The Virgin's War (Tudor Legacy #3)(41)
That last evening there was music and dancing and wine enough to soften even the sternest border faces who had been bred from their cradles to be enemies. Not too much wine, though, for the Scots party still needed to cross the border before they slept. Anabel was careful to dance with Kit only once, moving from him to Stephen to a reluctant Matthew Harrington, and at last to James.
When the dance ended, James asked softly, “Might I seek a moment of privacy to speak to you? It is unlikely we shall meet again until our wedding.”
“Yes, of course.” Anabel felt all eyes on them as they left the hall for a quiet chamber nearby with painted ceiling and a wealth of Turkish carpets beneath their feet. No doubt both her council and James’s were quietly fretting at the thought of these two royals conducting their own negotiations, but so be it. One could not run a marriage entirely at one remove.
But it was not negotiation James had in mind. She briefly wondered if he meant to kiss her, to begin to approach the intimacy required of husband and wife. But if nothing else, James was not an especially sensual man. Unique to a Scots king by the name of James, he had no bastard children and possibly was as much a virgin as Anabel.
He did not kiss her. Instead, he asked, “What precisely is the nature of your relationship with Lord Christopher Courtenay?”
Immediately she wanted to snap at him in affronted dignity, but she could not allow him even that much sign of personal displeasure. If she had been a woman only, then she could have indulged in any sort of temper. But she was a princess, walking a dangerous path between competing powers that would tear her to pieces the instant she slipped.
Striking what she hoped was the perfect balance of innocence and hauteur, Anabel said, “He is Lieutenant General of the Marches.”
“An appointment properly belonging to the queen. And yet she does not object—or at least, not loudly enough to insist on his removal. Why, I wonder?”
“Because he will fulfill the task admirably.”
“Because he is a Courtenay,” James said flatly. “That, I imagine, is why your mother has not insisted on removing him. She has her own Courtenays to worry about in the South. And surely that is why you have appointed him. Not because of his talents, but because of his close connection to yourself.”
“I am hardly likely to surround myself entirely with strangers. No more than you are. I remember Esmé Stewart.”
His face darkened at the reference to his onetime favorite, disgraced and dead two years ago from the attacks of nobles who had not liked the French-born favorite. James himself had been imprisoned for a time in that upheaval. But he would not be deflected. “I am not given, I hope, to irrational jealousy. But nor will I be insulted. You must step carefully, Your Highness. Women are apt to prize passion over prudence—a lesson I learned before I could even talk. Do not make my mother’s mistakes.”
Almost she asked him if those mistakes included Mary Stuart’s disastrous marriage to James’s father, Lord Darnley. But she bit her tongue. He had more likely been referring to the even more disastrous and ill-considered elopement with Bothwell that had led directly to Mary’s abdication and imprisonment in England.
She softened her response. “I would be ashamed to think evil of Your Majesty’s friendships. And would hope that the man who trusts me with marriage might offer the same courtesy.”
“So long as the loyalty of spouses remains paramount.”
He was clever, this Stuart king. He would not shout or rail or even directly say what he meant. But that didn’t make it any less clear. I will be watching, he meant. I may not care for your heart, but that does not leave it free. The moment you cross the line with Christopher Courtenay, you will find yourself friendless in Scotland.
If Robert Dudley had lived, she wondered, would Philip of Spain have delivered something of the same message to Elizabeth?
But Robert had not lived. And if her mother had always cared more for a dead man than her living husband, she had managed her marriage successfully enough so that when it broke down, it was for reasons of policy and not personalities.
Anabel knew she would have to learn to do the same. Unless…
Unless she got very lucky and fortune took a hand in the future that was still so rocky.
On Thursday, 19 August 1585, Philippa Courtenay and Matthew Harrington were married in Carlisle Cathedral, beneath the barrel-vaulted ceiling and the gorgeous East Window shining coloured light through its ornamental tracery. Anabel had forced Pippa into an elaborate gown of the princess’s own: apricot silk velvet and damask decorated with golden beads along the shoulders and narrow cuffs. Her radiant face was framed by a lace collar stiffened high behind her honey-gold hair, the distinctive black streak twisted back and highlighted by an ivory comb set with moonstones. Matthew’s stalwart frame and subdued finery, by contrast, acted like an anchor to keep his otherworldly bride tethered to the earth.
Despite the elaborate backdrop, the wedding was a quiet affair. Other than Anabel’s chaplain, who performed the service, only the Princess of Wales and Pippa’s three siblings were in attendance.
“Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife…” intoned Edwin Littlefield. “Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her, in sickness and in health?”
Despite her best intentions, Anabel found her gaze focused on Kit. Can I really do it? she asked herself. Can I stand before a priest next year and make these vows to a king I have no intention of loving?