The Last Boleyn Read Online Free

heard except the lady herself, her royal brother and the dainty, golden-haired maid who held her furred cloak.
    â€œYou will not forget your promise, my lord, not even if I be gone for years,” Mary Tudor had begged her brother Henry.
    The king had answered bluntly with a swift sideways look not even regarding his sister’s sad, upturned face, it seemed to the Bullen girl. “No, of course I shall not forget, lady,” he had said and turned away.
    But that once-treasured memory of meeting the glorious Henry, King of England, while her father hovered solicitously behind her, was tarnished now by these events. And through it all, their beautifully complexioned, raven-haired queen was trying to be brave.
    â€œAlas, my dears, my husband the king says he wishes me to be a French queen to him and not surrounded by those who would cushion me from French ways. For now,” she put her graceful hand on Lady Guildford’s trembling arm, “we must obey. Perhaps when he is assured of how honest and true a French queen he has, though English Tudor blood flows proud in her veins, he will relent.”
    â€œWhen your dear brother our Lord King hears of this cruelty, he shall have words for His Majesty, indeed,” flared the quick-witted Rose Dacre. “I shall tell him of it straightaway upon our return, Madam!”
    â€œWe must remain calm, Rose, and surely my brother will know of this...this problem, before you could tell him. I pray he will always remember his promised duties to his loyal sister.” She smiled a wan but, to Mary, a dazzling smile.
    The queen caught Mary’s serious face, and their eyes held. “His Grace
did
relent one tiny bit, Mistress Boullaine, for indeed he said he never meant that you must leave, since you are but a maid and sent to his court partly for a French education. His Majesty said he never meant
‘la petite blonde Boullaine’
was to be dispatched.”
    She held out her hand to the girl, and Mary walked the few steps radiantly aglow, despite the surprised stares of the other English ladies.
    â€œMadam, I am so pleased to be allowed to stay.” She curtseyed, then straightened. “Would that the others dearer to you might remain, but I shall do all I can to keep your company.”
    The graceful answer pleased the queen and seemed to soothe the others who clustered about her for a solemn farewell. There would be no grievous departure scenes in public to kindle court gossip and the wicked snickers of which the mannered elite of the realm were fully capable. Mary Bullen’s goods were hastily unpacked and with long last glances and curtseys and clinging of hands, Mary found herself, for the first time, alone with her adored Mary Tudor, the lonely new Queen of France.

    It seemed most natural to the queen and most wonderful to the young Mary that they were frequently together in the next few months after the English ladies were banished. The feasts, the dancing, the masques went on without ceasing, although the elderly and ailing King Louis was often too weak to enjoy them. The young queen immersed herself in the royal revelries to the growing delight of most of the courtiers who would have been obliged to feel they should diminish their frivolities because their king was temporarily indisposed. Always nearby, lurked the charming, clever, and handsome Dauphin Francois; only twenty, but ageless in wit and watchfulness. The young queen found him engaging and quite irresistible, so the young Mary Bullen thought. To her ten-year-old eyes, he sparkled with glamor, magnetism and fascination.
    And the sensitive, young English companion to the French queen, who observed much but participated little because she was yet a child, idolized her laughing mistress. Yet, though the queen seemed often among the courtiers, she was never really part of them. Indeed, the fair Reine Marie seemed to wish that time would fly on swifter wings.
    Often when they were