Part 1 (2/2)
Anne swept the queen an immaculate French curtsy, and came up as if she owned the palace. She spoke in a voice rippling with that seductive accent, her every gesture was that of the French court. I noted with glee the queen's frosty response to Anne's stylish manner. I drew her to a window seat.
”She hates the French,” I said. ”She'll never have you around her if you keep that up.”
Anne shrugged. ”They're the most fas.h.i.+onable. Whether she likes them or not. What else?”
”Spanish?” I suggested. ”If you have to pretend to be something else.”
Anne let out a snort of laughter. ”And wear those hoods! She looks as if someone stuck a roof on her head.”
”Ssshhh,” I said reprovingly. ”She's a beautiful woman. The finest queen in Europe.”
”She's an old woman,” Anne said cruelly. ”Dressed like an old woman in the ugliest clothes in Europe, from the stupidest nation in Europe. We have no time for the Spanish.”
”Who's we?” I asked coldly. ”Not the English.”
”Les Francais!” she said irritatingly. ”Bien sur! I am all but French now.”
”You're English born and bred, like George and me,” I said flatly. ”And I was brought up at the French court just like you. Why do you always have to pretend to be different?”
”Because everyone has to do something.”
”What d'you mean?”
”Every woman has to have something which singles her out, which catches the eye, which makes her the center of attention. I am going to be French.”
”So you pretend to be something that you're not,” I said disapprovingly.
She gleamed at me and her dark eyes measured me in a way that only Anne could do. ”I pretend no more and no less than you do,” she said quietly. ”My little sister, my little golden sister, my milk and honey sister.”
I met her eyes, my lighter gaze into her black, and I knew that I was smiling her smile, that she was a dark mirror to me. ”Oh that,” I said, still refusing to acknowledge a hit. ”Oh that.”
”Exactly,” she said. ”I shall be dark and French and fas.h.i.+onable and difficult and you shall be sweet and open and English and fair. What a pair we shall be. What man could resist us?”
I laughed, she could always make me laugh. I looked down from the leaded window and saw the king's hunt returning to the stable yard.
”Is that the king on his way?” Anne asked. ”Is he as handsome as they say?”
”He's wonderful. He really is. He dances and rides, and-oh-I can't tell you!”
”Will he come here now?”
”Probably. He always comes to see her.”
Anne glanced dismissively to where the queen sat sewing with her ladies. ”Can't think why.”
”Because he loves her,” I said. ”It's a wonderful love story. Her married to his brother and his brother dying like that, so young, and then her not knowing what she should do or where she could go, and then him taking her and making her his wife and his queen. It's a wonderful story and he loves her still.”
Anne raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and glanced around the room. All the ladies in waiting had heard the sound of the returning hunt and had spread the skirts of their gowns and moved in their seats so that they were placed like a little tableau to be viewed from the doorway when the door was flung open and Henry the king stood on the threshold and laughed with the boisterous joy of an indulged young man. ”I came to surprise you and I catch you all unawares!”
The queen started. ”How amazed we are!” she said warmly. ”And what a delight!”
The king's companions and friends followed their master into the room. My brother George came in first, checked on the threshold at the sight of Anne, held his pleasure hidden behind his handsome courtier's face, and bowed low over the queen's hand. ”Majesty.” He breathed on her fingers. ”I have been in the sun all the morning but I am only dazzled now.”
She smiled her small polite smile as she gazed down at his bent dark curly head. ”You may greet your sister.”
”Mary is here?” George asked indifferently, as if he had not seen us both.
”Your other sister, Anne,” the queen corrected him. A small gesture from her hand, heavy with rings, indicated that the two of us should step forward. George swept us a bow without moving from the prime place near the throne.
”Has she changed much?” the queen asked.
George smiled. ”I hope she will change more with a model such as you before her eyes.”
The queen gave a little laugh. ”Very pretty,” she said appreciatively, and waved him toward us.
”h.e.l.lo, little Miss Beautiful,” he said to Anne. ”h.e.l.lo, Mistress Beautiful,” to me.
Anne regarded him from under her dark eyelashes. ”I wish I could hug you,” she said.
”We'll go out, as soon as we can,” George decreed. ”You look well, Annamaria.”
”I am well,” she said. ”And you?”
”Never better.”
”What's little Mary's husband like?” she asked curiously, watching William as he entered and bowed over the queen's hand.
”Great-grandson of the third Earl of Somerset, and very high in the king's favor.” George volunteered the only matters of interest: his family connections and his closeness to the throne. ”She's done well. Did you know you were brought home to be married, Anne?”
”Father hasn't said who.”
”I think you're to go to Ormonde,” George said.
”A countess,” Anne said with a triumphant smile to me.
”Only Irish,” I rejoined at once.
My husband stepped back from the queen's chair, caught sight of us, and then raised an eyebrow at Anne's intense provocative stare. The king took his seat beside the queen and looked around the room.
”My dear Mary Carey's sister has come to join our company,” the queen said. ”This is Anne Boleyn.”
”George's sister?” the king asked.
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