The Queen's Mistake (49 page)

“Isn’t it?” she asked, thinking of Katherine Basset.

“At court, gossip is always much more interesting than the truth,” he said, echoing the words he had told her long ago.

“Not in our case,” she countered.

“Meet me back here in the maze tomorrow?” He pressed a tender kiss on her mouth and she melted into it, feeling her own passion flare just as he pulled himself away.

“Come at sunset.”

Catherine considered the invitation. “My ladies usually like to rest at that hour.”

“Excellent.” He smiled that same dazzling smile that she loved but that told her it was a grand mistake to agree. Yet she was absolutely powerless to deny him.

“My sweet fool,” she said with a sad smile. “We are going to get ourselves killed. But I still love you so.”

“I adore when you call me that. . . . And you know I have never stopped loving you.”

Henry did not join Catherine in her bedchamber that night as he ordinarily would have, and when Catherine inquired about him the next morning, Lady Douglas told her that His Majesty, the privy counsel and much of the court had left at dawn for London. The overwhelming feeling of freedom she felt at the news far outweighed the fear she felt for having angered him. Since she had first come to court, they had never so much as quarreled, and he certainly had never left her behind. Henry could scarcely bear to be in a room without her, so this was bound to incite gossip and bring a new flurry of rumors about her and Thomas. All she cared about now, though, as she stood before her long, gilt dressing room mirror and saw the thin, bloodred wound on her cheek-bone
and the raging purple bruise forming around it, was seeing Thomas again.

Jane stood behind her in a deep blue velvet gown and a rope of heavy pearls, offering silent support as Catherine touched her wound, feeling the sharp effect of the bruise.

“The Duke of Norfolk is here. I held him off as long as I could.”

“Does he appear angry?” Catherine asked, aware of the ire she might have provoked in those other than the king.

“Very.”

At Jane’s confirmation, the tall oak door was thrown back on its hinges and crashed into the wall. The grand, intimidating figure of Thomas Howard swept into the room in a long black surcoat with a silver baldric across his chest.

“How could you be so foolish!” It was not a question.

“Do you have any idea what this could cost us, how Cranmer and others work against you, even as we speak? You have given them a golden opportunity,” he bellowed, his face mottled in fury.

“He killed her in cold blood,” Catherine said defiantly.

“That was none of your concern,” Norfolk volleyed, waving his hand in the air dismissively.

“I am his queen!”

“Catherine, you are meant to satisfy his needs in the bedchamber and bear him sons. Your attempt at anything more jeopardizes us all.”

He was standing close enough that she could feel his hot breath on her face as he spit the angry words at her.

“I was told he was furious with you for that scene you caused before running away. You made him look like a fool.”

“I
was furious with
him
for murdering an old woman!” she countered.

“Do not make the mistake of overestimating your own importance, Catherine. Remember you are the fifth in a line of replaceable queens. He has proven that much!”

They were both shouting. Catherine could see from the corner of her eye that her ladies and the royal guards flanking the door were listening intently.

“Where were you last night?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Here,” she said, half truthfully.

“And before that?” He pressed. “Mistress Lassells told me you returned alone to your chamber after midnight. Your dress had to be burned to hide the layer of dirt before any untoward story could be spun about it.”

“I fell,” she said simply.

He arched a brow. His lips were pursed so tightly that they appeared bloodless. “Then you rolled around in the dirt afterward for good measure? I may look old to you, but do not assume I am a fool, Catherine. And do not gamble with Henry on that score either. He has given you his heart and made you his queen. For that, he expects full fidelity. Cuckold him and you shall not live long enough to regret it,” he warned.

“I have been faithful, my lord.”

He paused, scanning the room, presumably seeking guilty faces. “Good. See that you remain that way in His Majesty’s absence. I will go to London and speak on your behalf. I am told you may finally be with child, so that should help our case. When he sends for you, go to him repentantly, and never again let me hear that you have questioned his supreme authority.”

“Even against murder?” Catherine asked, refusing to drop the point.

“Especially that, or the next time it may well mean your head, or even my own.”

Archbishop Cranmer had remained behind at Hampton Court to keep an eye on the Duke of Norfolk and to find out precisely why the king had gone off to London without his nubile young queen.

Mary Lassells stood before him. She had spared no detail about the events of the previous night. He had heard the servants gossiping that morning about the scene at the banquet, but Mary was a more practiced storyteller, telling him not only about the fight but also about the meeting with Thomas, which she had seen herself by her habit of lurking.

The foolish, zealous woman was worth every penny he paid her.

He handed over the small leather pouch stuffed with coins and watched her greedily secret it in the voluminous folds of her modest skirts. In war, one searched for weaknesses. Cromwell had taught him that. Though he was dead, his anger would live on until the Howard girl was gone and forgotten.

Cranmer was as committed to that as ever.

And he was getting closer.

Chapter Eighteen

 

 

Freedom is not treasured until it is lost.

Catherine did not fully realize that until ten days following Henry’s departure for London. With Jane’s help, she and Thomas met each day deep within the twists and turns of the maze. Two right turns, a left, then another right. Thomas brought wine, cups and whatever food he could take from the kitchens without being noticed. Jane always lent them a well-prepared alibi after admonishing them to adhere rigidly to it.

Catherine worried about being discovered, but there was a familiar, guilty pleasure in it as well, like the old days at Horsham. They met and had long talks about everything. He held her hand and touched her face, but never anything more.

“I believe I am finally with child,” she confessed on the day after the king had sent for her. He wanted to reunite with her at Whitehall Palace for the May Day celebrations and had called for her to join him on the morrow.

“I hope it is the king’s child,” Thomas teased.

“I wish it were yours,” she said sincerely.

“Fortunately, we know that is not possible.”

“That would be a blessing to me, not a mistake.”

“I am guessing His Majesty would feel differently about that.”

“Bessie Blount’s bastard child did well enough before he died.”

“Ah, but that was the king’s mistake, not the queen’s,” he corrected.

She traced a line along his smooth jaw, where just a gentle stubble of a beard remained. It was a rare physical connection between them, both of them mindful of the limits imposed by her marriage.

“Would you have wanted a child with me?”

“I would have wanted everything with you,” he said softly.

“I hope it’s not true. I do not want his child. I do not love him.”

“You mustn’t say that. It is your duty. The country depends on an heir in case Prince Edward does not survive.”

The truth of his words wounded her. He sounded like the Duke of Norfolk. She shot to her feet in response, tipping over her cup of wine. “Duty be damned.”

“Henry controls it all.”

“Not my heart,” she declared.

They were close and he was perfection as he stood before her. Close. Unattainable. Forbidden. Nothing had changed between them, nor could it. When she kissed him, with the high walls of ivy protecting them, she fully realized that. Their mouths met, the kiss chaste at first; then, sweetened by the past, it deepened as she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. After a moment, he pulled away, yet his gaze was locked on her.

“We cannot do more,” he murmured.

“I know. I bid you not to hate me for wanting to, though.”

Thomas grabbed her by the waist. “How could I when I crave you like a drug, even in my sleep, when my mind and soul are filled with the taste of you, the memories of every curve and angle of your sweet, smooth body.”

The words had been spoken softly, but so intensely and full of truth that her eyes filled with tears. Thomas reached up to brush them away with his thumbs, then gently held her trembling jaw.

When he kissed her this time, he did not hold back. She could feel his longing for her. But as the kiss deepened, something moved near the corner of the hedge, and Catherine jumped back with a start, her senses piqued.

“Did you hear that?”

“I did.” Thomas’s body instantly tensed in alarm as he scanned the corners of the tall hedges.

“Who would follow us?”

“A dozen people that I can think of, and then some. Fortunately, everyone of influence has gone to London.”

“True.” She tried to breathe.

But influence came in many forms and wore many disguises, her uncle had said. Unfortunately, Catherine was too preoccupied with thoughts of Thomas, whom she would not see alone again after that day, to care about anything else.

She was not sorry, no matter who might have seen.

Catherine hated London, with its dirty, clotted waterways, filthy cobbled streets and the constant threat of disease. Yet she was relieved that the king had finally sent for her. Their quarrel was over. He would be angry when he found out that no child was growing inside of her, since her flux had begun just as she left that morning, but she was secretly relieved. She did not want Henry’s child when her heart was so full of Thomas. Perhaps that would change with her return to Whitehall, and she would be able to make peace with her duty once again.