Blaze Wyndham (39 page)

“Why will you help me?” demanded the weeping Delight.

“Because you are my very best friend in all the world, Delight Morgan, that is why!” said Henriette with such great conviction that innocent Delight believed her, and allowed her to put her to bed.

“I shall never sleep,” complained Delight.

“Yes you will, for I shall give you a special draught,” said Henriette, and pulling her little purse from her waistband, she dropped a pinch of powder into a small goblet of wine, and encouraged Delight to drink it all down. Within minutes the overwrought girl was asleep.

Henriette looked down upon Delight scornfully. What a fool the girl was! The little idiot had convinced herself that Cousin Anthony had wed with his Blaze simply as a duty, yet Henriette could see that nothing was further from the truth. Anthony Wyndham was in love with his wife, and if she was not in love with him now, she would eventually be. Henriette hurried to her own room next door.

“What was all the shouting in the hall?” demanded Cecile. She spoke in French, for her English was poor.

“It was Delight,
grand-mère,
baiting her sister again. Cousin Anthony sent her from the hall. I have put the little silly to bed.”

“Be careful,
chérie!
You must not call me
grand-mère
lest someone overhear you. As long as these English believe that I am your servant, and that I speak no English, they feel free to chatter in front of me. I can learn much for you.”

Henriette hugged the elderly woman. “Do not fear,
grand-mère.
I gave Delight a sleeping potion to calm her, and everyone else is still in the hall.” She settled herself on the bed with her skirts tucked beneath her. “They spoke again of marrying me off tonight,
grand-mère.
Cousin Blaze says that Delight and I are getting a bit old to find husbands, and come the spring they will find us each a mate.” She laughed. “Beautiful Blaze, who is so sure of herself and her life. How I hate her! How I hate her for being married to Anthony when I had planned to wed with him myself. Is that not what Papa wanted for me,
grand-mère?
”

“
Oui, oui
,” replied the old woman, “but it cannot be now,
ma petite.
You are fortunate that Madame Blaze was willing to keep you here, and is willing to see you dowered and wed well. She is not stupid,
ma petite.
She has been a powerful king’s mistress after all. Be grateful she has not seen through you.”

“Do you think I shall wed with some English country squire when I have been promised a nobleman all my life? I intend being Madame la Comtesse de Langford,
grand-mère
!”

“
Zut alors,
Henriette! And what of Madame Blaze?”

“She will die,” said Henriette.

“And Mademoiselle Delight?”

“ ’Tis she who will murder her sister, and then in remorse over her wicked deed, kill herself. Then only I shall be left,
ma chère grand-mère.
I shall be here to comfort my poor cousin Anthony, to oversee that little brat Nyssa, who calls him Papa, to wed with him when his mourning is over.”

“And how will you get Mademoiselle Delight to do your bidding,
ma petite?”
demanded Cecile.

“I must move slowly, and carefully,” said Henriette thoughtfully. “Delight must be driven far enough that she will not panic at the last moment and foil my plans. That would not do at all,
grand-mère.
Trust me. I learned much at the court of the King François. I know just what to do.”

The old Frenchwoman nodded her head as her granddaughter spoke. Her own husband had been an Italian from the court at Firenze, where he was an apothecary. He had taught both his wife and his daughter all of his knowledge of poisons and potions. It was this skill that had gained Henriette’s mother her place with the French queen, who was constantly slipping love potions into her husband’s wine in hopes of retaining his passion. Both Henriette’s grandmother and mother had passed on their skills to her in hopes that she would one day be given a place in some important household. Henry Wyndham, however, had had other plans for his pretty little daughter.

“You will be a lady, my little Henriette,” he told her over and over again as she grew up. “One day I will see that you marry a fine English lord, and then your papa can go home to live out his old age in style.”

When she had just turned eleven she had gone with her parents to the meeting of the two great kings, François and Henry, that was called
The Field of the Cloth of Gold.
There, by chance, her father had met his brother and his brother’s wife. Henry Wyndham had not seen his family in many years, but there was no animosity between the brothers. She remembered that her uncle, Lord Richard, had given her sugarplums and a silver piece. She remembered him bemoaning his son’s wifeless state.

Afterward her father said to her, “If Anthony Wyndham is not wed by the time you are old enough, then by God, I shall match you with your cousin,
ma petite
!”

She had never forgotten his words, and when she had arrived at RiversEdge she had been more than pleased to learn that her cousin was still without a wife. Though she was shocked when he returned two months later from Greenwich with a bride, she had hidden her deep disappointment very well. No one, not even Madame Blaze, suspected her. The coming of Delight Morgan with her stubborn passion for Anthony Wyndham was a wonderful piece of luck. She would use that silly and bitter young girl to rid her of her rival, and then she would take Anthony for her very own.

During the long winter she would play upon Delight’s jealousy. Carefully. Oh, so carefully. She would rouse the innocent girl’s desires and natural lust for Anthony. She would drive her gently to the very brink, and then . . . Henriette laughed.

“I shall make a most elegant
comtesse, grand-mère,
shall I not? Then I will go to court and surprise my old friend Mademoiselle Boleyn! She will be very surprised to see us, will she not?”

The old woman cackled. “Indeed she will,
ma petite!
Poor King Henry Tudor. He will not rid himself of Mistress Anne Boleyn as easily as he has rid himself of his other
amours.
She means to have it all, that one!”

“The king wants to fuck her,
grand-mère,
but I know Anne well enough to tell you that though his desires strain his codpiece to the breaking point, he will not get his royal cock into Mademoiselle Boleyn’s sweet hole until he has made her his wife! She is a proud little bitch.”

“ ’Tis a shame that you were not so scrupulous in your behavior,
ma petite
, as Mademoiselle Boleyn, else your papa would not have died of those fearsome wounds he gained defending your honor. An honor that was long lost, Henriette.”

“Papa would have never found out about Monsieur le Duc but that Mademoiselle d’Aumont coveted him also.” She shrugged. “I did not ask him to defend me. Besides,
grand-mère,
you know that I love to fuck.”

“Aye, child,” was the answer, “but you must be careful here, else you are discovered, and your plans fail.”

T
he new year of Our Lord, 1526, had begun. The snows of December showed no signs of abating as the cold January days passed. Nyssa had celebrated her third birthday on the last day of December. Though her temper showed no signs of easing, she had now completely accepted Blaze once more as her mother. Under her mother’s tutelage her stitchery had improved tremendously, and the little girl was extremely proud of her accomplishment.

“I believe she will sew as well as Bliss and Blythe,” chuckled Blaze to Tony one evening as they sat before the fire in her dayroom. “It is very embarrassing to have such a small child outstrip you.”

He laughed back at her, and reaching out, took her hand in his. “She imitates you, you know,” he told her. “She watches you very carefully, and then tries to mimic what you do. The way you stand, for instance, when you are giving the maids orders. I saw Nyssa set herself just like that the other day, and give orders to Polly.”

“The little imp!” said Blaze, not knowing whether to be angry or whether to laugh.

“She admires you tremendously,” Tony continued. “From the moment you returned home and had to upend her and paddle her bottom. I thought you were wrong at the time, but it turned out that you were right, Blaze.”

“Children need boundaries, Tony. Without them they are apt to run wild and frightened. As long as children know what is expected of them, it is easier for them to behave. My mother raised us that way. When you took Nyssa from Ashby and brought her home, you let her run wild, and she grew afraid. Her temper was the result, and I will have to work long and hard to improve that, but how could you know? You are a man.”

“A man who counts the days until the fifth of February,” he said quietly. Then, raising her hand to his lips, he kissed it.

Startled, Blaze looked up at him, her eyes widening in her surprise. “Anthony . . .” Her voice caught.

“You do not hate me any longer, Blaze. I know it.”

“But I do not love you, my lord.”

“Did you love Henry Tudor?” he asked her.

“I was the king’s whore,” she said quietly, “but I am your wife. Even you know the difference.”

“Yet you deny me that which you so freely gave the king,” he answered her.

Blaze sighed deeply. She did not hate Anthony any longer, but she also did not know how she felt about him. She was no silly girl to grow indignant at his unspoken accusations. If she was to be happy with him, she would have to tell him the truth. “You are mistaken, Tony. I gave nothing freely to the king. Henry Tudor takes what he wants, be it a woman or an estate. My chaste behavior is what attracted his attention, and so he marked me for his own as a hunter marks a doe.

“He made it quite clear that on the first of May I would become his ladylove. He had me moved from my little chamber in the Marwood apartments to a large apartment set over his royal chambers. There was an inner staircase, hidden from public view, that allowed him to move back and forth in private between the two places. I wanted none of it. Neither the king, nor his spacious apartments, nor the supposed
honor
of being a royal mistress.”

“Then why did you simply not leave the court and come home?” Tony asked her.

Blaze laughed. “It is so simple for men, is it not?” she gently mocked him. “I wanted to do just that, but how could I deny my king? I was no virgin with a maidenhead to protect. Besides, he threatened to take Nyssa away from me and give her custody and that of RiversEdge to Thomas Seymour, who had tried and failed in his seduction of me. I do not like the Seymours. They are very ambitious people, and I feared for both Nyssa and her estates. I had no powerful allies to protect me. As long as I obeyed the king’s commands, Nyssa was safe and remained where she belonged.”

Anthony was shocked, for he admired the king. Still, as he thought on it, it was not so surprising. Henry Tudor was a most ruthless man when he chose to be. “Blaze,” he said, “I am so sorry! You were alone, and you were helpless. As Edmund’s heir I should have been there to help you!”

“I ran from your kindness and help,” she said truthfully, “but let me finish. Even so, I resisted the king as best I could, putting off the inevitable, hoping he would lose interest. On May Day, however, the king grew impatient for the night to come, and in early afternoon dragged me off in full sight of the court to his privy chamber. Then he forced me over a library table, and lifting my skirts, took me then and there. After that I did not resist him. What purpose would there have been in it? As long as I was his loving and gentle
sweetheart
, the king was content, and my child was safe from the Seymours.

“Strangely, I grew to like Hal over the months that I served his pleasures. He is a cruel man, yet there is great kindness in him. He is amusing and educated. He has great wit and even greater charm. Except for our first encounter, he was kind and thoughtful of me; but never, Anthony, never did I aspire to the position in which I found myself.” Then she laughed softly, realizing the double entendre of her words. “I think,” she amended, “that you know what it is I am trying to say to you, Tony. I did not seek to be the king’s mistress, and offered a choice, I would have declined the honor.”

He nodded. “I see now that I have been a fool,” he admitted. “I believed that you had gone to court, and having attracted the king’s attentions, were pleased with your place in life. How could I have been so blind? You would have never done such a thing, and yet I was so quick to think the worst when I arrived at court and learned your place in the king’s life.”

“I am not surprised,” she answered him. “The morality of those who live at court is far different from those of us who live quietly by simpler values in our country homes. You had been at court, and you knew its values. You judged me by those values. Bliss was always remonstrating with me for not enjoying my place, for she was convinced that I should adore living atop the pinnacle of power. She never really understood my unhappiness with my situation. Still, I never used my place in the king’s mercurial affections to gain either wealth or power for my family. There were many that called me the fool for it. I was known as
The Quiet Mistress.”
She smiled.