Oxford Shadows (19 page)

Or perhaps it was Satan.

Or perhaps it was
her
, that beautiful Florentine whose innocence he had stolen. Her memory haunted him.

Anne knelt upright and Henry was close enough to hear her last prayer. “To Jesus Christ I commend my soul.” Then, “Lord Jesus receive my soul,” she repeated without faltering.

Most of his council stared at her last show of faith. Cromwell, Brandon, even Henry’s own son, Fitzroy. They did not seem affected by her tragic beauty. Why would they be? His order had been clear. Henry was not the one holding the hatchet today, but he was the one who had sought her execution with a fervent fever.

Anne’s ladies removed her headdress and necklaces, then blindfolded her. He noticed that the executioner was shaking, probably impressed by her dignity and faith. However, the man did not fail in the grim task that had been assigned to him. With a single stroke, he severed her head.

Blood splattered over the people standing at the foot of the platform. Henry was spared but felt drenched nevertheless. Anne’s blood was on his conscience, if he still had one. He stared down at his trembling hands. Guilt fell over him like a stained, filthy drape. It was not the first time such an emotion had overpowered him. Three years ago he had felt it for the first time, when he had been told about her death. Liliana’s death.

He had never recovered from the news. Not because he still loved her. There had been so many women after her. There had been his beautiful Anne. No, it was not grief and sorrow that had taken possession of his soul. It was guilt, and since then he had not been master of his own destiny.

His father introducing Rupert to the owner of one of Britain’s largest media groups wasn’t what Rupert had expected from this “chat” with Hugo. He knew he should cut his father some slack for showing support for Rupert’s fledgling career in journalism. Still, Rupert wanted to make it on his own, without his family’s name as a trampoline.

He didn’t rejoin the party but instead stepped outside to look for Madison. His fingers itched for the thin paper of a cigarette. Nicotine withdrawal was the only downside of his relationship with Madison. He had promised to respect the smoking ban. A promise was a promise. And to Madison a promise was sacred.

She was moving in with him. Maybe not totally full time, but he would have her next to him most mornings. The fact that he had just turned twenty-two could have made the moving-in-with-your-girlfriend plan freak him out. But it hadn’t. What he had with Madison was so gut-wrenchingly good, Rupert knew he could only give it his all.

He scanned the grounds immediately around Magway. Between the burning torches and the party lights, he had a clear view. Madison was nowhere to be seen. Concern settled in the pit of his stomach. His feet moved more quickly when he headed toward the lake and the woods beyond. He knew she had wanted to visit that part of the park ever since her first trip to Magway. Hopefully she hadn’t chosen this evening for a walk there. On her own.

In the near distance, he heard a splash. A few seconds passed.

A male voice echoed through the night. “Help!”

Rupert rushed toward the lake and the jetty. A man was running toward its edge while removing his dinner jacket. Rupert accelerated, fear now squeezing his heart tight. He caught up with the man, who he recognized right away. Albert Ballantyne.

“I saw her running blindly. She must have tumbled over her dress. Or something.” Ballantyne’s voice was strangled with worry while he scanned the surface of the water.

Rupert had already dropped his dinner jacket and cast away his shoes. “Who?”

“Madison … your girlfriend.”

Rupert dived in straight away. The frozen slap to his body punched his breath away. A gulp of air exploded out of his mouth when he made it back to the surface. That and a loud “Oh!”

“To your right. Three o’clock.” Ballantyne pointed at a floating form.

The sound of water splashing confirmed the presence of someone alive. Rupert crawled toward it. His hand grasped at a slithery form and he pulled it toward him. The reaction was a cry and limbs struggling in all directions. A knee met his groin and he groaned in pain.

“Madison, Madison, it’s me.” He pulled her body against his. “Don’t fight. I’m taking you out.”

Rupert jerked backward so that Madison could lie on him. His arm circled her upper chest and slid underneath her armpits. With his free arm and legs he started to propel their bodies toward the shore. When his feet finally touched the ground, he lifted Madison with both his arms and started walking up the shore. The effort of the swim in the frozen lake had him panting when he finally reached Ballantyne, who was waiting at the edge of the water.

“Lie her on my jacket and I’ll put yours on top of her,” the man said, his quavering voice hardly hiding his relief at seeing Madison.

Although Rupert wanted to collapse on the muddy ground, he kneeled so that Madison landed gently on Albert’s jacket. The material of her evening gown stuck to her flaccid skin like a shroud. In the silver moonlight, she had never looked so pale. Rupert shivered, not out of cold but out of raw fear.

He started applying pressure on her sternum, remembering a vague notion of first aid. He didn’t know how much strength he should apply to her ribcage. The bones felt so fragile against his palms. But it paid off.

Madison started coughing and he slid his hand underneath her neck to sit her up. Water erupted from her mouth. Almost immediately, she started shaking. Rupert brushed the hair off her face and kissed her frozen lips. They felt like ice. Albert wrapped Rupert’s dinner jacket around her shoulders. She sent him a vacant stare.

“Put your hands around my neck,” Rupert said. “I’m taking you back inside.” Then to Albert, “Call an ambulance.”

“No!”
Madison shouted. “No, just take me to your room. I’m fine.”

“No way. I want a doctor to look at you.”

Madison grabbed Rupert’s wrist with unexpected force. “It was Henry’s fault.” Her voice pounded. “Take me to your room. I’m fine. Just take me away from here.”

Her clenched jaw told him there was no point arguing.

For now.

26

MADISON MANAGED to sit straight on the cushioned deck chair overlooking Magway’s gardens. The spring light radiated over the manicured grounds. She could feel no physical repercussions from last night’s near-death experience in the lake. Only bone-deep fatigue.

Her stunt as a real-life Ophelia had been her second unsuccessful go at cutting her life short, and both times had been at Magway. Rupert had saved her again, like he had when Peter had convinced her to do the big jump from the top of the staircase.

“I’ve added a bit of milk, just the way you like it.”

Rupert laid the cup of tea and saucer on the round table in front of Madison. He pulled up the woolen blanket to wrap her more tightly. “I still think you should stay inside, or better, in our bed.”

From the second Rupert had taken hold of her frozen body in the lake, he had not let her go. He’d rushed her back to their room—going through a side door to avoid attracting attention—undressed her and stepped under the scalding hot water of the shower with her. His own clothes must have been just as freezing, but he hadn’t seemed to care. Instead he had kept massaging her skin, her arms, her legs. Slowly the blood had started to pump again through her veins. When he had wrapped her in the thick softness of the towels and dried her hair, she had finally managed to control the shivering.

He had laid her on his bed, removed his own clothes and snuggled next to her for the rest of the night, sharing his own body’s warmth, caressing her hair, kissing her neck and murmuring soft words to chase the nightmares away.

Madison wouldn’t have expected Rupert to have it in him: the nursing and careful parenting. Now her gaze dived into his while he kneeled at her feet. Her love for him filled every cold recess in her body and soul.

But Madison couldn’t let go. She couldn’t procrastinate or postpone. Not anymore. They had to break the news to Camilla. They had to make her aware of the danger lurking under her own roof.

“We need to talk to Camilla before she returns to London,” she said. “You promised me.”

“Let’s try and better understand what happened last night. Maybe we should …”

He stood and walked away from her. His back turned to her, he leaned over the railings that enclosed Magway’s terrace.

“What should we do?” She didn’t want her question to sound like an accusation, but didn’t he understand that Camilla and the baby were next on the firing line? “You still don’t believe me”. She swallowed a sob and felt as though she was strangling with pent-up frustration.

Rupert rushed back to her feet, his hands over hers. “I
do
believe you, Madison, but to most people—and that includes Camilla—it’ll sound like utter rubbish. I know you’re dealing with real threats. But I’m selfish …” He buried his face in her knees and left his train of thought unfinished.

“Why are you selfish?”

His head jolted upward and his eyes glistened. “I want to take you away from all this. I don’t want anything to happen to you, even if it means … God!” His hands covered his face.

“Even if it means what?” She prompted him again.

Slowly his hands slid down his face. She noticed the sudden paleness in his complexion. His voice sounded broken as he finished his sentence: “Even if it means someone else must die.”

His confession took her aback, and she jerked against the cushioned back of her chair. Rupert was afraid for her, but that couldn’t justify letting Camilla and the baby die.

“Even if a baby must die?”

Rupert shook his head slowly in defeat. “That’s why I know we have no choice. I can’t help pushing it as far away as I can.”

Madison wanted to sweep away his fears, tell him she wasn’t in danger. But that was simply not true. There had already been enough omissions and half-truths in their relationship. And she was guilty as charged for that. She couldn’t add another one. Instead she laid her hand on his hair and slowly caressed it. She leaned forward, kissed his lips, and felt them tremble under hers. Rupert wasn’t a coward; true courage was embedded in his bones. But he had already lost the only other woman he had loved. In the bend of a Cotswolds’ road.

“We can fight this time around.” Madison put as much conviction in her words as she could.

Rupert cocked his eyebrow, clearly not understanding, so she explained.

“What happened to your mom, it was bad luck: the rain, the night … it happened. But I can fight for my life, for Camilla and the baby. I know who I’m up against. We need to focus on Henry, on what needs to be done.”

“But how can you—”

“Henry must be destroyed.” She dreaded the effect of her next words. “We have to warn Camilla against your father.”

Rupert recoiled and stood up straight. “What are you talking about?” His mouth slackened in shock, and he dropped his hands by his side.

“When I fell in the lake, I was out of it for a few seconds. I relived something, a special moment in time. I was Henry.” Rupert flinched but said nothing. She took his silence for a prompt to explain. “He was hidden in the crowd, around the Tower of London. Anne Boleyn was on the scaffold. I witnessed her beheading.”

“What does this have to do with my family?”

“I believe that Camilla is Anne Boleyn, and that your father … your father is linked to her and Henry.” Madison almost choked on the next words, her fear of hurting Rupert constricting her throat. “He
is
Henry.”

“But what does it have to do with that Liliana girl and the song ‘Greensleeves?’”

“Liliana tried to warn me last night not to stand in Henry’s way. She was trying to protect me because he betrayed her. I know. I know she’s the one who wrote the lyrics to ‘Greensleeves’ to show her love for Henry. But Jackson also told me that the melody was used by Henry to court Anne. ‘Greensleeves’ is the symbol of Henry’s betrayal.”

“What you’re saying is that my father is about to do to Camilla what Henry did to Anne Boleyn.”

Madison checked their surroundings. If a member of staff overheard their conversation, there would be nothing they could do for Camilla because, for sure, Madison and Rupert would be locked in a mental house for the rest of their days.

“I think he was the one driving the car that tried to kill Camilla outside Christ Church.”

“A hit and run? That doesn’t feel very ghostly to me,” Rupert said with a snarl that made Madison flinch. “But like the staircase incident in London, we’re still speculating. It’s not like someone pointed a gun at her and fired or something that concrete.”

Silence settled in the gaping space between them. But Rupert wanted to know more.

“Why would my father want to hurt Camilla? He loves her … as much as he can love anybody.”

“In my vision last night, I could feel what Henry felt. Guilt was in all his thoughts, guilt over what he did to Liliana. She died, probably because she couldn’t live with the knowledge of Henry’s betrayal when he married Anne.”

“So he went to kill his wives? Just because he felt
guilty
?”