The Queen's Mistake (4 page)

“Mistress Acworth told me what happened last night.”

“Mistress Acworth is a wretched fool, and I am even worse for protecting her and the rest of them.”

A glimmer of a smile crossed Dorothy’s face, and, at seeing it, Catherine felt tears press against her eyes again. She hated feeling foolish, but she hated feeling weak even more. “I could not think how to tell her no.”

“But of course
she
was not the only one you could not think how to refuse, was she?”

“Francis means nothing to me.”

“Dear girl, take great care with that.” The woman with warm, brown eyes, a full, fleshy face, and thick fingers knelt and touched Catherine’s chin, her expression turning to one of empathy. “You certainly mean a great deal to Master Dereham. Anyone with eyes can see that.”

“What else am I to do in this dull old place? All of the others do it and laugh about it afterward. Mistress Acworth says we are all just having a bit of harmless fun to pass the days.”

“Did your mother not tell you that you would be chosen by the duke for something far greater than that? Did she not say that you were to keep yourself apart?”

“I told you that in confidence, Dorothy! You are not to go tossing it up in my face now. Besides, you know perfectly well my mother is long dead.”

“Yet her dreams for you did not die with her, my girl. They live on as brightly as that charming light in your eyes, so very like hers.”

Catherine shook her head and refused to feel the emotion that any mention of her mother always brought. That would come later, when she was alone in her bed to remember all that she had once had, and lost, in the woman who had always believed in her. “The duke cares nothing for me,” she said angrily. “He never leaves the king’s side anyway, especially now that His Majesty has taken another wife and needs to ingratiate himself to her.”

“The princess from Cleves, they say, will not long remain number four.”

Catherine felt petulant and not a little foolish for what she continued to do with Francis, no longer for love, but simply out of boredom
and for the thrill of getting away with it. “Well, no matter my mother’s dreams for me,
I
shall become nothing more than a country wife one day, just like all of the rest of you. I am practically a servant in this house as it is. I might as well enjoy your country ways.”

“Oh, there is far more in store for you than that.” Dorothy chuckled indulgently. “And sooner, perhaps, than you think. The Duke of Norfolk and his son have just arrived from court, and His Grace seeks to reunite with
you
.”

It had been two years since she had seen her father’s eldest brother, a man with thick silver hair and hard, marble black eyes, a man she had instinctively disliked since early childhood. He was loud and brash and easily unkind. But he was Lord High Treasurer of England and, along with Thomas Cromwell, second in power only to the king himself. Through sheer cunning, he had managed to escape the specter of his own niece Anne Boleyn’s fall from grace, and to remain at Henry’s side to counsel and advise him. Whatever Norfolk did in his life was for self-preservation and advancement, to the exclusion of all else. If he wished to reunite with Catherine, it was not out of any warm family feelings or nostalgia.

“Why should he wish to speak with me?”

“You shall discover that for yourself soon enough. I do wish I were you, though. It is all rather exciting.”

“Do not ever wish that, Dorothy. No one in the world should ever wish to be me,” Catherine said, sensing an encounter ahead, one that would determine her future and one that she would not like.

In a straight-backed chair in the vast library, its walls hung with ancient portraits in heavy gold frames and massive bookshelves that smelled of beeswax, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, sighed impatiently and crossed his long legs. Knobby knees dominated scarlet
velvet trunk hose with silver slashes. He wore a soft, tilted hat and a velvet doublet slashed to match his trunk hose and trimmed with costly silver braid. His eldest son, Henry, Earl of Surrey, stood beside him. More slightly built than the duke, and not yet silver-haired, Surrey had the same swarthy countenance, dark eyes, and tight mouth that commanded respect as his father.

The girl was taking far too long, thought the duke, and he was in no mood to indulge the poor relation that she was. He had surveyed all of the other Howard daughters, and there was no promise in any of them or he would not have come at all. Catherine’s elder sister, Margaret, the only one with any beauty about her at all, was already at court and of no carnal interest to Henry. Norfolk had seen that for himself. Already a wife, she had no innocence clinging to her now—certainly nothing of a challenge for the old dog. King Henry was forty-nine, overweight, and not easily aroused.

But Henry’s new fourth wife was just now selecting the members of her household. The time was right at last—old wounds well enough healed—to bring another relation forward.
If
he could find the right relation, it just might remove the dark stain of Anne, and the specter of his own involvement in that nasty affair.

The poor, graceless Cleves mare—how different and unappealing the reality was from the portrait that had preceded her! If she had but seen Anne Boleyn’s mysterious beauty or Jane Seymour’s gentle, seductive allure before agreeing to come to England, the German princess, with the square face and pockmarked skin, would have known she was not long for her place beside a king—or a man—like Henry VIII. In this game, one must consider all of one’s moves, just as much as one must in war. One must plan and arrange. He had not survived so long by allowing events alone to dictate his destiny.

As always,
he
would dictate events and, thus, continue to thrive at a vicious court.

He glanced up to see Catherine sweep into the room, all unkempt and out of breath. Seeing her caught him off guard. Was it possible to change that much in two years’ time? The echo of Anne Boleyn was strong upon her: The way she stood, the turn of her neck—even the color of her eyes; they were the same startling shade as Anne’s.

“Your Grace.” She curtsied properly.

There was a silence.

The Duke of Norfolk stood, cold and formal. But his gaze was upon her. Apparently his useless brother Edmund had actually been good for something after all.

“Come here, girl,” he said more stiffly than he meant to.

Catherine’s simple dress whispered across the polished plank floor. She lowered her head, but only slightly, then met his gaze again.

She was not afraid of him.
Good. Very good.

“Have you no proper headdress?” he asked sourly.

“I do not like to wear it. I have only one, but it is old and it makes my head itch.”

So she had something of a haughty spirit hidden beneath that simple, hand-me-down dress. Father and son exchanged a glance.

“Then you shall have a new one, and you shall learn to tolerate it. As you shall learn to tolerate much.”

He was honestly stunned by her. It was not just her startling, youthful beauty, but it was the fact that she was here, locked away like some untapped treasure, and he was the first to discover her.

Suddenly, he was aware of his stepmother’s steely, contemptuous stare as she sat across the room behind her embroidery stand. Norfolk did not like Agnes. In marrying her, his father had shown his weakness. He tolerated her only for the gossip it would cause at court if he did not. And also because she might prove useful. In her care of Catherine, his hunch apparently had been correct.

The girl was exquisite, and so perfectly virginal, so far out here where no one could touch her before the right time. She had passed those tests. But to keep Henry’s interest beyond a bedding, there must be more. There must be something at least moderately clever about her that would resonate with a jaded, articulate and demanding king.

“Sit down with me, Catherine,” he instructed. “Are you still called Cat?”

She sank properly into the high-backed chair opposite his, still looking directly into his eyes.

“That was a child’s name, and I am no longer a child, Your Grace.”

“How well I see that.” He watched her face. There was something behind the innocence that assessed him critically. “How are your dancing lessons progressing?”

“I do respectably with the galliard, Your Grace, but only tolerably with the pavane.”

“Easily enough remedied.” A glimmer of a smile warmed his bony face before it disappeared. “And your mastery of the lute?”

“I have not had instruction for a month’s time. But before that, I could play without anyone flinching awfully much.”

He saw a hint of her father then in the way Edmund’s slim mouth had fought a bolder smile, and Norfolk cleared his throat to vanquish it completely. That was what his father had done when he was trying very hard to appear stern before his children.

“I have Master Manox returning this very afternoon,” the dowager interrupted, and Norfolk only then remembered the old woman was there. He thought of the carefully worded tale she had written to him. He doubted Agnes had told the entire truth about why the music instructor had been relieved of his duty. Indeed, there was an entirely different story he had heard. His son had offered a bit of
money to a servant in his stepmother’s house. Mistress Lassells was Catherine’s bitter rival for the music teacher’s affection, and she had revealed to his son that Henry Manox had fallen in love with Catherine and not her. Their frequent lessons and his roaming hands had been all the gossip in the old manor house until the dowager had sent him away.

Clearly the old woman had her fill already of inappropriate suitors, drawn like bees to honey by the ripeness of this pretty and potentially useful tool before them. But the duchess had confessed none of this to the duke. Instead, she had written only to inquire whether someone might be brought from London to fill the role of music tutor. The letter had arrived just as Thomas had observed the king tiring already of his Cleves queen, and so he had remembered that young Catherine well might be of age for his consideration. All other matters had been dropped, and there had been no time to find a proper instructor who could come out to the country.

“Wise of you to return her at least to her former instructor, Agnes,” the duke finally said. “In spite of a bit of adolescent folly, she is a maiden still, I trust?”

“Maiden enough for King Henry’s court,” the dowager replied, smiling her dispassionate, thin-lipped smile. “So will she suit then?”

He stood formally, becoming fully the imposing figure he was to the rest of the world. “I shall let you know my decision.”

“When? For pity’s sake, Thomas, instruction is not without its cost. And if I were being asked to go on tolerating it all and arranging it for—”

“I shall send word to you from court by month’s end. See that her dancing skills are brightened and that she can play ‘My Own Heart’s Desire’ on the lute without mucking it up. His Majesty enjoys that tune above all others and despises when someone cannot
see it through. Just in case, do remind the girl frequently that His Majesty is how he currently prefers being addressed. Now, we shall have a hot meal and a rest before we set off again.”

“You will not remain the night?” the dowager asked in apparent shock as Catherine critically watched their interplay.

“In this old crypt? Goodness, no. I much prefer the comforts of civilization.”

As he moved to leave the room with a sweep of his great black cloak, Catherine stood. “And the new headdress, Your Grace?” she called after him.

He paused and glanced at her again, this time with far more appreciation than he’d shown in the beginning. “You shall have a new French hood by tomorrow. And do learn to wear it with style while I am away,” he said crisply. “They are all the fashion at court these days.”

“So how do you find our young Catherine? Shall we send her to be a lady of honor to the queen?” the duke asked his son as they galloped over the golden bracken back toward the palace in London. “Shall we not send her to London and see how she fares in his company?”