The lovers clasped hands, and from a recess watched the gay company.
“There goes the King!”
“Who thinks,” said Anne, laughing, “to disguise himself with a mask!”
“None dare disillusion him, or ’twould spoil the fun. It seems as though he searches for someone.”
“His latest sweetheart, doubtless!” said Anne scornfully.
Percy laid his hand on her lips.
“You speak too freely, Anne.”
“That was ever a fault of mine. But do you doubt that is the case?”
“I doubt it not—and you have no faults! Let us steal away from these crowds. I know a room where we can be alone. There is much I would say to you.”
“Take me there then. Though I should be most severely reprimanded if the Queen should hear that one of her ladies hides herself in lonely apartments in the house.”
“You can trust me. I would die rather than allow any hurt to come to you.”
“That I know well. I like not these crowds, and would hear what it is that you have to say to me.”
They went up a staircase and along a corridor. There were three small steps leading into a little antechamber; its one window showed the river glistening in moonlight.
Anne went to that window and looked across the gardens to the water.
“There was surely never such a perfect night!” she exclaimed.
He put his arms about her, and they looked at each other, marveling at what they saw.
“Anne! Make it the most perfect night there ever was, by promising to marry me.”
“If it takes that to make this night perfect,” she answered softly, “then now it is so.”
He took her hands and kissed them, too young and mild of nature to trust entirely the violence of his emotion.
“You are the most beautiful of all the court ladies, Anne.”
“You think that because you love me.”
“I think it because it is so.”
“Then I am happy to be so for you.”
“Did you ever dream of such happiness, Anne?”
“Yes, often...but scarce dared hope it would be mine.”
“Think of those people below us, Anne. How one pities them! For what can they know of happiness like this!”
She laughed suddenly, thinking of the King, pacing the floor, trying to disguise the fact that he was the King, looking about him for his newest sweetheart. Her thoughts went swiftly to Mary.
“My sister...” she began.
“What of your sister! Of what moment could she be to us!”
“None!” she cried, and taking his hand, kissed it. “None, do we but refuse to let her.”
“Then we refuse, Anne.”
“How I love you!” she told him. “And to think I might have let them marry me to my cousin of Ormond!”
“They would marry me to Shrewsbury’s daughter!”
A faint fear stirred her then. She remembered that he was the heir of the Earl of Northumberland; it was meet that he should marry into the Shrewsbury family, not humble Anne Boleyn.
“Oh, Henry,” she said, “what if they should try to marry you to the Lady Mary?”
“They shall marry me to none but Anne Boleyn!”
It was not difficult, up here in the little moonlight chamber, to defy the world; but they dare not tarry too long. All the company must be present when the masks were removed, or absent themselves on pain of the King’s displeasure.
In the ballroom the festive air was tinged with melancholy. The Cardinal was perturbed, for the King clearly showed his annoyance. A masked ball was not such a good idea as it had at first seemed, for the King had been unable to find her whom he sought.
The masks were removed; the ball over, and the royal party lodged in the two hundred and forty gorgeous bedrooms which it was the Cardinal’s delight to keep ready for his guests.
The news might seem a rumor just at first, but before many days had passed the fact was established that Henry, Lord Percy, eldest son and heir to the noble Earl of Northumberland, was so far gone in love with sparkling Anne Boleyn that he had determined to marry her.
And so the news came to the ear of the King.
The King was purple with fury. He sent for him to whom he always turned in time of trouble. The Cardinal came hastily, knowing that to rely on the favor of a king is to build one’s hopes on a quiet but not extinct volcano. Over the Cardinal flowed the molten lava of Henry’s anger.
