The Queen's Mistake Read online

  “And your friend, who is it that employs him?”

  He glanced over with an expression of surprise, as if he had forgotten anyone was there. “Master Culpeper?” He chuckled almost too affably. “Oh, he is not my friend. A man with any true sense of our king’s court cannot afford friends among rivals.”

  “Unless they are women,” Culpeper suddenly replied. He revealed he’d been eavesdropping, but did so in a tone that so bordered on arrogance that Catherine took offense.

  He was gorgeous, all right, and he knew it.

  “I am certain you have your share of friends and rivals, Master Culpeper,” she replied.

  Catherine tipped her chin up in irritation and looked away. She suddenly realized what was disconcerting her so. It was not simply his good looks and cool demeanor. It was the fact that Culpeper was the first man she had ever met who seemed utterly indifferent to her beauty.

  She was driven to spite him because of it.

  Some of her emotion must have shown on her face, since he studied her for a moment, then exchanged an interested glance with Cromwell. The rest of the meal passed uneventfully, as Catherine found she did not know how to deal with a man like Culpeper, and she watched Cromwell turn his attention to speak with Jane.

  As soon as the meal was over, Culpeper rose and went across the room, where the evening’s musical entertainment would be performed. Catherine watched him for a moment, then turned away.

  She found herself turning directly to Gregory Cromwell. Clearly he was keeping a sharp eye on her and her reaction to Culpeper. Now, as they rose together from the dining table, he took her aside. “Take care with that one,” he said with a slightly twisted smile. “He’s one of the king’s favorite young gentlemen of his privy chamber, and he well knows his power.”

  “And you, Master Cromwell? Are you anyone’s favorite?” she asked, trying to flirt enough to show she didn’t need a distraction from Culpeper.

  “Not the way Thomas Culpeper is,” he quipped.

  “He seems arrogant and far too vain.”

  Gregory chuckled. “You would likely be the first young woman to believe you could not tame him.”

  “I did not say I could not. I simply would not wish to.”

  “There is nothing quite so appealing as a beautiful woman who knows what she wants—and what she does not,” he mused.

  They both smiled in a sudden show of camaraderie. If she could not befriend any of the women at court, the men would do nicely instead. Men were less complicated and far more predictable, as far as she was concerned.

  They had crossed the large room to the other side, where a musician was now seated and was softly strumming a tune on the lute to entertain them. It was a pretty, distracting melody that Catherine knew she could play much better.

  “Tell me, Master Cromwell, would you like to show me around my uncle’s grounds? I could do with a bit of air.”

  She glanced over at Thomas Culpeper to see if he was watching her, which he was. She felt that was a victory of sorts. Meanwhile, Gregory had missed her prior glance to his rival, and was now beaming with pleasure at her suggestion.

  “I would be honored, Mistress Howard,” he replied, smiling as the song came to an end.

  She decided she needed to do something to take her mind off everything in the world that was worrying her. She wished to forget, if only for a little while. At least, that was the excuse for her flirtation, and it was as good as any, Catherine thought, feeling the desire for a new bit of mischief. A little extra attention from a young man, at least, would restore her pride.

  The gated grounds of Lambeth were predictably laid out in a forbiddingly formal pattern beneath the clear night sky. It was so like her uncle to have approved its design. Catherine linked her slim arm with Gregory’s taut, muscular one as they passed two stone urns on pedestals flanking a separate path. He led her along the path, and Catherine did not object. He was handsome enough, and she needed reassurance that she had not lost all of her charms.

  There was the rich scent of flowers and still, mossy water as they sank onto a stone bench, well hidden from the rest of the garden. As the crickets chirped in the cool evening, he drew her into his arms and kissed her. Catherine felt her body reawaken under his skilled touch. Her mind spun away from her worries as it always did in a man’s arms, away from conflict and uncertainty and toward pure pleasure.

  She was not shy with him, nor was he with her. They embraced and kissed deeply. A moment later, he grasped her hand and drew it down forcefully, onto himself. She did not object. She knew her behavior had long been considered promiscuous, but seducing men was the one thing in the world she knew how to do well. Besides, she thought as she kissed him again, there really was no reason not to while she waited for something else more important to happen.

  Norfolk watched her go.

  The duke had made it his life’s work to see everything—and to know even more.

  Just as well the girl had lured young Cromwell out to the garden, he thought, fingering his goblet he had brought from the supper table while feigning absolute attention to the performance, even nodding in time to the music. Catherine could use a bit of practice on these more sophisticated court gentlemen. Clearly she had grown accustomed to having her way with gentlemen in the dowager’s house, but honing one’s skills never hurt anyone. These well-dressed, educated men were a different breed from the country bumpkins who dotted the estate at Horsham as plentifully as hunting dogs.

  At least, he thought with a little smile, she had chosen to dally with the married and harmless Gregory Cromwell, and not Culpeper, who had clearly caught her eye. Culpeper was nothing, after all, but trouble. He was handsome, unmarried and dear to the king, but he went through well-placed women like water. And Catherine was a stunning but very silly little chit, too useful to waste on someone as dangerous as that. He would have to keep a sharp eye on her from now on.

  Norfolk noticed a great commotion among his servants, which suddenly disrupted the musical performance. Servants were flying in and out of the paneled dining hall at Lambeth in a panic. His servants were like bees, or children—neither of which he favored. Norfolk watched disdainfully as three of his pages dashed to a window and peered down at the entrance courtyard below. But the duke was seasoned enough to understand the only thing it could mean.

  “Your Grace, the king comes!” one of the young pages leaning out the window announced to him in a tone of hushed panic.

  Norfolk groaned heavily, then heaved himself from his high, straight-backed chair. Flattering though it was to be called on like this by the sovereign, he felt a little as if he were being hunted, he thought. If he wished to host His Majesty at a moment’s notice he would have stayed in his apartments at Whitehall.

  An instant later, everyone sank into varying versions of their deepest bows and curtsies as Henry stalked into the room in a rich crimson cloak lined with ermine. His French hat was tipped to a fashionable angle, and the jewels at his chest nearly concealed his great girth, fleshy face and bearded jowls.

  “Am I too late for supper, Norfolk?” Henry asked with a bemused smile turning up the corners of his wet little bud of a mouth.

  “Your Majesty’s presence is an honor, always,” Norfolk flattered him as he went to greet the king with a wide smile trained into believability.

  A place was quickly set at the banquet table, and the most elegantly upholstered chair was positioned beside Norfolk’s own. With the king’s arrival the music had abruptly stopped, and in the silence there was only the clink of dishes and silver as servants worked quickly to accommodate the unexpected royal guest, even though the meal was over.

  “Sit,” Henry directed the others standing about with a swat at the air. Everyone returned to the dining table. His bold signet ring glittered in the firelight as he moved toward the chair. He paused one final moment as a large silver goblet of wine was poured from a jewel-encrusted ewer for him.

  “I am told your young niece is here din
ing with you. Where is the girl? I’ve not seen her since she was a child, but I hear she has inherited the Howard beauty without the Boleyn curse.”

  For an instant, Norfolk was surprised. The king had not made any reference even casually to Anne for four years. Norfolk was on guard now, wary of what Henry might say next, and how he should respond when it came to so volatile a subject. The king enjoyed toying with people—Norfolk knew that well enough from personal experience. But this seemingly spontaneous visit was the key to setting his plans in motion. One look at Catherine from the always-amorous monarch, and Norfolk could initiate the next phase of his plan.

  Glancing around, Norfolk saw that Catherine had not yet returned from her stroll with Cromwell. He felt irritation begin to creep up beneath his elegant doublet and the heavy, glittering chain across his broad chest.

  He turned to the page beside him and said, “Find her.” In an instant, the young man slipped from the room and was gone.

  Norfolk directed his attention once again to the king.

  “Your niece is installed now in my wife’s household, is she not?”

  “Newly so, yes, Your Majesty.”

  “And how has she found it so far?”

  “It is early yet, to be honest. Few of the women know her.”

  “Or accept her,” the king replied with a little chuckle, taking a large bite of the lamb that had been served. He seemed not to notice or care that no one else at the table was eating. As he began rather sloppily and loudly to chew, his knobby chin bobbing, a bit of sauce dribbled onto his copper beard. “They are like cats, those women, sleek, beautiful, but capable of scratching your eyes out the moment they feel threatened.”

  “Eloquently put, Your Majesty.”

  “Is your Mistress Howard a threat then, Norfolk?”

  Norfolk caught himself before he showed the surprise he felt at the blunt question. Was he asking if she was another Anne Boleyn? Norfolk decided to keep his tone and response light. “If you will permit a doting uncle, she is a beauty, certainly. But only the ladies themselves could say the rest for certain.”

  “I am told the queen has kept her at a distance since she arrived.”

  “I think perhaps that might have been the ladies’ doing more than the queen’s.”

  Henry arched a ginger eyebrow. “Any difficult lady in particular I should know about?”

  “I am told of no particular lady, sire. It is only experience that is my teacher in this.”

  “And a wise teacher it is.” Henry laughed as he swallowed a large gulp of wine, then belched. “The truth is, I wanted to have a look at your niece for myself. To see without my entire court looking on if there is a resemblance.”

  The resemblance he meant, of course, was to Anne Boleyn. No one dared speak of it, but Norfolk knew everyone saw it. There was no reason Henry would not also.

  Henry sighed beneath his breath, shivered, then stiffened. “If only she had not argued with me so much at the end, Norfolk, especially over Elizabeth’s place in things, I might have been able to spare her life.”

  Henry was more vulnerable to his unhappiness and to these bouts of nostalgia and regret than the duke fully realized. But Norfolk had an uncanny instinct for timing and opportunity. He could not have wished for a better scenario to set the first elements of his plan into motion.

  Norfolk glanced back at the door. Where the devil was Catherine?

  “Now then, speaking of Boleyn women . . .” said the king, chewing another mouthful of food as he looked across the table at Jane. His gaze settled there, and for an instant he was motionless.

  From Henry’s expression, it struck Norfolk that this was the first time in four years the two had been in such close proximity since Jane’s banishment. She had only just recently been allowed to return to court. Even though she had testified against her own husband, who was Anne’s brother, Henry had never seen Jane as an ally, but rather an unpleasant reminder of that dark and desperate period. Since her return, Jane Boleyn had remained in the background of the queen’s staff. Until now.

  “I wish to meet your little Catherine tonight,” Henry said, fingering the goblet before him as he sucked his teeth. “If, that is, you can find her.”

  Just then, the page charged with finding Catherine approached Norfolk’s chair to whisper into his ear. “Forgive me, Your Grace,” he said, breathlessly, “but Mistress Howard seems to have gone missing.”

  The next morning, not in the mood to be seen by anyone but his closest advisers, Henry sat slumped at a long table in his privy chamber back at Whitehall. Sitting with him arrayed around the table were the men who advised him in running the kingdom. Norfolk was there, along with both his rival Thomas Cromwell, and his ally Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. Nearby sat Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who had been Henry’s boon companion since childhood as well as his dear departed sister Mary’s second husband. They were also joined by Dorset, who was married to Henry’s niece; Thomas Wriothesley, one of the king’s principal secretaries; and Jane Seymour’s brothers, Edward and Thomas. It was not the public presence chamber beyond the double doors where he usually met with his privy counsel, yet this chamber was far from intimate. It was massive in size, and the walls were covered with tapestries, wood panels and tooled plasterwork. In the center was a grand alabaster fountain.

  “So how do you advise me now, Cromwell? Do you still recommend the queen, even after four months’ time? The King of France does not seem any more likely to side with us and against his new friend the emperor on this political issue. He’s going to stand with those who stand by the queen. Are you willing to stake your life on her?”

  As his question hung ominously in the air, Henry leaned back in his chair, steepled his stubby, freckled fingers, and watched the furtive, worried glances of his counselors. Each was happy, he was sure, not to be the one to whom the sovereign had directed his anger. Like a great wave on a turbulent sea, all eyes in the room shifted to the big man with the small, deep green eyes and the mouth that was turned down somberly at the corners.

  The silence was deafening.

  Henry waited. Norfolk watched.

  A heartbeat later, Cromwell cleared his throat and leaned forward. “A way has opened up that could change the course of things, if Your Majesty desires to pursue the path.”

  The king arched a brow. His face was mottled red with frustration.

  “I desired it the moment I laid my eyes upon my wife! And I ask you, my Lord Chancellor Cromwell, by pointing out this path, do you admit that the course you initially set for me and for England was not a wise one?”

  “I act for my country and my king first before all things,” Cromwell carefully replied.

  “A pity you do not reverse the order,” commented Charles Brandon, who sat beside the chancellor.

  “They are one and the same, I assure you, Your Majesty.”

  “Then find me a plausible way out of this sham!” Henry bellowed.

  “Can it be done legally?” Stephen Gardiner wondered aloud, hoping to divert any new threat Cromwell was conjuring up to thwart his and Norfolk’s plan to depose of the queen.

  “Legally, yes, the marriage can be annulled. There is little doubt the queen was betrothed to the Duke of Lorraine before she came here,” Norfolk replied, as if he and Stephen were the only ones in the room, but loudly enough for the king to hear. “Can it be done safely is another matter, now that France and the emperor are so closely aligned.”

  Henry slammed his fist hard onto the table, snorting like a bull as his great jowls flapped beneath his copper beard. “What in God’s heaven ever allowed me to trust your vision of beauty, Cromwell? The woman is horrendous; she smells sourly of ale, snores in her sleep, and grunts like a wild boar when she makes those fainthearted attempts to communicate in anything close to the language of English!” Henry bolted from his chair. “Ready my horse! And summon Culpeper. I cannot stand the sight of any of you!”

  No one dared make a sound until the ki
ng had left the privy chamber in a hobbling gait, the great double doors closing behind him with an ominous thud. The ulcer on Henry’s leg had begun again to trouble him, and everyone who had been around His Majesty for any length of time knew that made him as cantankerous as an old goat.

  As soon as the door closed behind Henry, the counsel turned from grave silence to fast and furious chatter.

  “Well, this indeed is a fine mess,” said Edward Seymour, sitting cross-legged in a pumpkin-colored suede jerkin with a heavy gold chain across his slim chest. His impeccably clean fingers played with a slip of parchment that lay on the table before him. He wore a twisted smile as he shot a glance at his younger brother, Thomas.

  “The king wants out of this disaster, and there will be spoils for the man with the courage to provide the means,” Brandon observed.

  “Another divorce would be dangerous,” Thomas Seymour dutifully added. “And if the queen contests a divorce, the minister who proposes a battle should expect blood on his hands.”

  “A wife to follow Anne Boleyn to the block will leave a legacy of blood with the people,” Wriothesley said.

  The king’s privy counsel looked accusingly at Cromwell.

  Someone cleared his throat.

  Cromwell’s guilt over Anne of Cleves was like a poison mist in the room, settling heavily around them.

  “If only you had rightly championed Lord and Lady Lisle’s comely daughter Anne as queen rather than as a useless mistress,” Stephen Gardiner cruelly pointed out, “all of this might have been avoided, and there would likely be an heir inside the queen already.”

  “He will be rid of the Cleves mare, whatever it takes; that is certain. And doubtless there will be someone to replace her before we see autumn leaves on the trees at Greenwich,” observed Brandon. “The only question now is, Who will be unfortunate enough to be next?”

  Cromwell was raging with anger by the time his son arrived.