‘I am not mistaken, Mistress Desire,’ he said, smiling benignly. ‘I wish to dance with the one whose charms I can see most of. Do I not deserve that, at least, after my poor showing in the lists? You’d not deny me a closer look, surely, while we dance?’
Ginny was in no position to deny anything as the music drew them into the set where, lifting her hands and arms higher than was called for, Culpeper was able to gaze at everything the gauzy fabric revealed through its mulberry tissues where the skin beneath turned it to a sultry shade of pink, and the low, beaded neckline slipped ever farther down over a figure slenderer than Kat Howard’s. She was quite sure he knew who she was just as, by now, Jon would have recognised his partner.
Mortified by the mistake, she would have moved away quickly at the end of the dance to where Jon was bowing over the hand of the green maiden, but again her arm was taken and, because her vision was restricted by the headdress, it was not until she almost bumped into the gross bulk of King Henry that she realised what was happening. Culpeper had done this on purpose, thrusting her into the king’s arms before she could escape, knowing how quickly the royal lust could be redirected.
‘Your Grace, ’tis time for the maidens to unmask,’ a loud voice called over the top of the din. ‘And as one of this afternoon’s victors, I claim the hand of the one known as Desire. Which one is she? Come, lady, you are mine for the rest of the evening.’
Relief flooded over Ginny. ‘I’m here, my lord, but would you not be gallant and exchange me for the lady with you?’ she said. ‘That would be courtesy to His Majesty.’ As she spoke, she lifted her mask and slid it over her shining hair while Jon untangled the prickly sequins, his expression resolute rather than kindly. Kat Howard was quick to slide into her place with a ravishing smile, but Culpeper was not pleased to see his plan misfire. Turning away from the sight of the king with his girl, he buffeted Jon on the shoulder with a fist that ordinarily would have had no effect.
‘Well played, my lord,’ he said with a wide smile that did not reach his eyes. ‘In a winning mood today, are we not?’ Sweeping a glance at Ginny’s beautiful figure, he turned away with the words, ‘I thought you’d be well used to giving up your woman to His Grace by now. Worth a try, though.’
Jon paled visibly, grabbing at Culpeper’s arm to bring him round. ‘Quite mistaken, Tom,’ he said quietly. ‘One never quite gets used to that, but it looks as if you might have to try. Come to me for advice.’
Culpeper heard the sound of truth and could find no ready answer. Instead, he looked down at Jon’s hand on his arm until it was slowly removed. Ginny tugged at Jon’s elbow to break the hostilities. ‘Come away, my lord. Come, we need not stay.’
Jon collected himself. ‘We must. We cannot leave before the king,’ he said.
But Ginny had seen the patch of bright red seeping through his white doublet, as big as a rose. ‘You need attention,’ she whispered. ‘I shall send a message. His Grace will understand.’
With willing hands to assist them, Ginny and Jon were escorted back to Tyburn House where, with the help of Jon’s squire and Mistress Molly, they discarded the blood-soaked costume and bandages, then washed and tended him to the ungrateful accompaniment of grumbles and protests. But by his unusual pallor, Ginny saw that there was indeed some urgency to treat both his wound and his exhaustion seriously and, taking charge of the situation, decided that neither of them would attend the other festivities planned for that week. Had they but known it, that day was the last on which Henry and Anna were seen together as man and wife. Nevertheless, Ginny had no fears for her husband’s recovery, for he was a strong and healthy individual who for the past few months had been under the same kind of mental pressure that she had experienced, and still did, to come to terms with a new partner chosen by the king with all the implications and restrictions this imposed. Surely there were few marriages, even arranged ones, where so many barriers had been erected against their mutual happiness by a selfish man who liked to have more than one woman at his disposal. Added to this was the grief of losing the mother of his child, who must have been well used by Henry, according to the snide remark made by Culpeper. That Jon had been willing to go through this all over again with her was something of a mystery, especially now when she could no longer doubt that he was actually refusing to give the king access to her. Several times he had proved this, despite having bargained with Henry beforehand. Yet Henry had agreed to Jon’s new title, as he had to her father’s grant of property and Elion’s knighthood, which she had been assured was for services to the crown, not specifically as rewards of a more personal nature. This was not what her father had led her to believe when his persuasions had been so brutal. So what was the truth, exactly? Would she ever discover it?
* * *
For the rest of that week in a reversal of roles, Ginny was closer to being in control than at any time since February, when she had felt that life was running away with her. She had assumed Jon would not have the energy to make love to her with the pain of a shoulder wound, but she had not realised the depth of his desire. Sitting in a garden filled with spring sunshine and nothing else to concern him but the waste of time, as he saw it, he watched her comings and goings and saw how much she relished the management of the house and its occupants. After a few days of this, he discovered that her determination to draw them together as a family had given him a sense of belonging and a purpose he’d been lacking except to defy the king in this one thing. This was something he’d not experienced before, and he found it suited him well to play games with Etta, to tell her stories, and to watch her daily progress.
At night, when the house was still, Ginny would climb quietly into bed so as not to disturb him, protesting only mildly when he reached out for her to snuggle into his side. ‘Your shoulder...’ she whispered. ‘Don’t make it bleed again.’
‘It’s almost healed, sweet lass,’ he said. ‘It’s the rest of me that needs attention.’
She did not pretend not to know, for he had caressed her thigh when she stood close to him in the garden, thinking that no one would see. ‘I cannot have my patients lacking attention,’ she said, smoothing her palms over his chest. ‘Will this do?’
‘No. I can see I shall have to be more explicit.’ Even with one shoulder strapped up, he was still able to spin out his loving into aeons of time and to bring cries of rapture to her lips, each caress bringing with it new delights of experience she had thought could not be bettered. His days of jousting practice had deprived him of this greatest of his pleasures, so now he shared his pent-up energies with Ginny, who had not deserved to wait, or to be grieved by this unnecessary injury. She was a remarkable lover, quick to learn and responsive to every touch, imaginative and exciting in her teasing ways that drove him wild with passion, urging him on to heights he’d never reached with any other woman. He would like to have whispered the words of love she deserved, too, but he knew that to do so would provoke a string of questions he was not yet prepared to answer. A declaration of his love would demand openness and trust and explanations too strange to make sense, and there would be a better time than this.
But at times like this, Ginny’s mind dwelled in other places where sensation, not explanation, was everything, where the closeness of his well-toned body transported her into a world of heady pleasures that were in many ways still new to her. She could never have done this with any other man. It was only his hands she wanted on her breasts, tenderly moving the swelling nipples under his fingers, raking them into hard buds ripe for his mouth, cupping the fullness of each one to make her gasp with desire and melt her womb. It was only his mouth she wanted on hers, tasting her before unleashing a new surge of energy, barely under control, goading her to give still more of herself with abandon, to fight him, then to surrender. And it was only Jon she could have allowed to possess her in the way she had tried to dream of before their marriage, and failed. That had been nothin
g like this, for she had not known of the overpowering thrill of holding him inside her, pulsing, throbbing and alive, taking ownership with each move, deeper than desire.
And it was with a growing certainty that she knew no other man could have taken her to such a blaze of passion where something inside her scattered into fragments and made her cry out and cling to him while trying to hold the moment before it was lost to them. Then, she felt that nothing else mattered except that she loved him and wanted to be everything to him the way she imagined his first wife had been, so that he would grieve for her, too, if she were to go away. No other man could have made her feel like that. How she had hated him for his rejection and how she loved him now for accepting her, however controversial the reasons.
* * *
As the month of May wore on and the king’s involvement with his queen became less, his passion for Katherine Howard grew daily until it became obvious to everyone at court that something would have to be resolved, one way or another. The only person not to see this was Anna herself, whose good nature always found an excuse for other’s failings, even the Howard girl’s frequent absences from duty. Ginny could not pretend to be unaffected by this development when she was rarely seen by the king. In her case, too, out of sight meant out of mind. It was to her advantage.
Her father, having received what he wanted most, dropped his belligerent manner towards her and became almost pleasant, hardly noticing his daughter’s coolness and lack of interest in his new property. Eventually, Ben and Father Spenney would return to their own home and she would see even less of them than before, but she lost no sleep over that. Only Paul was disgruntled, having been overlooked for any reward, and she had not needed Elion’s warning to beware of him as a troublemaker. A letter from her mother had said how excited she was to be the mistress of Sandrock at last, and how she intended to restore it to a fabulous mansion on par with any of the king’s palaces. Which she had not seen. No mention was made of Ginny’s failure to reach the king’s bed, but that could hardly matter now, nor did it appear to matter whether she had found happiness. So the only ones to notice any change in Ginny were her husband, Maeve and George, Elion, her brother, and Molly, who knew that the spells she had planted in the garden at D’Arvall Hall had had some effect. Sharing her time between her own home and that of her adopted cousins, little Etta had never been happier.
Eventually, Jon returned to duties with the king and spent less time at home, and it began to look as if he and Ginny had reached some kind of understanding that would have to rely on her patience and his timing. It was not the best of foundations on which to base an arranged marriage, but until the king’s marital affairs were sorted out and they were both released from their obligations once and for all, Jon believed, quite wrongly as it happened, that there would be enough emotional crises to deal with from the royals in the near future, without adding to them in any way.
* * *
With simmering heat by day and fiery skies every sunset, May moved into June without a sign of rain, though there were fears of plague and talk of crops failing dismally, village ponds beginning to stagnate and more than usual vagabonds turning up at the gates of Whitehall Palace for daily handouts of food. It was as if London waited for something dramatic to happen. By June 24, everyone had heard the incredible news of the arrest of the Earl of Essex, the man who had risen from plain Thomas Cromwell to be the king’s chief advisor. Jon had hurried round to tell Ginny while she was still in the queen’s apartments, his face pale and shocked by the suddenness of the arrest and the brutality of it. But with the royal infatuation for the Duke of Norfolk’s niece, the duke’s influence with the king was on the rise again, and he had been waiting for this moment to pounce upon Cromwell with some ridiculous charge of treason. Jon’s position as one of his assistants was now uncertain, and perhaps dangerous, for he, too, had been given a title very recently, like his employer. Who was safe these days?
‘But, Jon,’ said Ginny, ‘you cannot think you’d be in any danger, surely? If you do, then you must not return. You have a family to think of.’
‘So has Cromwell. And he relies on his staff at such times to keep the office going and to do what has to be done. Someone else will be given his job and I’m supposed to be there to help. I must go back.’ Jon’s tone was terse and uncompromising. His duty was to both masters and he could not be seen to fail either of them.
‘So what happens to me and Etta if you’re arrested?’
‘Nothing, Ginny. Nothing will happen to you. Go home and stay with Etta.’
‘Jon, be careful. I thought you’d have stayed with us, too. For safety.’
But he was already halfway through the door and all she heard was the sound of his hard boots on the floorboards growing fainter. Holding back the angry tears in her eyes, she slammed the door after him. He had not even remembered a last kiss.
Chapter Nine
Two shocks in one day might have seemed excessive, even in those troubled times, but the news of Cromwell’s arrest did not require immediate action, whereas that delivered to Queen Anna did. Her face, usually so composed, reflected hurt and bewilderment as she stared at the royal messenger. ‘What...now?’ she said. ‘Today?’
‘For your health, Your Grace. Immediately. The king fears the plague, as you know. He believes you’ll be safer at Richmond.’ The page had the grace to look shamefaced. ‘It’s very pleasant at Richmond,’ he said. ‘More peaceful than here. And it’s only eight miles away.’
‘So what’s all this about, do you think?’ she said to Ginny when the page had gone. ‘If His Grace is so afeared of the plague, then why is he not going to this...Reeshmond...too? He’s sending me away, isn’t he? Will he be sending the Howard girl there, too?’
Her line of questioning suggested to Ginny that she had more than an inkling of what was happening and that this might be only the beginning of something that could affect the woman for the rest of her life. Ginny hoped that whatever it was, it would not humiliate Anna any more than she had been, and that her usual good sense and composure would sustain her through the days ahead. It was inconceivable that Ginny should desert the queen at this time when her star was on the wane, when not only had she been told to remove herself from Whitehall, but reduce her household from one hundred and twenty-six to fifteen. If that wasn’t the beginning of the end, then what was?
Obedient to the letter, Queen Anna packed her belongings and left her servants to continue the process over the next few days in a fleet of barges that would be rowed upriver to the palace of Richmond, the beautiful waterside residence that neither Anna nor Ginny had ever visited. Leaving Etta with her nurses had been the hardest thing, but Maeve was close by and Jon not far away, and she herself within easy reach. Her real fears were for Jon, whose loyalty to the disgraced Earl of Essex, now in the Tower, conflicted with his loyalty to the king, whose wrath, it seemed, could fall on friend and foe alike at the drop of a hat. The earl had been Henry’s closest and most loyal advisor, only recently rewarded with a title. One could be excused, Ginny thought, for thinking that the king had turned into a monster. Jon’s hasty and abrupt departure appeared to reflect her anxiety about his own future, for he knew more than most about the king’s strenuous efforts to uncouple himself from an unpleasant situation, added to the fact that Henry was willing to sacrifice his most devoted subjects on any pretext that suited him.
* * *
Richmond Palace stood like a fairy-tale castle on the edge of the Thames where the queen’s heavily laden barge reached it through a water gate leading to the stairs and a system of elegant chambers and courtyards. Leaning her head towards Ginny as the barge moored, Anna said brightly, ‘I think I might like to live here. This is my kind of place. Did you see those domes and flags, and the gardens?’
They had been silent as the barge approached, but Ginny had noted with some amusement how Anna’s eyes widened
at the sight of the many towers with domes of burnished gold, each with its own chattering weathervane. Set within walled gardens and orchards with green hills beyond, the high walls reminded Ginny of her white openwork embroidery that made row upon row of windows. The neglected opulence of the halls within led them to the queen’s own privy chambers overlooking the river, and Ginny felt that Anna would eventually find both peace and pleasure in such a magnificent setting. Confidentially, Anna had told of her fears that she might be sent home to Cleves to face her brother’s fury and the disgrace of rejection. But in answer to Anna’s earlier query about young Kat Howard, the girl’s absence indicated that they had probably seen the last of her, although, even then, Anna’s charity forbade her from making harsh judgements. ‘She’s very young’ was all she would say, as if to excuse her rudeness.
* * *
The problem of Anna’s future was solved sooner than any of them could have anticipated when a deputation from the king, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, arrived the next day to speak in private with the queen. Closeted with four men for the best part of an hour, Anna emerged white-faced and desolate. Her voice, usually so firm, shook with the effort of control. ‘I am no longer to be His Grace’s wife,’ she whispered, sitting down heavily on a clothes chest in her room. ‘I am to be annulled, Ginny. Already they have decided it in your House of Common, ten days ago. Why...why could he not have told me himself? I am not married. Never have been.’
Like sisters, they moved towards each other to place arms around shoulders to still the trembling. ‘I’m so sorry,’ Ginny said. ‘So sorry. Did they tell you what’s to happen next? He’s not sending you back to Cleves, is he?’
‘No, His Grace is kind,’ she said, contradicting what Ginny thought. ‘He gives me a generous allowance. More than enough. He allows me to keep all I have and this palace to live in, and another at Hever, and one somewhere else, I cannot remember. He wishes to call me his sister, Ginny.’ The sweet, sad face suddenly broke into a sobbing laugh as the ludicrous request shaped their lips. ‘His sister?’ they said in chorus. ‘His sister?’
Betrayed, Betrothed and Bedded Page 19