“Well,” Annie hesitated nervously.
“My cousin is a good master, Annie. You know that. Perhaps it is even time for Doll to be married, and he can arrange that for her. If Doll’s behavior is getting out of hand, it might be best for her that he did so before she disgraces herself and ruins her chances of a good marriage.” Then she looked sharply at her servant. “What are you not telling me?”
“Oh, m’lady!” Annie began to cry.
There was a rapping on the apartment door at that moment, and Rosamund instructed her servant to answer it. Lord Cambridge entered.
“Excellent,” he said. “You are still up. Annie, dear lass, bring us some wine, and you, cousin, shall exchange the gossip you have obtained this day with me.” He plopped himself down on the edge of the bed with a grin. “You look as fresh as a daisy even at this hour.”
Annie hurried to bring Lord Cambridge and her mistress small crystal goblets of sweet Madeira. As she handed the goblets to them, Rosamund spoke. “Annie has something to tell you, Tom. Annie.”
“Oh, m’lady, do I have to?” Annie sobbed, her blue eyes overflowing with her tears. When Rosamund nodded solemnly, Annie said in a small voice, “’Tis about Doll, m’lord,” and she told him what she had previously reported to her mistress.
When she had finished her brief recitation Lord Cambridge said, “It is all right, Annie. I know you are no telltale and spoke only to protect your mistress. However, I have already prepared to send Doll back to Bolton Park in the morning. Other word of her behavior has been brought to my ears by Mistress Greenleaf, and tonight I had the misfortune to see Doll’s misbehavior firsthand. Her fate was sealed then and there. Now run along, lass, and seek your own bed. You are not responsible for Doll’s adversity. Mistress Greenleaf always thought her a bit young to be sent down from Bolton Park. It is possible it is time for her to be married and settled. Mistress Greenleaf has a nephew, my blacksmith. He is widowed, and strong enough to handle a spirited girl like Doll. She would have no time for mischief as his wife, I assure you. The man has seven children all under the age of ten, and expects a meal in his smithy each day at noon, plus a big supper at day’s end. Aye, given what I saw tonight that might be the best solution,” he chuckled.
“What did you see?” Rosamund asked him, now very curious.
“Do you know, Annie?” Lord Cambridge asked the girl.
“Aye, m’lord,” Annie nodded.
“Well, tell us then,” he pressed her.
“Doll lifts her skirts for the lads,” Annie began. “She don’t do it for naught, though. ’Tis a ha-pennie a peep to look at it, a whole penny if they wants to touch it and feel up her titties.” And having said it, Annie blushed beet red with embarrassment.
Lord Cambridge roared with laughter at Annie’s explanation. “Aye, that is what I saw. She’s an enterprising lass, our Doll. Well, the smithy is a lusty fellow and should keep her more than busy both in and out of the bed. Run along, Annie. And if Doll should confide her woes to you in the morning before she is sent home, say I saw her and was simply shocked.” He chuckled again.
Annie curtsied and went from the room. They heard the door to the dayroom close as she departed her mistress’ apartment. Still, Lord Cambridge got up and looked outside to make certain the young servant was gone from their hearing. Then he came back in and sat down on the edge of the bed again.
“The king spoke briefly with me tonight,” Lord Cambridge began. “He said I was to leave the garden door to the house open and a small lit lantern outside that door. Do you understand, Rosamund?”
She nodded. “Aye, I do. God’s blood, Tom, he is visiting the queen tonight! And then he will come to me?”
“The king is a dutiful man, Rosamund,” her cousin said dryly. “He will do his duty first, and then seek his pleasure afterward.” He stood up. “Remember, dear girl, that you must be discreet for everyone’s sake, but mostly for your own. You are not the first woman the king has futtered after having taken the solemn vows of matrimony. You will not be the last by any means. This king is a very sensual man. What a pity he is not of another persuasion as well. It should save him much difficulty,” Lord Cambridge finished with a droll wink.
“Tom, I should laugh, but I do believe that you are serious,” Rosamund said, surprising even herself with the observation.
“Good night, dear girl,” he told her with a grin, and then he was gone from the bedchamber.
Should I sleep?Rosamund wondered to herself.Can I sleep?She closed her eyes. Discretion. She must practice that very fine art. And she could remain awake all night waiting for the king to put in an appearance. What if something prevented his coming? Come the morning she would be exhausted with lack of sleep and her own nervousness. Yet she would still be required to get up and serve the queen. Katherine had gotten into the comfortable habit of dictating personal correspondence to Rosamund rather than to one of her official secretaries. Rosamund knew that the queen was becoming too easy with the arrangement, but she could not continue on with it. She needed to go home, and Tom’s suggestion about leaving the progress in the summer was really a good one. She would seek Inez’s advice on a replacement. Surely among the queen’s many women there was one other who had a legible hand that would suit.
Aye, she had been ready to go home since she had come, and yet now she was willing to admit that it had been a most interesting time for simple Rosamund Bolton of Friarsgate. Far more exciting than when she had first been at court as a royal ward. She would have such stories to tell her girls! And the connections she had made here could prove valuable in the future. She did not intend to have her daughters marrying Bolton cousins, or the like. She wanted fresh blood brought into the line to keep the Friarsgate inheritance a strong one. And she should never have thought about life in such terms but for her exposure to the court. And to her cousin Tom Bolton. Tom had already hinted in the broadest terms possible that she and her daughters would be his heirs one day. What an amazing turn of events, she thought. A year ago she hadn’t even known that Thomas Bolton existed. She had been content to be Sir Owein Meredith’s wife and the mother of his bairns.
But Owein was gone.Why?she asked silently as she had asked a thousand times over these past months. But there had been no answer forthcoming. She knew there never would be. Her eyes finally closed, and Rosamund fell into sleep.
Chapter 17
The king had done his duty by his queen. He had joined Katherine in her bed for a second time that day. She was garbed as always in a plain long garment tied tightly at the neck, an embroidered nightcap on her lovely red-gold hair. Her hair, he thought, was her best feature. She lay dutifully upon her back, her blue eyes tightly shut. For all the time they had been wed, he could still not get her to open her eyes when he entered their bedchamber. He had always heard that the Spanish were hot-blooded, but while his Kate was sweet, and while she was dutiful, he could not ever in his wildest imagination call her hot-blooded.
He did what he always did with her, first untying the ribbons at her neckline and opening the all-enveloping garment to display her breasts and belly. She had pretty breasts. Small, but fuller since the birth of their son. He could see the marks on her stomach from where the skin had been stretched during her confinements. Kate did not have good skin. Not like an Englishwoman.
Not like Rosamund Bolton. And at the thought ofher,he felt a tingling in his manhood. Rosamund Bolton of the auburn hair and the clear amber eyes and the sweetly rounded breasts. His member began to harden and swell as he thought of the delicious little widow of Friarsgate, of how he would enjoy futtering her later on this evening. But for Sir Owein all those years back he believed he would have had her, and he did not think that she would have been merely dutiful and acquiescent.
“Draw up your gown, Kate,” the king ordered his wife as he pulled off his nightshirt. She complied immediately. He pushed her legs open and mounted her, sinking himself deep into the fecund flesh, pumping, pumping, pumping slowly until he could release his seed. “May God and His Blessed Mother grant us a son,” he intoned as he withdrew from her.
“Amen!” the queen replied, pulling her night garment back down again, but never once opening her eyes to look at him.
Henry Tudor climbed from his wife’s bed, and bending down, kissed her forehead. “Good night, Kate. Sleep well.”
