Life at court had not changed, he found. There were factions everywhere, and right now those factions were attempting to reassess the king’s position in relation to Lady Blaze Wyndham, particularly since the king had that very day publicly announced the betrothal of Anthony Wyndham, the Earl of Langford, to his dearly beloved friend, Lady Blaze Wyndham. Was the king planning to use Tony Wyndham to father for an expected bastard? Lady Wyndham had but one servant, a stubborn red-cheeked countrywoman who could not be bribed, and so no one could be certain if the slender Blaze was or was not with child.
It was obvious that the king was not in any way angry with Blaze Wyndham, for his manner toward her was most jovial and kind. She was therefore not out of his favor, particularly as she remained in her apartments directly over the king’s. That gave rise to additional rumors, these of a more salacious nature suggesting that the king and the earl were sharing Lady Wyndham’s favors.
Then, of course, there was the possibility that the king had found another lady to pursue. It did not take the sharp eyes and the sharper tongues long to discover that Mistress Anne Boleyn was suddenly being singled out for royal favor as Lady Wyndham was being eased out of it with her upcoming marriage. It was truly a most exciting autumn! On one side of the coin was the king coyly attempting to court a new ladylove. On the other was his previous inamorata publicly squabbling with her betrothed husband, much to the delight of the court.
“Can you limit your shows of temper to our private times, my lord?” snapped Blaze when Anthony had escorted her to her apartments one evening.
“I will confine my shows of temper when you behave as you should, madam,” he snapped at her.
“Lord Neville and I were but speaking. We were in public where we could be seen by all. What did you think he would do under such circumstances?”
“Lord Neville was openly staring down your gown,” raged Tony. “In another minute his hand would have been on your breast, and he would have been tumbling you in the open for all to see!”
Blaze slapped him furiously. “How dare you!” she shrieked. “I have never behaved like a common drab in the past, and I am not behaving as such now. You, however, are behaving like a fool!”
“I see,” he said coolly. “Playing the whore for a king is different from playing the whore for just a simple peer!”
Blaze whitened outwardly though inwardly fierce rage pumped through her veins. “You know nothing, my lord,” she said. “Nothing! If, however, you think me such a whore, why do you even disturb yourself by wedding with me? Surely some whey-faced and unsullied virgin would suit you better!”
“Perhaps you are right,” he shouted at her, “but I gave my promise to Edmund, and I have always been a man of my word! I will wed you, Blaze, and then I will take you home to RiversEdge where you will behave as my wife should behave, and bear my children so that the Wyndhams do not die out.”
Furious, she backed away from him. “I bore a son for the Wyndhams once. You killed him!” Her hand found a porcelain bowl of potpourri, and grasping it she threw it at his head with all her might.
He ducked, and the bowl, spewing its contents of dried flower petals and fragrant spices, scattered all over the room. Threateningly he stepped toward her, his face a mask of black anger.
“Go ahead,” she taunted him. “Beat me, if you dare! The king is still not so enamored of Mistress Anne that I cannot bring his wrath down on your damned head! Wherever you mark me I shall show him! He has always loved my fine white skin, and it distressed him whenever I sported a bruise. Touch me, and he will know of it, I swear it you!”
“You damned bitch!” he growled at her, and turning, flung himself from the room, hearing her mocking laughter, hearing her shout after him, “Coward!”
The king called her to him the next day, and seating her upon his lap within his privy chamber, he said, “You are causing a scandal with your constant battles, my little country girl. You cannot continue to openly disagree on every matter with our good Tony. There are those who say I am forcing you to this match, and such chatter hurts me, for you know I do this only so that you will be safe and content in your home with your little daughter once more. You are really not meant for the court, Blaze Wyndham, and once you are wed you are to go home again. Do you understand what I have told you?”
“I understand more than you believe I do, my Hal,” she said, and her lower lip quivered as her eyes filled with hot tears.
“I have loved you, Blaze,” the king said softly, “but you must never make the mistake of presuming upon that love. As I have warned you often enough before, I am not a simple man. I am the king! Do you now understand what it is I am saying, sweetheart?”
Mutely Blaze nodded, and was then sent from his presence. She understood. Oh, yes, she understood quite well. As Bliss had said those weeks before, the king had cast her off. He had seen her provided for with a suitable husband, and now he was washing his hands of her so he might concentrate his efforts upon his pursuit of Mistress Anne, the cat-faced bitch! As long as Blaze would behave herself she would have the king’s friendship, but Henry Tudor had all but bluntly told her that if her public disagreements with Anthony Wyndham did not cease, she would have his enmity.
Fleeing to her apartments she locked herself in her bedchamber much to Heartha’s distress. She needed to think. She needed to be alone. Really alone. For almost a year now the fires of her anger over Edmund’s untimely death had burned hot within her. Though with the passing of time she had come to realize that Anthony Wyndham was not really to blame, she had not been able to openly release him from his culpability in the matter, but now she had to if there was to be any peace between them. Henry Tudor had virtually insisted that there must be.
She had loved Edmund Wyndham with the first love of an innocent girl. Had he lived she knew that she would have loved him for the rest of her life. He had given her everything she had ever wanted, and more. His devotion. A sweet love. His name. Little Nyssa. RiversEdge. She had never dreamed that such happiness could exist between two people as had existed between them, and then he was gone from her life as suddenly as he had entered it.
As for the king, she had not willingly sought to catch his attention, yet with Henry Tudor she had found a different sort of love. She quickly learned how his royal upbringing had molded him into the powerful, volatile, brilliant monarch that he was. Henry needed a gentle woman who would allow him to lead her, and with him she had found real passion. Few, if any—the Princess of Aragon, Will Somers, herself—saw the unsure and uncertain boy beneath Hal’s bluff nature. The boy who needed the comfort and reassurance that only a soft-spoken woman could offer. Aye, the king had needed her, though he would never have admitted to it. She wondered who would minister to those particular needs now. Certainly not Mistress Anne Boleyn with her French manners and her grand pretensions.
What was left? What kind of love could Anthony Wyndham possibly offer her? Certainly she could not go back in time and give him what she had given Edmund. Nor could he be to her the man that Henry Tudor was, nor would she want him to be. She shook her head ruefully. Why was she even considering love where Tony was concerned? He did not love her, and she doubted that he ever would. He would marry her because of a promise that he had made a dying Edmund. She had come to believe that, because there was certainly no reason for him to have said such a thing if it wasn’t so.
There would be no love between them; but then, what would there be between them? She was not so silly as not to realize that true love within a marriage was a rare thing. Most people married for other considerations, such as property, children, familial duties of some sort. How on earth did they manage to live in peace together, feeling nothing for one another? She had been so fortunate her entire life, for her own parents loved one another, and she had loved Edmund, and her sisters had found love with their mates. They were, she knew, all the exception to the rule.
Without love what was there? Friendship? Respect? A mere toleration of on
e’s mate? He did not love her. Did he love any other woman? Did he have some rustic little mistress who had already borne him children? She did not know, for she had to admit to herself that she did not really know Anthony Wyndham. Still, if she could manage to forgive him Edmund’s death, perhaps they might build something on that. She had to try. She couldn’t go on being angry, wanting to stick a knife into his black heart! In just a few days’ time he would be her husband, and they would leave Greenwich and the court. She would not have the king to run to anymore in her pique. She smiled ruefully. She did not have the king anymore at all now. He had told her so only a short while ago. She must make peace with herself. She must!
“M’lady! M’lady!” Heartha was rapping upon her bedchamber door. “M’lady! Betty says that Mistress Bliss needs you right away!”
Blaze unlocked the door to the room and hurried out. “Where is my sister?” she asked Bliss’s tiring woman.
“She’s in her apartments, and she’s very sick, m’lady! Ohhh, she’s very sick indeed, poor lady!”
Bliss was as white as a sheet. She had already vomited twice into a silver basin, and was looking dreadfully drained. “I feel awful!” she wailed. “ ’Tis the second time this week that this has happened. What is the matter with me? No! Not that gown, you stupid girl! Did I not say it was too tight the last time I wore it? Ohh, Blaze! I feel wretched!”
“When was your last flux, Bliss?” demanded her sister.
“What has that got to do with anything? You know how irregular I have always been. It is the one great difference between Blythe and myself.”
“When?”
“Three, four months ago. I don’t remember!”
“You are breeding,” said Blaze matter-of-factly.
“Oh, no!” shrieked Bliss. “I cannot be! Owen always said that we might stay at court as long as we had no children, but once the babies came, I must remain at home!”
“You are long overdue a child,” said Blaze. “Blythe has two, and is expecting another. I bore Edmund two. It is time, Bliss. Besides, if you give Owen a few sons and daughters, I will wager he will let you return to your wonderful court. He doesn’t like the quiet life in the country any more than you do, and you will not let him get away without you, of that I am quite certain,” laughed Blaze.
“Indeed I will not,” said Bliss firmly. “If I must stay in the country, then so will Owen FitzHugh stay too!”
“Why are we going to the country?” demanded Owen, who had entered his wife’s chamber with Tony and heard but the last of the conversation.
“Because I am going to have a baby,” said Bliss without any preamble.
“A baby!” The Earl of Marwood’s face almost split with his delighted smile. “We are having a baby, madam? This is wonderful! This is marvelous!” Then he considered. “But why must I leave court if you are having a baby?”
“Because, sir, I shall not leave court unless you leave,” said Bliss sweetly.
“The court is no place for a baby!” Owen insisted.
“I agree,” replied his wife, “but I cannot be happy away from you, my lord, and if I am to successfully bear your son, then I must be happy, must I not? To be happy I must have you by my side at all times, and not playing the bachelor to all the lightskirts here at Greenwich while I, full of your seed, grow plump as a shoat deep in the country!”
“Now, Bliss, my darling . . .” began Owen FitzHugh.
“Now, Owen, my love . . .” returned Bliss.
Blaze moved silently across the chamber, and taking Tony by the hand, drew him from the room. “They are going to fight,” she said softly, and then with some humor, “And we do not need lessons in fighting, my lord, do we?”
“Nay, madam, in that sport we are most proficient.”
“I would say that in that sport we excel, sir,” she replied. “Perhaps it is time we tried to mend our differences.”
“And how do you propose, madam, that we do that?” he asked her.
“I am not certain, my lord, but I know we cannot bring our differences back to RiversEdge. I would not have Nyssa distressed by our anger with one another.”
“You have thought little of your daughter since you left her those nine months ago,” he taunted her.
“She is safe with my parents,” Blaze said through gritted teeth. I will not fight with him, she silently vowed.
“Nyssa is at RiversEdge, where she belongs,” he answered.
“You took my daughter? How dare you?” Blaze was furious, but mindful of the fact that they were on public view, she kept her voice low.
“Nyssa is a Wyndham, madam, and she belongs at RiversEdge. It is her home, and Edmund would want her there.”
“I would have brought her back,” Blaze said, keeping her voice even. “I, better than you, know what her father would want, my lord. She was content at Ashby with my baby brothers for companions. She was safe at Ashby with her grandmother, whose experience with children cannot be questioned.”
“She is in her own home, and under my mother’s care,” he answered her, surprised that she was not shrieking at him by now.
“You had not the right to order Nyssa removed from my mother’s care, my lord.”
“I am the Earl of Langford, Blaze. The welfare of my predecessor’s child is, of course, my concern.”
“I will not argue further with you, sir,” said Blaze. “Nyssa is safe, but in future remember that I am her parent, not you.”
“I shall remember it, madam, as long as you do,” he replied, and Blaze bit back an angry retort.
Over the next few days, as the date of their wedding drew nearer, Blaze concentrated upon keeping her temper where Anthony Wyndham was concerned. It was not easy. It seemed the more she attempted to find a common ground upon which they might build some sort of relationship, the harder he seemed to work at being deliberately aggravating. The king, however, was most pleased with her. He took her aside one afternoon to stroll with her in the picture gallery as he told her so.
“We are pleased, sweetheart, at your good behavior.”
“I have always tried to please, your majesty,” said Blaze demurely. Henry Tudor chuckled, and the sound held more meaning than anything he might have said. She had never not pleased him, he thought, even in the beginning when she attempted resisting him.
From a corner of the picture gallery Mistress Anne Boleyn bit her lip in vexation at the sight of Lady Wyndham, her little hand upon the king’s arm, laughing up into his face. From another end of the gallery the Earl of Langford watched them come, and wondered if the king was already making him a cuckold. He felt his anger rising.
On November 5th, 1525, Lady Blaze Wyndham, widow, was married in the King’s Chapel at Greenwich Palace by Cardinal Wolsey himself, to Anthony Wyndham, bachelor, the Earl of Langford. The bride wore a gown of rich tawny orange velvet that was heavily embroidered with gold, pearls, and topaz about the bodice, sleeves, and underskirt, which was of the same color. The ruffled cuffs and neckline ruffle of her chemise were of gold lace. Her honey-colored hair was parted in the center, drawn back over her ears, and set prettily into a soft French knot at the nape of her neck. It was looped with pearls, and there were pearls and a chain of topaz about her neck, and pearls in her ears. The bridegroom was more than her equal in his wedding suit of black velvet, its doublet heavy with pearls and gold, his heavy gold chain, each square section set with a fat baroque pearl, his knee-length velvet gown both lined and edged in sable.
The king gave the bride away, a fact which no one dared to laugh publicly about, but privately there were many wry jokes made. The Earl and Countess of Marwood attended the couple, which was only proper since they were related to the bride. The wedding was celebrated first thing in the morning, and afterward the king hosted a breakfast. There were many healths drunk to the couple, and then prior to their departure they were given a final blessing by Cardinal Wolsey.
“Let us hope their marriage lasts longer than the cardinal will,” murmur
ed Mistress Anne Boleyn to her brother, George.
“The king is not yours yet, petite soeur,” George Boleyn whispered back.
Anne Boleyn smiled her little smile. “He will be,” she said softly. “Oh, yes, brother George, he will be. Particularly now that I have rid him of the good and sweet Lady Wyndham.”
“You need not have bothered with so elaborate a plot if you simply wished to follow in sister Mary’s footsteps,” mocked George Boleyn.
“I have not preserved my maidenhead all these years to play the whore like our sister,” snapped Mistress Anne.
“You do not mean to be the king’s mistress?” George Boleyn was surprised.
“His mistress? God’s foot, nay! I most certainly do not mean to ever be any man’s mistress!”
“What then, Anne?” demanded George Boleyn.
“I mean to be his wife, George,” said Anne Boleyn. “I mean to be queen! It is for this that I have rid the king of Blaze Wyndham!”
George Boleyn threw back his head and laughed aloud. “By God, Annie, you are a rare one!” he chortled.
“Indeed, brother, I am,” Mistress Anne agreed, and then without even seeming to look, she reached up and neatly caught the bride’s bouquet that Blaze had just thrown. Coyly she cradled it in her hands, and pressed her face to it, inhaling its sweet fragrance of violets and late roses.
Unable to contain his mirth, George Boleyn laughed all the harder.
Part Four
RIVERS EDGE
Autumn 1525—May 1527
Chapter 11
They left Greenwich Palace in midmorning in a party of four carriages. Two of the vehicles carried baggage and servants, but in the first and second coaches rode the earls of Langford and Marwood and their wives. The little convoy was escorted by close to two dozen armed riders. They swung wide, avoiding the city of London, and thereby saving themselves at least half a day’s travel. They would travel together most of the way, separating only five miles from the boundaries of the estate lands, when Owen and Bliss would turn slightly west for Marwood Hall.
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