The Last Boleyn(88)

Mary rose and took the note from the boy. “Thank you, Simon. You may tell my mother I will attend her immediately.”

The boy grinned. “Yes, m’lady, but I am not ’sposed to go back there. The gent’man already give me a copper for it.” With that, he was gone.

“Imagine paying linkboys to deliver messages these days,” Mary said as she unfolded the little piece of paper. “They used to do that gratis as well as light the halls after dark.”

The note said simply, “Your mother and Anne have come to court. Since they are busy and you are not, I suggest you visit your horse in the east stable block nearest the herb gardens now. Ignore the rain. Eden misses you.”

Staff, of course. Had he gone stark mad sending her a written missive like this? But, of course, it was not signed. Now, the note said. Did he mean right now?

Her heart began to hammer as she bent toward her little mirror. She saw her cheeks were already flushing pink in anticipation. “Nancy, get out my green riding dress and a shawl and hurry.”

The girl darted up and pulled the outfit from the huge coffer at the foot of the bed. “Going riding in this fog and rain, Lady Mary,” she protested gently as she shook out the skirts. “Saints, lady, this is a wrinkled mess. Your mother and the Lady Anne want you to go riding in this weather?”

“Please, Nance, hurry. I will help you with the May Day dress when I come back, all night if we must. And if my mother or sister send for me, only tell the messenger I am out and will attend them presently.”

Nancy helped her mistress change clothes quickly. “But that note,” she sputtered and then her face broke into a huge grin. “Oh, that mother,” she laughed and winked and they hugged before Mary hurried out the door into the long, oak-paneled hall. It was only as she went down the twisting, enclosed back stairs toward the east stables that she realized she still held the little note clasped tightly in her sweaty palm.

The rain had let up somewhat. “Ignore the rain,” he had written. Yes, she could do that now and gladly. But surely there would be others about the stables, grooms or squires. It did not matter: if they had to just pet Eden and whisper love words over the mare’s back, that would have to be enough for today.

She covered her bare head with the dark woven shawl and skirted the herb gardens which would soon burst and bulge with green rows of well-tended asparagus, parsnips, peas, onions and beets. The red brick stable blocks loomed ahead a brighter red in the rain. The Tudor arms inset in stone were over the center door, but she took the gravel path around the side and darted under the overhang to flap clinging raindrops from her shawl.

She entered the warmth of the huge stables and thought instantly of the stables at home. Ian, the blacksmith, tended Hever’s small stables proudly despite their meagerness, for when father was away and George gone too, there was no need to support the large number of horses they had once kept there.

The king loved his horses and his hunt hounds, and both were well cared for under this vast roof. It smelled damp here, but fresh—straw and malt all mingled with leather and punctuated with the wheeze and stamp of snorting, shifting horses in their stalls. She glanced down the long rows and saw no one. She had visited her mare Eden here before and her stall was much farther down.

“Excuse me, lovely lady, but are you wanting to ride any mount in particular? Might I be of some help? Do you think you could handle a large, eager stallion today?”

She whirled to face Staff where he stood at his ease between two tall destriers which knights rode at the tilt rail. She would have rushed to him to throw her arms around him, but he held up one hand, and she smiled in obvious wicked anticipation.

“Staff,” she whispered. “It looks empty here, of people, I mean.”

He grinned rakishly at her and raised one eyebrow. “I know, sweet lady. Most of His Grace’s men are in the Great Presence Chamber and the women are all aflutter over your sister’s arrival.”

“But you—how did you manage to get away?”

“I lied,” he said low and came toward her in the aisle between the stalls where she stood. “I told them I have heartburn from that wretched orgy of rich food His Grace dined those Frenchies on last night. Actually, it was not that much of a lie, lass, only to tell true, the cause of my burning heart is hardly His Grace’s highly seasoned food.”

She giggled in sheer delight at his tease, despite the way he glanced quickly up and down the aisle and firmly took her elbow.

“Have you missed me?” he said out of the side of his mouth as they strolled between the two long rows of horse croups and tails.

“Of course. It has been a whole week, my Staff.”

“I know, sweet, and I hate to send for you like this at the oddest times and weirdest places.”

“But we decided we must do that now to be together.”

“Yes. Yes, shh. It is only that I wish so desperately that I could give you your own house and stables—and bedroom. What were you doing when the boy came with the note from ‘mother’?”

“You rogue! Actually, if you want to know, I was cutting my old wedding dress to shreds.”

“So it has come to that, has it? Making a new gown from it, I suppose you mean. Mary, I have told you before and I shall tell you now again. You are without exception the most ravishingly beautiful woman at this court whatever you wear—or do not wear.”