The Queen's Rival

  “May I come in?” he asked her.

  “Would I dare to deny you?”

  “Perhaps it would have been better if you had.”

  When she smiled, he advanced and sank onto the bed, moving to the empty place beside her, as though it had been a fortnight, not nearly twelve years, since he last had lain with her.

  Henry picked up the book from her lap and examined it. “From Tailbois?” he asked.

  “A birthday gift. Our last.”

  “I truly am sorry, Bess. Gilbert was a good man.”

  “There was no one better.” The slight to Henry was intentional in the moment, but he disregarded it. Instead, he touched the side of her face with a single finger and leaned nearer.

  “I am sorry as well about the boy. I should have given you more of a voice in what happened after I took him to France.”

  “’Tis true, you should have.”

  “That is an incredible boy we made, Bess,” Henry said with great affection. He turned onto his side familiarly then on her bed and propped his head on his hand.

  “You have honored him greatly, Hal. But all of England, I think, has been abuzz as to why, when you certainly did not honor your children with Mary Boleyn in the same manner.”

  “Those are William Carey’s children,” he said, bristling. “Harry was always mine.”

  “You never did deny him for even an instant; that is true. And for that, I am grateful.”

  “Nor shall I ever deny my son. I loved his mother dearly, after all. We were good together, Bess.”

  “Not so good that you now find yourself with Mary Boleyn’s sister.”

  Henry fell back onto the pillows and moaned as though he had been struck. He sighed then but with a slight smile. “Ah, yes, that.’Tis complicated.”

  “Do you love her, Hal?”

  “I wish I knew. . . . She confounds me, certainly. She knows how to make me do things . . . say things, I never believed I would.”

  He looked over at her honestly, and there was the depth of years, and their experiences, mirrored back to her in his expression. “Some say Anne Boleyn is a witch. But I only think you are bewitched by her,” she said.

  “That much is true. She wishes to be queen before—”

  “Before she does what I so willingly did without it, or any other promise?”

  Henry averted his eyes, and she thought he looked like a guilty schoolboy, even behind the beard and the lines of a grown man that now so defined his features. “I truly was in love with you.”

  “It is enough now that you believe that,” she said.

  He turned again then and kissed her. But it was a chaste, gentle kiss, full of more nostalgia than passion.

  “Will you divorce the queen and even break with Rome to do it?”

  “If I want sons, I must.” He caught himself then. “Heirs to carry on the Tudor legacy.”

  She could see by his expression that he knew what she was thinking. “Come back to court,” he suddenly bid her. “There is a place for you there alongside your mother again. You can spend more time with Harry . . . and with me.”

  “And with Mistress Anne?”

  She caught just a glimmer then of a charming, slightly arrogant smile. It was the same smile that had won her so long ago when life had seemed full of excitement and that dangerous innocence had ruled her. “I suppose we could see if she is up to the challenge of having you around her apartments. It might be good fun.”

  Bess arched a brow and bit back a half smile of her own. “You would use me as in a bearbaiting?”

  “Forgive me.” He sighed more heavily then. “I should not have assumed such a thing would be your desire as well after all these years.”

  This time it was Bess who turned toward him, willingly, and with the greatest affection. She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I did not give my heart, or my body, casually to you.”

  “You would not have been the Bess I loved if you had. Come to court,” he pleaded again.

  “I have the children, and a life here now, Hal. There are so many responsibilities and obligations.”

  “You are far too young and vital, the mother of the king’s son, to settle out here in the country forever. Write to your family, bid them to come and manage Goltho Hall, or ask it of Mistress Carew for a while.”

  “Have we not, the two of us, used Elizabeth quite enough?” she asked pointedly.

  “I am asking only that we pass a bit of time together again, Bess. It seems I can tell you what I can tell no one else. I am at a crossroads in my life, and it is a fateful juncture. That much I do know.”

  “I believe I would fear for my safety if I did return,” she said, trying to pass off his plea as nothing more than a whim or a moment of nostalgia.

  “I will keep you safe and well cared for. Have I not always done that?”

  She thought of the life she had now as the widow of a baron; a woman of stature and of some note; a woman still young, still beautiful, with possibilities ahead. It was true; much of that really was to do with Henry VIII and the loyalty he had shown her.

  “If I came to court, would I not complicate your decision about Mistress Anne?”

  “Please do complicate it,” he bid her without hesitation. “Does the mother of the king’s much-loved son not have that right?”

  Before she could respond, Henry kissed her, but this time it was not a chaste or harmless union of their lips. Rather it was the expression of things long held and now remembered, and it flared powerfully between them.

  Suddenly, though, Bess pressed him back, her expression not one of passion but of conviction. “I cannot, Hal. Not here in his bed. Not ever.”

  Henry exhaled a steadying breath, then ran a tender hand along the line of her jaw. “And it is one of the things I loved most about you, your sense of honor.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, letting him tenderly kiss her cheek.

  “But I would still like to stay and lie here for a little while and just talk with you, if that would be all right.”

  Bess felt the same desire to protect this strangely precious moment in time, one that would be gone soon enough once he and Harry left Lincolnshire. She had no idea whether to go to court, as he had bid her, or what dreadful thing might occur if she did. The only thing Bess knew for certain at this oddly bittersweet moment was that, in spite of everything, it felt so good to be with Henry again after all this time.

  The next morning, she came downstairs to see that Henry and Harry were already sitting at the large cloth-covered trestle table in the grand dining hall, waiting for her to join them. Going well against custom, the three Tailbois children—young Elizabeth, little George, and their brother, Robert—had been brought to partake of the morning meal with the king and Harry rather than being left to dine in the nursery as usual with their nurse. None of the king’s servants, or the duke’s attendants, was there to attend them at the moment as Bess lingered at the open door. She knew that was intentional.

  She felt her heart squeeze as Harry sat talking and laughing with George, who was not quite eight, and she could hear the king patiently testing Elizabeth on her Latin verbs. Happy, odd little family, she thought. If only it were real. As soon as Harry glanced up and saw his mother, he stood politely and nodded to her.

  “Good morning, my lady mother,” he said, showing a deference not due her, which she thought made it all the more sweet. “Have you slept well?”

  “I scarcely slept at all,” she replied, not daring to glance at the king who, true to his word, had remained with her through the night, talking, laughing, and reminiscing but taking no other liberties.

  “Your home is lovely,” Harry happily countered as he began to eat. “My sleep here was deep and peaceful, not unlike how I imagine death well might be.”

  He did not realize how his response sounded, three days after a funeral, until he saw the faces of Elizabeth and George, as the two elder children of Gil Tailbois exchanged pained little glances.

&
nbsp; “Bollocks,” Harry cursed at himself in response, his smile having quite fully and swiftly fallen. “Forgive me, Mother, please. I have been brought up better than that.”

  “Indeed you have,” the king calmly chided his son.

  “It is just so peaceful, so utterly bucolic here, nothing at all like the busy roughness of London, from which we have just come.”

  “There is no need to explain,” Bess assured Harry as one of her own liveried servants, stiff-spined and silent, came formally into the room. She then drew back her chair so she could sit. “It is a world away from London in so many respects,” she said with a smile, trying as well as she could to help rid him of the horrified expression on his smooth boy’s face. How lacking she, too, had been in self-confidence at that age, she thought, remembering how awkward and unsure she had felt that first time Henry spoke to her.

  Bess sat silently after that, watching all of her children interact with one another, as if it had always been that way. And Henry, King of England, sat happily at the head of her table, dining, laughing, and talking with them. She wanted to capture the moment and preserve it like a rose sealed between the pages of a book, protected forever.

  Since they had come in the duke’s entourage, rather than in that of the sovereign, Henry and their son were able to join Bess for Mass that morning in the local stone church down in the village. Covered in an unadorned yet fashionable gray wool cape and a low, wide French cap, England’s king passed unnoticed beside the young duke. As prayers were offered up for the soul of Baron Tailbois, Henry somberly lowered his head and made the sign of the cross.

  “I wish I had known him,” Harry said to Bess afterward as they walked, arms linked, out into a wet and cold gray morning where the low-lying fog rolled at their ankles.

  The king, Elizabeth, and George were behind them, and Bess relished this precious moment alone with her eldest son.

  “He was an extraordinary man,” Bess confirmed.

  “His Highness tells me he has asked you to return to court.”

  “It seems a foolish thing even to consider with Mistress Boleyn there,” she countered, unable to keep a hint of rivalry from her voice at the thought.

  “They are saying he will start his own church and annul his own marriage to the queen, and then marry her,” Harry said in a tone much lower than before. “Unless, of course, there is someone to prevent all of that.”

  Bess glanced over at him, surprised at how worldly wise this young boy sounded to her just then. For an instant, she allowed herself to actually imagine him one day King of England because of it.

  “I shall try to come to court,” she replied with a sideways glance and a crooked smile. “But only to see you.”

  Harry matched her smile. That much of him was thoroughly Blount. “We shall begin there,” he said. And that was every bit his father. “I like my brother George,” he added. “We are similar in many ways.”

  She felt it deeply in her heart that he would think of the two of them as brothers.

  “I would like him to come with you as my companion,” he suddenly declared. “If, of course, you would agree.”

  A mix of emotions flared within her again at the sudden prospect of losing another child, another son to Henry’s influential court.

  “It is certainly something to consider,” Bess hedged, keenly aware of the gentle, understanding image of his mother with which she wanted him to leave; something special he could take away and keep, and hopefully upon which they could build.

  “Do you two not look intense,” Henry affably remarked as he came up behind them. Pressing himself in between them, he linked each of their arms through his own and continued to walk over the ordered gravel pathway. “Is it a private conversation or may anyone join in?” he asked with a smile and a sly little wink.

  “Not just anyone,” Bess replied. “But certainly you may.”

  “I was just telling Mother how much we both would like her to come to court. And when it is time for me to return to my own estates, I would like her to see them as well. And I would very much like it if she would bring my brother George with her. There are not many others my own age, and it would be so lovely to have a companion. A bit of family.”

  “Ah, yes. Just as I had Brandon when I was a boy.”

  “Precisely.” Harry smiled, and Bess could see the lovely ease between them. She did not like admitting that his father had been good for him. She had been full of anger for such a long time.

  “Well, I think it is a splendid idea. If your mother agrees, that is,” said the king.

  “I shall certainly consider it.”

  “And you will come to court?” Harry badgered hopefully.

  Bess gave a wan little smile as she was pressed by what felt like two errant boys. “I shall try,” she replied finally. “Perhaps later in the spring.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  April 1531

  York Place, London

  The powerful forces of the clergy in Rome threatened excommunication in response to Henry’s claim that he would break with the Church over the issue of divorce from Katherine of Aragon. On one side of him, Anne Boleyn pleaded and cried, threatening to withhold her favor forever, which drove mad a man accustomed to having everything he desired. On the other side were Henry’s son and Bess—a ready-made family, taunting his heart and his conscience with a choice of lust or love.

  “It is true, sire, if you were to marry the Lady Tailbois, it would give legitimacy to the Duke of Richmond and ease him, with no difficulty should you choose, into the line of succession,” Thomas Cromwell cautiously advised. “And Mistress Anne is still most unpopular with the people.”

  Since the disgrace and death of Cardinal Wolsey, and the death of another confidant, the Earl of Essex before that, and with Brandon and Mary living away from court much of the time, Henry now relied almost exclusively upon Cromwell to help him navigate the turbulent waters of divorce, annulment, and excommunication—not only with Rome, but with his conscience.

  Katherine was left alone now at Richmond with only a few of her servants. It was her punishment for continually refusing to say she had slept with Henry’s brother, Arthur, an admission that would have rendered her marriage to Henry invalid and provided grounds for annulment, and also for refusing to accept that Henry would eventually divorce her. Meanwhile, Henry, Anne Boleyn, and his court were luxuriously installed at Wolsey’s elegant former London palace, York Place, where they meant to pass the spring without the queen. He was no monster, he assured himself daily. But he had a choice to make, and that choice no longer included Katherine of Aragon. He would have to decide which way to go once the divorce was granted.

  Yes, he could marry Bess. That would make things simple. It would calm so much of what tortured him as well. A part of him still did love her after all these years. He had satisfied himself about that question last April when he had gone to Lincolnshire with Harry. But Nan. . . Fiery, unpredictable, sensual Nan, how his blood did burn for her! Yet had his passion become real, enduring love? Or was it simply still his pride and that love of the hunt that had always ruled him?

  Henry had written to Bess, asking her once again to come to court. He needed to see her again now that her yearlong mourning period was at an end. He needed to be with her as they once had been to see if the love between them could extinguish the passion he felt for Anne. Bess had written back that she would come for the May Day celebration. And yet, he thought now even as he waited, perhaps memories were just that—something better left to the corners of the heart and not paraded up to the vulnerable center.

  His plans for a law passed by Parliament to bring his son into the line of succession would certainly destroy his chances with a woman like Anne—if he planned to marry her and have sons with her. But if he did not do it, Harry would not be assured his rightful place—a place for which Bess had sacrificed so much.

  So there was a risk either way.

  Henry glanced beyond the window glass and dow
n into the vast gardens below, full of neat brick pathways and conically shaped juniper trees. Anne was there with several of Katherine’s former ladies, now her attendants, along with Henry’s own Groom of the Stool, young Henry Norris. When he saw the handsome, dark-haired Norris, Henry’s smile fell. The look was intense between Nan and the boy. They were laughing, and she had touched her hand playfully to his chest. Henry leaned back in his chair as Cromwell droned on, delving into details he did not care to hear. So the king was not the only man at court with a passion for Anne Boleyn, he thought, jealously focusing on Norris. Come to court soon, Bess, he thought again as he had so many times already that day.

  “My Lady Tailbois, there is a gentleman downstairs. He says he is your neighbor, although I do believe I would remember him if he were.”

  Stout and silver-haired beneath her gabled hood, Mistress Fowler stood in the doorway to the music room, and Bess looked up from the virginal where she had been listening with the music teacher as her daughter played a piece. Elizabeth stopped playing and looked toward the door as well.

  “Has this gentleman a name?” Bess asked with a hint of irritation at how flustered the married woman was apparently by the prospect of the waiting guest.

  “He called himself Lord Clinton, my lady. But I did always believe Lord Tailbois, God rest his soul, to be the only nobility around this area.”

  Bess stood and straightened her skirts.

  “Shall I show him upstairs?”

  “I shall come down. Where is he now?”

  “In the foyer, my lady Tailbois. I tried to show him to the drawing room, but he insisted this was not a social call.”

  Bess rolled her eyes, irritated to be called upon by a stranger who clearly was not any more pleased to be in her house than she was to have him here, whatever his reason. There was enough to do maintaining a family and a household this size without being bothered by mundane interruptions. Bess did not descend the stairs gracefully, rather taking each step with purpose, and also a hint of irritation as the hem of her skirts swirled at her ankles. But as she reached the landing, she saw him. The sight of him stopped her fully. He was familiar, though a total stranger. And all the activity in her house, servants moving about, children laughing—all of it ceased in that moment.