Author's note: I sadly don't owe mr Wyatt, nor the line from a poem of his I took as a title, nor the show. I owe Martha, but it is not that fun. Enjoy and possibly R&R. You'll be rewarded with a Wyatt's kiss.

I love another, thus I hate myself

And wilt thou leave me thus!
Say nay, say nay, for shame!
― To save thee from the blame
Of all my grief and grame.
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay! say nay!
(The Appeal, Thomas Wyatt)

They were numb. His fingers, ink-stained. They were numb, while they fell on the room's laquered door, not finding any strenght, nor even to clench.

They slipped on the slithery wood, leaving behind glittering trails of wine. So much better this way, at least none would have heard him. Not that he cared very much, honestly speaking.

A pale face appeared in the opening, changed its expression, became more visible while the door opened completely and slender hands held him by the loose sleeves of his unlaced, wine-stained shirt, to pull him into the alabaster light-soaked room.

Brown hear, dark eyes. Far too dark, to be honest. But he had no choice.

He didn't offer resistance. He wasn't sure of how he got there himself. In his lucid intervals, if ever he had some lately, he had fought with all his strenghts to refrain from going there. But he was too exausted now to turn his back and step away, and definitely far too desperate to say sorry.

From afar, drowning as he was in the dark and cloudy swamp of alcohol and his own delirium that was never abandoning him for days, Sir Thomas Wyatt heard himself speaking. It seemed like an echo in an almost accusatory tone: "Were thou waiting for me? I've read it in your letter. You were waiting for me...It was you who invited me." This, at least, was true.

He didn't allow her the time to reply. His lips closed harshly on her mouth just opened to answer, kissing it hard, greedily devouring it. His torbid fingers sank into the silky waves of her dressed hair, traced the tiny line of her neck leaving behind the same shiny dump trails they had left on the door.

Such a little neck. So fragile. A single stroke was enough. I've heard the sound of the breaking bone. She was looking to Heavens.

A blind fury seized Thomas while he violently rejected this awful, awful thought with all the ardour of his uselessly living body. How could he be alive still after all that had happened to the others? Blazing rage helped him to gain controll on his own limbs, benumbed by drunkness. He wrapped the little thread of pearls hanging from her neck around his fingers twice, counting the beads like a rosary while his other hand slipped between her breasts. One pearl at time. Now his kisses had become more burning and deep, merciless besieging her, craving and demanding to be welcomed and returned in urgency.

He pushed her backwards on the bed, making her sit, never looking her in the face. Her dress rustled on the rough covers.

"Close your eyes, for my pleasure. Close your eyes, now."

Icy eyes. Icy eyes, so insolent. Pure adoration in the twinkling of her merry mocking laughter. Good God, God Good and Just, Merciful God, give me back that laughter, give it back and I'll give Thee all of my pitiful soul.

Thomas's hand slid under the heavy skirt, his other one insinuating itself through the strings of her corset, tugging at them violently.

He pushed her back on the cushions, his golden locks disappearing in the darkness under the heavy damask skirt, the way his ink-stained fingers had only little before. He heard her moaning, and growled.

More. It was not enough. More. His body was just craving for it, the way it craved that so raging physical contact, the way that desire of his, now without any chance of being satisfied, divoured him restlessly, depriving him of sleep, inspiration, and life.

"Say my name. Say it. Say you are mine forever, say you want me now, say you have not forgotten about my kisses, my skin, never...O, say it...!"

"O Thomas. I do want you...do want you so desperately..."

Among sighs of pleasure, each word simply broken by approaching ecstasy, he could almost pretend that voice was indeed hers. Her voice. If only that little, almost imperceptible note of bitter resignation could not be heard...

Thomas closed his eyes, forcing himself not to care about it, plunging his soul in the reverie, and his tongue in the abyss between coral tights.

When he was on top of her, the orgasm sweeping them away was painful, wild and violent. He covered her eyes with the open palm, hissing.

"My Anne. My beautiful, beautiful Anne."

...

"Will you make me your mistress, after this night?"

Spent, exausted and by then completely clear-headed, Thomas didn't change his expression. He turned on his side, turned his back on her, huddling up like a little kid. His voice, so flat.

"Who knows, my Lady. This is a slippery world. Today we enjoy the pleasures of flesh...tomorrow we'll hang from the gallows tree. Our heads are chopped off from the bodies on which a lover has wantonly breathed, and the beauties that doomed vast empires, may lie at a vagary of Fate in a lake of sparkling blood."

Lady Martha Norfolk sat on the bed, pulling the strings of her untidy corset to make herself decent. She wasn't surprised. His words left no visible trace on her face. Her eyes, too dark blue to be compared to those of the Lady Anne Boleyn – while her hair and complexion definitely matched hers – didn't shed a single tear. They stayed dry, sharp and lucent, observing the night fade into dawn from the window.

He had never dared to come to her rooms in the night before, but she knew he would come again and again now. He had choosen her carefully among all the ladies at Court. She reminded him of her more than the others.

One day, when the images of the dead Queen, the beautiful Anne, the lively and impudent Anne, would become fainter in Sir Thomas Wyatt's sleepless eyes, when the nightmares about sounds of axes striking nacre necks would leave him, releasing him from the torture of waking up each night screaming the name of that always so devotely adored lover of his...then, maybe, Thomas would cease visiting her in the dead of the night, out of his wits, moved by a eagerness so raging and desperate to break her heart.

He would then notice that her sighs were real, sincere. That she really did love him. That his endless despair touched her heart the way his glorious sonnets did, as much as his kisses, meant for another, burned nevertheless on her skin like candle flames. Then he would stop to call her Anne in his ecstasy, his demons would be shut up and his soul, maybe, would find peace.

She sat next to him, motionless as his void and lightless eyes were, staring at nothing. She drew the heavy linen sheets on his bare chest, still slowly moving up and down to regain the regular breathe he had lost after the gloomy intercourse he had just had with the ghost of her ancient lover. Only then, she realized he was slighly shaking. She ran a delicate hand on his hair.

"Sleep, Thomas. Sleep."

FIN