Flynn Stewart led Elizabeth by the hand as they followed Mistress Boleyn down to the riverbank, where several small punts were pulled up on the mud. “Have you ever been in a punt?” he asked her as he helped her into it.
“No, but I can swim should you tilt us into the water,” Elizabeth assured him as she sat down on a cushion in the flat bottom of the boat.
He grinned. “’Tis good to know, for I am not particularly skilled with a punt pole.”
“Then why are we doing this?” she wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, and his amber eyes were dancing with amusement.
Elizabeth began to laugh, and Flynn Stewart began to laugh.
“What is the jest?” Mistress Boleyn asked. She had not entered a punt but was standing on the shore surrounded by her gentlemen friends.
“Why are we here? On the riverbank?” Elizabeth asked Anne Boleyn. “Are you really going boating?”
Anne thought a minute, and then she shook her head. “Nay,” she said. “These little punts are too inclined to be tipsy. I cannot swim.”
“Then please tell me why you suggested it?” Elizabeth wanted to know.
“I thought it might be fun,” Anne replied, “but on reflection I do not. Get out of the punt, Elizabeth Meredith! We will play cards instead. You do have monies to bet?”
“I do, but I warn you I am an excellent player of card games,” Elizabeth responded. “Flynn, help me out of this dangerous little craft.”
He stepped forward to give her his hand, but his foot slipped in the mud of the riverbank. The Scotsman began to fall forward, and in doing so reached to steady himself on the punt’s prow. Instead he accidentally shoved it out into the river. Anne Boleyn cried out with alarm. The gentlemen about her stood openmouthed, staring as the little boat began to drift. One had the presence of mind to try to help Flynn Stewart up. He looked horrified at Elizabeth’s plight.
How tiresome,Elizabeth thought,but if I do not do something right away, I shall surely be caught by the current.The Scotsman was facedown in the mud, and none of the other finely dressed dandies seemed inclined to come to her aid. Quickly she undid the tapes holding her skirts to her bodice. She undid her sleeves and pulled them off, along with her French cap and veil. She kicked her shoes from her feet. Then, standing gingerly in the little punt, she dove into the river, leaving much of her clothing behind. Surfacing, she stroked the few feet to the riverbank to be pulled out by Flynn Stewart, now on his feet and covered in mud.
“Are you all right?” he wanted to know.
“Except for a want of clothing, sir, aye.” She stood in the sleeveless bodice, now ruined, her silk chemise clinging to her legs, her feet bare.
“Surround Mistress Meredith,” Anne Boleyn’s voice suddenly spoke sharply. “Put your backs to her so she may be protected and not embarrassed by your gawking. George, go and find her a long cloak! I don’t care if it’s May; she’ll catch her death of cold.” She squeezed into the circle now obscuring any view of Elizabeth to join her. “You are very brave, and it was so quick-witted of you to do what you did. I am so sorry you have lost your gown. I will have the king send you a new one, for ’tis all my fault.” She smiled her small cat’s smile at Elizabeth. “You will forgive me, won’t you?”
Elizabeth nodded, her lips twitching with her amusement. “You all looked so astounded to see me suddenly out in the river.” She began to giggle.
Anne found the sound infectious, and she too began to giggle.
“My sister will be furious,” Elizabeth said. “I suspect when she learns of this incident she will wish I had floated out to sea fully clothed rather than take my gown off and swim to shore.” She began to laugh. She couldn’t help herself.
Anne Boleyn laughed with her. “But I was so afraid for you,” she admitted.
“And none of your fine friends would move a muscle to save me.” Elizabeth cackled. “I could see them thinking they could not damage their own garments. It never occurred to them to take them off as I did.”
“Ohhh, what a fine show that would have made.” Anne howled with laughter. “My brother has legs like a stork!”
Suddenly the king was there, and Philippa and Lord Cambridge.
“What has happened?” Henry Tudor demanded to know.
Anne explained between the laughter that she and Elizabeth could not seem to control now. She finished by saying, “You must give her a new gown, Henry, for it was my fault she had to swim back to the shore and lost her own.”
“My sister is not properly garbed?” Philippa pushed into the widening circle of gentlemen, and gasped. “Elizabeth! What has happened to your skirts? To your beautiful sleeves and cap?”
“Were you not listening, Philippa? They are in the punt, floating down to the sea,” Elizabeth replied. “I am sorry, but it was an accident.”
“You will never live down this unfortunate incident!” Philippa cried. “Could you not have waited for someone to rescue you? If word of such behavior is spread about, we shall have no luck at all in what is a difficult task to begin with. What respectable man wants a woman who removes her garments in public?”
If was fortunate that Philippa did not see the gentlemen with their backs to her, who were all smiling broadly at her distressed query.
