Gilt (16 page)

“What do you want, Kitty?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say one word.
You.
But I denied myself even that simple truth. I had made Cat a promise.

“I want the possibility of seeing you. No matter how busy we are. I want you here. At court.”

“But even you don’t want to be at court. Not really.”

I balked. I had told him the truth—or part of it—and he denied me my own thoughts in the matter.

“We’ve been dreaming about it since we were little girls,” I said. “It’s all I ever wanted.”

“Is it?” he asked. “Or is it what Cat wanted? Because I think you need to know the difference.”

“Are you telling me I don’t know my own mind?”

“I’m telling you that Cat’s desires seem to eclipse your own. Her need for clothes and jewels and furs and fashion. That’s all she cares about. Getting the crown and not thinking of what goes along with it.”

“That is not all she cares about,” I argued. “She cares about friends and family and . . .” I couldn’t think of anything else. Truth be told, I didn’t actually believe she cared about her family. But I had to defend her. I would be no one if it weren’t for Catherine Howard. I would be hiding in corners and swishing out chamber pots like Mary Lascelles.

“No, Kitty,” William said. “
You
care about those things. And more. You are not like her. She wants you to be her shadow. You can only truly be yourself if you cut her off.”

“Cat cares about me!” I cried.

“No, she doesn’t. Cat cares about Cat.”

“How dare you?” I said, suddenly breathless with anger. “You don’t even
know
her!”

“I know many like her,” William said. His hands remained stiff at his sides, his profile turned to me. “She’s just like her uncle. Ambitious and court-blind, seeing only the surface and not what lies beneath.”

“And yet you stay with the duke. No matter where he goes.”

“I have no choice.”

The breach between our bodies was no more than a hand’s breadth, but I couldn’t find the words to bridge it.

“Neither have I.”

“Yes, you do,” he said urgently. “You need to get away. You don’t belong here. You don’t want to be like her—mercenary and artificial.”

Before I knew what I was doing, I slapped him. The resonant sting in my hand surprised me and I clutched it back to my chest, nursing the hurt in my heart.

“You can leave court if you wish,” I snapped. “But I won’t go with you.” Not that he’d asked.

I bit down on my tongue, relished the metallic taste on it. The punishment for lying was to cut the tongue, was it not? But the lie had to be brazened out, so I straightened my spine, and my gaze didn’t waver from his.

He broke down first. His head sagged and he stepped aside, a weak gesture telling me I had clear passage.

“You shouldn’t be with people who tell you what you want.” William’s sadness imbued his words. “What to think or feel or do. Like Cat does.”

“Don’t you see?” I croaked, my voice barely a whisper. “That’s exactly what you’re doing.”

I couldn’t feel my feet as I walked away, and my knees didn’t bend properly. I felt like a wooden toy, inflexible and heartless. I left my own heart, crushed, on the riverbank at William’s feet.

The duke left for Scotland at the end of January.

William didn’t come to see me before he left. And I didn’t say good-bye.

“
T
HAT’S GOOD
,” C
AT SAID ABSENTLY WHEN
I
TOLD HER WHAT HAD HAPPENED
. We were making endless circumambulations of the upstairs gallery, cloistered by the rain, dogged by the Coven, who kept a meager distance.

I had suffered days of solitary anguish before I mentioned it. I waited until I couldn’t bear it by myself any longer. And in the end, I didn’t tell her everything. Not what William said about her. Not what I felt about him. I only told her that we’d argued and that I probably wouldn’t see him again, the rupture in my heart growing with each word.

“Good?” I managed to reply. “The only boy who has ever noticed me?” And I’d lost him. Not just lost—discarded.

“Oh, no, Kitty,” Cat stopped, causing the tide of ladies behind her to eddy and retreat. “Not the only boy. There is another.”

I blinked at her, stunned.

“He is one of the king’s yeomen of the chamber,” she said. “A tall young stud. Mounds of golden hair. Looks a bit like a lion.”

“Standebanke,” I said, the word jagged in my throat.

“You’ve noticed him, then.” Cat smirked.

“No, Cat,” I pleaded, saw-toothed memories from the forest flashing behind my eyes, “He’s not . . .”

“You think you can do better?” She finally looked at me, her blue eyes flinty. “You think you can get a Knyvet or a Neville or a Percy?” She thought I wanted nobility.

“It’s not that.”

“Is it still that Gibbon boy?” she asked. “Ha. I say good riddance to him. Or did you fancy yourself in love?”

“I don’t know,” I said. Cat’s tone was so contemptuous. So bitter.

“Well, I’m here to tell you, Mistress Tylney, that there is no such thing. Not in this court, not in this life. But if you must continue your infatuation, just get him back and have both. It never hurt a girl to have two men at once.”

“I can’t, Cat.” A shudder ran through me.

“Then don’t. Give up Gibbon for all I care.”

She didn’t. I could see that. Didn’t care that my heart was breaking over something I’d ruined. Or that she was pushing me into a relationship with a rapist’s sidekick.

“It’s not William,” I said. I needed Cat to understand.

“Good. Because Standebanke is yours. He’s
asked
about you. I shall set up a clandestine meeting for you personally.” Cat positively glowed with mischief. Cat the matchmaker. The Queen of Misrule.

“Your Majesty.”

We turned to find that Jane Boleyn had broken free of the pool of ladies behind us.

“What is it?” Cat snapped, her light mood changed in an instant. “Can’t you see I’m speaking with Mistress Tylney?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Jane lowered her eyes. “That is exactly the subject I wish to broach.”

“Have you been eavesdropping on my private conversations?” Cat asked, her eyes aslant with suspicion.

“No, Your Majesty,” Jane said and glanced once over her shoulder. Jane never spoke unless she knew who was listening. The Coven gaggled a few yards away. The other ladies and maids whispered at the far end of the gallery, hesitating by the door of the chapel as if unprepared for holiness.

Jane lowered her voice and spoke with her head bowed. We had to lean close to hear her. “I come to give fair warning to prevent ill feeling in the future. It is my job to keep your path smooth and your life comfortable, and I do my best to fulfill my function.”

Cat snorted with derision and turned back down the gallery.

“And what do you wish to warn me about?” she said.

“There are ladies who feel supplanted in the queen’s favor. Ladies who feel they deserve to be in the queen’s company more than a mere chamberer. They think affection should be dictated by status. That you, Kitty, are good for nothing but stoking the fires, changing the rushes, and fetching wine.”

“You mean,” I said, “as a servant.”

They thought I should be treated no better than Mary Lascelles back in Lambeth. I tasted the sour tang of inferiority.

“That’s exactly what she means,” Cat said. “That because
you’re not blood-related, you’re not worthy. Because you’re not the daughter of an earl or the wife of a knight or the widow of a duke.”

“Do you think this, Jane?” I asked.

“No!” Jane said, “I see that the queen is naturally attracted to others who share similar interests. You enjoy entertainments. Music. Excitement.”

Her own eyes lit up at the words. I felt a rush of pity for a grown woman who craved the company and pastimes of girls. A thirty-five-year-old who wished to be a teenager again. But she understood the way the court operated. She had served five queens. She was a survivor, and wanted us to be, too.

“Well, then, it’s no wonder the others are resentful,” Cat replied. “They’ve lived for so long in stuffy decorum that they can’t imagine a court full of sunshine and gaiety. They want life to be boring.”

The worst epithet Cat could attach to someone.
Boring
. More damning than
badly dressed
.

“They may be boring,” Jane said. “But they are also powerful. Enough that they could make life very uncomfortable for you. They would find ways to purge your household of people they found undesirable.”

“What do you suggest, Jane?” I asked.

“Perhaps the queen might spend more time in the company of other ladies.”

Cat let out an exasperated sigh.

“And if she fell pregnant . . .” Jane let the sentence hang. But
I knew what she meant. If Cat were to have a boy, she would be invincible. She could have everything she wished, and no one would think to question it.

“It is so difficult for a monarch to depend on a single child to succeed him,” Jane finished.

King Henry especially. His father had ended the bloody years of civil war, establishing the Tudor reign. Both father and son had ensured their throne by executing any other possible claimants. Henry VIII would not want his lineage to expire.

Cat twisted her rings as if trying to wrench her fingers off, and her mouth settled into a rigid seam of ill humor. I recognized the signs of a major tantrum building.

“He has two daughters,” I said, trying to sound like that could be the end of it. “Two healthy, intelligent daughters.”

Jane laughed. “I think we all know how well women are regarded in this court. Would these men
ever
accept a queen to rule over them?”

I had to shake my head. The idea was ludicrous. The dukes would undermine the pious, earnest Lady Mary. The earls and marquesses would tear the beautiful little Elizabeth apart.

“Listen!” Cat exploded. “There’s not much I can do about a pregnancy! I just wish everyone would shut up about it. No matter how many times he can’t get it up, it will be all my fault if we don’t have children. I
know
.”

Jane glanced about as if the four horsemen were upon her, dragging the Apocalypse.

“You cannot speak so, Your Majesty,” she whispered hurriedly.
Everyone knew that George Boleyn hadn’t been beheaded for incest with his sister, no matter what the official record said. His execution traced its origin back to a public statement about the king’s impotence.

Cat glared at Jane.

“Thank you for airing your concerns, Lady Rochford,” she said. “But I believe I shall return to my rooms, for I am feeling rather fatigued. Your presence is no longer required. I feel the need for the company of more
distinguished
ladies.”

Jane curtseyed without comment, the Coven clucking as they passed her. I watched the other women amass behind Cat’s skirts, struggling to keep up with the haste that carried her back to her rooms.

“Words will be her undoing,” Jane said quietly when she stood again, her face white.

I shuddered at the foreboding in her voice.

“She will not be undone,” I said, more to convince myself than her.

“That will be our commission,” Jane said. “To prevent it. To ensure that the rumor mill doesn’t grind her for grain. To
guarantee
she bears a son.”