She pushed out her lower lip in an intentional pout. “I am starting to believe you do not deserve to hear what I have to tell you at all.”
“No? It is important then? Tell me!” He gave her waist a little squeeze.
“Well, my lord, it is only that we are going to have to weather the storm sometime in the near future and tell them we are wed.”
“Your sister would go right through the roof, sweet, and His Grace has been continually on edge since he signed his friend Sir Thomas More’s bill of execution.” His face changed suddenly and his eyes widened. “Why did you say we must tell them in the near future, love? What are you telling me?”
She smiled up at him and her arms went around his neck. “My dear Lord Stafford, you have always known everything about me without my having to tell you. Have you so changed? Has marriage so dulled your senses?”
He stared down incredulous. “Mary!” He picked her up and tried to spin them, but her feet and skirts caught in the wooden trellis and the briars pulled at their clothes.
“Put me down, Staff! You cannot do that in here!” They both collapsed against each other weak with laughter.
He seized her hands in a powerful grip against his red velvet chest. “You are with child, my love?”
She nodded wide-eyed, drinking in his wordless joy.
“How long? Did you just discover it?”
“I did not just discover it, my lord, but now I am certain. In late September or early October I would judge. An heir for Wivenhoe, my love.”
“Yes, an heir for Wivenhoe and for freedom away from court and all their damned intrigues. But, lass, unlike some, I will be happy with a beautiful daughter that has her mother’s eyes.” He bent and kissed her gently as though he were suddenly afraid she were fragile.
“I will not break, you know, Staff, not even when I begin to swell. I would not want you to think that you have to...”
“Have no fear of that, my sweetheart.” He bent to kiss her again, but raised his head and listened. “Now who the deuce is shouting like that at such a momentous time? I am so happy for our wonderful news, Mary.”
“Did you think it would never happen? Thirty years of age is hardly past childbearing years, you know.” She gave him a playful poke in his midsection and he grinned like a small boy. Then she heard it too, a call from far away in the gardens. Nancy’s voice calling her name?
“Oh no, not a summons to Anne’s chamber. I cannot bear her ranting and raving, Staff. She is utterly beside herself. It is worse than that week in France when you all rode out with Francois and she stormed and screamed for five days. I know she is desperate and frightened, but any words of comfort she just rips to shreds.”
“Yes, it is Nancy, sweet, and Lady Wingfield. Go on now, I may be late tonight, but I will wake you if you are asleep, and we will properly celebrate our good news then.” He kissed her quickly and disappeared in the direction of the river opposite from Nancy’s approach. She suddenly wished she had waited to tell him when they were really alone with no interruptions upon their joy. But, then, this place had its own beautiful memories, and she had always planned to tell him here when it happened.
Mary flounced out her skirts and hoped Lady Wingfield would not notice the tiny pulls in the materials from the mad spinning against the rose vines. She raised her hand to Nancy as the two women caught sight of her strolling toward them.
“I was trying to call loudly for you, my lady,” Nancy assured her with a conspiratory wink.
“Thank you, girl,” Lady Wingfield cut in. “You did indeed know where your mistress likes to walk in the afternoons. Lady Rochford, the queen is calling for you and unless you come quickly with me, the others will bear the brunt of her temper.”
“Then we shall go directly, Lady Wingfield. Do you know the cause of the summons?”
They hurried across the spring gardens, somehow changed by the fact that Mary had to go back to Anne’s dark, vaulted room where she had only two weeks ago borne the dead child.
“The cause, lady? Hurt, and vile temper, and fear, but I beg you, do not tell the queen or the little Rochford I said so.”
Mary glanced at the sweet-faced, gray-haired matron as they climbed the stairs. “No, lady, I will not tell her that her dear companion can see things clearly.”
“I know you do also, Lady Rochford,” the woman whispered to Mary as they wended their way among the small crowd outside the queen’s chambers. “You are somehow different from the others.”
“’Sbones, where have you been hiding, Mary?” came Anne’s sharp voice from the depths of the bed, even before Mary could see her pinched white face staring out at them all.
“In the gardens, Your Grace. I did not know you would be requiring me again or I would not have strayed.”