A Dangerous Inheritance (10 page)

Silently, slowly, he closes the door, then pads on bare feet toward me. I hold out my arms and he comes into them and kisses my lips. Then he pulls down my smock and bends to nuzzle my budding breasts.

“Harry!” I whisper, blushing.

“Sweeting!” he murmurs, and makes to remove his nightgown.

“What is the meaning of this?” barks a sharp voice from the doorway. “I thought I had made myself clear!” It is the earl, standing there like an avenging angel, hands aggressively on hips, black brows knit in a frown.

Harry jumps up startled, gathering his nightgown about him, while I hastily pull up the sheet, my cheeks flaming.

“Get you hence, my son!” the earl commands. “And do not think to
disobey me again. It’s fortunate that I was awake listening for you. I know you, my boy. Adventurous like me. Well, I can’t blame you, but you will not defy me again. Say good night to your young lady and go back to your room, and we will say no more of the matter.”

“And if I refuse?” Harry challenges.

“Then I will call my men and have you thrown out.” Pembroke’s shoulders suddenly sag. “Look, it’s late, and I’m tired. I don’t intend to stand here arguing. I am sorry, but you must be patient for a while longer. Now get back to your chamber, my son. And you, my lady, go to sleep. Good night.” He holds open the door.

Harry is vanquished. He stoops and kisses me briefly, then sullenly walks out of the room, his father following. This time, the key does turn, leaving me a prisoner. I am a wife, yet not a wife: a virgin still, and I fear I will remain so for God knows how long. It is enough to make anyone weep. And I do.

June 1483, Crosby Place and the City of London

There was a great stir and commotion in London. People were busy making ready for the young King’s coronation. Whenever Kate, accompanied by the new maid her father had appointed, ventured out of the house to browse in the enticing shops in Cheapside, she saw queues of liveried servants at the goldsmiths’ and the mercers,’ collecting jewels and fabrics ordered by their noble masters and mistresses.

London, to Kate, was still an intimidating, if exciting, place. That air of menace she had sensed when she first arrived still pervaded the streets, and many citizens continued to parade about in their armor, clearly fearing trouble. She was aware of the tension within Crosby Place, where the King’s councillors had been gathering for private meetings. She had seen them from her window, dismounting in the courtyard and being ushered into the house. Her father often sat up late at night in conference with them; she had glimpsed the
candle flames flickering through the diamond panes of the council chamber.

One morning there had been a stranger at breakfast, a handsome, smooth-tongued lawyer whom the duke introduced as Sir William Catesby. He was clearly liked and trusted by her father, but Kate took an instinctive aversion to him. He seemed sly and crafty, and he spoke with scant respect of his master, Lord Hastings. Kate had always imagined Lord Hastings to be a kindly, upright man, and she knew he had rendered a timely service to her father, so she felt indignant that Sir William Catesby seemed to regard him with derision. And her indignation rose higher, as her father walked with him to the porch to say farewell, when she overheard their muttered exchange.

“Fear not Lord Hastings, good my lord.” That was Catesby. “He is content that the council should be divided. The fool thinks I am reporting all our proceedings here to him and the rest.”

“As long as he thinks you loyal to his interests, we need not concern ourselves with him,” the duke replied. “And so fare you well, Sir William. I will proceed with our other matter. And I am ready to offer you good lordship at any time.”

That did not sound very charitable toward Lord Hastings either, Kate thought. What could his lordship have done to offend her father and his lawyer?

There came an evening when the Duke of Buckingham, a grand, lordly northerner with a bluff manner, came to dine. He was good company at table: even her father—so taciturn and brooding these days, and often as somber as the mourning he was wearing for his brother—fell to laughing at his jests.

Buckingham made much of the Duchess Anne, showing her every courtesy and deferring to her opinions as if they were pearls of wisdom dropping from her lips. He means to flatter and cozen my father, Kate thought. For Gloucester had many privileges within his gift: he was king in all but name. That was what it meant to be Lord Protector.

Buckingham praised John highly. “Ye have a fine boy there,” he observed. “What will ye be, young man? A knight?”

“If my father so wishes, sir,” John answered. He had been well schooled in courtesy and obedience.

“I see no reason why not.” The duke smiled, but he looked so tired, Kate thought. John was happy, though. To win his knighthood was all he asked of life.

“And this fair damsel, is she to be wed soon?” asked Buckingham, helping himself to another chicken leg and beaming at Kate.

“She is but thirteen,” Anne said. “There’s plenty of time to think of marriage.”

“Aye, Duchess, but your good lord here could find a husband to warm her bed
and
prove useful as an ally,” Buckingham said. “Two birds with one stone, eh?”

“All in good time, Harry,” Gloucester intervened. “I would keep my fair Kate with me a little longer yet. More wine?” The subject—to Kate’s relief—was closed.

They sat late at the table. The wine pitcher, refilled twice, was nearly empty again, and the candles were burning low. John had been sent to bed, and Kate had withdrawn to the fireside with her sewing. At the far end of the hall a lone minstrel plucked a lute. Kate recognized the tune:
“Mon souverain desir,”
an old French chanson, and found herself humming along with it.

“What of the Queen?” Buckingham asked suddenly.

Gloucester gave a snort of exasperation. “She is adamant she will not leave sanctuary. In fact, she’s been so obstructive that the councillors are refusing to visit her anymore.”

“Someone ought to persuade her that she has nothing to fear from you, my lord,” the duchess put in.

“Ah, but do I have anything to fear from her?”

“Maybe it’s better she stays in sanctuary,” Buckingham said. “At least we know where she is and what she’s about. But there remains the problem of what to do about the Duke of York.”

“He must leave sanctuary as soon as possible,” Gloucester said. “It does not do for a boy of his age to be cooped up in confinement with his mother and sisters. And his presence is needed at the coronation.” He got up and began pacing. He had imbibed several goblets of Rhenish,
and his gait was a touch ungainly. It was one of those times when it became noticeable that he had one shoulder slightly higher than the other. “I will have the boy out of there, whatever that woman says,” he vowed darkly. “How will it look if he is absent from his brother’s crowning?”

“Bad,” replied Buckingham. “A political embarrassment.”

“Go gently with the Queen, my lords,” Anne urged. Her face in the firelight was drawn; she too was feeling the strain of these difficult days.

Kate’s fingers were working automatically with her needle, but her mind was wholly focused on the conversation going on behind her. “The Duke of York is but nine years old,” the duchess was saying.

“You have a soft heart, Anne,” Richard said. “But a boy of nine should not be governed by women.”

“In a couple of years he’ll be of an age to go into battle,” Buckingham declared. Anne said nothing: she was rarely one to confront the decrees of men. But Kate could imagine what she was thinking, and that her thoughts had turned to her own fragile little boy, who would probably never be strong enough to fight in the field.

“Aye, well, ye’ll just have to insist that the Queen gives up the lad,” Buckingham was saying. “Tell her his brother needs company of his own age in the Tower.”

“Indeed he does,” Gloucester agreed.

A chair scraped the floor. “Forgive me, my lords, I am going to retire,” Anne said, and the two dukes stood up. It was the signal for Kate to leave too, and having gathered up her sewing things, said her goodnights, and followed her stepmother out of the hall, she heard her father say, “Now, what of Hastings? Will you sound him out?”

“I have done that already,” Buckingham replied. “It was useless.”

The City was still abuzz with rumors. Whenever she went abroad, Kate was aghast to hear common folk pronouncing freely on the deeds and motives of their betters, and she quickly learned not to open her mouth, because the Londoners seemed to regard all northerners as savages, and as far as some were concerned, her father was one of them.

It was horrible, horrible! But worst of all was the venom of a friar preaching to a crowd on Bishopsgate.

“Where is this leading but to treason of the worst sort?” he cried, his red, well-fed face a mask of outrage. “The King in the Tower, in the power of the Duke of Gloucester. The Queen and her children in sanctuary, afraid to come out. The Queen’s kinsmen either unlawfully imprisoned or fled overseas. And now talk of a new enmity between Gloucester and Lord Hastings.”

“Hastings is loyal to the King!” shouted a bystander.

“Aye, but he has no reason to be loyal to Gloucester,” the friar retorted.

Kate could not help herself. “Gloucester is loyal to the King too!” she cried out. “He is a good man!” To her dismay, her words were greeted with jeers and hoots of derision.

“Loyal my foot!” trumpeted a stout woman beside her. “He’s after the crown, the crafty bugger. That’s what he wants!”

“And Hastings knows it, mark my words,” chimed in a man whose bloody apron proclaimed him a butcher. “With luck, he’ll be the ruin of Gloucester.”

“Hark at her!” shrieked a fishwife, pointing at Kate. “It’s clear where she hails from. You got a tail under that fine gown, love?”

“No!” Kate squealed, then fled in terror, pushing her way through the astonished mob, leaving Mattie, her little maid, struggling to stay with her. People called after her, but she was running, running, hastening back to the ordered world of Crosby Place.

Her father caught her in his arms as she raced into the hall.

“Those dreadful people!” she panted. “Sir, they say that Lord Hastings will be your ruin. It cannot be true, surely?”

Gloucester looked her straight in the face, still grasping her arms.

“It may be true,” he said. He was deadly serious, and it terrified her. “But never fear, daughter. I am on my guard, and every precaution is being taken.”

“But Hastings helped you,” Kate protested.

“My enemies have poisoned his mind, telling him that I covet my nephew’s throne. They are clever and plausible, and so he plots my downfall.”

“Be watchful!” Kate begged, pressing her damp face into the seamed velvet of his doublet. Behind her Anne looked at him with pain in her eyes.

“I did not ask for this,” Richard said.

Her father looked ill. He dragged himself around the house, as if in pain. He barely touched his food, took hardly a sip of wine, and complained that he could not sleep and was suffering from a strange, inexplicable malaise. Anne was sufficiently distraught to summon his mother, the Duchess of York, from Baynard’s Castle. The duchess had just arrived in London to attend the coronation of her grandson.

She came, the venerable Cecily, looking the very image of a devout widow in her black, nunlike garments, a snowy wimple framing her haughty, aristocratic face. She had the high cheekbones and strong features of most of the Neville race.

“You must take care of yourself, my son,” she admonished the duke as he knelt for her blessing. “You look sick and haggard. For the love of God, go to bed and rest.”

“There is too much to do, madam my mother,” he protested, rising to his feet. “I have one especially urgent matter to attend to.”

“Can it not wait?” the Duchess Cecily barked.

“I fear not, madam,” he replied.

“Is it concerning that hussy who calls herself Queen?” His mother was visibly bristling. “Has she not caused enough harm?”

“Yes, it is the Queen and her following,” the duke said testily. “I will tell you presently. Pray be seated, my lady.” The duchess unthinkingly took the chair that was usually his—the most imposing one in the room. Anne came and knelt before her, receiving a loving look—the duchess approved heartily of her daughter-in-law and great-niece. And then it was the turn of John of Gloucester, and finally of Kate.

“You have bred a little beauty, my son,” Cecily pronounced, tipping Kate’s chin upward to see her better. “A modest decorum too. Most edifying.” She nodded, well pleased.

“So, Richard,” she went on, “tell me about the Wydevilles. God knows I curse the day when that woman married your brother.”

“She and her kin loathe me,” the duke said. “I am convinced they
mean to utterly destroy me, my cousin Buckingham, and all the old royal blood of this realm.”

Cecily grimaced, but looked skeptical. “How can this be, my son? The woman is in sanctuary, her kinsmen imprisoned or fled.”

“She is allowed visitors. I cannot be seen to be keeping her a prisoner. She is free to leave sanctuary if she pleases. But Shore’s wife, for one, sees her frequently.”

Kate noticed a look of distaste shadow her grandmother’s face.

“That slut!”

“She acts as an agent for her lover Hastings, plotting against me with the Queen,” Gloucester growled. “I tell you, madam, it is openly known, for they do not trouble to hide it. Oh, they think they are subtle, but certain it is they are conspiring the destruction and disinheriting of me and many others, all good men of this realm!” His voice shook with anger.

“Summon the men of the North,” his mother counseled. “The city of York is loyal to you and will send soldiers to your aid. Do not tarry on this, my son.”

Gloucester lifted her hand and kissed it.

“I will do it!” he said. “I could ever rely on your counsel.”

“Is help not nearer at hand?” Anne interrupted. “If the situation is as bad as you say …”

“If?” Richard shouted, to Anne’s evident dismay. “Of course it is as bad as I say. I am in peril of my life—and all because I have been loyal to my king. Naturally I intend to summon aid from elsewhere. Even as we speak, summons are being prepared for the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Neville, and their affinities. My councillor, Richard Ratcliffe, is waiting to depart.”