Gilt (10 page)

“What’s it all for?” Joan asked, her voice hoarse with awe. “New gowns?”

And even I heard the unasked question:
For us?

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Cat said, stepping into the room and whirling in a dizzy spin. “Can you believe the dried-up old bat finally broke down and got me something nice?”

“It must have cost a fortune,” Joan breathed, but disappointment washed her face.

“And it’s all for me!” Cat grinned. “Not a hand-me-down. Not something cut from someone else’s leftovers. Mine. Made especially to fit me.”

I couldn’t quench a spark of envy. Cat and I had always been the same. The same age. Both unwanted daughters. Both wearing castoff clothing. And suddenly she was away at court, meeting new people, wearing new gowns. I was beneath her, just like Mary Lascelles said. A sickly petulance overtook me.

“Jesus, Cat,” I muttered. “How many times can you put
me
and
mine
into one breath?”

Joan squeaked. Cat fixed me with a glare like a rapier thrust. I felt it pierce me. My envy mingled with anger and shame. I wanted to take back what I had said. I wanted to say more.

She approached me with a swagger like a lioness ready to pounce.

“I am the face of Norfolk House at court. The duchess can’t have anyone believe her house or her family is shabby. I represent the entire Howard family. I
need
new clothes. Do you deny me that?”

“Of course not,” I said. “No one is happier than I am that you’re finally getting all you deserve. Beautiful clothes. Jewelry. A man you love.”

She stopped moving. Stopped breathing. Then snapped, “Get out,” over her shoulder, and Joan and Alice disappeared as quickly as dandelion fluff on the wind.

“Who told you?” she asked, her voice more deadly than ever. “No one knows.”

“Francis,” I whispered, my voice a paroxysm of nerves.

“Francis
Dereham?
” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “He saw you at court. Then he came here to get his old job back. I spoke with him.”

“
Francis?
” she repeated, and her eyes opened wide, radiating surprise, or possibly fear. “He’s here?”

“No, the duchess sent him to Horsham,” I said, confused and shaken. “He said you were in love. That you sent him away.”

“I told
no one
.” Her voice rose to a shout. “What did he say about me?”

“He said you loved a man named Thomas Culpepper,” I said.

Cat began to giggle. The giggles came in little puffs at first. Then in a surge, like bubbles from the bottom of a pond. And suddenly, she was giggling so high and so hard that she couldn’t catch her breath and had to bend over, hands on her knees, eyes streaming.

This wasn’t the Cat I knew. The Cat who whispered dreams in my ear at night. The Cat who sneaked around Norfolk House, kissing and canoodling with Francis in the chapel. This Cat jumped from one extreme to another. This Cat didn’t like me. This Cat was frightening.

“Cul-Cul-Culpepper?” she gasped.

“That’s what he said!”

“Silly Kitty.” She took a stinging swipe at my cheek.
“Culpepper is in the past. Culpepper is no one. He was just a . . . nothing.” Her eyes unfocused a little, “Though so
seductive
.”

She shook her head as if to clear it.

“No, Kitty, I have a better catch now. I have everything I want right here.”

She opened her tiny hand and showed me her empty palm. Then she snapped her fingers shut like a coffer.

“It’s all I’ll ever want, Kitty,” she said. “It’s all I’ll ever need.”

C
AT STAYED, THE EPICENTER OF A WHIRLWIND OF FABRICS AND FITTINGS
, ribbons and pearls. She and I reached a truce that hinged on us both keeping silent regarding Francis, Culpepper, and her mysterious new man. And William. I wasn’t ready to share my unblemished feelings for him. And I wasn’t sure she would approve. We’d never had secrets from each other before, and it felt odd and strained. The awkward tension made me mute on all but the most mundane subjects.

Fortunately, the duchess embarked on a campaign of cleanliness and enlisted the assistance of everyone in the house, thus preventing the possibility of long, private conversations. The stairs were swept and washed with lye. All the gold plate gleamed in the buffet of the great hall. The dogs were banished to the kitchens and courtyards. Even we were doused in cold water—our hair scrubbed with lavender—and left out to dry in our camisoles in the weak spring sunshine.

The steward began to lose his corpulence because he had no time to eat. He had to be fitted for a new doublet, the duchess muttering over the expense of velvet.

Cat sat in the tapestry room as if holding court, sewing
embellishments from twisted gold tissue to her new bodices. Occasionally, she begged the duchess to release us from drudgery in order to assist her. As we did, she would regale us with tales of court like a traveling minstrel, and we hung on every word.

The duchess tried to keep it a secret, but we all knew the reason for the uproar.

The king.

Sometimes, it was a good thing to have Alice around.

“But why would he be coming here?” Joan asked, hunched over tiny stitches of silver on silver in the drab light from the window.

“He has to visit the nobility,” Alice said. “They expect it.”

“It’s the same reason he has a progress,” Cat agreed. “He has to get out and engage with the lords and dukes. Be seen by the people. And see his country.”

“But why is it a secret?” Joan pursued. “If he wanted to be seen by the people, wouldn’t he be telling everybody? So the peasants know he’s coming and can see him? And besides, we’re right across the river from him. It’s not like he’s never seen Lambeth before.”

“Well, this visit isn’t exactly like a progress,” Cat conceded, and frowned.

“But it is a great honor,” I added.

“Of course!” Joan dropped her stitching. “Oh, I didn’t mean anything else by it. I just don’t know why he would want to come
here
.”

“Are we that boring, Joan?” I asked.

“The duchess is a great noblewoman,” Alice sniffed. “Of course he would want to come here.”

“Right.” Joan sounded unconvinced, and looked up to ask another question, but was interrupted by a commotion outside.

Horses and carts and men in livery filled the courtyard. Everyone seemed to be shouting orders, and no one seemed to be heeding them.

“The duke,” Joan said.

I stood and brushed my skirts. Perhaps in the chaos I could at least catch a glimpse of William, if not a word with him.

“Where are you off to?” Cat asked.

“Nowhere,” I said, feeling the word a betrayal to both Cat and William.

“Kitty’s going to see the boy who works for the duke,” Alice said. “The one who brings the messages. William Gibbon.”

My cheeks flared.

“You have a boy, Kitty?” Cat asked, hurt in her voice. “You didn’t tell me.”

“He’s handsome,” Alice said.

“He likes her,” Joan grinned.

“He stops by to say hello when he delivers a message sometimes,” I said. “That’s all.”

It was the truth. So far. I just wished it were more.

“I think Kitty has a secret lover,” Alice said. She stretched out the last word like a sticky sweet.

“He’s not a lover,” I said quickly, the heat on my neck refusing
to fade. He was the closest I’d ever had. The only one I’d ever wanted.

“Then you won’t mind if
I
talk to him?” Alice said.

“Do what you like!” I cried, all bitter nonchalance. Confusion tied my tongue and baffled the truth.

“But, Alice, you’re married,” Joan protested. I could have hugged her.

“So are you,” Alice said. “And that doesn’t stop you from prancing about with Edward Waldegrave.”

“But you can’t take Kitty’s boy,” Joan said.

“Kitty says she doesn’t care,” Alice said.

My heart threatened to spill from my sleeve and all over the floor, I cared so much.

“Well, that’s all right then,” Cat interjected. “Because I have my eye on someone for you anyway, Kitty Tylney.”

We all stopped and stared at her.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten my promise to get you to court,” she said.

Joan gasped, a look of uncensored hope gilding her features.

“And when you get there, you’ll have your pick of some of the most eligible men in the country,” she continued.

Joan sighed, a mournful note of envy.

“But I don’t . . .” I said. “I’m not . . .”

I didn’t want anyone else.

“It’s true, you’re nobody,” Cat said quickly. “But there are plenty to choose from even at your level. The king likes to keep young men around him. His privy councilors have become so
old, but some of his gentlemen pensioners and yeomen of the chamber are really quite luscious.”

Like Thomas Culpepper, I thought, but carefully didn’t mention it.

“One in particular,” she said. “A yeoman. Looks like a lion, with this gorgeous golden hair. You would kill for it.” She reached up and smoothed down a shock of my own hair that had escaped my plait. I felt it fly away again when she was done.

“He would be good for you,” she said, quietly, in my ear only.

I nodded and smiled. But I didn’t want Cat’s choice. I wanted my own.

Perhaps I didn’t want to go to court after all.

“
T
HE KING’S BARGE
!” A
CRY WENT UP FROM THE GARDEN
.

The galleries filled with the sound of running slippers and pounding boots. I had never seen the elder members of the household move so quickly. Even the duchess exerted herself enough for pink to rise beneath the white lead on her cheeks.

We fell into line outside the great door of the house, a welcoming committee of flouncing skirts and adjusting doublets. The duke’s men waited at the landing. I could see William’s head amongst them.

The duke had insinuated himself and supplanted the dowager duchess as head of Norfolk House. He’d marched through the rooms and galleries, sniffing out the ugly and inconstant with his powerful nose. He tolerated no idling. And no flirting. I hadn’t seen William for three days.

“There it is!” Alice whispered. We all craned our necks to look. The royal barge appeared, painted in scarlet and gold, with detailed filigree and intricate designs. The canopy of cloth of gold was embroidered with the initials of the king. H and R.
Henricus Rex.

On the king’s barge were select retainers. This was to be a
private party. An intimate meal with only the king’s beloved friends. All two hundred of us.

The king faced us, his clothes and hair and beard a riot of red and gold. He looked like a giant standing there, one foot resting on a cushion as if he had just conquered it.

“He never ages,” Joan whispered.

But even at a distance, I could see a slight stoop to his shoulders, the swell of his chest and belly. He was no longer the lean knight who had escorted Queen Anne Boleyn to London when we were children. He was something else now. Weighted.

“In line!” the duchess snapped as she strode past us, black and gold damask rustling, jewels winking on every surface. The Duke of Norfolk kept pace with her, his little bowlegs scissoring in his black hose.

The barge landed, and we all sank into deep bows and curtseys. We were supposed to stay that way, crouched on the muddy path, until the king exited the barge and waved us all up.

Cat had told us that the king suffered from an ulcer in his leg, brought on by an old jousting injury. He had trouble getting around, and sometimes his temper was incredibly short. The entire court would walk on eggshells, wondering who would be thrown out of the chamber for sitting or smiling or breathing. I knew what the duchess was like when she had one of her migraine headaches. I tried to imagine that kind of power and pain in a king.

Still, it took him forever to get out of that damn boat. My own knees began to ache from the stupid curtsey, and my thoughts ran to treason.

“Norfolk!” the king cried, his voice surprisingly high for someone so large. It made him more human.

We took our cue to stand, and I was able to look at the king from beneath my lowered brow. Dressed all in crimson and fur, he blocked out the sun, which created a halo behind him. I wondered briefly how many animals had to die to construct his ermine cape. He towered over the duke. And he was
wide
. It couldn’t all be fat, because he wasn’t round, just prodigious. And intimidating. He stood with his feet planted far apart and his hands on his hips, like Colossus straddling the entrance to Rhodes.