Français!’ she said irritatingly. ‘Bien sur! I am all but French now.’
‘You’re English born and bred, like George and me,’ I said flatly. ‘And I was brought up at the French court just like you. Why do you always have to pretend to be different?’
‘Because everyone has to do something.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Every woman has to have something which singles her out, which catches the eye, which makes her the centre of attention. I am going to be French.’
‘So you pretend to be something that you’re not,’ I said disapprovingly.
She gleamed at me and her dark eyes measured me in a way that only Anne could do. ‘I pretend no more and no less than you do,’ she said quietly. ‘My little sister, my little golden sister, my milk and honey sister.’
I met her eyes, my lighter gaze into her black, and I knew that I was smiling her smile, that she was a dark mirror to me. ‘Oh that,’ I said, still refusing to acknowledge a hit. ‘Oh that.’
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘I shall be dark and French and fashionable and difficult and you shall be sweet and open and English and fair. What a pair we shall be. What man could resist us?’
I laughed, she could always make me laugh. I looked down from the leaded window and saw the king’s hunt returning to the stable yard.
‘Is that the king on his way?’ Anne asked. ‘Is he as handsome as they say?’
‘He’s wonderful. He really is. He dances and rides, and – oh – I can’t tell you!’
‘Will he come here now?’
‘Probably. He always comes to see her.’
Anne glanced dismissively to where the queen sat sewing with her ladies. ‘Can’t think why.’
‘Because he loves her,’ I said. ‘It’s a wonderful love story. Her married to his brother and his brother dying like that, so young, and then her not knowing what she should do or where she could go, and then him taking her and making her his wife and his queen. It’s a wonderful story and he loves her still.’
Anne raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and glanced around the room. All the ladies in waiting had heard the sound of the returning hunt and had spread the skirts of their gowns and moved in their seats so that they were placed like a little tableau to be viewed from the doorway when the door was flung open and Henry the king stood on the threshold and laughed with the boisterous joy of an indulged young man. ‘I came to surprise you and I catch you all unawares!’
The queen started. ‘How amazed we are!’ she said warmly. ‘And what a delight!’
The king’s companions and friends followed their master into the room. My brother George came in first, checked on the threshold at the sight of Anne, held his pleasure hidden behind his handsome courtier’s face, and bowed low over the queen’s hand. ‘Majesty.’ He breathed on her fingers. ‘I have been in the sun all the morning but I am only dazzled now.’
She smiled her small polite smile as she gazed down at his bent dark curly head. ‘You may greet your sister.’
‘Mary is here?’ George asked indifferently, as if he had not seen us both.
‘Your other sister, Anne,’ the queen corrected him. A small gesture from her hand, heavy with rings, indicated that the two of us should step forward. George swept us a bow without moving from the prime place near the throne.
‘Has she changed much?’ the queen asked.
George smiled. ‘I hope she will change more with a model such as you before her eyes.’
The queen gave a little laugh. ‘Very pretty,’ she said appreciatively, and waved him towards us.
‘Hello, little Miss Beautiful,’ he said to Anne. ‘Hello, Mistress Beautiful,’ to me.
Anne regarded him from under her dark eyelashes. ‘I wish I could hug you,’ she said.
‘We’ll go out, as soon as we can,’ George decreed. ‘You look well, Annamaria.’
‘I am well,’ she said. ‘And you?’
‘Never better.’
‘What’s little Mary’s husband like?’ she asked curiously, watching William as he entered and bowed over the queen’s hand.
‘Great-grandson of the third Earl of Somerset, and very high in the king’s favour.’ George volunteered the only matters of interest: his family connections and his closeness to the throne. ‘She’s done well. Did you know you were brought home to be married, Anne?’
‘Father hasn’t said who.’
‘I think you’re to go to Ormonde,’ George said.
‘A countess,’ Anne said with a triumphant smile to me.
‘Only Irish,’ I rejoined at once.
My husband stepped back from the queen’s chair, caught sight of us, and then raised an eyebrow at Anne’s intense provocative stare. The king took his seat beside the queen and looked around the room.
‘My dear Mary Carey’s sister has come to join our company,’ the queen said. ‘This is Anne Boleyn.’
‘George’s sister?’ the king asked.
My brother bowed. ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’
The king smiled at Anne. She dropped him a curtsey straight down, like a bucket in a well, head up, and a small challenging smile on her lips. The king was not taken, he liked easy women, he liked smiling women. He did not like women who fixed him with a dark challenging gaze.
‘And are you happy to be with your sister again?’ he asked me.
I dipped a low curtsey and came up a little flushed. ‘Of course, Your Majesty,’ I said sweetly. ‘What girl would not long for the company of a sister like Anne?’
His eyebrows twitched together a little at that. He preferred the open bawdy humour of men to the barbed wit of women. He looked from me to Anne’s slightly quizzical expression and then he got the joke and laughed out loud, and snapped his fingers and held out his hand to me. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘No-one can overshadow the bride in her early years of wedded bliss. And both Carey and I have a preference for fair-haired women.’
Everyone laughed at that, especially Anne who was dark, and the queen whose auburn hair had faded to brown and grey. They would have been fools to do anything but laugh heartily at the king’s pleasantry. And I laughed as well, with more joy in my heart than they had in theirs, I should think.
The musicians played an opening chord, and Henry drew me to him. ‘You’re a very pretty girl,’ he said approvingly. ‘Carey tells me that he so likes a young bride that he’ll never bed any but twelve-year-old virgins ever again.’
It
