Free The Merry Monarch's Wife by Jean Plaidy Page B

far more agreeable than the grand banquet they are having downstairs.”
    â€œIt is the most enjoyable meal I ever had,” I told him.
    We kissed over the tray, and I was happier than I had ever been before in the whole of my life.
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    I SPENT MY WEDDING NIGHT alone in my bed. Charles was so considerate that he realized I was too overcome by the excitement for anything else.
    I scarcely slept. How rarely is the realization more delightful than the dream itself! That was what I believed had happened to me.
    How charming he was! He had a nonchalant air, a carefree manner which implied that everything would be well if left to him. And above all, there was his kindness. I remembered how grim Don Francisco had become when I had told him I must have a Catholic marriage ceremony. How different from my dearest Charles! It was a delicate matter, I knew. I was asking something which had to be performed in private because the people here would not have wanted it to take place. But he had immediately understood how much it meant to me. He was wonderful. I must be the happiest woman in the world.
    He was in the room early next morning asking me, with the utmost tenderness, how I was.
    I told him I was completely well.
    â€œWe shall take care of you,” he said.
    Then he talked of our honeymoon which, he said, if I were agreeable, should be spent at his palace of Hampton Court.
    I said that would be most agreeable.
    â€œIt is one of my favorite palaces,” he told me. “You will enjoy it, as I shall. It is a place where a great deal has happened and I shall tell you of some of this. It was built many years ago…four hundred, I think, and much later it was bought by a man who is very well known in our history. He was called Cardinal Wolsey. He displeased the King, Henry VIII, who took the palace from him, and it has been royal property ever since.”
    â€œI want to see it very much.”
    â€œWe shall dally there for a while. You will like the gardens. You will like the river which runs alongside, and you will not be afraid of the ghosts who haunt the palace, because I shall be there to protect you.”
    I told him I should not feel afraid of anything if he were there.
    Now our relationship had deepened. I was young, innocent and ignorant. He, as I learned later, was as well versed in the art of lovemaking as anyone on the earth. And I was sure he must have been born with it. How charmingly and romantically he initiated me. And what an apt pupil I was. I believed I delighted him. I did not realize then that it was because of my innocence, which must have made me very different from most of the women he had known. Few would have lived such a sheltered life as I had.
    I found life enchanting. We were together for most of the days and nights during the time we spent in Portsmouth; and we were to leave for Hampton Court as soon as enough carts could be found to take the court there.
    Charles joked about the Portuguese costumes which my ladies had brought with them.
    â€œIt is fortunate that the ladies of England do not follow the same fashions. If they did, there would not be enough carts in England to carry them and their belongings from place to place.”
    It was about four days after our wedding when we left for Hampton Court.
    What a welcome we received there! There were two reasons for rejoicing. It was the twenty-ninth of May, the King’s thirty-second birthday, and the second anniversary of his restoration to the throne. The English loved excuses for holidays and pageants and making merry. Moreover, Charles told me, they were also celebrating his marriage and my arrival in England.
    â€œSo you see, my love, there is ample reason for rejoicing.”
    There were bonfires all along the route. People lined the roads to see the King and Queen. They shouted loyal greetings and threw garlands at us. We smiled and waved as we passed along.
    They seemed pleased to