“I promise I will not, Mary. I need not, for he has known no doubt longer than I have, or has King Henry.”
She cried aloud as though she had been hit in the stomach. “You are lying. The others—father could not have known about the others. I never heard it about the court from anyone else!”
“Then you have not only been treading on quicksand, Mary, but you have had your beautiful blonde head in it.”
“He could not know! He said nothing!” Her voice rose and, angered beyond further words at his lies, she raised her hand and slapped his face with all her strength. The crack resounded in the lofty room and she shrank back from him on the bench. A red mark slowly suffused his cheek.
He reached calmly for her wrists with his huge hands and pulled her closer to him on the bench. She went stiff, but her skirts made her slide to him across the polished wood. “Did striking me help the pain, Mary?” His voice was gentle and she longed to collapse against him, to sob her shame on his shoulder.
“I am not finished. Hate me if you will, but listen carefully. King Henry, my master whom I serve closely everyday, will find you most entrancing when your father dangles you before him. What red-blooded man would not? He knows of your reputation, but contrary to what you are thinking, it intrigues him, it titillates his sometimes jaded senses and bored mind.”
She stared into William Stafford’s dark eyes, mesmerized. How could he speak of his king this way?
“And when he sees you, sweet, your naive beauty, your youth, and blonde innocence, he will be quite ensnared. If your father should try to bring you home to England, and I predict he will, it will be a fine path to escape the trap into which you have fallen. But go home with your eyes wide open, not to let such entrapment happen again.” He reached for her shoulders and shook her slightly. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, I think so. I would wish to go home.”
“Home, Mary, but home to what? That is the danger. The time is ripe for the great Henry to think he loves you. He is long tired of Spanish Catherine, who gives him dead sons. His mistress Bessie Blount—blonde and fair as yourself—bore him a son last year and his interest in her is also dead. Tread carefully, sweet
Mary, with both eyes open, and do not trust the king or your father.”
“Then whom am I to trust?” she challenged him. She lifted her head as she heard their fellow visitors approaching, her father’s voice distinct among the others.
William Stafford pulled her to her feet. “I would tell you to trust me, Mary Bullen, but I do not savor another slap when I have you aroused. Still, I promise you that you will pay dearly someday for whatever slaps or scratches or sharp words you give me. You will pay, sweet Mary, but in a time and manner of my choosing.”
She blushed and sputtered, but the others were in the room now and she turned away to compose herself.
“Mary, there is a secret passageway should the king need to escape from the gallery clear to Guines Castle! They dug it underground,” Anne blurted as she hurried to Mary.
“There you are, Stafford,” her father way saying. “We are going to swing around by Francois’s golden tent on our return. ’Sblood, I wish the fountains spurted wine already. It is a damned hot day. Have you seen enough of the king’s Palace of Illusions, Mary?”
“Yes, father,” she spoke at last. “Quite enough for now.”
They returned to the tethered horses and, much to her dismay, William Stafford helped her mount. “Did you hear that, Mary,” he whispered in her ear. “It is rightly called the Palace of Illusions.”
“I heard clearly enough, Master Stafford.”
“Then heed what you have heard,” he added, and turned away to smoothly mount his own waiting steed.
Mary knew the moment she surveyed the glittering room she would never forget the sight. The clothes and coiffures were not as grand as those of the French, but she was in the dazzling midst of the Tudor court and her exiled English blood moved her beyond belief. If only father had brought her mother, she thought, her life would be complete for this one lovely moment.
Mary wore a blue satin gown with side slashings, and one of the deepest square necklines she had ever dared. Her golden tresses were swept back and piled layer upon layer above her fair brow and at her throat she wore a single huge pearl drop which had once been her grandmother’s. Anne, too, looked vibrant in crimson and white, her pale skin setting off her dark, eager eyes, her long sleeves characteristically dripping extra lace to hide the tiny deformity of her left hand.