A Love Most Dangerous Read online

  BOOKS BY MARTIN LAKE

  Resistance: The Lost King Book 1

  Wasteland: The Lost King Book 2

  Blood of Ironside: The Lost King Book 3

  Outcasts: Crusades Book 1

  Artful

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Martin Lake

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477821923

  ISBN-10: 1477821929

  Cover design by Kerrie Robertson

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014916225

  For Janine, my wife, my love and my inspiration.

  Contents

  The Court of King Henry VIII 1537

  Chapter One Pretty Maids All in a Row

  Chapter Two May Day

  Chapter Three Pursued

  Chapter Four The King of England

  Chapter Five Not Love but Verse

  Chapter Six Envy

  Chapter Seven The King and His Groom

  Chapter Eight Luncheon and Labor

  Chapter Nine An Heir Is Born

  Chapter Ten Peril and Victory

  Chapter Eleven King Henry Cannot Help but Hint

  Chapter Twelve Maids with No Honor

  Chapter Thirteen Wanted Once More

  Chapter Fourteen Death of a Queen

  Chapter Fifteen Christmas Festivities

  Chapter Sixteen New and Dangerous Men

  Chapter Seventeen New Year Gifts

  Chapter Eighteen Sleeping King, Wakeful Servant

  Chapter Nineteen Wives and Mistresses

  Chapter Twenty The Hiding of Sin

  Chapter Twenty-One Why Is the King Happy?

  Chapter Twenty-Two Sir Thomas Seymour Hunts

  Chapter Twenty-Three A King Is Refreshed

  Chapter Twenty-Four The Favorite

  Chapter Twenty-Five The Howard Family

  Chapter Twenty-Six On Love and Lust

  Chapter Twenty-Seven The King’s Great Cats

  Chapter Twenty-Eight Confronting the Royal Beast

  Chapter Twenty-Nine Persecution and Dismissal

  Chapter Thirty London

  Chapter Thirty-One Taken

  Chapter Thirty-Two Captivity

  Chapter Thirty-Three Salvation

  Chapter Thirty-Four To Stratford-upon-Avon

  Chapter Thirty-Five Cromwell’s Plan

  Chapter Thirty-Six The King’s Great Anger

  Chapter Thirty-Seven Peering at the Future

  Thanks and Acknowledgments

  People in A Love Most Dangerous

  About the Author

  The Court of King Henry VIII 1537

  To be a servant at the Court of King Henry is to live with your heart in your mouth. This is so whether you are young or old, male or female. Some, of course, have more cause for concern than others. I am young and I am female. So the danger to me is considerable.

  The danger is the more acute because I am pretty and the Queen is in the last month of her confinement.

  Henry has divorced one wife and executed the second. But that is far from the whole story. A string of shattered hearts lies strewn across the land like pearls from a necklace broken in rage. Aye, it’s true that complicit fathers, brothers, uncles and even husbands have got rich by leading their women like heifers to the courtly market. It is the women who give the most and suffer the most grievously.

  Unless, of course, they are clever.

  It does not do to be too clever, though. Anne Boleyn taught us this. For make no mistake, King Henry is more clever than any man in the Kingdom. And he is as subtle and wily as even the most cunning of women. Anne’s head rolling from the block was testimony to that.

  The trick is to show your cleverness to just such a degree that Henry is intrigued by it but not threatened. The second trick is to intimate that your cleverness is at his disposal even more than your own. And the third trick? Ah, the third trick is to be willing to bed the great beast of appetites and to know when to do it.

  My name is Alice Petherton and I am seventeen years of age. I came to Court as a simple servant but I caught the eye of Anne Boleyn when she was newly crowned. I was good at singing, could dance like an elf, and made her laugh and think. She took me as one of her Maids of Honor and my slow approach to the furnace began.

  I was very fond of Anne. She was not pretty but there was something alluring about her, some promise of carnality which affected all who knew her, King and subject, man and woman. I must confess that on more than one night I awoke hot with sweat, having dreamed I had been bedded by the Queen, worn out and used by her, alive and half-deadened, exultant and dismayed.

  There came one morning when she stroked my cheek and kissed me swiftly on the lips. I gazed into her eyes that day, telling her that I was willing. But she merely laughed and told me to get on with my sewing. So are we played with by those we must call our betters.

  I will become one of these betters, I determined. I will be fawned upon and bowed to some day.

  Not that I aspire to be a queen, you must understand. That is too deadly by far. King Henry appears to be in love with Jane Seymour. He would, of course, for she carries his child. His greatest lust is for a male successor, even more than for any pretty face or shapely form. There is no sense in seeking to usurp Seymour’s place as Queen, no hope. If she proves to be a good brood mare he will rest content for a little while. But in the meanwhile, he hungers. The furnace grows hotter by the hour.

  Chapter One

  Pretty Maids All in a Row

  It started almost six months ago. I woke early in the morning to see the sun kissing the hills to the east. I hugged myself. It was May Day and great festivities were planned at the Court. It was also my seventeenth birthday. I loved May Day and I loved my birthday.

  But first there was the obligatory session of needlework. No matter that it was May Day, Queen Jane insisted that we do a few hours’ toil at the needle. I hurried into the Maids’ Sitting Room and found Philippa Wicks and Dorothy Bray waiting for me.

  Philippa was by far the prettiest of the Maids of Honor. The story at Court was that she was twenty-two years old although she never admitted her age to anyone. She was a particular favorite of Queen Jane. She had beautiful red hair with a luster that glowed like gold. Her cheekbones were high and distinct, making her look a little like a cat. Her lips were pink and full and they invariably wore a smile. She was said to have the most exquisite nose in Court although I cannot recall who told me that. I think it may, in fact, have been her. She was elegant and exciting. When I first came to Court I was glad to be her friend. But nowadays, I am not quite so certain.

  Philippa’s closest friend was Dorothy Bray. I often wondered that they were so close, for where Philippa was pretty, Dorothy was plain. I could not call her ugly; that would be unfair. But plain suited her well. She had a square face with deep-set eyes and tiny little mouth. Where Philippa skipped along the corridors of Hampton Court Palace, Dorothy trudged. I do not know how old she was. She might have been thirty; she might have been forty or even older.

  “Alice, where have you been?” Philippa asked.

  I decided not to tell them that it was my birthday. Surely t
hey would remember.

  “I couldn’t find my bonnet,” I said. “It had fallen behind the chair.”

  “It looks it,” Philippa said. She reached up and pushed the bonnet more securely upon my head. “In fact it looks as though you’ve been using it as a chair.”

  I forced a smile at her jest.

  “Her hair escapes the bonnet,” said Dorothy Bray.

  Philippa examined me carefully. “You’re right, Dorothy. It would never do to have Alice’s hair all bedraggled across her head.”

  She tucked the errant locks firmly back beneath the bonnet. I sighed to myself. I hated that my hair was forced into trammels. Philippa, I noticed, always left a small fringe of her hair showing. But it was a lovely color so I could see why she did this. Dorothy was all forehead.

  Philippa grasped my shoulders and pushed me back from her so that she could examine me more carefully. “You’ll do,” she said brightly. “Come, we must not be late.”

  I followed Philippa and Dorothy along the corridor. I was grateful they had waited for me, although I could see that Dorothy was fretful at the delay.

  Philippa, of course, seemed less concerned. She did not dawdle but nor did she hurry. I smiled quietly to myself, smug that she had chosen to befriend me.

  The Queen’s chamber was crowded when we arrived. Jane Seymour sat close to the window, working, as always, at her embroidery. She was said to be the finest needlewoman at Court, and not merely by sycophants. I admired her work and knew that no matter how hard I tried I would never produce anything close to its quality.

  This was partly because I loathed working with needle and thread. I much preferred to spend my hours in reading, or even writing. But Jane liked to do neither and so all her Ladies and Maids had to bend themselves and their minds to the constant poke and stitch of needlework. Sometimes, at the end of the day, my fingers felt like pincushions.

  Jane gave a frosty glance as I entered the room. Then she saw Philippa and gave a little smile. She signaled for Philippa and Dorothy to approach. I wondered whether to follow but thought better of it. Susan Dunster and Mary Zouche sat close to the door and glanced up at me. I went to the chair they had kept for me and pulled out my needlework.

  “You’re late, Alice Petherton,” Susan whispered. “Tut-tut, that will never do.” She raised her eyebrows mischievously and gave a little chuckle.

  I gave her a little pinch on the arm, which made her laugh still more. Mary smiled gently and continued with her sewing. I watched her for a moment and realized why the Court Painter, Master Holbein, once said that she looked like a painting produced by the Italian Botticelli. With her delicate oval face and hair like summer corn, she could well have been an angel sent to earth. Her dreamy eyes always seemed to be on some distant place, perhaps the clouds an angel is more used to. She was so different from Susan with her mousy-colored hair, sharp nose and wicked smile. If Susan was an angel she was very much a fallen one.

  The room fell silent except for the drawing of thread through fabric. You would never have credited that so tiny an act could produce such a volume of noise. It rasped through my brain and the more I listened, the more it seemed like the sharpening of a blade.

  Every push and draw of my needle felt like the days of my life running away from me. I shook my head to concentrate. It was so easy to go awry, so easy to make a mistake which would take long hours to unpick. I should be outside, I thought, enjoying this beautiful May Day, enjoying my birthday. I wondered if I’d be given lovely gifts and broke a thread in my excitement. A posy, perhaps, or a book or pretty scarf. I was so enamored of my dreams I could barely see to thread the needle.

  Finally, after what seemed many hours, Jane put down her embroidery and nodded to a servant who was standing by the door. The girl rushed out, clapping her hands as she did so. Immediately other servants appeared with trays of refreshments.

  I flung down my needlework and looked around the room. Everyone else was still bent at their work, as if they were not distracted by the arrival of the food. Everyone, that is, except for Jane Seymour. She glared across the room at me, her look as cold as her nature. I saw Philippa glance up at me but could not read the expression on her face.

  My cheeks flushed hot and I wondered whether to pluck up my work right away. The more Jane stared at me the more humiliated I felt. And along with the humiliation came a fierce resentment. I looked back at her as if I had not noticed that her face was growing angrier by the moment. I gave her the sweetest smile I could force upon my lips.

  I might regret doing this, I thought, but I’m glad I did so nonetheless.

  Jane clapped her hands and the rest of the Ladies put aside their work. They rose like docile children and stood in line to collect their possets and honey cakes. I was hungry and wished to take two of the dainty little cakes but I caught Dorothy Bray staring at me and took only one.

  I returned to my friends. Mary had two cakes. Susan had three. She looked pointedly at my solitary cake and without a word gave me one of hers.

  “You’ve worked hard,” Susan said. “You deserve it.” She picked up my embroidery and examined it carefully. “My goodness, you must have done almost quarter of a border.”

  “Don’t mock her,” Mary said. “You know she’s better at making shirts and chemises.”

  It was true but I took no pleasure from Mary’s praise. I could perform the more basic work of making clothes; my life had given me plenty of practice at that. But the finer work of the Court seemed still to elude me.

  Chapter Two

  May Day

  We were dismissed by the Queen and were now finally free to join the May Day celebrations. As I prepared to leave the room I got a very pleasant surprise. Philippa Wicks, Dorothy Bray and Mary Zouche were waiting for me outside in the corridor. They each bore a gift, wrapped in green cloth. Susan Dunster was nowhere to be seen, which disappointed me a little.

  “Happy birthday, Alice,” Philippa said, giving me a peck on the cheek. “We have birthday gifts for you.”

  I unwrapped Dorothy’s gift first. It was a necklace with a little locket. I opened it to see a miniature portrait of Jane Seymour. Tiny though the image was, it seemed that she was glaring reproachfully at me.

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, making haste to wrap it in the cloth once again.

  “You must wear it,” Dorothy said, wresting the necklace from my grasp. She looped it over my neck and clamped it shut, stepping back to examine her handiwork.

  “Now your gift, Mary,” said Philippa.

  Mary handed me her gift, her eyes wide with excitement. It was a recorder of exquisite design.

  “It’s made of rosewood,” Mary said. “You said you wanted to learn how to play. I shall teach you.”

  It was a beautiful instrument, polished smooth and glistening like morning dew.

  “Smell it,” Mary said.

  I put the recorder to my nose. It had the sweetest fragrance, very like a rose.

  “It’s lovely,” I said in surprise.

  “And it’s ten years old or more,” Mary said. “Rosewood keeps its bloom and scent.”

  I embraced Mary and gave her a kiss upon the cheek. “I look forward to my first lesson,” I said. Mary was a wonderful musician, the finest of all the Maids and Ladies of the Court. I blew a little note on the recorder and giggled. Mary clapped her hands with pleasure.

  I turned to Philippa, who gave me a winning smile. My heart beat faster at this and I wondered what gift she had chosen for me. Countless ideas flashed through my mind. I tried to control their wayward careering and wait patiently.

  Philippa held out her gift; it was larger than those my other friends had given and felt soft to the touch. I unwrapped it with undisguised haste.

  It was an embroidery sampler that Philippa had begun but left unfinished.

  “Oh,” I said. I could not think of anything else to say.

  “I have started it for you,” Philippa sa
id. “Practice makes perfect. Your needlework leaves a lot to be desired. And it’s not only me who says this.”

  I nodded, knowing full well who else had been saying it.

  “It’s lovely,” I said at last. “I shall treasure it.”

  “It’s not to be treasured,” Philippa said, patting me on the arm, as if I were a little dog. “It’s to be used.”

  We said farewell to one another, so keen were we to be out of doors and enjoying the celebrations. I hurried to my chamber and put away my gifts, wondering for a moment what to do with the locket Dorothy had given to me. I knew it would be sensible to wear it but I could not bear to think of Jane Seymour hanging round my neck, peering at everything I did on my very own day. So I pulled it off and flung it on a table before hurrying down to join my friends.

  Dorothy saw that I was not wearing my locket and was about to speak when Philippa touched her on the arm to stop her. I was glad of that. I had no wish to explain or excuse myself at all today.

  It was a beautiful morning. The sun was beaming from a sky of washed blue, a sky dotted with clouds as soft as syllabub. A gentle breeze danced in trees shimmering with the green shoots of spring. I glanced up at the old castle on the bluff to the south. It was very small with no great walls and only one tower but it looked the very image of a romantic castle to me. I wondered what it would be like to be a princess living in such a lovely place.

  But then my gaze was torn from the castle by diversions closer to hand. The lawns stretching behind the Palace were filled with all manner of delights. There were scores of little booths and stalls, tables readied for the feast, outdoor ovens with cooks already attending, spits of various sizes loaded up with pork and boar and ox. Most of the Court was already here with only a few latecomers hurrying from the Palace.

  Musicians played light melodies upon a stage while jugglers and acrobats cavorted on either side. Children screamed with delight at jesters who danced and jigged. A small choir sang songs but the noise surrounding them was so loud their voices could hardly be heard.