Part 41 (1/2)

”Good,” my uncle said, unimpressed. ”He's a rogue given half a chance.”

”He won't have a chance with me,” I said.

Anne and I were ready for bed, dressed in our night s.h.i.+fts, the maids dismissed, when there was the familiar tap at the door. ”Could only be George,” Anne said. ”Come in.”

Our handsome brother lounged at the door with a pitcher of wine in one hand and three gla.s.ses in the other. ”I come to wors.h.i.+p at the shrine of beauty.” He was quite drunk.

”You can come in,” I said. ”We are wonderfully beautiful.”

He kicked the door shut behind him. ”Much better by candlelight,” he said, surveying the two of us. ”Good G.o.d, Henry must go mad to think that he had the one of you and wants the other and can have neither.”

Anne was never pleased to be reminded that the king had been my lover. ”He is always attentive to me.”

George rolled his eyes at me. ”Drink?”

We all took a gla.s.s and George threw another log on the fire. There was a whisper of sound from the other side of the door. George, suddenly lithe and quick, was up at the door and tore it open. Jane Parker stood there, just straightening up from where she had been bending to put her eye to the keyhole.

”My dear wife!” George said with a voice like honey. ”If you want me in your bed you don't have to crawl around my sister's rooms, you can just ask.”

She flushed to the roots of her hair and peered past him to Anne, in bed, her gown slipping from her naked shoulder, and me in my nightdress at the fireside. There was something about the way she looked at the three of us that made me flinch. She always made me feel ashamed, as if I had been doing something wrong. But it was as if she would collude with us. She looked as if she wanted to know dirty secrets, and share them.

”I was pa.s.sing the door and I heard voices,” she said awkwardly. ”I was afraid that someone was disturbing Lady Anne. I was just about to knock to make sure that her ladys.h.i.+p was all right.”

”You were going to knock with your ear?” George asked, puzzled. ”With your nose?”

”Oh leave it, George,” I said suddenly. ”There is nothing wrong, Jane. George came to have a drink with us and say goodnight. He'll come to your room in a moment.”

She looked very far from grateful for my intervention. ”He can come or not as he likes,” she said. ”He can stay here all night if that is his pleasure.”

”Leave me,” Anne said simply. She spoke as if she would not descend to brawl with Jane.

George bowed in obedience and smartly shut the door in Jane's face. He turned and put his back to it and, without caring that she would certainly hear, laughed aloud. ”What a little snake!” he cried. ”Oh Mary, you shouldn't rise to her. Follow Anne's lead: 'Leave me.' Good G.o.d! It was tremendous: 'Leave me.'”

He came back to the fireside and poured us all wine. He handed the first gla.s.s to me and the second to Anne and then he held up his own to toast us both.

Anne did not raise her gla.s.s and she did not smile at him. ”Next time,” she observed, ”you will serve me first.”

”What?” he asked, confused.

”When you pour a gla.s.s of wine, it comes first to me. When you open my bedroom door you ask me if I want to admit the visitor. I am going to be queen, George, and you must learn to serve me as a queen.”

He did not flare up at her as he had done when he was freshly home from Europe. Even in that short time he had seen that Anne had great power. She did not care if she quarreled with her uncle, or with any of the men at court that could have been her allies. She did not care who hated her, as long as the king was at her beck and call. And she could ruin any man she chose.

George put his gla.s.s down on the hearth and crawled up on the bed so that he was on his hands and knees, with his face just inches from hers. ”My little queen in waiting,” he purred.

Anne's face softened at his intimacy.

”My little princess,” he whispered. Gently he kissed her on the nose and then the lips. ”Don't be a shrew with me,” he begged her. ”We all know that you are the first lady of the kingdom, but be sweet to me, Anne. We'll all be so much happier if you are sweet to me.”

Unwillingly, she smiled. ”You must show me every respect,” she warned him.

”I will lie beneath your horse's hooves,” he promised her.

”And never take liberties.”

”I would rather die.”

”Then you can come here and I will be sweet to you,” she said.

He leaned forward and kissed her again. Her eyes closed and her lips smiled and then parted. I watched as he pressed closer, and his finger went to her bare shoulder and stroked her neck. I watched, quite fascinated and quite horrified, as his fingers went into her smooth dark hair and pulled her head back for his kiss. Then she opened her eyes with a little sigh. ”Enough.” And she pushed him gently off the bed. George returned to his place at the fireside and we all pretended that it was nothing more than a brotherly kiss.

The next day Jane Parker was as confident as ever. She smiled at me, she curtsied at Anne and handed her cape as Anne was about to go out walking by the river with the king.

”I would have thought you would have been displeased this day, my lady.”

Anne took the cape. ”Why?”

”The news,” Jane said.

”What news?” I asked, so that Anne did not appear curious.

Jane answered me, but she watched Anne. ”The Countess of Northumberland is divorcing Henry Percy.”

Anne staggered for a moment and went white.

”Oh!” I cried, to draw the attention to me and from Anne. ”What a scandal! Why should she divorce him? What an idea! How very wrong of her.”

Anne had recovered, but Jane had watched her. ”Why,” Jane said, in a voice like silk. ”She says that their marriage was never valid at all. She says that there was a pre-contract. She says that all along he has been married to you, Lady Anne.”

Anne's head went up and she smiled at Jane. ”Lady Rochford, you do bring me the most extraordinary tidings. And you do choose the strangest of times to bring them to me. Last night you were creeping and listening at my door, and now you are as filled with bad news as a dead dog with maggots. If the Countess of Northumberland is unhappy in her marriage then I am sure that we all grieve for her.” There was a little murmur from the ladies, more like avid curiosity than sympathy. ”But if she wants to claim that Henry Percy was betrothed to me then it is simply not true. In either case, the king is waiting for me and you are delaying me.”

Anne tied her own cape and swept from the room. Two or three of her ladies followed her, as they should all have done. The rest held back, circling Jane Parker for more scandal.

”Jane, I am sure the king will want to see you attending Lady Anne,” I said spitefully.

At once she had to go, she followed Anne from the room and the others trailed behind her.

I picked up my skirts and ran like a schoolgirl to my uncle's apartments.

He was at his desk, though it was early in the afternoon. A clerk stood at his elbow, writing memoranda as my uncle dictated. My uncle frowned when I put my head around the door and then motioned me in and gestured that I should wait.

”What is it?” he asked. ”I am busy. I've just heard that Thomas More is unhappy with the king's matter against the queen. I didn't expect him to like it but I was hoping his conscience could swallow it. I'd give a thousand crowns not to have Thomas More openly against us.”