The Intended (41 page)

Finishing her hair, the old woman started
straightening the puffs of Jaime’s sleeves. “He’ll be so angry when
he finds out that you left your chambers—while still being so weak.
Are you sure you don’t want me to go after him? He returned to his
chamber not an hour ago. He won’t be sleeping before his supper is
brought up to him.”

“Nay, though I thank you,” Jaime said softly,
smiling inwardly at this newly developed affection that Caddy felt
for Malcolm. “So long as the king and his men are roaming about,
Malcolm puts his life in the gravest danger each time he steps into
the corridors.”

“But he didn’t want you to be left alone. I
gave him my word, mistress. Let me go and at least tell him.”

Jaime shook her head. “I forbid you to go to
him, Caddy. There is nothing he can do for me that I cannot do
myself.” The young woman stood up from the chair and gently laid
her hand on her servant’s arm. “All will be well.”

“But you are so pale.”

The woman’s loving concern brought a faint
smile to Jaime’s lips. “Please go and tell Lady Frances that I am
ready.”

With a heat only men accustomed to great
power can generate, the King of England continued to relentlessly
blast the three men standing before him, and Jaime stood motionless
by the great bedchamber’s closed door. The room, lit by a dozen
candles and lamps, seemed to resonate with the energy of the
monarch’s fury. She and Lady Frances exchanged a furtive glance,
both of them happy that Henry Tudor had chosen to ignore the fact
that they had even entered.

Jaime glanced again in the direction of her
friend, gratefully acknowledging with a nod the small smile that
she knew Frances meant to instill confidence in her. How would she
ever thank the woman for not leaving her at the door to face this
man alone.

This man! Jaime glanced in the direction of
the raging king. Her father! As her eyes studied his portly
features, livid with anger, his eyes snapped away from the men and
focused on her face. Matching his gaze, a sudden and uncontrollable
anger of her own flared. The king paused only fleetingly in his
tirade before turning his attention once more to the men. She
suddenly wondered at the furious battle of words raging in her
head, and how she could restrain her tongue from uttering them.

Even with his age showing in his ponderous
bulk and the sagging flesh of his face, Henry Tudor was still a
formidable man. And watching these men openly flinch at his sharp
dismissal from the room, Jaime couldn’t help but wonder whether her
mother had been thrown out so brutally. Seething with more hate
than she thought herself capable of, Jaime glared at the king. This
man had been responsible for the deaths of her mother and her aunt,
Anne Boleyn. And now she, too, stood so vulnerable before him. She
knew that as far as he was concerned, she would be nothing more
than yet another undesirable Boleyn.

With fittingly careful deference, the
disfavored ones humbly bowed out of the room.

“Countess.” Henry glared at Jaime as he
addressed Lady Frances, his voice conveying a note of impatience.
“There is no longer any need for you to remain.”

Frances curtsied and glanced doubtfully at
Jaime. “Sire, if it pleases you, I would be happy to stay in case
Mistress Jaime’s illness returns.”

Henry stared at the two women.

“Your Majesty,” Jaime added, with a curtsy.
“I have only left my sickbed today. If Your Majesty might indulge
us?” Anger and disappointment stung her inwardly, for her excuse
sounded cowardly even to her own ear. But despite the hostility she
felt toward this man, she knew that Frances’s presence offered the
protection of civility, and she didn’t want to throw away Malcolm's
and her chances when they were only a day from realization.

Glancing back at the king, she searched for a
sign in his expression. A long moment passed before he nodded his
assent.

Turning to Lady Frances, Henry’s words were
gentle as he invited her to approach and take a seat. But Jaime,
still standing by the door, found herself the target of two
piercing eyes. She wondered if there was a resemblance that he was
searching for. She knew her mother was much shorter in height than
she herself was. From the paintings her aunt had done, Jaime also
knew Mary had been more voluptuous in bosom and hip than she. Jaime
looked more like Elizabeth than she did her own mother. Perhaps
that was one reason it had been so much easier over the years to
pretend to be her daughter. But that could all be for naught,
now.

For though she hated to admit it, as she
studied the king’s features, she saw something in his countenance,
in the curve of his cheek, that she knew could be found, even by
the light of these candles, in her own face.

The edge in Henry Tudor’s voice cut through
the air when he finally spoke again. “I hear that you are a
granddaughter of Thomas Boleyn.”

“That I am, Your Majesty,” Jaime answered
quietly.

“It is peculiar that we never heard of you
while your grandfather was at our court.”

“I was brought up elsewhere,” Jaime answered.
“It wasn’t until much later in his life that I had a chance to
spend some time in his company.”

The king’s eyes again dwelled on Jaime’s
features. Then, abruptly, he reached over and picked up a chain
from the corner of the table. The bright green emerald flashed in
the light of the room. “What is your age, mistress?”

“Nineteen,” she answered feeling the hackles
rise on her neck at the sight of her ring in the king’s possession.
As much as her curiosity—and her rising temper—stabbed at her to
inquire how he’d come by her ring, she fought back the
question.

Henry’s eyes seem to notice Jaime’s gaze on
the ring in his hand. “Is this... this bauble yours?”

She paused, her eyes studying another
ring—one encircling the king’s finger. One identical to the ring
dangling at the end of the chain. “Aye, Your Majesty.”

“And how is it you came to possess it?”

Henry began to swing the chain back and
forth, allowing it to wind around his fingers and then back.
Jaime’s eyes, drawn to the action, riveted on the ring that adorned
his finger.

“The ring was a token, given to me by my
parents,” she whispered at last.

Dropping the ring carelessly on the table,
the king moved across the room to where she stood.

Jaime glanced uncomfortably in the direction
of Frances, who sat quietly with her hands in her lap, her eyes on
the king.

“We haven’t asked you about your parents.
Your mother would be daughter to Thomas Boleyn.” Jaime felt her
palms begin to sweat as Henry approached her.

“She
was
, Your Majesty.”

Henry came to a halt only a step away. As he
loomed over her, Jaime suddenly felt all the courage of a few
moments ago drain out of her soul, and she lowered her gaze from
his face to the large medallion hanging about the king’s neck. A
long silence followed as she felt his eyes studying her face.

“You have her dark hair, her fair
complexion.”

The way he spoke the words left no doubt in
Jaime’s mind that he was speaking of Mary Boleyn. And when his hand
reached out, she had to fight hard not to flinch as he took a loose
tendril of her hair between thick fingers. She stood, motionless,
holding her breath until, after a moment, his hand dropped to his
side. She was certain now. The faraway look in his eyes had told
her so much—he knew the truth. He knew she was Mary’s daughter.

“And Jaime has also been blessed with some of
her artistic nature, as well.” Frances’s voice swung the king’s
head around. Stunned, Jaime looked on her friend, realizing what
Frances was trying to do. “Being the great connoisseur of music
that you are, sire, you would be charmed, I am quite certain, if
you were to hear Jaime play and sing her music.”

Gathering her wits about her, Jaime quickly
wiped her wet palms on the smooth linen of her dress. “If a
person’s friends will not overstate her talents, Your Majesty, who
would?” She smiled serenely as the king turned back to her. “But in
all humility, being raised in a house finely attuned to the arts,
having the finest scholars and artists of Europe as regular guests,
a young woman could hardly avoid developing her talents to the best
of her ability.”

Henry’s eyes were probing when they glanced
from Frances back to Jaime. “We don’t recall your mother having any
great talent.”

Bastard! she cursed inwardly, thinking of her
poor mother lying dead in the ground. She struggled to retain her
composure.

“But, sire,” Frances put in. “You yourself
are the possessor of several products of those talents.”

“Eh? What’s that?”

“Paintings of Queen Margaret and her family,
I believe.”

“What, my sister?”

“Aye, Your Majesty,” Jaime added, noticing
that his eyes had rounded in surprise. “But Elizabeth Boleyn’s
talents were of the kind that she couldn’t and wouldn’t practice in
the open. At least, not until your sister, the Queen Mother,
invited her to join her court at Linlithgow. Why, the portraits of
the royal family adorn every royal castle in Scotland. If I might
say so, Your Majesty, their exquisite use of color and texture are
now rivaled only by your own Holbein’s best work.”

It seemed to Jaime that Henry had hardly
listened to anything she had just said. Finally, he addressed her.
“You are daughter to Elizabeth?” he asked, incredulity in his
voice.

There was no pause in her response, nor any
doubt in her mind when Jaime opened her mouth in reply. “I am, Your
Majesty.”

The King of England ran his fat fingers
through his beard as he considered her statement. Jaime pondered
the lie she had spoken to her own father. But somehow she knew that
this was the way her mother intended it to be.

“Elizabeth. I always wondered what happened
to her.” Henry turned and wandered pensively across the
chamber.

“She went to Florence, Your Majesty, mastered
her art in the studio of Michelangelo himself, before going to
Scotland and settling there.”

The king reached down and picked up the chain
and the ring again. “And your father?” he asked, turning toward
her.

“Ambrose Macpherson.”

“Aye, the Scottish diplomat,” Henry put in.
“Of course.”

Jaime’s knees suddenly wobbled beneath her,
and the king and Frances were beside her in an instant. The relief
of having him accept her story delighted her and yet made her
light-headed. They sat her in a chair beside Frances, and her head
cleared immediately, though the king insisted on pouring out a cup
of wine for her.

She watched him as he settled his great
weight into a chair facing her, and again picked up the ring.

“Did you know that this bauble once belonged
to us?”

She shook her head. “Nay, Your Majesty.”

Henry’s eyes glinted as they stared at the
dark green of the stone. “Then we assume you do not know how your
parents came to have it.”

She shook her head again.

“Your father won this ring in the tournament
we held at the Field of Cloth of Gold. He downed the best of our
English knights in a joust to win this token.”

Jaime stared at the ring. She knew it had
been there that Ambrose and Elizabeth had first met.

“But now, meeting you and...knowing your
age...” A smile was breaking out on the king’s face. “We would say
the prize he earned was worth far more than this bauble.”

She looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“Your father is too fearless, too blunt to be
a very good diplomat. No really good diplomat can be respected...or
even trusted, you see. But where were we?”

“The tournament, sire,” Frances
suggested.

“Ah, indeed. We recall that after the Scot
collected this prize, he approached none other than the daughter of
our French ambassador, Sir Thomas.” He turned to Frances with a
rumbling laugh. “He gave her the ring.”

“A generous gift!” Frances added.

“Wouldn’t you say that the return exceeded
his investment, Lady Frances?” Henry placed a hand on Jaime’s
shoulder as he smiled at the countess. “You see it now? This young
woman is, we believe, the finest thing produced by that Field of
Cloth of Gold.”

As Frances rose from her chair, Jaime stood,
as well, unsure of how to respond.

“Lady Frances, we thank you for this visit,”
the king said, leading them toward the door. He detained Jaime with
a light touch of his hand. “And the next time you visit your
father, send my regards to him. Even though twenty years ago I was
ready to draw and quarter him for foiling my plans regarding
France, over the years I have learned to value such talent.”

Jaime dropped a small curtsy and turned
toward Frances waiting by the door.

“And your mother,” Henry added.

Jaime swung around to face the king.

“She was the smartest of the three. Send her
my best.”

She paused for an instant. Elizabeth was the
only survivor of the three, and Jaime wondered if that was what he
meant. But she didn’t dare stay and ask.

“Oh, you’ve forgotten something.”

Jaime opened her hand as the king dropped the
ring in her palm. As he turned and made his way back across the
room, she stared for a moment at the emerald and then at the man
who would never know the truth.

“I will be grateful to you for as long as I
live,” Jaime whispered, gently squeezing the hand that took hold of
her arm at the great oaken door of the king’s chamber.

Relying on Frances’s physical support now,
Jaime felt as if each step she took was made with the weight of
hundred tons dragging at her feet. She realized now that it had
taken all her strength to face the king. But she didn’t think she
would ever have been able to go through with it without Frances’s
help.