He did not budge for a moment as she made a move to leave her room. “You look most ravishing, but that is hardly unusual,” he observed in his quiet monotone, and his eyes darted over her again. “Your father said you might not be feeling well, but I am pleased to see no such evidence. If you were ill, I should feel obliged to sit with you until you were strong enough to go to the hall.”
Her throat felt dry and she was suddenly hot all over with foreboding. Reluctantly she closed the door behind them. “I am certain your king would miss you if you did not appear at the feast, Master Cromwell.”
He flashed a smile at her and, to her terror, took her arm above her elbow, his fingers scorching through the tight-fitted satin of her sleeve as though her arm were bare. “Surely there must be some rewards and compensations for my loyal service to His Grace, even if it is just to accompany the most beautiful woman of his court to dinner.”
The hair along the nape of her neck rose as a chill swept over her, but she could not stop her words. “But His Grace gave you my husband’s lands at Plashy three years ago.”
His face did not change but a tiny flame sprang into each flat brown eye. “I pray you do not hold that grant against me, sweet lady. If it would not anger His Grace, I would gladly give it back to you for your kind thoughts and, shall we say, your good graces.”
She instinctively pulled her arm from his hand. “I meant not that I wished you to give me the lands, Master Cromwell, though I am certain the king would give you anything you could want to replace them.” They were in the hall now among other faces she knew and she almost dashed away from him to hide—anywhere. But instead, she stood pinned by the probing stare of those small hard eyes.
“If the king would give me anything I want, Lady Rochford, I would be a happy man indeed.” His gaze dropped to her low-cut square neckline and she turned away abruptly.
“Here, Mary, sit here,” he said, calmly taking her satin-covered wrist firmly. “Your sister, the Lady Anne, wishes you to sit near your family so when the masque begins, you will be close.” He pulled out the carved chair and bent over her as she sat. “You look faint, Lady, and I should not like to have to carry you to your room. Or at least, I should say, your father and the Lady Anne would not like that.”
Mary’s thoughts darted about in her brain, but she could find no way out. Damn her father! He knew she would not stand still for his orders, but he gave her into the care of this man. Did Cromwell know he was being used too, with her as bait? He was to coerce her into obedience and in the bargain he could sit with her and eye her hotly and touch her. What further had they promised to him? Surely he would not dare to think that the sister of the future queen could be for him!
“The room has been beautifully decorated, has it not, Mary? And would you not call me Thomas, please? I would wish to be an aid to you and a friend if you would ever permit me. It is difficult I know to be a woman alone in the vast court even when one’s people are the premier family.”
“Because one’s people are the premier family, more likely, Master Cromwell,” she heard herself say pointedly. She slid far back in her chair as she felt his knee brush her skirts.
“The first course looks lavish and massive, does it not, my lady?” he said as though she had remarked about the food. He leaned close to her again. His eyes feasted on her face and shoulders as she sat tensely coiled like a spring ready to jump from her chair. “I only ask you not to forget that I have given you a sincere and heartfelt offer of help at any time, Mary. You are very afraid of me it seems, and I am sorry for that. I would rather have things otherwise than that between us—not here, perhaps, but after all of these fine goings-on when we are home.”
She refused to answer him and stared down into her dull gold reflection in the polished plate before her as Francois du Roi lifted his first toast of the long banquet to his dear Henri of England.