The Last Boleyn(109)

“Nothing from father to me?” Anne asked sharply.

The messenger scanned the group, and bowed a third time to Anne. “The king’s man be hard on the road behind me, begging your grace, my Lady Anne. He ha’ told me he bears a message from the king and a gift.” He stood about awkwardly until Lady Elizabeth summoned Michael to take the man in for refreshments.

“Our lord is coming home two days hence,” she read with her head still bent over the letter. “He hopes that Mary is well settled here and will return in her sister’s retinue in September when Anne goes to live at court as ‘she has so wisely promised His Grace she would do.’” She glanced up at Anne, who sat impassive, hitting her knee with her now-closed book. “That is really the import of it. Two days hence. For how long this time, I wonder.”

“Not long, lady,” Staff assured her. “As soon as the first span of cooler weather hits the city, the court will be back in full swing, and your Lord Thomas will be at the center of things. And the Lady Anne.” Through the whole speech, his eyes focused on Mary, and she shot him a dazzling smile despite Anne’s sharp stare.

“And I promise you, before I even tell my father, Staff, that I shall bring Mary back with me as he asks. Imagine you and our father wanting the same thing.” Anne giggled despite her mother’s pointed glance.

“Although the company is most beautiful and the conversation here a definite, ah, challenge, ladies, I shall take Sanctuary for a bit of a ride tomorrow to test my strength. The next day I must set out for Eltham and I promise to stick to more heavily traveled roads—that is, unless the Lady Anne actually does fancy an adventure such as Mary had.” He leaned forward on his knees and peered around Lady Bullen at Anne. “I cannot promise to be wounded and bleed for you though, Lady Anne. I am sure you can understand that blood shed for one Bullen lass is quite enough.”

Elizabeth Bullen regarded him closely while Anne suddenly narrowed her eyes, uncertain if she were merely being teased or quite put down.

“Anyway,” he continued evenly, “I intend to ride to Hatfield House to see Henry Carey on my way back to Eltham. Mary wishes the boy to be told carefully of his father’s death by a friend of the family, and to deliver Will’s crested neck chain. It is his heritage now.”

Anne swung her book from her right hand as she took several steps away. “Thank you for the offer of the sport, my lord, on the ride to Eltham, but I truly think you prefer gentler game. And as for my nephew, Henry Carey’s, heritage, who is to know if His Grace may have need of him someday? They say Henry Fitzroy is a weakling. Unless, of course, our king should take it upon himself to get a son through some other means after the Queen Catherine is sent into exile as he has publicly promised father and me.” Her musical laughter floated back to them in the sunny air.

“Mary and I will miss you greatly, my lord,” Elizabeth Bullen put in gently, “as will our little Catherine, who dotes on you it seems. I was hard-pressed to keep her from bothering you those first days when you slept so much from blood loss. I do hope I will see you again and soon. I appreciate an honest man, king’s courtier or not.”

Staff bent over her hand and kissed it. “I promise you will see me again, my lady, and it must be here since you will not come to court.”

“No, not at court, unless something very big and unexpected happens, and I pray it will not. The Bullens’ lives are already complicated enough as it is. You are always welcome here. Is it not so, Mary?”

“Yes, mother. Of course. Staff knows that.”

“Then I hope he will include us in his future plans,” the silver-haired woman added as she rose. Mary and Staff stood with her. “Please do not let Anne’s sharp tongue turn you away from her, my lord,” Lady Bullen went on. “She needs friends, and she will need her sister’s gentler influence, though I will be loath to part with Mary when she goes back.”

She smiled at her daughter, and Mary’s eyes filled with tears. Mother, Catherine and Hever—with Staff here to please them all—it was nearly heaven. But soon he must go back.

“I shall miss you,” she said to him across the tiny space of garden that separated them after her mother left.

His teeth shone white against his brown face, and his eyes darkened with pleasure. “But I shall be here a whole day and a half yet, wench, and we shall see what we can make of that.”



The day and a half Staff had promised became the most fleeting hours of Mary’s life. His chest and shoulder wounds seemed to heal rapidly, he ate enough for two healthy men, and his vitality returned. On the first sunny afternoon after they had managed to shake off Anne’s continual questions, Mary and little Catherine had taken Staff on an extensive walking tour of Hever: the rooms and courtyard, the gardens, orchards, meadows, even St. Paul’s Church down the winding lane where the forests began.

That evening they sat after supper in the solar, almost as a happy little family, chatting and playing a game of Gleek in which Anne insisted she be Staff’s partner and managed to hold all the cards too. But she soon flitted off to get her beauty sleep, and Lady Bullen bid them a quick and smiling goodnight.

At the big oak table they had used for cards, Staff and Mary sat a moment, drinking in the sweet August air. Staff was studying her as usual, not moving but for the rise and fall of his big chest, still wrapped with a heavy linen bandage under his white shirt unlaced halfway.