The Queen's Mistake Read online

  But Henry’s new fourth wife was just now selecting the members of her household. The time was right at last—old wounds well enough healed—to bring another relation forward. If he could find the right relation, it just might remove the dark stain of Anne, and the specter of his own involvement in that nasty affair.

  The poor, graceless Cleves mare—how different and unappealing the reality was from the portrait that had preceded her! If she had but seen Anne Boleyn’s mysterious beauty or Jane Seymour’s gentle, seductive allure before agreeing to come to England, the German princess, with the square face and pockmarked skin, would have known she was not long for her place beside a king—or a man—like Henry VIII. In this game, one must consider all of one’s moves, just as much as one must in war. One must plan and arrange. He had not survived so long by allowing events alone to dictate his destiny.

  As always, he would dictate events and, thus, continue to thrive at a vicious court.

  He glanced up to see Catherine sweep into the room, all unkempt and out of breath. Seeing her caught him off guard. Was it possible to change that much in two years’ time? The echo of Anne Boleyn was strong upon her: The way she stood, the turn of her neck—even the color of her eyes; they were the same startling shade as Anne’s.

  “Your Grace.” She curtsied properly.

  There was a silence.

  The Duke of Norfolk stood, cold and formal. But his gaze was upon her. Apparently his useless brother Edmund had actually been good for something after all.

  “Come here, girl,” he said more stiffly than he meant to.

  Catherine’s simple dress whispered across the polished plank floor. She lowered her head, but only slightly, then met his gaze again.

  She was not afraid of him. Good. Very good.

  “Have you no proper headdress?” he asked sourly.

  “I do not like to wear it. I have only one, but it is old and it makes my head itch.”

  So she had something of a haughty spirit hidden beneath that simple, hand-me-down dress. Father and son exchanged a glance.

  “Then you shall have a new one, and you shall learn to tolerate it. As you shall learn to tolerate much.”

  He was honestly stunned by her. It was not just her startling, youthful beauty, but it was the fact that she was here, locked away like some untapped treasure, and he was the first to discover her.

  Suddenly, he was aware of his stepmother’s steely, contemptuous stare as she sat across the room behind her embroidery stand. Norfolk did not like Agnes. In marrying her, his father had shown his weakness. He tolerated her only for the gossip it would cause at court if he did not. And also because she might prove useful. In her care of Catherine, his hunch apparently had been correct.

  The girl was exquisite, and so perfectly virginal, so far out here where no one could touch her before the right time. She had passed those tests. But to keep Henry’s interest beyond a bedding, there must be more. There must be something at least moderately clever about her that would resonate with a jaded, articulate and demanding king.

  “Sit down with me, Catherine,” he instructed. “Are you still called Cat?”

  She sank properly into the high-backed chair opposite his, still looking directly into his eyes.

  “That was a child’s name, and I am no longer a child, Your Grace.”

  “How well I see that.” He watched her face. There was something behind the innocence that assessed him critically. “How are your dancing lessons progressing?”

  “I do respectably with the galliard, Your Grace, but only tolerably with the pavane.”

  “Easily enough remedied.” A glimmer of a smile warmed his bony face before it disappeared. “And your mastery of the lute?”

  “I have not had instruction for a month’s time. But before that, I could play without anyone flinching awfully much.”

  He saw a hint of her father then in the way Edmund’s slim mouth had fought a bolder smile, and Norfolk cleared his throat to vanquish it completely. That was what his father had done when he was trying very hard to appear stern before his children.

  “I have Master Manox returning this very afternoon,” the dowager interrupted, and Norfolk only then remembered the old woman was there. He thought of the carefully worded tale she had written to him. He doubted Agnes had told the entire truth about why the music instructor had been relieved of his duty. Indeed, there was an entirely different story he had heard. His son had offered a bit of money to a servant in his stepmother’s house. Mistress Lassells was Catherine’s bitter rival for the music teacher’s affection, and she had revealed to his son that Henry Manox had fallen in love with Catherine and not her. Their frequent lessons and his roaming hands had been all the gossip in the old manor house until the dowager had sent him away.

  Clearly the old woman had her fill already of inappropriate suitors, drawn like bees to honey by the ripeness of this pretty and potentially useful tool before them. But the duchess had confessed none of this to the duke. Instead, she had written only to inquire whether someone might be brought from London to fill the role of music tutor. The letter had arrived just as Thomas had observed the king tiring already of his Cleves queen, and so he had remembered that young Catherine well might be of age for his consideration. All other matters had been dropped, and there had been no time to find a proper instructor who could come out to the country.

  “Wise of you to return her at least to her former instructor, Agnes,” the duke finally said. “In spite of a bit of adolescent folly, she is a maiden still, I trust?”

  “Maiden enough for King Henry’s court,” the dowager replied, smiling her dispassionate, thin-lipped smile. “So will she suit then?”

  He stood formally, becoming fully the imposing figure he was to the rest of the world. “I shall let you know my decision.”

  “When? For pity’s sake, Thomas, instruction is not without its cost. And if I were being asked to go on tolerating it all and arranging it for—”

  “I shall send word to you from court by month’s end. See that her dancing skills are brightened and that she can play ‘My Own Heart’s Desire’ on the lute without mucking it up. His Majesty enjoys that tune above all others and despises when someone cannot see it through. Just in case, do remind the girl frequently that His Majesty is how he currently prefers being addressed. Now, we shall have a hot meal and a rest before we set off again.”

  “You will not remain the night?” the dowager asked in apparent shock as Catherine critically watched their interplay.

  “In this old crypt? Goodness, no. I much prefer the comforts of civilization.”

  As he moved to leave the room with a sweep of his great black cloak, Catherine stood. “And the new headdress, Your Grace?” she called after him.

  He paused and glanced at her again, this time with far more appreciation than he’d shown in the beginning. “You shall have a new French hood by tomorrow. And do learn to wear it with style while I am away,” he said crisply. “They are all the fashion at court these days.”

  “So how do you find our young Catherine? Shall we send her to be a lady of honor to the queen?” the duke asked his son as they galloped over the golden bracken back toward the palace in London. “Shall we not send her to London and see how she fares in his company?”

  “Father, she is an innocent to the complexities of court.”

  “Ripe as a new spring plum, I say. Perfect for the old hound.”

  “But perfect for what?”

  “For anything the king desires. Whore or queen, either choice would help our standing. For however long it lasts, she seems quite malleable and virginal enough—and the Cleves mare is certainly not long for the position. I am told His Majesty seeks to divorce her already, and she has been his bride for but a few months.”

  “Would we consign our own Cat to a fate like the Spanish queen, or my poor cousin Anne after her? Even his wife Jane Seymour enjoyed no greater fate than death in childbirth.”

  “If Catherin
e can be useful to the family, by all means. At the very least, we can present her as one, and hope for the other whilst we wait.”

  “Father, you are a ruthless man.”

  “No doubt one of the qualities you most admire in me,” quipped the Duke of Norfolk to his son.

  Chapter Two

  April 13, 1540

  Horsham House, Norfolk

  For two young men who had grown up in the same village and struck an interest in the same girl, Henry Manox and Francis Dereham could not have been more different. Catherine was reminded strongly of that fact yet again the moment she stepped into the music room and saw Manox standing beside the virginals. His slim, slightly pasty face was, as always, alive with the same kind of worshipful devotion that had earned her disdain months ago when she had begun to notice Francis.

  Henry sat dressed in unadorned beige velvet with an ivory collar, his slightly trembling fingertips moving onto the instrument as a blind man would touch things. When their eyes met, she knew that he knew what was about to happen.

  “It is good to see you again, Catherine,” he said, his thin voice holding a slight quaver.

  There was a moment of strained silence between them. His fingers left the virginal and his hand dropped limply back to his side. At the age of fourteen, Catherine had been fond of him and she had waited for their lessons with girlish anticipation. She had even enjoyed the moments of their nearness as they had sat in intimate proximity to each other, two stools side by side before the keys. Even now she could remember first becoming aware of the fragrance of him, not musky like her uncle, and not even largely male, but slightly sweet and vaguely seductive.

  “It was you, was it not?” she said, still looking into his glassy eyes above a small, weak mouth. “Spiteful little thing that she is, Mistress Lassells told you, and you, hoping to gain favor, told Grandmother where I was last night, didn’t you?”

  He tipped his head, not denying the accusation, still gazing at her with the adoration that had begun to make her feel slightly ill.

  “Shall we begin our lesson?”

  Catherine moved nearer, glancing back at the open door to make certain no servant was listening this time.

  “How could you do that to me? You knew she would flog me for it.”

  “Sadly, the path of last resort is sometimes the only means of making youth see the error of their ways.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “It was not an error of my ways when it was you touching me, was it, Master Manox?”

  “Dereham is beneath you, Catherine,” he declared in a pleading whisper as his eyes narrowed slightly. “He is just like all of the others. I am different.”

  Light footfalls beyond the open door silenced them both for a moment until they passed. Catherine drew nearer, sank onto a stool and took up her lute. The pleading never left his dark eyes.

  “How could you have done that to me?” she asked again as she began to strum, entirely unable to play an actual tune for her anger at how she had been betrayed by a man she had trusted.

  “Do you not realize how unfavorably you are being used by nearly everyone? How you are bound to be hurt by their ambitions?”

  She stopped and really looked at him for the first time since she had come into the music room. “Not if it is by my choice, Master Manox.”

  “I am told you are troth-plighted now with Dereham.”

  Again there were footfalls beyond the open door outside in the corridor. It was now clear that someone meant to listen to their exchange. In this place she had grown accustomed to the notion of having no privacy, only judgment and punishment.

  “Is it the truth then?”

  Catherine felt herself tense even more, plucking at random strings only to make a bit of noise and maintain the impression of a true lesson between them. The nearness of Manox was almost repugnant to her now. He did not understand her need for adventure and excitement, here where there was nothing other than monotony and loneliness. He certainly did not understand her. Catherine had been a young girl of fourteen with Henry Manox, one with a girl’s longing and a naive perspective. But that was her no longer.

  There was no one here she could trust. She was glad to be leaving. Glad the decision about her betrothal to Francis had been made for her as well and she had not needed to break his heart.

  It came to her then, as Manox sat beside her, piqued with expectation, that he was a man whom she had once believed for a moment in time she might love, just as she had later believed she might love Francis. But now he was a man who could ruin things for her out of jealousy, as pious Mary Lassells was trying to do out of envy. Mary may have seemed like an innocent servant, but she could not have been more different from the others.

  “Mary is an evil, envious girl,” she blurted out.

  “Take care, Cat. That is all I am saying. I have tried only to protect you.”

  “I wish you would not be angry with me,” she replied sheepishly, honing her skills at manipulating men for the pleasure she found in it. Henry was taken aback by her sudden shift in tone.

  “I wish more things than you could ever count,” he said, softly, walking toward her. “I still have the cap with our initials that you made for me.” He reached for her hand.

  Catherine took it, forcing a strained smile. “I’m glad. I would not want you ever to forget me completely,” she said, knowing he’d hear more in her words than she intended. Yet she enjoyed watching him believe her. It was part of the game she was learning, and it was good practice.

  After he had gone, Catherine felt herself smile. To someone so young, the feeling of total power over another person, like the power Manox’s lust for her gave her over him, was utterly seductive. If there was a chance that she might go to court, that she might begin her life in truth, Catherine wanted more than anything to take it. Certainly more than she wanted either young man with whom she had so foolishly tarried for lack of anything better to do at the time.

  Mary Lassells was waiting for Catherine in the dormitory. It was late afternoon and everything in the long, vacant hall was gray with shadows and filtered light. The other girls were serving the duchess downstairs, so the two girls were alone when Catherine came into the room.

  “How do you manipulate men like that and sleep peacefully at night?”

  Catherine spun around. “So it was you listening. I am beginning to know the players at last, it seems, even though I am about to change theaters.”

  “It must be nice to know your future,” Mary said coolly.

  “None of us knows that. But I do know I am going to court, so you needn’t concern yourself any longer with how I sleep, or do not.”

  They faced each other like two cats. “Henry deserves better. For that matter, so does Master Dereham,” Mary said.

  Catherine arched a brow contemptuously as she sank onto her small bed, slipped off her shoes and began to put on her other, softer slippers meant for dancing.

  “Henry, is it? Does he call you Mary as well?”

  “His affection for me is far from the foul things you have with men. We pray together and study, which is well beyond what a Catholic hypocrite like you would do. One who is bent on whoring herself for the family name at court. Although if you ever accuse me of speaking this way to you I shall deny it.”

  “We pray to the same God as reformers, Mary, just perhaps less critically. And you may wish to watch your tongue. I might be in a position one day to help you instead of being the rival you see me as.”

  “Help me off a bridge, no doubt. You fought me for Henry’s heart, then Francis’s, and won them both with your body, without truly wanting either. I would not trust you with anything I valued.”

  Catherine lifted her chin. “As you like. But never say I did not offer a truce.”

  “Oh, I shall never forget any of the words you have spoken to me—and others. You can be quite certain of that. Your face, your voice, and your choices are all etched into my mind forever.”

  Catherine looked at the plai
n-faced servant appraisingly then. “Apparently you do not read your Bible so well as you claim or you would know the Lord’s commandment against envy.”

  “Trust me, Mistress Howard, you would be the last person I would envy.”

  She stood and brushed past Mary on her way to the door. “I wonder if Henry Manox would say the same thing once he knew you were in love with him and working against me while he was in love with me. Perhaps you should tell him the truth of your mortal affection for him the next time you are praying together, since that is all you have managed to get him to do with you?” Catherine said.

  She paused for only a moment, then went out into the corridor without looking back. Just as she was with Henry Manox and Francis Dereham, she was relieved to be leaving Mary Lassells, who knew all of the things Catherine had done with men in the darkness of the dormitory and the music room—stories that could quite easily ruin Catherine’s life.

  As promised, a beautiful and very fashionable French hood arrived two days after the Duke of Norfolk’s visit to Horsham. It was delivered along with a summons. Catherine was requested at court to attend the new queen in her household as one of the noble maids of honor. Immediately, everyone at Horsham began to look at the young girl who had slept with the servants with different eyes.

  With Katherine Tilney, Mary Lassells and Joan Acworth attending her, Catherine sat on the edge of her bed with nothing to do for the first time in her life. She was not allowed to help her old friends pack her own trunks. Silently, she gazed at the clothing and belongings strewn around the dormitory. These things before her were the sum total of her life so far. There were two dresses once belonging to her elder sister, Margaret, who was Lady Arundel; a chemise and stockings of her own; the pair of shoes for dancing, worn through at the toes; and in the center of things, like a crown, the new French hood.