Rose Bride (7 page)

‘To make amends, then.’

She sighed. ‘Yes, yes, to make amends. You are right. And it was my idea.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘But only because I cannot bear to see another woman falling into the king’s hands. Henry’s lechery will kill us all.’

Kate’s eyes flew wide at this. She laid a finger on her lips, shaking her head. ‘For the love of God, Margerie! Would you be tried for treason too?’

‘Quiet, someone is coming!’

Kate turned, staring intently into the misty spring evening. ‘It is him.’

‘Oh God.’

Kate squeezed her hand reassuringly, though her smile was twisted. ‘He and I were nearly lovers once,’ she whispered in her ear. ‘We were both very young and inexperienced. Did I ever tell you the story of that night? Suffice it to say it was not one of my better seductions. Though I remember he was a very good kisser.’

‘Kate!’

‘Wait here. If his lordship sees you first, it will all be over. You know his temper: it is famous for being easily lost. And don’t forget, they were questioning his wife today. He will be on edge.’

Kate slipped away across the walled palace garden, surrounded by hushed cloisters, and left Margerie to watch in sudden trepidation as her friend met her former lover, Lord Wolf. She felt a little sick, and kept the grey hood pulled forward, hiding her face. If only she were braver!

The night she had lain with Wolf felt so long ago, another lifetime away, almost as misty in her memory as his face across the palace garden now. Even though still half a boy, he had been an intense lover, his gaze hot and frightening as he pulled up her gown and drew her down into the bed on top of him. She had not wanted him to become her lover, but her mother had insisted, and Margerie had not felt strong enough to resist.

‘If he takes your maidenhead, he will be forced to marry you. When his father dies, that boy will be the next Baron Wolf, and you will become a great lady,’ her mother had explained, eagerly dressing her for a seduction that night. ‘Never mind if you feel nothing for him, silly girl. Love is not for the nobility. Be quiet and do your duty to our family.’

But although Margerie had let him take her virginity, and even agreed afterwards in muted tones to be his wife, nonetheless she had changed her mind as soon as Wolf left court to fight for the king. There had been something stark and forbidding in his descriptions of Wolf Hall and the cold northern land she would call home once they were married. And she still shuddered to recall his possessive stare, the way he had insisted on leaving that she look at no other man until his return . . .

No, she could never have grown to love such a man, not even if they were married for fifty years.

As though he had guessed her identity, and was already angry, she heard Wolf raise his voice to Kate. He grabbed at her wrist, and Margerie knew he had not changed. Older he might be, more politic at court perhaps, but underneath he was still the passionate, hot-headed youth who had courted her so fervently that she had not known how to escape his claws except to run away with another man.

Poor Jack.

If she had not forced her friend Jack to cross the cold swell of the English Channel in such dreadful weather, when he was already suffering from a fever, he might have lived to wed her as he had stoutly promised to do. For Jack had loved her in his own way, without passion but with genuine concern for her well-being, always a friend rather than a lover in her eyes.

But Jack had died within days of arriving at his uncle’s home in France, and Margerie had been left to fend for herself among strangers, clearly no longer a maid, nor yet respectably widowed. It had been a desperate time for her.

But that did not mean she could countenance the king’s seduction of Wolf’s new bride, Eloise. And it was all round the court that Henry intended to bed the former lady-in-waiting now she was safely married to one of his lords. Such arrangements were commonplace these days, for the king was never content with his wife and a mistress. And there were few courtiers who dared confront him openly about such seductions, even though it meant they could not be certain the child in their wife’s womb was theirs or the king’s.

Now Lord Wolf was looking over at her, speaking tersely to Kate. She could not delay the moment of their reunion any longer.

Yet fear still held her back.

She could not help staring, remembering how he had tried in vain to pleasure her on the night they spent together. Wolf had changed over the years, but she would have known him anywhere. Strong even as a youth, Wolf had grown broad-chested in manhood, his hips narrow, his thighs long and muscular. He was a man who took what he wanted and did not hide his desires from the world. She had heard he was a born leader of men, a bold commander in battle and a dangerous opponent on the jousting yard. And a man who loved women, but did not always treat them well.

Lord Wolf thrust Kate aside and spun to face her, a hand on his dagger hilt. ‘Who are you? Speak! Throw back your hood: let me see your face.’

His voice struck at her, fierce and commanding. He thought her a man; perhaps an enemy come here to ensnare him in some courtly plot. Instead she had been his lover once. Though to call that night’s humiliating embrace
love
was to grant the loss of her virginity more grace than it deserved.

You must have ice-water in your veins, Margerie Croft, not to have been moved by the heat of my desire.

She stepped forward, pushing back her hood so Wolf could see her face. His eyes widened as he recognised her, an old agony suddenly raw in his face again, and in that instant she forgave him.

As a youth, this man had frightened her into fleeing England, the king’s court, even her own family, and fate had conspired to keep her away for years. But whatever Wolf’s intentions towards her, they had not been malicious. And though deep down she had known that, she had still fled to France with the milder Jack. She had feared spending her life with a man whose forceful nature terrified her.

‘Margerie!’ he cried huskily.

Then his face changed, became more cautious, his eyes shuttered and cold, almost angry again. No, Wolf’s passionate attachment to her had been real enough. For the swiftly concealed pain in his eyes was the same pain that was in her heart. And it had a name.

Guilt.

‘Wolf,’ she managed huskily, and saw his face harden at the sound of her voice. ‘Ah, how you have changed since you were a youth. Your eyes are so cold now.’

‘As you see.’

‘Did I do that?’ she could not help asking, and saw him flinch.

‘What do you want, Margerie?’ he demanded, looking from her to Kate Langley, his eyes narrowed. ‘You must have heard that I am married now. Or perhaps you came because of that. You should know, I have no need of a mistress.’

He had grown cruel too. Cruel and unthinking.

But then he did not understand their mission, Margerie reminded herself, and he had a beautiful young bride to protect from the king. Even if that cost him his life. Like a bear tied to the stake, Wolf stood alone in a court of enemies and thought every hand must be turned against him, for he had been given no reason to trust. But she and Kate would help his wife Eloise, if he would only trust them. For if women could not help each other in such dangerous times, their shame was all the greater.

Margerie saw the suspicion and doubt in Wolf’s face, and slowly, carefully, began to explain how they could help him keep his wife out of the king’s bed.

Perhaps in time they would be able to greet each other as friends, she thought, and found herself almost smiling at such an outlandish idea.

CHAPTER FIVE

Margerie took the last of her sleeping draught the night before Anne Boleyn’s execution, not wishing to wake too early. She had made herself almost unwell these past few days, thinking of the beautiful queen, all hope of clemency gone now, preparing herself to meet the horror of the scaffold. Nor could she forget those gentlemen who had been found guilty of treason and already lost their heads to the axe, some for no worse a crime than having thought Her Majesty charming and beautiful, the queen’s own brother among them.

The draught of poppy did its task that night. She slept heavily, not even waking when the other women rose and dressed around her, and stirred only at the sound of distant thunder echoing down the river the next morning.

Margerie lay a moment in drowsy confusion, listening to the sound and thinking there must be a storm. Then she turned, blinking across at the bright window. It had been thrown open to air the chamber, dust-motes swirling in the thin shafts of May sunshine streaming in.

Slowly her mind groped after the truth. No, it had not been thunder but cannon fire she had heard. From the Tower of London, most likely. There was only one reason why the Tower’s defensive cannon would be fired when they were not at war and that was to announce an important event like the execution of a high-born traitor.

Which meant Anne Boleyn was dead.

Margerie buried her face in her pillow and wept, but silently, taking care to muffle her sobs, lest someone hear and claim she did not think the king just in his actions. She had not known Anne Boleyn well, for she had returned to court too late. But the very thought of a wife being condemned to death by her own husband was so terrible, such a shocking crime against nature, it frightened her to know she lived under the power of such a king, and might at any moment lose her own life at his whim . . .

Later she rose and dressed, fumbling unhappily with the fastenings of her gown, then splashed her face with cold water to hide the fact that she had been weeping.

But it seemed few were at their work that morning anyway, for when she finally stumbled down to the seamstresses’ room, she found the sunlit chamber empty, and was told by a surly guardsman that most courtiers were at their prayers.

‘Thanking God for His Majesty’s release from a wicked adulteress,’ the guard added sneeringly, looking her up and down as though he thought her cut from the same cloth as the Boleyns.

Margerie turned away from him, sick at heart, wondering where Kate was. She needed her friend more than ever, but no doubt she was with her husband at this difficult time.

Wandering through the empty state rooms in search of Kate, she passed a group of young noblemen at dice, laughing together as though unaware that Anne Boleyn had just knelt for the swordsman.

They glanced at her without interest as she slipped past, then one young man detached himself from the group and took a step in her direction.

‘Mistress Croft?’

She turned, surprised to hear her name, then flinched, recognising him as Lord Munro, one of the courtiers who had tried to rape her the night she rejected the king.

‘Might I speak with you in private, mistress?’ Lord Munro asked, his blue eyes seeming to admire her figure.

Her gorge rose as she guessed at his thoughts. Another one who wanted her for his mistress, or a few nights of pleasure that might cost him less than a whore’s fee. She dropped the nobleman a brief curtsey, then hurried to the door with only a muttered, ‘Forgive me, my lord. I am late and must attend to my duties.’

To her relief, he did not follow.

It was not until she was wearily preparing for bed that evening that she saw Kate again. She had just slipped off her shoes when her name was called, and turned to see Mistress Langley at the door. Kate seemed unusually distressed, her eyes red-rimmed, but then so did many of the women in the aftermath of Anne Boleyn’s execution.

No place could have felt closer to Hell than the English court that day, Margerie thought grimly.

Kate took one look at her face and asked quietly, ‘Are you unwell, Margerie? Or is it just the day’s events that have made you so pale?’

‘I am well enough, I assure you.’ Margerie went aside with her so the other women could not overhear their conversation, lowering her voice to add, ‘Though I will not deny, the queen’s death has left me sadly shaken. But how are you, dear Kate?’

‘I will survive. I always do.’

‘I cannot help but think on it constantly. Poor lady. The injustice of it . . .’

‘Hush,’ Kate warned her, glancing up and down the torchlit corridor. ‘Listen, my husband will be angry if I do not return to our chamber at once, for I have neglected him sorely these past few weeks. Indeed for several nights now I have not returned to him at all, but shared another’s bed.’

Margerie stared, not sure whether to be shocked or to congratulate her, for Kate’s lack of fidelity to her middle-aged husband was well known. ‘Have you taken a new lover, then? But what is his name?’

‘I will tell you if it becomes serious.’ Kate smiled at her expression. ‘But I have an urgent message for Lord Wolf and find I cannot deliver it without risking my husband’s wrath.’ She met Margerie’s eyes intently. ‘Will you take it to him for me?’

‘Speak with Lord Wolf?’ She shook her head, feeling sick. ‘I cannot . . . Forgive me, Kate. I am not so afraid of him as I once was, but truly I cannot face his lordship again. Not so soon after our reconciliation. Even though I must share some of the blame for what happened between us, the wound is still too raw.’ She paused. ‘Why not write a note to him instead?’

Kate bit her lip. ‘I cannot commit this news to paper, in case it is read by some enemy of his lordship. But if you tell Hugh Beaufort, perhaps he will consent to relay the message to Lord Wolf.’