Tarnish (27 page)

His face falls again, and I rush to continue.

“I hear nothing here. Not even the servants speak to me. I have a maid and a part-time cook. And Father’s steward, of course.”

I cut my eyes to the closed door and raise my voice.

“Who I think was only returned here to spy on me.”

Wyatt grins again. Two dimples. I’m so delighted, I could kiss them.

“I believe,” Wyatt says, leaning closer to me, “that I can hear him holding his breath.”

I pause for a moment to savor the scent of almonds.

“Show me the house,” Wyatt says, stepping back. “Surely he can’t spy on you everywhere.”

We pass the scowling steward on the way to the entrance hall. He doesn’t follow.

“Father had this hall built when he came here,” I say. “To make it seem less like a fort and more like a home.” I hesitate. “He wasn’t very successful.”

Wyatt listens as I explain everything. Display everything. In every room. I’m afraid to stop talking. I feel as though only my constant prattle will prevent us from falling back into the inability to speak. To
not
talking about why we’re not talking.

“Father had a gallery built upstairs.” I point to the ceiling in the dining hall.

Then I stop. The chill of the room overwhelms me.

“I don’t eat here,” I finally manage.

Wyatt stands close to me. The only warmth in the room.

“Why?”

“The table reeks of broken promises and disappointment.”

“Then we shall go.” Wyatt offers me an arm. Warm. Solid. I finish the tour. The upstairs gallery. The bedrooms.

“This is the guest room,” I tell him, showing off the Boleyn bull over the fireplace, the velvet curtains, the bed.

“It has a real feather mattress.” I find myself speaking faster. “No straw ticking for our guests.” I pause, smothered in silence. “I think sometimes the feathers give me nightmares.”

“But you sleep here anyway.”

“Shhh,” I whisper through a laugh. “It’s my one act of rebellion.”

“Well, you can notch up another one now. Not only are you sleeping here, but you’ve invited a man in as well.” He steps so close his breath tickles my ear. “And a married man at that.”

“You will be the ruin of me, Thomas Wyatt.”

Silence washes over us. Because Thomas Wyatt is not the bringer of my ruin. I am.

Without speaking, we return to the sitting room and I order supper. It’s simple: cold meats and plain bread. But it had been intended only for me.

“I wasn’t expecting company,” I say to sidestep apology. “You’ll have to warn me next time. And I’ll cause more scandal by ordering one of Father’s finest wines.”

Wyatt glances at me sharply.

“You want me to come back?”

I lean forward to make my point. “You are welcome at any time. I will be offended if you don’t visit every time you are at Allington.”

He frowns. Swallows.

“My wife is at Allington.”

The painful gaps in our conversation are starting to make me tearful. I’ve been alone too long.

I clear the lump from my throat.

“What news at court?”

Wyatt tells me the gossip. Norris’s latest paramour. Wolsey’s latest political conquest. I watch him as he speaks, the tautness of his expression dissolving into familiarity, the tension in his body dissipating into that lissome nonchalance. Until he pauses.

“Suffolk has left for France. With fourteen thousand men.”

I sag back into my chair.

“He’s really doing it, then.”

I had thought better of King Henry. And some little part of me—the childish, infatuated girl in me—still thought that we were mystically connected. That he would listen to me, and reconsider. That I meant something. That my words had power.

Wyatt nods soberly. “The duchess has already set herself up as a martyr to the cause.”

“I just bet she has.”

“And your sister . . .” He hesitates.

“What?” I ask. “What about Mary?”

“You haven’t heard? From your family?”

I shake my head.

“My family has cut me off. Now that I’m worthless.”

Wyatt looks at me for a moment long enough to become uncomfortable. “You’re not worthless, Anne.”

I smile wryly. “I am to my family. Now, please, tell me about Mary.”

“She’s pregnant.”

“Oh.”

There is no room in our conversation for me to ask the identity of the father.

“I believe she is hoping for a girl.”

“If it is a girl,” I say slowly, “he won’t claim her.” I can’t say his name. Because of family pride? Or jealousy? “An illegitimate girl is more useless than a legitimate one.”

Wyatt nods, his eyes on my hands in my lap. No. His eyes are on my belly.

“The other news at court,” he says, and each word sounds as if it is hammered on a forge, constructed with great effort. “The other news is the upcoming union between Shrewsbury and Northumberland.”

Percy.

This is why he’s watching me. Perhaps this is even why he’s come here from court. To find out if I, too, am pregnant.

I stand and turn away from him.

“You are very cruel to remind me of the man who broke my heart.”

“He never broke your heart, Anne.”

“He broke my ambition, then,” I revise. “Because of him I am exiled. So in a sense, my heart is broken.”

“You never loved him.”

“He didn’t love me, either. No one loves me.” I cannot get by without pinching the softest parts of my own pain. “Love doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter, Anne,” Wyatt says. He moves to stand beside me. Close enough to touch, but not touching. He looks me steadily in the eyes and repeats himself. “It does matter.”

“Maybe for a poet it matters,” I tell him bitterly. “Maybe even for a man of some significance, like the king. But for the rest of us, love has no place in our lives. Especially women. If I want to break out of the prison of my birth, I need to have the right person at my side. Whether I love him or not.”

“That’s awfully cold, Anne.”

“It’s easy for you; you’re a
man
. You can make your own way. Befriend the king, be accepted into his circle.” Jealousy stabs me again, and my words crowd my mouth in a bid to escape before I combust. “You can leave your wife and come here and still have friends and lovers. You can still write your poetry and play cards and joust in the tournaments.
You
can have a life.”

Wyatt takes a step back, as if he’s been slapped. Lightning strikes of anger flash across his expression.

“You know what your trouble is, Anne?”

“That the man who fucked me is marrying someone else?”

The muscles along Wyatt’s jaw spasm.

“No.”

We are plunged again into a hole of silence that we ourselves excavated.

“What then?” I step toward him, lifting my chin. “What is my trouble, Wyatt? What kind of criticism do you have to offer now?”

We stare at each other, unflinching. Then his jaw relaxes and I see something like sadness—or pity—in his eyes.

“You’ve never been in love.”

“And I’m not likely to be, either,” I say, sitting down again. I find I can no longer take my own weight. “It seems a criminal waste of time.”

“You sound just like your brother.” Wyatt sits on the stool beside me, our shoulders touching.

“That hurts.”

Because it is true. It is exactly something my brother would say.

I lay my head on his shoulder, and for the first time that evening, our mutual silence is comfortable. We listen to the chatter of the fire and the shuffling of the steward outside the door.

“I’m not pregnant,” I whisper.

“I know.”

I raise my head a little to look at him, my lips inches from his.

“How?”

“Because I know you as well as I know myself, remember?”

“Then tell me this.” I lay my head back down on his shoulder. “Do you think I am capable of love? Are any of the Boleyns? We’re certainly not capable of saying it.”

“I think everyone is capable of both.” His words stir the hair that escapes from my hood.

“You’ve been in love, haven’t you, Wyatt? Is it really all that wonderful?”

“Yes, Anne,” he murmurs. “And yes. It is.”

Hever Castle

1524

38

I
START TO LOSE THE BATTLE TO RETAIN MY SANITY.
S
OME DAYS
I
sit still as stone, unmoved by cold or hunger, and I think I would not flinch if someone were to set me on fire.

Other days, I fling myself at whatever pastime or obstacle I come across—working my tapestry needle until my eyes ache, practicing dance steps until I stumble from exhaustion, or screaming at my maid until she cries.

And all days I wait for Wyatt to return, berating myself for every moment I spend thinking of him. Depending on him. He visits sporadically and always without warning, and my mind and heart are clear for days after.

The summer gave up its fight against the onslaught of the cold English winter. Ash trees gilded the hills, the fields ran rampant with ripe wheat, and I could almost believe I was back in France, so beautiful was the waning light. Then winter arrived on gray, heavy feet. I was not invited back to court for the Christmas celebrations and got little from my family for the New Year. Though Mary sent a book of hours—handwritten and beautifully illuminated and obviously very expensive—with a note that says she misses me.

I find that I miss her, too. I could use a mothering influence, since our own mother has been visiting Howard relatives, despite my residence here. Conspicuously absent. Conspicuously silent.

On Twelfth Night, I get a note from Wyatt saying that he will visit the next day, that he has something important to tell me.

I order manchet bread and meats and spiced wafers for his arrival. I insist that a jar of preserved strawberries be brought from the cool recesses of the buttery and that one of Father’s best wines be opened.

After all, I promised. I don’t want to earn a reputation as one who breaks her promises.

“I have to send a request to your father,” the steward informs me when I tell him about the wine.

“It’s for tomorrow,” I snap. “You must take the order from me.”

“It is my duty to address any unusual requests to Sir Thomas directly.”

“This is not an unusual request, but a common one.” I stop, considering the true intent behind his words. “You don’t take orders from me?”

He offers a thin-lipped grimace.

“No, mistress.”

Of course not. Why would Father have the household placed under the command of a disgraced youngest daughter? Who knows what kind of trouble I could get myself into if given too much power?

“Fine. The usual wine will have to suffice.”

The steward doesn’t even attempt to hide his triumphant grin.