The Widow's Kiss

by Jane Feather

  “Why did she?” He waited curiously to see how the child would answer.

  Pen frowned. “I don’t know,” she said, meeting his gaze directly. “We were in a hurry. I don’t know why we were in such a hurry. Do you know why, Lord Hugh?”

  “Only your mother can tell you that,” he replied gently. “When she wakes, give her my love and tell her I’ll come later this afternoon.”

  Pen nodded. “I’ll tell her.”

  “Good girl.” He kissed her again quickly, did the same to her sister, and went for his horse.

  “Lord Hugh looks tired like Mama,” Pippa observed to her sister, blinking raindrops from her eyelashes as they stood watching their stepfather's departure. “Why are they tired, Pen?”

  Pen didn’t reply at once. She frowned down into the puddle forming at her feet.

  “Why, Pen?” Pippa tugged at her cloak.

  Pen raised her head and looked at her sister with something like pity in her eyes. “You’re such a baby, Pippa.”

  “I am not!” Pippa cried. “I just asked a question.”

  “They’re tired because something bad has happened,” Pen explained distantly.

  “Bad? What bad thing?” Pippa looked dismayed.

  “I don’t know,” Pen said. “But whatever it is it's making them both unhappy and I don’t know what we can do about it. I wish Robin was here,” she added fiercely, more to herself than to Pippa.

  Abruptly she declared, “I’m going inside, it's too wet out here.” She turned and ran back to the house.

  Pippa hesitated for a second, then gathered up her sodden skirts and ran after her. “Wait for me, Pen!”

  Hugh barely noticed the rain as he rode back to Holborn. Guinevere was asleep. He had to believe she was asleep and her servants had lied to him. Pippa and Pen would not make up such a tale. Unless, of course, she was taking some much needed privacy by pretending to her daughters that she was sleeping.

  But he wouldn’t think like that. He would be optimistic.

  Guinevere woke just before midday. She lay feeling drugged with sleep gazing up at the embroidered tester above her. The shutters were now closed again and the chamber was dim and gray, only the flickering fire in the grate giving any light. Rain beat on the roof and against the shutters.

  She thought of the child she was carrying. Hugh's child. Her hand rested on her belly. She had awoken thinking of the child as if somewhere in her dreamless sleep her mind had been focused on the life growing within her.

  Hugh's child. As much his as hers. A child who had the right to its father. A father who had a right to his child. A father who would cherish and nurture his child. Who would love his child with the same unconditional love he bestowed upon Robin. Upon his stepdaughters.

  The door opened softly. Her daughters crept into the chamber and approached the bed on tiptoe. Guinevere turned her head on the pillows and smiled at them in the dim light.

  “Are you awake, Mama?” Pen leaned closer.

  “Just about. Light the candles, love.”

  “I’ll do it!” Pippa snatched up the tinderbox before her sister could take it. “I’ll light the candles.”

  Pen sighed and hitched herself up on the bed beside her mother. “Lord Hugh brought your books.”

  “I was going to tell Mama that,” Pippa cried. “I was going to tell her Lord Hugh was here.”

  “It doesn’t matter who tells me,” her mother said dampeningly.

  “Oh.” Pippa came and sat on the other side of the bed. “He said he was going to come back this afternoon. He sent his love to you. Pen and me, we want to know what bad thing has happened.”

  Guinevere sat up against the pillows. Hugh had brought her books. She understood immediately what he was saying. He was prepared to give her up because he accepted that he had no right to expect her to return.

  “We want to know, Mama.” Pippa tugged at the loose sleeve of her mother's night robe. “Is something bad happening again? You won’t go to a jail, will you?”

  “No,” Guinevere said firmly. “Indeed I won’t.” She was carrying his child. Father and child had a right to each other. He knew what he had done to her. Understood the enormity of it. Was that enough for forgiveness? Was it enough for her to let down her guard? Accept his love again? Depend upon his love again? There lay the crux.

  “Is it because Robin's sick?” Pen asked tentatively.

  “It has something to do with it, sweeting. But I don’t wish to talk about it until Lord Hugh and I have had a chance to think about things … to talk about things.”

  “He's coming back later,” Pen said.

  “Yes,” her mother agreed gravely. “And we shall talk then. Now, let me get me up. It must be close to dinnertime.”

  “There's jugged hare that Greene shot this morning and a fish pudding, Mistress Woolley said,” Pippa informed her, sliding off the bed. “And apple tart.” She seemed to think the matter of Lord Hugh and her mother already resolved.

  “Which gown will you wear, Mama?” Pen was burrowing in the armoire.

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter, Pen. The gray silk will do very well.”

  “I don’t think you should wear that,” Pen stated. “I think you should wear this one.” She drew out a gown of turquoise flowered silk that opened over a black taffeta underskirt. It had a deep lace collar low on the shoulders and full, lace-edged sleeves.

  “Why that one?” Guinevere inquired. It was a gown she wore on the most formal occasions.

  Pen didn’t answer and it was her sister who piped the accurate response. “Because Lord Hugh looked very smart when he came this morning. He was wearing that emerald doublet with the gold-striped hose and gown. So you should look as smart when you see him.”

  “I see,” Guinevere said dryly. “Nevertheless, I will wear the gray silk. It's quite smart enough for a lodging house in Moorfields.”

  Pen looked disappointed but offered no further argument.

  Hugh waited until evening before returning. He spent the afternoon in the print shops of Cheapside and eventually he found what he was looking for. A beautifully illustrated volume of Tully's epistles bound in the softest Italian leather, the paper thin as finest silk, the letters illuminated in gold. Mother-of-pearl edged the corners of the cover. It was a lovely thing, quite apart from its content, and he knew it would please Guinevere from both perspectives.

  He had the book wrapped in oiled leather and tucked it beneath his cloak as he set out in the dusk once again for Moorfields. The rain had stopped but it was still chill and dank.

  Light shone from behind the shutters of the lodging house, smoke curled from its several chimneys, and he fancied that this time the house welcomed him. That it knew he would not this time be turned from its door.

  He tethered his horse and knocked firmly.

  Crowder opened the door within a very few minutes. “My lord.” He bowed and stepped aside, holding the door open.

  Hugh entered the lamplit hallway. A flight of stairs rose at the rear. A door to the right opened a crack and he caught a glimpse of Pippa's eager face. Suddenly she was pulled back inside and the door closed sharply.

  Despite his anxiety he couldn’t help a slight smile.

  Crowder took his damp cloak and said, “You will find my lady's chamber behind the double doors at the head of the stairs, my lord.”

  Hugh nodded his thanks and strode up the stairs, his blood fast in his veins, his heart sounding in his ears. Only once before, when he had feared for Robin's life, had he been so tense, so overwhelmingly anxious. But then as now there were no words for what he had at stake.

  He stood for a second outside the double doors. Light shone beneath them. A reassuring golden glow.

  He didn’t knock. She knew he was there. Softly he raised the latch and pushed the doors open.

  Guinevere was sitting in front of the fire, her slippered feet on the fender. She rose as Hugh stepped inside and closed the doors at his back. Her hands moved against each other, a
bare brush of her fingers against her skirts.

  “Guinevere.” He came farther into the chamber. It was imbued with her presence. Her scent, her breath in the soft, warm air. He loved her now as he had never loved her before. No … he loved her with the all-encompassing power that until he was about to lose her he’d never admitted to himself.

  And now, in the face of the wrong he’d done her, he must find the words to convince her of that love.

  Guinevere didn’t move, didn’t speak. It was for him to begin. But her heart was jumping as it always did when he was near her. He had wronged her, but she loved him.

  “Guinevere,” he said softly. He watched the firelight glancing across her cheek; he gazed into her deep purple eyes and saw the turmoil of her emotions reflected therein.

  He laid his wrapped gift on a small table beside the door. He would not risk her thinking he believed he could buy forgiveness. Later he would give it to her. Later, when …

  He crossed the room swiftly, took her hands in his. They were cold. “I do not know how to ask for your forgiveness,” he said, holding her hands to his lips, his breath warm on her fingers. “That I should think such a thing of you.”

  Into her silence, he said painfully, the words dragged from him, “I don’t expect your forgiveness. How could I?”

  Guinevere looked at him. She read in his eyes the agony of remorse, the desperate need as he waited for her response.

  “I had thought Robin my child too,” she said finally, unable to keep the accusation or the hurt from her quiet voice.

  “I know it.” He let her hands drop from his. “I have always known it. I have no excuse for what I did, for what I said.”

  He took a deep shuddering breath and ran his hands through his hair. “I can’t believe I could have been so blind. I know Privy Seal. I know how he works. Such a simple plan he had. So simple, I should have seen it at once. And yet …”

  “And yet you held on to a suspicion … no, a belief … that made Privy Seal's machinations possible.” She spoke softly as she sat down again on the low chair before the fire.

  He looked away for a minute, then turned his gaze back to her. “Did you kill Stephen Mallory?”

  Guinevere turned her hands palm up on her lap. “I don’t think so. I wanted him dead. I made no secret of that. He brutalized me and would eventually have done the same to my daughters. He came at me. The window was open. I put out my foot. He tripped and fell.”

  She looked up at him. “Did I intend to cause his death?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I will never know.” She rose again from her chair. “Did I kill Stephen Mallory? I can give you no straight answer, Hugh.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  Her smile was sad. “Because I didn’t trust you to understand the ambiguity. You’re a plain-spoken man, as you take pride in telling me. You have no time for half-truths, for the less-than-straightforward.” She looked down at her hands. “You believed me guilty. If I’d told you the truth, I would have confirmed that belief.”

  “Must I carry this guilt alone?” he asked. “When we have loved, there's been trust. Could you not then have told me the truth?”

  “Perhaps,” she agreed. “But always there was so much at stake. My life … my children's future. Always that was at stake. And you saved me … saved them. Perjured yourself. But look what you gained as a result. How could I be sure of you?”

  “I love you,” he stated, taking her hands once more, feeling them now warm in his hold. “I’ve made grievous errors. I ask your forgiveness.” His eyes held hers but he made no attempt to draw her closer as he waited for her answer.

  “The times make it difficult to trust,” Guinevere said. “This place … this city …” She loosed a hand and flung it wide in an all-encompassing gesture of repulsion. “This is a murderous den of deceit.”

  “Do you forgive me?”

  “I love you,” she said simply.

  “Do you forgive me?”

  She inclined her head in a helpless little gesture. “How can I not? I too failed to trust.” She went into his arms then, burying her face against his throat, glorying in the feel of his arms tight around her. Only love, it seemed, mattered. Hurt, despair were vanquished by its balm. They would forgive, and soon they would forget.

  He held her, breathed in her scent, still hardly daring to believe that she had come back to him. After a minute, she took his hand, laying it upon her belly. “Make the acquaintance of your child, my lord.”

  Hugh gazed down at her, amazement and disbelief in his eyes. “You’re with child?”

  “Most assuredly,” she said.

  He kept his hand on her belly. “And you would not have told me? You would have left me without telling me?”

  “No,” she said simply. “I could not do that.”

  “Is this why you have come back to me?” His gaze now was anguished with doubt.

  “If I did not love you, did not know what it is to be loved by you, I would not have come back to you, not even for the child's sake,” she said.

  He drew her against him, his mouth meeting hers. “I love you. I love you so much it frightens me.”

  “Then let us face this frightening new world together,” she said, smiling against his mouth. “Now love me, Lord Hugh, as you have never loved me before.”

  Epilogue

  July 28th, 1540

  The executioner held the head high for the roaring crowd. Hugh at the rear of the crowd turned his horse away from Tyburn Tree, Jack Stedman and his four men falling in behind, swords drawn. If they moved fast they would clear the crowd before it went wild in its rejoicing.

  Privy Seal was dead.

  Hugh and his companions were silent as they pushed through the rear of the crowd now pressing forward towards the block. Their horses stepped high, the heavy breastplates on the chargers’ massive chests forcing a path. The herald blew a continuous note, demanding passage. There were shouted insults but for the most part the throng fell back and gave way to the armed party in its rich liveries, the man with his piercing blue eyes and distinguished bearing at its head.

  “Home or Whitehall, m’lord?”

  Hugh glanced over his shoulder at Jack's question. The king was today marrying Catherine Howard. A careful courtier would show himself at court. But today Hugh of Beaucaire had no mind to play the careful courtier.

  He had news for his wife, news that would bear much discussion.

  He reached inside his doublet and felt for the parchment with the king's seal. It crackled beneath his fingertips. “Home, Jack.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The small troop rode east to Holborn. They met crowds pouring west, hawkers, tumblers, musicians, men leading dancing bears. Today was a day of rejoicing. And not just because the king had taken his fifth queen. The hated reign of Thomas Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal, had ended at Tyburn Tree.

  The crowd thinned as Hugh and his men came closer to the house. The party rode up the lane where Privy Seal's man had attacked Hugh on his wedding day. The herald blew his trumpet and the gatekeeper came running. The gates opened and they rode through into the quiet park.

  The house at the end of the drive glowed under the sun. There was glass in all of the windows now, and they were ablaze under the mid-afternoon light. The lawns were tended, the shrubs pruned, flowers bloomed.

  Hugh dismounted, gave Jack his reins. Jack rode off with the men to the stable yard. Hugh stood on the gravel sweep before his house and cocked his head, listening. A smile touched his mouth as he heard what he’d been expecting to hear. Pippa's high tones came from the shrubbery. Pippa, as usual, was instructing her small sister in some art or craft essential to a proper understanding of the way the world worked.

  Hugh walked swiftly towards the voice. Where there were children, there would be Guinevere.

  He took the narrow, well-swept, hedge-lined path into the shrubbery. It was a quiet place, heavy with the scent of roses from the trellised arbor in
its midst. It would have been peaceful but for Pippa and her sister.

  “Papa!” Anna struggled to her chubby legs and ran across the grass towards her father. He bent to lift her. Two years old. Round and bright as a button. Her eyes were a curious blend of blue and purple. Quite astounding, he thought, lifting her high to kiss her fragrant cheek.

  “Did Crummock die, Lord Hugh?” Pippa, grown tall but still a hazel-eyed sprite with the basic belief that the world couldn’t manage without her, brushed grass off her skirts and regarded him seriously.

  “Aye, Pippa,” he replied. “Where's your mother?”

  “Here.” Guinevere spoke from beneath the trellis of roses. “I was taking shelter from the sun. It grows hot in this pesky city.” She was smiling as she stepped out of the shade.

  Hugh gave his daughter to Pippa. “Take Anna, Pippa, and ask Pen to come here. Your mother and I have something to discuss with her.”

  “Not with me?” Pippa looked hurt.

  “Not at this time.”

  Pippa, being Pippa, hesitated, but she knew her stepfather and there was something in his demeanor that silenced her instinctive protests. She glanced at her mother who was suddenly looking as grave as Lord Hugh.

  “I’ll fetch her then.” Pippa hitched up the baby whose plump legs clutched at her sister's skinny hips, and left the arbor.

  “What is it?” Guinevere asked quietly.

  Hugh took the parchment from his doublet. “Two things. One of more import than the other. Let us sit in the shade.”

  He followed her into the cool shadows beneath the trellis and sat down beside her on the stone bench. He unfolded the parchment, smoothing it out against his thigh.

  Guinevere waited and when he did not immediately unburden himself prompted into the silence, “So the long arm of Privy Seal is gone. Living under his shadow these last three years has not been easy. Hardly a day has passed when I haven’t expected some new plot from him.”

  “The king's favor clipped Cromwell's claws,” Hugh said. “Had we lost that favor, then you would have had cause to fear.”