The Secret Bride (14 page)

“And he would be most angry with
you
if he knew you were attempting to blandish
me
.”

“You flatter yourself.”

“And your childishness puts us both at risk.”

“Then perhaps you should not have spoken to me in the first place, or commanded my partnership in a dance.”

“Rest assured, I shall remember your rejoinder the next time.”

“Indeed you should.”

Mary caught a glimpse just then of Jane and Thomas Knyvet beside her and realized that they had heard every word. But Mary did not care any more this time than she had the last, although she had tried to maneuver the situation as deftly as she had seen it done here by others. Charles Brandon was a handsome, charming and eminently irritating master.

And she was out of her league with him. Still, she could not chase his image, nor their exchange, from her mind all that afternoon and into the evening. She watched him at a distance at dinner in the great hall as he dined a little too closely to Lady Oxford, then danced one too many times with her as well, laughing and talking as if Mary did not exist.

Widowed and therefore free to behave as he pleased, Charles Brandon was every bit the same center of attention with the ladies at court as she was with the gentlemen. She found that evening, however, that the attentions of every one of them annoyed her, and she sat alone beside Jane, refusing every invitation to dance.

“There’s no use in it, you know,” Jane finally remarked to her in French. They sat together with dishes of uneaten figs, watching the wax from a dripping candle before them pud-dle onto the white table linen. “He is an impossible scoundrel, certain to marry again the moment he finds a woman with enough money, and therefore destined to break your heart.”

“Your situation is that much different?”

Jane leaned back in her chair and took a swallow of wine, pretending to watch the dancers, among whom were Thomas Knyvet and his wife, Muriel. Mary saw the agony in her friend’s expression and instantly regretted her tone. “Do you actually love him?”

“I shouldn’t like to think,” Jane answered. “It was a harmless flirtation only with Thomas, in order to make your brother jealous, but a flirtation gotten wrongly out of hand.”

“He only ever saw Katherine back then, with his stubborn desire to marry her,” Mary said, trying to soothe Jane amid the deafening din of laughter and the constant strain of music. “I don’t think he ever knew how you felt, Jane.”

“How I shall forever feel for him, you mean?”

She was truly lovely, Mary thought, looking at the strained expression on an otherwise flawless face, with its softly freckled skin and clear blue eyes. And her life was unfettered by any duty to which she was born. She was certainly worth much more than she could get by loving married men who could never give her back the love she so generously bestowed on them. Mary would never tell her but she envied Jane, and the future which lay before her if she made the right changes.

“Foolish love. Do not make the same mistake, Mary, with a man whose heart shall forever be unavailable to you.”

“You needn’t worry. Brandon is arrogant and too distastefully smug.”

“And incredibly handsome, ambitious and smart,” Jane countered.

“Well, no matter. I would never give a man like that my heart—nor any other part of myself, for that matter, mainly because he believes all women are his for the taking, and I am not to be used like that.”

“
I
would not turn him away.”

Mary shot her a concerned stare. “I thought you were hopelessly in love with the king.”

“I am. But
he
is in love with his wife.”

“Sir Thomas, then?”

“Favor of one’s wife appears to have reached nearly epidemic proportions just now at this court,” Jane said cleverly, then she sighed as they turned back to watch the king, Katherine, Thomas and petite, slim Muriel Knyvet, all dancing happily. And Charles Brandon, who had just changed partners yet again.

“What do you mean, he is stalling?” Henry shouted, his temper flaring. The king’s Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber were removing his morning costume and replacing it with a doublet with puffed black sleeves, slashed and embroidered with pearls, and trunk hose, as he stood hands on his hips, his expression one of rage. “Mary is the loveliest, most desirable bride to be had! And Maximilian is still dragging his feet, as if he would be doing
me
a favor in accepting her?”

“It is true, Your Highness,” Brandon carefully confirmed.

Along with the Earl of Surrey and the Duke of Buckingham, Charles had just spoken to the English envoy, Christopher Bainbridge, newly returned from Austria. It was decided by the king’s closest advisers, after much private debate, that the highly offensive information would be best delivered to the king by his dearest friend, and those of his father’s former privy council that Henry trusted most. A collection of minstrels played melodically in the corner as the group spoke, but the musicians went unseen and unheard by a sovereign who was angered at the emperor’s continuing insult to his beloved sister.

“So whatever the equivocal response, he is in reality declining the marriage between Mary and that simpleton son of his upon whom I am graciously bestowing the greatest court beauty in England?” Henry sputtered in disbelief.

“Not declining, Your Highness,” Buckingham carefully reported. “He is simply continuing to refuse a commitment to the details.”

“God’s bones . . . that pompous, arrogant fool bastard . . .”

He stomped the floor, his square, handsome face blazing with indignation. “
By our lady
, either he wishes the alliance or he does not. Take a stand! Mary shall not endure such insult much longer.”

“Respectfully, Your Highness needs the alliance that betrothal signifies.”

“I
need
no one, Buckingham.
I
am King of England.”

“And, if Your Gracious Highness shall permit the observation from a trusted friend of your father’s, you are a new player on the world stage, where alliances are absolutely key,”

Thomas, the Earl of Surrey, intervened, risking everything the Howard family struggled to maintain in defense of a man who was his rival.

Henry stopped, then shot them both a contemptuous stare in response. There was a moment of disquieting silence.

The cadence of his words slowed, becoming lethal. “Yes . . .
if I shall permit you. That is the question.”

“My absolute loyalty to my king would force me to speak only the truth.”

“Very well, Buckingham, go on then!” He swatted at the 
air very suddenly, as if there were a particularly bothersome insect between them, and the ruby on his finger glinted in the noonday light. “I shall permit you, but brevity, my man! 
Brevity!”

Buckingham coughed, then moistened his suddenly dry throat. “Maintain the betrothal a while longer, Your Highness. But make no commitment on your own. You will need the alliance if you decide to strike out against France. Once Louis XII has surrendered, then reevaluate where best you can utilize the princess Mary.”

The door opened with a click and a low squeal. Footsteps echoed in the tense silence. Suddenly, Wolsey was hovering over them, his face blanched. He was fingering the heavy silver pectoral cross at his chest, a nervous gesture.

“It is the queen, sire. Her Highness has been delivered of a child this past hour.”

“But I was sent no word that she was gone to childbed!”

“It was sudden, Your Highness. It would be best if I accompany you to her chamber. We can speak of it as we walk,” Wolsey said.

Later that afternoon, Charles followed Henry as he led his great white bay at a gallop past a little stream and through the lushly forested, shadow-dappled hunting park behind Richmond Palace, hunting stag. Like the king, Charles loved the thrill of the wind in his hair, the mossy, damp earth beneath him, and the freedom it brought. It was a particular freedom he had sought and found as a boy when the strangle-hold of courtly expectation and the need for ambition had threatened to choke the life out of him. Charles had needed that freedom to breathe then, just as Henry did. Charles understood the pressures of his friend as he sought to decide, not only about whether to invade France, but whether to break Mary’s betrothal once and for all. But mostly, he knew that Henry was trying to understand the death of his first child, and what that meant for him, and to the future of England as well.

Henry had told him that he could not force himself to remain with Katherine more than a few moments at a time these past few days, driven away by her gut-wrenching sobs and the murmured Spanish prayers echoing from Dona Elvira, Maria de Salinas and Ambassador Fuensalida. The three of them sat hunched in the shadows of the corner near her bed, all holding tight to their rosaries and fingering the beads. It was all so intolerably somber, so dripping with a futility that he despised. This child—this dead child, meant to be a son—had been far more to him than an heir. To Henry, and to everyone, the child had meant the end of what many believed a curse on the house of Tudor for having married his brother’s widow.
God must be angry,
Henry had whispered to Charles so many times in moments of private trust.
I am meant to be punished . . . Katherine as well.
Henry had counted on this child, their son and heir, to prove everyone wrong. Instead, Katherine had delivered him a stillborn girl.

Henry pulled the reins sharply. His horse reared then snorted as he leapt onto the ground and thundered into a stand of trees. As he knew he would, only Charles Brandon had confidence and concern enough to dismount as well, and follow behind him. Safely alone, Henry kicked the trunk of a tree, unleashing a pent-up fury that frightened Brandon but even more, he suspected, did it frighten Henry himself.

Henry clearly could not accept this. . . . This was defeat!
Your next shall be a fine son,
Charles had heard Dona Elvira promise Henry through her tears. That wretched Spaniard, Charles thought, with her optimism!

But no matter what strange circumstance had brought them together, or how angry he felt now, Charles knew Henry did truly love Katherine and, God willing, the queen would give him and England a living son to put an end to the gossip and innuendo. He could do it. He could do
anything.
He was, after all, king.

They stood alone in a small clearing, Charles behind him, the other riders lingering, still on horseback, a few yards away. Henry kicked at the fallen pine needles and dried leaves around them. “What do I do now, Brandon? I am so angry . . . so full of rage!”

“Of those given much, much is expected, Harry.”

“
You
are quoting the Bible to me?”

“Sorry. It was all I could think of at the moment.”

One heartbeat, then two. Suddenly, Henry tipped back his head and began to laugh, a great sound up from his gut.

He clipped Brandon across the shoulder with a muscular palm. “You always could make me laugh, Brandon. Well, let’s just make certain
you
never leave me. I find, quite surprisingly, that I cannot quite do without you around me.”

Charles had never wanted anything more. Ambition was the thing. Power was the rest of it. How could there be anything better in all the world than staying at Henry VIII’s court, and making himself indispensable, forever?