The Queen's Mistake (41 page)

As Cromwell laid his head on the block, Catherine stood still as a stone. Anne Basset and Margaret washed her thoroughly with scented cloths. She must be pleasant for His Majesty.

The king despises uncleanliness in his women
, one of the ladies in the room whispered with a dark chuckle.
If she shows up unclean, it could even prove fatal
, she added.

But Catherine’s heart was beating so loudly that she could not identify the voice. That mattered little anyway. She knew she had no real friends here other than Jane. She glanced over at Mary Lassells, lurking, as always, in the corner of the room as if to underscore that fact.

Catherine allowed Anne Basset to lift her arms, one at a time, and run a warm, wet cloth along each of them, from her shoulder, past the elbow and slowly to her fingertips. Silently, Catherine’s
elder sister Margaret followed the same path along her body with the king’s favorite scented oil. Catherine tried to slow her heart, but each moment was more difficult than the last. She was sorry that she knew what lay ahead. Catherine closed her eyes, refusing to think of Thomas and trying not to imagine Henry hulking and sweating over her.

Jane came to her then with a delicate linen-and-lace shift and slipped it over her head. The bell sleeves whispered down as she lowered her arms. Catherine felt the cool, new, too-tight band on her finger, her blood pulsing around the ring as if it were cutting off her circulation. Lady Lisle advanced and began to brush her long hair over her shoulders and arrange the curls around her face.

“It is time, Your Grace,” Jane announced.

Catherine silently followed her ladies to the king’s rooms, where she found silver moonlight filtering in through the windows, casting shadows across the floor. There were long, lit tapers, their flames shimmering above gold sconces along the walls, but there was no fire. It was too warm for that.

Catherine moved toward the bed as the door clicked to a close behind her. He had not arrived yet, so she had some time to collect herself. Though the room was full of incense, romantic candlelight and soft shadows, it felt like a prison cell, this evening the beginning of her sentence. From now on, everything would be determined for her.

Just as Thomas Cromwell had met his end this day, Catherine would as well, though in some ways her fate was worse than death.

But before she could dwell on her thoughts, the door opened again, admitting a long shaft of light into the bedchamber. She could not breathe. She could feel nothing but the slamming of her heart against her rib cage. Catherine heard a flurry of activity in the corridor
beyond. Voices. Muffled laughter. The door closed, and Henry stood in the doorway, lingering for a moment, looking strangely unsure of himself as he gazed at her. The candles flickered. There was more male laughter beyond the closed door. The sound made her feel tawdry, for she knew how public a king’s wedding night was. She knew she was lucky the act between them would not be witnessed, as it was in some courts in Europe. She tried very hard not to think about her first time with Thomas.

“Lie down,” Henry directed her.

The guttural tone of his voice surprised her. There was something primal and powerful about it. She did as he instructed, slipping quickly beneath the heavy damask bedcovers.

He moved across the sweetly scented bedchamber, extinguishing all of the candles until the only light in the room came from the moon. He stood beside the bed, obscured by the half-drawn tapestry bed curtain.

“Close your eyes,” he instructed her in the same low, deep tone. This time she caught a note of trepidation.

He does not want me to see him naked
, she thought, remembering Thomas’s long, lean torso when she saw him unclothed for the first time. Even the memory took her breath away.

Suddenly she was struck by a thought. Perhaps she should think of Thomas. It could make her more receptive to the distasteful duty that lay ahead.

Catherine heard Henry’s dressing gown slip across his skin and pool onto the floor before he sank heavily onto the edge of the bed beside her. The entire bed shifted under his weight. He smelled of freshly applied musk, which she did not find wholly unpleasant, but his breath was still sour as he moved closer toward her. A heartbeat later, his fingers were in her hair and his bare leg was warm against hers.
God, please do not let it be his leg with the festering sore
, she
thought frantically. He would surely sense it if she recoiled in disgust, even in the slightest.

“This is going to hurt, I’m afraid. Forgive me for that,” he whispered, his lips very close to her ear, just before he pressed a kiss onto her cheek, then another onto her earlobe.

She felt his desire for her against her leg just before he settled himself over her with a huff of effort. It was the heavy, animalistic sounds he made, more than anything else, that made it difficult to keep picturing Thomas.
Breathe
, she told herself.
Just breathe and it will soon be over.

His manhood was big enough that her small body resisted it instinctively at first, which she knew was a blessing in maintaining the ruse of her virginity. Catherine put the back of her hand to her mouth, then made a little gasp as he worked himself over her with great effort and perspiration. She closed her eyes and did not touch him or wrap her arms around his broad, square back. She could not hold on to an inkling of the Thomas fantasy if she did.

Mercifully, he groaned one last time and it was finally over. Her chest and belly were covered with his perfumed sweat as he rolled off of her with another grunt of effort. Catherine drew in a breath, willing the vomit in her throat back down. Henry took her hand and held it to his lips as he lay beside her. His chest was heaving as if he had just run a race.

“Are you all right?” he asked, seeming unaware or unconcerned with the absence of blood, so great was his trust in her. His genuinely gentle tone eased her sickness. “I hope it was not too painful this first time.”

“I am fine,” she managed to whisper in reply as he hoisted himself onto an elbow and pushed the hair back from her face.

“I’m glad. And it will become more pleasant each time; I promise you that. I have many things to show you, many ways for us to pleasure each other, which I will teach you in time.”

He seemed to forget his previous reserve, allowing her to see his fleshy, pale breasts beneath patchy coils of copper chest hair now that they had been intimate.

“Does the medal as well please you?” he asked, his face bright with a hopeful smile.

“It is glorious, sire, a great honor to my entire family,” Catherine replied truthfully, though she still worried about living up to the inscription.

“Ah, it is Hal, sweetheart, remember?” He took her hand and pressed it to his moist lips. A wave of nausea passed over her again, but she pushed it back with a smile. “It is but the beginning, Cat. There is so much I want to show you, to share with you, besides this, of course, which I must warn you will be every night. I know I will never be able to get enough of you.” His eyes twinkled in the luminescent moonlight. “And you shall need a motto of your own.”

“A motto?”

“Every queen must have a phrase that marks them, one by which they live.”

Catherine thought of the four queens before her, each of whom surely had a motto, and three of whom were dead. Clearly, she would need to choose a motto that not only fulfilled the tradition of emphasizing the values and traditions one held dear, but in her case, one that would keep her alive.

“I shall send Wriothesley to aid you in your search. He is quite poetic. But in the end, the choice must be yours alone or it will mean little.”

“As you selected yours about me?” Catherine asked.

“Yes, I did it entirely on my own. I would not have had it any other way.”

“I shall speak with him tomorrow then. I want to be a good wife and a good queen,” she said sweetly.

“You shall be spectacular at both,” he replied, running a thumb along her chin and down the column of her throat. “Have you any idea what you do to me? How my heart, and the rest of me, burns for you already, and it is but our first night?”

Before she could answer, Henry took her hand and pushed it down beneath the bedcover, where she could feel him growing hard again. “I warn you, there’ll not be much sleep for either of us tonight,” he playfully declared, forcing her to hold him.

She watched his eyes roll to a close.

“God above. How can you be an innocent when you make my blood boil as if you had done this a thousand times before?” he asked with a guttural growl.

Near dawn, Henry sent for food. He was ravenous, as always, and so, surprisingly, was Catherine. Sitting cross-legged atop the bedcovers in her delicate lacy shift, which she had once again donned, she ate gin gerbread and sweet figs with her fingers as Henry gazed at her, his bare arms crossed behind his head as he reclined against the headboard.

“How could God have made such a lovely creature for me after the long, complicated life I have lived? I kept asking myself that all night last night, even while you slept.”

“I slept?” She was surprised.

“Only for a little while. But it’s all right. It is a pleasure watching you sleep.” His expression was earnest, surprisingly so. His thumb grazed her cheek and moved once again down to her throat. “You looked like such a child, so innocent. It has been an eternity since I have been with a beautiful woman.”

“Queen Jane was very pretty,” she risked saying. She looked at the portrait on the wall beside them, which was haunting, even in
the darkness. Jane Seymour gazed down upon them as if in judgment. Catherine saw his jaw tighten.

“Her portrait does not do her justice. Holbein is usually a splendid painter, but he does not capture Jane’s goodness here. . . .” He trailed off wistfully. “Well, perhaps I am not being objective. She gave me a son, so she is very dear to me. Her memory shall live in a corner of my heart forever.”

She could not quite believe there were tears in his eyes as he spoke the words. He straightened to be rid of them, as if he sensed they were not manly.

“I am sorry you lost Jane. It must have been hard for you to lose a wife and for Edward to lose his mother.”

Henry looked at her gratefully. “But he has you now. All three of my children do.”

“I think Mary would rather have anyone but me,” Catherine said softly.

“Give her time, Cat. I know that she wants to care for you,” he reassured her.

“She has quite an odd way of showing it.”

“We Tudors all do.” He smiled at her. “She has been through a great deal, most of which is my fault.”

Catherine leaned closer to Henry, her amber hair falling onto his pale, bare chest. She was emboldened by their candid conversation. “May I ask you something?”

“Anything,” he replied.

“Did you ever love Mary’s mother?”

Henry drew in an audible, raspy breath. He rolled onto his back and gazed up at the canopy for a long time before he answered. “Passionately, once. But that was another lifetime.”

He ran a hand along the line of her jaw. “Let’s put this talk aside.
You are the only one in my life now,” Henry declared. “You will be different from all the others.”

“I believe you,” Catherine said in response.

And just then, she did believe everything Henry told her.