The House Of Allerbrook. Valerie Anand

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      Peter Carew glanced at him thoughtfully, but maintained a tactful silence. After the meal, having been assured that the horses had been groomed and given food, he took his leave and with the grooms, rode off on the last stage of his own journey home to Devon. His home in Mohuns Ottery was still a long way off.

      “He was very kind,” said Jane as she and Francis stood at the door to watch them go. She wished Peter could have stayed. He had felt like a bulwark against whatever it was that was so angering Francis. “He took every care of Lisa and myself and behaved…behaved in a very gentlemanly way. I haven’t told you yet why I’ve come home.”

      “No,” Francis agreed. “And now, my dear sister, send your woman to unpack your belongings and let us sit by the hall fire, and then you can do your explaining. And by all the saints, your excuse had better be good.”

      “You complete fool,” said Francis when he had heard her story. “You unmitigated wantwit! I don’t suppose it will be any use to send you back. Very likely the court wouldn’t have you! I suppose I’ll have to send to Taunton to hire a messenger to let Queen Anna know you’ve reached your home safely. Thank you so much, Jane, for putting me to so much trouble, and for ruining your chances and mine.”

      “Francis, what are you talking about?”

      “You had a unique opportunity, my girl. Rumours get around. They reach us here, far from London though we are. Ralph Palmer is back in the west country now and he brought a tale or two. And there have been others. I went to a fair at Dunster just before Eleanor died. The Luttrells seem to be basing themselves at East Quantoxhead mostly now, but I came across the steward they’ve left at Dunster Castle. He hears from them and they hear plenty of news from the court. He says that the king hasn’t taken to his new queen. And now you tell me he’s had his eyes on you! By the sound of it, you could have become his mistress if you’d gone about it the right way.”

      “But…you wouldn’t want me to do that! Francis, you couldn’t!” It was the last kind of welcome she had expected. It was altogether the wrong response. “You were so angry with Sybil when…”

      “Sybil played the whore with one of my tenants! A man of no importance! You could have had the favour of the king! Think what rewards he might have given you, and your family! In fact, if the Luttrells’ steward was right, the king means to get out of that marriage. Maybe you’d have had a chance to be something more than a mistress, and think what that could do for us!”

      “Yes, I could end up headless!”

      “Nonsense. You would have more sense. I told you that before.”

      “I don’t believe poor Anne Boleyn ever did the things they said she did. She just didn’t have a son, that’s all. No woman can guarantee that!”

      “And many women do have sons! Why shouldn’t you? But you had to panic like a silly milkmaid and run away!”

      “I can’t believe this,” said Jane despairingly. “Francis, you can’t have wanted me to…to…”

      “It could have sent our fortunes soaring. I grieve for Eleanor. I miss her every day and I’ll mourn her decently. But in time I’ll look for another wife, and with you at the king’s side, I might have looked high. I might have been given a valuable appointment, a title! We live in a harsh world, full of competition—didn’t I say something like that to you before? But now, thanks to you, in King Henry’s eyes I’ll be just the brother of the girl who said no. What am I going to do with you?”

      There was a silence, furious and disappointed on Francis’s side, furious and frightened on Jane’s. It went on until the sound of honking and barking outside announced that a new visitor had come. Francis got up and went to the window.

      “Ah. It’s Harry Hudd. He had an errand to Exford and I asked him, while he was about it, to look at a young horse I’d heard of, a very uncommon colour, apparently. Copper’s getting old. I told Harry to buy on my behalf if the animal was sound. Why, yes.” Francis, for the first time since Jane’s return, sounded pleased. “Come and look. There’s a man in Exford who breeds unusual-looking horses. He bought a stallion from Iceland—not a large animal, but he’s been crossing him with bigger mares and this is one of the results. Look at that.”

      Jane joined him at the window. Harry Hudd, as red faced and gap-toothed as ever, was in the farmyard, swearing at the gander while simultaneously dismounting from his Exmoor gelding and grasping the halter of a striking young horse, nearly sixteen hands tall and gleaming black, except for its mane and tail which were silvery white.

      “Harry’s a good reliable man,” Francis said, “though I grant you he’s no beauty.” He paused, and then, as one to whom an interesting new idea has occurred, he said, “He’s been talking for a couple of years of getting married again but the trouble is, he hasn’t been able to find a young woman willing to take him. He wants a young wife. He’s a bit like the king—feels the need of a son.”

      At which moment, Jane became sickeningly aware of two things.

      One was that she wished wholeheartedly that she had journeyed on to Mohuns Ottery with Peter Carew. She had tried not to fall in love with him, but at some point on the ride to Somerset she had given him her heart and he had ridden away with it. She was in love with Peter Carew and more than that; she loved him, which was not the same thing at all, but much bigger. It was the for better for worse love that could hold for a lifetime and face, with sorrow but not dismay, the inevitable end of life, in illness and old age. There was nothing to be done about it. Weirdly, it could well have been easier for her to marry the king than a Carew.

      Marriage to Peter was a dream that could not be realized. It was also a dream that would not die until she did.

      The other was that Francis was very angry with her indeed and that he had seen a way, a most appalling way, of getting his revenge.

       Part Two

      THE SILENT OATH 1540–1541

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      Bad Dreams Can Come True 1540

      It had been a bad dream. Just a bad dream, nothing more. Opening her eyes on a September dawn, Jane wondered how she could possibly have dreamed that she was married to Harry Hudd and living at Rixons Farm, no longer a Sweetwater lady entitled to spend all day on fine embroidery if she chose, but working from daybreak to nightfall and spending the night in the bed of an unprepossessing middle-aged farmer. What a silly fantasy! Of all the absurd…

      She woke up fully and, not for the first time, discovered that the bad dream was real. She really was in Harry Hudd’s lumpy bed and beside her, Harry was just waking up. He opened first one watery blue eye and then the other and grinned his gap-toothed grin. “Ah. Me liddle darling. Just time afore the milkin’, eh?” he said in a throaty tone that she recognized all too well.

      He rolled on top of her, groping beneath the covers. She tried, as she had often tried before, to close her eyes and pretend that this wasn’t Harry but Peter Carew, but her bedfellow, with his animal odour and his pawing and thrusting and complete absence of anything that could be СКАЧАТЬ