Queenbreaker: Perseverance (The Queenbreaker Trilogy Book 1) (50 page)

Shelton
House, London

Monday,
September 15th 1533

“You
are a disaster.” Mother’s black Boleyn eyes flayed me. I had no skin left from
Anne’s tongue-lashing so Mother’s look went to the bone. Her nails tapped the
foot of her goblet.

Father
threw back a draught of ale. “What did I say wife? Gabrielle should have been
the one.”

I
stared at the rubies blazing from Mother’s French hood. They could beat me to
death in the privacy of our home. I was
soiled
goods.
The Church would not care. The King would not notice.

“It’s
the nunnery for you,” Father pronounced.

The
backs of my eyes burned.

“Are
you with child?” he demanded.

I
gasped. I thought I’d prepared myself. But hearing the question from my father
undid me. I might be with child. I could not say yet. But I had known the
moment I saw John’s battered face outside the chapel that I would never marry
him. Not if the King and Christ commanded me. I wanted no part of him—not
his title, wealth, offspring. Evil tainted Lord John de Vere. I would never be
safe as his wife.

“Are
you?” Mother’s glare shook me to answer. “We can press a claim if you are.”

“N-no,
madam.”

“Are
you sure?”

Father
slammed his tankard on the sideboard. “Fetch a midwife if you want the truth.”

I
sucked in a ragged breath, shaking my head. “I swear, my lord. I am not with
child.”

“Were
there others?”

Tears
broke through. “No, Madam. Of course not.” I sniffled. “Including Lord John.”

“Madge
says they’re calling you a whore.” Her relentlessness battered me. “Why should
we believe you speak the truth?”

My
hand remembered Joan’s sweaty handkerchief and thrust it at them.

“Would
the Lady Joan Percy call me friend was it so?”

Mother
snatched it. She fingered the gold stitches rendering Joan’s humble initials.

“Spoiled
girl,” Father snapped. “Her reputation was never so fragile as yours, mistress.
We raised you to know better.”

My
head fell. “I know it.”

“I
have sent a message to Anne asking her to accept Emma in your stead,” Mother
said.

“Please,
madam,” I mewled through a tight throat and thick nose. “Do not send me away.”

Mother
stared through me. “You have done it all on your own, mistress. Syon Abbey is
prepared to take you for a suitable dowry.”

I
was insubstantial. I was the ghost of Mary Shelton. I would wear black and
white the rest of my life behind tall, unbreachable walls.

I am only fourteen! Widows are made for
nuns, not me.

“She
should walk there like a penitent,” Father growled. “Barefoot in a bloody
hairshirt.”

 
“Anne didn’t,” I murmured.

The
goblet flashed at the corner of my eye before smashing against the wall. Warm
flecks of glass and wine struck my cheek. Father stared at Mother as if he’d
never met her before in his life. Mother stared at me.

I
saw the hangman at Tower Hill, setting the noose around the felon’s neck. The
flies hung thick, a writhing blackwork collar round the bloody rope. The
felon’s nose twitched, blackened eyes smarting with tears. I started shaking.

Mother
rose from her chair, walked around the table and the birch rod appeared in her
left hand.

“You
are no Anne Boleyn.”

_______________

I
shuffled upstairs, bent and slow as a wizened grandmother, not a girl of
fourteen. But, I was that girl no longer.

I
scraped the damp hairs away from my cheeks, clutched my loose bodice against my
chest and climbed the stairs to my chamber. The two servants I passed fixed
their eyes on the walls, floor, anywhere but me.

Halfway
down the hall, I heard my sisters’ high, gleeful laughter. I crept to the door.

“Everything
comes to me!” Emma squealed.

“Not
that brooch!” Gabrielle snapped.

I
backed away, and continued down the hall.

I
came to Semmonet’s chamber and opened the door. She sat in her chair by the
fire, a Book of Hours open in her lap, asleep.

I
knelt and put my head in her lap. She came awake, babbling some French and
stroked my head.

“Who
has been dressing your hair?” she asked.

“My
maid, Janet,” I whispered.

“Tch,”
she said. “She is lazy. I feel a knot. Hand me the comb.”

The
carved ivory comb she treasured lay on her footstool. Anne had brought it back
from her long sojourn at the French court. I gingerly arranged my upper back
against Semmonet’s bony knee and sighed as she gently parted my hair. There
would be none of this at Syon. They would undo all of Semmonet’s work when they
cut it—close-cropped like a boy’s. A tear slipped down my cheek and
splashed my collarbone.

“
La
, your hair is almost as fine as
Anne’s,” she said. “And a shade lighter, which is
tr
é
s
jolie
.”

Anne.
How had I ever believed I was anything like Anne? Where had that arrogance come
from? Madge, Aunt Elizabeth, my own father had seen the truth of me—I was
no Anne Boleyn. I had read too much in our black eyes, our French voices,
our
blood.

Semmonet
rubbed my scalp. “It has grown so long,” she said. “It is longer than Emma’s
now. Even the lock I took for your sweetheart is grown out.”

I
had forgotten it. I had begged Semmonet to cut a small piece close to my neck
where no one would notice.

It
burned anew that I had given Clere such a token. He deserved nothing of me.
And nothing so intimate.

You gave the greatest token to John de
Vere.

I
squirmed desperate to dodge that memory, but my body summoned the kisses he’d
laid round my neck like a pearl choker. Vomit rose.

“Oh,
la
. Imagine. If this were last
summer, I should have filled my letters with tales of Lord de Vere instead of
Master Clere.”

The
vomit subsided. My ears tingled, doubting what they’d heard.

“What
letters? Clere was a secret. You wrote about him?”

Semmonet
stroked the back of my head. “Peace,
ma
petite
. I wrote to the one person who would never betray my trust. I knew
it would cheer her.” Her weak voice trembled. “And I thought it would move her
to help you.”

My
stomach dropped a thousand leagues. The six days lying between the moment of
John’s revelation and now shrank to nothing. I pulled away from Semmonet’s
hands, rounded her.

“You
wrote to Anne. About Tom Clere and I?”

Semmonet’s
simple smile stabbed me. “
Mais oui
.
You were so unhappy to be parted.” Her rueful grin shifted to vixenish smile.
“It was so like her time with Harry Percy. The happiness of youth is not like
any other.
C’est
vrai, n’est pas?”

My
heart beat hummingbird quick, putting my breath to flight. “Oui, c’est vrai.”

Semmonet’s
thumb stroked my cheek. “It gave her pleasure to hear of it. She wrote me
again, asking many details of your rendez-vous in Greenwich Park. She and Lord
Percy went often to ride there. He was a fine horseman, but not so fine as
Anne. She never brought the whip to her animals. They obeyed her for love.

“Like
Lord Percy,” Semmonet chuckled, “
et
le roi
.”

I
breathed through the fire consuming my heart. “What did Anne ask of my time
with Tom?”

Semmonet
rocked a moment. “La, many things, ma petite. How often you were together,
where you would go, the gifts you exchanged, she was happy to know all.”

Semmonet
gave another low chuckle. “She never asked, but I knew she most wished to know
if you had kissed.” She turned her soft, harmless smile on me. “I told her you
were a true maid and gave him nothing but the proper courtesy.” She nodded to
herself. “As I taught her.
And you, and your sisters.
And see what it has brought Anne, and now you.”

Semmonet
shook her head, amazed by the whims of fortune. “Countess of Oxford-to-be. La!
How this family rises.”

Her
eyelids fluttered. She leaned back in her chair. “Emma will be next. Just
watch. Once you are wed she will have your place at court and make herself a
countess too.”

Her
eyelids drooped, fingers loosening, releasing the comb to her lap. “You will
have such pretty babes by him, ma petite. I will teach them proper French…and
spoil them for anything else, but… ”

Semmonet’s
thought dissolved on a soft, breathy snore.

I
sat at her feet, counting her breaths. Nineteen passed before I caught mine.
Then my head spun, spilling everything she’d said like tendrils of spider silk
into the now dark corners of the chamber.

______________

I
crept back to my bedchamber. Gabrielle and Emma had gone. A maid scurried up
from Gabrielle’s bed. Red-faced, she curtsied to hide it.

“You
are early, mistress.”

Early?

I
was late. Completely, irrevocably late to understanding what Anne was about.

“She
won’t tolerate any of her blood kin having what she does not…the love of the
beloved.”

I
groaned, squashed Mariah’s voice, but another, more painful one replaced it.

“No task she requires is beneath your
honor because you serve the Queen. And because she is Queen she will demand
nothing that compromises your honor. But if she ever should try to compromise
you, you will tell me at once.”

“I will, madam. But why would she?”

“Because she is Anne.”

She
had done it. Mariah had told me the truth. Anne had made me a whore to serve
her purpose.

The
floor tilted as if Atlas had stumbled. I grasped the
bed post
.

Surrey
and John had been Anne’s convenient and willing cat’s paws. Tom Clere, like me,
had been her dupe.

“She
is a witch.”

“Mistress?”

I
yanked my arm out of the sleeve I didn’t realize she was untying. The dress
fell to the floor. The girl stooped to retrieve it.

“Nothing,”
I said. “I can finish myself.”

“Your
pardon, mistress. But should I press you a new dress for tomorrow?” she softly
asked. I glanced at the dress. A thumb-round hole showed the gray underskirt
beneath.

“Tomorrow?”

Tomorrow
when I entered Syon they would strip me of my gown, my hood, my jewelry, my
hair.

Tomorrow
Anne would dance and sing and gossip as she did every day. Her chaplains would
call blessings on her head. The gentlemen would praise her remarkable
qualities, flirt, and challenge each other for her smile. Lady Rochford and the
Countess would continue their war for her favor. The King would continue
showering her with land, money, jewels,
power
. And her
malice would remain hidden, unpunished forever. The wicked, as ever, would
continue to prosper.

“Yes,”
I told the girl. “Take it.”

I
climbed onto the bed and she shut the curtains. The clothespress creaked as she
opened it to hang my ruined dress.

I don’t care. The velvets, the mink, the
pearls—were all her tangible lies
.

Raise
me up. Secure my future. Commingle my blood with royalty. Set me above my
sisters—my own mother—for all time.

How
could I fail to believe it? She knew the cravings of my heart without asking.
She promised the chance for everything I’d ever wanted.

But
she never promised love.

My
mind sifted every conversation I’d overheard in the Privy Chamber. It was true.
Love was a plaything, an act,
an
illusion at Anne’s
court. I could be a reckless flirt, but honest love was forbidden.

Did
the King know he was living in a
folie
?
What would happen if one day he woke, as I had done this day and learned the
truth? How hard would his heart break?

It cannot compare to mine.

I
buried my face in the pillow.

“Sweet
Jesu,” I moaned just as the tears rushed my throat. “I wish she was dead.”

Shelton
House, London

Wednesday,
September 17th 1533

I
stared at the slate grey surface of the Thames from the top of the water
stairs. Its solemn color mirrored the sky, dark and mottled with rainclouds. It
fit the moment wondrously well, as if drawn from the Queen’s wardrobe.

Uncle
Wiltshire’s barge bobbed at the bottom of the stairs. I had a moment before I
must board.

I
pulled my cloak tighter, concealing the humble brown gown beneath. Janet had
arrived on the barge from Greenwich with my chest—my old one. We passed
each other at the garden door. Janet curtsied then waved the porters through
with the chest.

Janet
lowered her eyes. “Mrs. Shelton bade me bring your court dresses,” Janet
murmured. “In your old chest.”

Her
thumbs rubbed the backs of her folded hands. The hands that had darned the
innumerable holes I’d rent in my sleeves, pressed my handkerchiefs, mended my
shoes, and taken my coin for her silence. But something in her quiet pose
suggested she’d not done me those services for coin alone.

I
slipped the little gilt ring from my small finger and pressed it into her
startled hands. “You should have burned it,” I said and left her.

I
crossed the garden alone. Mother and Father had departed at dawn to meet Uncle
Wiltshire on the road to Hatfield. Gabrielle and Emma had avoided me all
morning—Emma going so far as to share Gabrielle’s bed last
night—just as everyone I’d counted friend, kin or admirer had done at
court. I suddenly wondered if the nunnery would be the same.

No
one had yet told Semmonet I was not to be a Countess, and I could not bring
myself to enter her chamber again to do it. She’d cost me everything. I could
not hate her, and I could not forgive her.
Because, in the
end, she too had chosen Anne over me.

“Mistress.”
The voice startled me thrice. A young, beardless Scot stood two steps below,
hood drawn low against the misting rain. His gloved hand reached for mine to
help me down the stairs.

“Thank
you,” I murmured, taking it.

I
crossed myself as I stepped aboard. Some of the rowers knew me and nodded. The
Scot handed me inside the cabin where another Scot knelt by the floor brazier,
stirring the coals. My escort began closing the cabin’s curtains.

“Leave
this one open, if you please,” I told him as he made to shut the one with the
view of the river.

“Aye,
m’lady,” he said with the broad lilt of his country and left the cabin when he
was done.

Master
Stafford ordered us away from the water stairs. The barge rocked as we pushed
off then steadied as the oars hit the water and began to pull.

I
stared at the river, watching the humble wherries and tilt-boats glide out of
our path as the barge made for the opposite bankside.
The
south bankside.

“We’re
going the wrong way,” I murmured.

“No,
we’re not.” The singular voice jolted me back to the moment I’d first heard it.

The
kneeling Scot pulled back her hood. In the dimness, the brazier’s flames
painted Margot’s russet hair bronze. She gathered her voluminous tartan as she
rose then fell on the bench beside me. A foxy grin spread her lips.

My
own lips moved, spilling no sound.

Margot
sighed. “Breathe mistress. We have only a little time to settle your affairs.”

“H-how
are you here?”

Margot’s
eyes twinkled. “Master Stafford and I are old friends. My servant required
reliable transport to London to bear a message to Mistress Mary Shelton.”

“What
message?”

Margot
stripped off her gloves, held her long, pale hands to the fire.

“Your
good Uncle Wiltshire has persuaded the Queen to see wisdom and send you to
Hever Castle to ride out your disgrace,” her eyes flicked to my midriff. “And
what may come of it.”

The
lie leapt to my tongue, but stumbled departing it. “I never l-lay with John de
Vere.”

Margot
sighed, patted the back of my hand. “Better to say nothing til you’ve mastered
the telling,” she said. “You’ve the whole long, godforsaken winter in Kent to
practice.”

“Why?”
I gasped. “Why are you the one to tell me this? My lady.”

Margot’s
capricious eyes rolled as they’d done the first time I forgot my manners.

“Do
you recall the day we met?” she asked. “I do. You made your fatal blunder. You
mistook the Devil for the Duke of Norfolk. Now you know whom we meant.”

She
leaned close and a hint of sandalwood escaped her skin.

“I
was mistaken in you, Mary-Mary Shelton. You are not a thorough Boleyn. Which
may be to your good. Do you want to come back to court?”

Court.
My mind attached no meaning to the word.
A neat trick.
But my heart was not deceived. It flailed, wild and desperate to oppose what it
knew was good sense.

Court
was not for me. Hadn’t I proved that? I’d lost every turn of the wheel. Every
card had fallen against me; the dice had rolled my opposite number every time.
Memory spilled the details of each failure. I shoved them away. They were
poisonous. Court was poisonous—a fatal concoction of every vice and minor
virtue known to mankind. Its temptations warped true feeling, sullied kind
thoughts, polluted the soul. Its riptide pull was indifferent to human frailty.
If you did not drown, you would be smashed against a rocky shore. And the gulls
would wheel above, jeering at the carnage. No, court despoiled everyone who
passed through its gates. That first sip of perfumed air was always lethal.

And
more than anything in this life, I wanted to taste it again.

My brother was right. I am a mad girl.

I
licked my lips, a hummingbird in my heart, another beating at my throat. “How
would that be possible?”

Margot’s
foxwise look sidled up to me. “Easily,” she said and her canny whisper raised
each delicate hair across my body like a near strike of lightning.

“I
mean to ruin Anne Boleyn,” she purred, and the willful, Tudor-bright smile her
uncle had given Anne as she cradled newborn Elizabeth and told him the next
would be a son, flashed across her long face. “You are going to help me to it.”