The Queen's Mistake (20 page)

Thomas looked angry, she thought. But there was a flash of vulnerability, as she had seen before, set deeply back in his eyes, and she nearly melted when she realized that she was the cause of it.

Catherine slipped on her shoes and then matched his stride as they walked together down the brick path that led back to the lights and sounds of the palace. She dared not glance back, but she knew Gregory was still standing in the fountain, watching them go. It was not until they went inside, up a wide flight of stairs, past the imposing carved pillars and down a long, paneled corridor, that Thomas said in a low, rasping voice, “It was not rape.”

“What?”

There was another silence. She watched a muscle flex in his jaw. “The girl, the accusation, the king’s pardon—I did not rape her.” He stared straight ahead and kept his stride. “I cared for her. She was my youngest sister’s best friend. William, the groundskeeper, was attacking her when I found them. He ran away like a coward, so I searched for him. When I found him, I killed him.” His face was covered in shadow, but Catherine could tell from his voice that he was telling the truth.

“Would you have killed Gregory tonight?” she asked, her voice faltering.

“You know he is married,” Thomas countered, avoiding the question.

“He neglected to mention that initially, as you omitted details about yourself,” she said defensively.

“The two situations are entirely different.”

“Then why would people make it into something it was not?”

“Because watching people fall from power is more entertaining than the truth. Have we not been over that before?”

“But you did nothing to defend yourself,” Catherine pressed.

“It is complicated.” He took a deep breath, then continued. “First
of all, what one does not say is almost as important as what one does. Gregory’s father, our great Lord High Chancellor, managed to tie him by marriage to the late Queen Jane’s sister, Elizabeth Seymour. Your ambitious uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, had hoped to win the girl over for one of your brothers. Their war of advantageous marriages has been going on for years, long before I arrived at court myself.”

Thomas heaved a heavy sigh and ran a hand behind his neck. They stopped beneath an archway with a small, shadowy alcove beyond. “The girl, the one whom I supposedly violated, was someone I had known all of my life. In the beginning, she was like one of my own sisters. Her name is Arabella, and she was, and is, married, as I mentioned before.”

Catherine studied him. Their eyes met again. “Are you in love with her?” she asked.

“I was.”

“What changed?”

“I was supposed to meet her that afternoon, but William found her first.”

“Why did you not leave it to her own husband to defend her honor, if that was really how it happened?”

In the protection of the heavy shadows, he moved a step closer. She could hear his unsteady breathing and feel the warmth of it on her throat. She noticed a small sheen of perspiration on his upper lip, and she knew now what it all meant to him.

The gossip. The lie. The girl.

“Because she had risked everything to meet me at a place we had chosen, and her husband would have known that.”

“So to spare her, you told the authorities that everything was your fault?”

“In a way, it was. It was my penance to take the blame, because I had loved someone else’s wife.”

“To look like a rapist so the woman you loved did not look like an adulteress?”

“Something like that . . .” His words trailed off.

“The king knew the whole story then? Is that the real reason he pardoned you, not just because he likes your company at the hunt?”

“Yes, that is the reason.” He turned to meet her gaze. “His Majesty may be old and fat now, and at times unbelievably quick to temper, but he is rarely without compassion when faced with the truth. I did love Arabella once, but she realized she was in love with her husband. That changed everything. It is all a long time ago now.”

As Catherine looked at Thomas, his eyes told her everything was true. She reached up to touch the line of his jaw in response. A tremor ran through her as she did. “I believe you.”

“Thank you,” he said.

He cautiously lowered his mouth onto hers.

Their kiss was tender and infinitely gentle in the privacy of the shadow-filled alcove, and the sounds of the banquet seemed very far away. The way he touched her made Catherine want him desperately, no matter the consequences. With Thomas, the rush of sensations she felt was something she had never experienced before, and she realized that she was not only playing a game this time. He took her hand and led her back into the corridor, toward the grand door of a room without a guard standing sentry. He turned the iron handle and they went inside together.

The room was mostly dark except for the light of the moon, which streamed through two grand, leaded oriel windows. The odor was musty, and the room felt as if it had been sealed for a long time. Catherine could see a thin layer of dust on the bed, table and a shelf lined with books. Suddenly she felt dizzy, unable to think as her heart beat rapidly. Thomas pressed her against a cool, smooth paneled
wall and leaned heavily against her. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her again, more urgently now. She moaned and felt a shiver of delight as his tongue moved into her mouth. He was possessing her, commanding her with every touch. And she wanted to be commanded. Catherine had always felt in control of this part of the game, but with Thomas, there was only wild desire. The pounding of her heart roared in her ears as she reached down to his belt and began to unfasten it.

“Are you certain?” he murmured against her throat, kissing her, pushing back her headdress until it tumbled onto the carpeted floor. He let his fingers tangle in her hair. “There will be no going back for us if we do this.”

“I have no wish to go back,” Catherine declared as his silver belt fell onto her discarded headdress. In pearlescent moonlight, she saw the intensity of his gaze and said, “Only forward with you.”

Thomas took her to the downy bed, which smelled of must and like an animal because of the duck feathers. She could feel his fingers trembling as he lifted her skirts up to her waist and began to untie her stomacher. Her anticipation was almost painful, for she had never had to wait before.

His fingers trailed down her bare stomach, turning her skin to gooseflesh. As he looked at her, his gaze was passionate but surprisingly gentle, which rocked Catherine to her core. Thomas rose over her, pressing his mouth onto hers as he pushed full force inside of her. Catherine’s mind glazed over until she could not think. There was only her beating heart, the way he tasted, and this.

He moved a hand up the expanse of her dress to where her breasts were still held in by the top of her gown, swelling above the binding and the little strip of lace. She trembled at the pressure of his fingers, taking absolute pleasure in him, and she clutched at his back to bring him even closer.

“Jésu!” he cried out with a groan, as Catherine was overcome by the rich, dark warmth of her own completion.

A moment later, he laid his head on her shoulder, and they held each other as their frenzied passion simmered into sweet contentment. She felt his breath in her hair, and thought there could never be a better feeling. But only a moment later they heard firm footsteps out in the corridor, and Catherine glanced at him in silent panic. She had forgotten that this was but a temporary haven. This was court. Nothing they did or thought or said would ever be without consequence.

They heard the footsteps pass by back and forth in the corridor with slight pauses, as if the person were seeking something. Catherine’s heart began to race wildly as Thomas rose, quickly dressed and pressed a silent kiss onto her forehead. He waited until there were no more footsteps, then went toward the door. His silhouette quickly faded into the shadows as she heard the door open, then click to a close. He was gone. Catherine lay there alone without moving, knowing that she must wait so they would not be seen leaving the bedchamber together. He had taken an enormous risk with the Duke of Norfolk’s prize niece tonight, as she had with the king’s favorite companion.

Even so, Catherine knew that they were meant to be together. She saw that now with dispassionate and intense clarity. It was not just what had happened that night, although the act made it more inevitable. Catherine knew, as she lay in the little bed alone now, that her future would be tied up with Thomas Culpeper’s forever.

“It did not quite work out as I had planned,” Gregory Cromwell said with a sigh as he thought of his planned seduction of Catherine Howard and his dashed hopes of removing her from consideration as a possible future mate for the king.

“Your infinite charms with the ladies are failing you, my boy?” his father asked glibly as he looked up from a writing table in a room that faced the great tiltyard of Whitehall below.

“Oh, I still have plenty of charm, my lord. That was not the problem with the Howard girl.”

“Then what was it? I set such a minor task for you; all you had to do was get the Howard girl out of the king’s way. If her reputation is sullied enough the king will never want her for anything meaningful.”

Though Cromwell spoke lightly, he was brimming with disappointment that his plan apparently had failed. Gregory heaved a great sigh, not happy to be undone, particularly by something as inconsequential as seducing a girl, no matter what his father’s intentions were concerning it. His father, a thickly set, aging man with heavy jowls and a pursed, judgmental mouth, would never understand. The chancellor had never been handsome.

“Culpeper is what happened,” Gregory admitted.

“Again?”

“That fool has never bested me at romance before,” Gregory said defensively.

“I am certain this has little to do with romance, Gregory. That girl is a mindless twit wrapped up in a pretty package. If her name were not Howard, there would be no need even to have this conversation. On her own, without that name, she could never land a king. But I am desperate here! I cannot have another Howard queen or I will most certainly face complete ruin!”

“Her name might soon be Culpeper, by the look of things tonight,” Gregory scoffed.

Cromwell dropped his pen onto the parchment at the declaration. He slowly leaned back in his chair and steepled his fat fingers, tapping them together in thought. “Well, now, that
is
an interesting possibility.”

“That Culpeper should triumph over your own son is interesting?”

“On the contrary.” The king’s chief minister let a smile turn up the corners of his little mouth, which was wedged into ruddy, doughlike cheeks. “It is interesting that I might not have to congratulate my greatest enemy’s niece on becoming the next queen. Thus, I might not have to witness my own destruction.”

Gregory eyes widened at his father’s last words, aware for the first time how dire the situation was. “Do you really think she could become queen?”

“You fool, she is every bit the king’s sort of girl: beautiful, petite, accomplished at playing the music that he loves. But above all, she reminds him of the single greatest passion of his youth. That is exactly the sort he would marry.”

“But he cut off Anne Boleyn’s head,” Gregory pointed out.

Cromwell rolled his eyes, unwilling to suffer fools gladly, even if the fool was his own son. “Not before he spent a decade absolutely bewitched by her, body and soul. This country was rocked by Henry’s passion, and Catholics like Norfolk would do anything to have the country as it once was, including using his niece to gain the upper hand to persuade the king to return to Catholicism. But I swear that shall not happen.”

“Do you trust that Culpeper is man enough to woo and marry Catherine Howard right under the king’s nose? No one has forgotten what it cost men like George Boleyn, Mark Smea ton and Henry Norris, who were all caught dallying with Mistress Boleyn.”

“It will be a race to the finish if we do this,” Cromwell warned, heaving himself out of the chair with a grunt. He turned from his son, went to the window and opened the latch, ushering in the cool night air and the sound of crickets from the hedgerow below.

“If we do what, Father?” Gregory asked, not fully comprehending the plan.

“Help Culpeper win Catherine Howard,” Cromwell explained, trying not to show the desperation that he felt.

“We are going to work against the king? Is it worth a dangerous gamble like that?” Gregory asked in astonishment.

“We have no other choice, boy. If the king wins her first, the Howards’ rise back to highest prominence will be complete. Norfolk would like nothing more than to take away my influence with the king and see to my total destruction. You have been raised your entire life knowing the stakes. Now is the flashpoint. One error and it will be the end of us all.”