The Queen's Mistake, Page 6

  That single memory that she had of him flashed across her mind again; he was handsome, full of humor and so sophisticated. She could not quite imagine what she would do the next time she was shown into his presence. This time, they would not meet in the modest surroundings of Horsham, but at his own magnificent royal court. She only prayed she would not prattle on like a silly child, as she had done the last time when she was a child and he had visited their home with Queen Jane.

  Finally, the party dismounted in the gravel-covered courtyard near a large door in a three-story stone building dominated by large mullioned windows. She glanced up and yet tried not to stare. She must try at least to look as if she belonged in a place like this. A moment later, two young women came through the door together and approached her. They were older than she was, yet sumptuously and fashionably dressed—one in a scarlet-colored silk dress with a square neckline, the other in green damask with great bell sleeves. Both of them wore chains of gold and pearls at their slim waists.

  Catherine twisted her riding gloves nervously at the sight of them approaching.

  “I am Lady Douglas,” said the woman in scarlet.

  “And I am the Marchioness of Dorset, but you may call me Frances.”

  Catherine curtsied to them, knowing exactly who they were. Both were the king’s nieces, Frances being the daughter of the king’s beloved sister, Mary, who had died seven years earlier, and Charles Brandon. Their love story from a quarter century earlier had become legend already.

  Margaret, Lady Douglas, was the daughter of Henry’s other sister, who had gone away to become Queen of Scotland. Henry VIII was well known for keeping those most dear to him nearby . . . unless they betrayed him.

  “You’re to follow us. We shall get you settled while the queen is at dinner with His Majesty,” said Lady Douglas with a kind though slight smile.

  Catherine turned back to Dorothy Barwick. For the first time in days, she felt a twinge of regret that Dorothy’s journey was to end here, as this older woman was her last connection to the safety and predictability of Horsham. Once Dorothy left, she would be entirely on her own.

  “Can you not come with me for just a little while?”

  “They will feed us and give us time to rest. Then the dowager duchess made us promise to be on our way back to Horsham directly,” she said in a kind, understanding tone. “This is something you must do on your own, child. Your uncle would not want me with you. I certainly do not present the right image.”

  Catherine felt the sting of tears in her eyes. “Forgive me for being angry these past few days. I know you have only ever tried to help me.”

  Dorothy moved nearer and pressed a gentle kiss onto Catherine’s forehead. “You have been like a daughter to me, Cat, and I sometimes have behaved too much like a mother for my own good. Take care, dear girl. Watch yourself here. Behind all of the elegance are ruthless people, many of whom will see you as a threat to their own plans.”

  “How could I be a threat? I am here hopefully as a maid of honor to the queen.”

  “Never forget who your cousin was, or how she met her death.”

  With that, Lady Douglas interrupted them. “Follow us, if you please, Mistress Howard.”

  Catherine turned back one final time, unable to see Dorothy for the tears that now clouded her eyes. “I shall write to you.”

  “No, you won’t, child.” Dorothy smiled. “But I understand.”

  Catherine followed the two noble nieces compliantly then, without looking back again. She could not at that moment bear to see the familiar face a final time. They went through the open door and into the vast, cold north wing of the palace, then quickly climbed a wide stone staircase brightened by stained-glass windows bearing images of crosses and shields in red, green and blue. In the silence, with only the sound of shoe heels and the swish of skirts, her heart began to pound.

  I really am on my own now, Catherine thought.

  There would be no turning back.

  The queen’s apartments were a crowded, jumbled mix of German and English voices, which Catherine heard as she was shown into the stately presence chamber. The room itself was large and cold, with rich, intricate paneling on the walls and ceiling, and two great leaded glass windows curtained in sapphire blue velvet bearing the king’s coat of arms woven onto the fabric in gold thread. The furnishings, however, were clearly German pieces that Anne must have brought to comfort her. They were heavy and ornate in style, darker wood than anything English, and adorned with brightly painted flowers and words Catherine did not recognize. Two women sat in a corner near the fire in high-backed chairs before a small table, silently sewing. They did not look up as she and the king’s nieces passed them.

  “Now then, you will attend Her Grace here along with us. She takes dinner every day at this hour, often with the king, and if you are not one who is chosen to accompany her to her meal you will remain here to dine with the rest of us. Then you are free to read, play cards or sew, as we all do, until she returns. Queen Anne is a fair and generous woman who likes her ladies happy, so I trust you shall not find your role among us too taxing,” said Lady Douglas.

  “Have I particular duties for the queen?”

  For the first time, Margaret’s rosy Tudor smile bore a spark of arrogance. “Maids of honor are companions to the queen, Mistress Howard. We are here for her pleasure, to accompany Her Grace in prayer, on walks, or to dinner, if it pleases her. Surely your uncle explained all of that to you.”

  “Or perhaps your cousin before her death?” chimed Frances with surprising condescension.

  “I did not know the previous Queen Anne,” Catherine replied, struggling to keep the tone of self-defense from her voice. Showing fear with sophisticated women like this could do her no good.

  “We sleep with Her Grace in shifts, at her pleasure as well, one beside her, another on the small bed opposite her own. For those who do not sleep with Her Grace, there are other rooms attached to the household where you will be able to rest alone.”

  “And if the king desires to visit his wife for an evening?” Catherine could not resist asking, genuinely surprised that a woman so freshly wed would have a well-established system of sleeping companions with her ladies, and not her husband. But then she saw Frances and Margaret exchange another of their small, furtive glances.

  “You really do not know?” Frances asked.

  “Your uncle did not tell you that either?” Margaret Douglas chimed in.

  “The king does not find that sort of pleasure in his wife’s company.” A third voice came from behind her. The tone was sweet and young but as firm as the other two had been. Catherine pivoted around to see another woman of her approximate age in a compelling green satin dress, with a heart-shaped face. Catherine could see beneath the crown of her hood that her hair was pale yellow.

  “But they were married not even four months ago.”

  “Yes, and gossip is that Master Cromwell is about to pay for that particular mistake, in all likelihood rather dearly, if your uncle and my lord the Bishop of Winchester have anything to say about it.”

  “Then why am I here to be added to her household if Anne of Cleves is not to have a household at all for much longer?”

  “You really have been out in the country too long, haven’t you? Good luck at this court, with your lack of sophistication.” Frances chuckled before turning away and walking over to another table that held wine ewers and goblets.

  “Oh, Frances, you needn’t be so harsh about it,” the third girl said. “I am Jane, Lady Rochford,” she continued, turning to Catherine. “And I do agree that you would do well to be cautious here.”

  “I am discovering that rather swiftly.”

  Viscountess Rochford. She knew the name. Of course, yes. Jane had been married to Anne Boleyn’s brother, George. Jane’s testimony against her own husband had helped send him to the block right beside Queen Anne. Catherine felt a shiver as she looked into the pretty, gentle face before her. These were
not the simple girls of Horsham—that was for certain. She would need to be very cautious with everything she did and said from now on—most especially about whom she eventually chose to trust.

  After the long trip and the trauma of being thrust into overwhelming opulence and a network of complicated relationships, that night Catherine found the solitude of her small antechamber bedroom jarring. She longed for the sound of laughter, the reassuring movements in the dormitory of other women around her, and the comfort of predictability that was no longer a part of her life. Catherine sat alone on the small bed in a room no larger than her grandmother’s wardrobe. It was a drafty little space with a bed, a side table, a wardrobe closet, and walls unadorned but for the single oriel window. She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around them. At the foot of the bed her trunk lay open. She caught sight of her mother’s chemise and the new blue French hood. She would wear them both tomorrow for her introduction, along with her mother’s silver chain and ruby.

  And something else that had just arrived.

  At the foot of the bed lay a suitably fashionable blue velvet gown to match the hood. The duke had made her wait for that. Another symbol of his total dominance over her, not only as the head of her family but also as the person who could tell her what to say, with whom to speak, and even what to wear.

  Catherine laid her head on her knees and her loose auburn curls tumbled forward, hiding her tear-brightened eyes like a veil. She was meant to be here. It was the life her resourceful mother had hoped she would have. The life she might have had all along had she not been orphaned. Those days were gone, she told herself. And she tried not to think too much about what would happen tomorrow with these women of the court, and with a new queen who apparently was not in any more favor than she.

  Agnes held on to the polished oak rail of her staircase at Horsham as she climbed it with slow, labored steps. She was feeling drunk and, surprisingly, more than a bit sad at the absence of the little mischief maker. Catherine had been gone for only a single day, yet Agnes had actually begun to miss her, although she had trouble admitting that to herself. What would the excitement around here be now?

  Yes, at least she would miss that. And having to pretend to dislike her.

  The truth was that Catherine had always reminded her of herself as a girl, far too much for the good of either of them. Agnes did not want to revisit the past through one so young and beautiful with a promising life ahead of her; it only made her more aware of the fact that she was now nothing but an aging dowager.

  The foolish child had no idea that Manox and Dereham had both been planned so that Catherine could hone her skills in the time-honored art of seduction. What courtier or king, after all, would ever desire a clueless country beauty for more than a meaningless tumble without the talents to capture, then keep him?

  What Agnes had not anticipated was both boys falling in love with her.

  Beyond that, Anne Boleyn had been a teacher in terms of what would be required of a new Howard girl. Just because Anne had lost control in the end, there was no reason to doubt the formula: Beauty. Resolve. Seduction.

  Howards were not born and raised up to be anyone’s fool. In that respect Catherine would be more than a small challenge, since she still had no idea of the full effect she had on men. But at court she would learn that soon enough.

  He was waiting when Agnes came into her bedchamber, when she was weary and far from interested in seeing him. But it was their dance, as it had been all of these months as he rose up from village boy to page in the opulent house of a duchess. He was magnificent in his simple brown jerkin and nether hose, his coils of honey blond hair loose on his forehead.

  Francis Dereham came to her as she paused near the door and placed his hands on her shoulders in the precise way that she had taught him months ago.

  “Did I invite you here?” she asked coldly, moving away from him and into the room, pausing only to slip off her shoes.

  “You rarely do. Experience has been my teacher.”

  “As you sought to teach my granddaughter?”

  “At Your Grace’s request, as always.”

  What a mature woman of her sixty-three years had longed to believe, what memories of youth had forced upon her, had driven Agnes to more regrets than she could ever count. Years made women pathetic and desperate to rekindle their youth, and she was no exception, no matter what excuses she gave herself for beginning this dance.

  She sank heavily into a carved chair beside the hearth, and he came to her just like always. She was angry that he was here, but she would have been angrier if he had not come at all.

  Ah, the discontent of age, when mirrors and memories were the enemies almost as much as time . . .

  As Francis knelt before her, she held out her bare left foot. He pressed back the hem of her dress in the way that months ago had become their custom and their prelude. It was the one thing he could do for her that she actually missed from a man. Ah, Thomas, she thought. Look what has become of me with you gone. Once I was the social center of court. Entertaining all, confidante to the queen . . . Now I am reduced to seducing a lowly page boy.

  He was plying her toes with deft fingers, and her eyes rolled to a close with the pleasure of the sensation. As Catherine’s life was beginning, her own felt nearly at an end, and the constant realization of that—along with the reason such a young man was truly here—made her angry all over again. Aging was repulsive. At least that is over for you, my love, her mind said silently to her husband, dead sixteen years already. He had been more of a companion in battle than a lover, but she missed his reassuring counsel most now. Yet she resented him nearly as much as she did her stepson, the current Duke of Norfolk, for making her a dowager. For making her feel so old.

  For making her vulnerable to young men like this.

  Francis pressed himself fully onto her, touching featherlight kisses onto her neck as though she were a mistress he actually desired. As though she were Catherine. Agnes pressed away her own sense of disgust, knowing what he likely felt by touching a woman of her years when there were so many willing girls upstairs in the dormitory. But age had its privileges. So did money and power.

  After he had pleasured her and she had done the same for him, he stood to refasten his codpiece and Agnes yawned. It was an audible sound.

  “You do not wish me to stay the night?” he asked, feigning a note of hurt.

  “I have never wished it.”

  “I only thought that perhaps now, with your granddaughter gone, a woman like you might be lonely.”

  “A woman like me?” she repeated, angry anew for putting herself in this position.

  She was useless here and slightly more than pathetic. Manipulating was the only aphrodisiac left in the world to a widowed woman of a certain age, and it had begun to occur to her only after Catherine’s departure that even that paltry joy was now escaping her.

  My house in London, she thought as Dereham smoothed back his hair, so predictable in his speed, so disappointingly like a colt rather than a stallion. He was more a bother now than the game piece he was when she knew she was sharing him with her own granddaughter behind the clueless chit’s back. Youth really was such a predictable bore. As she watched him straighten his jerkin, Agnes realized, for the first time in years, that she missed court. She missed the danger. But most of all, she missed the sight of a man, his passion newly spent, gazing down on her with adoration rather than duty.

  London. Yes. To the city. To the activity.

  To the power.

  She would leave this boy behind because she could.

  Unlike Francis, her only duty was to herself. Pitiful fool, she thought.

  Chapter Five

  May 3, 1540

  Whitehall Palace

  Catherine woke to a shaft of sunlight in her eyes.

  As they fluttered open, she saw Lady Rochford looming over her, hands on her hips, gown in hand. Clearly, Jane was in no mood to tarry.

 
“Well, come on then. We haven’t got all day. The queen is an early riser.”

  “Won’t the king be—”

  “I thought we made that situation clear to you yesterday.” Jane gave a small chuckle, then pulled back Catherine’s bedcovers. Catherine’s skin turned to gooseflesh as she lay in a plain cambric shift and no cap. “Bets are being placed as to how long the Cleves woman will remain queen. Other wagers have gone out as to whether she will actually keep her head if she objects to a divorce. And Boleyns do know a little something about that.”

  Catherine struggled to sit up, sunlight shining in her eyes. That seemed an oddly callous remark from someone capable of such kindness. Boleyns and Howards were indelibly joined by divorce and death.

  “They are married barely four months’ time.”

  “I am told the king calls that a lifetime.”

  Then I am here for nothing, Catherine thought, feeling a little shiver of panic. Now that she had at last broken free, she dreaded an expedited return to Horsham, Manox, Dereham and the sour dowager duchess, which would certainly happen if there were no queen to serve.

  Jane helped her into her shift, stockings, underskirt and the new blue gown from the duke, cinching the pearl-studded bodice tightly. Catherine smoothed out the long, wide sleeves and skirts, thinking the silver thread-lined blue velvet was the most elegant thing she had ever touched. She tried not to think about the hard boning of the stomacher, which prevented her from breathing. She stood before the mirror as Jane bound her hair tightly, drawing tears. A moment later, Jane placed the hood onto Catherine’s head as Catherine watched her own reflection in the mirror before her.

  “Perfect,” Jane proclaimed. “Now a bit of alum. Your cheeks are pale as flour.”