Mary rode to the hunt in the king’s private party as did the ever-present and laughing Anne. But each time His Majesty dispatched a huge roebuck or cornered a brown-red doe for the kill, Mary recoiled more into herself and the lusty scenes of blood no longer excited her. At first she had believed her queasiness meant she was with child again, but she knew it was not true. Her revulsion at their lusty killing of the gentle deer was somehow tied to the fact that Will Carey grew increasingly cold to her and that the king no longer sought her bed. Mary and the whole court knew full well that Anne kept tantalizingly out of the king’s reach and bedded with no one. Mary told herself she was glad to have Henry Tudor gone, but her feelings of oppression grew.
The day was brisk, very brisk for a mid-October sunlit day. Mary was content to ride sidesaddle far back in the hunt party where she could see Staff’s green cap and broad shoulders several riders ahead. His powerful body rose and fell rhythmically as he rode his huge stallion, Sanctuary. “A strange name for a horse, but a wonderful hunter,” Mary said aloud to comfort herself. Thinking of the hunt two days past when Staff’s catch had been far greater than the king’s, she added. “Only he would dare.”
“Dare to flaunt Anne that way with you here too, Mary?” Jane Rochford asked, and Mary was instantly annoyed that the ever-present girl had heard her and thought she was speaking of the king.
Why are you not tagging along behind Anne? Mary wanted to taunt, for even the wife of her brother could see the way the royal wind blew toward the younger sister. But she said only, “Why do you not ride with George today or with Mark Gostwick, Jane?”
The slender woman seemed to tense at the mention of the man she now favored openly. “I thought, perhaps, you needed my comfort and solace since none of your men have paid you the slightest attention lately. Do not tell me you do not fear for your position, dear Mary, or fear your father’s wrath at the trends of the times.”
Mary wished she could strike Jane’s smug face as they cantered close together, to shove the ingrate, Rochford, from her horse, for her continual gossiping and mock concern drove both Bullen sisters to distraction. But Jane spurred her palfrey ahead and wedged into an opening near Mark Gostwick in complete defiance of what the Bullens thought. At least George did not care. He rode far ahead with His Grace and his beloved Anne.
Mary cantered beside Thomas Wyndham of Norfolk now and his new and starry-eyed bride Alice from the vast Darcy family. Another rare love match—fortune had blessed them since their parents had long ago arranged their marriage, yet they truly loved each other. “I do not belong next to them or anywhere here,” she said half aloud to her chestnut mare Eden, a gift from His Grace last year whom Mary had named for the gentle river near her home. Only Eden heard, and flicked her alert ears sharply in understanding. Then she heard it too, the horns, the baying of the pack, and their canter accelerated to a gallop through the halfbare trees. The clatter of forty horses’ hoofbeats seemed to echo thunder off the huge trunks of the deep woods.
As the pursuing party spread out in the heat of the chase, Staff turned his head swiftly for a glimpse of her. She caught the movement and smiled broadly though he was too far ahead to tell she had noticed. He did care. Always she saw signs of it in his calm or teasing words if they had a fleeting moment alone. How she wished they could be really alone with no servants to stare, Will far away and the king himself gone, gone forever. But he was right to be safe and secure, though she herself would throw caution to the winds whatever wrath befell them. She shifted her weight forward on her horse. Like all women, she rode sidesaddle, though unlike most of them, she had ridden astride unseen by others at Hever and she liked it far better. That would shock them all. That and her knowledge that the great Henry really intended to bed the younger sister of his five-year acknowledged mistress.
The yelping and baying of the hounds was much louder now. Perhaps they even now surrounded their terrified prey cornered or disabled. The king would be first to the deer, and his steaming bloody knife would drip with the blood of the kill.
She reined in and dismounted in a cluster of stamping, snorting horses since those ahead of her had done so. It was good to stand on firm earth, to feel solidity and not the rhythmic constant swaying in the saddle. She dropped Eden’s reins and stepped forward around Weston’s huge stallion. Staff came from nowhere to take her arm firmly at the elbow. She smiled tremulously at him at the impact of his sudden proximity.
“I have not seen Will, Staff, not for a long time. And do you know why we got such a late start this morning?”
“No and yes, lass,” he said in her ear over the shouts of the crowd nearest the action. “One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how your sweet female minds dart about with at least two or three concerns at once. It quite tires me to attempt to keep up with you.”