The Queen's Mistake Read online

  The king’s giant, thickly set chancellor lunged forward. He swatted the boy’s ears as the great velvet bell sleeve of his coat knocked Gregory in the mouth.

  “What the devil were you thinking, Gregory? Do you know what this may well have cost me? You were with her, were you not?”

  “With who?”

  To Cromwell’s surprise, his son appeared genuinely perplexed. His blue eyes were wide and his face was flushed as Cromwell grabbed the side of his smooth, youthful face. Gregory Cromwell was mildly attractive, yet it was his charm and his clever tongue that had always given him an alarming ease with women.

  Before and after he had taken a wife.

  “Did you honestly have no idea who she was?”

  His eyes widened with realization. “Oh, the girl at Lambeth, you mean? How did you know about that?”

  “I know everything, you useless lout!” He charged, swatting his son’s ear again. The large gold ring on his forefinger clipped the boy’s cheek, leaving a mark. “I am Lord Great Chancellor of England! Few know more than me!”

  “Except, perhaps, her uncle.” Gregory Cromwell bit back a nasty smile. “Look, old man, I did you a favor by taking that position with Norfolk. I thought perhaps I could help you, so I went to his supper last night. I thought it would please you.”

  “You think with your prick, which has always been your problem—and my own,” he growled, and pivoted away, the great velvet cloak swirling between them.

  This boy, this upstart, had always been dear to him. He had coddled him, spoiled him and excused him, and the fruits of his indulgence were now his to bear.

  “I thought it might help soften the Duke of Norfolk toward you if I showed her some kindness,” Gregory said in a tone that bore just a hint of pleading. “Gossip at court is that Norfolk and the Bishop of Winchester are doing all they can to poison your standing with the king. Maybe he would soften toward you if he thought I was helping him out. Clearly the Howard girl has been brought to court to make a decent marriage. But she must be desperate. What is she but a fourth or maybe fifth daughter of a youngest son with a scandalous cousin to darken the path before her?”

  Cromwell was speechless at his son’s twisted logic. But he recovered soon enough. “And so you thought taking her maidenhead was the way to win her uncle’s favor?”

  “There was no maidenhead to take, Father.” He chuckled dryly.

  “Mistress Howard was not a virgin?”

  “Would that every courtier like me could couple with a virgin so experienced as that. Now, do you want me to continue seeing her, Father, or would you prefer I leave that pleasure to someone else? Because Catherine Howard most definitely will find the interest of someone more powerful before long.”

  Chapter Six

  May 1540

  Whitehall Palace, London

  Catherine stood against the wall, hands behind her back, and silently watched as the king’s nieces, Lady Margaret and Lady Frances, prepared the queen’s dressing table. Bottles, vials, and jars were lined up in the order of her preference. Tortoiseshell-handled brushes and combs had been meticulously cleaned and lined up neatly beside silver-topped jars of rose-berry water, lavender oil and rare cinnabar. The array was ceremonial, each item’s placement full of purpose. Dressed in a rich cambric dressing gown, the queen was accompanied from her bed to the dressing table by Jane Boleyn and Lady Lisle, whose well-placed court connections and relentless ambition had brought her here. Her goal now was to secure a post for her two daughters with the new queen, since her whoring of Anne, the eldest, to the king had not worked. In the corner near a window, a harpist played the queen’s favorite morning music to soothe her waking.

  Catherine watched the fulfillment of each duty carefully in the event that she should be called upon to perform it herself. She knew her uncle was far too ambitious, and would be unforgiving of the least error she might make. She was here at court because of His Grace, a butterfly freed from its cocoon that could be captured easily and put away again for any misstep.

  To remain, she must find more favor in the queen’s household, anger no one who had the power to speak against her, and, on the whole, search for a husband not only wealthy enough to keep her but well placed enough to please her family.

  It was startling to see how unattractive the queen truly was without adornments, although she wore her habitual kind smile and aura of serenity. It was strange to Catherine that a woman who more resembled a kitchen maid than royalty was queen. She spoke almost no English among her ladies and her own ambassador, the Earl of Waldeck. She must feel safe to be herself here, Catherine thought, free from the restraints of another culture, another language and the expectations of a husband whom everyone knew disliked her.

  A moment later, Jane glanced up at Catherine and held out a wide tortoiseshell-handled hairbrush. Furtive glances were exchanged between the other women, who stood compliantly behind Jane. Clearly, Jane was extending an opportunity, and perhaps a small, public olive branch for the behavior of the others. At least, Catherine would choose to think of it that way for now.

  The queen sat on her small embroidered stool and gazed into the gold-framed table mirror before her as Lady Margaret took one of Anne’s hands and began to rub it with a lightly scented cream. Jane nodded to Catherine to begin brushing out the queen’s long, stick-straight hair. It was coarse, Catherine noticed right away, like a horse’s tail, but it was the color of corn.

  “How have you found court thus far, Mistress Howard?” the Teutonic queen asked in clotted, sticky words that, even in their proper construction, barely passed for English.

  “Frankly, I have found it a challenge, Your Grace,” Catherine replied smoothly and honestly as she brushed the queen’s hair in long, even strokes. “But my mother always said to be prepared for any challenge.”

  The queen glanced up at Catherine in the mirror’s reflection. “Your mother is . . . ?”

  “With God, Your Grace.”

  Even after all of these years, speaking the words made Catherine sad.

  “Mine as well,” the queen said, then added something in German.

  The stout, silver-haired maid called Gertrude replied. They spoke back and forth twice before the woman translated. “Her Grace says you have much in common. She is pleased to know that.”

  Catherine nodded courteously, and her eyes met Anne’s in the mirror’s reflection. A moment later, the queen rose and was directed to her dressing closet by the Marchioness of Dorset and Lady Lisle.

  “That went well,” Jane said to her in a low, cautious voice as the queen left the room to dress.

  “She seems uncommonly kind.”

  “Her Grace has the heart of a doe. Since she has been here, everyone has remarked upon it. Unfortunately, she has the face of a donkey.”

  “Will the king divorce her, as they say?”

  “I am told he is seeking a way, yet it is difficult, since the marriage was made to cement an alliance that England very much needs. It would be better, perhaps, if he took a good mistress.”

  As they walked the length of the privy chamber and waited for the other ladies to return with the queen, Catherine considered that. She had been only ten years old when her cousin Anne Boleyn was made queen, but she remembered an animated conversation about the marriage at dinner between her parents and the Duke of Norfolk. The memory took her back to that dinner and the sound of the heavy rain against the long windows in the dining hall at Lambeth and her mother’s face in the glow of the fireplace as the three adults spoke.

  “Why does the king not simply take our Anne as his mistress and keep his Spanish queen and, thus, the respect of his people?” her mother asked. “He could have it all if he were wiser.”

  “Even if Anne would allow that, Henry never would. There is no fool like a man in love, and he is in love with our little Anne,” the duke replied.

  “Besides,” Thomas Howard had patiently explained to his wife, “if Anne is a queen and not a whore, every Howa
rd gains favor along with her, even younger Howard men whose elder brothers have inherited all of the family largesse.”

  “Ah, do be careful; you sound a little pathetic with your envy showing like that,” her uncle teased.

  There was polite laughter between the brothers. But it was laughter that was bitter, and full of rivalry apparent even to a child.

  The memory vanished quickly as Jane Boleyn brought Catherine back to the present by saying, “She was testing you, and by the look of it, you passed with flying colors.”

  “How could you guess that when she hardly spoke two words to me?”

  “She is a bright woman, Catherine, one who will do all she can to survive, even if it means befriending her enemies as well as her allies. After you last spoke, Her Grace was told to take care with you. She wants to please the king by learning to play a song, but before she trusted you to be the one to teach her, she said she wanted to look into your eyes. It appears as though she has decided.”

  Catherine felt herself falter a little. Trust and risk were so indelibly bound together for everyone at court. “Do you know who here is against me?”

  “More to the point, in a group of envious women like this you might well ask who isn’t. Who would favor a beautiful young woman, one with everything to gain, when some of them have everything to lose by keeping your company too closely? Chief among them is a wife with a husband who has customarily found his wives’ replacements among their own staff.”

  “The lives of the royals are more complicated than I would have imagined,” Catherine said thoughtfully.

  Jane chuckled dryly as they walked the length of the next room, which was the queen’s presence chamber, then out into the tapestry-lined gallery. “My girl, you do not know the half of it, and you have not yet even managed to meet the king,” Jane said.

  The music lessons had commenced, but the progress was slow going.

  Each afternoon, just like this one, the queen and Catherine sat in the garden near a massive stone fountain. With a lute on each of their laps, Catherine hoped to model the appropriate sound of the tune Henry most favored. Even after eight lessons, however, the queen had not found enough coordination to change a chord with one hand while strumming with the other.

  Still, Catherine sat beside her and smiled encouragingly at the discordant sound of each clumsy strum. Catherine had never taught anyone anything, so she found the process tedious and frustrating, particularly the maintenance of a believably encouraging smile while the queen played as if she were using only her thumbs.

  In broken English, with the help of the Earl of Waldeck, who felt enormous loyalty to Anne and assisted her in any way he could, Anne explained that at the court where she had been raised, her mother had considered it immodest for a young woman to play an instrument or even to sing.

  “Her Grace is most pleased with your efforts and her progress,” said the earl, who stood behind the queen. His spine was stiff, his silver beard and mustache clipped. He seemed a proud man, yet there was a surprising gentleness to his sapphire blue eyes ringed with long, dark lashes.

  “I want so much to please him,” Anne said in broken words, but the sentiment and smile were clear. “He is not happy with me as we are now. . . . You will help.”

  “I shall try, Your Grace,” Catherine replied dutifully.

  “Danke schön. Walk with me?” Anne asked, the offer sounding almost childlike in its tentative delivery.

  Catherine nodded deeply. “I would be honored.”

  They stood and their chairs were whisked away by two royal pages in gilded livery who had been waiting silently nearby. As the two women strolled into the sunlight, the queen’s most trusted German servants, Mother Lowe and the earl, followed at their heels, continuing on as translators when the queen could not find the words in English.

  Before they walked down the steps that led to the brick path before them, Catherine saw two young men approach. Both were elegantly dressed, one in a cloak of blue brocade, the other in burgundy velvet, and they were laughing. It took a moment for Catherine to realize that they were the young men who had been guests at the duke’s supper the week before. The more handsome of the two, she recalled, was Thomas Culpeper. The other, with whom she had so foolishly tarried, was Cromwell’s son. But for her very life, Catherine could not recall his full name, or even what she had found the slightest bit appealing about him only a week before.

  Seeing the queen, the young men stopped directly before her on the path, and both made sweeping, solicitous bows as pillowy white clouds moved quickly across the broad canvas of azure sky above them. A soft breeze stirred the ends of their cloaks and tufts of their hair.

  The queen nodded politely in response. Catherine could feel Mother Lowe tense behind her. Catherine had not been at court long, but she knew that these two young men had unsavory reputations among the women . . . or at least some of them.

  “Your Grace’s playing was delightful. We could hear it in the orchard,” Gregory Cromwell said, flattering the queen with a smile that Catherine thought slightly devilish.

  At that, the queen’s normally easy expression darkened. It was a change of temperament Catherine had not yet seen.

  “Danke,” she said in response to Cromwell. But Anne spoke quickly in German to Mother Lowe and the earl. The tone was low, but it was obvious by the delivery that the words were not complimentary.

  Catherine and Culpeper exchanged a little glance and an almost imperceptible shrug, creating an odd spark of camaraderie. She had not expected that. There was a human quality in him that she had not noticed when she had met him before. Could she have misjudged him?

  Before she could decide, the queen linked her arm with Catherine’s and began to lead her forward past both Culpeper and Cromwell and on down the path.

  Mother Lowe approached her from the other side. “Her Grace says to tell you those two are to be avoided,” said Mother Lowe in a low, maternal tone.

  “But are they not trusted by the king?”

  “Trusted only by him,” Mother Lowe explained, coming up to them on the other side. “The rest of the court knows them to be pleasure-seeking hounds. Cromwell’s son, you know, is married to the sister of Queen Jane, so His Majesty refuses to believe anything untoward of him, giving him something of a free reign.”

  Catherine was surprised by this news and vexed at herself for not knowing about it earlier. She tried to keep her tone even. “And Master Culpeper?”

  “Not married, no, but bearing a reputation with the ladies that exceeds all others. So Her Grace hopes you will take care with him,” said Mother Lowe.

  “Master Culpeper has never even spoken directly to me, so I am sure I am quite safe.”

  “For now, perhaps,” Mother Lowe replied. “But you must not let down your guard. He is one who could easily break your heart, and smile while doing it.”

  “Then what is it the king so likes about him if he is dreadful?”

  “Nostalgia, mainly.” Mother Lowe was frank. “Culpeper reminds His Majesty of the time when he as well could break hearts by his looks alone.”

  “The king has changed that much?” Catherine was surprised. He had always been the most dashing man in England, and he certainly was handsome the last time she had seen him.

  “You have not yet met him at court?” Mother Lowe queried.

  “No, I’ve not seen him here. We met only once, but that was several years ago,” Catherine replied as she watched a strange look slip between the queen’s two servants. “What is it?”

  “About the king? That, my dear, you shall have to see for yourself,” Mother Lowe replied.

  Catherine stole a small glance back at Culpeper and Cromwell, still standing where they had left them, and wondered just what she should expect.

  The queen’s household was in an uproar. Her Grace had been invited at the last minute to a banquet and an evening’s entertainment that night, so the queen would finally play for the king. Anne of Cleves stood, hands on her
broad hips, before a selection of dresses made of sweeping Spanish silks and velvets and adorned with long sleeves and tight bodices, gold chains, pearls and pendants, each creation more elegant than the next. In her attempt to please her husband, all of them were in the latest French designs.

  At first she had refused the gowns, yet in the end, all of the German fashions she had clung to so loyally were discarded. Catherine could see the desperation on Anne’s full, pockmarked face as she considered the dresses held out before her. She was surprised when the queen glanced up at her, then singled her out from all of the other ladies gathered in the dressing chamber.

  “Which one would you select, Mistress Howard?”

  Catherine glanced over at a sweep of sky blue fabric with full slashed sleeves, and another of yellow silk with white lace at the square neckline, the bodice sewn heavily with pearls. The fabrics and ornate embellishments were stunning. The pearls and diamonds glittered in the afternoon sunlight through the windows, sending a kaleidoscope against the paneled wall. Yet Catherine knew the queen would look like a mouse in the richly detailed, brightly colored fabric of either dress.

  She caught sight of Jane Boleyn’s expression. It was filled with alarm. The rest of the ladies fell absolutely still, knowing well the risk any maid of honor took in offering opinions to a queen. But Catherine had no doubt that something classically simple would become Anne far more than these flamboyant dresses, as they would not swallow up the little traditional appeal she possessed. It would take a haughty beauty like Anne Boleyn to carry off either the blue or the yellow dress. If she told Anne that, she risked insulting the fragile queen, but if she declined honesty and the king were displeased, she would pay for that as well. Catherine felt her heart race as Anne looked at her with heartrending expectation.

  “My favorite color on Your Grace is most definitely green, as it sets off your lovely eyes. The dress you wore to dinner on Sunday was breathtaking.”

  Anne smiled in agreement. “I do love that dress,” she managed to comment.