Brazen (5 page)

“S
O
.” M
ADGE
WO
N
’
T
LOOK
AT
ME
. “Y
OU
’
R
E
FRIENDS
WITH
THE
king’s niece now?”

The queen has been ill—pregnancy doesn’t treat her well—and we are on our way to her apartments to entertain her. I glance back at Madge as we make our way up a spiral staircase. She doesn’t look very entertaining. She looks cross.

“Margaret’s only just returned to court,” I say. “I thought she could use a friend.” I don’t want to divulge my true reason for befriending her.

“Oh, so it’s
Margaret
now, not Lady Margaret. I told you you’d forget about me, Duchess.”

“I haven’t forgotten you.”

“You will when there are more important people around. Like Lady Margaret Douglas.”

“I like her. I think you’d like her if you gave her a chance.”

“She’s cold.” Madge frowns. “It’s like she thinks she’s better than everyone else.”

She is
.

“She’s
amiable
,” I retort. “Which is more than I can say about you right now.”

“Did you tell her all your secrets?” Madge asks as we enter the queen’s watching chamber. “Did you tell her all of mine?”

“No!” Irritation surges into my throat. “I don’t tell secrets.”

“So how does she know about me and Hal?”

I turn to face her. So close we’re almost nose to nose. “
I
don’t even know about you and Hal.”

“Is it jealousy, Duchess? You want what I have?”

“Don’t be disgusting, Madge; he’s my brother.”

Suddenly, Madge’s narrowed eyes open wide and she laughs so loudly the rest of the room goes silent. She whips me into a quick, spinning hug and—just like that—our animosity is forgotten. As it always is when we argue.

“So what
do
you want?” she asks, ignoring the crowd parting and bowing as we cross the room.

Maybe I really do want what Madge has. Confidence. “I want him to notice me,” I say. “To look at me.”

“Fitz.” She doesn’t have to ask; it’s a statement of fact. She stops at the door to the queen’s privy chamber and looks at me seriously. “But I think you want more than that.” The corners of her mouth tilt up with malicious glee.

My skin gets hot and I drop my chin. Madge grabs it and lifts my head to she can see my face. Read me.

“Are you blushing?”

“No.” I twitch my chin out of her grip.

“You are,” she says. “Your skin has gone all blotchy just above the lace of your bodice.”

I slap a hand across the top of my chest, and her laughter is so contagious I have to join in.

“I hear two little wrens giggling outside my rooms!”

The door to the queen’s privy chamber has been opened for us to enter, and we find her sitting near the fire, listening to music. The lutenist is Mark Smeaton, a favorite of hers. He’s a rather smarmy Flemish man, but he can play, that I grant him.

“Are you well, Your Majesty?” I curtsy. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Your laughter has inspired me to grant you your freedom,” the queen says, her smile indulgent. “Drop your sewing. Have some fun. Find a tennis match to watch.”

She pauses and glances from Madge to me and back again.

“I believe young Surrey and the Duke of Richmond have challenged each other to a duel of sorts.”

I look to Madge, and she wears the exact expression I can feel on my own face. Deliverance. And expectation.

The queen laughs. “Go!” she cries. “I will stay here, indulging myself in all of Smeaton’s skills.”

Smeaton’s fingers stutter on the strings, and she laughs again.

“Your musical skills, Master Smeaton.”

We retreat, and Madge grins when the door closes behind us.

“She’s a wicked one, that Anne Boleyn,” she says, and looks at me with eager eyes. “And quite a matchmaker.”

I grin back at her, suddenly feeling a little wicked myself. Ready for whatever might happen next. For whatever I can
make
happen. I grab Madge’s hand and practically run through the watching chamber.

Madge keeps pace with me until we reach the stairs and she drops my hand, so she can place both hands on the walls. I skitter down and wait at the bottom, watching her take each step as if her life depends on it.

“I hate heights,” she murmurs to her feet. “And I hate spiral staircases even more. When will we ever live in a bloody castle that is all on one level?”

Impatience gets the better of me and I stamp my foot. I’ve decided to act and I want to act
now
, before I lose my courage.

Madge frowns and I feel a rush of guilt at not being more sympathetic. I reach up to help her, but she swats my hand away. As soon as her feet hit the ground at the bottom, her expression changes and she’s Madge again. She lifts her nose like a pointer and sniffs the air.

“I know where they are,” she says. “Follow me.”

She strides across a courtyard into the shadow of the king’s privy gallery.

“You can smell them?” I laugh.

“Of course.” Madge stops so abruptly I almost run into her. She turns and looks at me expectantly. “Sweat, lust, and youthful energy. Can’t you?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, but continues on her quest, pausing before she crosses the road and then barrels into the courtyards and galleries of the park-side recreation buildings. Madge hesitates almost imperceptibly before charging up a set of stairs, her fingers making hardly a noise as she drags them along the walls.

We look down into the largest of the tennis courts. The viewing platform is crowded with courtiers and the queen’s ladies making bets on the outcome. I slow, looking at them all, my breath coming tight and sharp. The only person not seeming to enjoy herself is Jane Seymour, hiding in the corner behind her brother.

Madge whispers in my ear. “See that?” She nods her head in Jane’s direction. “That’s the way
not
to be. Boring. Colorless. Waiting for life to happen to you instead of going out to grab it by the horns.” She pauses. “She’s been at court
forever
and she’s
still
not married, despite her handsome siblings.”

Thomas Seymour catches me staring and winks, but Madge has already turned away. She pulls me through the crowd by the elbow, but never lets go. I don’t breathe until we reach the barrier overlooking the game, next to Jane Boleyn, the queen’s sister-in-law. She’s leaning against a stanchion, and her eyes are on the spectators, not the match. She smiles at me, but then her gaze moves on.

Henry Norris is at the far end of the court ready to serve. Just below us stands the king. He has stripped down to his shirt, which sticks to the sweat of his broad back. He moves like a man who was once graceful, but now dives for the ball rather than running to it, his weight hitting the floor with a sound like thunder. I look at Madge out of the corner of my eye. She watches his every move. Like—well, like a tennis match of one.

“Your sense of smell has betrayed you, Madge.”

Madge doesn’t even look at me. “That’s what you think.”

Norris misses the return and the crowd cheers. Coins clink and clatter to the floor; laughter and the swish of skirts surround us like smoke. The king pauses below us, running one hand along the back of his neck, waiting for Norris to come and shake his hand.

“See that?” Madge says. “Make them come to you.”

I watch the top of the king’s head. His hair is the color of gold in firelight—a bright, shining red. Though the color has begun to dull around his temples. And there is a thin swirl at the crown of his head, where freckled skin has just begun to show. Vulnerable.

“The king is going bald,” I whisper to Madge, sure that she’ll laugh.

Instead, she turns to me with disappointment in her eyes.

“Oh, Mary,” she says, her voice dripping with contempt. “You’re so . . .
prosaic
.”

For one who loves poetry the word stings like salt in a wound. But Madge doesn’t know, so she cannot see the hurt she’s caused. She just turns and creeps back down the stairs and moves on to the next tennis game.

We find Fitz and Hal in the last court. It is the smallest one and open to the bleak winter chill, so no one has stopped to watch. The boys don’t seem to care, however, playing to win rather than playing for the audience. They have removed their doublets and jackets and draped them over the barrier rail of the viewing platform.

They have not yet seen us, so we remain in the shadows, watching. Hal is smaller. More wiry. His hair is the color of brass, like mine. Like Father’s, his legs are slightly too short for his body.

Fitz is taller, despite being younger. His legs are longer. But they are both quick. And both strong. The pop of the tennis ball echoes in the little enclosure and their grunts sound animalistic. They don’t speak at all, so neither do Madge and I.

Hal misses a wide shot and Fitz lowers his racket for a moment, presses both fists to his hips, and arches backward, looking up to the sky. There’s a glimmer of sweat in the hollow above his collarbone.

“You’re blotching again.”

Madge’s comment makes my skin even hotter, and she smirks.

Fitz turns. And for the first time in weeks, he sees me. Looks right at me. I struggle to smile as he bows, his eyes never leaving my face. Then Hal serves the ball straight into his ass and both of them laugh, returning to the game.

“Nothing can stop their play,” Madge says, making it sound suggestive and somewhat salacious.

“They do seem to be enjoying it.”

I can see Hal darting looks over at us almost every time he hits the ball. It’s destroying his accuracy. But I can just imagine what he’s thinking:
What are they talking about? Are they talking about me?

He misses an easy volley, and Fitz laughs.

“Your mind is elsewhere, Hal.”

“How can it not be, Fitz? With such lovely examples of womanhood watching our every move?”

Fitz ducks his head and peeks at me from the corner of his eye. Hardly discreet. But it gives me hope. He sees me.

“‘O happy dames, that may embrace the fruit of your delight,’” Hal calls, and serves the ball again, so powerfully this time that I am sure Fitz will miss it, but he dives and sends it back with a roar. Hal stops spouting poetry and watching Madge and returns to the matter at hand.

“They look set to kill each other,” I say.

“They look set to prove themselves,” Madge replies. “And to the victor go the spoils.”

“Then I had better hope Fitz wins.”

I can’t believe I’ve said something so audacious, but Madge just raises an eyebrow.

“Blotching,” she says.

We don’t speak again, just stand at the rail and watch. I watch Fitz’s body move. The strength with which he strikes. The grace. How his eyes never leave the ball. The intensity of his expression.

He shines.

Fitz misses a shot and lopes over to it. Tosses it up in the air twice and catches it. Looks at me.

His gaze ignites every latent nerve in my body and sets a rush the strength of an ocean wave through me.

Fitz tosses the ball back to my brother, who grins. Hal sizes up the length of the court and the height of the net. When his calculating gaze settles on Madge, he winks at her.

Then he serves.

Fitz dives for it and misses it by a finger’s breadth.

I wonder if he planned it that way.

Hal shouts in triumph and spins his racket in his hand. Tosses it to his left to shake Fitz’s and comes over to us at the rail.

“Sister.” He bows slightly. Even Hal should call me Your Grace in public. He grins at me as if to say, “What?” and then turns to Madge.

“Mistress Shelton.” He’s practically purring.

“Congratulations,” she purrs in return. “You win.”

Without another word, they leave together. I feel my intrepidity leaking after them as I watch Madge’s bright yellow skirts disappear.

“I think they’re going to be all right.” Fitz’s voice is close. Just behind my shoulder.

“Hal can charm anyone,” I agree.

I hear his breath. Feel his gaze on me. Catch the scent of warm linen and salt. He reaches around me and my eyes snap to his. The quickness of my movement makes him falter.

“My doublet,” he says cautiously, and pulls it from the rail behind me, but the fabric snags on something and tumbles to the earthen floor. Fitz curses under his breath and I laugh at the way his ears turn pink. He steps around me, picks the doublet up and shakes it, then turns away to dress.

I know this is my moment. I glance once to the rest of the gallery. No one is here. No one watches. Everyone has gone inside to see and be seen. To speak to the king. To flirt with the queen. To ready themselves for the big show that will be supper this evening. I am here. Alone.

I salvage the remnants of my courage and reach out a hand to lay it on his shoulder. My fingers tighten on the muscle and bone through the damp linen of his shirt. I tug just slightly. To turn him to me.

I take my eyes away from the bare skin at his collarbone. At his throat. Confusion is written all over his expression, and the doublet hangs slack off of one arm. Before I can think or hesitate or ask the hundred questions in my mind, I step closer, drowning in the scent of skin and linen and air.