Will glanced around the tree and pulled his head back jerkily. “I knew it. Doomed, doomed. He stands there, livid with his fist clenched and Norris, Weston and Stafford stand around like great wooden dummies at the quintain. We had best flee. I will not face his narrow-eyed wrath again for the stupidity of a Bullen wench, any Bullen wench.” He strode off, and she wondered if he meant to leave her here alone.
She took a few steps in the direction in which she had left the untethered Eden. To her surprise, it was Staff who held her horse as she crunched through the crispy brown leaves, and Will was nowhere in sight.
“I thought you were with His Grace,” Mary said, as though nothing had happened.
“I was. Will has gone to fetch his horse. I think, Mary Bullen, the time is finally come for your graceful exit from the king’s august presence. I only hope that somehow, through Will’s tenuous position or your father’s craftiness, you are both able to come back.” He seized her waist and hoisted her to her lofty perch above him before she realized the full impact of his words.
“Leave court? Leave Eltham, you mean. Is Anne to stay? Is she in disgrace?”
Staff’s dark eyes swung swiftly in a wide arc around the clearing in which they stood, she astride, he leaning his chest against her knees as if to reassure her shaking limbs. “I am afraid I mean leave court, Mary. Has Will not told you? That foolish slip of a sister of yours has overstepped and badly. She led him a merry dance, and then hit him square in the face with a refusal. Twice. She is no innocent. She knows better than to tempt a rutting boar, and then try to ward it off with a child’s stick. And, unfortunately, you and Will—and I—must suffer, Mary. I had not thought it would happen this way. By the blessed saints, he ought to just rape her and have done with it, but he has never had his pride stuck full of lances by a lady he desired before. He is hardly a mortal man in that respect and his wrath may fall on you all out of proportion.”
“And has some lady stuck your masculine pride full of lance points?” she heard herself ask foolishly, as though they were just passing a sunny afternoon and in no danger at all.
“Some lady used to, but I think she has come to see the error of her ways with me. If it ever comes to it that I can ask her to be mine after all these years and she tries to gainsay me, I shall force her to my will. She owes me too much and in such circumstances she would never escape me.”
Mary opened her mouth to reply but the words would not come. They stared deep into each other’s eyes, unblinking, and her pulse began to beat a nervous patter which no danger from the king or even her father could ever bring on. “Staff, you must know that I...” She jerked her head up at the crashing approach of a single horse through the nearby brush.
Will emerged and walked his nervous steed close to them. “Where in the devil is your horse, Staff? You said you were coming with us.”
“Yes, Will, I ride clear to Richmond with you,” Staff said, never taking his eyes from Mary though he addressed her husband.
“Richmond? Clear to Richmond—today?” she asked in the sudden hush of the forest.
“We can hardly stay here where we will bump into His Grace, of course,” Will said while Staff turned away to get his horse. “Thanks to your sister’s meddling, we may have to leave Richmond, too, and hide out for a time at my country house. Poor Eleanor will take this very hard.”
Damn Eleanor, Mary thought. “His Grace said we are to go?”
“He told all the Bullens to get clear from his sight and he shoved me out of the way as he said it. His passion is for Anne, not you, Mary. We have to face that now. Staff thinks if he pursues Anne, you must necessarily be put out of his path as a stumbling block to Anne.” Will turned away as he saw Staff canter from the path behind them. “I am sure His Grace would have no real objections to bedding with you both, mayhap together,” he concluded bitterly, half to himself. But she heard and the words stung.
How stupid she had been, she realized, to once believe this king would be her escape from the lust and cruelty of Francois. Staff had been right, always right. He had seen the dreadful face behind the jovial mask when she had not. She began to cry soundlessly, tearlessly, for herself and poor Will and for her little Catherine who depended on her, and for five-year-old Harry who could well be the flesh and blood of this fearful king. And for Staff whom she loved and would never have but for stolen moments which just made the pain of pretending all the worse.