“When did word come to Amboise that Maman and I were dead?”
Guy ran one hand over a face that suddenly looked more weary than his years. The dark stubble shadowing his jaw made him seem more soldier than courtier and his eyes were sad. “It was perhaps a month after you disappeared.”
“Where did the rumors say we died? And of what cause?”
Guy shook his head. “No one knew any details. Although I was still a child, I asked. Then I grieved for you…as my friend.” Another shrug. “Soon afterward I left Amboise to enter the service of my half brother.”
Pressing my fingers to my brow, I tried to think, tried to remember the details of our departure from Amboise and our journey to Calais. Those weeks of travel remained a blur, although I knew we had avoided the main roads and waterways. But my first clear recollections were of Calais and crossing the Narrow Seas and arriving in England.
“Maman must have feared pursuit,” I murmured. “We did not stay with friends. And I had to promise not to speak to anyone on the journey. She would not even let me say farewell to you, Guy.”
I tried to tell myself that Maman had been frightened away by the fear of false accusations, that she’d fled because she could so easily have been blamed for something she had not done. Mayhap she had started the rumors of her death herself. There was irony in that, seeing as she did die not many months later.
“I want to know the truth, no matter how terrible it is.”
“That may never be possible.” Guy’s arms came around me. “It was all a long time ago,” he whispered. “Fifteen years. What can any of it possibly matter now?”
WHEN KING HENRY VII was alive, he enjoyed no sport better than tennis, not even a good tournament. He built tennis plays at all his principal residences and until a few years before his death was as enthusiastic a player as he was a spectator. A game was already in progress when the Lady Mary’s entourage arrived at that free-standing structure in the Tower of London.
Once the princess was settled in the upper gallery, furnished with cloth-of-gold cushions and a chair under a canopy of estate, I approached the window overlooking the covered tennis court and peered down at the players.
The duc de Longueville looked up at me, his black eyes alight with pleasure. He acknowledged the Lady Mary’s presence by sketching a bow before the game resumed. The duke served a small, hard, white-kid-covered ball, sending it winging across the fringed cord that divided the court in two.
I could not stop myself from staring at him. His shirt, dampened by perspiration, clung to his broad chest. As was common with most men when they played tennis, he wore only silk drawers ornamented with gold cord. From their hem to his soft, square-toed shoes, his excellently shaped legs were bare.
So absorbed was I in assessing his figure that I barely recognized Longueville’s opponent as Guy Dunois, similarly attired. To return a ball, Guy threw himself into the air, nearly crashing into a wall. The ball flew straight into a window frame on the opposite side of the court.
Although I had watched tennis matches for years, I still did not understand the game. The rules are complicated—a deliberate attempt, I suspect, to assure that only educated men can play. I did know that when one player failed to return the ball, points were scored according to how far from the center cord that ball had come to rest.
I leaned forward in order to see better. When the ball struck the wire mesh directly in front of me with a resounding twang, I jumped back.
The Lady Mary whooped with laughter. She was in a jovial mood that put me in mind of her brother the king. “Shall we wager on the outcome?” she asked when she had her mirth under control. That, too, smacked of King Henry.
I held my hands spread wide. “I have no money with which to gamble, Your Grace.”
“Risk something you value, then. Your pendant.” She pointed to the tiny enameled dragon I wore suspended from my waist.
Most people did not notice it alongside my rosary and my pomander ball. But the Lady Mary knew it was there, and she knew what it meant to me. The bit of jewelry was one of the few things I had by which to remember my mother. I clasped a protective hand around the little dragon, feeling the edges bite into my palm through my glove.
Caught up in the match, Mary did not notice my distress. “I wager ten pounds against your bauble,” she said, “on the duc de Longueville to win.”
A sudden tightness in my chest left me fighting tears. Certain that I would lose, I ran one finger over the small keepsake, caressing the smoothly cold surface of the tiny dragon body, feeling the protuberances of its head and wings and feet. Then my hand moved to the rosary beside it and I murmured a brief prayer.
Since my conversation with Guy, I had been unable to stop thinking about my mother and how little I knew of her. She had married at fifteen. I remembered her telling me that when Papa died only a few months before we left France. And she had married for love. She had told me that, too, for Papa was not a Breton, nor even a landowner, but rather a Flemish merchant who did business in both Brittany and France.
Maman had been raised in the household of Duchess Anne of Brittany, later Queen Anne of France, after her own mother died. If she ever spent much time with relatives on either side of her family, she had never spoken of it to me. After I met my uncle, Sir Rowland, I pictured the rest of the Velvilles as distant as he was.
As play continued, I focused on Guy. If he had been Longueville’s companion for fifteen years, surely he would have received training in jousting, hunting, hawking, and all other sports. The duke had been the captain of a company comprised of a hundred gentlemen of the French king’s horse at the time he was taken prisoner. Since Guy was here with him, he must have been one of that hundred. A soldier, then.
He was shorter than the duke—only a few inches taller than I—and had a slighter, more wiry build than his half brother. As I watched, Guy leapt halfway across the court to return the ball, scoring a point. For a moment I let myself hope he might prevail, but despite Guy’s considerable athletic prowess, the duke far outshone him.
Longueville handled his racquet as if he had been born holding one. Moreover, he was a nobleman and Guy’s master. I knew too well how unwise it was to try to outshine the sun. No matter how much energy Guy exerted, he was unlikely to win the match. In the end, he would not even try to emerge victorious. He would give the duke a good game but make certain Longueville won.
When the match reached its inevitable conclusion, the Lady Mary beckoned to me, commanding my presence at her side. She looked well pleased with the outcome until she glimpsed my face. She caught my hand before I could finish unclasping my pendant.
“This wager was a foolish impulse on my part. I would never deprive you of something you treasure so dearly.”
“Then I am in your debt, Your Grace.”
I might have said more, but her attention had already shifted to the court below. “He is a most well-favored fellow,” she murmured.
Following her gaze, I felt again the fierce pull of desire. To prevent taking a chill, the duc de Longueville had donned a rumpled crimson velvet tennis coat decorated with strips of dark blue satin. His face, sweat streaked and glowing with health and vitality, lifted toward the royal box. Once again, he bowed to the Lady Mary.
The princess sent a sidelong glance my way. “I vow,” she murmured, “he is almost as toothsome as Charles Brandon.”
A mischievous little smile played around her mouth. Two years earlier, when Mary was sixteen and had admired Brandon’s prowess in a tournament, I had confided in her, telling her of his brief courtship of me when I was her age. I also told her I thought myself fortunate to have escaped the entanglement heart-whole.