Brazen (8 page)

“S
O
I
HAVE
TO
DO
AS
M
Y
FATHER
WISHES
,” I
TE
LL
M
ADGE
AND
Margaret in explanation of why I will no longer seek out Henry FitzRoy. “I’m still his daughter.”

I don’t tell them Father said I could become queen. The word becomes more unpalatable the more I think on it. As if worms have begun to dig in.

“His prisoner, more like,” Margaret murmurs behind me.

“So we find you someone else,” Madge says, slowing her steps as we go down the spiral staircase.

“I don’t know if I want someone else.” I don’t even know if I want Fitz.

Madge reaches for her miniature Chaucer, swinging it in my face so I nearly fall as I stumble into the courtyard.

“What were the generative organs made for?” she asks dramatically. “They cannot have been made for naught!”

The palace is alive with the May Day festivities and with the men enjoying them—jousting and banqueting and making bawdy jokes—so Madge’s exclamation gets a rumble of appreciative laughter.

“I can help you with that, Mistress Shelton,” Francis Weston quips, his narrow face alight with mischief.

“I’ll come to you if I get no better offers, Master Weston.” Madge threads us through the knots of revelers and into the great hall.

The queen helped preside over the joust, but her growing belly has begun to slow her down. She insisted that she needed to rest, and sent us in search of other entertainment. Madge has taken it as a strict command. She links arms with both of us as we enter the hall. The men are dressed in their best and preen before the windows. All to the desired effect.

“All right,” Madge says, pointing with her chin, none too discreetly, at the line of men. “Which one?”

I look away. Margaret shifts next to me. If possible, her back gets a little bit straighter.

“What do you mean?” I ask Madge.

“They’re obviously lining up for harvest,” Madge says. “So let’s be the first to pick!”

I flick my eyes to the left. The men do look like horses at auction. Or prisoners lined up for judgment.

“See!” Madge crows. “You can’t help looking!” She turns to face the group full on, elongating her neck and shifting her hips so her vivid yellow skirts swirl around her.

“I’m married,” I remind her.

“And your father has told you not to see him,” Madge says, looking at me over her shoulder. “So all the more reason to practice on someone else. Now pick.” She levels her gaze at Margaret. “Both of you.”

“I like the tall one,” Margaret murmurs.

“You would have to,” Madge says. “I don’t think any of the rest of them could match you in height, even if you were barefoot.”

Margaret frowns, a tiny downturn of her mouth.

“Oh, Margaret.” Madge says placatingly, “No one can fault you for being tall. It proves you’re related to the king. It’s something you should be proud of.”

I stare at the tallest man in the group.

“I think I’m related to him,” I say.

“You are?” Margaret turns to me. “Can you introduce me?”

“That smitten already, Margaret? Let’s see. He’s got nice enough features, seems in good shape, though the bloom of youth is starting to fade. . . .” Madge trails off. She looks a little jealous.

I squint at the man. His face is dominated by the Howard nose—long and straight, with a tiny hook at the end. Pointed chin. Minuscule beard—just a scrap really, like he’s left something on his chin for later. I search through memories to see where he fits. Which family we visited and when.

The Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, my step-grandmother, approaches him. She’s at court for the festivities. Or perhaps escaping from her disreputable charges at her house in Lambeth. She grabs his hands, and he kisses her on the cheek. And I remember.

She’s his mother.

“He’s my uncle,” I say. “Thomas Howard.”

“You’re addled,” Madge laughs. “Your
father
is Thomas Howard.”

“Half uncle,” I clarify. “The dowager duchess’s son.”

“Why must the nobility insist that everyone have the same name?” Madge cries. “Thomas. Henry. William. Mary.” She pouts and scrunches up her face at me.

“You’re a Mary,” I point out.

“Why do you think I call myself Madge? Shout ‘Mary!’ in this room, and half the women will turn around. Call ‘Thomas!’ and it will be half the men.”

“Or Henry,” Margaret adds.

“Exactly!” Madge thumps me on the shoulder. “Look.” She points unabashedly at the men by the window. “Thomas Wyatt.”

Wyatt sees her pointing and raises an eyebrow. Once again, I find myself wishing his eyes would land on me, but when they do, I freeze.

Wyatt winks.

Madge frowns a little, but continues down the line.

“Thomas Howard. Thomas Seymour. Now
he’s
good-looking.”

“Like a fox is good-looking to a goose,” Margaret says.

I laugh.

“Henry Howard.”

Madge pauses in her running commentary. Bites her bottom lip to keep from smiling. Hal can’t take his eyes off her, and the buzz resonating between them makes me jealous.

“Henry Norris.”

“Oh, Madge, he
is
too old. He must be at least forty. Almost as old as the king.”

“We never put an age limit on our list. Besides, I assume everything still functions properly.”

Madge slips away from me as I try to yank on her hood. Margaret steadies me, and I hear a shuffle by the windows and know, without looking, that we are now the ones on display.

Madge brushes her skirts. Holds out her hand to me.

“Walk with me?”

“We’ll all walk,” Margaret says.

“You just want to be introduced to Mary’s
uncle
.”

“And you just want to make her brother mad with passion.”

Madge sucks in a breath, but doesn’t respond.

“Lady Margaret.” Hal bows. “Your Grace.” He grins at me, but the smile slides quickly to Madge. “Mistress Shelton.”

I’m afraid to step between them for fear of getting burned by their intensity.

“Mary, you remember our uncle, Lord Thomas?” Hal asks, not looking at me.

Perfect.

I introduce Margaret and search for a getaway. Leave Hal and Madge to fend for themselves. Leave Margaret to my uncle. Just leave.

“Mary.”

Hal stops me, one hand gentle on my arm. I look him in the face, and he raises an eyebrow.

Then his eyes flick to someone behind me. Hal is never uncomfortable in public, and yet here he is, barely able to speak.

He doesn’t have to. I know who is behind me. My stomach churns with anxiety and I turn reluctantly.

The broad brow, the hair like gold reflecting sunset, the soaring eyebrows. And that mouth.

Fitz doesn’t speak, but the color deepens across his entire face like a cloud.

“Another Henry,” I hear Madge whisper as she drops into a curtsy. We all do, and the men all bow.

“Handsome,” she says in my ear as the men greet one another. “And excellent physical attributes.”

Then Fitz and I are facing each other. Again. Every excruciating detail of that day comes back to me. The stiffness in his limbs. The shock in his eyes. The taste of his mouth.

I lick my lips.

“Blotching, Duchess.”

I pretend not to hear Madge’s comment and pray that Fitz hasn’t.

“Your Grace,” I say stiffly. He nods.

Madge elbows me in the ribs. “Oh, excuse me, Duchess!” she says with exaggerated apology. “We were just going to go
dance
.”

I watch helplessly as Madge drags Hal into the center of the room. Margaret and my uncle Thomas follow. They are leaving me. Abandoning me.

I can’t even look at Fitz.

“Would you like to?”

The sound of his voice startles me. He’s hardly said ten words to me since we married, but in the intervening months, his voice has deepened and mellowed. The way he speaks words makes my mouth water.

I don’t want to say yes, but I do. I don’t want to like the way his hand feels in mine. But I do.

I want to fall in love with him.

But I don’t.

As we move to the center of the floor, I learn one thing I can mentally scratch off of the list written in the little book he gave me.

Good dancer.

He finally speaks the second time he misses a beat and I stumble. “I can see why Hal calls you Your Gracelessness.”

I immediately cross off another:
He has to like me
.

“And what does he call you?” I retort. “For you have no rhythm.”

I finally look up at him and catch the smile disappearing from his face.

“I have perfect balance when I ride, can beat Hal any day at archery, and always win at tennis.”

A third item.
Is not vain.

“You didn’t the last time I saw you play.”

He stops moving altogether, so I force him into the next turn and press my advantage. Feel my mother’s tongue sharpening in my own mouth.

“What about academics? Latin? Astronomy? Diplomacy. Strategy. Poetry.” I pause. “But no, you need rhythm to write poetry.”

“I’m not at all like my father,” he says. “No mind for facts and figures. They bore me. And I leave the poetry to your brother.”

Another element off the list. I’m beginning to be glad he didn’t kiss me back.

“So you excel at
other
things,” I say. “Physical pursuits.”

His hand tightens on mine reflexively and I realize what I’ve just implied—that he must be good in bed. My eyes snap to his. His eyebrows have disappeared beneath his hair.

“And you excel at words,” he says.

I can no longer hold my tongue or make a clear judgment.

“At least I can dance.”

“A little.”

“With the right partner.”

“And what about the wrong one?”

I glare at him. “Obviously not.”

“When grace meets rhythm, the effect is beautiful.”

That’s certainly not us. I am suddenly exhausted. “Like the king and queen. They each have both. They are well matched.”

“What about when gracelessness meets rhythmlessness?” he asks. “Can the effect not be beautiful? Because we, too, are well matched. Equal.”

We are not equal. He has been royalty all his life, and I am nothing but a fabricated duchess.

I think to tell him this, but he pauses both the conversation and the dance, and my eyes lift to his of their own accord. He leans over me. Intimate. His eyes seek not information but permission.

“What has Hal told you?” I ask. It is the first thing on my mind. Actually the second, but I cannot ask,
What have you told Hal?

“That you love words.”

Silence stretches out between us. Long and silver like a thread pulled from a tapestry. Unraveling.

“Perhaps the writing of them more than the speaking,” he says. His voice is low and sonorous. Confiding. But his eyes brighten with merriment. He’s teasing me.

I find that I cannot reply.

A sweep of skirts flashes past us and I realize we are standing amongst the dancers, some of whom are giving us dirty looks. Fitz takes my arm and guides me gently to the end of the room. I wonder if he is looking for a place to deposit me so he can find someone more interesting.

He finally stops nearer the exit, along the path the servants follow to bring platters of food and take the carcasses and bones back to the dogs behind the kitchen.

Perfect.

But Fitz doesn’t leave. He cradles me in his shadow.

“I’m afraid the last time we spoke—” He stops. Coughs. “Or didn’t speak. I’m afraid my reaction—or lack of it—embarrassed you.”

That embarrassment flares up in me again and I’m glad to be sheltered from the rest of the room. Madge would be able to see my blotchiness from the dance floor.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” he says.

He’s
sorry? I can’t speak, so I hold my breath. Wait for the
but
that begs to be tacked onto the phrase. There’s always a
but
.
But I’m just not attracted to you. But I’m in love with someone else. But my father says I can’t.

“But . . .”

I groan and turn to the tapestry behind us, wanting to press my face into the woven Adriatic. Maybe I can drown in it.

He’s silent. Forever.

“But what?” I ask finally, not looking up from the sea of threads.

“But it’s different.” He pauses. “It’s . . . you’re . . .”

Again the silence.

Belligerence turns me to face him. “I’m what?”

He flinches at the sharpness of my tone.

“You’re my wife.”

I clench my hands into fists. Pray that I don’t use them. “And that makes me what? Undesirable? Untouchable? Ugly?”

“No!” The sharpness of his tone matches my own, but then it softens. “Just the opposite, actually.”

He takes my hand and turns it palm up, strokes my fingers open, and rests his palm on mine.

“You are beautiful and desirable and singularly and utterly touchable.” He’s looking at my hand, tracing the lines there with his index finger. I watch his face for any sign of a tease or a joke. But there is none. I hold my breath.