Love, Remember Me (41 page)

"No," came the reply. "She will be mine, Tom. I am not certain yet how, but she will. I want her as I have never wanted a woman."

"Beware, my friend," Culpeper warned him, "the king is fond of her. Lady de Winter's mother was once his mistress. How do you think she came to be wed to the Earl of March? He seduced the girl, and the king would not be satisfied until she was wed to him. He saw to it himself, and insisted upon proof that the marriage had been consummated so that de Winter could not legally repudiate the girl and keep her wealth. She is the daughter of the Earl of Langford."

"So it was no love match?" Cynric Vaughn said.

"There is no enmity between them that I know of, and they have children in common," Culpeper informed his friend.

"How fare you in your own hunt?" Sir Cynric wondered softly.

"You mistake my intentions," Tom Culpeper said. "I simply wish to climb high, as Charles Brandon did, but alas, that was thirty years ago. In those days one became the king's friend to advance a career, but the king is old now. One must become the queen's friend today in order to reach one's goals."

Cynric Vaughn laughed. "I do not believe that I have ever heard a better excuse for seduction, Tom," he told Culpeper. "But if you get caught, she will cry rape. The king will not let you off as easily as he did with that gamekeeper's wife. Besmirch his rose without a thorn, and you will find yourself without a head. Is it worth it?"

"My cousin the queen and I are just friends," Culpeper replied.

The king's progress moved across the soft rolling hills and moors of Yorkshire and Northumberland. Where the hunting was good, they would remain for a few days, and then travel onward. Nyssa did enjoy hunting, but more for the thrill of the chase than for the kill. Country-bred girls were usually good horsewomen, and she was no exception.

One afternoon her horse began limping even as a rainstorm caught her falling behind the main party. Looking for shelter, she espied the ruins of an ancient abbey and rode into the refuge of its walls. Dismounting, she took her mare's leg up and saw a stone lodged in its shoe.

"God's foot!" Nyssa muttered irritably, and then jumped at the sound of a male voice. Whirling about, she came face-to-face with Sir Cynric Vaughn.

"I saw you leave the hunt," he said. "Are you all right, madame?"

"My mare has caught a stone, and I've no knife with which to pry it loose," Nyssa told him.

"Which foot?" he asked, and when she showed him, he took the mare's hoof in one hand, removing the stone from it with his knife in the other hand. "There, madame. She will be fine now, but we, I fear, must wait for the rain to let up."

Looking past him, Nyssa saw what had begun as a shower was now a downpour. It was as good an opportunity as she would ever get to make friends with Sin Vaughn and draw him out. "Have you been at court long, my lord? I do not seem to remember you from my last visit," she began conversationally.

"I am here most of the time," he told her.

"You are Master Culpeper's friend," she noted innocently.

He laughed. "Aye, Tom and I are old friends, madame, but if you have set your sights in that direction, turn away. Culpeper has a most jealous mistress, I fear."

"Thomas Culpeper is of no interest to me," Nyssa told him. "I am a married woman, sir."

"So you have said, madame, on a previous occasion. Is it truly so, or do you say it to convince yourself?" He grinned mockingly at her. Reaching out, he entwined an errant lock of her hair about his finger.

"You are a wicked man, I am told," Nyssa said softly, looking seductively up at him. She was rather enjoying her little flirtation with him. He was outrageously handsome and he was going to kiss her. Oddly, she was not afraid. She was frankly curious, having never been kissed by any man but Varian. She should feel guilty, she knew, for such naughty thoughts, but it would only be a little kiss.

With his hand, he cupped her face, and lowering his own, he brushed his lips lightly across hers. "You are delicious," he said low. "I want to make love to you, madame. Here and now upon the grass beneath these walls. Think of the ghosts of the long dead monks observing us in our passion, and unable to fulfill their own." Releasing her head, he clasped his arm about her supple waist, his other hand fumbling at her breasts.

Nyssa pulled quickly away. "Fie, sir! You move too quickly to take liberties. I am not some shepherdess to be tumbled in the open. Look, the rain has stopped. We must get back lest we are missed." Without even asking for his assistance, she pulled herself into her saddle. "Are you coming, my lord?" she asked him, and then without waiting for an answer, kicked her mare into a trot.

Watching her hurry off, he smiled to himself. For all her protests of a husband, she was hot for loving. There would be time.

The progress moved on to Newcastle, visited the town officially, and turned south again for Pontefract Castle, reaching it toward the end of August. They would remain at Pontefract for a week.

On a rainy afternoon, as the queen and her women sat playing cards in her apartments, Lady Rochford came to tell Cat that there was a gentleman seeking an audience with her. He waited just outside the queen's anteroom.

"Who is he?" the queen asked Lady Rochford.

"He says his name is Francis Dereham, Your Grace. The dowager duchess, your grandmother, has sent him to you, and requests that you offer him a place as secretary in your household."

Catherine grew pale, and for a moment it appeared as if she would swoon, but then she said, "I will see Master Dereham in my privy chamber, Rochford. If my grandmother has sent him, then I must be kind." She arose and went into her private rooms. Her heart was hammering violently.
What did he want
? Was this to be another incident like those with Joan Bulmer and the others who had come to her requesting positions in her household, wondering if the queen remembered them and the dear old days they had all spent together at Lambeth Palace? Catherine had made them chamberwomen, and their service was faultless, but she resented the way in which she had been coerced, for their reminders of their time together at Lambeth had just stopped short of blackmail. Now
he
had come to request her favor.

The door opened and Lady Rochford escorted a man into the room. "Master Dereham, Your Grace," she said.

He doffed his cap to her, bowing elegantly as only he knew how. "I am honored, Your Grace, and bring greetings from the lady Agnes."

"You may leave us," Catherine told Lady Rochford, who withdrew. The queen glared at the man before her. She had remembered him as being more handsome. He was swarthy, with an elegant, tailored black beard, black hair, and black eyes that were dancing devilishly. There was a gold earring in his ear. "What do you want of me?" she demanded coldly. There was no welcome in her voice.

"What, little wife? No words of joy upon my return from Ireland?" he said, smiling toothily at her. His even white teeth had always been among his best features.

"Are you mad?" Catherine said angrily. "How dare you address me in such a manner, Master Dereham!
What do you want
?"

"Why, merely to share in your good fortune, Cat," he told her. "Should not a husband share in his wife's good fortune?"

"We are not man and wife," she said tightly.

"What, Catherine, have you so easily forgotten that we pledged our troth to one another at Lambeth just three years back? I have not forgotten," Francis Dereham told her.

"I was fourteen then," Catherine responded, "and nothing was formally settled. It was the silliness of an innocent girl. You can prove nothing, and should you attempt to cause a scandal, you will find yourself facing the headsman's ax, Master Dereham. The king dotes upon me, and will not be interfered with."

"Our troth was no secret, Cat," he replied. "Everyone at Lambeth then knew of it. I understand that Joan Bulmer and the other girls are now in your service. It was kind of you to find a place for them. I am certain that you can find a place for me as well. The dowager duchess, dear lady she is, thought I might suit you as a secretary."

"My household is full," she said stubbornly.

"Make a place then," he answered her threateningly.

"I must ask the king," she said. "Without his approval, I cannot appoint you. He is not an easy master."

"But he dotes upon you, my beauty. You have said so yourself," Francis Dereham said.

She hated him now with the same dark passion that she had once loved him. She was beaten, and he knew it. "You may lodge with the gentlemen ushers of my household temporarily until I have spoken with his grace," she said coldly. "You may go now, Dereham." She turned her back on him and waited tensely until she heard the door close behind him. Then Catherine Howard's fingers closed upon the nearest item she could find, and with a shriek she flung it against the stone wall. "
Nyssa!
" she shouted. "Come to me at once!"

The ladies in the queen's outer rooms heard her shout, and startled, looked at one another. The queen had never before shouted. Nyssa arose quickly and hurried to answer her friend's call.

"What is it, Cat?" she asked as she closed the door behind her.

The queen began to sob hysterically. Nyssa quickly poured her a goblet of strong red wine from the tray on the sideboard. She forced her friend to drink. When Catherine Howard had calmed a bit, Nyssa repeated her question.

"Oh, Nyssa," the queen said, "I am forced to take that rude fellow into my household. I hate him!"

"
Why
?" Nyssa demanded. "The truth, Cat! Perhaps I can help."

"His name is Francis Dereham. He was at Lambeth when I was there. He . . . he took liberties with me that he should not have. Now he is threatening to tell the king unless I take him into my household. My grandmother knows nothing of this, or she would not have sent him. Indeed she would have seen he met with some unfortunate accident," the queen concluded.

"Did you not speak to me once about being courted by this Dereham, Cat?" Nyssa looked directly at the queen, who flushed.

"I was but bragging," she said sullenly.

"I warned you to tell the king," Nyssa said. "If you had done it then, before you were married, no one could blackmail you like this. He would have forgiven you, Cat. Now you are caught like an animal in a trap. You cannot tell him now. So you must suffer to have this Francis Dereham in your household."

"I know," Cat said despondently, and she drained the goblet.

"Dry your eyes, Your Grace," Nyssa said, handing her friend a handkerchief. "No one must see you like this lest questions be asked."

Catherine took the little linen square and mopped at her face. "Ohh, Nyssa," she said, "what would I do without you? You are my only friend! I never knew being a queen would be so lonely. You must never leave me! Promise me!"

"Nay, I will not promise you such a thing, Cat," Nyssa said. "If you love me, you will let me go home soon. I miss my children."

"If you went home, Nyssa, then you would never see Sin Vaughn again." She giggled, adroitly turning the subject away from what she considered unpleasant ground. "He is quite taken with you. Do you think he is handsome? As handsome as my cousin Varian?"

Nyssa laughed. "He is not as handsome as my husband, but he is a pretty fellow with winning ways. A notorious seducer, I am told. Neither of us should be seen in his company, Cat." She said nothing of the encounter she had had with Sin Vaughn. Cat would be unable to refrain from gossiping about it with the others; and she would read something more into it than there was.

"Was it Bessie or Kate who once said that handsome, wicked men are far more interesting than handsome, nice men?" the queen asked, and the two young women dissolved into laughter.

That night at the evening meal, the king was in a particularly fine mood, for he had personally killed six stags that day. When Nyssa and the queen danced together for his amusement, he was well-pleased. His little eyes followed their graceful movements as they pirouetted and twirled before him. His wife was wearing a gown of rose-colored silk. It was his favorite color on her, complimenting her lovely russet hair. Nyssa was equally lovely in a silk gown of pale spring-green, the bodice encrusted with pearls and peridots.

Afterward the king took both young women upon his lap, and said first to Nyssa, "I will grant you a boon for the pleasure you have given me with your dancing, my wild rose. What will you have of me?"

"I would be home with my family by Christmas, Your Grace," she said sweetly, and then kissed his cheek.

The king chuckled richly. "You are a wicked chit, Nyssa, for I know your desire conflicts with the desires of my queen, but I have given my word to grant your wish, and so I must."

"Thank you, Your Grace," she replied meekly.

The king laughed again. "You do not fool me, madame. You do not fool me one bit Your good lord tells me how you have wrapped him about your little finger. I did not do so badly by you, Nyssa, did I? You are happy, are you not?"

"I am very happy, Your Grace," she answered him honestly.

The king turned to his wife. "Now what new extravagance will you have of me, madame? Another gown, or perhaps a new jewel?"

"Nay, sire, but one small thing," Cat told her husband. "The dowager duchess Agnes sent me a distant relative of hers, and begs that I find a place for him in my household. I could use another secretary, my lord. Will you allow me to do the lady Agnes this favor?"

"Aye," he said, "for by not coming on this progress and complaining constantly about the state of her health, she has done me a favor. Appoint this fellow if you will. What is his name?"

"Francis Dereham, my lord," the queen replied, and her eyes met those of Nyssa's in the shared conspiracy.

They left Pontefract Castle and traveled on to York, arriving in mid-September. The weather was becoming more autumnal, and it was raining more now, which made the journey uncomfortable at best. At York the king hoped to meet with his nephew, King James of Scotland. There had also been speculation that Henry might crown his queen at Yorkminster. The king, however, made it quite clear when queried that Catherine's coronation rested with her ability to produce another heir for him. She was obviously not with child.