The Last Boleyn(13)

“Thank you, Mary. Leave the door ajar so you can summon us at once should the ambassador, your father, arrive.” Their dark heads bent together over the cache of jewels as Mary curtseyed and departed the chamber. She slept now in a small anteroom since they had moved in state to Francois’s palace and Mary Tudor bedded with her new husband.

She picked some needlework from the chair and gazed at it guiltily for a moment before tossing it on her narrow bed. She was much too busy lately for such placid work. What a bore it was anyway unless one could chat or trade juicy palace gossip to help forget the endless threading and pulling and knotting.

Mary settled her rose-hued velvet skirts carefully as she sat, for her mistress had ordered her this new gown and another for after royal mourning, and she intended not to have it wrinkled should she see her father, when he came today. Came here, but not to see her. She readily forgave him his busy life but, by the saints, she missed him and suffered that he never sent for her, visited or even sent a gift. Just notes dashed off, notes to properly serve the king’s sister and be grateful for her fortunate station at the court and be worthy of the Bullen and Butler and Howard blood that flowed in her veins. Flowed? Rather, beat passionately, if he only knew! Beat and coursed and cried for her mistress, and now that she was happy, for her, for Mary Bullen, herself!

She pushed her head back suddenly, willfully against the carved high chair back. But she adored her father so, and would above all else make him proud of her.

The low voices of Mary and Charles Brandon floated clearly to her in the silent room. Were they indeed arguing over a mirror? The Mirror of Naples, no doubt, that huge teardrop cut diamond on a pendant that sparkled like fire when it hung between Mary Tudor’s two full breasts above the deep oval velvet or brocade of a bodice.

“It is yours as widowed queen, is it not? They will never ask for it. The Cardinal says such would help to change His Grace’s ill temper at us for the marriage without his permission. My pet, it is a very small price to pay, and Ambassador Bullen would be the safest channel.”

Mary Tudor murmured low words of reply but her usual lilting voice was more muffled than her lord’s. They must be planning to send a gift of the queen’s jewel to King Henry then, and her mistress hesitated to part with it. For the favor of the great King Henry it seems a small price, mused Mary Bullen.

Three piercing raps suddenly resounded from the door in the next chamber and the girl hurried to answer it. She hoped she looked pretty and dignified and proper. It was her dear father standing tensely, his fist poised to knock again, an anxious pageboy with a lighted link behind him in the gloom of the passageway.

“Father? I am so pleased to see you.” How desperately she wanted to throw her arms about his furred shoulders, but she stood stock-still as he pushed the door open wide and entered.

“The princess and Lord Suffolk are here, Mary?” His swift sidelong glance took in the whole room instantly.

“Yes, father. There, father, within.”

“Awaiting me?”

“Yes.”

“Close the door, girl. And announce me. Also, Mary, do not leave. I would see you afterwards. You and I have business to settle.”

Her heart leapt. Business to settle? It was obvious he was angered. At her? But he had told her to serve the princess well, and maybe now she would return with the Tudor rose to the English court. Surely that had been his ultimate goal for her.

Automatically, she closed the heavy door and slipped past her silent father into Her Grace’s bed chamber. To her astonishment, her mistress had been crying, and the duke was endeavoring to comfort her. He looked up nervously, and his dark eyes squinted at the girl standing in the dusk beyond the sunny pool where they sat.

“Your Grace, the English Ambassador, my Lord Bullen, wishes to see you. He awaits.”

Charles Brandon jumped to his feet, and Mary Tudor wiped her cheeks with her fingers. From somewhere, as Mary had seen her do time and again, the proud woman covered herself with composure and nodded. “We will see him now, Mary.”

She curtseyed and backed from the room, nearly bumping into the angular form of her father, his arms folded across his cloaked chest, his hat now held in one hand.

“Her Grace will see you now, my lord.” He nodded and entered, closing the door firmly.

How suddenly familiar it all seemed, seeing him and being so formal and having to wait while he talked behind closed doors to others, like that long-ago day at Hever when he told mother he was sending Mary away.

Tears came to her eyes unbidden, and she felt weak and tired and very alone. Mary Tudor truly needed her no longer, not like she had. She was glad that Her Grace was happy and in love, so why should she cry? Father was angry, and she feared his displeasure. Dreaming of Hever and mother always hurt. And how much she wanted someone wonderful and grand like the handsome French king to love her.

She fought for control of herself. She was never like her mistress and the others when it came time to hide emotions. She still had much to learn before she could ever face the royal court of the English king.

She peered at her azure eyes in her tiny silvered mirror and wiped her cheeks, carefully pinching them for color. Slowly, she dusted her face with powder, resmoothed her coif, twined her side curls about her index finger and let them pop back into place. She paced and tried to make her mind a blessed blank, but her thoughts darted about the room and tried to pierce the thick wooden door behind which the great Henry’s lovely sister faced the great Henry’s ambassador. Surely he would be meek before the king’s dear sister.