The Last Boleyn (30 page)

“This is entirely unsuitable to me. I will bed with my girl since you so obviously intend to sleep here.”

“I think you had better wash your grimy face, sweetheart, and I will get you a bath after we have eaten.”

She stood uncertain as he peeled off his shirt and dug into the saddle sacks he had deposited on the floor. “A dress would feel better than those breeks, I imagine, though you do them justice well enough.” He looked up sharply. “Where do you think you are going?”

She paused with her hand on the door latch. “I told you, I am staying with Nancy.”

“Look, Mary. No more arguing. I am filthy and tired and starved, and so are you.”

Did he mean those words at face value, or something deeper? He faced her across a narrow space, her brown riding dress dangling from his fingers. His hair fell in disarray over his forehead, and his eyes pierced her as always. Her legs trembled as though she were still cantering in rhythmic motion on Eden's back.

“All right,” she said. “I will stay for now. I know you will not force the widow of your dead friend to do anything she does not wish.” She took the dress from him and turned to pour water from the pewter ewer to wash her face and arms.

         

The food Master Whitman put before them was simple fare, but they devoured it as if it were the finest feast at court. To Mary's relief, Staff stayed in the hall talking with the Whitmans and Stephen while Nancy helped her bathe in the bed chamber. She had not expected such manners and restraint from him considering the way his eyes caressed her, and she began to relax somewhat. After all, her servants were nearby. She had been with him all day, and he had not attempted to so much as kiss her. Surely he understood her position and would not make it hard for her.

As tiny star points began to pierce the darkening sky, she and Staff stood in the cobbled yard of the inn, stretching their weary limbs. Such starry nights always reminded her of Master da Vinci's velvet painted ceiling. But even the old man had not had the humming of insects under his close-hanging heaven. Staff stood behind her, not touching her, but she felt his presence like a physical caress. His big body threw a long shadow from the lanterns in the hall across the stones and into the rose bushes. Inside, Nancy chattered to Master Whitman's wife, Margaret, and Stephen dozed by the low fire.

“Will you walk with me by the pond, Mary?” his voice came quietly in her ear. “There is a little fish pond just behind the inn.”

Despite the fact that she should have told him no, with the stars burning so brightly and the three-quarter moon just rising over the thatched rooftops, she nodded and walked on ahead. The earth smelled fresh, as though it had just rained, and she felt very much at peace with herself despite her burden of guilt. Hever would do this for her too, this calm inside, this deep calm.

The little pond was as still as glass and the patches of oval water lily leaves cradling their pure white blossoms looked like stepping stones across its surface. She leaned pensively against the trunk of a trimmed willow tree. Trimmed, no doubt, to keep the view of the pond from the windows of the inn. The willow arched over them like a protective parasol. Fireflies studded the dark grass along the edge of the water.

“Am I to understand that you mean not to bed with me now that poor Will is gone and you are truly free to do so with a good conscience?” he asked low. The question hung between them and, though she had the proper answer composed in her head, the words would not come. “I will not have you come to detest me the way you did Francois, nor be indifferent as you did with His Grace for his ownership of you. I love you too much despite the way my foolish loins ache for you to be spread beneath me.”

Her pulse started its thump, thump in the silence. She blessed the dark that he could not see her face.

“They were kings, father approved, and it just seemed I never had a choice,” she heard herself say finally. “And Will was suddenly my God-given husband.”

“King-given husband rather,” he put in.

“But, you see, my father has always pushed or pulled me and if he has not, others have. Now I can make my own decisions.”

“I approve, Mary, really. I cannot tell you how desperately I have wanted to hear something like that from you. Only, if it means you will choose to do without me, my first impulse would be to kidnap you for myself and never let you free.” He heaved a stone into the pond, and it skipped four times in the moonlight before it sank.

“Then it would be just like always, with some powerful man making my decisions for me,” she reasoned aloud.

“I know. I know, damn it!” He turned to her and pulled her gently away from the willow tree. “But the difference, my Mary, is that I love you, and I believe you truly love me. Do you deny it?”

“No,” she drawled slowly as memories mingled with the griefs she had felt without him at Plashy and the joys she had felt so often with him. “I think I do love you, Staff, but, you see...well, my life has been so confused, and I have been so unhappy with Will and His Grace and so, maybe I...”

He gave her a rough shake and she stopped speaking. “I asked you once if you loved Will and you said ‘I think I do.' I told you then that if you think you do, you do not. Do you remember? I do not want you to ‘think' you love me. I will have you and your love, lass, and you will know it is love or I might just as well marry at the king's whim or bed some court lady who catches my moment's fancy.”

Tears came to her eyes, and the tiny hurt grew that always came when he spoke of bedding others. The grip of his hard hands hurt her arms. She smothered the desire to tell him how much she loved him.

“I know it has all been a shock to you, Mary, and I trust you to reason it out, if you can keep out of your father's clutches long enough. But since you are a little muddleheaded now, and since we have always had to seize our moments together as we found them, I will tell you how it is going to be between us while we are here.”

She stared at his white shirt open at the neck. It seemed to glow in the dark as did the lilies, fireflies and stars.

“I will not force you to submit in bed if you do not choose to. But you must know a man in love wants more than that from you. We will have this night and tomorrow morning together after Stephen and Nancy set out. And then I will take you safe to Hever as I promised. But until then, we are close, and there can be much healing in that. Come on.”

“Where?”

“I thought we could take a row in that little fishing skiff over there,” he said, pulling her toward the bank of the pond. “It will be a gentle ride after four hours in the saddle.”

She traipsed after him holding his hand. There was a flat-bottomed boat shoved high on the bank. He pushed it backward into the water and held her elbow while she lifted her skirts and stepped in. As soon as she was seated on one of the two rough boards which served for seats, he shoved off and the boat rocked under his weight. He rowed several strokes and let the oars hang at the side in their wooden locks. The pond was so small that the boat floated nearly in the middle of it, adrift among the lilies on the silent surface. The boat was short and their knees touched, his long legs spread and his feet under her seat on either side of her skirts.

“It is a beautiful night,” she ventured in the quiet between them. “Drifting at night on a pond—it seems unreal.”

“Yes, sweetheart.” He sighed. “Can you imagine having all the time in the world here without the king calling?” His voice drifted off as though he regretted his words.

She remembered how Will had thought His Grace was calling before he died. Did the king dominate all of their lives so much then? She felt suddenly terrified that they would never be free from him.

“This little boat must be a far cry from the
Mary Rose
or the
Golden Gull
for John Whitman,” she said eventually. “Does he miss the sea very much, Staff?”

“He misses the beauty and freedom of it, but he had a hard master, one he could not tolerate on the
Mary Rose,
and when he saw his chance for a life he could control, he took it. He may never see the channel or the ocean again and not be so very poorly off for it.”

He stretched his arms and leaned forward on his knees, and that brought his face much too close.

“May we pick some lilies?” She turned her head to the side. “They are easy to spot even in the dark.”

“Yes. They are.” He wheeled the boat about to bring them closer to a small floating carpet of them, and she reached gingerly for a stem.

“Oh, they are slippery and they go down forever,” she observed as she yanked one free and lifted it, dripping, over the side of the boat. “It does not smell, see?” She extended it toward him, but he did not even try to sniff at it. He only closed his hand around her wet wrist, pulled her farther toward him and leaned over to meet her lips with his. The kiss was tender and warm. She felt balanced in space with him, floating in a trembling moment which she dared not lose. The kiss deepened and his other hand stroked the slant of her cheek and moved softly through her loose hair. When he pulled back, she stared into his eyes lit by moonlight. She thought she saw his lips tremble, but it must have been reflections from the water.

“Do you want a few more slippery, unscented lilies, then?” he asked. “We shall give them to Mistress Whitman and call it a night. I think we are both exhausted.”

She pulled two more from their watery beds. They went into The Golden Gull's deserted common hall and tiptoed quietly upstairs to their room.

When he turned her back to him and began to unlace her as he had often done before lovemaking, she did not protest. She seemed to be better protected from his power while she kept her quiet calm, but the kiss of a few minutes ago still lingered on her lips. She stepped out of the dress, shivering as she did so, but he had turned away, stripped off his shirt, and poured himself a goblet of wine from the table.

“Wine, Mary?”

“No, thank you.”

He tilted back his head and downed it. The bed covers had already been turned back for them. Nancy or Mistress Whitman? They were all thinking of her sleeping with him tonight; they would all believe it of her. But if she could only get through the night without throwing herself into his arms, maybe her sinful failure to be a good wife to Will could be forgiven. She would beg him not to touch her if he broke his word.

He blew out the cresset lamp, but the room seemed almost flooded by daylight. His boots hit the floor, and he padded over to the bed and lifted the covers. “Will you sleep next to the wall? I have no intention of lying on the hard floor nor of bedding with Stephen. Do not be afraid. There is plenty of room. You do not wish me to touch you, so I will not.”

She stared up at him. So easily accomplished? Then she hated herself for wishing he would force her. She got in, quickly pulling her chemise down to cover her knees while he watched, seemingly impassive. When he got in, the bed sagged and she almost spilled toward him.

“Goodnight, my love,” he said. “When you are in your bed safe and alone at Hever, I hope you will not have to curse these wasted hours as much as I shall and do. But if you need the time untouched, so be it.”

They lay there in the awkward silence, weary, quietly breathing. Her limbs began to ache anew from being tensed up on the narrow strip of mattress where she held herself rigidly away from him. The moonlight from the window traced its print across the bed onto the wall and still she did not doze though his deep breathing told her that he was asleep at last. Her rampant thoughts would not let her relax. The memories that tortured her were not of Will or his accusing words in his delirium, but of the passions she had felt with Staff and the hours she had treasured in bed with him, in his arms, anywhere, the past six months. An unfulfilled fire burned low and torturing in the pit of her stomach. She had only to touch him, to say his name, and awaken him, she knew, and all this terrible agony would be over. But she would never be free then, free to know that she loved him and could control her own life. The rectangle of moonlight continued its relentless path up the wall next to her. Watching it through her tears in the quiet of the inn, she fell asleep.

Staff was gone when she woke in the morning, and she was sprawled on her stomach half on his side of the mattress. She sat up, immediately wondering if she had moved this far over when he was still abed. No, surely that would have awakened her. Sunlight flooded the room making the moonlight of last night a pale memory. She quickly dressed and went to find Nancy to tie her laces. The door to the girl's room stood ajar as did that where Stephen had slept. They could not be on the road already!

“Yer friends are gone an hour already, my lady,” came Mistress Whitman's voice from Stephen's room. Mary peeked around the door to see her making one of the two narrow beds in the room. “'Tis best they be early on their way, for the bands of thieves around Oxted prey on later travelers. May I help you dress, then? Your lord be having breakfast with my John. They be always talking old times on the
Mary Rose,
though I know yer lord was not a sailor. Sailors are very easy to spot in a crowd.” She laughed sweetly as she finished the laces.

“He is not my lord,” Mary thought to say, but she only thanked the kind woman and descended the narrow steps holding to the ship's rigging with its intricate knots they had strung for a makeshift banister.

Staff's eyes lit to see her. He was in a good enough mood and did not seem to hold the past night against her. Ashamed of her ravenous appetite, she nevertheless ate hot porridge, stuffed partridge and fruit, and washed it all down with ale. That amused John Whitman, and he joked that she ate like a seaman who has just come back to land. She was surprised to learn that it was nearly mid morning and scolded Staff for not waking her earlier.