The Secret Bride (5 page)

“Well, you’ve done that. But what are you doing here?”

“I have come to escort you to court actually, for the celebration.”

“To court?” Mary gasped, her face breaking into a smile.

“Does the king know you are stealing me away?”

“He commanded I escort my lovely sister who is growing up too quickly and beautifully to go alone. And in truth I believe he feels badly for you now with Margaret off in Scotland married and—” He meant to add, “and with Arthur gone,” but he stopped short of saying it. “—And you out here with no one else,” he said instead.

She caught a glance then between Henry and Jane, a slight smile from each to the other, but she quickly averted her eyes. An attraction, was it?

“What I mean is, you have no other family out here, in spite of what a comfort I am certain dear Jane here is to you.”

Jane Popincourt had been with her so long and they had shared so much that she was like her family, but Mary knew what he meant, and she loved him the more for it. They both still felt keenly the loss of Arthur and Margaret, and both knew their bond was strengthened because of it. In spite of her governess, Elizabeth Denton, Lady Guildford, a full suite of other attending gentlewomen, a wardrobe keeper, a doctor and a schoolmaster, Mary often felt alone here and she had become anxious for the excitement of the life she knew her brother lived now without her at court. “What are we meant to celebrate?”

“The triumph of diplomacy: you have been betrothed to the emperor’s grandson. The marriage has, at last, been formally agreed upon.”

“I know well it is my duty. I have always known it.” She began to smile, but with an incredulous shake of her head.

“Yet it is still difficult to imagine such a little boy as my husband.”

Henry met Mary’s smile with his own as if they were two girls gossiping rather than the future King of England and his very important sister. “It was the promise from Maximilian which Father was after. He is England’s indelible tie with Spain no matter what happens with Katherine and the dispensation from the pope. Your actual marriage, of course, shall keep until Charles is a man. Father is overjoyed, Mary.

It was the first time I have seen him smile in a very long time as he told me it was all agreed to. He wants to see you. He wants us to be together, what is left of us, as a family.”

Mary had heard the servants whispering that the king had not been well recently, grief having become like a disease that was slowly consuming him, causing him very quickly to waste away. He never really had recovered from Arthur’s death, nor the queen’s after that. Mary wanted to see him as well. She wanted to be with him, and with Henry—to dance with them, and ride with them, and be a part of their lives again. More than that, she had long wanted to be a part of the activity and excitement of court. Finally now she would be allowed that—and the celebration to which she was being taken was in her own honor. She could not think of a better surprise. England needed to maintain the delicate balance of power amid the dangerous rivalry between the Holy Roman Empire, Spain and France. So sheltered had she been that it was the first time in her life she felt the importance of her role in maintaining that . . . and the reality hit her then. Mary had an opportunity to shape history—not only her own but, as the sister to Henry VIII, England’s history as well.

Mary sat perched on the edge of her bed strumming the strings of her lute with studied intensity, yet she was not really playing a tune. Jane, Lady Oxford, Elizabeth Denton and Lady Guildford moved about the chamber gathering up her things in preparation for the journey to Richmond. A collection of trunks lay open around the room all smelling of the lavender sprigs her mother once fancied. In them were a brocaded velvet petticoat, robes, bonnets, and her best gown of blue and gold silk. There were several pairs of velvet winter gloves and a jeweled girdle chain that had once belonged to her mother, as well as jewel chests and two pairs of soft leather shoes. They were gathering only the things that would be good enough for court. . . .
At last, the royal court.
But Mary’s mind was a million miles away from all of it. She was anxious to leave Eltham, yet she was frightened at such a change as well. As uneventful as her life here had been, she was still young and this existence had been safe. Henry had warned her that court life would change her forever.

As Jane arranged one of the open chests already stuffed with coverings for cupboards and carpets, Mary glanced around the royal house she had called home. The rooms were always slightly drafty, even with a fire blazing, the upholstery on her chairs was faded, the wall tapestry near her bed slightly fraying, and the paint on one of her plaster walls was peeling.

Still, there was the warmth of reassurance here. At Eltham, she knew what was expected.

Jane came and sat beside her suddenly as Lady Guildford, Mistress Denton and Lady Oxford left the room. It was a moment before she spoke as a late winter wind battered the bare branches of a tree against her windows.

“ ’Twill be all right, you know,” Jane said, her French words soft and reassuringly lyrical. “Your brother will be right there with you to show you what to do.”

“Life at court will change me. It will change us both, Jane. It has already changed Harry.”

She smiled gently. “But he is being taught to be a king—and now he looks the part. So some changes really are for the best.”

Mary looked at her for a moment. Jane was a pretty girl, coming into her full beauty now. “Do you fancy him then?”

“Who wouldn’t?” Jane giggled in surprise at the question. “Every girl here fancies the Prince of Wales. I do believe he is the handsomest man in the world.”

“And
I
do believe you are a silly chit.” Mary laughed with her. “It is only Harry, after all.”

In spite of what Mary knew, she could not imagine her brother in the way Jane saw him, and it made her laugh even trying to consider the boy with whom she had grown up as the object of any girl’s fantasies. She expected him to do his duty to marry and settle into his role getting his queen with an heir. But politics had changed things, and would likely change them again so that just who his queen would one day be—Katherine of Aragon, or someone else—was still the subject of much speculation and debate across England and the world.

The Brandon family estate in Southwark across the Thames, just beyond London Bridge, was suitably grand. His uncle having inherited it, Charles was nothing more than a visitor there. Charles felt his stomach seized by a familiar knot of envy as his horse cantered past the brick-pillared gateway adorned by the family crest, then came to the end of the long gravel pathway. Wearing a costly riding coat of brown leather, welted in blue velvet and lined with lynx fur, he pulled the reins just before the front door. He sat astride a gray gelding, borrowed from the Earl of Essex, from whom he had found favor as his esquire. It was the sort of position he had worked toward for years, a position of power through affiliation.

Charles had achieved much in his time among royalty through ambition and drive. He was also, along with several other young courtiers, a member of the Company of the King’s Spears, of which Essex was lieutenant. It was an expensive affiliation requiring sums of money Charles did not possess, but membership in it was absolutely essential if he meant to continue his rise at court. After losing his parents, Charles believed he had been given one very powerful opportunity by the king, and he was absolutely driven to make something of that, and of himself.

Earlier in the year, through his ever deepening friendship with Prince Henry, Charles was also made an Esquire of the Body, a highly regarded position in the king’s privy chamber. It was another key rung on the ladder of courtly success, as it was a ranking among the gentry that set him one rung below knighthood. But with all of the promise so tauntingly at his feet, Charles did not possess even the worth of estates required to make him eligible to receive the honor. It was a reality that frustrated him, and only made him want it the more. Marrying the wealthy, older Lady Mortimer had been the sole means of acquiring even some of the funds that were so essential to merely exist among earls, dukes and princes at court but it had not brought him enough property.

He leaned forward now on the pommel of his saddle and exhaled deeply, trying not to think too much about all of that. He had come to this area of Southwark alone. The errand he was on was degrading and he did not wish or need to make it in polite company, as there would be pleading involved.

Finally, Charles swung his leg over the saddle and leapt to the gravel-covered ground. He gave the reins over to a waiting stable boy who knew him well but paid him little mind as the impoverished nephew of the master of the manor.

Sir Thomas Brandon’s own position at court was great, as a prominent counselor to the king, yet he had little inclination to assist his ambitious nephew.

Charles stood in the entrance hall, richly paneled in oak and hung with tapestries. He was left there to cool his heels intentionally, he knew, in order to keep him in his place. Sir Thomas had introduced him at court when he came of age, and that was all he intended to do. Charles squeezed his leather riding gloves and fought the mounting frustration. If there had been any other way out of his current dilemma he would have taken it.

What felt like an eternity later, a stone-faced groom formally announced, “Sir Thomas will see you now.”

Charles knew the tall, spindly-legged man, William Fellows, as the gentleman who virtually ran the estate, yet Fellows always treated him like a stranger. He treated Charles precisely as his own uncle always had.

The room into which he was finally shown beside the entrance hall was formal and suitably elegant. One wall was taken up with a large black-oak sideboard with exquisitely polished silver plate on display. A clock hung on the wall beside it, and nearby stood a long table hung with fringed green cloth and several high, leather-covered chairs. Charles sank into one of them and exhaled again even more deeply.

His wife would be furious if she knew he had come here again, hat in hand. She possessed ample wealth for them both and could clothe him appropriately enough for the gen-trified circle, in the rich silks and velvets and the latest hats and chains. But this was very different. His wife would not understand. The money about which he had written his uncle this last time was not for him. It was for Anne and the children, in whom Margaret had little interest, for Anne had no tie at court and thus could do nothing to elevate Lady Mortimer’s stature. In spite of his commitment to his wife, Anne was still Charles’s first priority, and for her he would do anything.

Thomas Brandon entered the room a moment later with long, labored strides. He was a middle-aged, heavily over-weight man with sagging jowls and thick black brows that merged in the middle and gave him a serious countenance.

He was wearing a predictably dour black velvet long coat with ermine mantle and cuffs.

“Charles.” He nodded blandly as he approached.

“Uncle.” Charles nodded in return.

“I would ask what brings you here but I can assume it is the
only
thing that ever brings you to Southwark.”

Charles steadied himself. It was always the same volley, which elicited the same need to restrain himself. “You know very well what my request is to be used for.”

“So you do maintain that Anne’s needs remain great.

Yet I wonder . . . another doublet, is it truly? A new jewel, perhaps a fencing lesson? Or is it Italian lessons now? The need to keep up never ends, does it?”

“Nor does the desire. Yet as a Brandon yourself, you should know that well, Uncle.”

“More avaricious than ambitious, are we now?”

“Feel free to see them as equally as you like. So, will you give it to me then?”

“Because you are my brother’s son, and only so, I shall consider a loan to you—not a gift.”

“As always, you are too kind.”

There was a tense little silence. “I shouldn’t think you will want to tell your wife about this.”

“Our dealings do not concern her.”