The Secret Bride by Diane Haeger Read Free Book Online Page A

woman, Anne. I have done well by her.”
    “And doubtless she by you—the handsome young husband she can parade around by the neck like a Christmas goose.”
    “We both profit by our marriage. She is under no more illusion in it than I. But then, we have been over this all before.” He patted the top of her hand gently and then prepared, like always, to regale her with some fanciful story of a life that was so vastly different from her own it could divert her attention from her own dismay. “So tell me, what would you like to know of court this time?”
    “Very well then, let me think.” She perked up a bit, for-getting her own situation in the reflection of a trusted brother’s kind smile. “What do you hear of the celebrations for the new little prince of Scotland?”
    “There has been more feasting and merriment this past fortnight than ever anywhere before. But it is still difficult for me to think seriously of little Margaret as a mother.”
    “All right then, who wears the prettiest dresses at court?  Is it still the Countess of Oxford?” she asked in a gossipy tone.
    “The Earl of Surrey’s daughter is a sow, short, squat and exceedingly impolite.”
    “That is not at all how you described her last time.”
    “Well, that is certainly how she seems now.”
    “Which means she refused you?”
    Charles paused for a moment, then laughed. “Twice.”
    “Then she clearly has no taste in courtly lovers.”
    “You always did know the right thing to say.” He drew his sister forward from the spray of bed pillows and embraced her. There was something warm and reassuring about her. Her lack of expectation was something he encountered from no one else in the world. He found, however, that the longer he spent at court the more he began to want it dearly in his own life. And he wanted it with someone other than his sister. But he could not tell Anne that. Not when he had spent so much of his energy convincing her that he was content in his marriage to a coldly domineering woman like Margaret Mortimer, and hoping that a way out would one day soon present itself. Although he had no earthly idea at the moment where that path might lie.

    Two days later, the royal barge bearing Henry, Mary and her household neared London on a damp day, the chilled English air seeping through her sable-lined green Florentine velvet cloak and gabled hood. The mist off the Thames rose up and swirled through her thin silk hose and around her slippered feet. Henry and Mary rode at the head of a long train of royal barges, all of them lacquered in Tudor green and white. Their own bore the royal standard, which fluttered above them in the breeze as twenty-one oarsmen in matching green and white livery silently rowed toward Richmond. Jane Popincourt, Lady Guildford, Lady Oxford and the governess, Elizabeth Denton, were sitting just behind them, each cloaked in velvet and rich fur.
    They passed the time talking of anything and everything as the barge cut through the slightly choppy water.
    Henry confirmed for Mary the gossip she had already heard, that in spite of all the debate, work by the ambassadors and even the papal dispensation he and Katherine had eventually received, the king had subsequently lost interest in the whole idea of the two of them marrying and was, even after everything they had gone through, in the process of terminating the betrothal altogether. She also learned from her brother that Thomas Wolsey had been key in the decision making. The king had just appointed him his personal chaplain, so Wolsey was ever at the king’s side. Henry and Mary both liked him, and he was a great foil to their dour grandmother. The Countess of Richmond had installed herself at court and taken over many of the queen’s duties, ruling for her son where she believed he could not. Mary was not so excited to see her grandmother. Where her mother had once been loving but firm, the Countess of Richmond was only firm.
    “How will you feel if