The Last Boleyn(138)
“Thank you for your concern, but that is the Lord’s business. I shall tend the relics and pray over the graves and nourish the little flock and leave the rest—including our king and court—to Him. That is the Lord’s business too.”
“Yes, Father. It comforts me to think of it that way,” Mary said honestly. “And you may be assured that the king is not the Antichrist.”
“Perhaps not, lady, but some sort of evil is coming for a fall. Mark my words, evil only corrupts itself everlastingly and it will be rooted out.” He stood with his thin hands on his little desk. “Go your way now and pax vobiscum.”
“Thank you, father,” Staff said and left a bag of coins on the rickety table which nearly tottered under his touch.
The setting winter sun was etching great black shadows on the church as they left. The graves of the village forefathers looked like snowy miniature houses, and the first touch of eventide wind whistled in the carved entryway. Rows of icicles dripped from the carved eaves like jagged teeth of a stone monster waiting to devour whoever ventured within. Mary turned to imprint the little church in her memory, but it suddenly loomed behind dark and lonely, and she turned back wrapping her warm cloak about her.
Though the Whitmans had planned to serve Staff and Mary a fine wedding supper in the privacy of their room, the newly married couple insisted that they eat with the Whitmans at their hearth in the hall. They raised many toasts, laughed and reminisced and the four Whitman children sat wide-eyed by the blazing fire, in wonderment at having so fine a lord and lady eating at table with their parents. Mary cuddled three-year-old Jennifer on her lap, remembered little Catherine at that age and dreamed of the children she would bear Staff someday, but not, hopefully, until they saw fit to tell the court and her family of their marriage and could go to Wivenhoe. She never wished to attempt to raise a son or daughter in the emotional confines of the court again.
“We will make this last toast, then, to a sound night’s winter sleep,” Staff was saying with his goblet aloft again. He winked at Mary and, to her dismay, she could feel a blush spread over her neck and cheeks. The fire was entirely too warm and the wine lightly touched her face and mind with laughter.
They mounted the stairs together, and she turned back shyly to wave at the beaming little family of Master Whitman. She felt every bit a first-time bride even though she had been possessed by far too many men, and the Whitmans would be shocked to know of her unhappy past.
“I much prefer this to the screaming and running and undressing at court,” she observed quietly as he swung open the door to their room.
“You will never know how much I suffered that night, lass.”
“What night?”
“The night you were wed at court. I heard them all tearing through the hall laughing, and I went to the stables and got raving drunk with the grooms and stable boys. Lost a good bit of money gambling, too.”
“Did you, my love? You never told me that.”
He closed the door and shot the bolt firmly. “There are many things I never told you of my suffering for you, sweetheart. But that is all behind us now and, pray God, things will always be better for us in the future together.”
He smiled a deep, lazy smile and pulled her gently over to the fire. The room smelled of fresh herbs and clean rushes rustled on the wooden floor. Deftly he unlaced her dress and it fell in a pink pool at her feet. His arms encircled her and they stood in the warmth of the fire and their love.
“Wine, sweet?” his voice came quietly in her hair.
“I think I have had quite enough wine, my Staff.”
He lifted her in one fluid motion before she even sensed he would do so. “I think you have had quite enough of everything except me and the loving I intend to give you, Mary Bullen, Lady Stafford.”
He laid her gently on the bed and stood to undress. His voice came muffled from under his shirt and doublet as he pulled them off as one garment. “I promise you, sweet, if you do lie on this bed awake half the night, it will not be with longing that I would touch you as last time we were here.”
Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “But you were long sleeping. How did you know of that?”
He laughed deep in his throat as he bent to strip off his breeks. “I told you, golden Mary, there are some things in my longing for you that you do not know. You had best make a careful study of me over the years, and perhaps you will learn what I mean.”
“I intend to my lord. If only we could live together openly!”
“We will, sweetheart. We will, somehow and as soon as we can manage it. If Anne should bear him a son, I will ask him outright, but enough of that other world. This one is ours.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
March 17, 1534
Hampton Court
It was the earliest spring Mary could remember and the mazelike gardens were newly alive with tiny nubs of purple and yellow crocus, and the thin branches of forsythia stirred with new life in their golden buds. She gently stroked her flat belly against the mauve velvet of her gown. It gave no sign yet, but soon enough she would begin to swell with the growth of Staff’s first child. They had waited a year for this and now she would tell him. He would be somewhat alarmed, for he knew that the babe would eventually necessitate their telling the king and queen and asking to be dismissed or allowed to live together at court. But they were so happy, whether they had to meet in secret or not, that they could weather even that.