“One is how much I yet desire to love you—to have you be mine.”
“Yes,” she said, but she stepped farther away around the table. He finally stood and moved after her. He turned her to him with one hand on her shoulder.
“Do not get huffy or sulk like your spoiled little sister,” he said.
“It’s just that I need some time to sort everything out.”
“Fine. Only, I intend to be in the sorting when all is said and done. And do not be so jumpy as if I would dare to take you here on this padded bench. Your mother and little sparrow of a governess would not approve of Lord Stafford half so much if they caught us, I warrant, although your sister might like to know how it is truly done.”
She grinned and put her head against his good shoulder. His voice went on, low and calm, “I know it is late, and we are both tired, love, but I do not want today to end because then there is only one more before I leave.”
Her voice came muffled against his soft linen shirt. “I know, my Staff.”
“Let’s go outside and walk along the moat just for a few minutes. We will go out through the kitchen and herb garden.” His warm fingers curled around hers, and she went willingly.
The kitchen was cast in melded grays, the vast cavern of the fireplace on the far wall gaping darkly with no embers burning on this warm night. Somewhere nearby a dog stirred, growled low and rolled over as they passed. The door to the gardens stood ajar, and the intoxicating aroma of mingled herbs swept in with the night air. The grass felt damp against her slippers and smelled unutterably sweet.
She followed him along the fringe of the garden on the grassy path until they turned the corner by the edge of the inner moat. Across the narrow stretch of water, the overpowering scent of roses wafted to them on the balmy night air.
He stopped, still holding her hand. She whispered, “There is a little stone bench farther on if you want to sit.”
“No, but Anne’s bedroom window is not anywhere above here, is it?”
“No.”
“Then this is fine. Mary, my other thought is that now that you are free—unmarried and marriageable—and since I do not trust the king or that cat-eyed sister of yours not to marry you off to someone they fancy for their own gain—” He paused and stepped closer in the darkness. “I just could not bear to lose you again after all the waiting, now that we are so close. I cannot—I will not let another man have you!”
She moved against him, stretching her arms up around his neck. “They will not, my lord. They cannot. I am a new widow and just because Anne rides so high in His Grace’s favor now does not mean they can marry me off to just anyone. If someone so much as suggests it—my father even—I will tell them no.”
He rocked them back and forth gently, holding her to his hard body with one hand firmly on the small of her back. “Ah, my sweet Mary. Have you been through so much and still think things are so simple then?”
“Not all things, my Staff, but how I feel about you is simple now.”
He stopped rocking and pulled her closer to him. “I thought maybe you had forgotten the words. Hell’s gates, do I have to be bleeding all over the bed before you tell me?”
“I do love you, my lord. I love you desperately, and I have for a very long time.”
“I do not want tears and that quivering lower lip, Mary. When I go away the day after tomorrow and when we both get back to court this autumn, we are going to have to be very careful and very strong. Now tell me again.”
“I love you, Staff.”
He moved to rest his chin on the top of her head, and she marvelled again at how her face fit there so perfectly, cuddled against his warm throat. They stood that way, pressed together, a very long while.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
February 22, 1530
Whitehall Palace