The Queen's Mistake Read online

  “Lie down,” Henry directed her.

  The guttural tone of his voice surprised her. There was something primal and powerful about it. She did as he instructed, slipping quickly beneath the heavy damask bedcovers.

  He moved across the sweetly scented bedchamber, extinguishing all of the candles until the only light in the room came from the moon. He stood beside the bed, obscured by the half-drawn tapestry bed curtain.

  “Close your eyes,” he instructed her in the same low, deep tone. This time she caught a note of trepidation.

  He does not want me to see him naked, she thought, remembering Thomas’s long, lean torso when she saw him unclothed for the first time. Even the memory took her breath away.

  Suddenly she was struck by a thought. Perhaps she should think of Thomas. It could make her more receptive to the distasteful duty that lay ahead.

  Catherine heard Henry’s dressing gown slip across his skin and pool onto the floor before he sank heavily onto the edge of the bed beside her. The entire bed shifted under his weight. He smelled of freshly applied musk, which she did not find wholly unpleasant, but his breath was still sour as he moved closer toward her. A heartbeat later, his fingers were in her hair and his bare leg was warm against hers. God, please do not let it be his leg with the festering sore, she thought frantically. He would surely sense it if she recoiled in disgust, even in the slightest.

  “This is going to hurt, I’m afraid. Forgive me for that,” he whispered, his lips very close to her ear, just before he pressed a kiss onto her cheek, then another onto her earlobe.

  She felt his desire for her against her leg just before he settled himself over her with a huff of effort. It was the heavy, animalistic sounds he made, more than anything else, that made it difficult to keep picturing Thomas. Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe and it will soon be over.

  His manhood was big enough that her small body resisted it instinctively at first, which she knew was a blessing in maintaining the ruse of her virginity. Catherine put the back of her hand to her mouth, then made a little gasp as he worked himself over her with great effort and perspiration. She closed her eyes and did not touch him or wrap her arms around his broad, square back. She could not hold on to an inkling of the Thomas fantasy if she did.

  Mercifully, he groaned one last time and it was finally over. Her chest and belly were covered with his perfumed sweat as he rolled off of her with another grunt of effort. Catherine drew in a breath, willing the vomit in her throat back down. Henry took her hand and held it to his lips as he lay beside her. His chest was heaving as if he had just run a race.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, seeming unaware or unconcerned with the absence of blood, so great was his trust in her. His genuinely gentle tone eased her sickness. “I hope it was not too painful this first time.”

  “I am fine,” she managed to whisper in reply as he hoisted himself onto an elbow and pushed the hair back from her face.

  “I’m glad. And it will become more pleasant each time; I promise you that. I have many things to show you, many ways for us to pleasure each other, which I will teach you in time.”

  He seemed to forget his previous reserve, allowing her to see his fleshy, pale breasts beneath patchy coils of copper chest hair now that they had been intimate.

  “Does the medal as well please you?” he asked, his face bright with a hopeful smile.

  “It is glorious, sire, a great honor to my entire family,” Catherine replied truthfully, though she still worried about living up to the inscription.

  “Ah, it is Hal, sweetheart, remember?” He took her hand and pressed it to his moist lips. A wave of nausea passed over her again, but she pushed it back with a smile. “It is but the beginning, Cat. There is so much I want to show you, to share with you, besides this, of course, which I must warn you will be every night. I know I will never be able to get enough of you.” His eyes twinkled in the luminescent moonlight. “And you shall need a motto of your own.”

  “A motto?”

  “Every queen must have a phrase that marks them, one by which they live.”

  Catherine thought of the four queens before her, each of whom surely had a motto, and three of whom were dead. Clearly, she would need to choose a motto that not only fulfilled the tradition of emphasizing the values and traditions one held dear, but in her case, one that would keep her alive.

  “I shall send Wriothesley to aid you in your search. He is quite poetic. But in the end, the choice must be yours alone or it will mean little.”

  “As you selected yours about me?” Catherine asked.

  “Yes, I did it entirely on my own. I would not have had it any other way.”

  “I shall speak with him tomorrow then. I want to be a good wife and a good queen,” she said sweetly.

  “You shall be spectacular at both,” he replied, running a thumb along her chin and down the column of her throat. “Have you any idea what you do to me? How my heart, and the rest of me, burns for you already, and it is but our first night?”

  Before she could answer, Henry took her hand and pushed it down beneath the bedcover, where she could feel him growing hard again. “I warn you, there’ll not be much sleep for either of us tonight,” he playfully declared, forcing her to hold him.

  She watched his eyes roll to a close.

  “God above. How can you be an innocent when you make my blood boil as if you had done this a thousand times before?” he asked with a guttural growl.

  Near dawn, Henry sent for food. He was ravenous, as always, and so, surprisingly, was Catherine. Sitting cross-legged atop the bedcovers in her delicate lacy shift, which she had once again donned, she ate gin gerbread and sweet figs with her fingers as Henry gazed at her, his bare arms crossed behind his head as he reclined against the headboard.

  “How could God have made such a lovely creature for me after the long, complicated life I have lived? I kept asking myself that all night last night, even while you slept.”

  “I slept?” She was surprised.

  “Only for a little while. But it’s all right. It is a pleasure watching you sleep.” His expression was earnest, surprisingly so. His thumb grazed her cheek and moved once again down to her throat. “You looked like such a child, so innocent. It has been an eternity since I have been with a beautiful woman.”

  “Queen Jane was very pretty,” she risked saying. She looked at the portrait on the wall beside them, which was haunting, even in the darkness. Jane Seymour gazed down upon them as if in judgment. Catherine saw his jaw tighten.

  “Her portrait does not do her justice. Holbein is usually a splendid painter, but he does not capture Jane’s goodness here. . . .” He trailed off wistfully. “Well, perhaps I am not being objective. She gave me a son, so she is very dear to me. Her memory shall live in a corner of my heart forever.”

  She could not quite believe there were tears in his eyes as he spoke the words. He straightened to be rid of them, as if he sensed they were not manly.

  “I am sorry you lost Jane. It must have been hard for you to lose a wife and for Edward to lose his mother.”

  Henry looked at her gratefully. “But he has you now. All three of my children do.”

  “I think Mary would rather have anyone but me,” Catherine said softly.

  “Give her time, Cat. I know that she wants to care for you,” he reassured her.

  “She has quite an odd way of showing it.”

  “We Tudors all do.” He smiled at her. “She has been through a great deal, most of which is my fault.”

  Catherine leaned closer to Henry, her amber hair falling onto his pale, bare chest. She was emboldened by their candid conversation. “May I ask you something?”

  “Anything,” he replied.

  “Did you ever love Mary’s mother?”

  Henry drew in an audible, raspy breath. He rolled onto his back and gazed up at the canopy for a long time before he answered. “Passionately, once. But that was another lifetime.”


  He ran a hand along the line of her jaw. “Let’s put this talk aside. You are the only one in my life now,” Henry declared. “You will be different from all the others.”

  “I believe you,” Catherine said in response.

  And just then, she did believe everything Henry told her.

  Three days later, in the dirty, cobbled, dung-covered streets of West Smithfield, just outside of London, the bloody executions began. Henry kept Catherine tucked safely away in the verdant surroundings of Oatlands, blissfully unaware of the resurgence of the battle over religion. He wanted to maintain his bride’s blithe innocence for as long as he could.

  “Is it done?” Henry asked Norfolk in a strangely hollow voice one afternoon while Catherine and her ladies played shuttlecock. He looked down at her from the wide window in his study, watching her giggle as she played and danced around.

  “They are all dead. Reverend Gerard, Reverend Jerome, Dr. Pow ell, Dr. Abel, Dr. Barnes.” Norfolk reported their names blandly.

  “Featherstone, as well?” the king asked.

  “Hanged, drawn and quartered, as ordered, Your Majesty.”

  Henry took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, the only noise in the otherwise silent privy chamber. “A good many lives were lost for speaking out.”

  “The country must be taught a lesson, sire,” Norfolk said firmly. “We cannot have the clergy denying your supremacy. That sort of rebellion could spread like wildfire, and then how would you lead?”

  “And Your Majesty must remember,” Stephen Gardiner chimed in, “some of them insisted that you were still married to the princess of Aragon, making your son—”

  “I know what it means, Gardiner!” the king snarled.

  Catherine was twirling and skipping in the courtyard by the fountain below, while her ladies laughed in encouragement. A group of young courtiers, led by Cromwell’s son, Gregory, advanced to watch the women play. The young and handsome Cromwell was looking far too familiarly at the queen. No one on this earth dared do that. Henry leaned heavily against the window frame, suddenly angry at everything and everyone. Norfolk watched him clench and unclench the jeweled fingers of his hand into a tight ball.

  “I have been generous to Cromwell’s son, have I not? I allowed him to remain at my court, despite the fact that his father was a vile traitor.”

  “Your Majesty has shown incredible grace and forbearance under the circumstances,” Norfolk said, flattering while he waited to see what the king was about.

  Norfolk stood beside Gardiner, cautious of his every word. He had heard this particular tone in the king’s voice only twice in their long association: the night Henry sanctioned the execution of his own wife, and the day he signed the death warrant against one of his dearest friends, Thomas Cromwell.

  “I have, haven’t I?” Henry responded, still looking down at the courtyard below. His sights were locked on Cromwell’s son, as though he were a stag to be hunted. Gardiner and Norfolk exchanged the slightest glance. “Have someone follow the boy, but make certain he is not discovered. I shall find it of enormous interest if the Cromwell lad advances upon my wife. Catherine is too young, too innocent to know how to deal with the charms of a handsome and well-schooled young man. Fortunately for her, her powerful husband most certainly does.”

  Norfolk was pleased to hear that the king was willing to deal with any threat to his marriage, real or perceived. He took a step closer. “There is another young man who should be made an example of. The rest of England will surely take notice, and it will quiet the malcontents.”

  “The bishop of London says the boy speaks out regularly against the sacraments to anyone who will listen,” Gardiner added.

  Both men saw Henry stiffen. “If that is the case, have the bishop condemn him to burning.”

  The king’s pronouncement was so sudden and cold that even Norfolk shivered.

  “He is fourteen, sire. Do you not wish even to know his name?”

  “His name matters not. But tell the bishop to behead him first then,” Henry amended without turning around. “After all, I am not without mercy. Now, one of you take care of the Cromwell lad as well. The other, see the queen brought to me at once. I’ve suddenly a mind to see my wife privately,” he said, needing the reassurance that only Catherine could give him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  August 8, 1540

  Hampton Court, Richmond

  Henry and Catherine rode together by barge down the river through the winding green hills, returning to the haven of Hampton Court following their wedding trip to Oatlands Palace.

  Catherine had surprisingly enjoyed the eight days of spoiling and pampering by her husband, and all of the activity surrounding their marriage, so much so that both had forgotten poor little Putette and who might have killed her. Every bad moment of the past seemed very far behind them.

  Though he did not appear to be a sensual lover, Henry was ardent and eager to please. Her distaste at seeing his bare, pink, waxy and rotund body was easily masked with a dozen different games and by the forgiving glow of candlelight. It was also diverted by the gifts he showered upon her each time she succumbed. In those first days, there were so many dresses, furs and jewels that her dressing room and closet literally sparkled with pearl-dotted silks, satins and velvet, all sewn with rubies and diamonds as well.

  The only thing she still lacked was true friends.

  In that regard, she missed Thomas and even fun-loving Gregory since her royal marriage. Now her company consisted mainly of Jane, her elder sister Margaret, and Lady Isabel Baynton, the wife of the new chamberlain. She also had to keep her guard up in the silent yet constant presence of Mary Lassells and her new secretary, Francis Dereham, both of whom she did not trust in the least.

  Only after Henry fell asleep late each night was she able to be alone with her thoughts. Henry’s glorious palaces had swiftly come to feel like prisons, and her well-dressed, noble attendants were now like her jailers. A shrewd look from Francis or an artful smile from Mary only reinforced her feelings.

  It was in those moments that her longing for Thomas was at its greatest. She hoped he would walk gracefully into the king’s privy chamber, just as wonderfully nonchalant as when they first had met. Or that he would be at the king’s side when she joined His Majesty for dinner.

  But that day never came.

  He was still at court, Jane told her. She had seen him herself. “He is busy with his duties,” she would say. But Catherine knew it was just an excuse.

  On their second day back at Hampton Court, as her ladies prepared Catherine for the banquet where Henry would officially introduce her as queen, Catherine gazed blankly across the vast, paneled room. She felt apart from the activity as they dressed her in an elegant French-cut burgundy gown, with a stylish matching pearl-dotted hood revealing her long flowing hair as it fell to her shoulders.

  She’d had a dream last night that Thomas had come to her and they had told Henry everything. In a blind rage of jealousy, Henry had chased her through the corridors, his face wild with fury. He had been wielding the same jewel-handled dagger from her last dream.

  She did not even notice when Jane came dancing into the room, her face lit with a smile. Her friend leaned close to whisper to her, “I have brought you someone to cheer you up. You have not seemed yourself these past days.”

  Catherine’s heart raced and blood flooded her face. Could it possibly be? It had been twelve days since her last desperate meeting with Thomas in the alcove, twelve days since she had been spirited away to Lambeth and then on to Oatlands to become queen. Twelve days since she had given up all hope.

  Until now.

  Jane took her by the hand and led her away from the others. Catherine’s own hand trembled in anticipation.

  They passed through one chamber, then another, the hems of their wide gowns sweeping against the paneled walls. Catherine felt as if her heart were going to burst right through her very tight stomacher and the elegant burgundy silk gown over it.
But when Jane opened the door to the chamber where her mystery guest waited, it was not Thomas’s face she saw.

  First Mary Lassells, then Francis Dereham. Now, before her stood her two Horsham cohorts in everything bad and wrong she had ever done. Was this some sort of bad jest orchestrated by Wil Somers for the king’s pleasure—or her torment?

  “Your Grace,” Katherine Tilney was the first to say with a false, unnatural smile as she curtsied.

  “Your Grace,” Joan Acworth repeated with a clumsy curtsy.

  How on earth had her grandmother, powerful doyenne of the ambitious Howards, and her uncle allowed Mary, Francis and these two empty-headed country girls to come to court? Catherine stared at Jane with a pale, panicked expression. She seemed genuinely surprised that the queen was not smiling.

  “You do remember them, don’t you?” Jane asked. “They lived at Horsham with you.”

  “I remember them well,” Catherine replied, her tongue feeling as dry as desert sand. “It seems like only yesterday.”

  “I thought it might cheer you to have familiar faces among your servants.”

  “This was your idea?” Catherine gasped in astonishment.

  “Not entirely. But they had already written to the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, and I merely encouraged her to bring them,” Jane said, sensing that she had made the wrong decision.

  “Do I not already have Mistress Lassells and Master Dereham if I feel overcome with nostalgia?” she snapped.

  Jane looked at the two pretty girls, with their seemingly angelic expressions.

  “What, precisely, are they to do for me?” Catherine asked angrily.

  “Attend their queen, of course. Like the rest of us.”

  Catherine caught a glimpse of Mary Lassells lurking, as she often did, near a tapestry curtain and scowling at the new arrivals. Perhaps rivalry between them would keep this new threat at bay. Catherine knew there was little she could say to object anyway. She did not want to arouse the king’s suspicions by protesting against the presence of her “friends.” She felt surrounded on all sides. I am a prisoner of my past and my future . . . I have no choice.