Jeane Westin

by The Virgin's Daughters (v5)

  Kate wondered if there was a vinegar cloth at hand.

  All the councilors remained mute where they sat, some obviously wishing to be elsewhere.

  After an audible sigh, Elizabeth smiled at them and crossed her hands against her heart, saying in her most cajoling voice, her eyes sparkling with humor, “Yet, my good lords, we would have you pursue this Hapsburg match, if it please you so.”

  Even though Kate nearly wilted with relief, realizing the queen could have named her at that moment, she pinched herself hard to keep from laughing aloud. Still, she smiled inwardly at her own mixed allegiances. Elizabeth was monstrous, but wonderfully and unpredictably changeable. When in a temper, she was like a channel storm blowing up from nowhere, and just as suddenly as the sun forcing its way through to calm the waters, she was beautifully radiant. And irresistible, judging from the rapt faces of the men around the council table.

  Watching them bask in the glow of the queen’s change of heart, Kate could not help but wonder if Anne Boleyn’s supposed witchery had descended to the daughter. But that was a treasonous thought, even in jest, and Kate pushed it away.

  Elizabeth’s commanding words shifted the topic. “Now, my lords and gentlemen, there are more pressing problems than matrimony in our realm to occupy our attentions.” She leaned forward, tapping her fan on the long table, although her council was all attention. “Last year we sent our armies to aid the Scots Protestants. Can we do less for the French? We would discuss that situation and what opportunity it provides to regain our port of Calais, lost by the late queen, my sister. It is a stain on the honor of England. We will have it back, my lords!”

  While Kate tried to listen as first one man said this and the next man said the opposite, she found it impossible to follow talk of troop levies, taxes, and Parliamentary demands when her heart ached to know if it was truly Ned who had written the message hidden in her sleeve.

  “My lords!” the queen said through tight lips, finally exasperated, “if no two men can agree here, from whom do we take our counsel?”

  Though the words caused Kate to shrink away, as she knew too well that rage could follow and be aimed at her, the paper in her sleeve seemed to burn with more urgency than the queen’s annoyance or her motherly surprises.

  If Ned were leaving court, he must want to see her. But what if the note said farewell, finally acknowledging the risk to them both? She would be alone, and this time forever. She could never trust love again.

  Her heart and head were still at odds when the queen stood, the council members quickly getting to their feet and bowing. Cecil remained serene as Her Majesty swept from the chamber. She murmured over her shoulder to Kate, “My lady Grey, that is what it is to be queen. Do not wish to leave your womanhood in such a stinking stable midden.”

  It is not my wish, but yours that commands. Kate did not say the words aloud. Elizabeth would do what she wanted, when she wanted. That was what it truly was to be queen, and Kate wanted none of it. The deception, the constant meetings, the scheming—a queen’s life was no match for the green fields of Eltham.

  As all Her Majesty’s ladies flocked into procession behind her, trumpets and drums began their notice to the court that the queen approached and to stop pissing in the corners and begin doing what would please her most. Kate’s mind was awhirl with all she’d heard. She felt a growing cold, not sweeping down the wintry halls of Richmond palace but from inside her own body. Elizabeth would never marry, never allow Kate to know what a queen rejected. She offered hope to her council in any way she could, from naming a daughter to agreeing to marriage negotiations. But she meant none of it. Kate would grow old and ugly waiting and hoping for Ned.

  Minutes later, alone in the queen’s linen closet, Kate withdrew the note, sensing how warm it was to her touch. She could not help but wonder if it was warmth from her own body, or warmth sent from Ned’s. She quickly read the words written in his hand: Tonight at my sister’s apartment.

  Pleading her monthly flux and a gripping in her stomach after supper, Kate announced: “I must visit the court apothecary to obtain some tansy water.”

  Mistress Ashley nodded. “Some women do take their monthly bleeding hard. Tansy water has been a cure for Elizabeth, princess and queen.”

  Kate quickly made her way to the apothecary and obtained a vial of distilled tansy water. Looking both ways, she walked toward Jane Seymour’s apartment, until, certain she was being followed, she doubled back to allow Lady Saintloe to rush past her hiding place. Then Kate hurried on down another hall.

  Ned was waiting alone inside a partially open door. No servants and no sister were in sight. He pulled Kate inside and kissed her fiercely. She gave a little cry of pain. She put the back of one hand to her mouth, thinking it bruised with the violence of Ned’s kiss, although while it stung she felt its heat more than its hurt.

  He stepped back while still holding tight to her arms, his face showing concern. “How did you get leave?”

  Blushing, Kate said, “I told Ashley that I was unwell.”

  “Dearest,” he said, worried.

  Kate shook her head. “It’s nothing. An excuse to escape, nothing more.”

  Relieved, he rushed on. “Kate, forgive me. These last hours, knowing I must leave you and may not soon be invited back to court, have made me near lose my wits.”

  “What do you want of me? What can I do?” She was surprised at how steady her voice was, though her heart was not.

  He pulled her to a settle by the fire, seating her on it and then sitting close beside her, imprisoning her gown under one leg. “Warm yourself, my love. You’re shivering.”

  She nodded, not daring to look in his face, or tell him that she was not shaking from cold, but from his nearness.

  “Kate,” he said fiercely, “I will be no martyr to love. My feelings are too hot and my heart too empty without you. I will have you as part of my life, part of my morning’s waking and my night’s sleeping. Kate, I cannot be the man I must be without you. I thought I’d lost you once, but now that I have you again, we must marry, queen or no.” His voice shook. “I have sworn to God that I will not take you without his priest’s blessing on us.”

  His words drew her to him. How could any woman not respond to such a man? Kate looked at him and felt her face flush as the import of his words became clear. He was not afraid to say what came from some desperate place that she would have been afraid to enter alone. But with Ned, she would dare, though when she tried to say yes, her courage failed her. She swallowed hard and tried one last time to deny him. “There is no way, my lord. As you know well, she will not consent. Elizabeth called me daughter today, trying to ward off more calls for her marriage, although it did not work.”

  “Listen to me, Kate.” He had never sounded more urgent. “When the marriage is blessed and consummated”—he slid his hands to either side of her face as she began to shake her head—“when blessed and consummated, what can she do?”

  “She can send us to the Tower. Do you forget that her father’s will put me in the succession and also named it treason for an heir to marry without their sovereign’s consent? By law, she could demand our heads.”

  “No!” He spat the word. “That would outrage the people, and she values her popularity above all. They would take it ill if Elizabeth harmed a queen’s nephew and her own blood cousin for falling honorably in love and receiving the blessing of the Church.”

  There was truth in what he said, though Kate did not know if the queen would forgive their defiance. But she wanted to believe it. She needed desperately to believe it. “Maybe, Ned. I don’t know—”

  “You do know!”

  At that moment she realized, opening her eyes wide, that the chance of a life with Ned was worth any risk. She would have no life without him.

  “Don’t you love me, Kate?” His words were laden with anguish.

  No answer came from her mouth because Ned was kissing her again, taking the breath she needed to say no, taking
the immense will she needed to produce that lie. Her lips released, she spoke: “Yes, I love you . . . oh, many times yes!”

  He leaned away, his mouth wet with her kiss, joy lighting his face to the brightness of a hundred candles. “What matters a few months in the Tower and then all forgiven with our lives joined? Far worse, sweetest, to be together in the same palace, yet miserably apart, eventually to lose each other forever.”

  “She might invite some foreign suitor to come for me,” murmured Kate as she sank her face into his doublet, inhaling the scent of him that had never quite left her nostrils since their first meeting. “I couldn’t bear it.”

  “You won’t have to bear it as my wife,” he said, his voice as confident as ever.

  “But, Ned, I am watched constantly here. How will I . . . How will we—”

  “Tomorrow, the queen will hunt from early until late. Continue your illness. Make your excuse to remain in the palace and come to Jane. She will do the rest. Will you come to London, Kate? Will you marry me before God and be my wife?”

  Kate hesitated, her mind racing.

  “Say yes, Kate, or we must part forever. A man cannot live this way.”

  “Nor a woman, Ned. I say yes with all my heart. I will be your wife.”

  He stood, helping her up on her feet, twirling her about as if he heard the queen’s consort playing a dance just for them. “You won’t regret it, Kate. Tomorrow we will be together before the priest and in my bed, husband and wife, never to part again. Whom God has joined—is that what you want?”

  “More than anything.” As she heard her own words, she realized for once and all that she wasn’t like Elizabeth. She wanted Ned more than she wanted Elizabeth’s transient approval, her mother’s blessing, or the revels of the court. . . . She wanted him more than anything in this realm. Ned could be right: Elizabeth could never deny a marriage, twice joined, once by priest and again by body.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “A clear and innocent conscience fears nothing.”

  —Elizabeth Regina

  The Next Morn

  The queen finished her morning prayers for England at her priedieu and rode out toward the main gate of Richmond Palace shortly after the larks awakened. With hounds baying and trumpets blaring to alert every deer in Surrey, Robert Dudley rode beside Elizabeth, both on magnificent, black, high-stepping hunters.

  Kate stared through the swirling dust kicked up by the stallions, for Elizabeth would not have a gelding. “Man or horse. What challenge in that?” she’d once jested. Despite herself, Kate had been amused and smiled now in memory.

  Below, Elizabeth and Dudley, faces glowing in the mist, were laughing in anticipation of a breakneck ride over every obstacle in their path.

  Kate watched them go, standing behind the mullioned windows in the queen’s bedchamber. They were so obviously of the same heart, Kate could not doubt that the queen would one day regret her choice to remain without Robin as her husband. That was not a regret Kate wanted, or could bear. The idea of living without Ned created an instant emptiness in the deepest corner of her soul. And she no longer cared if an imp of Satan planted that thought. She was loved. For the second time in her life, she was truly loved, and she would not give it up again for mother, council or queen. Since she had been a child, she had been told what was wanted of her; now she would tell herself. Ned’s love had given her that strength. Ned had set her heart free.

  Hastily, she gathered the queen’s nightclothes and linen, gave them to the mistress of the body for washing, informed the master groom that she had a toothache, and went to her chamber for her fur cloak. Lady Saintloe was riding with the queen, so Kate was safe enough for the day. But she knew her absence would be immediately reported when the hunting party returned. The countess would question Sybil, then rush to question Jane and, finding her gone from the palace as well, would issue a hue and cry through the hundreds of chambers. When they were both known to be gone, Kate didn’t doubt that the queen would dispatch yeoman guards to Ned’s Westminster residence.

  She felt her heart thudding against her breasts with part apprehension and part excited resolve as she changed into her best gown, one of the queen’s of last year’s design, minus the jewels, but still fine white velvet with exquisite cutwork. She settled her best fur cloak about her shoulders as her nurse opened the door.

  “But, my lady,” Sybil asked, “what be I saying to—”

  “I returned to the apothecary,” Kate prompted.

  “In yer fur cloak?”

  “Say as you’re told,” Kate said too brusquely, and then took time to kiss her nurse’s cheek and hug her.

  “Aye, love. I be seeing you grieve Lord Edward in secret all these long years.”

  Inhaling deeply, Kate stopped and removed a coin from the pocket hanging from her wrist and handed it to Sybil. “Buy a dainty at the bakehouse, Sybil, and thank you,” she said, then whirled out the door before she lost her nerve. As she raced through the presence chamber, Kate sensed that Elizabeth was there even though her throne was empty.

  This was a mad thing she was about. Maddest of all, she could not stop herself.

  Jane waited in her rooms, cloaked, hooded and nervous. “Come swiftly,” she said, tugging at Kate’s hand.

  They followed one of Ned’s grooms down a private, steeply narrow stone staircase and out upon a wooden planked walkway to a little-used dock, downriver from most castle windows, covered by fog that crept silently along the marshy ground. A small barge waited.

  “Ned hired the rowers from a nearby village,” Jane explained. “They are well paid to keep their silence.”

  Kate nodded, too anxious to make conversation, or argue that few men kept their silence on the rack.

  There were several early fishermen on the river and two small barges taking early lambs to the Smithfield market. Lambs to the slaughter, Kate could not help but think with some empathy. She was relieved to see that their own boat was shrouded from sight in the mist. As she huddled within her cloak, her emotions ran between fear of Elizabeth’s revenge when she returned, and longing to see Ned and be safe for any time at all in his arms. She prayed that he was right and Elizabeth would have no choice but to acknowledge their marriage. Then she prayed the same prayer again, her hands clenched together in reverent attitude.

  Jane chattered all the time the fast-moving barge made its way back to the Westminster water stairs, mostly talking about Dudley, praising everything to his fingertips. She was as taken with that dashing, lusty lord as were half the court ladies, but without their chances of any return. Though loyal to her brother and of the royal Seymour family, she was plain and dull-witted, with nothing to truly attract a man like Lord Robert. Women were such poor creatures, Kate mused, either helpless in their love, or hopeless. She laughed a bit cynically, because she’d described herself as well as Jane, though she smiled reassuringly at her future sister-in-law, who looked hurt because she’d said nothing remotely humorous.

  Ned, dressed splendidly in rich, sable brown velvet, with gold slashes on his doublet sleeves, stood on the stairs, his tall form rising out of the swirling mist like a sea god’s. He bade the rowers wait, and after a tender kiss he helped Kate and Jane up the slimy stone steps, where his servants stood with lanterns to light their way through the fog still clinging to the dark, muddy streets.

  They walked quickly past the looming stone mass of the abbey and through the alleys made dim by overhanging many-storied houses. The narrow passages were thronged with geese picking at refuse and fish sellers pushing their barrows on morning rounds, shouting their fresh catch to the upper stories.

  Ned kept tight hold of her waist and hand until they came to an open square. Every few steps he whispered in her ear, “Do not doubt, my love; all will be well.”

  Did doubt appear on her face, when she was most careful not to let it escape her tongue?

  They exited the square onto Canon Row. The first large stone house was Ned’s, welcoming lights shining fro
m every window.

  “Hurry, Kate,” he said. “The priest and witnesses are waiting.”

  “You’ve thought of everything.”

  “I hope so.”

  His voice held concern, and Kate glanced behind her.

  “No, sweetheart, I swear there is nothing to alarm you. All is in readiness.”

  A ladies’ maid took her fur cloak away for drying and brushing as Kate stepped into the great hall hung with large arras tapestries, huge apple-wood logs burning in the stone fireplace, pushing February’s cold into the far corners and replacing the chilled air with a fruity, springtime scent. An oak-paneled gallery circled above the hall with many doors leading to bedchambers. One of them, Kate knew, was Ned’s bedchamber. And soon it would be hers. She trembled and he tightened his hold, leading her to a small chapel off the great hall.

  A few trusted old servants had gathered to witness their master’s wedding, and were clustered in a group around the door. The chapel and stained-glass windows were lit with the soft glow of lanterns and braziers. Lifting her eyes, Kate could see the mark behind the altar where a large cross had hung during Elizabeth’s Catholic sister’s reign. Mary Tudor had brought back the old faith and burned at the stake all the outspoken Protestants she could find. They were going to burn in hell for their heresy, so why not a few years earlier? she had reasoned.

  Ned led Kate to his family altar and they both knelt.

  The priest wore tattered black robes, and looked windblown and not altogether sober. “My lord,” he mumbled, “you say no banns have been published; then I cannot—”

  Ned’s stern look as he drew a folded document from his doublet silenced the priest. “This is our marriage bond signed by the bishop of London, giving us permission to marry without banns. Now, no more delays. There is no time to lose.”

  These words dropped the priest’s gaze to Kate’s belly to see if birth was imminent. Kate met his puzzlement with her own. Did Ned expect the queen’s guard to break down his door?