The Secret Bride by Diane Haeger

if he had lived, I know that,” Mary said gently, then she took Katherine’s hands and squeezed them with genuine affection.
    “Will you promise to be honest with me?”
    “Always.”
    Katherine hesitated for a moment. There was a little silence and Mary watched her tugging at the lace on her sleeve in a nervous gesture. “In your heart, do you believe I can be all that he needs?”
    Mary thought of Jane and Henry as she had seen them that day in the maze, and while he did not show more than a passing interest in all of the beauties who had flooded the court since his coronation, the words of her father and her grandmother still resonated in her mind. No matter what he thinks he feels for her, she is not the one to rule England for a lifetime with him. . . . Mary loved her brother, but she loved Katherine as well and she simply could not hurt her like that, no matter how the truth might also have protected her. Along with Jane Popincourt, Katherine of Aragon was the best friend she had.
    “I believe you alone are the helpmate and the great love Henry is going to need. And you will need to be strong to bear his many sons.”
    “The Lord could offer me no greater honor,” she replied, full of conviction.

    Late that afternoon, as the sun began slowly to set, Westminster Hall was bathed in shimmering, luminescent pink light that came up from the snaking waters of the Thames, then filtered in through the long bank of windows. There was a grand coronation banquet in the splendidly decorated great hall, with sumptuous course after course brought in: veal, venison, fish and cheese, jellies and nuts, each borne forth by liveried stewards, to the regal sound of a trumpet fanfare.
    Two hundred gentlemen-at-arms stood guard as Mary sat with the graceful, honey-haired Countess of Oxford to her left and, curiously placed beside her to the right, Charles Brandon. They sat at a long, linen-draped table on an elevated platform with the new king and queen, their grandmother, the Duke of Buckingham, and the Earl of Surrey. The entertainment, a disguising as they dined, was grand and elaborate. That night, as a continuation of celebration of the marriage, two grand mountains were wheeled in, one representing England, the other Spain. The English mountain had been decorated lushly with greenery and topped with a court beauty, who wore flowers in her hair and smiled. The mountain representing Spain was barren, strewn with rocks and yet jewels, to represent the wealth Katherine had brought to them from her presumably spartan world. The gasps and ovations were precisely the reaction Henry wished from his new court, so vastly different from his father’s frugal one, and he laughed out loud at the presentation.
    Dancing followed and the royal musicians had been instructed to play only the brightest tunes, for a young and athletic new king who loved to dance and show off his kicks and turns in spirited branles and saltarellos. Many of the songs had been written by Henry, for whom music had long been not only a hobby but a tonic. As they sat watching, Mary soon felt the pull of Brandon’s steady gaze upon her. As usual, his wife was nowhere to be seen at court. She heard the music for a volte begin but, for a moment, she did not recognize it for how closely he sat, and for how strongly the heady scent of his musk was swirling around her. Brandon was not speaking, only giving her that sideways glance which she could feel powerfully upon her.
    “Dance with me,” he finally bid her, although through the laughter and music around them, she was the only one who heard. Mary glanced around, certain he had requested the company of the Countess of Oxford or perhaps the Marchioness of Dorset beside her. But his glittering eyes, she saw, were settled on her and only her.
    “Dance?”
    He bit back a smile. “That is what one customarily does at these things, and my lady Mary does a tolerably spirited volte, if I remember correctly.”
    “Spirited