.'

I smiled like a wanton and licked my lips slowly as if
they were cream.

'I did,' he answered with a voice as thick and cloying
as mud. 'I could whip you with it.'

'I will not cry out,' I said, with a challenging look.
'I will not cry out until your arm is aching.'

He gasped and swiftly undid the leash. I stared into
his eyes and gave a little gasp of pleasure before half turning my rear towards
him.

'Uncover me,' I commanded.

He scrabbled for my drawers and as he did so I reached
up to the window sill and grabbed my  embroidery bodkin. I plunged it into his
neck with all my force, drawing blood.

He cried out and I plunged it in once more.

'You bitch,' he cried.

I held the bodkin against his eye. And then I pressed.

'I've stabbed you twice already,' I said. 'Don't think
I won't stick it in your eye.'

He gulped and pulled back, slipping to the floor as he
struggled off the bed.

'You filthy little whore,' he snarled. 'All summer
long you've been teasing me, acting like a trollop. And now I come into your
chamber and find you half undressed and lustful for me.' He spat on my arm.
'And then you get frightened like a tiny child and threaten me with bodkins.'

His hand went to his neck and came away crimson with
blood.

'You have made a big mistake today, Alice Petherton,'
he said. 'The biggest mistake of your young life.'

He retreated from my chamber. I collapsed on my bed in
tears. I had made an enemy of the second most hated man in the Kingdom. Where
on earth could I find protection from such a man? Who in the Kingdom was
powerful enough?

And then I realised.

CHAPTER FOUR

The King of England

19 September 1537

It was the third week in September but the weather
continued unseasonably warm. King Henry had been walking in the garden with
some gentleman attendants but must have wished for some solitude for he
gestured them to move some distance from him. He walked over to a bower of
roses which were now shrivelling on the branch. The autumn winds blew fallen
petals about his feet, hither and thither, skittish as a filly.

I opened up my book of verse and strolled across the
lawn, reading from the book as I walked.

The King had some small acquaintance of me although he
had only spoken to me once, on Mayday. He wished me good day. I did him a
curtsy and made to walk on.

'You have a book, Alice Petherton,' he called. 'Is
this for decoration or education?'

I curtsied once more and glanced up at him before
looking at the ground demurely.

'For education, Your Majesty,' I said in a low voice.
'I seek to improve myself.'

Out of the corner of my eye I saw his eyes slide from
the book to my breasts and then to my hair.

'Don't bend your head to the ground, child,' he said.
'Your King will not harm you by his gaze.'

I took a breath and raised my head. The newly risen
sun illuminated the lower part of my face but my eyes remained in shadow.

I saw his chest move, as if a wind of passion was
surging within. He held out his hand for the book.

'Poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt,' he said, perusing the
title. He flipped open the pages. 'Do you like the Sir Thomas's poems, Alice
Petherton?'

'I do Your Majesty. They are ably written.'

Henry's eyes narrowed and his head turned as if he
could not believe his ears. 'Ably written?' he said. 'A chit of a girl talks of
my foremost poet, a knight of the Kingdom, in such a manner?'

I curtsied again. 'I meant no disrespect,' I said.

'Perhaps what you mean and what you say are very
different matters, Alice Petherton?'

'They are not designed so, Your Majesty. It must be my
youthful ignorance.'

He said nothing but continued to stare at me. The sun
had risen higher now and dissolved the shadows which had hidden the top of my
face from his gaze.

'You have very dark eyes,' the King said. 'Very dark.
And yet your hair is blond and your complexion pale.'

'Many have remarked upon this, Majesty.'

'Your eyes are the colour of damsons,' he continued.
He gestured me closer, tilted my head and looked into my eyes. I felt the heat
of him beating down upon me, or perhaps it was my own heat, gusting like a wind
in summer.

'Yes, very like damsons,' he murmured. 'Dark eyes are
hard to read, don't you think, Alice Petherton?'

'Not as hard as the poems of the Sir Thomas Wyatt,
Your Majesty.'

He looked at me again, a quizzical look upon his face.
I saw his emotions battling, his thoughts flying. Then he tilted back his head
and laughed. It was a pleasant laugh, not loud, not soft; as natural a laugh as
a King could make. Yet as he laughed his eyes locked fast upon me.

I smiled, a gentle smile, as if I smiled not at my own
words but at my lord's pleasure.

His laughter stopped. He stared at me as if had not
properly seen me until this moment.

When he spoke again his voice was changed, deeper and
cloying.

'I would know you better, Alice Petherton,' he said.
'I would read poems with you.'

'I am at Your Majesty's pleasure,' I said, giving
another curtsy. But as I did so I made sure that my eyes never left his face.

Despite his words I was not summoned by the King for
eleven days, until the last day of September. I counted them off with care. The
warm weather had waned and an autumn chill crept across the Palace. I began to
think he had forgotten our meeting and pondered how best to arrange a second
one.

No good ideas came to me and I did not want to tarry
in halls and chambers like some love-sick maiden anxious to meet her beloved. I
cudgelled my brain for ways in which to meet him, to no avail. Then, one
evening, when a fierce wind rattled the windows and a storm could be seen
growing in the west, a Pageboy appeared in the maid's chamber.

There were half a dozen of us in the room. Her
favourites were not here as Seymour had summoned them to her bed-chamber. Her
time was near and she would not rise again until she had given issue. I was not
one of her favourites.

I fiddled with an embroidery, a scene of hounds and
hares as I recall, but I could not focus my attention on it. My thoughts were
far away, veering between the memory of my meeting with the King and the plight
of the Queen in her chamber. I did not care for Jane Seymour as I loved Anne
Boleyn but as I had some sympathy for what she was going through.

The Page was young, perhaps thirteen or so, but that
did not prevent the women in the room casting appraising eyes upon him.
Thirteen year old boys became fourteen and fifteen. They grew at a prodigious
rate.

'Where can I find Alice Petherton?' he asked. His
voice was still that of a boy although I could detect the cracks in it.

I lifted my head. 'I am Alice Petherton.'

'You are requested by the King,' the Page said. 'He
awaits you in the King's Study.'

He stood back, his duty done, a little embarrassed, a
little uncomfortable. A buzz arose in the room, the sound that bees might make
when their hive is being robbed.

I feigned more surprise than I felt although, in
truth, I had all but given up on ever getting such a summons.

'His Majesty requires that you bring the book of poems
with you,' the Page said.

This request, unusual and easily doubted, set the hive
buzzing again.

'Tell His Majesty that I must fetch it from my
bed-chamber,' I said. 'Pray ask that he forgives me for the slight delay.'

The boy swayed from side to side, uncertain what to
do.

'Well hurry,' I said. 'If I must keep him waiting it
were best you did not as well.'

The boy blushed, cast a quick look at the ladies in
the room and raced away.

The buzz became laughter, the yelping of hounds in a
kennel.

'I bid you good-night, dear friends,' I said with a
bow.

'Read sweetly, dear Alice,' said Susan. 'Be careful
not to make any mistakes.'

I gazed at her. She gave nothing away by her look but
I knew that she was giving me honest advice.

I hurried to my chamber and found the book of poems.
My hand was shaking as I poured a jug of water into a basin. I dabbed a cloth
in it and wiped my face. Then, thinking more clearly, I slipped my garments off
and swiftly washed my body. I caught up a mix of herbs and spice and chewed
upon them ferociously before spitting them out into the basin. Above all my
breath must smell fresh and pure.

CHAPTER FIVE

Not love but Verse

I hurried along the corridors of the Palace.

It was growing dark, the sun had just set and the
threatening storm was painting the sky a morbid grey. It was not yet twilight
but that time of risk and promise was close. Rush lights and candles had been
lit by the unseen hands of servants and they flickered in the draught. Strange,
I thought, they give less light now than when the night has settled fully. In
the half light they flickered sickly like Will o' the Wisps beguiling unwary
travellers to their doom.

Even though I had never been near to it I knew how to
find the King's Study. Hampton Court Palace was vast and many people got lost
within it, even some who had lived here for a while. But I had made a map of
the Palace in my head, plotting its warren of chambers and halls and corridors.

My bedroom was on the top floor overlooking the Lower Court. To get to the King's Study was a long walk; down several stair-cases, along the
corridor next to the Kitchens, through the Great Hall and past the Watching
Chamber where the King's Guards were quartered. I walked as fast as I could,
determined to keep the King waiting for as little time as possible.