The Queen's Rival (33 page)

Henry took a moment to collect himself, his body still burning for want of her. He needed to control himself if he was going to even look at her again. He waited for his racing heart to slow and the heat of his desire to cool by a degree at least.

“That is just the point. In the past, I have cared nothing for a girl’s welfare. I was a bit of a reprobate, I suppose, in that regard.”

“You told me once that you did not take mistresses, and I believed you, you know.”

“I may be a king and a husband, but sadly I am also a man. They were lovers only, momentary dalliances, not mistresses, Bess. There is a distinct difference.”

“Is there?”

He thought about how he had slept with Anne, Lady Hastings, Jane, and Elizabeth, but how he had never had deep or lasting feelings for any of them. “Lovers satisfy the body, but with a mistress there is something more. She is acknowledged. Honored. Special. A part of his life, not just his bed.”

“Which one shall I be?” she asked, the full power of her bright blue eyes descending on him then and filling him with a mixture of desire and fear that in spite of his reserve he would come to care too much for her.

Bess turned onto her side, moving herself against his body, then running a hand along his smooth, beardless jaw.

“You are far more than a lover to me, Bess.”

“Then am I the mistress of Henry the Eighth, King of England?”

Something about her words undid him. Unable to hold himself back any longer for the raw chemistry between them, Henry drew her forcefully onto him, anchored her delicate face in his powerful hands, and opened her mouth with his powerful kiss. When he pulled away, he looked deeply into her eyes.

“It appears so,” Henry declared.

—CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES,
LANCELOT

 

W
hile the king was at the little country cottage tending to Bess, the queen was at Richmond Palace giving birth to another daughter. Katherine had dared to call the girl Isabella after her own powerful mother, in hope that the name might portend good things. She knew, even as she did, however, that it was futile. The child died within days.

Full of bitterness at his wife for continuing to withhold the one thing he needed most, Henry became more flagrant in parading his mistress before her as punishment. Some part of him, of course, knew it was cruel and wrong, but he felt incapable of stopping. He still needed a son; he must have an heir. England was dependent upon his securing the succession, or all that his father had battled for a generation earlier would be forever lost without it. But if God meant to go on punishing him for the sin of marrying his brother’s widow, Henry decided there was no point in avoiding pleasure—or in denying it.

When Katherine was well enough recovered to leave court for Windsor to mourn the loss of the child privately, Bess’s world quickly shifted. Not only did Henry call for her to be brought to his bedchamber every night after the court had retired, but each day she was directed to join him at everything from prayer to tennis to evening banquets as his companion. While he did not parade her before any of his foreign ambassadors or political dignitaries, there were few at the English court who did not fully understand her new place of prominence. The proof most noticeably was on the faces of the queen’s own ladies and maids, who had been left behind to attend Bess.

Bess recognized that now as she was dressed and ornamented for supper in the king’s privy chamber. She much preferred these evenings to the grander displays at banquets where not only were her every move and every sip of wine marked by courtiers, grooms, and pages alike, but by the local citizens who, stuffed raucously into the gallery above, were given the honor of viewing the event. On those occasions, she always felt like a trapped deer in a pen, observed, judged, even ridiculed. Still, she would have done anything for Henry, and she meant to keep him—to fascinate him and enchant him for as long as she could, even if she had to endure the endless scrutiny.

She regarded herself proudly, dressed now in a chestnut-colored brocade gown with long bell sleeves and an underskirt of gold tissue, as her own mother laid a heavy gold chain woven through with pearls across the square neckline. A stamped, gold medallion filled with jewels was suspended from it. Catherine Blount tried desperately to smile at her daughter standing before her in the shimmering lamplight, but the expression looked more like a grimace. In the reflection, Bess could see her mother willing herself to project an air of approval over a situation that, while financially and socially advantageous for the entire Blount family, could not ever end the way a mother felt it should for a beloved daughter. The king might smile upon his mistress for a moment in time, Catherine had long ago counseled her before sending her to court, and he might shower her with attention and riches; however, in the end, she would never be his wife. She would never be anything but a complication to him—and a concession to the man who came afterward. No matter, Bess thought. Her mother did not understand what was between them; no one did.

“It is a gift from the king,” Catherine whispered evenly in her daughter’s ear. “His Highness has directed you to wear it this evening.”

Bess saw the overwhelming hesitation on her mother’s face, now marked by more pronounced lines, and eyes less brilliant than they had once been. Behind her mother’s image in the looking glass, she could see Lady Hastings and Lady Fitzwalter standing together watching. Lady Hastings certainly could say nothing about Bess’s change in circumstance, since it had recently become widely known throughout the court that she, the married sister of the Duke of Buckingham, had been carrying on a torrid affair herself with the king’s Chief Gentleman of the Bedchamber, Sir William Compton.

Bess bit back a smile, remembering well the condescending sneers from the two sisters when she had first come to court, and several times since, as well as from maids of honor such as Anne Stanhope and Joan Champernowne. They certainly were not mocking her now, she thought as she saw their shocked expressions at the priceless jewel that had been placed across her chest. Now Bess was someone with whom to be cautious, if not to respect, for her ongoing intimacy with the king; she loved the advantage this turn of the tables at last had given her.

“Be careful, Daughter,” Catherine whispered as she looked again at Bess’s reflection in the mirror, and the expressions of the others around them. “But Father and I both know well what determination it takes to survive here at court, and we are proud of that, even if we are worried about your heart in this.”

Proud
. . . She tipped her chin up in response as her mother adjusted the little French cap on her head and the silk fall behind it. “My heart is full. You needn’t worry,” Bess sweetly replied.

Henry smiled brightly when she was shown into his presence chamber, already filled with his favorite courtiers. As she advanced, Bess was aware of their slightly more appreciative and welcoming expressions. Wolsey and Brandon were there, as were Sir Henry Guildford, Sir Edward Neville, and Elizabeth Carew’s father, Sir Thomas Bryan. The king’s most prized band of gallants, she thought with a smile as she nodded to each of them in turn. The great Duke of Buckingham, however, was not present, which seemed to Bess something of an indictment.

Nicholas and Elizabeth were noticeably absent as well. They had gone home to Beddington Park in Surrey. Bess was told by Gertrude Blount, her cousin, that the king had personally seen to their return home. He wanted nothing to upset her or remind her of that earlier indiscretion. Of her original friends, she still spoke with Gil, but the nature of their relationship had been altered, on her side, by his deception, and on his side, by her intimate relationship with the king. Still, she would have given anything to have him there with her. In spite of their smiles, the king’s friends were not her friends, and she knew it.

Henry embraced her, kissed her cheek, then wrapped his arm around her waist in a familiar fashion that surprised even Bess. No one there could have missed seeing it. By the gesture, he was making her status known among his circle of friends. Even Mary, the king’s sister, who came into the room late, acknowledged Bess with a solicitously polite smile.

A group of musicians began to play something light and appealing as silver dish after dish of aromatic, steaming delicacies was placed before them.

While Henry ate heartily beside her, Bess only picked at the delectable offerings. It was an odd sensation, having everyone staring, judging, paying attention to whether she ate or not. She still was not accustomed to it. She touched the coolly reassuring jewel at her throat and tried to remember the honor this was rather than giving in to her apprehensions.

As the king ate and conversed casually with the others, she glanced at the door when Thomas Boleyn drew forward in a velvet cape and plumed cap, accompanied by two young girls, each dressed with striking elegance in sweeping brocade dotted with pearls. They were pretty girls, dipping into practiced curtsies before the king. One was slightly older, with a fuller face, but possessed of beautiful blue eyes and a small, sweet mouth. The other was remarkably petite, but with a woman’s shape already, a flawless face, and haunting dark eyes. Bess had not seen either of them for a while, but she knew only too well who they were.

“Your Highness, as you requested, these are my daughters. May I present my younger, Anne,” he said of the smaller girl. “And this is my elder, Mary.”

With a quick sideways glance, Bess could see that Henry’s smile was broad and full of interest. She felt her throat constrict and her spine stiffen slightly.

“I would not have recognized either of you,” the king affably replied as he set down his heavy silver, jeweled goblet. Since their return from France, they had been at home at Hever Castle in Kent, and so he had not had them in his company. “You have grown into lovely young women. Your family has done well by you both.”

“Many thanks, Your Royal Highness,” they said in unison, each bobbing into little curtsies.

Bess felt her stomach churn. Henry was staring a little too admiringly for her taste at Mary, the elder Boleyn daughter, who was blushing like a child at the attention as Anne held back a strangely confident little smile.

“Were you able to speak to the queen or perhaps with Doña Elvira about an appointment before they left for Windsor?” Henry asked their father with interest.

“There was no time, I’m afraid, sire. Her Highness departed rather quickly after. . .” Boleyn let the words fall away. “Forgive me, sire.”

“No, no, we are all saddened by the latest turn of events here,” Henry replied magnanimously, with a little wave. “So then, Mary, is it?”

“It is, Your Highness.” She was still smiling; still blushing.

“Can you sew?”

“I can, sire. Tolerably well, I am told.”

“She does remarkable needlework as well as embroidery, Your Highness,” Thomas Boleyn said, interceding proudly.

“That is imperative since the queen takes to that particular pastime by the hour. Is that not so, Mistress Blount?”

Bess was startled and could only sputter out a reply. “’ Tis true, sire.”

“And prayer, Mistress Boleyn, there is a great deal of that as well,” he warned.

“I welcome any chance to commune with our Lord God,” Mary replied softly and, Bess thought, flirtatiously.

“When the queen and I reunite at Greenwich for Christmastide, I shall see to it myself that she has a place,” Henry decreed, and drew up his heavy silver chalice again.