Henry Tudor swung his great head toward the voice and glowered, but his quick mind was working and he hesitated.
“Indeed, my lord, that is true,” Anne said, “for it is only now the riding back to Whitehall brought on my monthly flow and all my hopes were crushed. I did not know, Your Grace. In my supreme joy to believe I was carrying your child again, I did not know. I am grief-stricken to my very soul.”
“And well you should be. I put off an important state visit to Calais for this...this charade!” He sat hard on the chair near Anne, but when she reached out to touch his shoulder, he recoiled.
“Are you certain the blood was not a miscarriage? You were not far pregnant?” he asked low, staring at her taut face.
“I am certain. I am sorry I have failed you, my dear lord. I will truly conceive now. You will see,” she said and forced a smile.
“Perhaps the rest without a child growing in her womb will lend the added strength necessary, Your Grace,” came Thomas Boleyn’s soothing voice again. “First a fine daughter—true Tudor indeed with her red-gold hair—and then a fine son.”
“I tell you this, madam,” the king said quietly, apparently ignoring Lord Boleyn’s words, “there had better be a son soon and a live one. I have a son in Henry Fitzroy and perhaps others, so lack of sons is no fault of mine.”
Mary’s pulse began to race at the implication of other unlawful sons the king could claim, and she glanced fearfully at her father’s rapt face. Evidently, they had not even noticed her entry, for their attention was all bent toward the center of their universe.
“So, indeed, if another child be lost, it is obvious where the fault—the sin—lies. I am going riding now. Eat with your own little court of Boleyns and Rochfords and Norfolks. I am tired of it all.”
He rose and his short purple cape swept in an arc behind his massive shoulders. His eyes bored into Mary’s wide azure ones as he approached the door.
“Your Grace,” came Anne’s well-modulated voice behind him, and he turned back to his audience as he stood near Mary. “I will do everything I can to ensure Your Grace a fine heir—as fine as Elizabeth in whom you rightly place such fatherly pride. I will do whatever Your Grace would bid, but I would ask one small favor from you in return.”
“Well?”
Anne glanced to her father’s worried face and then said quite clearly, “I would beg Your Grace to send my cousin Madge Shelton from court back to her parents in Essex. It bothers me to have her always about and not a friend to the queen much as other of my ladies who are not loyal to me.” She stood erect, poised, and faced the king across the endless space of rich Damascene carpet.
From where she stood behind him, Mary could see the sinews in his bull neck swell, and the muscles on his huge forearms seemed to jerk. She drew in a quick breath and braced herself against the wall.
“You may have been made queen, madam, but be confident that is no assurance you may tell your lord king how to behave. You will learn to bear such things, as...as your betters have done before you.”
The guards opened the double doors at the king’s approach, and Mary moved from the wall to keep from being crushed. The king nearly collided with her and put his hands out to roughly move her from his path. Staff’s face appeared in the whirl somewhere over the king’s shoulder as his strong hands set Mary back into the room.
“You see, madam,” the king ground out to Anne through clenched teeth, “your sister bears live sons. Look to her example. Stafford, come with me.”
All the eyes in the room focused on Mary left standing at the open double doors with Stafford standing half behind her. Everyone stared—George nervously, her father bitterly. Jane Rochford could hardly smother a simper at the whole scene of the Boleyns’ dismay, and Anne merely whirled her back to them. Staff broke the spell by whispering in Mary’s ear as he turned to follow in the angry wake of the king.
“Keep your cloak tight. I will calm His Grace and only tell him we are wed and ask to go to Wivenhoe. The rest is not safe now. I will hurry back. And I will somehow send Cromwell for your protection.”
“No, not Cromwell,” she started to say, but he was gone on a run and she ached to follow him.
“How nice that all the family could assemble for that dressing down,” Jane Rochford said in the quiet of the room.
“Shut your mouth, Jane, or I will have you out in the street with the rest of the cheap gossips and tat tales,” Anne shot out without looking up. “It is enough I had to bear your company these last three weeks, though at least your dear Mark Gostwick kept you occupied enough for some respite.”
“Do you intend to let your wife be so spoke to, George?” Jane prodded.