The single narrow window in the bedchamber Mary shared with Will looked over the stretch of lawn to the now-deserted bowling greens and beyond to the gray Thames. She was grateful her friend Mary Tudor had allowed that little Catherine could share the spacious royal nursery with Margaret, the love child from her beloved Duke of Suffolk. Mary turned, leaned against the window ledge and surveyed the irregular, cramped quarters wedged in the far northwest corner of mazelike Greenwich before the kitchen block began. Isolated quarters were a far cry from the fine chambers that were theirs when she had been the king’s mistress. And a far cry from a year ago during the Twelve Days of Christmas at lonely Plashy in Northampton.
Mary sat again at the small drop leaf table and balanced her hand mirror against the wine jug. There was no room here for an elaborate dressing table with its rows of cut glass bottles and polished framed mirror. Father had said that, because of Will’s reinstatement as Esquire to the Body, they would probably be given other quarters later, but she did not really believe it. Except for Mary Tudor and her mother, who was here as companion to Anne, she had seen no one of importance since they had arrived late last night. And tonight at Christmas revels she would have to hold up her head and face them all—proud Anne and the king who forgot everything so easily. And Staff. She bit her lip hard to keep the tears from welling and ruining her newly applied eye color. Surely Staff would be there with some adoring woman on his arm.
She saw it all then—not the small chamber at Greenwich to which they had returned—but the wood-beamed hall of the modest manor house at Plashy only a month after they had fled the king’s wrath. Staff had ridden to Northampton to see them, and she had fought to control the ecstasy she felt to be near him again. He had supped with them so close across the trestle table and told them all the news of how the prideful king had bedded three ladies of the court in quick succession. Then he had turned restive again and had ridden off to Eltham to hunt. But Eltham was only a morning ride from Hever, as well they all knew. His pursuit of a Bullen was on again, but Anne had held her ground firm, against her father’s counseling.
Still, it was hardly the news of her sister or the king she had cherished that sunny day more than a year ago when William Stafford had visited Plashy. It was the sight of his rakish smile and the smell of his leather jerkin when she poured his wine.
But Will was watchful and not to be fooled. He saw her love for Staff on her face and in her eyes when he rode in that second time. He was cold to Staff and bitterly cruel to her. If it had not been for the fact that he knew his friend held his position safe for him in his absence, and had he not trusted Staff’s lack of ambition to advance himself through it, she was not sure what he might have done to her. So through the months she lived at quiet Plashy with an embittered husband and a growing daughter, she guarded her face and hid her aching love deep in her thoughts.
Will had stopped bedding her after that. He moved to another bedroom down the narrow, crooked hall on the other side of baby Catherine’s room and fed his mind’s eye on his frustration for the ruin of the Carey cause. He blamed Mary’s failure to hold the king. He left once for three weeks to visit his beloved sister at her priory, but Staff had given up visiting and she had no way to send for him and no way to guess how long her husband would stay away with the only woman he truly loved and trusted.
So the days without a visit from Staff or word from court had dragged into weeks and months, and her well-tended love turned to doubt, frustration and then anger long after Will had returned and spring and summer had fled. They awaited the word from her father that they could return. She agonized in her lonely bed at night over Staff’s desertion. She dreamed of him kissing Maud Jennings in the rose garden at Hampton, Staff making love to the raven-haired Fitzgerald, Staff laughing with others...and loving others.
“I said, Mary, are you ready? Your sister sent word that we might stop in her rooms before the revels, and I think we should. Your father is there. I expect he will know about our other accommodations and my position. I would at least like to be informed before I have to face His Grace. I have not seen your dear friend Stafford anywhere today, but he assured me the position was mine when I—when we, actually—returned.”
The ever-taut edge was in Will’s voice, but she had given up the inward shudders she felt at his cold stares and indifference. “Yes. I am quite ready, Will.”
“Whatever there is lost between us, Mary, I am pleased to see you still make a fine appearance. You are a little pale and wan, but your fabulous face and body never fail you. Your clever little sister may be quite put out and banish you again if you dazzle her by comparison, you know.”