The Secret Bride (43 page)

Mary sank against his chest and buried her face against his broad shoulder, wanting to melt into the very core of Charles Brandon as he held her tightly. The garret room up a staircase in the three-story tower was small, servants’ quarters somewhere so high up beneath the eaves of the palace of Les Tournelles, beyond a maze of stairs and corridors, that Mary was not certain she could find her way back down.

But she did not care. Nothing in the world mattered but this. And him.

“I know not how you did it,” he murmured into her hair, “but you are truly amazing.”

“I could not let you leave France tomorrow without seeing you like this.”

“You risk a great deal.”

“I risk everything for you—and do it gladly.”

She gasped as his mouth came down onto hers and he pressed the full length of himself, hard and wanting, against her. He glanced at the small bed with its simple Fustian linen and the single table and lamp beside it. There was no fireplace here, and the room was forbiddingly cold, so he embraced her more tightly. He held her face in his hands as if she were a very delicate thing. “Are you absolutely certain this is what you want?”

Mary twined her arms around his neck. “Never more certain of anything in my life.”

“You will be going against God, my love.”

“I did my duty to him. I came chaste to France, and here I shall remain as Louis’ queen. But no God could be so cruel as to deny me one night with you whom I have loved my whole life.”

She lay back onto the small bed and he braced himself over her. His eyes, as he gazed down, glittered full of not only passion, but complete devotion to her. They had come such a long way and it was nearly over between them now before it had really begun. Both of them felt it. The one thing in the world each of them wanted was the thing they could not have, so they would take what little they could here, in this place made private by the night, and she refused to feel any guilt at all about that.

“Open your eyes,” he bid her on a ragged breath just then. “My sweet Mary.”

Charles covered her face and neck then with feathery kisses and she ran her hands greedily down the broad expanse of his back. As his touch grew more demanding, Mary felt herself shudder. The sensation of his sensual touch was nothing like it was with Louis. He moved his fingertips deftly over the column of her neck, over her breasts, across her abdomen, then along the inside of her thighs, after he had loosened her dressing gown and pushed it away from her skin.

She gasped when he touched her there, but she did not care.

This was her own secret piece of heaven with Charles.
Let me remember every moment . . . every touch . . . for the winter and the next and the next shall be long and cold without him. . . .
His tongue trailed onto her nipple. Her fingers dug into the skin of his back. Mary wanted everything now with him, the future and the consequences be damned. They had waited for so long.

Once he had helped her remove her clothes, and his own, he moved down onto her forcefully, and Mary closed her eyes, her heart pounding so wildly that she could not breathe. As Charles pressed into her she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him deeper. Mary could feel his breath against her ear and the pounding of his own heart against her breasts.

But the ripples of pleasure that moved through her and seemed to have no end as he thrust and rocked swiftly became the only thing. She gasped, then heard herself cry out his name as his taut, muscular body jerked and then shuddered. As he sagged against her, then stroked the hair back from her face with aching tenderness, Mary realized that she was weeping.

“I love you, Charles,” she whispered.
Henry’s promise. He will keep it . . . one day. He must,
she was thinking.

The Queen has hitherto conducted herself, and still does every day, towards me, in such a manner that I cannot but be delighted with her, and love and honour her more and more each day; and you may be assured that I do, and ever shall, so treat her, as to give both her and you perfect satisfaction.

—A letter from Louis XII to Henry VIII December 1514, Paris

The winter of 1514 in France was unusually harsh.

Mary kept busy by planning the Christmas celebrations to raise Louis’ spirits, if not renew his steadily declining health.

After the coronation, the court had moved to the palace of Blois, Louis’ childhood home, tucked into the lush forest of the Loire valley. But no matter how continually the fires in all the great hearths were stoked, the chill seemed to seep through every thick stone wall, and move right through the bones of every courtier and guard.

Mary spent her afternoons and the early hours of the evening in Louis’ private bedchamber with him as he convalesced, either playing cards or reading to him in the English he hoped to improve. Everyone knew he was nursing an ill
ness that was steadily growing worse, yet no one was allowed to speak of it, particularly not Mary, whom he would take hunting, he said, the first moment he was able.

“How is our great king?” Francois inquired of Mary as she left Louis’ apartments one bleak, cold afternoon.

He had fallen asleep and she found herself desperate for a bit of crisp winter air chilling her face, and some relief from the monotony of camphor and the king’s continual rheumy cough. Francois, it seemed, had come out of nowhere to walk beside her now down the length of the three connecting presence chambers that led eventually to the corridor, and a bank of uncovered windows, through which gray winter light poured. Mary felt a little ominous shudder at the tall, daunting presence beside her, but she pressed it back. It had occurred to her after Charles and the English delegation left a month ago now that, with Louis’ condition swiftly declining, she truly could not afford to antagonize his presumptive heir, no matter how she had stubbornly pressed it with him before. Francois was just arrogant and handsome enough to assume there was not a woman at the French court who would not desire him, given a bit of seductive prodding. To protect herself, she must not allow him to believe differently.

“My husband is improving each day.”

“That is not what I heard.”

Mary forced back the clever retort that rose to her lips.

“And what is it that you have heard?”

“That I shall be king soon enough.”

“If it is God’s will, then France shall bow to a new sovereign, and I along with it.”

“You, Mary?” He stopped suddenly, forcing her to stop along with him as his question hung between them. Once again she faced his charming sneer. “You will bow down to me? A man you love to hate?”

“I shall do as I am bid by my king.”

“Ah, now there is a promise worth fantasizing over.”

He reached out and ran a finger down the length of her puffed ivory silk sleeve, edged with tiny emeralds. “A lovely cloth. But I prefer you rather more boldly in claret red velvet with a spray of diamonds around your throat. That is, after you are finished wearing your widow’s weeds.” He lowered his hand then, but his eyes stayed rooted on her, his smile never changing from the clever one full of expectation.

“I shall pray each day that it is a very long time indeed before I must don anything sewn in the color white.”

“And yet, one is forced to wonder how that can be so, you so young and desirable, full of life, and with desires of your own—and our poor old king, trying his best to keep up with you, dining later now, dancing, drinking too much . . . making love a bit too often.”

By my faith, he is vulgar! And an expert at baiting a woman of whom he knows so little,
she thought. Mary steeled herself against the sensation of rage. Instead, she tipped up her chin as she had become adept at doing, and forced a controlled smile onto her face.

“I do my duty to my husband in all things, and he seems pleased enough with me.”

Francois surprised her by laughing. “Pleased, yes, most assuredly, he is that. Made well, highly unlikely, with a young bride like you who will surely be the death of her ailing husband.”

“Well, I suppose we shall see about that.” She began to walk again, but he did not follow her. Instead Francois left her words to echo in the air between them as thoughts of Charles Brandon, and his rescuing her, at that moment seemed very far away.

“Come to bed,” Louis bid her with a smile and an outstretched hand.

After the dining and the dancing that evening, only a small portion of which he had been able to attend, the king had sent for Mary. It was Christmas Eve and the court had returned from Blois to Les Tournelles in Paris for the holiday. A light snow fell like feathers past the windows, blanketing the dark and gritty capital city in a fresh powder. Mary forced herself not to see the sickly man steadily weakening before her, but rather the king who desired her and showered her each day with gifts and adoration she knew she did not deserve.

She sank onto the bed beside him and he leaned over to embrace her. “I have missed you,” he murmured. “Missed us.”

She knew what he wanted. “But you are unwell, Louis.”

“I am well enough.” He smiled at her and took a bit of her long hair into his hand, then pressed it against his cheek.

“I have always delighted in the scent of your hair . . . the feel of your skin, so like silk. . . . You really are so very perfect.”

“I do not think you should—”

“Touch me,” he bade her, refusing her gentle warning and trailing his fingers down her breasts.

Mary sighed and opened her dressing gown. It was her duty to give him an heir if she could. The prospect, however unlikely, would secure her future and legacy in France, so long as the king survived. If he died and she were pregnant, Mary would be in the most grave danger, and she knew it.

And I thank you for the good service while he was here of the Duke of Suffolk. I beg you to believe that independent of the place that I know he holds with you, and the love you bear him, his virtues, manners, politeness and good condition, deserve that he should be received with even greater honor.

—From Louis XII’s final letter, December 28, 1514, sent to Henry VIII December 30, 1514, Westminster Palace 

In elegant brown leather slashed with gold silk, Charles Brandon sprinted down the length of the corridor leading to Henry VIII’s private apartments, the heels of his kidskin boots echoing across the smooth inlaid wood floor.

It was five days after Christmas, and the announcement had just arrived from Paris.

“The king must see me! I have news!” he shouted breathlessly, pressing past the guards and the crowd gathered and awaiting admittance. His Highness’ dresser, various Gentlemen of the Chamber, guards and ambassadors who lingered near the door tried to object but he would not be stopped.

Charles pulled back the bed draperies with a single snap.

“The King of France is dead!” he announced before he 
saw that the naked girl wound around Henry, crow black hair splayed across his chest, was not Katherine but Elizabeth Blount, one of the queen’s own ladies-in-waiting. Charles bowed, trying not to look at her, as Henry lifted his head from the pillow and struggled to open his eyes.