A Love Most Dangerous

A LOVE MOST DANGEROUS

Amazon edition.

Copyright
© Martin Lake 20 14

Martin
Lake
has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

The cover picture is Flora by Titian. The cover design
is by Rachael Gracie Carver, Green Door Designs.

BOOKS BY MARTIN LAKE

NOVELS

Resistance: The Lost King Book 1

Wasteland: The Lost King Book 2

Blood of Ironside: The Lost King Book 3

Outcasts: Crusades Book 1

Artful

SHORT STORIES

For King and Country

The Big School

Mr Toad’s Wedding

For Janine, my wife, my
inspiration and love of my life.

THE COURT OF KING HENRY
1537

To be a servant at the court of King Henry is to live
with your heart in your mouth. This is so whether you are young or old, male or
female. Some, of course, have more cause for concern than others. I am young
and I am female. So the danger to me is considerable.

The danger is the more acute because I am pretty and
the Queen is in the last month of her confinement.

Henry has divorced one wife and executed the second.
But that is far from the whole story. A string of shattered hearts lies strewn
across the land like pearls from a necklace broken in rage. Aye, it's true that
complicit fathers, brothers, uncles and even husbands have got rich by leading
their women like heifers to the courtly market. It is the women who give the
most and suffer the most grievously.

Unless of course, they are clever.

It does not do to be too clever. Anne Boleyn taught us
this. For make no mistake, King Henry is more clever than any man in the kingdom
now that Thomas Wolsey is dead. And he is as subtle and wily as even the most
cunning of women. Anne's head rolling from the block is testimony to that.

The trick is to show your cleverness to just such a
degree that Henry is intrigued by it but not threatened. The second trick is to
intimate that your cleverness is at his disposal even more than your own. And
the third trick? Ah, the third trick is to be willing to bed the great beast of
appetites and to know when to do it.

My name is Alice Petherton and I am seventeen years of
age. I came to court as a simple servant but I caught the eye of Anne Boleyn
when she was newly crowned. I was good at singing, could dance like an elf and
made her laugh and think. She took me as one of her maids of honour and my slow
approach to the furnace began.

I was very fond of Anne. She was not pretty but there
was something alluring about her, some promise of carnality which affected all
who knew her, King and subject, man and woman. I must confess that on more than
one night I awoke hot with sweat having dreamed I had been bedded by the Queen,
worn out and used by her, alive and half-deadened, exultant and dismayed.

There came one morning when she stroked my cheek and
kissed me swiftly on the lips. I gazed into her eyes that day, telling her that
I was willing. But she merely laughed and told me to get on with my sewing. So
are we played with by those we must learn to call our betters.

I will become one of these betters, I determined. I
will be fawned upon and bowed to some day.

Not that I aspire to be a queen, you must understand.
That is too deadly by far. King Henry appears to be in love with Jane Seymour.
He would, of course, for she carries his child. His greatest lust is for a male
successor; even more than for any pretty face and shapely form. There is no
sense in seeking to usurp Seymour's place as Queen; no hope. If she proves to
be a good brood mare he will rest content for a little while. But in the
meanwhile he hungers. The furnace grows hotter by the hour.

CHAPTER ONE

Pretty Maids all in a Row

It started almost six months ago. I woke early in the
morning to see the sun kissing the hills to the east. I hugged myself. It was
Mayday and great festivities were planned at the court. It was also my
seventeenth birthday. I loved Mayday and I loved my birthday.

But first there was the obligatory session of
needlework. No matter that it was Mayday, Queen Jane insisted that we do a few
hours toil at the needle. I hurried into the maids' sitting room and found
Philippa Wicks and Dorothy Bray waiting for me.

Philippa was by far the prettiest of the maids of
honour. The story at court was that she was twenty-two years old although she
never admitted her age to anyone. She was a particular favourite of Queen Jane.
She had beautiful red hair with a lustre which glowed like gold. Her
cheek-bones were high and distinct which made her look a little like a cat. Her
lips were pink and full and they invariably wore a smile. She was said to have
the prettiest nose in court although I cannot recall who told me that. I think
it may, in fact, have been her. She was elegant and exciting. When I first came
to Court I had been glad to be her friend. But nowadays I am not quite so
certain.

Philippa's closest friend was Dorothy Bray. I often
wondered that they were so close for where Philippa was pretty, Dorothy was
plain. I could not call her ugly, that would be unfair. But plain suited her
well. She had a square face with deep-set eyes and tiny little mouth. Where Philippa
skipped along the corridors of Hampton Court Palace, Dorothy trudged. I do not
know how old she was. She might have been thirty, she might have been forty or
even older.

'Alice, where have you been?' Philippa asked.

I decided not to tell them that it was my birthday.
Surely they would remember it.

'I couldn't find my bonnet,' I said. 'It had fallen
behind the chair.'

'It looks it,' Philippa said. She reached up and
pushed the bonnet more securely upon my head. 'In fact it looks as though
you've been using it as a chair.'

I smiled at her jest.

'Her hair escapes the bonnet,' said Dorothy Bray.

Philippa stared at my head. 'You're right, Dorothy. It
would never do to have Alice's hair all bedraggled across her head.'

She tucked the errant locks firmly back beneath the
bonnet. I sighed to myself. I hated that my hair was forced into trammels.
Philippa, I noticed, always left a small fringe of her hair showing. But it was
a lovely colour so I could see why she did this. Dorothy was all forehead.

Philippa grasped my shoulders and pushed me back from
her so that she could examine me more carefully. 'You'll do,' she said
brightly. 'Come, we must not be late.'

I followed Philippa and Dorothy along the corridor. I
was grateful they had waited for me, although I could see that Dorothy was
fretful at the delay.

Philippa, of course, seemed less concerned. She did
not dawdle but nor did she hurry. I smiled quietly to myself, smug that she had
chosen to befriend me.

The Queen's chamber was crowded when we arrived. Jane
Seymour sat close to the window, working, as always, at her embroidery. She was
said to be the finest needlewoman at court, and not merely by sycophants. I
admired her work and knew that no matter how hard I tried I would never produce
anything close to its quality.

This was partly because I loathed working with needle
and thread. I much preferred to spend my hours in reading, or even writing. But
Jane liked to do neither and so all her ladies and maids must, perforce, bend
themselves and their minds to the constant poke and stitch of needlework.
Sometimes, at the end of the day, my fingers felt like pin-cushions.

Jane gave a frosty glance as I entered the room. Then
she saw Philippa enter the room behind me and gave a little smile. She
signalled for Philippa and Dorothy to approach. I wondered whether to follow
but thought better of it. Susan Dunster and Mary Zouche sat close to the door
and glanced up at me. I went to the empty chair beside them and pulled out my
needlework.

'You're late, Alice Petherton,' Susan whispered. 'Tut
tut, that will never do.'

I did not answer for my face had blushed scarlet.
Susan laughed quietly, as if to herself. Mary smiled gently and continued with
her sewing. I watched her for a moment and realised why the Court Painter,
Master Holbein once said that she looked like a painting produced by the
Italian Botticelli. With her delicate oval face and hair like summer corn she
could well have been an angel sent to earth. Her dreamy eyes always seemed to
be on some distant place, perhaps the clouds an angel was more used to. She was
so different from Susan who was dark of skin with a sharp nose and wicked
smile. If Susan was an angel she was very much a fallen one.

The room fell silent except for the drawing of thread
through fabric. You would never have credited that so a tiny act could produce
such a volume of noise. It rasped through my brain, if truth were told. The
more I listened the more it seemed like the sharpening of a blade.

Every push and draw of my needle felt like the days of
my life running away from me. I shook my head to concentrate. It was so easy to
go awry, so easy to make a mistake which would take long hours to unpick. I
should be outside, I thought, enjoying this lovely Mayday, enjoying my
birthday. I wondered if I'd be given lovely gifts and broke a thread in my
excitement. A posy, perhaps, a book, a pretty scarf. I was so enamoured of my
dreams I could barely see to thread the needle.

Finally, after what seemed many hours, Jane put down
her embroidery and nodded to a servant who was standing by the door. The girl
rushed out, clapping her hands as she did so. Immediately other servants
appeared with trays of refreshments.

I flung down my needlework and looked around the room.
Everyone else was still bent at their work, as if they not distracted by the
arrival of the food. Everyone that is, except for Jane Seymour. She glared
across the room at me, her look as cold as her nature. I saw Philippa glance up
at me but could not read the expression on her face.

I felt humiliated and wondered whether to pluck up my
work right away. The more Jane stared at me the more humiliated I felt. And,
along with the humiliation came a fierce resentment. I looked back at her as if
I had not noticed that her face was growing angrier by the moment. I gave her
the sweetest smile I could force upon my face.

I might regret doing this, I thought, but I'm glad I
did so nonetheless.

Jane clapped her hands and the rest of the ladies put
aside their work. They rose like docile children and stood in line to collect
their possets and honey cakes. I was hungry and wished to take two of the
dainty little cakes but I caught Dorothy Bray staring at me and took only one.

I returned to my friends. Mary had two cakes, Susan
had three. She looked pointedly at my solitary cake and without a word gave me
one of hers.

I giggled to myself as I took it.

'You've worked hard,' Susan said. 'You deserve it.'
She picked up my embroidery and examined it carefully. 'My goodness, you must
have done almost quarter of a border.'

'Don't mock her,' Mary said. 'You know she's better at
making shirts and chemises.'

It was true but I took no pleasure from Mary's praise.
I could perform the more basic work of making clothes, my life had given me
plenty of practice of that. But the finer work of the court seemed still to
elude me.

CHAPTER TWO

Mayday

We were dismissed by the Queen and were now finally
free to join the Mayday celebrations. As I prepared to leave the room I got a
very pleasant surprise. Philippa Wicks, Dorothy Bray and Mary Zouche were
waiting for me outside in the corridor. They each bore a gift, wrapped in green
cloth. Susan Dunster was nowhere to be seen which disappointed me a little.

'Happy birthday, Alice,' Philippa said, giving me a
peck on the cheek. 'We have birthday gifts for you.'

I unwrapped Dorothy's gift first. It was a necklace
with a little locket. I opened it to see a miniature portrait of Jane Seymour.
Tiny though the image was it seemed that she was glaring reproachfully at me.

'That's wonderful,' I said, making haste to wrap it in
the cloth once again.

'You must wear it,' Dorothy said wresting the necklace
from my grasp. She looped it over my neck and clamped it shut, stepping back to
examine her handiwork.

'Now your gift, Mary,' said Philippa.

Mary handed me her gift, her face unable to keep the
excitement from her face. It was a recorder of exquisite design.