The Last Boleyn(27)

He motioned toward the other door through which she had entered. “Have Isabelle tidy your coif,” he said, sounding impatient now. Yet he approached her, sitting with her petticoat covering her from breasts to knees. He yanked it away, and his eyes went thoroughly over her again.

“Remember me, Marie. I wish I were coming back for more sweets as soon as Isabelle tends to you. I will send for you soon, golden Marie.” He turned away, yanked the door open and was gone.

For a moment she lay back, staring, stunned, at the painted ceiling, then scrambled up and draped the petticoat over herself again. Poor Signor da Vinci lay dying. What would the kind old man think of this if he knew? And Jeanne, Annie, Claude, the whole court? Dearest saints in heaven, what would father say?

Isabelle knocked once and entered with towels and water, her eyes uncurious, her hands quick and sure. As she helped her dress, fear raged in Mary’s thoughts. If the pious queen found out, she would disown her. Father would be ashamed and angry. But if she were to anger Francois with her refusals, what then? Before it all came out, she had to tell her father. If he discovered it later, it would be as his anger against Mary Tudor when she went behind his back to wed the Duke. Or would Francois stand against her father for her?

Gowned and coiffed, she nodded her thanks to Isabelle and pulled open the door to face the stealthy Fragonard.

“I shall see you back now, Mademoiselle Boullaine, and if there is any favor I might do for you on behalf of the king, please let...”

“There is one I would appreciate, monsieur.”

“Ask it then.”

“Would you see that a brief letter to my father, Ambassador Boullaine, is delivered? I have not seen him for weeks, and my sister and I miss his company.”

“I would be delighted to serve one who so sweetly serves our great roi,” he said, and pushed open the door of her chamber with his silver-headed stick.





CHAPTER EIGHT


July 3, 1519


Chateau du Fontainebleau

A thin finger of pale sunlight parted the heavy velvet drapes and pointed crookedly across the bed. The rhythm of the king’s deep breathing was unbroken, and Mary marvelled that they had slept the night through. She had never before stayed long abed with Francois after his lovemaking, but many things were different now. How forced his laughter had been these last few months, how jerky his once fluid motions, how brittle his temper. Court pressures and the fear he would not be chosen the next Holy Roman Emperor rode him cruelly, even as he rode her.

Her mind drifted to her increasing cowardice in facing him after that initial seduction in January at Amboise. The trembling she felt with him had been not only because of what he did to her body, but because her body, despite her shame and fear, seemed to respond beyond the reins of her own control.

She had actually gone so far as to hide from Fragonard one day in late February when she heard his voice in the hall and his silver cane rapping on the bedroom door of the small room she now shared only with Anne, who was in attendance on Queen Claude at that hour. She had heard his metallic voice speak to someone when she did not respond, and then, blessedly, his footsteps had departed. No less than ten minutes later, as she had sat smug and relieved that today she would not turn to melted honey in the king’s arms no matter what he asked of her, the door had banged open and the king himself had filled its fragile frame.

“Marie! What luck that you have returned. I do not like for my dear Fragonard to report to me without my precious when I sent for her. ‘But, of course, she was there waiting, Fragonard,’ I told him. ‘Of course, she was awaiting my call for her with bated breath and only fell asleep, eh?’” He grinned at how huge her blue eyes had gone in her pale face and how poorly she hid all the thoughts and passions that passed behind that pretty face of hers. He shouldered the door shut behind him and moved with catlike grace into the room while she scooted off the far side of the bed in a flurry of skyblue skirts.

“Your Grace—but, you never come here to the ladies’ rooms! I—Fragonard—”

He had laughed low in his throat, obviously pleased at her fluster and embarrassment. “Marie, Marie, naughty little girl. You cannot lie to your king, but you shall lie with him. And now, here. I grow impatient with these flutterings.”

He shot the bolt on the door behind him, stripped off his black and red striped doublet and the ruffled white lace shirt under it in one pull.

“But your guards in the hall, Sire,” she floundered, her eyes on him as he peeled off his black velvet breeches and his stockings held by elaborately embroidered and bejeweled garters.

“They are down by Claude’s chambers, ma cherie, and the whole silly court is atwitter over much more than whom I choose to bed during this wretched political mess. But if our being caught worries you, I shall oblige. I shall leave my rings on for a quick exit and you shall—well, let us make it quick if you are so shy, my love.”

Her face and throat went hot clear down to the low square-cut neckline of her simple blue velvet day gown. She knew it amused him to torment her before he took her. At that, her ire rose and she fought to calm her panic that he knew she had avoided Fragonard. She turned to face him squarely with her chin up.

But as he stalked her around the end of her and Annie’s canopied bed, his muscular form, like the paintings of satyrs she had seen, awed her anew. He chuckled and his eyes glinted. She resented that he amused himself at the expense of her poise and her cherished, foolish dreams that he loved her.