A forbidding frown appeared on Jack’s expressive face at the mention of that name. “Tell me.” He moved to sit beside me and took my gloved hand in his.

I tried to explain. As had been the case when I talked to Father, I could see that Jack did not entirely understand my aversion to Sir Richard.

“A feeling?” he asked.

“He makes my skin crawl. I do not trust him. And I do not like him. And besides, he only wants me for his son because he thinks—” I broke off, appalled.

“He thinks what?”

We were in a public place. Even if we were private, I knew I’d hesitate to answer. If Jack had not already speculated about my father’s identity, I did not want to give him a reason to do so now.

“It is not important. He is wrong.”

“It is not Sir Richard you’d be marrying but his son,” Jack said.

“And children tend to grow to resemble their parents.” I felt myself flush and started again, this time more careful to avoid dangerous waters. “Marriage is for life, Jack. Any woman takes a great risk when she gives herself to a man.”

“Marriage is a business arrangement best left to parents to negotiate.”

“So all young people are taught. That does not make it true. If it is, then why are second marriages, when the choice is made by the couple themselves, so much more successful?” I was thinking of Father and Mother Anne. I did not know if they’d married for love, but at least no one had arranged the match for them.

“You can always say no,” Jack said. “I do not believe your father would force you into marriage.”

I took a deep breath and kept my eyes on my clasped hands. “He might be more inclined to refuse Sir Richard if someone else offered for me. Someone I’d want to marry.”

Slowly, Jack released his grip on my fingers and I could feel him withdrawing in other ways. He did not want me.

The pain of that realization brought tears to my eyes, but it also made me angry. “Would it be so very bad to be wed to me?”

“You will make some man a wonderful wife.” So earnest was Jack’s tone of voice that I could not help but believe him. That only intensified the hurt. “Some man” was not Jack Harington.

“Have you never thought of me that way?” Even though I knew the answer would add to my suffering, I could not seem to stop myself from asking.

“We have been friends, Audrey. That means more to me than you can possibly know.”

I sprang to my feet. “I warrant you never gave me a passing thought all the while you were gone. I am nothing to you!”

“I thought of you. Far too often for my own good.” He came after me as I descended the steps and plunged into the crowd. Edith, caught off guard, stumbled after us. She had the presence of mind to scoop up Jack’s cloak as she went.

I had turned down a side street before Jack caught my arm and pulled me to a halt. His face was only inches from mine. “I have nothing to offer a wife—no house, no land, no fortune.”

“I have a very fine dowry. Father said so.”

“There is no question but that you do, and that only proves my point. Marriages are made for practical reasons and have little to do with feelings.” Sorrow and regret were plain to read in his expression but he forced a smile. “You are not being asked to marry Sir Richard, only his son. Consider that you may find you manage very well together.”

“I want to do more than manage!”

My vehemence attracted unwanted attention and I felt heat rise into my face as a shopkeeper and his customer stuck their heads out of his door to gawk. I lowered my gaze to stare at the cobbles. There was so much I wanted to say to Jack. I was certain that if he’d just listen to my arguments, I could convince him that he and I should wed. We had a love of music and poetry in common and—

And, to my dismay, I could think of nothing else we shared. Worse, since it had been so long since we’d seen each other, I had to admit that I had no real notion of what his life was like. Oh, he’d told me a little of his travels abroad with Sir Thomas, and it was clear he despised the wastefulness of war, but he had not really said anything about what he had experienced. Nor had he admitted to tender feelings for me.

“It is time to go home, Mistress Audrey.” Edith was out of breath, but her voice was firm.

I felt Jack’s grip shift to my elbow. I went where he steered me, lost in my own misery. A bleak future stretched before me, one without Jack Harington in it.

Far too quickly, we reached Watling Street. Jack stopped just outside the door of Father’s shop. Edith, for once showing a trace of sympathy for my feelings, continued on, leaving us together.

“I doubt that I will see you again. As vice admiral, Sir Thomas will be much at sea and I will go with him. I return to Dover on the morrow.”

“I give you leave to forget all about me,” I whispered.

At the faint rumble of a laugh, I looked up and met his eyes. “You have a permanent place in my memory, Audrey. Never doubt it.”

They were pretty words, but I wanted more. Perhaps I had learned something from Bridget after all. Without giving myself time to think about what I was going to do, I acted. I went up on my toes, seized Jack by the collar of the cloak he’d donned again after Edith returned it to him, and planted my mouth firmly over his.

I had kissed men before, but only in friendly greeting. I had no idea what to expect from an embrace fueled by passion.

For a moment, Jack’s lips were cold and hard beneath mine. He held himself stiff and still. And then, in an instant, everything changed. His lips softened. They moved over my mouth, onto my cheeks, my forehead, even the tip of my nose before coming back to where they’d started. At the same time, he pulled me against him so that our bodies meshed from chest to toe. His arms wrapped themselves tight around me. His hands caressed everywhere they touched. When I heard a low moan of pleasure, I could not tell which of us had made the sound.

There was no doubt about the source of the shout that had us springing apart, faces flushed and eyes wide. Father’s roar must have been heard as far away as St. Paul’s. He emerged from his shop red-faced and glaring. I had never seen him so furious.

“Father, I—”

“Go upstairs at once,” he bellowed at me.

“You are not to hurt him!” I shouted back, seeing that his hands were raised to throttle Jack. “The kiss was my doing.”

“To your chamber, Audrey. Now.”

This time I obeyed, but I stole one last glance at Jack as I went. The expression on his face warmed my heart. It was not the look one friend gave another. In spite of the imminent threat that Father might thrash him, he wore a silly grin. My kiss had finally forced him to accept that he had feelings for me.












25

1545

I did not see Jack again for many months, or hear from him, either. In the interim, Muriel wed John Horner. Father temporarily abandoned negotiations for my marriage to Richard Darcy, but only because he had other matters to concern him. Richard Egleston, who had been Father’s apprentice and was married to Mary, Father’s first wife’s daughter by her first marriage, had begun a campaign to replace Father as the king’s tailor. He claimed Father was too old to perform his duties. This was arrant nonsense, but Egleston had made powerful friends among the other artisans at court, some of whom had long been envious of Father’s favor with the king, and they supported his suit.

In April, Bridget gave birth to a son she named Anthony. Anthony Denny, who had been knighted by the king and was now Sir Anthony, was one of the boy’s godfathers. Bridget often brought the baby with her when she came to visit Mother Anne. On these occasions she regaled us with all the news her husband, John Scutt, had lately brought home from court. Most were tidbits Father had been too preoccupied to mention.

“It is all the talk at court, or so Master Scutt tells me.” Bridget handed little Anthony to Mother Anne to make much of and fixed her bright-eyed stare on me. “The Earl of Surrey’s squire left all he had to Mary Shelton. She was his mistress, they say, for it is certain they never married.”

“They planned to wed.”

The news that Tom Clere had succumbed to his wounds saddened me. I had never known him well, but I had seen him with Mary and knew they loved each other deeply. I had hoped he’d recover from the injuries he received in France. He’d lingered nearly seven months.

How terrible his suffering must have been. Had he known all along that he was slowly dying, or had there still been some hope for his recovery? Either way, how devastating his death must have been for poor Mary.

Bridget felt no such stirrings of sympathy. “She should have married him long since, then, old as she is! And since Clere did come home from the war, why not wed on his deathbed? Then she’d have inherited as his wife and have avoided all this furor.”

I had no answer to give her. Mary was more than ten years my senior. What was more surprising was that her father had not arranged a marriage for her. I wondered if he was still living. I had no idea. I had never asked.

Having failed to pick a quarrel with me, Bridget moved on to other scandals. I soothed myself by stroking Pocket, who lay curled in my lap. He licked my hand. He was no longer young. I’d had him more than seven years. He’d gotten fat and lazy and spent most of his time sleeping in front of the fire.

Father, upon being questioned, recalled that Tom Clere had been buried at Lambeth only a few days previously. The Earl of Surrey had written his elegy.

Thoughts of Mary Shelton and her lost love haunted me all the rest of that day and half the night. The next morning I sent a message of sympathy to Norfolk House. An invitation to visit arrived later the same day.

Little seemed to have changed at Norfolk House in four years, except that everyone was older and I was much more finely dressed than I ever had been as a girl. The exception was Mary Shelton. Black-clad, her face showed the ravages of long sleepless nights of weeping.

“Come, Mary,” the Duchess of Richmond said in a bracing voice. “Greet our guest.”

Lady Richmond, at least, was just as I remembered her, right down to the spaniel on her lap. I did not suppose it was the same one, but it might have been.

Mary required a moment to recognize me. “Audrey?” Her pale blue eyes narrowed. “How long has it been? You are a woman grown, and the resemblance is even more remarkable.”

Taken aback, I blinked at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“She is rambling again,” the duchess cut in. “Come and see Father’s new garden.”

We went outside, with Edith and several other waiting women trailing behind, but while Lady Richmond sang the praises of the Duke of Norfolk’s head gardener, who had coaxed violets, periwinkle, and bluebells into flowering, I stole sideways glances at Mary. She showed no interest at all in the early variety of rose the duchess was showing me. After a moment, she withdrew a piece of paper from the pocket concealed in her black damask skirt. She did not unfold it. Merely looking at it made her cry. As tears streamed down her cheeks, a tiny sob escaped her.

The duchess whirled around with a sound of disgust, dropping the rose. “Give that to me!”

When she would have snatched the paper out of her companion’s hand, Mary clutched it to her bosom and backed away. “It is precious to me.” She sent a pleading look in my direction, over Lady Richmond’s shoulder. “Do not let her take it, Audrey. It is a copy of the elegy my lord of Surrey wrote to honor Tom.”

“And you know it by heart,” the duchess snapped. “As do I!”

“It is a beautiful poem!” Again Mary looked to me for help.

I wanted desperately to do something to ease her despair. “I have not heard this poem. Will you recite it for me?”

Smiling through her tears, she did so:

Norfolk sprung thee, Lambeth holds thee dead;

Clere, of the Count of Cleremont, thou hight.

Within the womb of Ormond’s race thou bred,

And saw’st thy cousin crowned in thy sight.

Shelton for love, Surrey for lord thou chose;

(Aye me! whilst life did last that league was tender).

Tracing whose steps thou sawest Kelsal blaze,

Landrecy burnt, and batter’d Boulogne render.

At Montreuil gates, hopeless of all recure,

Thine Earl, half dead, gave in thy hand his will;

Which cause did thee this pining death procure,