The Queen's Rival (27 page)

“Do you not have a wife for that?” Bess dared to ask very gently, hoping that she did not insult him by bringing her up yet again.

“I did once, yes,” he answered truthfully. “But Katherine is a very different woman now from the one she was when we married. There is no life left in her. Only duty, faith, and fear that she will never give me a son. The fear consumes her.”

“And not you?”

“I do long for that, yes. I must have that. . . . But”—he sighed heavily—“I miss the other kind of closeness. I miss—”

He did not seem to want to say what he was thinking beyond that as his words fell away. Instead, he turned from her again, and Bess could feel the distance growing between them. If the moment was over, she thought, this dream would be at an end as well. And that she could not bear.

Surprising herself, Bess leaned over and, with all the tenderness and innocence of youth, touched her lips to his again. She had seen the affection between her parents at home enough to understand what would happen if she did not pull away, but she did not care. Bess understood the man she had come to know these last four years, the man behind the king, and she wanted that part of him—at least that small part the queen could no longer claim.

This time, the king did not let her go. Their kiss ripened quickly into something deep and sensual as he opened his mouth and pressed his tongue against hers. His hands moved from her neck to her hair where he pressed her hood back until its beads and pearls clattered onto the bare plank floor. Silky blond waves tumbled onto her shoulders then, and he tangled a hand deep within the curls.

“I have no wish to hurt you,” he whispered huskily as she kissed him back with every ounce of innocent passion she felt.

“I care not at all if you do.”

“You might,” he warned, even as his skilled hand moved down from her shoulder to the strip of lace across her breasts.

“No, I shall not,” she declared, trying to keep the tremor from her voice as his warm fingers trailed a path down to the place between her legs, and she moved with the sudden sensation.

Slowly, Henry lifted her skirts as he very gently pressed her back onto the rich Turkish carpet upon which they sat. Again he kissed her, this time with a demanding hunger she knew he would not let her escape. He had warned her, but it was a warning she did not intend to heed. Henry raised himself up onto her then, bracing his lean torso with thickly muscled arms, arching over her. He touched her, kissed her, and pressed with a steadily growing fury at that untouched place between her thighs that instinctively wanted to draw him in. It was fast and blinding after that, a quick snap of pain, and then the gripping, clawing power of desire took her over completely, drawing her into a powerful surge of pleasure and a universe of new sensations—the full weight of his taut male body; the touch of his smooth, moist skin against hers; and the taste of his mouth as it moved rhythmically with her own.

When it was over and they were still bound by the volumes of fabric from her dress and his doublet, Bess thought how dearly she loved him as she caressed the broad expanse of his back above her. Yes, loved—with her whole heart; with everything. The man, the wounded child within him—even the complex king; whatever he could give her of himself, Bess would love.

She had done it. She had wanted to do it for so long, and now she felt no regret at all.

Bess kissed him again, not just with her lips then, but with her heart. All of it was open to him now, come what may. She would be different from Katherine, she told herself as he held her against his chest, still rising and falling with the exertion. Not pious or sour, or desperate . . . Bess would make him want to come to her . . . and she would pray to God in the meantime that she would not have to sell her soul to do it.

Out in the cobblestoned courtyard that same afternoon, beneath mullioned windows and ivy-draped walls of red brick, the aroma of horseflesh and perfume lingered, and courtiers and servants bustled about. There, the queen, dressed in heavy black unadorned velvet, waited for her favorite riding horse to be brought so that she might begin her planned pilgrimage back to Walsingham to pray for her fertility. She twisted her gloved hands anxiously as she waited.

“You know I would not ask this,” she said awkwardly to Mary, the king’s sister, who stood beside her, having come out to bid her farewell. “It has always been difficult for me to ask favors of anyone here in England.”

“We are family. You know you may ask anything,” Brandon’s wife said sweetly as she linked hands with the queen.

“Watch after him for me while I am away.”

Katherine had meant the request to sound lighter, more nonchalant, but she had always worn her heart on her sleeve when it came to her husband. She did even more so now that she was rapidly changing, well past any resemblance to the young, exotic Spanish princess he once claimed to love. He now increasingly believed he had committed an unforgivable sin, since marrying a brother’s wife was strictly forbidden by the Bible. It was laid out clearly in Leviticus, Henry now so often reminded them both.

Katherine knew he believed that, and she tried very hard not to let it break her heart. Of course, he was trying to rationalize the absence of a living son. It was much easier to blame her for such a profound void. That way, the lovers he took did not play so hard on his conscience. Of course, she knew about all of them. Yes, he chose his lovers from her own household. Doña Elvira listened well to all of the gossip. At least her dearest friend was entirely faithful, even if her own husband was not. But beyond that, a wife knew. There were always signs if one was willing to see them, as her mother had often warned her.

“Of course I will look after him for you,” Mary replied, and, without needing to say it, Katherine knew that Mary understood the depth of just what she was asking. “But you know my brother as well as I do. He can be a stubborn man.”

“That is part of what makes him a magnificent king.”

Less so a husband, Katherine was thinking. But she did not say that. She had understood well the risks when she married him. She leaned over then in the cool afternoon air as autumn leaves stirred around them, and she pressed a kiss onto her sister-in-law’s smooth, pale cheek.

“Thank you,” Katherine said, hearing a telltale catch in her own voice.

“I shall pray that God hears your prayers at last during this pilgrimage, Sister. Now that we have our little Mary, there is much to hope for. You must keep that always in your mind.”

“I shall do my best,” Katherine replied.

She felt a wellspring of tears at the back of her eyes she had not expected at the thought of her precious little daughter, and all of the years of heartache and loss it had taken to finally bring her into the world. Still, she straightened her back and tipped up her chin, pressing back the tears defiantly. She could not, would not cry in front of anyone, not even Mary, because she had not given up. There was too much at stake, and tears signified weakness. If God would grant her the solitary prayer she prayed by the hour, each and every day, and she could have another child soon—next time a son—all would be well. Katherine would have her husband’s heart, as well as his loyalty, returned to her. The way to vanquish any rival, at least from his heart if not from his bed, was to be the mother of the king’s son.

After all she had endured, God simply could not intend that honor for anyone else.

Gil had been feeling ill all day, and this was certainly not helping.

Now that the queen was away on her pilgrimage, the king, predictably, was behaving like a carefree adolescent, and he was doing so in front of the entire court. Gil stood in the corner of a banquet hall heavy with candle smoke and the scent of perfume, leaning against a pillar as raucous festivities carried on around him. There, in the center of everything, Bess sat on a fringed velvet stool, her gown overly adorned and suspiciously more elegant than any of the others she had worn before. She was singing with the king, and it was their third tune together that evening. As always, the polite applause had begun to turn to gossip-laden whispers.

Bess’s hair was long and golden down her back, her head adorned with a simple cap, and his heart physically ached as he watched her, to think that he would probably never have the opportunity to touch that smooth mane of hair himself, or any other part of Bess, at least not in the way he had longed to for four years. Her embrace on holidays and after a reunion was only that of a sister for a brother. She was entirely unaware that the man she touched was someone who longed to touch her back passionately, and that he would have given anything to possess not just her body, but her heart and soul as well.

Gil thought then, as he stood watching her with the king, of the missed opportunities—the pendant, the de Troyes book. He thought as well of how awkward and certainly too late it was to let her know how he truly felt. Bess Blount was the king’s mistress, just as Jane and Elizabeth were before her. Like a coming storm, he could feel it with every fiber of his being. And, as it had been with the two previous impressionable girls, there was not a single thing he could do to stop it. She was especially lost to him now that she had matured. Though Bess understood that she was not the first girl to grace the king’s bed, still she would not be dissuaded from the dalliance in the hope that this was the first time the king’s heart was involved in the matter. If Gil tried to dissuade her now, it would seem like jealousy, and he would lose even her friendship, which was all he really had of her. That, he could not bear.

The best course left to him had gone unchanged, and his resolve had never wavered. He would be the one to pick up the pieces when it was over, since soon enough, it would be, just as it had been for Jane and Elizabeth.
Jesú, Maria
, what he would not give to have her look at him like that, to laugh with him like that, to touch his arm with such familiarity. Gil’s head was still throbbing as if someone were pounding him with a club. And perhaps, in a way, his reason was doing just that, trying to get through to him.

When the song came to an end, the king and Bess rose from the center of the room, their elegant, gold and pearl-studded garments glittering in the fire and candlelight. They went together then, arms linked, to the main table set up on a dais. It was as though Bess, not the unfortunate Spaniard, were queen. Indeed, Bess certainly had the king’s interest and his attention.

Yes, like all of the others, she did have that, Gil thought ruefully, at least for the moment.

Across the room, Bess had been stunned by the weight of Gil’s cold gaze upon her the entire time she had been singing with the king. Gil’s expression hurt, and it disappointed her. If anyone’s opinion at this complex, dangerous court mattered at all to her, it was Gil Tailbois’s. Still, it surprised her now, in the shadow of his apparent displeasure with her, that she did not feel guilty about what she and the king had done earlier. Her body still throbbed wonderfully from the size and power of him inside her, and she had begun to crave him again almost before they had dressed and left their little sanctuary in the room above the banquet hall.