Gilt (29 page)

“Did Alice tell you that?”

“No, Mistress Restwold has been too busy with the Duke of Norfolk’s entourage, hasn’t she?”

“Well,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking, “gossip isn’t the word of God.”

“It came from a very reliable source.”

“Then it didn’t come from any of the girls who lived with us in Lambeth!” I laughed, but had to rub my palms on my skirt to stop them trembling and sweating.

“Oh, a disreputable lot, then?” he leered. “And your reputation as tattered as the rest of them.”

“You can say nothing about me that anyone would mind,” I said. “I am a mere servant here.” I gestured at the room, showing the work I had done.

“It may not be you who needs my protection, but it is you who desires it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The queen has been indiscreet,” he stated.

“It is treason to speak ill of the queen,” I reminded him, but my warning had little effect.

“Perhaps when Anne Boleyn first came to the throne,” Edmund said. “But she proved that a queen can be ruined by injudicious actions and immodest gossip.”

A chill ran through me.

“You wouldn’t,” I whispered.

He stepped closer still, so that I had to bend backward to avoid his barrel chest and prominent codpiece. He smelled of soot and stale sweat.

“What wouldn’t I do?” he asked, his voice a purr. “Tell on your little friend? No. Probably not. The court is so boring without a queen and her ladies. But you don’t really want to find out.”

“You don’t care about me. I don’t think you even find me attractive.” I immediately wanted to snatch back my words. As if I cared what this man thought.

“I never said that.”

He just implied it.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

“Because I have no choice in the matter.” He bent to kiss me.

That was what Culpepper had said, back in Lincoln. Edmund did whatever Thomas Culpepper asked. They were two sides to the same coin.

Repulsed, I wriggled myself backward and away from him, up onto the bed. But he followed, matching my movements. Covering my body with his.

“No!” I cried, my voice cut off as his weight pressed the air from my lungs.

“You cannot refuse,” he said quietly, nuzzling me. “Not to save your reputation. Nor to save yourself for your fiancé, for he can give you no pleasure, of that I am sure.”

I struggled, but he held me tighter.

“You know you want me,” he said and lifted himself to stroke the embroidery where the neck of my bodice met my skin. I had. But I didn’t anymore.

When he kissed me, I no longer felt the feverish rush that had overwhelmed my senses. His tongue forced its way between my teeth, wet and abhorrent. I pushed at him, but it only seemed to make him heavier.

So I bit him, the metallic taste of his blood following swift upon the grease of his lips. He cursed and moved to strike, but I rolled out from under him and slid off the bed to my knees, my skirts pulling up to expose my legs.

He reached for me, but seized only my snood, which ripped
at my hair as it came off. I cried out at the pain, the tiny hairs at my temples pulling tears to my eyes. I stumbled to my feet, but his other hand was too quick and snagged me around my waist.

“Let go!” I cried, and reached blindly for the door handle. He pulled me toward him, arms tightening. I laid my fingers upon the latch and pulled with all my might.

The door swung open with a lurch and slammed into the wall behind us. The movement sent us reeling backward, and Edmund dropped me to the floor, panting. Running footsteps approached.

“How dare you use the queen’s rooms in such a disrespectful manner?”

Edmund pushed away from me, leaving me quaking at his feet.

“It was not without provocation, sir,” he said.

“Hussy,” the voice growled. I looked up to see one of the duke’s gentleman pensioners. Next to him, Edmund stood nose-to-nose with William Gibbon.

Fear kicked me in the chest.

“It’s not what it looks like,” I said. Edmund’s codpiece was askew. My skirts were hiked above my knees, sleeves coming loose, snood thrown to the floor and my hair tumbling around my face. I stood and tried to straighten the disarray. Miserable tears blinded me.

“She invited me.” Edmund smirked.

“I did not!” I cried, anger replacing misery.

“She’s been trying it on with me for weeks now,” he continued.

I risked another glance at William and his gaze slid off mine like oil from water. If only I could speak to him alone. If only Edmund Standebanke had a modicum of honor.

“I did not invite this man to this room,” I insisted.

The other man snorted. But I didn’t care if he believed me.

“I stayed behind to tend to the queen’s affairs,” I said to William, my words tumbling over each other in their haste to be heard. “To tidy the room and straighten the bed.”

“You are always at the queen’s side,” William replied, his voice even. “You would never be left behind.”

“She stayed behind for me,” Edmund declared. Enjoying himself. No matter what, he came out of the situation looking great. He was a man.

He was believable.

And what could I say? I hadn’t told anyone I would stay behind. I doubted that anyone even noticed I was missing. It looked exactly as Edmund made it out.

“I wished to be alone,” I admitted, looking William directly in the eye, willing him to believe me.

“With me,” Edmund agreed. Smug bastard. I couldn’t even look at him. I couldn’t let him see the irreparable damage he was doing. He would consider it a triumph.

“A word of advice,” the other man said, winking at Edmund. “Keep out of the queen’s rooms when you’re looking for romance.”

I could have screamed with fury.

“And what are you doing here?” Edmund puffed up his chest as if intending to push William over with it.

“We heard a disturbance,” William said. “And thought we should investigate.”

I risked a glance at him, but his face was as blank as a new piece of parchment. Doing his duty. Blocking me out. Forgetting about me.

“Well, heaven forbid I interfere with the men of the Duke of Norfolk,” Edmund said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He slithered out of the door with a flourish as if bowing to William and the other man, though the move was more show than substance.

“There is obviously nothing for me here,” he added, throwing me a look of contempt, and strode away up the gallery to the banquet.

I struggled for breath in relief of his absence, grasping the bedpost for support.

“Are you well, Mistress Tylney?” William asked, hollow courtesy emptying his words of meaning.

“I am innocent.” I tried not to sob. But was I? Guilt, like secrets, multiplied at court. I
had
wanted Edmund. Once.

“Any maid who allows a man into her bedchamber cannot be as innocent as you wish us to think,” the other man laughed.

William turned scarlet.

“From what I hear, the queen’s chamberers are not as pure as Christmas snow,” the man continued. His eyes traveled down my bodice.

“Cease, man,” William said. I turned to him but he did not acknowledge me. “Let us escort the lady to the banquet.”

I didn’t want to go to the banquet. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the court anymore. I hated the drudgery and the tedium. I hated the people and their superficiality. Most of all, I hated the lies. But I shoved my hair into place and brushed down my skirts. I was not going to let Edmund Standebanke win.

“Lady,” the other man muttered under his breath, but I ignored him and left the room. I walked with my head up, looking neither right nor left and they both fell into step behind me. I quailed at the thought of all the eyes that would be upon me when I entered the hall. Eyes that would take in my dishevelment. Ears that would already have heard the rumors of my illicit misdeeds in the queen’s chambers.

But when I entered the banqueting hall, all eyes were focused on Cat. And though she pretended to pay them no heed, the attention made her more radiant. She glowed like a candle flame, and all the men in the room were moths drawn to it.

So even Cat didn’t notice me as I stood in the grand entranceway. Cat, who had known my thoughts and feelings and secrets for almost ten years. Even Cat didn’t know that the man she chose had just forced himself on me in her bed. I stared, my wide eyes dry. Even as my world fell apart, she remained its focus, and that of everyone in the room.

A cough at my elbow reminded me of William and the other
liveried man behind me. I turned and William lowered his eyes. He had been watching me.

And I’d missed it.

“We will leave you now,” the other man said and they walked away.

William didn’t speak a word.

I
T WAS A MUCH MORE SUBDUED COURT THAT FOLLOWED THE RATHER
convoluted path back to London. Autumn clouds hung low in the sky, tinting everything drab. Mud-colored leaves drooped on the trees and the harvested fields looked like the stubble of a man’s unshaven face. The people no longer clamored on the roads to see us but kept to their houses, battening down for the winter, as if they knew a storm was coming.

Alice practically lived with the duke’s traveling entourage. Cat put up a bright façade, shrouded in jewels. Jane maintained her quiet steadfastness. Joan scampered around the outskirts like a lost lapdog. I did my job and kept my mouth shut. I avoided Edmund. And William. And everyone. I was alone in the middle of the most crowded court in Christendom.

At Hull, Culpepper sported a new jeweled cap. An expensive one.

“What’s that for?” I heard Francis growl at him in a corner of the banqueting hall.

“To keep my head warm.” Culpepper grinned. “Reward for services rendered.”

I had seen Jane with it the day before.

And then one night in early October, in some castle that seemed as much of a blur as the rest—it could have been Ampthill, it could have been Kettleby—Jane came back from one of her reconnaissance missions and cornered me.

“The queen needs help this evening.”

“With what?” I asked, unable to control my insolence.

“She needs you.”

Cat always needed me. To steal a key for her. Lie for her. Keep her secrets.

“What if I don’t want to help?”

“I’m afraid it has nothing to do with what you want, Katherine Tylney,” Jane said. “You have no choice in the matter. You are here as the queen’s servant, and as her servant you will comply with her wishes. Not your own.”

I couldn’t walk away from this. Life with the queen was like the marriage I’d always feared. My time, my thoughts, my life were not my own. I was completely beholden to another. A possession.

“Fine.”

“You will invite Edmund Standebanke to the outer rooms,” Jane began.

The very thought made me want to run. How dare Cat ask this of me? But of course, Cat didn’t know. She had never asked. She had never noticed.

“No.”

“It is your duty.”

“It is my duty to make the queen’s bed. It is my duty to take charge of her gowns and shifts and laces. It is my duty to clean up after her and tend to her needs. It is
not
my duty to consort with that man.”

“You say it is your duty to tend to the needs of the queen,” Jane said reasonably. “This evening she needs someone to provide a distraction.”

“No,” I said. “And I will talk to Cat about it.”

I barged my way into her bedchamber and slammed the door behind me.

“You can’t make me do this,” I said without preamble. “I won’t do it.”

Cat looked up. She sat by the fire. Alone, for once.

“I provide a perfectly respectable, devilishly handsome man to you at your disposal and you do nothing,” Cat said coolly.

Devilish, indeed. My skin burned with anger at the injustice. But I remained silent. I had no need, no wish for my story to become gossip. Or a weapon to be used against me.

“Why is that?” she asked.

“He is not respectable,” I said. “He is not honorable.”

“Perhaps you are not that way inclined,” Cat said, her face as pinched as her words. “Perhaps you miss the evenings in the maidens’ dormitory. Perhaps you miss sharing a bed with me, with Joan. You prefer the company of women. The bodies of
women. Perhaps
that
is why Standebanke hasn’t got you into bed yet.”

I stared at her. If Cat’s words escaped that room, I would be thrown from court, my engagement nullified, my prospects eradicated, my future corrupted.

“You shouldn’t say things that aren’t true, Cat.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true,” Cat sneered. “Once it’s uttered, people believe it. Just like they believe that Archbishop Cranmer has a wife, or Anne Boleyn had sex with her brother, or Catherine of Aragon consummated her marriage to her first husband. Once it’s said, you can never shake it.”

She let her words hang in the air. Everything stopped moving, trapped in the amber of fear.

“You never had a boy visit you in the maidens’ chamber, did you?” she asked.

She knew I hadn’t.

“I never met the right one,” I said. Thinking of William. I met him too late.