She had been ready for him, much to her astonishment. She was wet, and he slid easily and deeply into her love sheath. Rosamund wrapped her arms and legs about the king, her little mewling cries of delight spurring him on and increasing his passion.“Oh! Ahhh!”she cried as he stoked her fires with his skilled love lance.“Oh, your majesty! Oh, yes!”She was reeling out of control, but she did not care. She soared, and she flew higher than she ever had. His passion overcame her, and finally as the crisis peaked, she actually swooned away in his hungry embrace.
When Rosamund began to finally come to herself again she realized two things. She was lying atop the king, her cheek against his chest, and he was still deep and hard within her. “Oh, God!” she half-whispered. “Did I not please you, Hal?”
“Very much, and there is so much more to come,” he promised her, and she heard laughter in his deep voice.
“You are... you are still...” She couldn’t find the words.
“Aye,” he said in a nonchalant manner, “I am.” Then he laughed as he understood her confusion. He rolled her over again so that they were now face-to-face. His blue eyes met her amber eyes, and he said, “You have known only one man. An old man, your husband. I am not quite twenty, fair Rosamund. My appetite for female flesh is great. I can do this all night, and I am certainly not yet satisfied by you, my darling, but by the dawn we will be both well-pleasured.” Then he began to move on her again, and she was almost weeping with the delights that he offered her.
His lust seemed to go on forever. To her surprise she was every bit as lustful as he was. She had never known anything like this, but she knew that she craved more of it. She didn’t remember his leaving her, but when Annie came to awaken her just before sunrise she was alone amid a tangle of bedding, and she was still naked. That was careless of her, she realized at her servant’s shocked look.
“Was Doll right, m’lady?” Annie whispered, handing her the goblet of Maybel’s strengthening potion.
“You have seen nothing, Annie,” Rosamund replied, taking the goblet and drinking it down. She would need to be strengthened if the king was as vigorous each time he visited her. “Hand me my smock.”
Annie complied. “I don’t understand,” she told her mistress.
“It is better that you don’t, but your silence is most necessary. If it will make you feel any better, Annie, and I tell you this because you are my loyal servant and I trust you, Lord Cambridge is aware of all that goes on beneath his roof. Even this.”
“You will have to bathe before you can go to the palace,” Annie said, her equilibrium slowly being restored as she began to consider the entire situation. “The scent of coupling is strong about you.”
“Quickly then, for I must be at the palace in time for the mass. The queen is most unhappy with her ladies when they do not attend the mass, Annie,” Rosamund explained.
Annie nodded, and exited the bedchamber.
Rosamund lay beneath the coverlet now and considered the night past. She had had no idea that a man could be so enthusiastic in his lovemaking, but the king certainly was. She had also not realized that young lovers were different than older ones. Owein had been almost forty when he died, twice the king’s age, but she had been quite content with his attentions. Now, upon reflection, she even thought she liked them better than the king’s. Her husband had shared himself with her. The king took all she would give and gave little in return, while demanding more. The night had been a time to satisfy his desires and his lusts, not hers, although she had certainly been satisfied herself. But he had been kind, she had to admit. However, she had learned more about the royal marriage than she really wanted to know. The queen truly believed that the only purpose of coupling with her husband was the getting of children. That was sad, but that the king believed it too was even sadder. She and Owein had enjoyed their coupling and yet had healthy children, but for their unfortunate little son. There would have been other sons had not Owein fallen from that damned tree, and they would have enjoyed making them. She had been tempted at the time Owein died to fell every murdering tree in the orchard, but that her uncle Edmund had prevailed upon her not to be so foolish in her grief.
Strangely, the king had touched Rosamund. She was astounded to realize that she felt sorry for him. He was a lonely man, and there had been little warmth or real kindness in his life. His mother had loved him, but she had had little to do with him until his elder brother had died. His father had been embittered by the loss of the beloved Arthur and at first, despite his wife’s wise words, angry that Henry had survived instead. Then the queen had died in a futile effort to get another son. The king had told Rosamund that he always wondered if his father considered him not fit to rule England. If there had been another son, would Henry VII have made a will in his favor and not Henry VIII’s? His grandmother, the Venerable Margaret, was the one person that the king had admired and respected, but she was a hard woman who expected the rules to be followed without exception. No, there had been little warmth or love in the king’s life.
As for the queen—and here Rosamund again felt a twinge of deep guilt—she was incredibly grateful to Henry Tudor for marrying her and making her long years of neglect worthwhile. She idolized her husband, but she did not see him for who and what he really was. Her gratitude was like that of an abused puppy taken up from the kennel and spoiled. She was Katherine of Aragon, and she knew her duty. But she did not know how to really love, and the king needed love more than he needed anything else.
Annie’s head popped around the bedchamber door. “I’ve set up the old-fashioned small tub for you, m’lady. ’Twill save time.”
Rosamund got up and bathed quickly. The sky was already turning light as she finished dressing in her claret silk gown. With Annie by her side she hurried through the gardens and across the palace park. They entered Greenwich and managed to join the queen’s women as they filed into the chapel royal for the morning mass. And afterward, as they broke their fast in the queen’s hall, Rosamund suddenly realized how absolutely exhausted she was. Yet she dared not show it publicly.
The king had been up early to hunt with his friends. One of them wryly remarked that he should visit the queen more often for he was in high good humor today. William Compton, the king’s closest friend, said nothing, but he realized it was something other than a visit to the queen’s bed that had set the king in such excellent spirits. Compton was nine years the king’s senior, and had been in his service since his childhood. He came from a wealthy, but not noble, family, yet was accepted by everyone despite his less-than-stellar family connection.
“You choose not to confide in me over this latest liaison, eh, my lord?” he gently probed when they could not be heard.
“What liaison, Will?” The king smiled mischievously.
“Very well, my lord, I shall keep my own counsel and ask you no more questions. We want no repeats of last autumn’s little fiasco. You do not want a reputation like the French monarchs’, nor do you need be made an object of humorous scorn.”
“Aye, Will, keep your own counsel,” the king said, looking directly at his companion. It was something he rarely did. The king did not like to make eye contact with others, and when he did it was serious business. “My liaison, as you so carefully put it, is an extremely discreet one. It is unlikely to be discovered unless one of us behaves foolishly, and we are both too wise for that. Do you understand me, Will? I want no clever hints among the others, and certainly no prying by my wife’s ladies this time. This is but the king’s affair.”
William Compton bowed servilely, saying, “It shall be exactly as your majesty wishes. Perhaps one day, however, you will tell me, for I will admit to being mightily curious.”
The king chuckled but said nothing more. He was pleased with himself, and he was particularly pleased with Rosamund. He had never in his life known such a warm and loving woman. Why was it that kings could never marry such women! How much happier they and their children would all be if that were so. Kate, God bless her, was so dutiful. He could not fault her, but dammit, why was she so damned reticent in their lovemaking? Just once he would have liked to see her eyes glaze with passion and satisfaction, but he knew it would never happen. She was too intent on giving him a son. She had a religious fervor about it, murmuring prayer beneath her breath as he rode her. He could not fault her, but oh, the hours last night spent in the fair Rosamund’s arms! He could scarce wait for this night to come.
Rosamund watched the king surreptitiously in the hall that night. If he noticed her he gave absolutely no indication of it. In a way it was a great relief. Mercifully, she was dismissed early from the queen’s service, and together with Annie she hurried back to Bolton Greenwich. There she found her cousin in his hall.
“Come and watch the sunset sky with me,” he called to her, and she joined him. “You look tired, my dear girl.”
Rosamund curled herself into the window seat next to him. “I am,” she admitted. “I have never known such a man, Tom.”
“He is the king, dear girl. Kings are different, or so I am told by those who claim to be in the know. Be warned that once he has a new toy in his possession he plays with it quite relentlessly.”
“You are telling me that I may expect him tonight,” she said. “I must get some rest then before he comes. He is incredibly vigorous in his bed-sport, and then I had to be at the palace in time for the early mass. You know how the queen feels about her ladies attending the mass each morning.” She looked out over the river, now dappled with a glorious and colorful sunset, and sighed. “He is so sad, Tom. He is not truly happy.”
