The Queen's Rival

  “What is it?” she asked, turning around now to meet his gaze.

  The king took note. Henry ceased his conversation and turned to the page as well.

  “It may be the sweating sickness,” the page nervously revealed. “Pardon me, mistress, but Master Tailbois appears quite gravely ill and Lady Carew felt you would want to know.”

  “Are you certain it is the sweat?” Henry asked, his deep voice ringing with concern.

  Without waiting for a reply, Bess pressed back her chair and stood, her thick skirts moving around her.

  “I must go,” she declared, surprising herself with the rush of loyalty she felt for Gil, despite what the king might wish.

  Without waiting for his approval, Bess left the banquet hall alone then, dashing out into the torch-lit corridor crawling with shadows, and fled up an enormous echoing flight of stairs to Cardinal Wolsey’s suite of apartments. There, in a paneled room with two modest oak-framed windows of multicolored glass, she found Elizabeth, Nicholas, Jane, and the cardinal himself. They were gathered at the foot of a canopied bed, while two court physicians attended to Gil, who lay beneath a mound of heavy bedding. He was grimacing as if in enormous pain, but his eyes were closed, so he did not see her.

  As Bess advanced, it was the cardinal who looked at her with calm concern and held out a fat jeweled hand to stop her. It was the first time in all these years she had ever seen his fleshy face full of anything but condescension toward her. “Perhaps you should not get too close, my dear. They are quite certain now it is the sweating sickness.”

  “But he was fine only yesterday!” she cried, feeling tears prick her eyes and the swell of panic move up from her heart. She knew how fatal it could be.

  “That is the expected onset, as well as the course of the progression, I am afraid, swift and deadly. The best we can all do for him now is pray,” Wolsey said calmly.

  His heavy touch on her forearm was full of kindness, but it was clear he intended her to go no farther toward Gil.

  “I do beseech you, my lord, allow me to see him,” she softly pleaded. The desperation that showed on her face was also in her voice.

  “It would not be safe for you,” the cardinal calmly argued.

  “I do not care about that!”

  She exchanged a stricken glance with Elizabeth then, memories of precious times among the three of them flaring, then circling in her mind like birds. “Should we go to the chapel and pray for him?” Elizabeth asked as tears cascaded down her own smooth cheeks and Nicholas tightened his grip around his wife’s waist to keep her from faltering.

  “He is not going to die!” Bess declared, as if her commitment alone could make it so.

  “You know what they say,” Nicholas gently reminded. “Stricken by supper, dead by dawn.”

  “Then I am certainly not going anywhere!” Bess stubbornly declared.

  The cardinal was looking at her with what she thought was an expression of surprise. But there was also a small spark of respect there, visible in his rich, dark eyes. It was something she had never seen before on the face of anyone at court—at least not directed toward her.

  “If you must, then sit with him,” Wolsey directed her. “Perhaps you shall bring him some comfort. He is enormously fond of you two young ladies.”

  Without waiting for a further invitation, Bess advanced toward Gil, pressing past the physicians, both in long black gowns, miniveredged sleeves, and brimless caps. They stood ominously, cloaked in shadows, talking in a low tone at the side of the bed.

  “He is full of fever,” one of them declared gravely. “Take care, mistress.”

  For only an instant, remembering then what had become of the king’s brother, did Bess feel any spark of fear for herself. Still, being here for him was far more important. It was everything. He was her friend and her confidant. She simply would not, could not, let him die as Arthur had died. She refused to know that eternal kind of loss.

  A candle flickered beside the bed, and he smelled faintly of camphor. There was a large dish of water on the bedside table and a moist cloth near it. Bess ran the cloth through the cool water, then pressed it onto Gil’s blazing forehead. He moaned softly but still did not open his eyes, and Bess felt her heart squeeze at the prospect. She could not lose him; she would not.

  She and Elizabeth stayed like that all night beside their dearest friend, running moistened cloths over his forehead and taking turns holding his hand. Bess forgot entirely that the king had promised to send for her. It would not have mattered anyway, she thought when she later remembered, since this was where she was meant to be. If, as the ghoulishly cruel saying went, he was to be dead by morning, Bess was determined that Gil not go to that death alone.

  When Wolsey placed a hand on her shoulder, it was dawn. The pale pink sunlight spread a blanket of warmth and a glow across the room around her. Elizabeth was asleep in a chair on the other side of the bed, her head back, and her small lips parted. Realizing where she was, Bess instantly bolted forward from her chair to check Gil.

  “He has survived the night. He is merely sleeping,” the prelate quietly announced. “And his fever broke about an hour ago.”

  “You were here the entire time?” she asked.

  “Of course. He is my responsibility, after all.”

  “He is your servant.”

  Her charge did not ruffle him. Wolsey stood calmly, towering over her in his smooth silk crimson cassock, his posture, alone, full of more authority than she had ever seen in anyone. “The boy and I have grown close through the years.”

  Bess thought his tone was odd, belying far more than his words did. Certainly a heart like Cardinal Wolsey’s was too hard to have been softened by a young ward with whom he had no family tie. There was clearly something more than a work relationship between them, but precisely what, she did not yet know.

  A moment later, Elizabeth woke and, seeing them, lurched forward across the bed.

  “Is he. . . ?”

  “He has survived,” Bess answered her wearily with that same little catch in her voice.

  “Oh, praise God! Where has Nicholas gone?”

  “To get some sleep,” the cardinal announced in a calm baritone. “He said he would return soon.”

  Elizabeth reached over to touch Gil’s limp hand.

  “I cannot believe we nearly lost him,” she said as a wellspring of tears fell onto her pale cheeks. “I know not what I would have done.”

  “Nor do I,” said the prelate.

  Bess glanced up at him and felt compassion. She could see that Cardinal Wolsey truly cared for Gil. Obviously there were many things she still did not know and understand about the world, or even about just the world of the English court. Bess knew she was still considered innocent by many—particularly by those who did not know what was happening between her and the king. But Bess was certain she did know whom she loved and trusted. And after the long night, three of those people were in the room with her.

  After Gil woke and they all took turns embracing him and admonishing him never to frighten them like that again, Bess finally stood to stretch her legs, which were cramped and stiff after a full night in a hard chair. She walked to the window to draw open the latch for a breath of morning air. But as she gazed down into the courtyard now that morning had fully broken, she felt her heart lurch, and her breath fall away. The sight below was one she had not expected or, at first, wanted to believe she would ever see. Collected there below the window were dozens of saddled horses, laden carts, and courtiers preparing for travel. Among them was the king himself, who stood very close to Jane Poppincourt, his hand lightly around her waist as they spoke in a low tone together. The king and his entourage were going without Bess to Beaulieu to escape the sweating sickness. It took only a moment more to fully understand. She had been exposed to danger by Gil, and clearly it was too great a risk to include her now in the royal entourage, no matter what the king had proposed yesterday.

  Bess stood stone still as she
watched a groom hold the polished silver bridle of the king’s saddle to steady the horse. Henry leapt easily onto the sleek black stallion without ever once turning around. She watched Jane standing nearby as the king tossed a glance back her way and then nodded to her. Perhaps they were just friends, Bess thought, and with a little jolt of envy she forced herself to press back.

  It was understandable—yes, entirely. He feared illness, of course. Who could blame him? His own brother had died of the very same thing, and Henry had been left with a kingdom to rule. At least that was what she told herself as he gave the order, with a gloved hand and a throaty shout, to the blare of peeling trumpets, and galloped off into the dust. He did so without ever having explained himself, or having bid farewell to the girl who had so fully given him her heart, and her trust, only yesterday.

  Chapter Ten

  May 1518

  York Place, London

  Eight months had passed by the time Bess saw the king again at more than a distance. Over the winter, the threat of illness had passed, so Henry felt safe to join together his traveling entourage with his full court. By April, the queen was yet again pregnant, and again great hope for a son rose up—especially now that at least one of her prayers had been answered. She was finally the mother of a child who, at last, had survived the very fragile first two years.

  This was an evening of celebration in honor of both the queen’s pregnancy as well as the Treaty of London, which Cardinal Wolsey had painstakingly negotiated between England, France, and the papacy. The peace was to culminate in the formal betrothal of the two-year-old English Princess Mary and François, the three-month-old French dauphin. It was whispered that these events had set Wolsey on a course to realize his ultimate dream of one day becoming pope. The celebration following High Mass was to be massive.

  From the first moment she saw Henry, Bess felt her anger slip away. He was magnificent as always in jeweled green brocade and a heavy medallion suspended from a thick gold chain around his neck. His eyes twinkled and he tipped back his head, laughing openly at something one of his companions said. Tall, lean, devastatingly handsome, Henry looked even more, she thought, like a young lion ready to devour the world.

  Even from a distance, Bess had never seen the king look happier, healthier, or grander. As he saw her draw steadily near, Bess could feel Gil tense beside her. These past months in the king’s absence had continued to deepen their friendship. Kindled at first by his illness, the relationship had been enriched by their steady companionship, and a healthy dose of his gratitude.

  But tonight everything once again was changing.

  Or perhaps, she thought as she looked at the king, it would merely change back, return to what it had been for that brief, magical time that now seemed as if it had not happened. At least that was what Bess prayed from the moment she saw him, his face and smile turned to her in the candlelight. A long line of liveried servants laid out a sumptuous feast for the group gathered in York Place, Wolsey’s personal palace in the city. The theme was Roman, with great purple pillows, tasseled in gold, tossed onto the floor before low tables draped in gleaming purple silk. The walls were covered with long sheets of fluttering gold silk so that the entire room resembled the inside of a great columned temple.

  “I shall stay when he comes to greet you,” Gil said with surprisingly stiff resolve. “The queen will not like him speaking alone to a beautiful girl. The cardinal says she likes that less and less these days, especially when she is with child.”

  Bess knew by the way he said it that there would be no dissuading him, even though she had dreamed of nothing so much as seeing the king alone. Gil was going to be her protector whether she liked it or not. An instant later, Henry was upon them, his smile still broad and carefree as he took up Bess’s lightly trembling hand. The first thing she felt was the cool press of the gold from his many rings on the backs of his fingers. As she dipped into a curtsy, he kissed her knuckles gently. The sensation of his moist lips as they lingered against her skin was seductive, and she tried not to react as she rose and their eyes met. Still, she felt the shiver deeply as they looked at each other.

  “It has been too long, Mistress Blount,” the king said charmingly as he continued to hold her hand.

  “I would agree with Your Highness.”

  She heard Gil’s groan of displeasure beside her.

  “You look stunning, as always,” he said flatteringly.

  She was blushing and she knew it.

  “Your Highness is most kind.”

  “Only observant, mistress, that is all.” The king rocked back on his heels for a moment as he glanced over at Gil appraisingly. “So then, Master Tailbois, it has been some time, but you look well recovered, no worse for the wear.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness. Perfectly well.”

  The young king’s voice went slightly gruff then. “Wolsey tells me you were the only one in his household stricken the last time.”

  “Apparently that was so, sire.”

  “How fortunate you were then to have had Mistress Blount and Lady Carew to care for you. I am certain their care only added to the speed of your recovery.”

  “I should think undoubtedly, Your Highness.”

  “It would be the only thing I would relish about falling ill, to be certain.”

  It was an odd little exchange, Bess thought, for she heard some small hint of rivalry in it. Odd it was indeed that the King of England would behave that way with Gil, whose experience with women consisted of his platonic friendships with her and Elizabeth. She glanced over at Gil to see if the king’s feelings were mutual, but she saw only the tall, lanky, kind-faced friend from her youth. There was at least some comfort in that, she thought.

  Then, suddenly, the king redirected his attention to Bess, drawing her back in. “Mistress Blount, if you could spare but a moment before we dine, I find I could use your counsel on a matter of some urgency.”

  The way he was looking at her sent a tremor sharply through her body. “Anything I might do for Your Highness.” She struggled with the words.

  “Come with me,” he directed her, nodding coolly to Gil as he turned to leave.

  “Take care, Bess,” Gil called after her, but she did not turn around. She knew what expression she would find in his eyes if she did, and just now Bess had no desire to see it.

  She thought she had lost the king when he moved with long strides around the corner and into the corridor ahead of her. One flash of his jeweled velvet surcoat, and he was gone. But then as she turned the corner, trailing after him, she found him, cloaked in the shadows of a small paneled alcove. Forcefully, he drew her against his hard, lean body and wrapped her up in his powerful embrace. Anticipation arced through her as he pressed her against the cool limestone wall and leaned in against her. She was excited by their recklessness, terrified, and even so, overcome with pure lust. Her thoughts whirled in her mind, mixing with hot desire as Henry’s mouth came down hard, parting hers. They did not speak. There were only the directions from his forceful hand and the demand from his hard body pushing against her.

  Bess moaned softly as Henry fumbled impatiently with his codpiece first and then her voluminous skirts, the layers of underskirts, and lastly the drawers. She felt his tongue on her neck as he grasped her hips powerfully and lifted her up onto him.

  Bess pressed herself against him as he moved, feeling her own feverish arousal in the dark, dangerous alcove where any moment they might be discovered. Pleasure and pain wound themselves up tightly inside her, hard and fast, until his huge body went rigid; then the next instant he groaned and slumped with a great sigh against her.

  Less than ten minutes later, they swept back into the banquet hall, a full pace from each other, yet both filled with the reckless passion of the other.

  “Mistress Blount?” A sweet-toned female voice came from behind her as soon as they were engulfed by the crowd around them and quickly separated.

  Startled, Bess pivoted back and saw Mary, the
king’s petite, beautiful sister, now the Duchess of Suffolk, standing behind her, dressed in an elegant blue velvet dress with wide hanging sleeves and a plastron of gold brocade down the front.

  “I almost did not recognize you,” said Charles Brandon’s new young wife. “You have changed a great deal since I went to France and returned. You have grown up.”

  “I thank you, Your Grace. Your beauty is unmatched now as always,” Bess answered with the well-schooled aplomb five years at court had given her.

  “So my brother chose a wise one this time,” Mary observed, and so sweetly that at first Bess did not catch the veiled slight. “You might actually be good for him. If there were not the small matter of the queen.”

  “I would never do anything to dishonor the queen,” Bess declared quickly.

  “I bid you, in matters of the heart, be cautious with the word ‘never.’ I have learned quite well the danger in that.”

  Bess sought to say that she loved him only as her king. But with her face still flushed from moments ago in the darkened alcove, and her dress still slightly tousled, she simply could not force herself to lie so boldly to her lover’s own sister. Bess wondered how Mary knew, as she had only ever been discreet since the brief liaison began, and she had not breathed a word of it to anyone. Yet it was clear that Mary did know. Perhaps it was the king who had confided in his sister. Everyone at court knew they were immeasurably close—that Mary had been the only one ever to boldly deceive Henry VIII and not face his wrath. He could be a gentle and kind man they said, but the King of England did not abide betrayal. She must always keep that in mind, Bess thought. The young woman who had so briefly reigned as Queen of France had risked everything for love with Charles Brandon. Although she was young, Bess was just beginning to understand that particular enduring kind of feeling for a man.