“I detest you, William Stafford.”
“That is better, sweetheart,” he said low. “Anyone gazing on that lovely face now would think you loved me well enough as any friend to your new husband.”
“Staff, I had thought you were busy elsewhere today.” Will Carey clapped the taller man lightly on the shoulder as he approached.
“I only stopped to wish you both well. As I told you, Will, I knew your bride briefly in France when His Grace assigned me to be liaison to Lord Bullen.”
“Staff and I have some things in common here at court, you see, Mary.”
“Indeed?”
“The Staffords are as in disgrace as the Careys. Only,” Will swung his eyes about the crowded room and lowered his voice, “the Stafford treason was more recent than the War of Roses.”
“Treason,” Mary echoed.
“Have you not heard of the Colchester Rebellion, Lady Carey? My uncle swung from the hanging tree at Tyburn and my father, being but a lad, was pardoned. As they are both dead now, I pay for their guilt.”
“Their poor ghosts still haunt the Stafford family manor, Mary,” Will put in.
“Or so my elderly aunt claims. She says one or the other of the dead rebels’ spirits still goes up and down the staircase at night wailing ‘down with this wretched king!’” William Stafford stared fixedly into her face.
“Which king?” Mary asked wide-eyed.
“I know not, Lady Carey. I have yet to see or hear the ghost. It does not amuse it to walk about in bedrooms during the days I am home at Wivenhoe.”
Though he recited the incidents in a straightforward way, it seemed to Mary that William Stafford’s mocking undercurrent was still there. “But you are not in prison as heir to their rebellion, Master Stafford. You serve closely to the king in his court.”
“Exactly, lady. She will learn fast here, Will. And maybe we should be watched. Those of us who are paying the price of some great indiscretion never fear committing the little ones,” he said, his gaze still on Mary’s face despite Will Carey’s growing unease. “A good evening to you both.” Stafford bowed suddenly and was gone, as though he had sensed the approach of the king behind his back.
“It is fair time, everybody, time indeed,” Henry Tudor bellowed and the music ceased instantly. He seized Mary’s hand and pulled her under one great arm and Will Carey under the other in a massive hug.
“Ladies, hasten to put the bride to bed, for we men shall be up soon and a new lord likes to find his wench awaiting him and ready!”
Everyone laughed and Henry Tudor bent his head to kiss her hotly on the mouth. His breath smelled of cloves and wine. Horrified in front of the clapping crowd, she yielded, annoyed and ashamed. She was suddenly grateful that her dear friend the Duchess of Suffolk was in childbed and could not see her triumphal wedding feast, a gift from the king. And, of course, had Queen Catherine chosen to attend, Mary would have died from shame this very moment.
“Come on, Mary, run,” cried Jane Rochford as she seized Mary’s dangling arm and pulled. Her mother, Rose Dacre, and several giggling women behind her, Mary fled. Breathless, they mounted the steps to the room where Will had slept these last two nights she had been at Greenwich, while she had bedded with her mother.
A waiting Semmonet had already turned down the smooth linen sheets. The younger ladies peeled Mary out of her bridal dress, and, through her own tears, Mary saw the tears on her mother’s face.
“Be happy for me, mother,” she pleaded quietly while the laughing women fetched her night chemise and lacy robe.
“I am, my dearest. I was only remembering my wedding night and all my dreams then.”
There was no time for comfort or a hug, for Rose Dacre was telling everyone how swiftly the king liked to follow with the bridegroom as he had at this very palace when his sister Mary had formally remarried the Duke of Suffolk on English soil. “His Grace had the Duke at the door half undressed before we even had the princess in her robe,” Rose continued.
“It was their third marriage then,” Mary put in, her teeth chattering from her jangled nerves. “I was at her first secret wedding, and then they married later at Lent in Paris.”
“That is true,” Rose added, somewhat more icily, as the others turned to hang on Mary’s story. “You were such a child then, you were allowed to stay.”
“Oh no, the strewing herbs,” shrieked Jane Rochford as the boom of men’s voices sounded in the hall. “Oh no, get her in bed!”