Gilt (8 page)

“No need to take pity on me,” I bristled. “The onus is on you, entering the garden unannounced and interrupting a private conversation.”

I looked him full in the face. We stood the same height. But that didn’t seem to intimidate him. It was only when he looked in my eyes that he faltered and looked back down at the ground. I remembered Cat’s criticism of me.
Your eyes are too knowing. You look at men and they want to slink away.

“Forgive me, Mistress Tylney,” he said quietly. “I forgot we had not been introduced.”

He knew my name. Joan wrung my hand like a kerchief. I squeezed back once before I pulled away.

“After the banquet the duke attended, I made discreet inquiries,”
he said. “I know you are Katherine but prefer Kitty. You are distantly related to the dowager duchess and have been here for longer than most of her servants can remember.”

He bowed before me. “I am William Gibbon, gentleman usher and general dogsbody for the Duke of Norfolk.”

William Gibbon. I pressed the name into my memory like a late summer bloom into the leaves of a book.

He had narrow shoulders for a man, or perhaps it was just the cut of his doublet, not the extra-wide shoulders preferred by the king and those who wished to be like him. But they balanced lean, muscular calves and thighs. My gaze traveled up his legs. He straightened and I blushed from the thoughts that flitted through my mind.

“You are well met, Master Gibbon.” I made my voice sweet and cast my eyes down in an imitation of Cat’s flirtation practice from so long before.

“I am entrusted with a message for the dowager duchess and regret that I must deliver it quickly.”

“Regret?” I asked, risking a glance at his face. It showed relief. At what, I wondered, amazed at a retainer who had yet to learn the art of hiding all emotion.

“I would much rather stay out here with you two lovely ladies.” His smile lit the garden more than the piddling winter sun. I nodded stupidly, the word
lovely
ringing brightly in my mind.

“We shall accompany you,” Joan said, nudging me with her elbow. Joan, ever the matchmaker. I’d forgotten she existed.

“I’m glad you’re no longer angry,” William said. “It was never my intention to offend you.”

The reason for his relief came clear. And he surprised me again because he spoke so honestly.

“How is the duke?” I asked in an attempt to make conversation as he fell into step with us.

“Bellicose. Impatient. Slippery.”

“You certainly tell what you see,” I said, taken aback. No one at court or in the Dowager duchess’s household ever talked about anyone except in the most glowing terms. Or in secret.

“The Duke of Norfolk is my employer. I must tolerate his moods so that I don’t lose my position, but he knows I am not a crouching lickspittle. He says he is grateful for my honesty and knows I will follow any order he gives me without question.”

“What if it’s something you don’t want to do?” I asked.

“My loyalty is to the duke.”

I stopped in the chilled and begrimed entrance to Norfolk House. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Do you have no one in your life that you feel loyalty to?”

I thought of Cat. My loyalty to her had turned me into a thief, a liar, and an enforcer of secrets.

“Your family?” William prompted.

“My family does not inspire loyalty,” I said wryly.

“Perhaps one day your husband,” William suggested.

“Not if he’s someone my parents select,” I retorted, my voice
higher and harsher than I had intended. It echoed peevishly off the dirty windows. We slowed as we neared the duchess’s withdrawing room from which light and warmth crept over the stone floor.

“You prefer to make your own choices?” he asked. He turned to appraise me. My height. My hair. My eyes.

“Yes,” I said without thinking at all. “I do.”

“That’s good,” he said. “I like a woman who knows her own wants.” I felt a spark begin to glow in my chest.

“Master Gibbon.” The duchess’s voice, like sand on paper, swept into the gallery. The heat and color of the room assailed us—fire and candlelight, tapestries, carpets, and the duchess herself decked in crimson and jewels. She saw me and Joan standing in the doorway and shooed us away. William strode to her place by the fire without a hint of good-bye.

“Charming,” I said, my voice laced with sarcasm. But I loitered in the entranceway in the hopes of seeing him exit.

“Handsome,” Joan added.

“I suppose.”

“Oh, admit it, Kitty! He’s handsome. He likes you.”

I shrugged, but her words blew on the spark that kindled into something like happiness.

“And in service to the duke,” Joan continued.

“Joan,” I said. “I’m never going to get a chance to choose my own husband, so why should I even bother?”

I wondered, though, if my parents would accept a “contemptible” personal choice if only to get me off their hands.
If they couldn’t find me a match, maybe I should find one for myself.

“You sound so bitter.”

“I suppose I am,” I said. “I mean, if a man marries someone who doesn’t please him, he can find a mistress who will. He needn’t stay at home with a woman he finds repulsive. He can go to court or to Ireland or go out to work. But the women have to stay home no matter what. Sewing and needlework and making clothes and seeing to the food and nothing else. Boring.”

“But Kitty, men have to fight in wars, too. That’s fearful.”

“Yes,” I said, grudgingly. But somehow the life surrounding war seemed much more interesting than sitting around and waiting for a man to return from it.

“And Kitty.” Joan’s thoughts dawned slowly across her face. “That’s all we do here. Sewing and needlework and all the rest.”

“Yes, Joan. That’s how I know it’s boring.”

“You
do
sound like Cat sometimes, you know.”

“I suppose someone has to talk sense when she’s gone.”

“Well,” said Joan, putting an arm around my shoulder and whispering in my ear as if divulging a delightful secret. “If Cat were here now to talk sense to you, she would say that your marriage will happen one way or another, so why not indulge yourself now?”

Why not indeed?

I could do worse than a gentleman usher to a duke. And my father certainly hadn’t done any better on my behalf. Could it really be possible? To make my own choice?

“A little flirtation never hurt anyone,” Joan finished. “But desperation does. Don’t let him find you waiting for him.”

I didn’t.

But I hoped the duke would need to communicate with the dowager duchess more often in the future.

B
UT THE DUCHESS’S NEXT CALLER WASN’T
W
ILLIAM
G
IBBON
.

It was Francis Dereham.

He came trailing a cloak of mystery and bitterness. Creases fanned the corners of his eyes and he walked with a newly rolling gait, as if he had spent much of his time on a ship’s deck, squinting into the wind. But he hadn’t been gone long enough to get very far, which left me wondering where he had acquired his counterfeit swagger.

If we hadn’t seen his arrival ourselves, we would have heard it shortly after, for the shrieks echoed from the duchess’s withdrawing room and bowstrung the nerves of the entire household.

“You leave here without word or warning and expect to return to your old position? Do you wish to make a fool of me, sir?”

Joan and I dawdled at the stairs, dropping and refolding our embroidery. Alice was nowhere to be seen.

“Heartbroken!” the duchess cried in response to Francis’s murmur. “Don’t be daft! You may have been a favorite of mine, but this is unforgivable.”

More murmurs. Sonorous. Sensuous. Persuasive.

We took a step nearer to the closed door.

“Eavesdropping wenches!” The steward’s bark from the top of the stairs frightened Joan into dropping her embroidery again.

“Out!” He surged down the stairs and smacked her with the back of his hand when she bent to retrieve the fabric and thread. I sprang to help her, dodging blows, and began to giggle.

“We’ll never compete with Alice,” Joan panted as we raced through the Oak Gallery in a bid to escape. “She probably knows the whole story already.”

“We’ll just have to find Francis himself,” I said. “Catch him before he leaves.”

“You go right ahead, Kitty.” Joan rubbed her backside. “I’ll wait to hear from you.”

I sneaked through the south door that led through the back courtyard to the kitchens, knowing I could pass through them to the vestibule and the chapel beyond. Another trick Cat had taught me as a child. We had stolen sugar from the cook on feast days and devoured it behind the duchess’s screen by the altar. Later, Cat had made use of the same passageways and pew for stealing kisses.

I sat in the chapel with my head bowed, winter sun diagramming angels in the southern window.

“Kitty!”

Francis slid down the polished bench until his hip touched mine. A jolting reminder of when we used to share a bed.

“Returning to the scene of your crimes?” I asked.

“Love is never a crime, Kitty,” he said sadly. “I had to come here, to where she first kissed me.”

“I thought you might.”

“Everything here reminds me of her.”

I knew that well.

“She never loved me, Kitty,” he said, his face fallen into crags formed by sunlight and shadow. “And now she treats me like a stranger.”

“You saw her?” I asked. “You went to court?”

“I did,” he said. Only Francis would walk unannounced into court to speak with his ex-lover.

“How is she?”

“Fat and happy,” he said. “Exactly where she wants to be. She’s surrounded by jewels and great ladies and has no need for the likes of me. She has found someone new.”

His voice broke, and I looked for tears in his eyes but saw only jealousy.

“Really?” I asked. “Who?”

“A little weasel in the king’s privy chamber. Handsome and cocksure and full of the king’s good graces.”

Power. At least one of Cat’s criteria fulfilled. As she’d said, the king’s favor meant everything.

“What’s his name?”

“Culpepper. Thomas Culpepper.”

Francis spat the name in the hush of the chapel and slammed himself to his feet.

“At least I got my hundred pounds.” He grimaced.

“Where will you go? Back to sea?” I asked, hoping he would tell me where he’d really been.

“Hardly.” He laughed. “Piracy doesn’t suit me. And I doubt the duchess would tolerate my absence a second time.”

“You got your position back?”
Even after all that shouting?
I added silently.

“The duchess is like putty in my hands.”

“I’m surprised she played into them. I suppose I should say welcome home, then.”

“Not exactly. She’s none too pleased with me. Doesn’t want to see my face. I’m leaving my goods and coffers here, but she’s exiled me to the Horsham estate.”

“Good luck.” I reached out to shake his hand.

“Oh, I won’t be there long, Kitty.”

He took my hand and kissed it—a bit wetly—winked at me, and swept from the chapel with a flourish, a swashbuckler in his own mind if nowhere else.

I wondered about Francis’s rival, Thomas Culpepper. He’d have to be pretty seductive to win Cat’s attention over the barons and earls and dukes.

“She’d never have stuck with him anyway.” A rasping voice startled me as I made to leave the chapel myself. Mary Lascelles, her mouth twisted in disapproval, blocked my way. Her blue eyes swam in the pale pool of her face.

“Oh?” I took a step back. Mary always stood too close.

“He’s beneath her. He’s beneath her
family.
”

“Are those your words? Or your brother’s?” I had a feeling he shared his opinions freely.

“My brother doesn’t know any of this!” Mary cried. “If he did, he would take me away. He would punish me just for being here.”

For a moment, I felt sorry for her. Until her next words erased all sympathy.

“Cat believes you’re beneath her, too, you know.”

“I don’t see that it’s your business,” I replied sharply, brazening out the pain she inflicted.

“But
she’s
the one not worth the Howard name. She may imagine she’s royalty, but she acts just like a common slut.”

“Oh, shut up, Mary,” I said. “I don’t want to hear your venom. She’s not the one emptying chamber pots and sleeping on the floor.”

“Even the highest will be brought low,” Mary intoned.

I laughed. “Perhaps you ought to tell the king that.”

“I just think,” she said, “that if she continues as she has begun, she shall come to nothing.”

“I don’t care what you think,” I said, and walked away.

“And if you depend on her,” she said, her voice rising to reach me, “you will be nothing, too!”