At the King's Pleasure (Secrets of the Tudor Court) by Kate Emerson

after she’d been bundled into these warm accessories did he signal for one of his Merry Men to strum the lute he carried.
    With great care, the king danced with his wife. George partnered Anne, and others of the Merry Men persuaded the remaining giggling ladies to join in. Anne could tell by the look on Bess Boleyn’s face that she was dancing with her Tom, but was less certain of the identities of the other gentlemen.
    “Who is that?” she whispered to George, angling her head toward the Merry Man dancing with the Maid Marian.
    “Harry Guildford.”
    “And the woman?”
    He laughed and shook his head. “No one but Harry knows that. He’s the one who arranged the disguising.”
    Solicitous of the queen’s health, the king insisted that she rest after only one dance. Her Grace sank gratefully into a padded chair, one hand resting protectively over her womb, but she watched with apparent pleasure as her husband and his band of Merry Men disported themselves with her ladies.
    Anne took her cue from the queen and gave herself over to enjoying the unexpected respite from morning Mass. She danced with her brother Hal and then with a man she thought was Harry Guildford’s older half brother, Sir Edward, although she could not be sure. He barely spoke two words to her. It hardly mattered. Flirtation with “strangers” was the order of the morning.
    When His Grace selected Anne to be his next partner, having already danced with Bess and Elizabeth and Isabel de Vargas, too, she accepted the honor with exaggerated delight. “Ooh, you’re a big one, Master Robin Hood,” she cooed, and fluttered her eyelashes at him.
    Amused, the king responded in kind, playing his role of outlaw to the hilt. “The better to hold you for ransom, mistress,” he declared. “Now you must give me a kiss to pay for your freedom, or it’s off to the greenwood with me and my men.”
    Before she could think of some witty response, His Grace had cupped his big hands beneath her elbows and lifted her off the ground. When her lips were level with his, he met them with a kiss that made up with enthusiasm what it lacked in finesse. Anne felt the heat rush into her cheeks as he set her down again, but she managed not to stumble as he led her into the first movements of a lively country dance.
    Less than two weeks later, the queen went into labor prematurely. The child, a daughter, was stillborn. Anne wondered ever after if the king’s early morning raid on his wife’s bedchamber had somehow precipitated the loss.
    His Grace’s response to the tragedy was to assure the queen that they were young yet and would have more children.

13
Bletchingly, Surrey, February 14, 1510
    A fter more than ten years in the Duke of Buckingham’s household, Madge Geddings was accustomed to the duke’s rages. It did not take much to set him off. Last month, he’d been upset about a romp instigated by the king—an early morning raid on the queen’s bedchamber. Madge had been unable to decide if the duke had been so chagrined because King Henry’s companions were all “upstarts,” as he called them, or because he’d been left out of the fun.
    The women of the duke’s household had heard another version of the tale from the duke’s sister, Lady Anne. According to her, the revelers had also included an earl, the duke’s own younger brother, Lord Hal Stafford, and two of the duke’s brothers-in-law, Lord Hastings and Lord Fitzwalter.
    This time, the duke’s temper had apparently been ignited by the fact that the king had granted Lord Hal a title. Buckingham had left court immediately following the investiture of his brother as Earl of Wiltshire, a ceremony that had taken place with great pomp at Westminster.
    “I should have thought that such an honor coming into his family would please His Grace,” Madge whispered to Bess Knyvett.
    “Hah!” Bess said, but softly. “Nothing ever satisfies him.”
    Bess should know, Madge thought. She had already been one