46

THE NEXT ROOM—FILLED WITH THE HANGERS-ON WHO WISHED to be invited but instead clamor for attention separately and alone—is even more stifling. I push through the crowd, through the rooms and down the stairs, out of the donjon and into the upper ward. The yard leads to the lodgings of the court. Courtiers make secret pacts and gossip by the doors. The cobbles clatter with moonlight. At the far end of the yard, I see the flash of gold hair, the lightlessness of black velvet.

The moon has risen high and full, casting silver and shadow over the trees of the great park. I follow Thomas through the gate and down to the river walk. I gulp at air that smells like the end of summer, the fall of leaves, and the river taking the heat from the land.

“What was that?” I call to him.

Thomas turns, the glow of moonlight flashing on his face.

“A poem,” he says soberly, walking backward like a player in a highly choreographed masque. “A trifle. It means nothing. It says nothing.”

“Your poems always mean something, Thomas.” I pursue him, my haste and confusion making my words sharper than I intended. “You think I don’t hear you? Or are you trying to hint that what we once pretended—what we feigned to be—is now real?”

He stops. Only moonlight between us.

“There is so much you don’t know, Anne,” he murmurs, his voice low and mellow like wine. I feel my heart beat again, as if his is speaking directly to it.

I pause. I could tease him. I could flirt. I could challenge him. But I can’t.

“Then tell me.”

I speak seriously. Quietly. I ask for him to spill his greatest secrets. I want to hear them. I want to tell my own.

He searches my face as if he could read there my meaning, my intention. As if he could read the future and see my reaction to whatever he might say next. I step forward, ready.

“You’re heading into dangerous territory, Anne.”

I watch his eyes for a hint of teasing, or a flirtatious wink. There is none.

“I told you to stay away from that family. They can’t be trusted.”

This I didn’t expect. I expected this string—this song—between us to crescendo. But I guess he doesn’t hear it, or hears another song entirely.

“What family?” I ask. But I know. He told me to stay away from the duchess. And her brother. Not her husband, as I originally thought.

“He holds all the cards, Anne. Cards of life and death. He will have whatever he wants, and you . . .” He stops. As if in agony. “He’s your sister’s lover.”

The song within me ends abruptly with a discordant crash.

“Since when have you become my moral compass, Thomas Wyatt? When did you set yourself up to be my confessor? My father?”

“I’d like to offer some advice.”

“No!” My voice pitches higher. “I think you’ve offered enough. I’m sick of your infuriating rules.”

Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. My year at Hever has made me maudlin.

“I’m sick of you,” I lie.

Thomas steps between me and the castle gate and any who watch through it, blocking their view of me. Blocking my voice from them, always aware of the ears and eyes of the court.

“You’re making a show of yourself,” he whispers, his breath quieter than the breeze on my hair.

“I’m always being criticized, Thomas. By you and everyone else. Told who I can or can’t speak to. Be with. What I should look like. I need to be more like everyone else. I need to be seen but not heard. I need to marry a man of my father’s choosing and disappear into oblivion.”

“No!”

Thomas grabs my wrists and squeezes until I look him in the eye. He’s staring at me so intensely that the moon appears to be peering out of him.

“No, Anne. You are better than that. You are not meant to be shackled to a man who binds you into his own perfect image. You don’t want to be known throughout your days as Anne Percy. Or Anne Butler. Or Anne the king’s concubine. You are Anne! Anne Boleyn.”

“I won’t be when I marry.”

“Then don’t.”

I laugh then.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Thomas. My family won’t take care of me forever—no matter how closely the Boleyns stick together. My father looks forward to the day he can foist my expenses off on a rich and profitable husband. Someone who will give back what I’ve taken for so many years. He’d never pay a living for a single woman forever.”

“You can’t live your life being somebody else.”

“But that’s exactly what you asked of me. To do only as you say.”

“I thought I had your best interests at heart.” He steps closer. “But now I see that I really only followed my own interests.”

Still not a tease. Nor a flirtation. This is truth.

“What are your interests, Thomas?”

He doesn’t speak, and it’s as if we’re frozen, our breath stoppered by moonlight. The strand of melody between us singing silently.

“I will not blame your lute,” I finally whisper. “I hear the tune, but I do not know the words.”

His eyes flicker back and forth between mine. Searching. My hands are still wrapped in his, pressed between us.

One step closer, and our bodies will touch. One word, and I will be his.

“What do you want, Thomas?”

“Money.”

Thomas drops my hands and steps away. We both look to see my brother venture out of the shadows.

“George.”

There is warning in Thomas’s voice. And something else. Something that almost sounds like fear.

George walks toward us, and I can see how hard he concentrates on walking a straight line.

“Why are you here, George?” I ask.

“To stop you from causing more of a scene than you already have, Sister. Flirting with the king. Leaving in a rush after a . . . a . . . poet.” The mocking twist to his mouth has returned. The look that says he has found a way to triumph. To disburden himself of Father’s disappointment because someone else can carry that mantle.

“Thomas is my friend.”

But Thomas has taken another step back. The distance feels farther than that between Hever and Allington. Between England and France.

“That’s not possible, Anne. I think you know that. Thomas Wyatt is not your friend. He never was.”

“When I returned to court, everyone ignored me, even you, George. You claimed I did nothing but embarrass you. Father was away and Mary was otherwise occupied. Thomas was the only one who helped me. He steadied me. Kept me sane. Got me noticed.”

“Yes.” George nods. “Got you noticed. That was the point.”

His wide mouth has grown even wider. The grin bares all of his teeth, like a snarl.

“The point?” I glance at Thomas. His face is closed. I turn back to George, who snarls again. “The point of what?”

“The point of the bet.”

The earth falls away beneath me, and the trees along the river close in, looming black and heavy against the sky, spinning like a night full of wine. My lips go numb.

“What bet?”

“George.” Thomas speaks in barely a whisper. As if he hasn’t the strength to protest.

“The one I made with Wyatt. I said over cards one night that no one could ever make a lady out of my awkward little outspoken sister. Wyatt said he could. So I set him a challenge.”

“What kind of a challenge?”

I ask this of Thomas, who seems to be rendered immobile. And speechless, for once.

“That he could make you the court darling,” George says. “That men would want to pay you suit.”

And he laughs. He’s enjoying this.

I have to struggle to make myself heard over the roaring in my ears. “How much did you bet?”

I step closer to Thomas, look him directly in the eye. I cannot read what he’s thinking. My heart no longer feels the beat of his.

“And what did you do with the money?”

“He never got it,” George scoffs. As if just the two of us are having this discussion. As if Thomas isn’t even here.

“Why not?” I don’t turn away from Thomas’s eyes. I already know the answer.

“Because he didn’t win.”