Parker’s gaze sharpened, but he did not look as surprised as Susanna was. He must have had an inkling of this himself.
“At present, it is but something he turns over in his mind. He needs a son, a legitimate son, and the Queen … well, her age, her fasting, and her kneeling in prayer in cold chapels for hours have made her courses erratic. There will be no more heirs from her, even if His Majesty slept regularly in her bed, which he does not.”
Bryan looked from Susanna to Parker, and when they made no move or word to interrupt, he took a deep breath. “It seems he has no choice but to advance his illegitimate heir. And you can guess how the Queen will take her own daughter being usurped by His Majesty’s bastard.”
“It will not be pretty,” Parker conceded. He looked as if he wished himself very far from here.
“It will not. And while he will ignore her anger, the King knows she is not the only one who will feel so. There are plenty of powerful men who would begin to ask themselves, if the bastard son of the King can take the throne, why should not they? There are some who claim a better title to the throne than the King himself.”
“De la Pole.” Parker’s voice was flat.
“Aye.” Bryan looked defiantly at him. “De la Pole.”
“You side with him?” Parker seemed to be gathering himself as if to spring.
“I am not siding with de la Pole.” Bryan’s voice was a trembling whisper of fear. “Never say that, Parker. Never say that again.”
Parker cocked his head. The silence stretched out. Bryan’s face crumpled.
“I did go to the docks and receive a letter from de la Pole, but until I opened it, I had no idea who had sent it. I swear.” He began to breathe heavily. “If I had known what that dog was getting me into …”
“And which dog would that be?”
Susanna felt Parker tense beside her.
Then the front door slammed open so hard, it sounded like a crack of lightning.
Bryan gave a cry of fear and ran for a door Susanna had not noticed, set in the wooden paneling on the far side of the room. He threw it open and disappeared into the dark passage beyond.
Parker stood poised, weighing whether to chase down Bryan or confront whoever had come through the front door. Like her, his need to know who continued to torment them won out. She saw the moment his focus narrowed on the closed door leading to the main hallway.
Silence stretched out, ominous and frightening. She felt tight as a spring, and Parker drew his sword and let his knife drop from his sleeve into his left palm.
“Hide behind the chair,” he whispered to her, and walked toward the door. He seemed intent but unafraid, whereas she felt like climbing out of her skin.
She stepped behind the high-backed chair and sank down, peerking out from the side.
Parker reached for the handle, listened for any sound beyond, and pushed the door open.
He swore.
“What is it?” Susanna rose and peered over the top of the chair.
“No one here.”
Parker moved deeper into the hallway, almost disappearing from her sight in the gloom, and Susanna cried out, “Careful! They could be hiding.”
He returned to the threshold, and his eyes gleamed wickedly as the lamplight caught them. He grinned as if her concern amused and delighted him.
“There is no one here.” With a hiss, his sword found its scabbard again, and his knife disappeared from his hand. “Can you swim, my lady?”
“Swim?” Susanna looked at him, dumbfounded.
“It seems the game grows deeper still.”
17
The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier: To swimme well.
Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman: To be circumspect that she offend no man in her jesting and tauntynge, to appeere therby of a readye witt.
Dusk had fallen and the gloom closed in on all sides. Parker felt the prick of adrenaline along the back of his neck as he drove the cart home as fast as the road and the weather would allow.
It had started snowing again while they were at Bryan’s rooms, swiftly covering everything in a crisp layer of white. Susanna was nestled deep into his side, her face turned against his shoulder, away from the wind.
He was in the grip of some lunacy. Because in the midst of their troubles, he felt a euphoria at the easy way she leaned against him. His heart wanted to burst from his chest and escape to the glorious heights, to shout out a victory cry.
Even worse, he had no will to put his feelings aside. He wanted to savor them, enjoy them. He must be mad, yet he could not bring himself to care.
“Do you know where Bryan will go?” Susanna’s question was a warm puff of air against his cold ear.
“No.” He wondered whether Bryan was even alive. If the intruder had known of the secret passage, he need only have slammed open the door and then run to the exit to wait for Bryan.
That there was no sign of Bryan’s body near his building meant only that he hadn’t been killed as he’d fled. It did not rule out abduction and murder elsewhere. Or torture to find out what Bryan had said to Parker.
“This has been a long day.”
Susanna’s words echoed his own sentiments. It was time for a tactical retreat.
The spire of St. Michael’s and the entrance to Crooked Lane had never looked so good. But just in case, Parker palmed his knife. If there was to be another attack today, it would be near or at his house.
He turned into his yard.
“Ho, Parker.”
Susanna cried out and Parker blocked her body with his own, his knife coming up as he faced the direction of the call.
“Easy. ’Tis Simon.” Their cart driver from Dover stepped closer, raising a lantern to illuminate his face.
“Sorry.” Parker leaped down from the cart and turned to help Susanna.
“You are not still dodging arrows, mistress?” Simon bowed to Susanna, and she gave him a brilliant smile back.
“Not arrows anymore. A few knives.”
Simon looked uneasily at Parker, as if hoping to find it was a joke, but Parker nodded confirmation.
“But I thought after I delivered you at Bridewell, you were able to see the King?” Simon looked from one to the other.
“We were. It doesn’t seem to have made much difference.” Parker turned to lead the horse into the stable, but Simon shook his head.
“Don’t do that. You are summoned by the King. They sent me to fetch you.”
“Let us go in for a bowl of stew and a cup of wine first,” Parker said. “We have been chasing conspiracies around the city all day.”
Simon shrugged. “I was told you must come immediately.”
“Immediately, and then we will wait for hours at the King’s pleasure.” Parker shook his head. “We need food if we are to go to the King tonight. I cannot fight on an empty stomach.”
“You shouldn’t need to fight at the palace.” Simon followed them to the kitchen door.
Parker laughed. “The palace is where most of my enemies lurk, Simon. My wits need to be doubly sharp to enter that hornets’ nest. To say nothing of my sword.”
He held the door open for Susanna. As she stepped across the threshold, he could not resist putting a hand on her shoulder.
She turned to look at him, her eyes bright and warm. He wanted nothing more than to tuck her up safe, but instead he must drag her across the city again.
“Gather your strength, my lady. This endless day looks set to go on longer.”
She lifted a hand and touched his where it rested on her shoulder. “We would not have rested well tonight anyway, with so much unresolved.”
Ah, but he had planned that they would. That he would have Mistress Horenbout alone again in his study beside the fire, and he had planned to take more than just one kiss this time.
She must have read his thoughts in his eyes, because the flush on her cheeks from the cold air deepened, and she lowered her gaze, then raised it ag
ain, hot with promise.
If the King or his enemies didn’t kill him, the lady before him surely would.
But for once he’d go gladly, and without a fight.
Parker left her so reluctantly, she thought he would refuse the King’s call to come in alone. He stood just outside the door to the inner sanctum looking so painfully conflicted, it was as though he were leaving her in a den of wolves rather than the privy chamber.
“Call out loudly, should you need me,” he told her, and then murmured in the ears of the guards at the door. With a final, hard look around the room, he stepped into the passageway beyond.
Susanna sank back down on the chair that had been brought for her when they arrived. Despite the laughter around her, the conversations of the courtiers making merry after their evening meal, every eye had lighted upon her at least once since she’d arrived.
She was too tired to care, and she looked down at her lap, not even regretting her lack of charcoal and paper. If she ignored them, she knew they would lose interest.
“I know you.”
The man who addressed her, coming right up to her chair, was drunk. His face was flushed with too much wine and he looked pleased with himself, as if he carried a most satisfying secret.
Susanna felt the sudden freeze of fear. A stone had lodged in her throat, all but choking her. She could do nothing but stare up at him and hope Parker would not be long.
Because she knew only too well who he was. George Boleyn. Womanizer, rapist, pig. The last time she’d seen him, he’d tried to rape her in a dark corner of the great hall of Margaret of Austria’s court.
She would never forget his face. It seemed he had not forgotten hers, either, despite the years that had passed since then.
“My lord.” She did not rise from her chair but she merely inclined her head, uncaring of the rudeness.
“You’re speaking English now. If I recall, you pretended otherwise last time we met.”
Talking to him at all was a mistake, but antagonizing him would be even worse.
“I am here at the King’s request, sir, and I took instruction in English before I came, to better serve His Majesty.” Perhaps knowing she was here for the King would penetrate his drink-fogged brain and restrain him.
“And what use has the King for you, little Lowlander?” He spoke loudly, and there were a few titters of laughter from courtiers nearby, but they were subdued. She was an unknown entity, and no one wanted to risk an offense that would reach the King’s ears.
She did not respond. He had never asked her reason for being at Margaret’s court, in the short conversation they’d had before he’d turned on her all those years ago. She had let him strike up a conversation because she had not heard the rumors that he took whichever woman he wanted. That women should take care never to be alone with him.
Boleyn crouched down and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. “I had to leave Margaret’s court in disgrace because of you.” Spittle sprayed onto her face, and she could not look away from his mouth, the lips red and wet, forming an ugly line.
“Not because of me.” Susanna jerked her chin from his hand, but continued to look him in the eye. She was in a crowded room, and the guards were paying them a good deal of attention. She would say what she wanted for once, instead of biting her tongue. “You left in disgrace because of your behavior, not my protest at it. And I was but the straw that broke the camel’s back. I heard afterward you’d already drawn six complaints before my own. You are responsible for your own disgrace, my lord.”
He looked at her and she thought she saw a clearing in his eyes, a return to sobriety. Then someone laughed. Whether it was at what she’d said or not, Boleyn flinched.
“Don’t you know how to speak to your betters, girl?” He rose, his hand grabbing the hair at her nape and forcing her up with him. “Come now, let us finish what I started.”
Shock held Susanna silent for the first few steps toward the door, then she turned to the guards. “Help me. Call Parker.”
She saw them exchange an uneasy glance, and knew suddenly they could not leave their positions. They were bound to protect the King, not her.
“Parker!” Her scream cut through the conversation of the crowd, and in the silence, every head turned their way.
“Boleyn.” Whoever called out did so in a voice heavy with warning, trying to rein the bastard in.
“Fuck you,” he called back, and laughed. By now he had her at the door to the outer chambers, and he gripped her hair harder, bent her head back even farther as he shouldered it open.
As the door swung shut behind them, she knew she had to fight.
It was all there was left.
As Boleyn shoved her forward, she slammed her heel into his instep, glad she was wearing boots instead of court slippers. As she stamped down, she jabbed an elbow as hard as she could into his side.
He cried out but his grip tightened, his fingers digging viciously into her scalp. He lifted her up by the hair, and through the pain bursting across her eyes and forehead, she lashed out with both feet as they left the ground.
Boleyn suddenly let go of her with a scream, and she fell to the floor.
Then in a swift, sure move, she was scooped up and held safely against a dark-clad side. Parker.
“My … cheek.” Boleyn half-lay, half-sat on the floor, his cheek dripping blood from a thin cut from outer right eye to chin.
Parker stood with his knife loosely held in his right hand and Susanna saw a thin rivulet of blood run down the blade.
Boleyn, his eyes averted, started to get to his feet, and with a sweep of his right foot Parker knocked him down again.
“Parker.” Boleyn tried for bemused irritation but his voice shook too much.
Parker’s face was a cold, furious mask. He wanted to kill Boleyn. Slowly and painfully.
She wanted to kill him herself.
She took a deep breath. “Come.”
Parker turned to her, and she felt the jolt of his gaze: rage and deadly intent, and something deeper, bigger than she’d imagined.
“Perhaps if you could move near the wall,” he said to her, his calm voice a thing apart from his eyes. “Just rest a moment on one of the chairs.”
She looked from him to the chair he indicated and back. “Parker—”
“Please.” His eyes told her he would not make her watch him kill a man. But he would have some reckoning.
She moved toward the chairs, glancing at Boleyn as she did. He was staring at her, pure hatred in his eyes.
If he’d looked shaken or sorry, she would have begged Parker to leave it. But he did not, and she kept her eyes on him deliberately, and sat.
Boleyn started to get up again, and this time, Parker let him.
When he was on his feet, his hand went up again to where Parker had cut him. “You’ve scarred me.”
Parker transferred his knife to his left hand, stepped forward, and punched Boleyn in the face so hard he fell down again.
Then he waited in silence for Boleyn to stand once more.
Boleyn lay sprawled on the floor, blood pouring from his nose. He wiped at the blood, smudging it across his upper lip. “You cross a line, Parker.”
“It is not I who crossed a line.” Parker stood absolutely still. He looked deadly.
“Too much to drink.” Boleyn tried to shrug with nonchalance, undaunted by his position on the floor. “No harm done, eh?”
“Harm was done.” Parker looked at Susanna, then back at Boleyn. “Or perhaps you enjoy being lifted off the ground by your hair and dragged through a party of snickering cowards?”
Susanna could tell Boleyn had realized what Parker planned to do at the same instant she did.
“No—”
“You said no harm done. I’ll take that as reckoning, Boleyn, and by your own words, no harm will be done.” Parker was beside him in a single stride, his knife out in case Boleyn thought to struggle. He lifted him by the hair, and Boleyn began to shriek
.
“It seems my lady has more courage than you, Boleyn. I don’t think she shrieked like a maid. She only called for help.” Parker turned and began dragging Boleyn back to the privy chamber.
Susanna saw that a crowd had gathered at the door through which Boleyn had dragged her, and the people scattered as Parker headed straight at them, Boleyn squealing like a stuck pig behind him.
Susanna followed Parker, completely in thrall to his boldness. He managed to drag Boleyn halfway across the privy chamber before someone shouted, “Parker, enough.”
It was the man who had tried to check Boleyn earlier.
“Enough?” Parker threw Boleyn to the floor. “I think Boleyn had a mind to rape my lady before he’d have called it enough. Any of you care to do the honors on him?”
There was shocked silence.
“Ah, my pardon.” Parker’s voice was pure steel. “Judging by the aid you gave a helpless woman, none of you have the equipment to do the job.”
“Point well made, but enough, Parker. Finish it.”
Parker looked across to her. “Is it finished?”
The room held its breath.
Susanna gave a tiny nod, her eyes on his beautiful, fierce face.
“Then it is finished.” Parker walked toward her and held out his arm. “But my business with the King is not.”
18
The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier: To be pleasantlie disposed in commune matters and in good companie.
Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman: To make her self beloved for her desertes, amiablenesse, and good grace, not with anie uncomelie or dishonest behaviour, or flickeringe enticement with wanton lookes, but with vertue and honest condicions.
Your Majesty.” Parker bowed, but he kept his hand on Susanna’s arm. It was a battle to hold it steady. If he were to release the control he imposed on himself, his whole body would be shaking.
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