The Last Boleyn(97)

She finally stopped fighting and went still and stiff in his arms when his words pierced her panic: “Let me know when you are willing to listen and stop behaving like the spoiled little Bullen I used to know. I much prefer kissing you to wrestling with you. Helping you is all I thought of on the road back from Eltham, damn it, Mary. I do not blame you for fighting another man’s control over you. Only this man loves you, sweetheart. Why not trust that, and later we will decide if we should be together permanently? I will never force that decision on you—or anything else you do not want.”

She nodded jerkily. He loosed her and helped her up. She moved to the other chair and sank into it, gripping the edge of its seat to keep the room from spinning. Her feet almost touched his big booted ones.

His arms crossed over his chest, he leaned back as he went on, “I will take you to Hever, lass, since that is where you are so set on going. I cannot blame you for wanting to leave Wolsey’s vast brick pile with its unhappy memories. But we shall get you some men’s clothes, pull your hair up under a cap, and...”

“I cannot wear anything of Will’s. I cannot!”

“No, nothing of Will’s. I will get you some small breeks and a shirt and jerkin. No one will notice the boots are a woman’s. And since we are getting a late start and you are so high-strung—and mostly because I have been without you too long and am a selfish man and far stronger than you if you choose to argue this—we will stop midway at a little inn I know at Banstead and spend tomorrow there together. Then we will go on.

“Banstead is a most beautiful little town, Mary. It will do us both good to rest there a day. We shall send Stephen and your wench on ahead to Hever and tell them we are a day behind. Let your father wonder. He does already, I warrant. He accused me of wanting you for myself when I refused to take his bribe for keeping Will’s office for him while you were at Plashy. As careful as I tried to be, maybe I showed it on my face. Our love, I mean. The way you do show it now.”

“I do not now, Staff. Things are different.”

“As I said, we shall see, lass. My lass. I expect at least one tiny kiss before we go, payment for taking you safe to Hever if nothing else moves you.”

“I shall not kiss you for your rough handling of me. And you might have had the decency to stop by Will’s grave at the chapel. He was once your friend, you may remember.”

“I asked Nancy to show it to me before I came in, Mary. I am grieved for his death and the loss of the children’s father, though I cannot pretend it changes my love for you in the slightest.”

She kept her silence, ashamed that she had accused him of such callousness. But she must guard her heart against him and make him take her to Hever without a stop at an inn where she would face him alone. She loved him far too much to handle that.

Stephen knocked and entered to break the jumble of her thoughts. “Will these do, my lord?” he inquired, holding up brown breeks and a sky-blue shirt.

“Good, Stephen. They will suit her just fine. The shirt will match the cloudy blue of the lady’s eyes.”

Stephen grinned broadly and went out to find Nancy. Staff rose to fetch the horses.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


July 26, 1528


The Road to Banstead

By late morning Staff had hired a horse barge to ferry them to the south bank of London where they would take the Great Kent Road toward Hever. The shimmering July sun had already sucked the heavy dews from the fields along the river and the heat of the day was upon them.

“The London streets are likely to be deserted,” Staff said to Stephen. Mary and Nancy listened intently. They were afraid that he dared to take them into the very city where the sweat was said to have slain folk in the tens of hundreds this summer. But Staff had claimed it was the quickest and safest route. So Mary relented and held her fears in silence. She could not have stood another bleak night in the palace in the room where Will had died with accusations on his lips.

That morning few farmers worked the fields and tiny vegetable gardens which stretched down to the Thames. Occasional travelers along the footpaths glanced up in interest to see a ferry headed toward the city with four horses and six people, but there was scant traffic on the usually busy river and, in general, nothing stirred. The barge drifted past the turrets of deserted Richmond. Its vacant windows stared like great hollow eyes reflecting the sun, its landing docks, tiltyards and bowling greens silent. They spoke little on the barge as the river pulled it relentlessly toward troubled London.

Then the city loomed up from the field with its solemn church spires and clustered thatched roofs huddled in the beating rays of the noon sun. Staff made them drink the first of the wine and eat the fruit they had brought, for he intended to set a hard pace when they were on the road. Mary tossed her plum pit into the murky Thames and saw it instantly disappear into the depths. She wiped her sticky fingers on her breeks as she had seen Staff do and a smile came to her lips.

“It may seem strange to be in breeks, Mary, but it has advantages, you will see. Besides, I think you and your Nancy both make handsome lads—right, Stephen? And the swords add the right touch. I think you had better get the stray curls up under that cap. It will make for a dusty neck on the road, but I have no intention of attracting rogues or ruffians with wench bait.”

Stephen laughed at his words, but Staff was tight-lipped. Mary noted to her dismay how much Stephen seemed to hang on everything Staff said, to follow him about to serve his every whim. He had never been so puppy-like with his own lord.