The Last Boleyn(129)
“Are you quite ready, Lady Mary?”
She stood woodenly facing him with her hand still on the door latch. “Yes. I guess I am ready.”
He did not budge for a moment as she made a move to leave her room. “You look most ravishing, but that is hardly unusual,” he observed in his quiet monotone, and his eyes darted over her again. “Your father said you might not be feeling well, but I am pleased to see no such evidence. If you were ill, I should feel obliged to sit with you until you were strong enough to go to the hall.”
Her throat felt dry and she was suddenly hot all over with foreboding. Reluctantly she closed the door behind them. “I am certain your king would miss you if you did not appear at the feast, Master Cromwell.”
He flashed a smile at her and, to her terror, took her arm above her elbow, his fingers scorching through the tight-fitted satin of her sleeve as though her arm were bare. “Surely there must be some rewards and compensations for my loyal service to His Grace, even if it is just to accompany the most beautiful woman of his court to dinner.”
The hair along the nape of her neck rose as a chill swept over her, but she could not stop her words. “But His Grace gave you my husband’s lands at Plashy three years ago.”
His face did not change but a tiny flame sprang into each flat brown eye. “I pray you do not hold that grant against me, sweet lady. If it would not anger His Grace, I would gladly give it back to you for your kind thoughts and, shall we say, your good graces.”
She instinctively pulled her arm from his hand. “I meant not that I wished you to give me the lands, Master Cromwell, though I am certain the king would give you anything you could want to replace them.” They were in the hall now among other faces she knew and she almost dashed away from him to hide—anywhere. But instead, she stood pinned by the probing stare of those small hard eyes.
“If the king would give me anything I want, Lady Rochford, I would be a happy man indeed.” His gaze dropped to her low-cut square neckline and she turned away abruptly.
“Here, Mary, sit here,” he said, calmly taking her satin-covered wrist firmly. “Your sister, the Lady Anne, wishes you to sit near your family so when the masque begins, you will be close.” He pulled out the carved chair and bent over her as she sat. “You look faint, Lady, and I should not like to have to carry you to your room. Or at least, I should say, your father and the Lady Anne would not like that.”
Mary’s thoughts darted about in her brain, but she could find no way out. Damn her father! He knew she would not stand still for his orders, but he gave her into the care of this man. Did Cromwell know he was being used too, with her as bait? He was to coerce her into obedience and in the bargain he could sit with her and eye her hotly and touch her. What further had they promised to him? Surely he would not dare to think that the sister of the future queen could be for him!
“The room has been beautifully decorated, has it not, Mary? And would you not call me Thomas, please? I would wish to be an aid to you and a friend if you would ever permit me. It is difficult I know to be a woman alone in the vast court even when one’s people are the premier family.”
“Because one’s people are the premier family, more likely, Master Cromwell,” she heard herself say pointedly. She slid far back in her chair as she felt his knee brush her skirts.
“The first course looks lavish and massive, does it not, my lady?” he said as though she had remarked about the food. He leaned close to her again. His eyes feasted on her face and shoulders as she sat tensely coiled like a spring ready to jump from her chair. “I only ask you not to forget that I have given you a sincere and heartfelt offer of help at any time, Mary. You are very afraid of me it seems, and I am sorry for that. I would rather have things otherwise than that between us—not here, perhaps, but after all of these fine goings-on when we are home.”
She refused to answer him and stared down into her dull gold reflection in the polished plate before her as Francois du Roi lifted his first toast of the long banquet to his dear Henri of England.
Mary felt exhausted after the dinner, dancing, and the elaborate charades. Cromwell did not ask her to dance and seemed content the rest of the evening to sit back and keep a steady eye on her as she danced with Norris, Weston, her brother and even Rene de Brosse. She considered trusting George with the note for Staff, but he raved incessantly about the fabulous job Anne had done with all the plans, and she was afraid. Then Francois claimed her before them all, and she dared not refuse the dance. Besides, she had not seen Staff since the lengthy dinner had been completed. She had so hoped he would get to her in the dancing as he had so often done. She wondered desperately if they had dared to lock him away to be certain their plans were not foiled. Her mind skimmed numerous escapes and discarded them as impossible. Her best defense, if it came down to facing either Francois or Cromwell in some awkward situation, would be her simple refusal. She must hold to that.
The pantomimes of mythological subjects were riotous and even the crafty Cromwell laughed a bit. Anne played the damsel in distress to King Henry’s rescuing knight, and Mary played Venus emerging from the sea made by other nymphs flapping blue and golden bedsheets before her like the rolling waves of the ocean. Francois and Henry re-enacted their spectacular meeting on The Field of the Cloth of Gold of twelve years ago, but some half-drunk Frenchman asked for a replay of the fated wrestling match where the French king threw his dear friend Henry, and Anne suddenly stood to end those revels. To Mary’s utter relief, her father took her arm and Cromwell bowed to them both and disappeared in the noisy crowd.