The Queen's Mistake (48 page)

“Just what do you think you are doing there?” she said accusatorily.

Mary Lassells was on her knees over an open casket of jewels, her pale skirts fanned out around her. She turned with a start. Around her throat was a necklace of emeralds and pearls, and Catherine’s rings were on each of her fingers. Mary reminded Jane of a little girl caught playing dress-up with her mother’s best things. Mary stood uneasily, though her face did not bear signs of contrition.

“I was only polishing everything for Her Grace.”

“By wearing them?”

She glanced down at her small hands and began calmly to remove the rings. “I meant no harm, my Lady Rochford.”

“The queen is always at risk. It is my job to determine if you meant any harm,” Jane snapped.

“I thought you were her companion,” Mary challenged.

“I am here to protect her, and that is all you need to know,” Jane said severely.

Mary Lassells replaced each of the rings into the casket, then closed the lid as Jane continued to glare at her.

“I will always be nearby, Mistress Lassells. I not only have the confidence of the queen, but the ear of the king, so you would be wise to consider your actions in the future. And do remove Her Grace’s necklace before you return to your duties. His Majesty has been known to cut off heads for far less than stealing jewelry from the queen.”

“I did not intend to steal anything,” Mary countered, which was the truth. At least this time. The small fortune her brother had collected on the little cat’s collar would finance their Reform work for a long time to come. The foolish queen hardly seemed to care that it was gone. Or wonder who might actually have taken it, and why.

The Spanish ambassador sat beside Catherine at the banquet that evening in the great hall at Hampton Court, full of flowery solicita tions. She smiled and nodded at a dignitary in black and gray with a ruby-studded baldric across his broad chest whose name she did not care to remember. She was already feeling the encroaching boredom of another long night of food, wine, music and endless banter.

A fleeting memory came to her as her mind drifted off. It was a night at Horsham when all the girls had escaped their dormitory prison and gone out into the starry night in their bedclothes, whispering, laughing and dancing. It was that feeling of freedom she remembered most—something she would never feel again.

“You look like you need rescuing. Dance with me, sweetheart,” Henry said cavalierly, leaning over to whisper to her as the ambassador continued to drone on.

Catherine was relieved as he helped her to her feet and led her, limping noticeably as he did, toward the dancing area. “You needn’t do this for me if your leg is bothering you.”

“When I look at your lovely face, I feel no discomfort at all,” Henry replied gallantly.

He bravely attempted to lead her through a tourdion as the court looked on. Catherine was so concerned about Henry’s leg and the pain his pride concealed that at first she heard only a word or two uttered by two courtiers who stood nearby.

“It was horrendous, they say. The bloodiest murder yet. Everyone is talking about it,” one courtier said.

“The executioner was no more than a boy. I heard it took him five blows to cut off her head, poor old thing,” the other one added.

The breath was literally knocked out of her in one painful rush. Everything around her began to spin. Unaware of what she had just
heard, Henry continued smiling. The music was loud and the overwhelming stench was not of food any longer, but of death.

“What is it, sweetheart? You’ve gone pale as a ghost.”

She had stopped dancing and was standing stiffly. She was stunned. “You lied to me yesterday, Hal, right to my face. You told me you would consider pardoning her. Was that before you sent the poor old countess to her death, or was it afterward?”

Catherine did not wait for a reply, or even consider what harm might come to her for angering a man who could sign his own relative’s death warrant, then dance and smile before her body was even cold in the grave. She spun around, her dress sailing out behind her as she ran from the room.

To her surprise, the king was right behind her.

“How dare you turn your back on me? I am your king and your husband,” Henry growled in her ear, clamping a hand onto her arm as the whispers and murmurs of the courtiers filled the great hall.

Just as they passed out of the main doors and into the privacy of the corridor, Catherine spun around, her dress a whirl of ice blue silk. She saw his face was blazing with as much anger as her own.

“You will not humiliate me like that before my people, madam, do you hear me?” he growled at her again.

It was the most frightening voice she had ever heard, yet it did not move her as much as the horrendous lie he had told.

“What if I do? Will Your Majesty execute me, as well? Or will you send me to the Tower to languish away? God knows you are capable of treating even your queens that way.”

The blow against her cheek was swift and hard. His hand felt like a brick, and there was an audible crack of flesh. Instantly, the crimson expression of fury on his fat face fell to white shock.

“I did not mean that; I did not mean to hurt you. You know I . . .”

His words fell away as she reached up to touch the flaming wound on her cheek and felt a wet trickle of blood from where one of his rings had caught her delicate skin.

“I shall call the physician. That needs tending.”

Catherine was not distracted from her anger for a moment. “Why, Hal? She was only an old woman. You let me believe you might spare her.”

“I never intended to spare her, only your feelings on the matter, for as long as I could,” he admitted.

“By lying to me?”

“Do not question my authority ever again, Catherine. I love you desperately, but thinking you can change me is something you shall live to regret.” His words were cold. His tone held a warning she had never heard before.

But in that moment, her regrets were already too numerous to count. She could not believe that she had thought she could truly love a butcher, no matter how elegantly he dressed or what costly gifts he gave her. The crown upon her head was worse than an albatross around her neck. At least she still had her neck, she thought with a mix of horror and fury.

For now.

“I am leaving for London at first light,” he said with a deadly calm. “I have business to attend to there. Considering your delicate condition, it would be best if you remain here until I return.”

My condition?
she thought, the sudden revelation slamming into her with more force than his palm.
Jésu! Pray God I am not pregnant. Pray God I do not carry a monster’s child!

She had run from him and he had not gone after her.

That was all she remembered. Catherine had no idea, as she lay
on the damp earth, how she had gotten into the maze on the castle grounds and found the protection of its tall, clipped ivy walls. Racked by convulsive sobs, her chest heaved and her tears blinded her. But the arms so tightly wrapped around her were familiar, warm and comforting. Thomas Culpeper said not a word, only held her tight in the self-protective coil in which he had found her, and let her weep. His calm strength was the greatest balm to her shattered heart. While she wanted to ask how he had found her, she was afraid to speak.

If he was a dream, she knew it would destroy her.

Tenderly, he stroked her temple with his thumb as he held her like a child on his lap. The only sound was the crickets’ rhythmic chirp nearby.

“Why did you come?” The four words were more of a croak of syllables than a question.

“I have always been here,” he answered in his deep, beautiful voice, which made her want to cry even more.

“If the king were to find us—”

“He’ll not find us. I happen to know that His Majesty has retired for the evening.”

The mention of Henry was a harsh, cold blow. But Henry had not come after her. He did not know where she was, nor care. God forgive her the sin, but she was glad of it.

Catherine inhaled deeply before she opened her eyes. She could not bear to think she had conjured Thomas at a desperate moment like this. But he was real. She could see that in every elegant turn of his perfect face, highlighted by a silver quarter moon above.

“Why did he have to do it?” she asked.

“The Countess of Salisbury? It is complicated, my love, and the king is a complicated man, driven by the past more than anyone likes to admit. Her sons betrayed him. She did not rise up against them when she had the chance.”

“But she was old, a harmless woman.”

“Our king does not abide betrayal in anyone, least of all from women he once trusted.”

Catherine knew his words were all too true. And now she too would have to focus on surviving.

Thomas was still stroking her face with one gentle hand, the other wrapped protectively around her.

“I could kill him for striking you.”

“Then you would be no better than he is, and your fate would be that of the poor countess.”

“It would be well worth it to me, other than the fact that I would be leaving you unprotected.”

“You cannot protect me. No one can.”

“It helps me to believe I can, though,” Thomas said huskily.

The pressure of his thumb against her temple was no longer soothing, but sending a wave of desire coursing through her trembling, weakened body. The sensation was one she thought she would never feel again.

“You are leaving for London in the morning. He told me he has business there,” she warned him.

“I am not accompanying the king.”

Catherine struggled to sit up and face him. She was dizzy and slightly nauseated. There was hair hanging in her face, and her dress was covered with dirt, but she cared nothing for any of that. Staring into Thomas’s eyes gave Catherine a sense of renewed strength. “How can you avoid it?”

“I shall be deathly ill in the morning, unable even to rise from my bed. You know how the king is about anyone with anything remotely contagious.”

Her weak smile was full of surprise. “You are very devious.”

“I prefer to think of myself as resourceful.”

“And do you see yourself as charming as well?”

“Committed,” he countered.

Her smile faded then. “I am not free to be committed, Thomas; you know that.”

“Oh, I was committed to you, body and soul, long before you were not free, if I remember it correctly.”

“It is pointless.”

She looked away, but he brought her face back with a single, powerful finger. “Love is pointless?”

“Your commitment to me is pointless. The king is a dangerous man.”

“That is not a surprise to anyone, Catherine.”

She loved the silky way he said her name.

“It was to me, which I suppose makes me the stupid, empty-headed child everyone believes me to be,” she said sadly.

“Loyalty is not stupidity.”

“Apparently it is in my case.”

They were facing each other, and he was near enough to kiss her. The current between them was powerful. But she could feel him keeping his distance. Kind, gorgeous and noble as well, he was still the only man who ever really had her heart, or ever would.

“Are you ready to go back now?” he asked.

“No. I would like to stay here like this forever,” she said honestly. “But perhaps I should return before the servants begin to wonder. Where do the rest of the king’s gentlemen believe you are?”

Thomas helped her to her feet and linked his arms around her, as he had done so many times a lifetime ago. “No one wonders where I am. I am a single man at court with a rather notorious reputation.”

“Oh.” She looked away, feeling an unwarranted shiver of jealousy, until he brought her face back around.

“It isn’t true, you know.”