The Queen's Mistake Page 13

  “I serve the queen. I am at Her Grace’s disposal at all times,” Catherine coolly replied before he could finish. She was completely uninterested in Gregory at that moment.

  “But you are here now, which is my great fortune, since my wife is not. Come save a poor old married man and dance with me.”

  She glanced up almost automatically to where Thomas was standing, hoping he would see Gregory’s interest in her. To her surprise, he was watching her. Good, she thought.

  “I would be delighted to dance with you, Master Cromwell,” she said. She wanted Thomas to feel the jealousy that she was feeling as Lady Lisle continued to cling to his side.

  “Ah, they are doing a tourdion.”

  “Your favorite dance?”

  “Precisely, because it is the one I am best at.”

  Catherine could not help but laugh at his comment full of more self-effacement than bragging. She pushed back her chair, stood and haughtily strode to the center of the hall with Gregory.

  “I wanted to see you again,” he said, as they passed each other, then dipped and twirled in time to the music, their jewels and ornaments glittering in the flaming torchlight.

  “I am not surprised.”

  “Not only because of that,” he said with a chuckle, “although I would consider that as an added benefit, most definitely.”

  “I did not know you were married when we met.”

  “I did not know you were not just beautiful, but clever as well. Yet I refuse to hold that against you.”

  Catherine laughed. She could not help it. She liked men, and she liked the game.

  “I am surprised by how charmingly you dance.” She smiled intentionally when she saw Thomas still watching her.

  “I am flattered you would think so,” Gregory replied as they moved through another tune. “But I did warn you the tourdion was my best dance. I positively have two left feet when it comes to the volte.”

  “That’s probably a good thing, since it is the volte at which the king excels.”

  “You have learned quickly for how briefly you have been at court.”

  “I am a Howard,” she declared with a widening, flirtatious smile.

  “That you are.” They bowed to each other as the music and the dance came to an end. Gregory leaned over and whispered to her, “Let’s steal away from this miserably warm corridor and do something wild. Let’s go wading in the king’s Neptune fountain.”

  “We would be caught for certain!” Catherine exclaimed.

  “Is danger not the true thrill of adventure?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t have many adventures at Horsham.”

  “Well, then it’s high time you start having them here,” Gregory said with a smile.

  He led her with his slightly sweaty hand through a crowd of people so thick and drunk that they passed unnoticed beneath the Roman arch and through the open doors, where liveried guardsmen stood as still as toy soldiers. They continued down a long, carpeted corridor, then out into the moonlit night and beneath a sky peppered with brilliant stars. The cool night air came at her swiftly, reviving all of her senses.

  The Neptune fountain was a massive stone pond encircled by trimmed plants and five brick pathways that led in five directions. Gregory sank onto the edge of the fountain, removed his shoes, and waited for Catherine to do the same.

  “I feel so naughty,” she said with a tinkling, girlish laugh.

  “Splendid. So shall we have a go?”

  “It was awfully warm in there just now . . .” Catherine admitted.

  As she held up her wide skirts, he helped her step into the ankle-deep fountain, and they both began to laugh again. It was so fun to do something so shocking, and possibly even get caught. The night air was crisp as she moved deeper into the cool water.

  “Do you like the feel of the moss between your toes?” he asked. “I find it rather erotic.”

  “It is,” she said, playing willingly into Gregory’s little game.

  “Then we shall have to think of our next adventure before this one is over.”

  He pulled her toward him, touching her, running a hand up her arm. It was a familiar game, one she could play easily and well. Just as he pressed his mouth against the column of her throat, she sensed another presence nearby. When she drew away to look, the last person Catherine expected to see was Thomas Culpeper. He stood beside the fountain, hand on the dress scabbard at his side, his expression one of challenge.

  “A pleasant evening,” he said. His words were cordial, but his tone was not.

  “Yes,” she replied, feeling strangely embarrassed.

  “Cromwell.” Thomas nodded.

  “Culpeper.” Gregory nodded in return.

  Catherine glanced from one man to the other. The tension grew in the silence, and the distant strains of music and laughter felt farther and farther away.

  “Have you had enough?” Thomas asked her, his expression strained and angry now. “If so, I shall escort you back to the banquet.”

  “Should you not be escorting Lady Lisle?” Catherine asked in a petulant tone that surprised even her. She had not meant to sound so churlish, but the words escaped her lips before she could take them back.

  Catherine watched his eyes narrow slightly. “That would be the portion of gossip that I recommended you disregard.”

  She tipped up her chin just slightly, challenging him. “I believe what I have seen for myself.”

  “Your eyes deceive you,” he said quietly.

  “Do they deceive the rest of us?” Gregory asked.

  Catherine watched Thomas’s jaw clench. He did not reply. Two heartbeats passed before his eyes cut away from her and settled on Gregory Cromwell. A moment later, Thomas turned to walk away. He took only two long strides on the brick path before Catherine leaped from the fountain and snatched up her shoes. Thomas paused and turned very slowly to meet the sound of wet, padding feet on the bricks. Her choice was implicit as she stood before him and let down the skirts of her dress.

  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 ambiti
ous 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 conve
rsation. 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.