Authors: Katherine Longshore

Tags: #Historical Fiction

Tarnish (34 page)

He looks at me steadily. Doesn’t say a word. Waits a beat. He is a master of timing. I know it. He taught it to me.

I don’t want to wait for what he has to say for himself, what he thinks will make a difference between us. But I can’t move.

“I love you.”

My heart lurches forward as if reaching for him through my rib cage. I take a step back to prevent it from doing so. For once, the words that form of their own accord and spill from me without thought will not be uttered.

I shake my head.

Thomas closes the gap between us and kisses me. Hard. This is not wet and sloppy like his playful kisses. Or dry and desperate like Percy’s. Or teasing like the king’s.

No. This kiss is eloquent and alive and speaks directly to my soul. My heart ruptures, and the splinters freeze and tumble all around us with the musical sound of broken glass.

I place my hands on his chest, feeling the pulse of his heart beneath my fingertips.

And I push.

Thomas stumbles back, off-balance.

“Don’t,” I gasp.

I turn.

And run.

T
HE ENTIRE COURT TAKES ON A HUE OF UNREALITY: THE WOMEN
in their gaudy dresses with their strident voices and overly exaggerated gestures, the men with their dizzying doublets and straight, stuffy gaits. Everything is too clear, too sharp, the movements too jerky.

And it is all so suffocatingly close.

Everything within me pulls in different directions. It’s like I’m a piece of linen, washed, boiled, beaten, stretched. Everything happening at once, and everything fighting against itself, threatening to kill me by degrees.

He lied to me.

He loves me.

Mercifully alone, I writhe in my bed from the pain of it all, like some unmade creature shedding its skin. My life is nothing but a game. I am nothing but a single, low-ranked card. Played and spent. A . . . nothing.

I have been defined by others. By my father and his cold disappointment. By my brother and his wily manipulation. By France. By Thomas Wyatt.

Thomas built me in his image. I want to strip away the paint and gilt and discover what is underneath. If anything.

I slide from my bed and stand on shaky legs, a fawn newly born. A fledgling.

I kneel in my room and make a pledge to myself never again to let anyone tell me what to do. Anyone. Not my fiancé. Not my husband. Not my father or my brother. Not society. I will rule myself.

I pull out my book of hours, the book Mary gave me for Christmas. I am more like Mary than I ever thought possible, pleasing others at the expense of being myself. The book’s beautiful illuminations glow faintly in the candlelight. I turn the page to the miniature of the Last Judgment.

I will no longer be judged by the standards of others. I will judge myself. I will not live by someone else’s rules. I will make my own.

I pick up my quill and write
Le temps viendra
. The time will come.

I sit back on my heels.

“I am not nothing,” I say to the empty room. “And I refuse to be nothing. I will become someone, Thomas Wyatt. Without you. I will be more than you. You will not shape me. Because I have a shape of my own.”

I pick up the quill again, dip it in the ink. Hesitate. Then I bring it back to the paper.

Je—

I stop.

What am I? I cast my mind into the future. Seeking light. Enlightenment.

I sketch an astrolabe, a tool used predict the movement of the moon and stars. To predict the future. And I know. I want to be heard. I want to be seen. I want to be remembered. As me.

Anne Boleyn.

The ink seeps into the page. Permanent.

I am me.

I own me.

I will not be held to earth by someone else’s tether.

I will let go of the past.

And I will start with Thomas Wyatt.

I
CANNOT LIVE IN THE SAME HOUSE WITH HIM.
E
VEN ONE THE
size of Windsor Castle. I cannot bear to see him or hear his voice.

I cannot stand the treacherous, feeble thing within me that suffers from his presence. I have to make him go away.

So with a half-formed plan in mind, and a heart full of caustic bitterness, I go to the one person I know who has enough power and enough cunning to do it for me. A person who has no qualms about manipulating the lives of others.

“Father.”

Father doesn’t look up from his papers. As usual.

One day, I will escape his disappointment. I will find a way for him to respect me—a girl—even if it kills me.

“Father.”

“I know you’re there, Anne. Allow me to finish.”

One day, I will keep him waiting.

“Father.”

“Anne!” he barks. “You obviously do not realize how much work goes into being a diplomat during times of war. It actually requires effort. Not sitting around singing and playing cards like a maid-in-waiting. No, being an ambassador means I have to concentrate and write letters and make decisions. Something you wouldn’t understand because you simply follow your whims without regard to the consequences.”

He is right. I act and speak before thinking. But I do regard the consequences, because I have to live with them. And I know exactly what it means to be a diplomat in times of war. I am at war within the court itself. A war of attrition.

He throws his quill into the inkpot with a vicious thrust.

“Now. What requires my attention so badly? A new gown? The loss of a slipper? Lute strings?”

I glare at him, but he’s too busy shuffling papers to see me.

“All my family ever does is ask for more money,” he mutters.

“Father”—I manage to keep my voice calm—“I have no need for extra allowance.”

“That’s good because I have no extra to share. My family has depleted my treasury. All of my funds. I send money to your mother for gowns and baubles and gifts though it serves no purpose. I never see her. And you! I maintain two households so you can fritter away your time in the country. Your brother spends a fortune on women and wine and is nothing but a joke in the king’s service. Worthless. The way you all live is prodigal, even for court. Why, when I first married your mother, we lived on fifty pounds a year. A
year
. And she brought another mouth to feed every six months.”

His voice slows down over the course of this speech, and I see that he isn’t even thinking about what he’s saying, much less conscious of my presence in front of him.

“That’s physically impossible, Father.”

The words are out before I can stop them. I don’t care. I know for a fact there were two years between each of us, including the two baby boys memorialized in the churches at Hever and Penshurst.

“Nine, then.” He taps his index finger to a passage on the letter he’s reading, his focus fully occupied by it. He doesn’t listen even when I point out he’s a fool.

I see how I can turn his complaining into a weapon against him. I see the perfect opportunity to present my scheme to him, before the idea fully takes shape.

“Father, I’m concerned about your workload. I wondered if someone else might help carry that burden.”

“Are you thinking of becoming a diplomat?” he asks with a curl to his lip. He studies me slowly, taking in my long sleeves and my French hood, then cocks his head to the side with a knowing look. “You have to conform to be a diplomat. Blend in.”

“Thank you, Father, for thinking I’m capable enough that only my attire bars me from a post,” I say, trying to keep the ice from my voice. “It is not myself I wish to put forward, but a friend.” Not a friend. I cross my fingers against the lie.

“Oh?”

“Do you not think our old neighbor, Thomas Wyatt, would make a good diplomat? He definitely knows how to blend in. He speaks excellent French. Everyone likes him.” Except me.

Father looks at me. I cross the fingers of my other hand.

“You’re right, of course,” he says with a nod. “You always were a perceptive girl.”

A compliment. Fancy that.

“Thank you, Father.”

I offer a little curtsy.

“I shall mention it to the king.”

“You know Sir Henry Wyatt, as well. He can be very persuasive.” In a harsh, critical, demanding sort of way.

“I shall mention it to Sir Henry, as well,” Father says decisively, as if it is his idea. Simple.

“Thomas mentioned he always wanted to go abroad.”

I squeeze my fingers so tightly I stop the blood. Thomas loves England.

“Did he now?”

“And he admires you so.” I can’t feel my fingertips.

Father preens.

It is so simple. Which must be why I feel I am diving off a cliff. Simple—and dangerous.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Father says.

Father can be very persuasive as well. Thomas Wyatt is as good as gone.

And Thomas certainly won’t make Father’s life easier.

Two birds. One small stone. But the one time my father hears my words is the one time I wish I could take them back.

I turn to leave, certain that my father has forgotten about me entirely. But his voice cuts the air just as I start through the doorway.

“I know what you’re doing.”

I almost trip because I stop midstride.

“Seeking preferment for your lovers is commonplace at court, Anne,” he says. I don’t turn, but I can hear that he speaks to his papers. He doesn’t raise his head. “You just don’t want it to ruin you. It’s the best thing for you that Thomas Wyatt leave court. That he no longer drag your name through his own muck. That’s why I will do this, Anne. Not to lighten my workload.”

I don’t even attempt to tell him that Thomas is not my lover and never will be. My father believes what he will.

“Just don’t mourn his absence.” One last piece of fatherly advice.

“I won’t.” This lie is the hardest to tell.

Because I already am.