Читать книгу Betrayed, Betrothed and Bedded - Juliet Landon - Страница 9

Chapter One

1540

‘Yes, Father,’ Ginny murmured for the fourth time as Sir Walter D’Arvall checked every buckle and strap of the bay gelding’s harness. As the king’s cofferer, he lived his life by lists, weights, and proportions, payments, people and accounts, and his new day had begun even before it checked in over the stable roofs of Hampton Court Palace. Watching her father’s hands roam over the well-stuffed bags and pouches, Ginny caught the eye of the two young grooms who would be her escort, waiting patiently for the inevitable criticism.

It was levelled at her instead. ‘It’s all very well you “Yes, Father”, my girl,’ he said with a last push at the bulging pack behind her saddle. ‘If things start to fall off, you’ll wish you’d listened to me. Now, don’t ride on after nightfall. You two hear me?’ he admonished the grooms. ‘Not a step. Get as far as Elvetham and stay overnight with Sir Edward Seymour’s lady. She’ll look after you. You should make D’Arvall Hall by tomorrow midmorning, with an early start. These days are so short. We could have done without the snow, too.’ Turning his lined face up to the grey sky, he blinked at the flurry of white settling on his eyelids. ‘I don’t suppose it will do much.’ He delved a hand into the leather pouch hanging from his belt and withdrew a folded parchment, passing it to Ginny with the command, ‘Take this to your mother. Keep it safe. In your pouch, close to your person. It’s important.’ A blob of green wax from the office glistened in the pale light.

‘Yes, Father. How important? About the boys, is it?’ Sir Walter was ambitious for his offspring. The message would surely be about her brothers.

‘Not about the boys, no. She’ll tell you. Time to be off, Virginia.’

She wished he might have taken her into his confidence, this once, as he did with Elion and Paul. At almost twenty years old, was it not time he could trust her with a verbal message? If Lady Agnes could tell her, then why could he not?

Not that she minded being back home for a while. Hampton Court Palace was a fine place to stay, even in winter, but the bewildering intrigues of the royal court demanded all one’s skills in diplomacy these days and, even with father and older brothers to lend advice, each day had been a challenge that made her glad of her temporary position. To leave, she had needed only the new queen’s permission, and the gentle Anna of Cleves was as easy to please as anyone could wish. What a pity, Ginny thought, that the lady had found so little favour in the eyes of her cantankerous husband, Henry.

At the back of Ginny’s mind was another reason for wanting to escape, for she had not been flattered by King Henry’s unwanted attentions that, instead of being focused on his fourth wife, were being directed at her in an embarrassing juvenile charade she found difficult to evade. Only a month ago, she had been summoned to go and assist the new Queen Anna, whose taste in the heavy German fashions was fast becoming the source of some comment, not to say amusement and scorn. Unable to see past the costume to the sensitive lady beneath, the king had sent for Ginny to educate and remodel his dowdy twenty-four-year-old bride in the English manner before he himself became a laughing stock. Ginny had found the task much to her liking, forming a friendship with Queen Anna to which their mime language added a piquancy.

But the king had had more than fashion in mind when he’d sent for her, and it was not long before Ginny realised that her father must have been aware of Henry’s interest even then, his easily wandering affections, his ruthless pursuit of passable young maids, his need to be surrounded by admiration, as he had once been. Sadly, Sir Walter’s personal ambition did not allow him to protect his daughter from the royal lust with the same concern he showed over her journey home in the snow on a February morning.

‘Yes, Father. Time to be away,’ she agreed, gathering her skirts for her father’s lift up into the saddle.

‘Allow me, Mistress D’Arvall.’ The deep musical voice behind her caused an uncomfortable flutter of annoyance, for she’d hoped to be away without notice, and now here was the man who had not until this moment offered her more than two words at a time, much less his assistance to mount. Her father was looking smug, as if he’d arranged it.

‘Thank you, Sir Jon,’ she said, taking hold of the stirrup, ‘but I can manage well enough with my father’s help.’

‘You’ll manage even better with me,’ Sir Jon replied. ‘Place your foot on my hands and hold the saddle. There... Up!’ In one effortless hoist, he propelled her upwards so fast that, had she not clung to the pommel, she might have gone over the other side.

Gathering the reins, she looked down on him with tight-lipped irritation, her legs half-bared by the impetus of the movement. ‘I cannot imagine how I managed before,’ she said, suspecting that this impromptu show of interest was more for her father’s sake than hers. Yet in her month at court, Sir Jon Raemon had done nothing to make her days more comfortable. A nod, a slight bow, or an impolite stare had been the sum total of his regard for her, though for others it was quite the opposite.

Too late to hide her legs from his gaze, her father drew Ginny’s skirts into place while she adjusted the other side, rattled by the man’s unwelcome closeness. He had changed since that first meeting when he’d been twenty-four and she a very opinionated sixteen. Now a trim dark beard outlined his square jaw, emulating the king’s own device for concealing fleshy jowls, though Sir Jon’s muscled neck was clearly visible above the white frill of his shirt collar. From above, she saw how closely his hair was cropped, fitting his head like a black velvet bonnet that joined the narrow beard in front of his ears, and the black brows that could lift with either disdain or mirth were now levelled at her, giving back stare for stare. She knew he was laughing at her discomfort, though the wide mouth gave nothing away.

Her father’s smugness had vanished. ‘Mend your manners while you’re at home, Virginia, if you please,’ he said sternly.

That stung. ‘There’s little wrong with my manners, Father, I thank you. Had it not been for all this baggage, I could have managed by myself. I’ve been riding since I was three, remember. Sir Jon is confusing me with those of his friends who like to pretend a little maidenly helplessness. Easily done. They’re thick on the ground here at court, are they not, sir?’

Her horse threw up its head at Sir Jon’s roar of laughter that Ginny usually heard from a safe distance. Close to, she could see the white evenness of his teeth smiling at her prickly retort. ‘Correction, Mistress D’Arvall. I could no more confuse you with another woman than forget my name,’ he said. ‘And that’s the most I’ve heard you speak since you came to court. Even an attempted put-down is better than nothing, I suppose. The manners will come eventually.’

‘Then I hope they’ll never be as selective as yours, Sir Jon,’ she said, easing her mount round to present its wide rump to him. ‘Farewell, Father. We cannot waste any more time.’

‘Virginia! Do you forget who you’re speaking to?’ he scolded, holding the bridle. ‘Sir Jon is—’

‘Yes, I know who Sir Jon is, Father. They’re all the same, these gentlemen of the bedchamber. They rate themselves highly. Too highly.’ Her words were almost lost beneath the hard clatter of hooves on the cobbled yard as she and the two grooms moved off and Sir Walter let go, sliding his hand over the gelding’s back and pulling gently at its tail, fanning it out.

Recently elevated to being one of the king’s gentlemen of the bedchamber, Sir Jon was rather higher up the social ladder than Sir Walter, to whom he showed every respect. A great well-built handsome creature of the kind King Henry liked to have about him, his excellence at jousting, hunting, dancing, and music was well known to all at court, and wherever the king was, there also was Sir Jon Raemon in attendance. But although Ginny had never been short of company or admiration, Sir Jon and she had exchanged no pleasantries or conversation since their first tense meeting at Sandrock Priory, not even when they had met in the dance. Other young women she knew would have rectified that situation within days, but Ginny saw no reason to, and many reasons why she should not. The man had plenty of worshippers and she would not be one of them.

Sir Walter shook his head, sighed and turned back to his friend, whose expression was much less serious and far more admiring, his eyes following the trio out of the gates and along the track that ran alongside the River Thames. In the weak light of early morning, Sir Jon could see only Ginny’s slender figure swathed in furs, riding astride in the manner made fashionable by the king’s second wife. Enclosed by a headdress and hood, her lovely face had been the only part of her visible, except for the brief glimpse of shapely ankles, but he knew from oft-recalled memory how her glorious ash-blonde hair framed her face and could sometimes be seen in a heavy jewelled caul behind her head. He had not exaggerated when he’d said she was impossible to confuse with others. She was, in fact, the most distinctive and desirable woman at court, and if she thought her absence would not be noted, then she was much mistaken.

Well able to understand and even to sympathise with her coldness during her month at court, Sir Jon would entertain no doubts about his ability to bring about a change in her attitude, for their first meeting at Sandrock was still as fresh in his mind as yesterday. She had been caught on the wrong foot even then and had given him back word for word the reproofs he’d offered, just to provoke her, to make her rise to his bait. Sharp-tongued and courageous, she had fenced verbally with him as few women did at court where their flattery and simpering helplessness was, as she had said, thick on the ground. None of them was worth the chase. Since that meeting, however, so much had changed for him, not all of it for the best, and now, although he was sure of her interest while she tried to hide it, the situation would require some careful handling and patience on his part. The lady’s strong opinions were deeply rooted in so many misconceptions that it was hard to see how best to proceed. Only time would tell. Perhaps, he thought as he turned away, a certain firmness of manner might be best, in the circumstances.

* * *

After an overnight stay at Elvetham Hall, where Sir Edward Seymour and his lady lived, Ginny and her escorts reached home just as her father had predicted, even to the weather. His estimates were never far out, for the snow had been no more than a warning flurry that covered the rolling fields like a dusting of flour. The gardens of D’Arvall Hall looked like an embellished chessboard, and fine wreaths of smoke from the tall redbrick chimneys showed her that the servants had been up and about for half a day, and the distant clack of an axe on wood called up the image of wide stone fireplaces with blazing logs, warmed ale and her mother’s welcoming arms. Riding into the courtyard through the wide arch of the gatehouse, they were met by running grooms, shouts of surprised greeting and the sudden bustle of skirts at the porch as Lady Agnes D’Arvall and her ladies emerged with faces both happy and curious, their breath like clouds in the freezing air, puffing with laughter.

Always content to stay at home rather than at court, Lady Agnes D’Arvall was nevertheless eager to hear from her daughter every detail of the life there, unbiased by the accounts of husband and sons. Politics, rivalries and appointments were far less interesting to her than what the ladies were wearing, doing and saying, information that Ginny was soon happy to supply across a white cloth spread with trenchers of warm bread, cheeses, roast pigeon and wild duck, apple-and-plum pie, spiced wine, nuts, and honeyed pears. Good homely fare, Ginny told her mother, that she’d missed at court.

‘What, with all that variety and every day different?’ said Lady Agnes. ‘I doubt your father and brothers miss it so much. I think that’s one of the things that keeps them there.’

From what Ginny had seen and heard in her month of the queen’s service, the main attraction of the court for her older brothers had less to do with food than with women—more varied, more attractive and easily obtained. ‘You know full well what keeps them there,’ Ginny said, closing a hand over her mother’s wrist. ‘Father believes that, with enough of the D’Arvalls in the king’s service, he’ll be in line for promotion. Heaven knows, the king puts people down and sets others up so fast these days, I dare say Father could find himself Lord Steward one day.’

Lady Agnes leaned forwards so that one of the long black-velvet lappets of her headdress flapped onto her bosom. ‘No, I really don’t see that happening. Yes, Sir Walter is ambitious, and I believe the king regards him well, but commoners don’t make leaps of that kind, my dear. Well, apart from Thomas Cromwell, of course. Tell me about the king’s new wife, Queen Anna. Does he like her any better now?’

‘No, Mother. I fear not. He rarely comes near her except at night.’

‘After only a month? Poor lady. Then what? Has he taken a mistress?’

Delivered lightly, the question held more interest than Lady Agnes had intended and her daughter’s ears were quick to detect it. Since King Henry had first noticed Ginny during his brief stay at D’Arvall Hall late last year, Lady Agnes, as ambitious as her husband, had recognised what might result from his mild flirtation, for that was how he had wooed and won his second and third wives, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour. His summons to her daughter, just after the New Year wedding to the Lady Anna of Cleves, had been no great surprise to Sir Walter and Lady Agnes, or indeed their sons, even disguised as a temporary position in his bride’s new household. Now the seemingly innocent question about mistresses demanded more than a simple denial when the king’s amorous intentions were rarely simple.

‘Flirtations, Mother,’ Ginny said. ‘That’s all he can do, I think. Several of Queen Anna’s ladies were with Queen Jane before her death, and some go even further back than that. He flirts with most of them. It’s almost expected of him. All the men do it.’ It was a fact of court life. It meant nothing.

But if Sir Walter was ambitious for his sons, his wife was equally ambitious for her daughters, and any suggestion of interest from Henry would raise her expectations sky-high. ‘And you?’ said Lady Agnes gently. ‘He still flirts with you, does he?’

Ginny turned a shelled walnut over and over in her fingers, studying its contours. ‘That’s why I’m glad to get away,’ she replied, aware that her mother’s two ladies were listening to her reply. They had known her since she was a babe. They were also aware of the king’s methods in pursuing women he wanted. ‘I’ve grown to admire Queen Anna,’ said Ginny after a pause. ‘She’s a lovely lady.’

‘Lovely, dear?’ said Lady Agnes. ‘I thought they said she was not.’

The elder of the two ladies interrupted. ‘Men,’ she whispered, angrily. ‘They’ll say black is white if it suits them. Our Good King Henry will do whatever he pleases to get himself out of a situation he doesn’t much like, even slandering a good woman.’

Again, Ginny’s hand came to rest and comfort her mother, understanding that this particular reference was not to the king’s present dilemma, but to his first wife, whose life was made a misery after his affections had changed. She had been much beloved by everyone, unlike his second. Ginny continued, ‘Queen Anna’s only fault is that she didn’t fit in with Henry’s expectations. She’s taller than he thought, for one thing, and Master Holbein’s painting made her look sweet and demure, which she is. But Master Holbein and she could converse in their native German so he was able to see much more of her inner loveliness, and that was what he portrayed. And then there was that awful fiasco at Rochester when she landed and Henry rushed down to surprise her without any warning. That really was the stupidest thing to do. What woman likes to be seen when she’s not looking her best, I ask you?’

‘Well,’ said her mother, ‘I’m pleased to know you like her. So what does Sir Walter think about all this? Is he—?’

‘Oh! I almost forgot. I have a letter for you. Wait, Mother, I’ll go up and get it from my pouch. He’ll tell you what’s happening, I expect.’

With a space cleared on the table before her, Lady Agnes smoothed the parchment out, adjusted a pair of fragile spectacles on her nose and frowned at the words underlined by her moving finger, words she had clearly not expected. In summer, perhaps, but not in February. ‘He’s bringing the king,’ she murmured. ‘Again. Oh, my lord!’

‘Where? Here? Why could he not have told me himself?’

‘For two nights, for some hawking. With a few friends, before the court moves to Whitehall.’

‘With the queen? Does Queen Anna come, too?’

‘Er...no, dear. Not the queen.’

‘Hah!’ said the lady who’d spoken before. ‘What’s that all about, then? Not hawking, you can be sure of that.’

‘Hush, Joan,’ said Lady Agnes. ‘You’ve said enough already to land you in the Tower. He’s bringing with him...a husband...for our daughter Virginia.’ Her finger moved on, then reversed its direction, Lady Agnes repeating, ‘...a husband...for...Virginia.’

‘I don’t want a husband, thank you, Mother,’ Ginny said firmly, ‘and I certainly don’t want one of the king’s choosing. Send a message back. Thank you, but no.’

Lady Agnes pushed the finger farther along while her two ladies, one useful for her wisdom, the other for her energy, leaned in to read the astonishing words in silence. ‘One of his gentlemen of the bedchamber, no less. Oh, Ginny! That’s a great honour. One of his own personal friends.’

‘Oh, good gracious, Mother! One of that crowd. I’d rather...’ The words of denial froze on her lips as the picture formed in her mind of yesterday’s little scene in the stable yard at Hampton Court Palace when a certain gentleman of the king’s bedchamber had appeared at her father’s side for no very good reason. At least, that was how it had seemed. What had he been doing there? ‘Who, Mother? Does Father say who it is? And does he say why the king is involving himself in my future?’ Unconsciously, a hand crept up to rest over her heart, pulsing to the heavy thud beneath her stiffly boned bodice.

‘Yes. He says the king regards you highly for your comeliness and charm, and for your assistance to Her Grace the queen, and...’

‘Oh, I don’t mean all that flummery, Mother. I’ve done no more than anyone else would have. Who does he propose as a husband and what’s the deal? I’ve learned enough in my short time at court to know he doesn’t give something for nothing and certainly not to a woman. Who is it?’

Lady Agnes sat back, clearly taken by surprise, her pale eyes staring about her in bewilderment. ‘He’s bringing our neighbour, Sir Jon Raemon,’ she said. ‘He thinks the match would be to both your advantages and Sir Jon has already expressed a willingness for it. Well, what d’ye think of that?’

What did she think? Disbelief. Shock. Rebellion. Elation. Numbness.

‘I’ll tell you what I think of that, Mother,’ Ginny said. ‘I think the king has perhaps not been made aware of Sir Jon’s rejection of the very same proposal that Father made to him only a few years ago. So to say that Sir Jon is willing must be utter nonsense when he’s barely looked my way in four weeks of living under the same roofs. And anyway, I’m not willing. Can’t stand the man.’

‘Because of what happened when you were still a lass?’ Lady Agnes said, placing a dish of nuts on one corner of the letter. ‘Oh, come now, Ginny. That’s all water under the bridge. It was politics. Nothing personal. Your father and he did not fall out about it, so why should you? You know how these things go. A man has to choose carefully who he marries and for what purpose, and the first Lady Raemon brought him far more wealth than you could ever have done, even though Sir Walter’s offer was very generous.’

‘Which suggests,’ said Mistress Joan, ‘that the king has made him an even more generous offer that he cannot refuse and that there might also be something in it for Sir Walter. Sir Jon is now a widower and he needs an heir. Sir Walter is ready for a step up in the world and Virginia deserves a reward for her duty to the queen.’

Ginny’s tone was bitingly sarcastic. ‘Thank you for putting it so simply, Mistress Joan. That seems to be the situation in a nutshell. If ever a woman felt more like a pawn on a chessboard, then I cannot imagine her humiliation. She’s supposed to be grateful for the reward of a husband she doesn’t want, just for doing her duty. The men, however, get their rewards, whatever they are, for falling in with the king’s wishes. There must be something here I’ve missed, but for the life of me I cannot see it, Mother.’ With a scrape of her stool through the rushes, Ginny stood up to go. ‘I’ll go up and change, if you’ll excuse me.’

‘Ginny, dear, I wish you’d see this differently. It’s an honour we cannot afford to refuse. You must know that.’

‘It’s an honour I can refuse quite easily,’ Ginny said. ‘There are plenty of marriageable women swarming around the court, waiting for Sir Jon to glance their way, and I’m not one of them.’

‘He’s so handsome,’ said the other lady coyly, thinking it might help.

‘Mistress Molly,’ said Ginny, scathingly, ‘they all are. The king surrounds himself with tall, good-looking, virile bucks who dance well, joust and hunt well, gamble more than they can afford, make conversation and music to keep him entertained. That’s what he pays them for. Even the new queen thinks them foolish beyond words.’

‘Does she have any English words yet?’ said Mistress Joan.

‘Indeed she does. She learns quickly. She’s a darling.’

Summoning the servants to clear away the dishes, Lady Agnes rose to her feet and folded the letter into her pouch. ‘Such short notice,’ she said. ‘I wish he’d have given me a week instead of two days. Joan, I want you to go and make a check on the best linen and order the fires to be lit in all the chambers. Molly, your duties will be in the stillroom today. We shall need a mountain of marchpane. Ginny, you come with me.’

Clenching her teeth against a retort that would do nothing to soften her mother’s determination, Ginny followed her up the wide oak staircase and along a panelled passageway where carved door frames displayed the very best workmanship and, by association, the money that had been poured into this building by Sir Walter. His efforts had been well worthwhile, for now the king himself felt it was good enough for a stay of two nights, to avail himself of the excellent hawking on the estate. Lady Agnes might have been uncomfortable with the short notice, but nothing could have given her greater satisfaction than to know that King Henry was to visit them twice in the same season and to favour the family with a connection Sir Walter had always been keen on. And it had been worth those years Ginny had spent away from home, not to mention the expense, while she had absorbed the attributes needed for a nobleman’s wife and the company of young aristocrats. Things were certainly looking up.

Ginny knew her own feelings on the matter to be irrelevant, however strongly she might try to present her case. Her mother’s subservience to her husband’s will was absolute. Whatever opinions she had about anything except the day-to-day running of the house, she had been well trained to bend and mould them to her husband’s, though even the housekeeping was not secure from his occasional criticism. So however clear-cut Ginny’s objections, she knew in her heart that her mother would say nothing to countermand her father’s wishes, nor could she expect either sympathy or tolerance from them in a matter that affected them so deeply. For any woman to harbour a preference about her future husband was laughable. Men could choose, women did not, unless they were the flighty kind who fluttered too near the flame of love and burnt their wings in the process, their reputations ruined. And worse.

‘Now, Ginny, dear,’ said Lady Agnes, imagining her daughter dressed for the great occasion, ‘let’s just take a look at the rose velvet and see if we can dress it up with my squirrel fur round the sleeves. Is that what the court is wearing nowadays? You of all people should know.’

Ginny went to sit in the large window recess overlooking the squared herb garden where a fine layer of snow etched the scene into tones of grey. Beyond the low hedge stood gnarled apple and pear trees in the orchard, the rose-covered bowers of summer now drooping and dormant, the stream frozen along its banks. In the cosy room behind her, her mother was trying to urge her into the next phase of her life by throwing gowns onto the silk counterpane to make a heap of colour as if there was nothing else more important to discuss. ‘Mother...wait,’ she said. ‘Can we not talk about this? Surely you cannot have forgotten the answer Sir Jon gave to Father when he offered him my hand? How he told Father he would give it his consideration and the next thing we knew he’d married that heiress? Did you not see how hurtful it was to me? Did you not think he could have been truthful from the beginning and said that his future was already decided? How can you agree to it so readily now, after that rebuff?’

Laying down an armful of green brocade, Lady Agnes shook her head at it, then came to sit beside Ginny on the cushioned window seat. Taking the folded letter from her pouch, she passed it to Ginny with the words, ‘Perhaps you’d better read it yourself. It won’t make any difference in the long run, but you have a right to know, I suppose.’

Ginny unfolded it and read her father’s efficient handwriting with sentences as free from sentiment as one might expect. ‘“The king has noticed our daughter...and feels a need of her company at this troubled time...wants her to be at court...but only within the safety of marriage, not as a maid...to preserve her good name...and to have a trustworthy mate already in the king’s employ so that he and she might serve the king as one...”’ Raising her head, she tried to read her mother’s eyes instead. ‘Serve the king as one?’ she said. ‘What on earth does he mean by that?’

Lady Agnes’s reply came rather hurriedly. ‘He means you to serve Queen Anna, too, dear, the way you have begun to do with her clothes and...well...whatever else it is that you do. So that you can be at court as a respectable married woman rather than a maid, which might set tongues wagging. And Sir Jon will continue to serve the king as he does now, so you need not be separated as husbands and wives often are when one is at court. A most convenient arrangement.’

‘Convenient for the king. Nothing to do with Sir Jon’s preferences, then? So he’s been commanded, has he? Just like me. To suit the king. To pander to his sudden need for my company at “this difficult time” and for that, I have to be married, do I? As if not being married would set tongues wagging, for some reason?’

‘It’s not a sudden need, is it, Ginny? You know it isn’t. The king saw you here late last year and spent quite some time with you. He made his liking for you quite obvious.’

‘Flirting, Mother. As I told you, he flirts with every maid who catches his eye. There’s Anne Basset and Kat Howard, the queen’s maids, and plenty of others who enjoy his attentions. It’s not just me. Really, it isn’t. So it’s no use you thinking I’m anything more to him than the others.’

‘He’s particularly asked for you. And he doesn’t arrange marriages to his special friends to every maid who catches his eye. This is a great honour.’

‘So you keep saying. Marriages are for families, are they not, rather than for individuals? So any woman who thinks it’s for her had better think again.’

‘Dynasties,’ said Lady Agnes, showing no sign of empathy with her daughter. ‘Don’t think your role is unimportant in all this. Men have to think further ahead than we do. Generations ahead. Sir Jon’s wife left him with an infant girl child, but he needs a son, and I know nothing about his reasons for the sudden decision to marry his heiress. Perhaps your father does, but he doesn’t discuss such matters with me. It’s not my business, except to commiserate when a mother dies in childbed.’

‘Well, perhaps he’d already got her pregnant when Father made his offer. Perhaps her parents insisted on a marriage. By the way the women at court flutter their eyelashes at him, it wouldn’t surprise me.’

‘You should not say such things. If they think him a good catch, that may be as much to do with the wealth he acquired at his marriage.’

‘Of which I obviously had so little to offer that I was not even worth looking at.’

Lady Agnes reached out both hands and took Ginny’s in her own, layering them for warmth. ‘Dear girl, that’s not so. If he’d been able, he’d have accepted your father’s offer without hesitation. You’d been away up north for over four years at the Nortons’ home, remember, and you came back all polished and womanly and well mannered and, best of all, a beauty. Father would have got you a place at court, but you didn’t want that, did you? That, and the business of marriage offers, were the few times he let you have your own way. But it cannot last, Ginny, dear.’

Ginny smiled. ‘Is it difficult being married to Father?’ she said.

‘No. As long as I fall in with all his wishes, it’s easy enough. If I ever want to go and let off steam, I go to see your sister Maeve, when she’s at home. She brings me back to reality faster than anyone.’ A gentle hand came up to rearrange Ginny’s long ash-blonde hair that fell like water over her shoulders. ‘So lovely,’ she whispered. ‘I am blessed with lovely daughters and handsome sons and a successful husband. And now I must send for Maeve and George to come over from Reedacre Manor while the king is here. You know how they love a good feast.’ Lady Agnes did not mention that her daughter Maeve had also once caught the king’s eye with her hair like pale golden honey. But Sir George Betterton had stepped in smartly, too smartly for the king’s timetable, made her pregnant and married her before Henry could deepen their friendship. It had not been thought a good idea to tell Ginny of the reasons for the hasty marriage, and the child’s earlier-than-expected arrival had caused little comment at home.

‘Still,’ Ginny said, ‘I don’t like the idea of being married to a man I despise simply so the king can have the pleasure of my company without it being thought he wishes to marry me. I admire Queen Anna. I want to make her happy and fulfilled, and for her to find out how to make him happy, too. Being on the receiving end of Henry’s attentions does not please me the way it does some of the other women. They see it as a way into his bed, but I don’t, and I would do nothing to hurt such a dear lady. I don’t want his silly notes and jewels. I want her to have them, not me.’

‘He sends you notes? And jewels? Show me.’

‘I’ve returned them. It makes no sense.’

‘It did to dear Jane Seymour. It got her the throne.’

‘Yes, stringing him along. She knew exactly what he was about and she was certainly not doing anything to spare Anne Boleyn’s feelings, was she? Pious, mousy, unscrupulous Jane, enticing a married man to please her family. Well, I shall not do it, Mother. I’m sorry, but I draw the line at that.’

‘You must do it, dear. Would you deny King Henry the pleasure of talking to a well bred and beautiful young woman? Because that is what you are.’

‘If he put more effort into his new marriage, he could easily do that with the queen. She is anxious to please him in any way she can, if only he’d see it.’

‘Mmm, well, coming here without her isn’t going to do much to help, is it? Now come and take a look at these gowns and let’s see what’s to be done.’

It was not hard to understand where Ginny had acquired her style and elegance. Even though she chose not to be a courtier, Lady Agnes D’Arvall was a keen needlewoman for whom sewing was never a chore as long as she had a team of the best tailors and seamstresses, and a husband to send her bolts of fine fabrics from the London merchants. Her eldest daughter Maeve, now Lady Betterton, spent some of her time in the London house at Westminster near her husband, who was employed in the king’s Great Wardrobe. Consequently, the Bettertons and D’Arvalls were amongst the best-dressed families known to the royals, and ostensibly it was this flair that the king had intended to exploit when he’d sent for Ginny to advise his new German wife on the latest English fashions.

Ginny’s thoughts, however, were far from the rich heap of velvets, damasks, satins, and silks on the bed and, as soon as her mother had left the room, she returned once more to the window seat, hoping that the stillness of the darkening landscape would help to clear her mind. It did not. Having come home expecting a rest from the empty flattery doled out by the king and his courtiers, she now found herself in a situation where she would have to suffer more of it rather than less.

Even worse was the king’s intention to marry her to a man who wanted her only for the rewards he would be granted, a man who’d been told to make himself known to her, for why else would he have appeared beside her father, pretending assistance? She had asked herself this same question all the way home. Now she knew. After four weeks of noticeable indifference and stand-offishness, it had taken the king’s command, offer, bribery, call it what you will, to force him to speak, then to make an absurd attempt at flattery by telling her he would not have confused her with another. ‘The manners will come,’ he’d said patronisingly. As if he could teach her anything.

With all the painful sensitivity of a very young woman, Ginny had been baffled and hurt when, after being assured by her parents that finding her a husband would not be difficult, their eligible neighbour had declined Sir Walter’s offer in favour of the beautiful heiress Magdalen Osborn. That had been the cruellest part of all, and Ginny was sure he must have known it.

At court, once the shock of seeing him again had abated, she had done her best to convince both herself and him that he was the very last man she would have chosen as a husband, giving him not the smallest opportunity to revise the decision. Unable to separate sexual attraction from the lingering pain of rejection, it had seemed to Ginny that the natural antidote was to avoid him at all costs and to show that she had always been quite beyond his reach. Even if he had not been the handsomest man at court.

At the royal court for much of the three years since his first marriage, Sir Jon’s connection with his neighbours had been brief. When the king had visited D’Arvall Hall last year, Sir Jon had been on a mission for his friend Sir Thomas Cromwell, the King’s principal secretary, who occasionally employed him. Not understanding the workings of the royal rota, Ginny had naturally put a different construction on his absence that heaped yet more fuel on her resentments.

‘Why?’ she whispered angrily. ‘Why him, of all men, when he must want this as little as I do? It’s so degrading. Bad enough to be pushed into marriage for the convenience of others, but to marry a man who must be commanded, after making it clear he doesn’t have a mind to it, is shaming. All the court will know of it, for they’ve seen how things are between us. And now I shall be obliged to face down all the stares and pretend all is well. As for the rest...ugh! It hardly bears thinking about.’ Wrapping herself warmly against the icy passageways and open spaces of the courtyard, she crossed over to the stillroom near the kitchen door where Mistress Molly had already begun the task of pounding lumps of sugar in a mortar with a pestle as big as her arm. ‘The king loves his marchpane,’ she puffed, as Ginny entered.

‘Done the almonds yet?’ Ginny said, looking round at the benches lined with jars and parchment-lidded pots. ‘It might be best to let them blanch while you do that. I’ll do them, if you like. For a favour.’

Mistress Molly had been taught the art of sugarwork and simpling by her aunt who, despite being thought a witch, had died peacefully in her bed. There was little that Molly did not know about herbs and their uses, and this was not the first time she had been visited by Mistress Virginia seeking a remedy for some ailment. She smiled at Ginny’s bribery. ‘I know what it is,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it.’

‘How do you know?’

The grinding stopped for Molly to shake her aching hand and to dart a look of saucy wisdom at her mistress’s daughter. ‘Take a glance at your face,’ she said gently. ‘Anyone would think you’d been given the devil himself to marry. You want me to give you something for it, don’t you?’

‘For it, or against it. I don’t know which. I have to do something, Molly.’

‘Depends what. Put him to sleep? Put you to sleep? Make him love you? Make you love him? Make him impotent? Make you...?’

‘No, Molly!’

‘I was going to say, make you have twins.’

‘How on earth would that help matters?’

Picking up the heavy pestle, Molly resumed the pounding. ‘Two for the price of one,’ she said. ‘He’d leave you alone for a fair while after that.’ The pounding continued until she realised there had been no reply. ‘Is that what you want?’

But Ginny was staring out of the window, biting at her top lip. Then, rousing herself, she sighed. ‘It’s getting dark again. Where d’ye keep the almonds?’

Molly lifted down an earthenware pot from the shelf above her and passed it to Ginny. ‘Best to put the water on to boil first,’ she said with a sly grin.

Not being at all sure what she wanted a potion to achieve, Ginny put the almonds to blanch and then left Molly to her task. But Molly’s thoughts on the matter were somewhat clearer. Rather than allow the problem to resolve itself, which might take some time in Ginny’s present mood, she put aside a basin and began to add dried herbs picked during the summer months. Vervain, yarrow, mistletoe and rue, thyme and bay, chopped and bound together with honey and oil of roses. These she shaped into tiny fairy cakes and, that same night under the light from the rising moon that turned the garden to silver, she placed them just beyond the boundary where the grass was long and brittle with frost, whispering a blessing upon each one. The day of the king’s visit, with Ginny’s future husband, would be on the fourteenth day of February, Saint Valentine’s Day and, although Ginny had been too preoccupied to notice it, Mistress Molly had not.

* * *

By the time Ginny’s sister and her husband arrived from their home a mere four miles away, the preparations for the king’s arrival that same day were nearing completion. Outwardly serene but inwardly anxious about every detail, Lady Agnes’s veneer cracked only for a brief moment as she threw her arms around her elder daughter with something like relief. ‘Oh, Maeve, my dear, thank heavens you’ve come at last. And, George, you, too. Such a day! I’ve had to double the quantities, you know, and now he’s bringing women with him.’ With more than a hint of drama, she waved her arms aloft.

‘Mother,’ said Maeve, with a sideways glance at her husband with a warning not to speak, ‘stop worrying. There are plenty of places to sleep here. The court is used to it, you know. The palaces are like rabbit warrens. As long as we have enough food and drink, sleeping won’t present a problem.’

‘They like a bit of indecision about that,’ said Sir George.

‘George, dear, that’s not helpful,’ said Maeve, stifling her laughter. ‘Where’s Ginny got to? You said in your message something about a husband. Is it true?’ Unwrapping her fur-lined cloak, she draped it over the end of a bench before her mother picked it up and returned it to her.

‘Not there, dear. The steward is rehearsing the pages. Come into the small parlour. And yes, it is true and I expect she’s still up in her room, sulking.’

Maeve, whose understanding of her younger sister exceeded her mother’s by miles, rose to her defence. ‘No, Mother. That cannot be. Ginny doesn’t sulk. I dare say she doesn’t much like the idea of the king choosing her husband for her, and nor would I, but she won’t be sulking. You and she have been quarrelling, haven’t you? Is that it?’

Turning her gaze upon Sir George as if to seek comfort, Lady Agnes heaved a noisy sigh, drooping her shoulders. ‘Discussions,’ she said. ‘Heated discussions. You know what she’s like. So determined. We’d have had her married years ago if she’d been more cooperative about the business. Oh, I know she’d have married Sir Jon when your father first proposed it, but since that fell through, all the matches he’s suggested have been rejected without a single look. It’s taken her recent visit to court and the king’s command to make it happen, whether she likes it or not.’

‘And apparently, she doesn’t,’ said Sir George. ‘So who is he?’

‘Same man. Yes, Sir Jon Raemon. You might well look astonished.’

‘So what’s the problem?’ said Sir George, blinking. ‘He’s widowed now.’

Lady Agnes’s eyes rolled with a look of despair. ‘She’s seen him again at court and now she doesn’t like him.’

‘Doesn’t like him?’ said Maeve, frowning. ‘But she would have accepted him before. So this has to do with her pride, Mother, hasn’t it? We have to talk to her, George.’

‘We do, dear,’ he agreed, ‘but can we first get out of these clothes before Henry arrives, or we shall be taken for a travelling merchant and his doxy.’ He dodged smartly to one side to avoid the sharp slap aimed loosely at his ears, laughing at his wife’s lovely face and the sudden flare of grey eyes. But out of his mother-in-law’s hearing, his frivolous tone changed to something more serious. ‘You know what this sounds like, don’t you?’ he said to his wife, closing the door of their chamber. ‘Remember how Henry set his sights on you, too?’

‘Too well,’ Maeve replied. ‘If you’d not stepped in when you did, I might have—’

‘Shh! Don’t say it, love. Trouble is, I doubt if Ginny will understand what Henry has in mind for her. She’s such an innocent about what goes on at court, even after a month there, and your mother won’t have explained it to her, will she?’

‘No, my love. But somebody had better. Shall we warn her?’

‘Your father will put pressure on her. Raemon, too, for all I know. They’ll make it impossible for her to refuse, with all the lucrative rewards lined up for them. Your father will see it as his big chance to get ahead and your mother will do everything he tells her to, without question. And before we know it, the D’Arvalls will be the new owners of Sandrock Priory and sitting squarely at the top of the tree. Parents of the king’s new mistress, otherwise known as Mistress Virginia.’

‘I don’t want that to happen to her, George. Ginny is destined for better things than that. She’s really not cut out for a life at court.’

His sideways smile showed that he knew what she meant. ‘Perhaps Raemon himself will explain to her what this is all about,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps he won’t.’