Royal Blood. Rona SharonЧитать онлайн книгу.
lover disappear and contract a marriage for you. I say choose a pleasing man from among the king my brother’s friends and marry in secret, as I have done. Leastways you shall have a say in your future and be happy.”
“I shall never be content with a man other than my beloved Raphael.”
“Contentment is a relative term. The instant one gets one’s heart’s desire, one wants more. My darling lord loathes the country. He misses court life. He hungers for offices, for amusements, for wars. I plan improvements to Westhorpe Hall, our seat in Suffolk. He plans to raise a brick London residence on his ancestral lands by the Thames.” She sighed. “And what of you, Renée? You are the perfect courtier, bred for power and intrigue. With your brain and application, would you be content growing vines and—”
“Apples, for cider and brandy, barley for sweet ale, buckwheat for galettes…” Closing her eyes, Renée could taste Breton butter crêpes filled with minced apples, cream, and black currant on her tongue, slicked back with a cup of lambig, the delectable Breton apple brandy.
Mary smiled. “So we have established that you will be content, but would your painter?”
“So long as we have paint.”
As the gentlemen had gone hunting, Renée knew not whether Michael Devereaux had evaded Buckingham’s dagger. However, as there was no talk of dead people behind the Venus tapestry, she assumed the golden impostor had been successful and hoped the duke would not lose heart.
With her improved humor came a longing to bask in the sun and a scheme was born withal. She ran her idea by Mary, who declared it a stroke of brilliance. Together they approached Queen Katherine and made a case in favor of dressing up to lie in wait for His Majesty’s hunting party as the gentlemen returned from the hunt. What a delightful jest it would be, they said, should Diana the Huntress and her maidens surprise the hunting party with an al fresco midday repast on a lush patch of green in the park. The proposal was a winner, the queen matching exuberance with the silliest of the maids of honor, who, Renée thought, were very silly indeed.
Orders were given to the officers of the household. On the noon hour bell, the queen and her ladies, gowned in vivacious spring colors and accompanied by the disgarnished court deprived of the gallants out hunting with the king, set out to find the perfect locale for the ambush.
Dressed in a cerulean habit with a matching plumed hat, Renée spent the ride chatting with Mary, laughing with Wyatt, a poet and flatterer extraordinaire, and caroling with the damsels, all mounted on white palfreys. The queen, traveling in her pretty litter, chose a picturesque sward, and the cavalcade dismounted to prepare the surprise reception. Velvet carpets were unfurled, the queen’s chair, padded with her tasseled cushion, was deposited at the center of the stage, pillows were scattered for the ladies to sit upon, boards were erected and covered with fine linen napery, rich plate, and delicacies brought from the queen’s privy kitchen. Trunks from the wardrobe, stuffed with figurative trappings, were cracked open and mobbed, the party hastening to disguise themselves: Queen Katherine as Diana the Huntress with her golden bow and quiver of arrows, the ladies-in-waiting and the maids of honor as the goddess’s nymphs, and the gentlemen, even the severe and ancient ones, masqueraded as creatures of the wild.
Renée found the scenery intoxicating: the welcome shade of trees, lively with birdsong, the rainbow of flowers in early bloom, perfuming the air, beckoning butterflies and buzzing bees. It seemed such a waste to sit and do nothing as they waited for the hunting party to fall upon them.
“Your Majesty.” Renée curtsied to the queen. “I crave leave to gather flowers for wreaths—chaplets for us, garlands for the dishes.”
The queen approved, whereupon half the party scattered to cull basketsful of honeysuckle, yellow cowslips, hawthorn, rosebriar, pansies, gorses, marigold, lavender, white daisies, laurels, lilies of the valley, blossoms, and herbs to garnish and perfume the spectacle.
Renée and Mary strolled together, chatting and gossiping. They hardly noticed their follower until they were overtaken near a bed of thistle. Lady Anne Hastings, dowdily appareled with her rosary in hand, all for the sake of currying favor with Queen Katherine, dipped diffidently. “My Lady Mary. My Lady Renée, I was hoping I might have a word with you. Privily.”
Renée contemplated the sly chameleon. Jade by night, nun by day. She would have said nay with an illuminated N if not for the fact that Anne was Buckingham’s sister and confidante and that maintaining the charade of friendship with Anne could lead to interesting discoveries, such as the how and when Buckingham would strike against the king again. “Mary?”
“Go off. Mind me not.” Mary smiled, petting her invisibly pregnant belly. “I was about to suggest we return to the camp to rest awhile.”
And so, Renée was left alone with Anne. They ambled side by side in silence.
“You are cross with me,” Anne said.
“Cross? Why would I be cross?”
“You were kind to me last night. You rescued me from Surrey’s trap, and I repaid you with a hurtful disservice. I apologize. I would very much like us to be friends. Please forgive me.”
“What disservice?” Renée inquired with interest, suspicions buzzing in her head like bees.
“My husband, Sir George Hastings, arrived this morning. Have you met him?”
“I have not had the pleasure. Has he gone out hunting? Introduce us later, then.”
Anne laughed bitterly. “You would not thank me for that pleasure.”
“Oh?”
“Is it true, about the Italian painter?” At Renée’s appalled expression, she plowed on. “Your pardon. That was rude. I merely ask because I felt…My name is also tainted with scandal.” She plunged into an intimate account of the events that had gotten her packed off to St. Mary’s three years before. She must have reckoned Renée had heard the gossip and hoped to establish a close rapport by unbosoming her disgrace. Renée was silent. “The fair Viking, you fancied him.”
Renée was not used to being jolted twice in the space of a single conversation. The hen was outwitting the fox. Her curiosity whetted, she had to know what had transpired behind the Venus tapestry last night. With her cardsharp visor lowered, she said, “I never fancied him. Did you?”
Anne’s complexion turned a bright red.
Oh. Renée felt something drop inside her. So that’s what had happened behind the arras. Had the duke perceived the switch and abandoned his plan? Or had Michael wrestled with him?
Anne turned and gripped her hands. “Oh, Renée. I must see him again privily. I must! But with George at court, I cannot speak with another man, I cannot even look. After last time…”
Saints! Renée was truly and utterly shocked. Anne was asking her to play the bawd! Red-hot anger surged through her, twisting her into a knot of hostility. It made no sense. In France she had oftentimes played the covert pigeon between the dissolute members of the aristocracy. Lust was a great weakness, an asset, to be exploited in affairs of state, to her royal sire’s advantage. It would be the perfect arrangement to learn of Buckingham’s plans. Why was she hesitating? “I will help you!” she blurted out. “I have done it countless times in France. I master the game.”
“Oh! You are a true confidante! A priceless friend!” Anne hugged her. Renée felt sick.
“The king! The king is coming!” The ecstatic exclamation was followed by a bray of bugles.
Renée and Anne dashed back to the campsite to take their place around the queen. When the hunting party reined in, the Huntress Diana was lounging leisurely in the shade, attended by her nymphs and animals of the forest, sipping wine and gobbling berries, with white palfreys grazing in the background. Renée watched the gallants swing off their shiny mounts and toss reins to grooms. She made out Buckingham, the king’s six minions—Neville, Bryan, Carew, Compton, Norris, and Knevet—Earl Surrey, Sir Walter, faces she had yet to pin names