Love, Remember Me (31 page)

"Your heart is good, my lord, but your wisdom fails you here," the Earl of Southampton told him. "Cromwell's fate is sealed. He is a doomed man, and no one save God Himself can help him. The king has set his mind to wed with Mistress Howard, and we must take the lady's family with her. We have no other choice."

"How did the Howard girl gain the ascendancy?" the Duke of Suffolk wondered aloud. "Was not the king's fancy also taken by the Wyndham girl as well? But then she married Norfolk's grandson so hastily."

His two companions shrugged and settled back. The archbishop said nothing, and the Earl of Southampton knew nothing. The royal barge sailed down the river, out of sight of Richmond, where the former queen was even now telling her ladies that they might depart for the court or their own homes. Most of the women were eager to get back to Greenwich in order to secure themselves places with the new queen. The king's nieces and daughter-in-law had not even come to Richmond. The Countess of Rutland would remain, but only until her husband, the former queen's Lord Chamberlain, was formally dismissed. Sir Thomas Denny, Anne's chancellor, and Dr. Kaye, the almoner, took their leave of the lady Anne and joined the departing women in a line of barges back to London. All were polite, but it was obvious that Anne was now considered a part of the past. Catherine was the future.

There was no room in the barges for the maids of honor.

"You will leave in the morning," the Countess of Rutland said to those who were going.

Nyssa bid her friends a fond farewell. Kate Carey and Bessie FitzGerald both wept. The Bassetts were polite. Helga von Grafsteen and Maria Hesseldorf were going to remain with their mistress for the present. Young Viscount Wyndham bid the Princess of Cleves an elegant goodbye, sweeping his bonnet off and bowing quite low.

"I am honored to have been in your service, madame. I am always at your disposal should you ever need me," he said.

"You are a goot boy, Philip," the lady Anne told him. "I am grateful for your friendship, my lord."

"Are you certain that you do not want to travel home for a visit, Giles?" Nyssa asked her younger brother. "Our parents will be most anxious about you. Are you sure that you would stay?"

"I have to make my mark here at court, Nyssa," he told his elder sister. "You know 'tis the only chance I have. The Church is no longer a good career for second sons. There are three brothers behind me for our parents to match and worry over. Eventually I will move from Princess Anne's service up the ladder, but if I leave now, how will I ever get another place? No, it is best that I stay. Perhaps I will come home sometime in the autumn for a visit. My only regret at remaining is that I will not get to see Papa's face when you present him with a husband." Giles chuckled and his blue eyes twinkled mischievously.

Nyssa laughed. "You are very bad," she said, and bending down, she kissed her little brother. "God watch over you, Giles."

The budding courtier bowed to her and replied, "God protect you and Varian, sister."

"Lady de Winter," the Countess of Rutland called. "You are holding up the barge. Come at once!"

Nyssa turned to the princess, and almost immediately her eyes misted with tears. "I do not like to leave you, dear madame."

Anne of Cleves swallowed back her own welling emotions. "You are not to worry, Nyssa. I haf escaped the English lion's claws vith hardly a scratch. I am now a vealthy and propertied voman, and I haf no man to answer to from this day forvard. No brother Vilhelm, so full of importance and so joyless; and no husband Hendrick, who from the first did not like me for a vife. Ve are better friends, he and I. Do not veep on my behalf, Nyssa. I finally haf vhat I vant.
I am free
. Free to live my own life as I choose. Nein, liebling. I am not unhappy."

"But what of love, madame? Who is there to love you?" Nyssa's eyes were full of her concern for the princess.

"For you, Nyssa," Anne told her, "romantic luf is important. You haf learned luf at your mama's knee, nein? I learned duty at my mama's knee. Vhat I know of luf is vhat you and a few others have shared vith me. It is enough for me. I vant no more." The princess then kissed the young Countess of March upon her cheeks and her lips, saying, "Go now. Go home vith your handsome bridegroom. You may write to me if you desire to do so. I vould velcome your letters."

Nyssa curtsied low. "It has been a privilege to serve you, madame," she said. Then arising, she hurried to get into the last barge leaving Richmond for Greenwich, where Varian de Winter was awaiting her. Soon she stood on the hot deck of the barge, watching as the palace and the waving women disappeared around a bend. It was over. Another chapter in her life had closed. What would her future hold?

Philip came and stood next to Nyssa. He said nothing, but he sensed her feeling of loss and reached for her. She turned and smiled at her brother even as he squeezed her hand.

"We're going home, Philip, and 'tis summer, and ohhh, I cannot wait to see Mama and Papa, and our baby sisters."

"I have abided by your wishes, Nyssa, but I believe our family will be greatly shocked by the news of your marriage, now almost three months ago," Philip said seriously. "Would it not be better if I rode on ahead with Uncle Owen to prepare them for this news?"

"Nay, Philip, it is not your place to tell our parents of my marriage. It is Varian's and my duty to do so. I know it will be a great surprise, but you must not interfere."

He sighed deeply. "I wish I were a man grown. I hate being in between. And I will miss Helga. Isn't she just the prettiest girl, Nyssa? And her heart is so good and kind," he finished with a blush.

"Why, Philip, I believe you have conceived a tendre for Helga von Grafsteen. Why do you not discuss it with Papa when we return to
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? I'm certain her dowry is a respectable one."

"Do you think he would listen to me, Nyssa?" Philip asked his sister. "He always makes me feel so young, though I shall be fourteen in October. If the match could be made, and we waited until I was seventeen, Helga would be old enough by then too."

"Then speak with Papa, Philip. You don't want him to make a match for you with some girl you do not like," she advised.

"You were forced into a marriage," he said glumly.

"It is fortunate then that Varian and I like each other," Nyssa told him with a small smile, and then she grew silent again.

Their barge passed the soaring spires of Westminster and on through the city of London, sweeping southeast down the river to Greenwich. There was just the faintest breeze coming up from the sea past Gravesend, and then the towers and turrets of Greenwich came into view. She could see the other barges that had preceded them unloading their passengers. As the ladies and gentlemen who had been a part of Anne of Cleves's household swept up the green lawns, a lone figure remained. Her heart beat a little faster as she recognized that figure. It was Varian de Winter. It was her husband come to take her home.

CHAPTER 9

I
SIMPLY
will not let you go, Nyssa!" Catherine Howard told the Countess of March. "You cannot leave me! You are the only true friend that I have. All the rest of them! Pah! Hangers-on, and greedy for what I can give them, but you are not like that at all. I can trust you!
You must stay!
"

"Nay, Cat, I must go home," Nyssa told her friend. "My parents know absolutely nothing of my marriage to your cousin. It is hardly something I wished to elaborate upon in a letter. In all my whole life I have never been away from
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until I came to court last autumn. I miss my family, and they must meet and get to know Varian. If we do not go now, then when?"

Although she was ostensibly staying with her grandmother at Lambeth House, Cat Howard had rooms at Greenwich. Both she and her companion would have been fascinated to know that they were the very same rooms once inhabited by Nyssa's mother, Blaze Wyndham, during her brief tenure as Henry Tudor's mistress.

Cat pouted prettily at her friend's words. Her auburn hair caught the sunlight streaming in through the windows that overlooked the river. Nyssa thought how pretty she suddenly was. The dress Cat wore was obviously new, and of a very expensive material such as Cat had rarely seen. It was a deep rose silk with a low neckline that exposed a good deal of her pretty breasts. The gold pomander ball that the king had given her in April hung from her waist. About her neck was a rich gold chain studded with rubies, and every one of her plump little fingers had a beautiful ring upon it; and each of those rings had a fine gemstone set in it.

"If I ask Henry," Cat said slyly, "he will make you stay. He will do anything for me, Nyssa!
Anything!
I have never had a man so wild for me. It is quite astounding, considering his age."

"You have had other suitors? I did not know that." Nyssa was surprised. Cat had always presented herself as a complete innocent, although looking back upon some of their conversations, Nyssa realized now that that was not quite the case. And why wouldn't she have had suitors? She was a pretty young woman. Thomas Culpeper had certainly noticed her, although Cat said she had never bothered with him. If Cat was lacking in dowry, she was rich in powerful relations, which was almost as good in some cases.

Cat giggled. "You must not tell on me," she said. "Duke Thomas does not even know. The first man to pay me court was my music master, Henry Manox. He gave me my first kiss. Then when I was at Lambeth before I came to court, there was Francis Dereham, a gentleman pensioner in Duke Thomas's service." She giggled again. "My step-grandmother, Duchess Agnes, never knew what went on amongst her charges as long as we were mannerly in her sight."

Nyssa was shocked. "Tell me no more, Cat," she said. "But you had best tell the king of your harmless little romps. If you do not, someone else, jealous of you, surely will."

"If I tell Henry, and he grows angry with me, Duke Thomas will never forgive me. Nay, it is better I say nothing. No one will tell, for all were equally guilty of collective naughtiness. None will want to accept blame, and so all are safe from scandal," Cat said to Nyssa. Her little hands nervously smoothed her gown. "You will stay, won't you, Nyssa? I should be lost without you," she wheedled her friend.

Nyssa shook her head. "I must go home, Cat. Besides," she explained reasonably, "you will soon marry the king, and be off on your honeymoon. You will not want me along then. The king will want you all to himself. He is very much in love with you. Everyone can see it. It is quite the talk of the court."

"It is, isn't it?" Cat replied with a rather smug smile. "They say he has never behaved with any of the others as he does with me."

"You are very fortunate to have a man who loves you, Cat," Nyssa said. "Do be good to him. My mother says if a woman is good to her husband, he will always treat her well."

"Does she? How curious. I do not remember my mother for she died when I was very young, and I was sent off to the Howards at Horsham to be raised with my sisters and half a dozen others. I came to Lambeth when I was fifteen, and was put in Duchess Agnes's care. Do you think I will have children, Nyssa? I think I am afraid of it."

"The king wants other children, Cat. 'Tis one of the reasons he takes a young wife. We have only Prince Edward. There should be at least a Duke of York, and perhaps another Duke of Richmond."

"The king has two daughters," Cat answered sullenly.

"But a woman cannot rule England," Nyssa said. "Nay, you must give his grace at least two fine boys."

"And what of you? Will you not give my cousin Varian sons? You have been married for almost three months already. Is there no sign of a child? Varian likes children, you know. He would come to Horsham when I was a child to play with the little ones," Cat told her.

"Did he?" Nyssa was fascinated with this bit of information regarding her husband. He had certainly never said anything to her about children.

The two young women chattered for some minutes more, and then Nyssa arose, saying, "I really must go, Cat. Varian will be furious with me. I told him I was coming just to bid you farewell. I have been here for almost an hour. We have several days' travel ahead of us."

Catherine Howard stood up and hugged her friend. "Promise me you will come back to court when I am queen," she said, her cerulean-blue eyes boring into Nyssa's soft violet-blue ones. "
Promise!
"

"Some day," Nyssa said offhandedly. "I promise."

"For Christmas at Hampton Court," Cat persisted.

"Oh, not Christmas," Nyssa said, shaking her head. "Christmas is always at
RiversEdge
. I missed both it and my birthday last year because I was in service to the queen.
Not Christmas, Cat
. "

"Twelfth Night, then," the young queen-to-be commanded.

"I shall speak to Varian," Nyssa promised.

And I shall speak to Henry
, Catherine Howard thought silently.

Nyssa went to take her leave of the king. She curtsied low to the monarch.

"It has been some weeks since I have seen you, my wild rose," Henry Tudor said. His love for Cat had made him benevolent again toward Nyssa. "You bloom," he noted. "I must assume that your marriage to the Earl of March is not an unhappy one, then. What thinks your lady mother?"

"She does not know, Your Grace," Nyssa said. "We prefer to tell her together face-to-face. I think it better that way."

"Aye, you are very wise, madame." He smiled at her. "I have a wedding gift for you, Nyssa de Winter." The king lifted a fine filigreed gold chain studded with diamonds from about his own neck and placed it over her head. "You may come back to court when it suits you, madame," he told her. "You served well, and are much like your faithful mother."

"Your Grace!" She was astounded. Her hand went to the magnificent chain, and then she looked directly at him. "Ohh, thank you, my good lord! I shall treasure this gift all my life."

The king was pleased by her ingenuousness. "Go, madame, for you have a long journey ahead of you, I know. Perhaps next year we shall visit you, but this summer we have other matters to attend to, eh Will?" He turned to his fool, who nodded. "Tell your good parents that I send them my felicitations and praise the service that their daughter did render to the crown." He held his hand out to Nyssa, and she kissed it.