The Secret Bride Read online

  “Since the marriage is canceled, they make no pair at all, sir,” she coolly replied.

  “And yet you see with your own eyes that still they do wish to . . . pair.”

  She lowered her gaze upon him, angry for the liberty he took and for the familiar way he spoke to her. “Do you encourage the king’s son to behave as you do with women, sir?”

  He chuckled at that, as if her words had no impact. “The prince is his own man, my lady Mary. He shall do quite as he pleases, and already does, I assure you.”

  “Not with Arthur’s wife, apparently.”

  He arched an eyebrow and his eyes glittered in the candle-light. He was slightly amused. “Are you so certain? By the looks exchanged between them, he may well ally England with Spain with a dozen little royal babes.”

  “You are smug and vile.”

  “And you are beautiful when you are angry.”

  “I am young and betrothed to the emperor’s heir. And you are old—and married.”

  He made as if to grip his heart, but still laughing. “Ah, the little lady Mary wounds me like a much older woman.”

  “What good fortune for me I have the wit and not the years.”

  He tipped his head back and laughed but there was so much activity, so much laughter and music around them, that no one even noticed. He took a long swallow of wine then and slapped the goblet back onto the table. “Will you watch me at tennis tomorrow?”

  “Have I a choice?”

  “To cheer for me, yes.”

  “I shall cheer only if you should fail.”

  “Ah, my lady Mary is every bit as headstrong as her brother. And extraordinarily lovely for one so young,” he said, still more amused by her words than insulted. “No wonder he finds you so companionable.”

  “I still cannot say the same for his taste in friends.”

  Charles Brandon lingered. Tonight was her night to shine and she had done that. “It is good to be clever, my lady. It is a better thing, however, to be wise. I see it is in that distinction that your youth fails you.” Then he bowed just slightly. “A pleasant evening to you.”

  Mary could not sleep that night for the thoughts of Katherine and Henry, and what was to become of her Spanish friend if she was made to leave England. Mary’s young heart went out to Katherine every time she thought that she was in a foreign country, unable to fully speak the language and completely at the mercy of others. Mary had seen quite clearly this day that Katherine was in love with Henry, and it made her believe that they belonged together. As new as she was to court, she had no idea then that life could not ever be that simple, particularly for a Tudor who was about to become a king.

  Conversely, the great foolishness of youth made her scoff at the hubris of Charles Brandon, a young and obscenely handsome man who she was certain could not know the first thing about hardship, longing or love. She was wrong about many things that night.

  Chapter Three

  Now unto my lady a promise to her I make, From all other only to her I me betake . . . Adieu mine own lady, adieu, my special, who hath my heart truly, be sure, and ever shall.

  —From “Green Groweth the Holly,” written by Henry VIII for Katherine of Aragon March 1509, Richmond Palace

  As the trumpeters sounded a regal fanfare, Mary sat in the king’s banner-draped viewing stand in the tiltyard, flanked by Jane and Katherine. A mild afternoon sun shone down upon them and was cooled further by the gentle breeze that ruffled the long bell sleeves of their dresses. Mary’s was an exquisite creation of blue damask edged in velvet with ivory silk ribbons. The breeze quickly cooled the perspiration that lingered between breasts that, now that she was nearly fifteen, were prominent. Despite the fashion, which was to flatten them beneath a painfully tight-fitted bodice, she was proud of her newly shapely, and rapidly changing, body. She regularly glimpsed the looks she received now that she was at court and she was beginning to feel the absolute power in beauty.

  Down on the dust-churned field, Charles Brandon waited next to joust and Mary was angry with herself when she realized that her heart had begun to beat a little more quickly at the prospect. They saw one another regularly, as he was almost always in Henry’s company. But he was a married man—now for the second time—and she still believed him to be a conceited renegade and an opportunist. She still did not like him well, in spite of how incredibly handsome he undeniably was. As his sleek black charger, caparisoned in shimmering silver, was led onto the field Jane began to giggle behind her hand. She leaned toward Mary.

  “Now there is one to whom I would refuse little.”

  Mary stiffened and began to twist the lace at the end of her long sleeve. “He is married, Jane.”

  “And so?”

  “Jane!” Mary forced back a smile.

  “We shall both be married off forevermore to men with whom we do not wish to bed. Why not at least have a man once—and wildly—before we do? I hear the act itself is very like dying . . . that is, if you actually learn to enjoy it.”

  Mary could scarcely believe her ears as she watched Charles ride toward the king, who sat only a few feet from her. Showing his respect, he nodded deeply and deferentially.

  She knew Jane to be winsome and flirtatious, and she had certainly seen her attraction to Henry, but she had never before actually considered her so comfortable with the game of seduction. It both frightened and excited her to have a friend like that, who might well become her partner one day in some most delicious adventure.

  She glanced over at Katherine then, sitting with her sour-faced duenna, Dona Elvira, and found her Spanish friend gazing in doe-eyed silence over at Henry, who sat beside the king. The difference between her two friends was so comical that she felt a giggle work its way up from her throat. Pious Katherine and wanton Jane. She pressed a hand over her lips but it was too late to stifle it. One moment more and Jane began to giggle as well, and they leaned in together, thick as thieves in some grand unspoken jest—until the king’s stern mother leaned forward from the seats behind them and pinched Jane’s shoulder. They had no idea that the morally pious Countess of Richmond had been listening.

  “Guard,” she flatly yet chillingly commanded, still pinching Jane’s bare skin until it brought tears to her eyes. “See Mistress Popincourt to Lady Guildford’s charge until tomorrow.”

  “But, my lady grandmother, please,” Mary pleaded, trying to intercede, albeit in a weaker voice than she would have liked. “The festivities, the banquet! She shall miss them all!”

  “Prudent to have considered that before Mistress Jane chose to put voice publicly to her most impure and inappropriate thoughts.” She flicked her hand dismissively and her velvet sleeve fell back from her bony wrist. “. . . Behaving like the strumpet one assumes she shall quickly become.”

  “Forgive me, my lady,” Jane sputtered obediently. But the king’s mother sat back stiffly in her chair and gazed down onto the field. That would be the end of it. She was silver-haired and matronly, but Mary knew the Countess of Richmond was a powerful force with which to be reckoned. No one had ever changed her mind once she had made it.

  As two of the king’s guards moved a step nearer, Jane rose and excused herself to keep Mary from embarrassing herself more than she had done already. As Jane stumbled out onto the steps, the countess called out a final directive.

  “And you are to advise Lady Guildford that Mistress Popincourt is to be soundly enough flogged so that she shall not again speak so vulgarly.”

  After the jousts, Mary attended the banquet meekly as she had been expected to do. She waited what felt like an eternity for her grandmother to drink enough wine, then begin dancing with the Earl of Northumberland so that she could slip away undetected. By the time Mary found Jane, she was alone in just her shift and stockings, lying on her bed in the small chamber next to Mary’s own. There was darkness but for moonlight that shone like a beacon through the window. Still Mary knew Jane would be awake. She lit a candle lamp and set it down onto the table besi
de Jane. Her face was red and swollen from weeping and her wide blue eyes were brightened with tears as she lay on her back looking blankly up at the ceiling.

  “I am so sorry,” Mary whispered, aching for her friend.

  “Not half so sorry as I. I’ll not be caught again. I’ll be more careful because I mean to live my life at court by my own rules. I believe I shall begin by seducing your brother the first moment I have a chance.”

  “I would rather you didn’t.”

  “I shall make my own happiness in this world. And so should you!”

  “All right,” Mary said. But she did not mean it. At least not back then.

  Mary spent her days that first year of 1509 at court primarily in the company of Jane and Katherine, the three of them being heavily supervised in embroidery, dancing, French, cards, etiquette and music, by the Countess of Richmond. While Katherine never spoke of her feelings for Henry during those long, mainly mild winter days, heading toward spring, both she and Jane could see them in her every look and glance.

  The sad romance of it all made them pity Katherine, knowing that if something did not happen soon, she would be forced to return to Spain, and the king could not be bothered even to be civilized toward her.

  “What is it between you and Katherine?” Mary asked Henry one mild afternoon as they strolled together beneath a clear broad sky. They moved evenly out through the privy gardens, between the neatly clipped hedgerows, where the yew trees had been formed into the fanciful shapes of animals for the king’s pleasure. They were with a large group of Henry’s friends, including Charles Brandon, Thomas Knyvet and Jane, who ambled a few paces behind them, giving brother and sister a moment of privacy.

  “Katherine is my good sister, as you are, and she is in need of kindness just now. That is all,” he equivocated, glancing back at her, but she saw him catch Jane’s eye instead.

  Mary turned around as well and saw Katherine, who had seen the little exchange. But she only turned and spoke in a whisper to Dona Elvira—too proud to acknowledge it.

  “That is all?” she repeated on a note of disbelief.

  “Very well. You always could see through me,” he con-ceded a moment later, with a toss of his head and a crooked half smile. The pale sun highlighted the red-gold strands in his tousled golden hair, and his eyes glittered at her with absolute sincerity. “I do care for her, Mary. I care for her a great deal. And she cares for me. But the king is immovable on the notion of our marrying now. And he means absolutely to see her returned to Spain.”

  “You actually wish to marry one who was, for a time, chosen for you?”

  “Peculiar as that seems.”

  “Then it is a great tragedy.”

  “Rather, it shall be a gloriously romantic tale if I can think of a way to stall her return.”

  She understood then. Her brother was stubborn and, like her, generally most wanted the things he could not have.

  Strangely, though he could have had any girl at court, Henry seemed far more interested in securing a wife than a paramour.

  “Father is unwell.”

  “And you are the very picture of strength and health.”

  “The old die away as the young come to full bloom. Just like you, sweet sister. Just look at the beauty you have become already,” he declared with a strangely easy smile, touching her cheek with a long finger that bore a gold and ruby ring that had once belonged to Henry V, famous for the battle of Agincourt.

  “There are grand things in store for the two of us, Mary.”

  “You shall be king and I shall be chattel,” Mary said with a sudden frown.

  Henry laughed in that robust way, deep and full of spirit, that she loved. “Ah, no. When it is my turn, I suspect I shall make you a queen.”

  “You told me once you would keep me here with you. Name a great ship after me.”

  “That was a childhood fantasy. Surely you knew that. But there will still be a ship. And perhaps some wonderful king to give you to.”

  “I am betrothed to the Prince of Castile and you well know it,” Mary shot back, angry that her brother should toy with her in that way when she had no control over anything in her life, yet the world would one day belong to him.

  “The only thing constant, my Mary, is change.”

  They walked a bit farther, out past the octagonal wooden pavilion and the little lane of fruit trees, pear and cherry, beyond. But they were close enough still to hear the lute player who had begun to strum a tune for the others back beside the splashing stone fountain.

  “I need you to show me a kindness.”

  “Anything,” Mary replied.

  “Do you have a dress with which you could part? One of those exceptionally pretty new ones I have seen you wearing here at Richmond?”

  She glanced at Katherine, surrounded by her sober-looking group of Spanish attendants, and knew that what she had thought before was true. The once elegant green silk dress she wore now almost daily, lined with brocade and ornamented with exquisite dark Spanish lace, had become noticeably frayed at the hem and sleeves, and the bodice was increasingly threadbare. It looked oddly out of place on so regal and proud a girl as Katherine. Still, her thick waves of black hair were done up meticulously away from her soft rounded face by Dona Elvira, as if Katherine were Queen of Spain. Thinking about what she was being forced to endure because of her own father, Mary felt angry, and defiant. Like Henry, she wanted to do anything to help her, and keep Katherine with them.

  “Which would become her most?” she asked her brother.

  “You have but to choose. Anything I have is hers.”

  A smile broadened his face and she saw that happy, carefree Henry reemerge, the one she adored. “I owe you a great deal, my Mary.”

  “You do at that! But one day I shall find a way for you to repay me,” she said, smiling in response. Of course she had agreed out of devotion to them both, and she did not mean he actually owed her anything. At least not then.

  Two days later, Mary watched Jane burst out of the maze suddenly, as though someone had pushed her. Jane was out of breath, her pale hair wispy and springing out in random places from her small French hood. In the shallow silver of afternoon light, Mary was close enough to see that Jane’s nose and cheeks were flushed pink, her delicate lips were chapped, and she was smoothing out her skirts.

  Mary had been walking with Lady Guildford out near the pond, and past the stone urns newly filled with bright pansies and forget-me-nots on a day that was cooler than the others. Not seeing them, Jane paused. When Mary took a step toward her, prepared to speak, Lady Guildford clutched her arm firmly, drawing her back.

  An instant later, Henry emerged from the maze. He paused as Jane had done, but for only an instant. He glanced both ways, and then went on in the opposite direction, not seeing his sister. Everyone by now knew Henry was in love with Katherine. This, whatever it was, could only bring Jane heartbreak.

  “Leave it be, child,” Mother Guildford counseled as Mary moved again to go to her friend.

  “But I—”

  “Some things are better left unseen.”

  “But I have seen it! Jane will need my counsel.”

  “Best to wait, child. She shall need your shoulder more.”

  Suddenly, as Mary looked back, Jane did see her. The eyes of the two friends met, neither of them able to remember any longer being without the other in their lives. The only sound in that awkward instant was of the splashing fountain, and a soft breeze as it stirred the fabric of her small headdress.

  Was it pure girlish rebellion that had led Jane to something so foolish? Or did she really believe that Henry could actually care for her? They said physical attraction was strong enough to make a young girl believe it was love, but Jane had always seemed wiser to Mary than to have given in to that—a girl more certain to find a future of her own making. Would Jane Popincourt, with the sweet laugh and the vulnerable smile, ever be content as a royal mistress when she had yet to find her own true love, the
way the two of them had always dreamed? They were yet all so untested by life, Katherine, Jane, Henry and herself.

  “Why would he do that to her?” Mary heard herself ask, without turning back.

  “Men are a different breed, child. And a prince who shall be king is something altogether different even from that.

  They are entitled.”

  “As he believes he is entitled to with Katherine?”

  “That as well. He will need that strength one day to rule.

  So do not be too hard on him.”

  “And will he need the hubris that goes along with it?”

  “I suspect he shall indeed.”

  “But what of Jane?” Mary pressed, her heart aching for her friend.

  “She is expendable. As are we all. Except, perhaps, you.

  No one shall ever be able to use you in that way. Remember, your father is king.”

  “My life is not my own to make.”

  “No, you have been raised to know that well enough,”

  she answered patiently. “But if you listen well, mistakes are not yours to make either. There will be people to counsel and guide you in every aspect of your life. You should find some comfort in that.”

  And boredom in it, Mary thought. Having other people guide her life all the way through, at this moment, seemed like the very worst thing in the world.

  They walked slowly back into the house, the servants they passed dropping into perfunctory curtsies and bows as they passed. Mary rarely noticed the required business of life. It just had always been there. Like the rules. And she had broken so few. Only now had the reality of that begun to seem the littlest bit stifling to her after having watched Jane do something on her own that was entirely, utterly wrong.