The Queen's Mistake Page 11

  She began to play and lost herself for a moment in the pretty piece, which was sweet and melodic. It was said that Anne Boleyn had played this for him the day he had married her. The irony was not lost on Catherine.

  “Well, wife, I approve of your teacher!” Henry pronounced with a strange chuckle as soon as the song was done, as he lifted his goblet to Catherine and those around him followed suit. “To the queen’s instructor!”

  “To the queen’s instructor!” the others dutifully chimed in.

  Catherine stood, curtsied and retreated as quickly as possible to her place at the table. Her hands were trembling as she began to unhook Thomas Culpeper’s cape, but he put a hand on her arm to stop her.

  “You can return it later,” he said, smiling charmingly as servants brought out great, glittering silver platters of marzipan and the consort, a group of royal musicians, began again to perform from the gallery above. “Besides, I find I like thinking of you indebted to me.”

  In spite of herself, his words and delivery made Catherine laugh. Their eyes met again. “Some debts are too large to pay, Master Culpeper.”

  “And some are far too pleasurable to be thought of as a true debt.”

  “Well, either way, you must have your cape returned to you. I do not like the notion of owing a gentleman anything.”

  “Why not spare yourself the inevitable questions about the stain? Certainly your good sense will triumph over your pride.”

  “With a man like you, a bit of pride would be good sense,” Catherine replied wittily.

  He tipped his head, the twisted smile breaking through again. “You have been warned about me, I see.”

  “Wisely so?”

  “But of course. A pretty girl should always know what she is heading into, I say,” Thomas Culpeper chuckled. “Even if it does spoil a bit of the adventure.”

  From his seat nearby, Henry watched her. He had not taken his eyes from her since she sat beside the queen to play. Henry had seen the black stain on her gown and her futile attempts to hide it, as a child hides a mistake. It was amusing, he thought.

  “So that is your niece, Norfolk?” he asked as nonchalantly as he could while a youthful sensation tingled up his spine. “She has changed a good deal since I was at Horsham with Jane.”

  “Still pretty, though, if Your Majesty will tolerate my saying so,” Norfolk dared.

  “Pretty once, perhaps—stunning now,” Henry amended.

  The Duke of Norfolk knew he was on the right path, but each step must be deliberate. “Agreed, Your Majesty, she is that,” he said, biting back his smile with a liberal, congratulatory swallow of rich Malmsey wine.

  An hour later, to everyone’s surprise, the king asked the queen to accompany him on a stroll, so the ladies and courtiers were free to do as they pleased for a time. Catherine accepted Thomas’s invitation to dance. The music from the gallery was spirited, the wine was plentiful and the dance floor was crowded with swirls of velvet, satin, and flashes of silver. The light from the flickering beeswax candles, the aroma of sweat mixed with perfume, and the sound of laughter added to the heady atmosphere.

  “So then, you do know of your dreadful reputation, Master Culpeper?” Catherine laughed as he bowed, dipped her into a graceful curtsy and pressed a hand to her own in time with the music.

  “Gossip is so overrated, Mistress Howard,” he replied with a clever smile that lit his face.

  She had never in her life seen anything more beautiful. Catherine tipped her head. “Should I pay it no heed then?”

  “Oh, you should pay heed to all gossip. Then toss half out and believe about half of that.”

  “I shall keep that in mind.” She laughed.

  They twirled and bowed again. “Your uncle is watching us like one of the king’s prized hawks,” Thomas remarked, still smiling and not sounding particularly bothered by the revelation.

  Catherine glanced back across the hall to where she knew Norfolk was sitting. He would be so pleased, she thought, that she had caught the eye of a gentleman of the king’s privy chamber. That could not be unimportant. Thomas was handsome, clever and obviously a bit dangerous—challenge enough to keep her interest, most certainly. “He can see as I do that you dance very well.”

  “You flatter me, Mistress Howard.”

  “A first attempt to pay back my debt on the cape.”

  “As I told you, some obligations are far too pleasurable to be thought of as true debt.”

  They both laughed, and for Catherine, the connection was instant and powerful. A tremor ran through her, and for the first time in her life with a man, she felt disarmed. It surprised her that she actually liked the uncontrollable sensation.

  Well after midnight, Thomas escorted Catherine back to the queen’s apartments. Since Whitehall was not a single palace but a massive tangle of buildings, even the shortest route could be made as long as one wished. They passed down a long, paneled gallery and out into a large, brick-paved courtyard beside the knot garden. The moon was full and bright, and since it was a cloudless night, it cast everything around them in a silver glow. As they walked, Catherine tried not to look over at him.

  But the attraction was overwhelming.

  Instead, she looked down at a small weed growing in the crack between the bricks and tried to concentrate on it. He was nothing like Manox or Dereham. He was in a class even above Cromwell’s son, and he knew it.

  Even his self-assurance drew her.

  She could not escape the attraction, nor did she want to. She finally glanced over and caught his gaze. His eyes actually glittered in the evening light. In spite of his glib manner, there was a strange vulnerability just beneath the surface of his smile. He used the clever manner to conceal it, but she could see it there. Anyone who bothered to look could see it.

  “So, who exactly is Thomas Culpeper?” she asked, wanting to know more about him.

  “The man walking beside you, of course.”

  “Yet there is always more to one than what one shows the world.”

  “Quite true.”

  “Why did you really help me this evening?”

  She could see him hesitate. A small wrinkle furrowed his brow, as though he were considering something very serious. “I have three younger sisters,” he finally said, “all of whom were always getting themselves into some sort of predicament. Let us just say that coming to the aid of young women has become something of a habit.”

  “Have you made a habit of violating them as well?” When she saw the same furrow on his brow deepen to a frown, Catherine instantly regretted the flippant question, yet she could not take it back. She wanted to know if he would disappoint her as well. “I find it difficult not to pay heed to that particular bit of gossip.”

  “Ah, yes. That.”

  Thomas gazed up into the broad, black night sky, hands linked behind his back for what felt like an eternity. The gossip about what he had done was horrific, and it was the first thing Catherine heard at court after seeing him that day in Lambeth. Jane had also told her that a year earlier, Thomas Culpeper had raped a park keeper’s wife. One of the villagers who tried to accuse him had been found murdered, and Thomas was blamed for the death.

  “Is that among the portion of court lore I would be advised to disregard or heed, Master Culpeper?” Catherine rephrased her question.

  He did not answer her quickly or glibly this time. When he looked back at her, Catherine saw that Thomas’s easygoing expression had changed. He was somber and deadly serious.

  “Since you asked, part of you must already believe it.”

  “I am asking you. I will decide what I believe after you answer.”

  Thomas leaned in very slowly and leveled his intense gaze at her. Having him so close and entirely focused on her made Catherine forget to breathe. The expression on his face was disarmingly sincere. “Find your own truth, Mistress Howard. It is what my father told my sisters, and what I am telling you now. That is always the best path,” he said before he tu
rned and began to walk away from her.

  “Wait. You’re not going to accompany me the rest of the way?”

  Thomas paused and turned back. His eyes still drew her, yet there was something strange about them now. “For the moment, Mistress Howard, I leave you on your own for all things. What you decide to do or believe shall be up to you,” Thomas said, before he turned again very abruptly and left her alone near a moss-covered statue of Nero.

  “It is the best possible fortune. The king actually noticed Catherine this evening, which is what we have been waiting for,” Norfolk mused as he sat beside a roaring, red-gold fire that crackled and popped inside his private drawing room.

  Beside him, seated in a matching chair and sipping warm ale from a silver cup, was Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, the slim, pasty-faced cleric who supported Norfolk through the dark days of Anne Boleyn and Cardinal Wolsey. Beyond family, there was no one the duke trusted besides Gardiner. Both were devoted Catholics and longed for a return to the true religion in England. They were also both wildly ambitious, and as a team they were a force to be reckoned with.

  Everything depended upon the events of that night. Their most dangerous enemy, the Protestant Chancellor Cromwell, had just been granted the title Earl of Essex by Henry, in spite of his faux pas with Anne of Cleves. So that Cromwell could not act in any way on rumors of Catherine that might affect the Howards, and thus defend himself from upcoming blame over the marriage, he was urged to find a way for the king to dissolve his marriage.

  While he did so, Norfolk and Gardiner must find a way to vanquish Cromwell entirely.

  “There is not an inch of room for error,” Norfolk added, immersed in the details of his rapidly evolving plan. “It is imperative that Henry believe it is his own notion.”

  “Not terribly difficult, considering the extraordinary beauty of your niece,” Gardiner replied.

  “Ah, but it will take a great deal more than beauty to capture the King of England, now that he is four times wed with only one bride he does not regret.”

  “You mean Jane Seymour, of course?”

  “Who else, you fool! Which gives the apparently still grieving Seymour brothers a distinct advantage in finding a replacement for the Cleves mare. Nostalgia is a powerful draw, which means we must work twice as hard to put Catherine before him in these next days.”

  “And if we provide the path His Majesty seeks to divorce the queen . . . ?”

  “If we can do so without risking his delicate political alliances, the king should be grateful enough to us to diminish the Seymour advantage.”

  “Do I guess correctly that we have much work ahead of us tonight?”

  A thin smile lengthened Norfolk’s mouth. “Planning while the enemy sleeps provides the greatest opportunity for reward. It worked initially with my Anne, and we have learned from our mistakes. It shall work with Catherine.”

  “I do hope Your Grace has learned a thing or two about controlling your nieces in the interim.”

  “Catherine Howard is an entirely different breed from Anne Boleyn, and she will be an entirely different queen.”

  “Queen?” Gardiner’s mud brown eyes widened with surprise. “Do you truly believe His Majesty will take another queen and not just a mistress after all of this turmoil, four times over?”

  “Our king is many things, Gardiner, but foremost is his devotion to God and what is right. He may not know it now, but when we are finished with him, His Majesty will do whatever it takes to make Catherine not his mistress, but his wife.”

  “One can only hope it will be your niece’s wish as well,” Gardiner observed. “I saw the way she looked at Culpeper this evening, not unlike the way a dozen other beauties at court have looked at him before.”

  “But Catherine’s desire in this is entirely unimportant. She shall do as she is told and be glad of it. In the meantime, she can dally with Culpeper if she pleases.”

  “Is that not a dangerous dalliance to permit?” Gardiner asked.

  Norfolk finished his ale, then laid his head back against the chair. He was tired, but contemplation of the greatness at hand was a heady stimulant.

  “It is apparent that your commitment to our lord has left you little time to understand the complexities of women, Stephen. My Catherine is like a colt: sleek, beautiful, but largely a wild creature whose drive must not be taken for granted. I saw that in her from the first moment at Horsham, and I nearly declined to bring her to court because of it. The challenge with a girl like Catherine Howard is learning how to rein her in to serve one’s purpose and not break her great spirit, which is her key asset.”

  “Let her feel a bit of freedom, whether real or not?”

  “Precisely. It is the perception that she has some control that will bend her ultimately to our will,” the Duke of Norfolk said.

  Gardiner bit back a smile. “Perhaps taming her is too grand a goal, from what I have seen of the girl,” he wisely said. “There is a part of your niece, I fear, that means to do whatever she pleases.”

  The day had been long and tiring to Catherine, starting with the morning attending the queen and leading up to the banquet, the performance on the lute, and her many hours with Thomas Culpeper. She was exhausted by the time she made it back to the queen’s rooms after he had left her.

  Catherine went into the queen’s presence chamber and quietly closed the door. There were candles lit and a small fire blazing, illuminating the vast Flemish wall tapestry. Everyone else was asleep in their own chambers, and the room was empty. A light rain had begun to hit the windows, and the vast room was filled with a chill. Catherine moved across the wooden floor and began to loosen her French hood, which felt tighter than usual. Everything felt restrictive tonight. The headdress was pinching, the tight boning of her stomacher stopped her from breathing too deeply, and the heavy dress pulled her down. Her clothing seemed to be a great reflection of her life.

  Everything was weighing so heavily upon her: rules, expectations . . . Thomas.

  “High time you returned. The dark circles beneath your eyes tomorrow morning shall reveal what you’ve been doing. And there is far too much riding on your success for such nonsense.”

  The icy tone was like a sudden rush of cold water, and Catherine stiffened. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness as a figure shrouded in shadows before her slowly turned around. As the figure stepped into the light, Catherine saw the face of the dowager duchess. In a sweep of forbidding black satin, she approached Catherine, her lined face full of reproach.

  “My lady grandmother.” Catherine dipped into a deep, respectful curtsy, her heart sinking with disappointment. “I did not know you were coming to court.”

  “Precisely,” Agnes Howard replied. “And by the look of things, I did not arrive a moment too soon, before you and the duke made a mess of all that we have worked toward. But Grandmother is here to see that everything works out exactly as planned. Someone has to do it.”

  Chapter Seven

  May 1540

  Whitehall Palace, London

  “Culpeper!” The king bellowed for his favorite young gentleman of the bedchamber. “Where the devil is Tom?” he mumbled to himself after receiving no reply. He suddenly threw back his bedding in a blaze of fury and swung his bare legs over the side of the massive, carved bed curtained with a heavy, gold-fringed tapestry.

  “He has been called for, Your Majesty,” Thomas Seymour said after bowing deeply.

  A moment later, like an errant child, Thomas Culpeper arrived, pushing past pages, Yeomen of the Guard, esquires and clerics gathered at the foot of the royal bed. He stumbled into the king’s presence, hat askew, his sculpted, handsome face unshaven.

  Henry studied him through tiny, discerning dark eyes, and as his full red brows merged in a frown, all movement in the room ceased. The others knew the look. Henry had been wounded by the Boleyn years. The death of Jane had only deepened the wound, making him more cantankerous and more wildly unpredictable with age. Jocularity could
be replaced easily by rage, and in the blink of an eye it often was.

  “Good morning, Your Majesty,” Thomas said, conjuring an easy smile. “Have you slept well then?”

  At that moment, the room was filled with uneasy silence as the courtiers exchanged worried glances, but the tension was broken when Henry began to laugh.

  “Better than you, by all appearances. Is that not the costume you wore last evening?”

  “Forgive me. It is, Your Majesty.”

  “Did you actually sleep at all?” Henry volleyed admiringly.

  Thomas bit back a smile and advanced, bowing again. He knew the king enjoyed the thrill of hearing about his exploits, and the things he no longer could do.

  “I did manage to nod off for a bit just before dawn.”

  Henry chuckled again and slapped Thomas approvingly on the back. Meanwhile, Charles Brandon slung a crimson velvet dressing gown piped in silver thread across the king’s shoulders, and Edward Seymour artfully pushed Henry’s thick arms through the sleeves.

  “Who was she this time, Tom? Or do I even want to know?” The king chuckled.

  “Did Your Majesty himself not advise me against ‘kissing and telling’?”

  “I am better off in a blissful state of ignorance? Is that what you mean to say?”

  Beneath a gilded ceiling carved with Tudor roses, ushers, stewards, cupbearers, grooms, messengers and pages moved in a flurry of activity, while a groom moistened Henry’s face and hands with a cloth perfumed with lavender-scented oil. Afterward, Thomas followed Henry into the grand presence chamber, where his dining table was laid with white silk, covered by a French tapestry, and placed before a painted panel depicting Christ’s Passion.

  Henry slumped into his chair without acknowledging the large group of nobles and servants attending to and clamoring for His Majesty’s favor. Thomas stood behind the table so that he might converse with His Majesty, if he felt so inclined. He watched as Henry ate from gleaming gold dishes heaped with boar paté, stewed quail, figs with clotted cream, and his favorite—quince marmalade.