Prisoner of the Queen (Tales From the Tudor Court) (34 page)

He pulled away a moment, his face a mask of seriousness.
“I can take it no longer, my love! On the morrow, we shall seek Her Majesty’s approval.”

I nodded, my demeanor just as grave.
“Tomorrow.”

“I love you,” he whispered, sinking
himself inside me, breaking the barrier of my maidenhead.

I cried out at the pinch, but his kiss silenced my pain and made my body shake with a fierce need.
With this moment, our declarations had changed the course of history. As our bodies rocked together in the ancient dance of love, hope rose. We’d taken hold of our future as much as we’d taken hold of one another. The politics of my birth might have denied me of liberty, tried to rob me of my soul, but Ned had set me free. With him I soared.

Let no man tear asunder
.

Chapter
Sixteen

This Falcon scorned to pray abroad,

at home he left his love.

Full many a sigh and heavy look.

he sent along the Seas:

And wished himself in fetters fast,

to doe his Lady ease.

~Thomas Churchyard

Elizabethan Solider and poet

“Shh… In here!” Jane Seymour said, waving her arms to Ned and me. We eagerly plunged our bodies into the darkness of the maiden’s closet while Jane stood watch outside.

“I could not wait to see you alone, Kat,” Ned said, k
issing my lips and cheeks. “Court has kept me busy all the day long.”

I murmured my agreement and slid my arms up around his neck. His mouth felt so good against mine, and the stirring of excitement in my loins built as it had yesterday when we
’d made love for the first time.

“Oh, Kat,” he moaned against my ear. “Would that I could make love to you right here.”

“Why can we not?”

My question was all the confirmation he needed. Ned fumbled with his hose, and I hiked
up my skirts in a billowy cloud around my hips. He lifted me up, and I wrapped my legs around him. He entered me slowly and continued to move with practiced ease, as if he truly wished our coupling to last forever.

Jane
tapped twice, as she’d said she would if someone were to come into the room. We did not move. Ned stayed firmly planted inside me. I could hear muffled voices and the shuffling of feet.

And then Jane whispered through the door that all was well. Ned let out a
long-held groan and gripped my hips firmly, urgently. He buried his face in the length of my neck and quickened his pace, until at last he shuddered and warm stickiness seeped inside me.

“Did you find your pleasure?” he asked, his voice worried, and if I
’d been able to see, I think his eyes would have shown his concern, too.

I ducked my head against his shoulder. “
’Twas very pleasurable.”

“But did you find completion?” he urged.

I felt complete, so I nodded, although I had not in fact felt the explosive climax that I had the day before, which was what he’d most likely meant. Somehow I knew it would not do to tell him such.

“Oh, good.” He set me down and went to work fixing his clothes. I felt around the maiden
’s closet for a piece of scrap linen to wipe between my thighs.

Ned knocked twice upon the door
, and Jane responded with a knock that it was safe for us to exit. When we did, my face felt as if it were aflame, and we must have looked a sight, for Jane blushed clear to her toes.

“Go away from here, Beau. I need to fix Kat up or else the whole of court will know what you
’re about. I hope you are preparing to seek the queen’s permission, too, else you’ll both regret it,” Jane said, her face as stern as her mother’s. “And if you don’t, I shall fetch the priest myself.”

Ned bowed over his sister
’s hand. “My number one priority is to honor Lady Katherine.”

He then bowed to me and blew me a kiss before jauntily walking from the room.

Jane turned to me and shook her head. “You know I love you both, Kat, but you are playing with fire. I meant for you only to meet and kiss maybe, but I can see much more has happened.” She pointed to my mussed hair and wrinkled skirts. “We’d best get it straightened out, or even the mice will know you’ve just rutted in a closet.” She closed her eyes and mumbled a prayer.

I rushed toward Jane and hugged her close. “You shan
’t be sent to the Tower for it, Jane. I have every confidence Her Majesty will give us the permission we seek to marry.”

Jane stared at me a moment, her throat bobbing as she swallowed hard. “I shall pray she does.”

She fixed me up in silence, and we headed back to the festivities at court, as if I’d never been gone. No odd glances came my way, as I had imagined they would. It appeared that I had not been missed, despite the dim sense of foreboding that had come over me from Jane’s warning. But I could not dwell on her words. I had to think positive thoughts. I had to believe Elizabeth would grant us a marriage.

And perhaps I ought to
discreetly ask one of the less-than-prudent maids how she prevented herself from becoming with child. And then a thought struck me. Would it be better, perhaps, to refrain from using such protection, and instead conceive a child so the queen might demand our marriage? A soiled, pregnant princess could not become queen, and no other lord besides Ned would wed me if I was carrying his child. The thought had merit.

August 15, 1560

We arrived at Nonsuch Palace in Surrey, built by my great-uncle Henry VIII. It was a place of fairy tales, with tall turrets, mythological paintings, and garden mazes. Ned and I tried our hardest to keep our distance while in the presence of others, as we feared everyone would see the lust and excitement upon our faces when we gazed at one another. I had yet to approach him with the possible scheme of conceiving.

Queen Elizabeth
had been in one of her worst rages to date, although I hadn’t been made privy as to why. Even still, her moods had affected me as Ned and I had been reluctant to speak with her regarding vows. We would have to wait until she was in a better frame of mind to grant us what we wish. Every person in the realm, from noble duke to lowly peasant, knew the queen would deny everything when in one of her moods. I was not willing to risk my future on it. Besides, the little moments we stole together were worth it—I could not imagine life without Ned.

This evening
there would be a banquet and a masque. Our faces covered, Ned and I would be able to dance the night away without fear of reprisal. The ladies would all be working on their masks today, so ’twas very possible they would recognize mine.
But
, if I made my mask look so much like several others, then there was hope several of us would be named the flirt.

I sat
down upon an oak chair at the table in the queen’s presence chamber with the other ladies of the bedchamber and several maids of honor. The table was piled high with ribbons, feathers, sparkling clay jewels, and stiffened-velvet, colored masks. There were pots of fish glue for adhesive, needles and colored thread.

Over sips of honeyed wine, we sewed, glued and designed our masks, imagining the masque planned for tonight. And all while I prepared my Venus-looking mask, I thought of Ned and how happy he made me.

And how I might let him drag me to a darkened corner for a kiss—but nothing more.

As it happened
, I did not have to actually ask a ripe maid for ways in which to keep myself barren for the time being, as my monthly started after the two times we’d been intimate together. I prayed all night and fasted for three days as penance and have denied Ned since. I would let him kiss me, and touch me—maybe—but I would not let him spend inside me again until we were wed. It was one thing to beg the queen’s permission to wed and be denied, but after some thought, I feared, if we were to beg her permission, and I was with child, ’twould be a disaster. One likely met at the end of an ax.

But I
supposed that teasing Ned was a lot of fun. Mrs. Helen, along with her bee story, always lamented: Who would purchase the sheep if you gave the fleece away for free? I never understood her meaning until now. Why would he have to go through all the work of tending the sheep, keeping it fed, warm, safe, in order to obtain the prize, if said sheep would simply strip and hand him his coat? I would have to be like the sheep who would give nothing without first being taken care of.

“Oh, what joyous masks, ladies!”
Queen Elizabeth admonished, coming into the presence chamber to sit with us. She looked flushed, and I noted that Robert Dudley stood in the doorway of her chamber from whence she’d come. They looked just as Ned and I had coming out of the closet.

Lord Robert
bowed low to us all and when the queen’s gaze shifted to us, his eyes flicked to my cousin Lettice. She raised her eyes, locking on the queen’s Sweet Robin. There, her eyes changed, softened. And Lord in heaven strike me now if Lord Robert did not return her affectionate gaze, if only for a split second.

The
queen, unaware of the exchange, and acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred—for in actuality it was not abnormal for Dudley to be alone in her room—picked up a velvet mask and held a brightly colored green ostrich feather to it. She smiled and chattered away as she designed her mask. ’Twas the first time I’d seen her so joyous in a long time.

What had gone on behind closed doors?

Images of Ned and me inside the darkened closet in the maiden’s chamber flashed into my mind. The kisses…warm breath on my neck, firm hands holding my hips…his rigid member sinking deep inside my flesh…

“Are you quite all right,
cousin?” Elizabeth asked, startling me from my thoughts.

I realized I
’d been staring at her with a bemused look on my face and quickly smiled. “I adore your choice of feathers for your mask. They will go well with your complexion.”

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes but smiled at the same time, as if assessing me to see if what I said was true. “So you think the green feathers will match well with these purple ones?”

She held up the mask to show all of her ladies. All nodded and proclaimed it was the most beautiful mask they’d ever seen. They tittered to the queen and to each other, and I smiled and laughed along with them, but all the while, my mind was turning. I knew the truth. Elizabeth would not seek out any other man than her sweet Robin, as I would seek no other than my sweet Ned. The trick was, finding the right man beneath the mask.

When the ladies had left, and when I was alone with Elizabeth, she said,
“A masque is a wonderful affair. Did you know my father first saw my mother at a masque? He wanted her from that moment on. She was dressed in white, like a goddess, and she danced eloquently. Her feet were covered in silken slippers so delicate her feet could have been bare. He did tell me once while tickling my toes as a child that my feet were the spitting image of my mother’s. Perhaps I shall meet my heart’s true love tonight.”

The beating of drums vibrated the inside of the great hall. Nonsuch was built on fanciful dreams with its immeasurably tall ceilings, the paneled walls emblazoned with life-size gods and goddesses carved from stone. Our host, my own uncle, Lord Arundel, had spared no cost in the added décor of sheer silken cloth of gold hung between pillars in swoops and swags. Sweet-smelling candles of rosemary, honeyed lavender and vanilla were lit by the hundreds.