Three Maids for a Crown: A Novel of the Grey Sisters (39 page)

News from the continent had grown more alarming by the week, until not even William Cecil or Bess of Hardwick could hide their frayed nerves. The French thought to wed Mary Queen of Scots to King Philip’s son, who would bring the might of the Habsburg Empire to her cause. How could England withstand the Catholic armies of France and the Holy Roman Empire united? everyone at court wondered.

To make matters worse, Robert Dudley was promising the Spanish that if they helped him marry the queen, he would bring an English contingent to a meeting with the pope. Either prospect—Mary of Scots being placed on the English throne or Dudley attending the Council of Trent—threatened to carry England back to Catholic ways. That would lead to Smithfield and faggots piled high. Cecil’s enemies would see he was one of the first to burn.

I paced the shadowy palace, feeling ever more the outcast. I do not remember setting out for Jane Seymour’s chamber on purpose, but I never could resist picking at a scab, whether on my arm or on my heart. Better to catch sight of Kat for a moment than not see her at all. I was nearing Jane’s door when I heard Kat’s cry. I did not know what was amiss. I only saw her hasten from the chamber, her eyes red with tears.

“Has Jane died?” I asked in horror, fearing my bad thoughts might have made it so.

Kat’s face contorted, and she tried not to sob. “Why do you say such terrible things? Will you not leave me alone?”

“I try to do as you wish, but something is wrong, Kat. I know it. Will you not tell me what it is?”

“Of course something is wrong!” She swiped a red curl from a cheek grown pale. “My dearest friend in the world may be dying, and now Ned is—” She clapped her hand to her brow, knocking her headdress askew. “I do not have time for your fussing, Mary! I must speak to Ned right away. Where could he be?”

A man rose from the shadows, but it was not the Earl of Hertford. The servant, Mr. Glynne, straightened his livery. “I believe his lordship is reading in the gallery.”

Kat hurried away. I stared at her back—her petticoats streaming out behind her, wisps of her coppery hair straying from beneath her caul of silver wire and pearls. Would she always be thus, running away from me? Would I always be trying to catch up? Sadness fell heavily on me. I did not have the heart to follow her.

K
AT

My legs shook as I raced past walls hung with tapestries, where branches of candles shoved back the shadows, but no matter how hard I pressed myself, I could not outrun the hurt that burned in my breast. How could Ned wound me thus? Was not a husband bound to be truthful with his wife? Was it not right to confide in her the most important events of his days? Why then had his sister been the one to convey such vital news? Why had Ned not told me?

As I entered the gallery, I stumbled on the outstretched paws of one of Dudley’s greyhounds. The dog yelped, but I did not even pause to soothe it—testament to how upset I was. I looked around the gallery and found it deserted save for a brace of pages playing at skittles. As I searched further, I marked another occupant. Ned. Garbed in a crimson doublet and black breeches, he sat stiffly in a chair. A book was spread across his lap, but he did not look at it. Instead he looked at a crack in the wall.

I slowed to a more decorous step, not wanting to draw the pages’ attention. Ned must have caught sight of some movement. His eyes shifted to me, and in that unguarded instant I knew what Jane had said was true. A secret clouded my husband’s eyes.

“Lady Katherine,” he said, rising to make me a bow. His formality seemed absurd, considering the many times we had met over the past months, eager, naked. Thoughts of that sweetness and Ned’s tender claims of love made it hard to squeeze out the words that could undo my trust forever.

“Is Jane grown worse?” he asked, fear for his sister evident in his expression.

“No,” I began, then amended it. “Yes, but what she suffers now is not from the fever. She could not keep your secret any longer.” Ned stiffened. “So,” I continued, “you are leaving England?”

“It would seem so.” Guilt, defensiveness, and that hard Seymour pride inherited from his mother set Ned’s mouth in a thin line. “Secretary Cecil is grooming me to advance in the queen’s service. He says that a grand tour of Europe’s courts is necessary to complete the education of any nobleman who wishes to wield influence. I am to go to Italy and the court of France. The alliances I make there will be useful for the rest of my life.”

“You say that as if I would prevent you!” I felt as if he had pressed a raw wound. “Is not my future bound up with yours? Why would you not tell me Cecil’s plan?”

“I do not know.” Ned avoided my eyes. “I thought it would upset you.”

“Being separated from my husband? Of course it upsets me. It is hard enough to sleep alone when I am a wife. Wed these four months, and we have never even spent a night together.”

“I would give half my wealth to sleep in your arms, but we must be more cautious than ever. You know what a foul mood the queen is in. She is most vexed with you of late.”

“So you are leaving me here to deal with her alone? Even more distressing, you have been deceiving me by not telling me your plans.” I waited for him to deny it, to insist that he had only remained silent. He had not spoken a word of untruth, but he spared me that much.

“Nothing is settled for certain,” he said. “I did as Cecil wished and applied for the license to travel. Cecil saw that it was granted. That is as far as the matter has gone.”

“If you and Cecil have decided this is best, why such secretiveness?” I demanded in a rare flare of temper. “Why the hesitation?”

Ned’s cheekbones darkened. “I would not commit to the journey until I ascertained whether …” He hesitated. “Whether or not you might be with child.”

My breath caught. “I am not! Why would you think … I cannot be.”

“We have lain together often. You have known pleasure in our coming together. That is the way children are conceived. My babe could be growing in your belly even now.”

I swallowed hard, panic snagging my nerves. “The queen would be furious.”

“That is why you must tell me how you fare. There are signs only women know.”

What he said was true, but the thought of a pregnancy when the queen’s temper was so volatile terrified me. I recoiled with an almost unreasonable horror from examining such symptoms. “I do not know what such signs might be! I am thought to be an unmarried maid. I can hardly go marching up to one of the other ladies of the privy chamber and ask how I might know I am with child!”

Ned paled, likely imagining the scene such a query would cause. “There must be a way to find out if your womb has quickened, Kat. I cannot defy Cecil. In truth, I do not want to.” His chin rose with that Seymour stubbornness I had seen in both him and his sister. “Can you not see what a grand thing this journey would be for me? I am to be honored at the French court. Think of the powerful connections I will make.”

It hurt to see the gleam of excitement in his eyes. Desperation knotted tight as I imagined my worst fears coming true: life without Jane, should she die, and now Ned leaving me, as Henry had.

“Kat, in spite of all the journey’s allurements, I will not leave you if you are carrying my child.”

No, I thought bitterly. He would stay and resent me, as I resented Mary when she grew too importunate. My pride stirred, and I could not bear to seem a coward before him. “When is Cecil determined to send you?” I forced myself to ask.

“At the end of this month. Surely you will know if there is a babe on the way by then.” He cupped his hands about my arms, distressed. “You must tell me what to do, sweetheart,” he said, his voice catching. “I do not wish to hurt you.”

But hurt pulled me in all the same. It was now my constant companion as I waited upon the queen. It festered inside me during the dark vigil Ned and I kept at Jane’s sickbed as we tried to will our breath into her tortured lungs. Our stolen moments together took on a keener edge. We did not speak of the barrier growing between us—neither to Jane nor to each other. But the harder I fought to conceal those wounds from my friend, the deeper Ned’s betrayal rooted in my heart. Even that final night when Ned and I knelt beside Jane, each of us holding one of her hands, he seemed beyond my reach.

Death came on wings of moonlight. Jane’s last mortal act was to take Ned’s hand and press it into mine. “Do not … waste the gift you have been given,” she whispered. “Not everyone has a chance to love.” I wept as she slipped from life into the realm of heaven. She had matched Ned and me from the beginning, been our confidante, our co-conspirator, our dearest friend.

It pained me that my friend had never known what it was like to lie in a lover’s arms, to feel souls twine together so deeply that one could not tell where one began and the other ended. But she had been spared pain as well. Jane would never understand my anguish as I waited for that bond to snap.

In the weeks that followed Jane’s death, Ned was caught up in the needs of his family, comforting his mother and sisters and brothers and assuring that Jane was accorded all the funereal ceremony befitting a descendant of King Edward III. When they buried her in the same chapel as my mother, my grief doubled.

The final blow fell at the close of March when the court moved to Westminster. Mr. Glynne passed me a note from Ned, bidding me to meet him in the garden. When I got there, Ned looked disheveled.

“Katherine, this cursed indecision is driving me mad! I cannot delay another day. Are you with child or not?”

I stepped back as if he had slapped me, my own agitation unleashed. “How can I tell for certain? It is not fair of you to press me!”

“I do not wish to upset you, but Cecil is most determined I leave. I have never seen him so adamant.”

Irritation rose in me. “If Cecil insists, what does it matter what your wife says?”

“It does matter, and you know it! Just tell me you are with child, and I will march up to the secretary and tell him I stay in England.”

Could it be that simple? Just say the words, and I could keep Ned with me? Women believed they were pregnant all the time, only to miscarry or discover they had been mistaken. Queen Mary had done so twice. Ned need never know that I had lied.
But you would know
, a voice like my sister Jane’s whispered in my head.
That lie would stand between you and your husband for the rest of your lives. Separating of your spirits that way would be worse than being parted from his person for a little while
.

“I cannot tell you one way or the other! I do not know if I carry a child!”

Ned swore. He turned and stalked a few steps away from me. I hated myself for weeping. I heard something rustle—parchment, it sounded like. Then he thrust something into my hands. “I had a will drawn up, naming you as my wife, deeding properties and monies to you and any child we may have.”

“I do not want it!”

“This is no time for fits of temper, Katherine. Unfortunate circumstances can occur while crossing the channel or traveling in foreign lands.”

“You mean you could die!” The thought of losing Ned broke my heart. “I have not even finished crying over Jane!”

“I miss my sister, also.” His grief was naked in his face.

“Then do not leave me.”

Ned sounded as if he were calming a restive hound. “I will write you every day, and before long I will return with pretty trinkets for my beautiful wife. That will please you.”

There was a time when that might have been true, but my happiness was no longer so easily purchased. He would leave me. A ripple of laughter sounded nearby, but I was too desolate to care.

Ned looked over his shoulder, nervous enough for us both. “Katherine, I must go lest we be discovered, but before I do … just know that if—if it turns out that you do carry our child, all you need do is write to me. I will return to you as fast as God’s wind in ship’s sails can carry me. You will not be alone.”

He strained me to him, kissed my lips. “Will you not wish me Godspeed, my love?”

“I cannot think my wishes have any importance at all,” I said dully. “I must go and serve the queen.” It was true enough. I owed Elizabeth my duty, as Ned owed William Cecil his. We stole one last night together before he sailed, our coupling strangely silent. There was nothing more to say.

M
y love sailed on a balmy Saturday. I could not watch him go. Adrift in a world without Ned or Jane, I encased the soft girl I had been in a shell that I allowed no one to penetrate. I twisted my marriage ring about my finger, wondering how Ned’s “knot of secret might” could have unraveled so soon.

I could not eat, wished only to sleep away the sad hours. So great was the change in me that even the author of my misery noticed it and summoned me to speak with him.

William Cecil drew me into his book-littered privy chamber, the man more somber than I had ever seen him. “Lady Katherine, you seem quite wan of late. I hope you are not missing Lord Hertford overmuch.”

I bit the inside of my lip and turned my face away.

“Ah, I see. You do hold him in affection. It is a good thing I have sent him away. Any union between the two of you would be disaster.”

What I saw in his face made me tremble. “What disaster could simple love between two loyal subjects cause?”

“My dear child, I do not wish to blight your romance, but more important things than a girl’s happiness are at stake. You know of Mary of Scots’ treacherous plotting?”

“I do.”

“Now Robert Dudley once again has the queen under his thrall. He plots with the Spanish, promising to bring England back into the Catholic fold.”

“But he is reformed faith.”

“Dudley hungers for a crown and the queen—and I am not certain she can resist his charms. If Her Majesty is foolhardy enough to marry him, she will topple from the throne.”

“But the queen has not named anyone her heir.”

“Nor will she have the chance to, if these events come to pass. You will be raised to the throne, Lady Katherine. As a good Christian of the reformed faith, you may be the one hope to keep England from civil war.”