At the King's Pleasure (Secrets of the Tudor Court) Read Online Free PDF Page A

of another.
    “I can make your life far more interesting than he ever will.”
    The heated feel of her face told Anne that she was blushing, but she managed to make her voice as cold as an icy morning in January. “I amto marry Lord Hastings, as you have heard. Therefore be gone, Master Compton. There is nothing for you here.”
    “Are you certain?” he whispered.
    Before she could reply, he surprised her by obeying her command. He slipped away as quickly and quietly as he’d appeared, leaving her to stare after him in dismay.
    Furious with herself, she tamped down the maelstrom of feelings his nearness had aroused. Wicked man! He knew that harmless flirtations—Compton would no doubt call it “courtly love”—were acceptable behavior. But this encounter had borne little resemblance to the chivalric ideal in which a knight worshipped his lady from afar. Compton wanted to bed her. She had no doubt of it.
    Perhaps, she thought, if the difference in their rank had not been so great, he might have offered to marry her. But that was clearly impossible. He was too inferior in station and too poor to compete for her hand, even if she wanted him to. And she did not, she assured herself. She was content with the plans her brother had made for her. Within a few months, she would marry George Hastings.
    Lord Hastings would make her an excellent husband. True, she had spoken with him only a handful of times, but he was pleasing to look at and courteous. And she did not intend to remain dependent upon her brother forever. Nor did she wish to be exiled to the drafty old castle in Wales where she’d lived with her first spouse. Or rather, she amended, where she had lived with a handful of servants while Walter had spent the bulk of his time hunting, and swiving his mistress.
    Anne was well pleased to be done with that dull and stodgy existence. She had a place in the lively, intoxicating whirlwind that was the royal court and she meant to keep it.
    One of the queen’s lesser ladies, a fair-haired, blue-eyed woman with a sweet face, approached Anne when the music stopped and the dancers broke apart. “It might be wise to remain in company,” Lady Boleyn murmured, “lest you provoke evil rumors. He watches you, even now.”
    “Who?” Anne asked. “Compton?”
    Bess Boleyn laughed softly. “Your brother the duke. He was born, I think, with a suspicious nature.”
    “Say rather that it was bred into him.”
    In common with many others at court, including the woman standing beside her, the Stafford siblings were descended from noblemen who had been condemned for treason for choosing the losing side at some point during the seemingly endless conflict between the houses of Lancaster and York. Anne did not remember her father. She’d been an infant when he was executed.
    Bess Boleyn’s grandfather had been Duke of Norfolk at the time of her birth. Her father had been Earl of Surrey. But before she’d been full grown, Norfolk had died in battle and her father, only three months after inheriting that title, had been attainted for treason and imprisoned in the Tower. The unmarried daughters of attainted noblemen had little to offer a husband. Anne had wed a younger son of an earl. Bess had married Tom Boleyn, a gentleman whose grandfather had been a London merchant.
    Although Bess was a few years older than Anne, and had three small children at home, she was young in spirit, with an infectious laugh and a cheerful outlook on life. She had also been a great help to Anne in sorting out who was who at court. That Bess’s father was no longer a prisoner and had been restored to his lesser title of Earl of Surrey gave Anne hope that her brother Hal might soon be granted his freedom.
    “Do you suppose we will remain here at Woking long?” Anne wondered aloud as they circled the great hall, watching the dancers. They were careful to skirt the place where Will Compton stood with two other untitled gentlemen who were high in the new