Anne regarded her sister sideways through her black lashes. “And I cannot say I fully believe you, Mary, though I know your thoughts are hardly on the lusty French king. ’Tis more like you miss your Stafford.”
Mary kept her tongue. She had learned weeks ago to refuse to rise to the tease as she too often had, and lately Anne had taken to amusing herself by wondering aloud in Mary’s hearing how true passion would feel on the body and the heart.
“Well, so much for that topic. You are as testy as I am, Mary, only you have the sweet disposition and you choose to suffer in silence. You are right to spout father’s fine advice to me like a dutiful daughter, and I shall be a dutiful daughter in return. I have won His Grace and others before and I shall do it again. They are only men. When they clatter up the winding road to the postern gate and see what awaits them, they will curse the day they deserted the next queen of England to ride sweaty and dirty after boar or deer or the sluts in some French village. They will find far lustier game here.” She motioned impatiently to Smeaton, who immediately broke into a romping galliard tune. Her dark eyes dancing with plans, she flounced out her skirts and began to pace again in little quick circles around Mary’s chair.
“Listen well now, Mary. I need your help. I could not possibly stand Jane’s simpering face right now, and some of the others are not to be trusted. I may have Catherine’s—I mean the newly declared Duchess of Wales’s—royal jewels in my coffers now, but she still has some of their hearts and well I know it. Now, we will have the most elaborate banquet this old place has ever seen—hundreds of French delicacies and some English. I shall visit the kitchens myself to see that the French dishes are prepared properly. You could check those too, Mary, for you ate at Francois’s royal banquets as long as I. We will have dancing, masked I think, and a wonderful mime, maybe some charades. Yes, how appropriate. Something about the loving French and English relations, though that is a wretched lie. Some mimes from mythology. I know! We can hang these tapestries in the banquet hall instead of the silver and gold arras which are there now—we shall use those for table cloths—and put on mimes of every tapestry scene!”
“It sounds wonderful, Anne. I will help you any way I can.”
“In any way? Remember you said that, Mary.” Anne whirled and clapped her hands together once. “Can you see it all now, Mary? A feast and fun, yes, but revenge pure and simple on all of them, not the least on their foolish women who choose to let their French lords go gallivanting off to visit the English king’s latest concubine. We shall show them.”
Mary stood to stop Anne’s nervous pacing. She took a step into her swirling path and touched her sister’s slender arm. “Just what kind of revenge are you thinking of, Anne? It is one thing that they will miss the festivities and the chance to meet the English king and his future wife—that loss shall be theirs whether they know it or not—but you seem to be implying another.”
Anne smiled devastatingly at her taller sister. “You had best get the ladies assembled for rehearsals for the mimes, Mary, while I care for the other orders. Do not concern yourself now with the minute details.”
Mary’s fingers tightened slightly on Anne’s arm. “Anne, I think you had better tell me what you are thinking. There is something you have not said, of revenge, I think. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Can you, sister? I thought I was rather good at hiding what I would hide. Then I shall tell you since you have no way of stopping me. The sweetest revenge shall be this. Let the pious ladies of this fair realm stay away from contact with the English King’s Great Whore! Oh yes, I know what they are thinking now they do not come as they are bidden. Their husbands and sons will all go back to them awed and humbled by their evening here with Anne Boleyn—and they will all go back having been quite unfaithful to their pious little snobs.” Her voice broke in anger. Smeaton had long given up playing and sat stock-still, listening to their heated exchange.
“You had best consider this again, Anne. You are starting to sound like you are opening a brothel. His Grace will never permit it.”
“Which His Grace, Mary? Well enough you know that Francois’s court has no scruples about a quick conquest of any lovely, willing lady, and I have brought enough of those—single and beautiful women with dazzling dresses. Add that to wine, dancing and a man away from his home and wife and we shall see.” She yanked her arm from Mary’s grasp and began her rapid pacing again.
“As for Their Graces, sister,” Anne went on with an increasingly sharp edge on her voice, “you and I shall see to them personally. How perfect—it will certainly amuse father. Two kings in bed with two Boleyns at the same time, though maybe not in the same place.” She smothered a giggle.