Prisoner of the Queen (Tales From the Tudor Court) (16 page)

“I would be most pleased.”

“Your pleasure
is
what I seek,” he said in a near-whisper.

If
’twas possible, my face grew hotter, until I thought for certes flames would come shooting from my flesh. The man was flirting with me, and while I’d been flirted with many times, never before had a man made me feel so…so…breathless! I wanted to dance, and twirl, and sing. So unlike me.

While I
enjoyed his company, and even dared to dream of a kiss from this handsome courtier, I was also scared. How could one man make me feel this way? I’d been warned to never align myself to any one man. My duty was to England, and if I were to be joined to a man, it would be of the queen’s choosing. Not even my parents were at liberty to make that decision, after what had happened with my first marriage. But this was what I wanted—in my secret heart of hearts—a man to love, cherish, start a family with, grow old with.

I held my breath for a few moments to still my beating heart, so that when I finally felt able to answer, I did not squeak like an innocent
schoolgirl. “I shall eagerly await your instruction.”

The heated gaze
Ned threw my way was anything but innocent. His hooded lids hid a thousand sinful words. I felt it all the way to my toes in a tingling whirlwind. A premonition of our flirtations turning dangerous flitted across my mind, but I pushed it away. I wanted to be happy. I wanted the promise of love that this man seemed to be offering.

Nevertheless, I could not shake t
he feeling of unease, and when Mass ended, I retired to my room, begging not to be disturbed.

“I suppose I shall forgive you, Lady Katherine.” Ned came to stand in front of me while I pegged first one and then another clove into an orange. His hair was mussed, as he’d just come in from a ride, but his eyes twinkled, his lips full and curved in a crooked grin.

I raised a brow,
momentarily stunned by his proclamation, then smiled. I set the orange on the trestle table in the great hall. A cursory glance showed a few servants on the perimeter, but other than that we were completely alone. “Whatever for?”

“The death of my father.”

His words were shocking, and I gasped, taken aback and at once confounded by the contradiction in his words and his merry expression. I had expected him to say something about not taking up his offer to learn a game of cards.

He must
have been teasing me, for I could find no other meaning for it. But it wasn’t funny. I felt a little addlebrained, as if I were missing a huge piece of a puzzle that I should know. I swallowed, rolling his words around in my mind. “How have I anything to do with the death of your father?”

I was suddenly uncomfortable in my own skin. Wracking my brain for all clues.

Ned picked up the half-finished pomander and sniffed, closing his eyes a moment in pleasure. “There truly is nothing better than the scent of citrus and cloves, my lady. As to my sire’s death, it is not you specifically, but your own father who signed the Lord Protector’s death warrant.”

Guilt riddled me for my father’s sins. How much pain had his schemes cause
d to others and not just myself and my sister? I stared at Ned, my mouth dry.

He plopped
the pomander back on the table and smiled. Did the man have no shame? He spoke so flippantly, as if we discussed the weather or the latest hunt. I narrowed my eyes, for I did not follow his line of thinking and did not find humor in his words or the situation as he seemed to. Here I had thought our courtly banters were meaningful, that perhaps… something more would come of them. Had I been so naïve?

“I am truly sorry for
what transpired, my lord, but I pray you not judge the child for the sins of the father.”

His gaze locked with mine
, and he picked up the pomander and set it back in my hand, his fingertips brushing my palm, causing a shiver to race over the extended limb.

“
Oh, Katherine, I could never blame you, truly. My words come out in not the way I intended. I hoped to make a jest of something that mars both our hearts. I know your father, too, was executed, I meant no harm, my lady, only to bring up the fact that we have both shared a similar past. Fathers who have been executed in the name of treason. Perhaps I have gone about it in the wrong way. I pray I have not given offense.”

I shook my head, sad in my heart.
“I will endeavor not to be offended. But—”

“Yes?”

Despite his excuse that he wished to broach a topic on which we had similar backgrounds, I was still perplexed at this conversation. “There is one subtle difference that you have not mentioned, my lord.”

“And what is that, sweet lady?”
His eyes were still merry, and his lips so full as they smiled at me, despite my conflicted emotions. I wanted to reach out and stroke a finger over their soft red length.

I swallowed away my base
r desires. “My father was guilty, and yours was not.”

He chuckled softly, lifted a leg to place his foot on the bench where I sat, and leaned forward
, his elbows on his bent knee. His presence was overwhelming, his size, his stance, all drew my eyes to the muscle that converged beneath his silken hose and velvet doublet.

I sucked in my breath, felt my heart jump in my breast.

“’Tis all in the eyes of the beholder, my lady. Certainly my father was not guilty of most of the charges that eventually brought about his death, but he was guilty of things in the past that would have come to the forefront sooner or later.”

I wondered at his meaning in that statement. Were there things the Lord Protector had done that were treasonous? Things his son knew of?
Ned did not look ashamed. He must have seen the questioning look on my face.

“Do not fret, my lady,
’twas all for the good of England and for his young nephew. Nothing he would have been ashamed of or changed if God reversed the wheel of time.”

His words comforted me
, and I smiled. I certainly could not say the same, however, about my own father, and my lips twitched, making my smile feel forced.

Ned took my hand in his and brushed his lips over the knuckles while placing his other hand over his heart.
“I am sorry to have been so callous.”

My heart skipped a beat, and heat seared a path from my hand to my chest
. If I’d had a fan, I would have whipped it open and furiously waved it upon my person. “There is no need to apologize. While we both may be the product of our parents’ unions, it does not mean that we are they.”

“A very astute observation
. However, there are those who would judge us for our sire’s deeds.”

“Let us pray they do not
, since both of our sires were taken forcefully from this earth.” While Ned had said his words with a bit of a laugh in his voice, a subtle quirk of lips, my words were more clipped and came off sounding short. I wanted to be carefree and light, but in the end our pasts were not the same at all. His father had been essentially murdered, and by my own father, who’d also seen to the destruction of my sister, his own daughter. For him to have brought the topic up only caused me pain.

I turned away and started to jab cloves into the orange, taking my frustration out on the fruit and spice.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Ned bow, his face devoid of emotion—which in itself was a message loud and clear that he was distancing himself. “My apologies once more if I have given you offense.”

I
swiveled my head to face him, opened my mouth to protest, but he turned from me and was gone. The entire meeting left me feeling drained, bereft and confused. Had he really only meant to find something we had in common and share it? Perhaps he felt sad about his father’s death and wanted only to seek comfort, and I’d stomped down his emotions and feelings as if they meant nothing.

Prior to that moment, I had been sure a romance was blooming between us.
I’d begun to daydream of a wedding day where Ned waited patiently for me to be given to him in God’s name. The notion had been broached before, and I desperately wanted it to be broached again.

I frowned down
at the oak table, shiny with a new coat of wax the servants had labored to stroke into the wood. Those years before, the promise of a new life had seemed so clear, so bright. Yet nothing had come of it. Granted, Father had most likely destroyed any plans the duchess may have had in mind, but what exactly had he said? There was more to be said about my status than even I knew.

I scratched absently at the table. “
No one ever tells sweet Katherine anything,” I muttered. “Too flighty to bother with such mature talk. Too interested in flower-picking and her pets to worry over marriages and alliances.”

I breathed a shaky sigh. I couldn
’t help it if I preferred pleasure over politics. That I enjoyed the warmth, undying loyalty and love my sweet pets afforded me. How could I be blamed for enjoying the sweet scent of jasmine, roses, lavender? Or the thrill of mixing herbs into a tincture I knew would save a life?

Perhaps it was time I did pay more attention
to the political side of life. If I was to get what I wanted—to experience love in its true form with the man I wanted to spend my life with, then I would need to listen and plan. Let the outside world continue to think me a capricious, untamed lady.

I would show them in the end.

June 30, 1558

“Oh, the house certainly is much happier when Lord Edward arrives within it,”
Mrs. Helen said boisterously as she opened the curtains and started to pull a fresh chemise, hose, kirtle, skirts, stomacher and sleeves—matching various shades and shaking her head, thrusting one back in before pulling out another.

“Whatever do you mean?” Since our conversation regarding our fathers
, Edward had disappeared from Hanworth, much to my dismay—although it had afforded me time to speak with Jane a little about her mother and brother. She’d eyed me too curiously, though, and so I had not dared to bring myself into the conversation again. Not that I did not trust Jane, for I did with all my heart, but the walls had ears. In fact, the floors and paintings and tapestries, too. I almost let out a laugh thinking of all the eyes blinking through the décor to spy on what one’s tongue might let slip.

“Why, he has returned, my lady. And he has requested your presence in the great hall.”
Mrs. Helen turned with a rust-red skirt, matching sleeves and stomacher embroidered with gold swirling threads. “The gold kirtle, my lady? Or perhaps the green?”

“Gold.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed and went to the chamber pot behind a screen to relieve myself. “Why do you think he has requested me?”

I stood to wash my hands, face and privy parts in the tepid but fresh rose-scented water Mrs. Helen fixed. She popped her head around the corner, grinning from ear to ear, her gray hair falling in wisps from her hood as it always seemed to do when she was excited.

“You know I do not tell tales, my lady.” But judging from the eager look in her eyes
, she was bursting to the brim with wanting to tell.

Unbidden, the compulsion to
tease dominated. “You are right, I should not have asked. It would be a grave sin for one to gossip, and I am morally obligated to see to your soul.”

The plump older woman pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, studying my face as if trying to discern
whether I was jesting.

Unable to hold it in any longer, I
laughed and bounded out from behind the screen. “Come now, Mrs. Helen, if you are aware of why a handsome, charming young man has asked for my singular attention, I would hope you would be so kind as to divulge the information.”

“Well, perhaps I know naught,” she said with a decidedly fake pout.

“Hmm…” I tapped my chin and fingered a pearl-lined hairpin on my dressing table, then turned with a mischievous smile. “Would a new bauble loosen your tongue?”

“I could never take such from you, my lady.”

“Oh, ’tis a gift. Besides you are the one and only, my most loyal servant and companion.”

“Then I shall be glad to accept it, but not on account of telling you all that I know.”