The Bastard Princess

by G Lawrence

  “Thomas...” she said giggling at him. “You are such a boy… look, you are scaring our daughter.”

  “Scare her! Hah!” he said and started to prowl around the bed, his hands raised like an animal as I screamed, half in terror and half in pleasure as he stalked around the bed.

  “This one is not scared, Katherine,” he said laughing as I scrambled up from the bed and ran behind my stepmother. “This one needs scaring some MORE!” he shouted, and ran at me.

  Katherine laughed and danced in between her husband and me, as I screamed, trying to get away and he growled, trying to catch me. Katherine was placed in between us like some human shield. She was laughing, holding Thomas off with her little hands as he leapt around her, frenzied, like a mad beast growling and yowling at me. I was shrieking, laughing, gasping for breath, flushed and excited. So glad, after all, that Katherine was there to protect me and yet knowing that she thought there was nothing to protect me from.

  When finally she managed to tame her wild husband and lead him from the room, I fell backwards on the bed, my face red with excitement, exertion and with growing pleasure in the attentions of a man that I admired and loved.

  Kat threw herself on the bed with me. “What a man he is!” she said and dodged the cuff I playfully aimed at her.

  It took some time before I could go out into the day, some time before I could control myself, some time to take the redness from my cheeks. This was getting out of control. And the more it did, the more I wanted more.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chelsea

  Autumn

  1547

  It took a dress to make Kat aware of the dangers I was in from my amorous stepfather. The new dress I had ordered some weeks ago was the catalyst for Kat to become very afraid for me.

  When the seamstress brought it to us I squeaked with pleasure at the beautiful black velvet that I had picked so lovingly. I was eager to try it on at once. Stripping down to my undergarments, Kat and my ladies helped me into the fine fabric and I pranced around my chambers in it, well pleased, for the deep black of the material was as expensive as it was becoming to my pale skin, and when I looked into the mirror, I saw that it gave me a bearing that was older than my fourteen years.

  I looked older, like a woman grown, rather than a maid still. When we have youth in our cheeks we wish for maturity, and when we have maturity, we wish for youth. The human is an inconstant and giddy thing.

  It pleased me to see that I looked so much older; I could have been eighteen in this garb. Kat, however, did not like it so much. I think she would have loved to keep me as a child for herself forever, but I did not care as I was well pleased with the look.

  As I was admiring the dress, we heard a gay laugh from the courtyard below. Looking out I saw Katherine, her body now starting to swell with the blessing of her child in her belly, and at her side, gambolling and dancing like a little dog for treats, was her husband. The man I adored and feared in equal measures.

  “I will go and show them my dress,” I said blushing, and Kat let out a little, excited laugh. I knew that she saw the workings of my mind; I wanted to show to Thomas that I was more of a woman than he had thought. I wanted to show him what he had missed out on, by rushing into marriage with Katherine. These petty thoughts were not nice ones, but we are none of us nice people all the time. I left my apartments and walked out to meet them, Kat stayed behind in our chambers to watch from a window. As I walked down the stairs, I stopped myself from running at them like a girl; I wanted him to know that I was mature, grown… that I was an adult, not a child any longer. I reached the entrance to the gardens and adopted a strangely un-casual casual air as I strolled as if by accident into the gardens.

  I sauntered nonchalantly towards them, and then bowed in the presence of my stepmother and father. I saw Katherine crease her brow as she looked at me in my dress, and Thomas’ eyes lit up as he took in my lithe form. He raised an eyebrow at me; it was out of Katherine’s sight.

  I blushed slightly and felt my heart beat with that familiar mixture of anxiety and pleasure; I was happy to see the little lights of desire that lit in his eyes for me, but with Katherine there, this could not go too far. I was safe to be admired, and I so longed to be admired by him.

  My black dress was cut low, brought in tightly at my waist, with crisp lace at the sleeves and at the chest. It was simple, elegant and it brought attention to my slim figure, budding breasts and graceful hands. Its darkness contrasted and accentuated my pale skin, my red hair and my fine eyes. Thomas looked me all over, as though I were meat to feed well from at a feast.

  “A new dress, Elizabeth?” said Katherine and I bowed to her smiling.

  “Do you like it my lady?” I asked, feeling through my velvet layers the hot eyes of her husband as his view focused on one part of my body, and then the next.

  “It is most becoming,” she said although there was a note of hesitancy in her voice. Perhaps she had noticed the interest it had raised in her husband?

  “What think you my lord?” I said, turning to Thomas. “Does my good father like my new clothes?”

  Thomas breathed in, as though finally realizing that his wife was actually there at all. If she had not been, I think he would have thrown me over his back and taken me in the shrubbery. Such was the heat and recklessness in his eyes.

  “I like it not,” he said abruptly and quickly, too quickly for truth.

  What a lie! He knew it and so did I, but still my face fell with his words.

  Katherine saw my countenance drop and touched her husband’s arm. “Thomas,” she said gently, scolding lightly. “You are too blunt; see how you have made our daughter sad now from your clumsy comments?”

  She turned to me and smiled. “Your dress is very nice, Elizabeth, but it is… perhaps more mature than your wardrobe previous to this. It has surprised your father, that is all. It comes as a shock to all fathers to learn that their daughters must grow into women.” She smiled with affection at Thomas.

  He grunted. “Ha!” he said. “I still like it not, it is too grown up for our little girl, the colour is not suited… she looks like an old matron, whereas I would have our good daughter stay young for as long as she can.”

  Katherine laughed. “You cannot keep her a child forever Thomas,” she said.

  I pulled myself up a little, pushing my pale chin into the air. “No indeed,” I said haughtily. “For I will be a woman grown soon, it is not up to you my lord to halt the passage of time for such as I.”

  His face widened with mock surprise and he started to back away with his hands at his chest as though in pain. “See Katherine?” he exclaimed and leapt forward at her, grasping her arm. “See! One dress… one dress! And already our sweet daughter is turned from our will as though she were a woman with no loyalty or sympathy to those who raised and nurtured her! This dress is an evil thing! I am sure it is a work of the devil and I will have no other master in my house! I will answer to no piece of cloth! Come, I will have away with this evil influence!”

  Then, he pulled his dagger from his side. A bright shining blade winked at us in the sunlight. Its hilt encrusted with rubies, as red and deep as blood. I stood an involuntary step backward, my hands raised before me as Thomas Seymour walked towards me with a knife held level with my throat.

  “Thomas…” said Katherine with a wavering of alarm in her voice. “What are you…?”

  She did not get to finish her question for at that moment he sprang towards me like a cat on a mouse, wrapped his strong arms around me and pulled me backwards, my body flat against his. I froze in shock as his strong arms banded about me like a vice. For a moment I went weak. I could feel the blood pouring from every part of me and rushing to my heart in panic. For a moment I thought he was actually going to kill me, but his knife sought another victim.

  Holding me still with one hand, his other reached down and slashed the fabric of my beautiful dress from the hip to the bottom of the skirt in one sudden, quick
gash.

  For a moment, both Katherine and I were so surprised that we did not move. Then, Katherine suddenly burst into giggles.

  “Thomas…” she said giggling with tears coming to her eyes. “You are such a boy, what have you done to Elizabeth’s dress?!”

  I started to laugh a little with relief. His arm still about my neck he held me in his arms. I loved to feel the closeness of him; I could see the curling hair at the back of his neck and smell the musk and sweat of his skin. But I was also afraid, excited, overwhelmed. This man was more than I knew how to handle. I was never in charge of these encounters; I was never in control.

  He laughed. “Come, Kate,” he said to Katherine. “Hold her!! I shall be master in this house and no other, come! You are my wife and promised to obey me at the altar before God! Do so now, and hold our daughter whilst I teach her a lesson!”

  Katherine laughed and jumped forward at his command, gripping my arms behind my back as I struggled and shouted in surprise at her. She held me as he slit my dress all over, bolts of black velvet and silks flying this way and that as the frenzied man slashed and stripped my dress from me. Where his knife was not fast enough, he used his hands to rip my gown off me. Tiny strips of my skirts flew past bits of the bodice; bits danced along the cobbled paths and clung to the trees. Before long Katherine was weak with laughing and I fought my way free, to find myself standing in the gardens of Chelsea, in nothing more than my undergarments, with tiny bits of my glorious new dress clinging to me as though they alone wanted to preserve my modesty. I stood shivering in front of Thomas and Katherine. She was laughing, and he was admiring.

  “My lord,” I said, pulling myself up to my full height whilst still trying to shield my young breasts from show. “You have ruined my new dress; you will have to buy me another.”

  He bowed and saluted me with his knife. “Gladly,” he said. “But it will be one of my choosing.”

  Katherine giggled more, and then seemed to suddenly realise that her stepdaughter, her charge, a princess of England, was standing in the gardens almost naked.

  “Go on in Elizabeth,” she said, suddenly looking a little worried. “You’ll catch your death of cold. Go and put your crimson gown on, your good father should have nothing to complain of in that one.”

  I turned and started to trot back to the house. It was cold outside and I was almost stripped. I looked up at the windows and flushed bright red.

  There was hardly a window of the house where there was not a servant’s face staring out at us in the gardens.

  I looked up into a sea of shocked faces that suddenly disappeared as though they were birds flying from a field.

  I looked up into my rooms and saw Kat. Her face was not the usual mask of admiration and desire that she had when she saw the Admiral. Her ghostly face in the grand window was white with fear.

  I flushed deeper and ran into the house. There was not a person in this house who had not seen Thomas and Katherine stripping me for fun in the gardens, or who would not hear of it by the night. When I reached my chambers Kat ran at me and caught me in a great blanket and put me by the fire as though I were an infant. She said little, but in the fear in her eyes I knew that even she thought Thomas Seymour was treading too far… taking too many liberties with his desire for a girl who was not only his legal daughter, but was an heir to the throne of England.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chelsea

  Winter

  1547

  The incident with the knife had seemed to sound an alarm with Kat that Thomas invading my bedroom or casting his eyes on me had not. Perhaps it was the very public nature of the assault in the gardens. Perhaps it was that he and Katherine had held me and all but stripped me naked before the watching eyes of the house. Perhaps it was Thomas’ repeated assertion that he was the “master of this house” and would have his way done. Perhaps it was my obvious inability to control myself around him; or perhaps it was simply watching her charge, a girl she was inordinately fond of and loved, partly as her own child and partly as a friend, stalked with a dagger.

  For whichever of these perhaps-es, Kat was suddenly much more disturbed by the increasing attentions of my step father. For my own part, and as usual when it came to this man, I was a mass of confused feelings and desires. I feared him, but he excited me; I was drawn to him, but repulsed by him… I longed to feel his arms about me, to be helpless with him, and yet I wanted him to admire me as an equal and an adult; to respect my rank, of which I was prodigiously protective.

  And then there was the matter of Katherine.

  Her belly swollen with Thomas’ child, this should have been the happiest time of her life. She was finally to have her greatest wish, her own babe, after countless marriages to old men long past planting an infant in her pretty body.

  But I got the impression that a sneaking suspicion was entering her mind that these games were not as innocent as she would have liked to believe they were. Was she fooling herself to retain the perfect image of her marriage to the man she loved? I thought so. I wondered how much she suspected of Thomas and me. Did she have an idea of my feelings for him, and his for me? Was she jealous as I was of her? Was she afraid for me as Kat was, that I might not be ready to withstand the amorous approaches of a man so much older and stronger than I?

  I do not know what she allowed herself to suspect at this time, but since the incident in the gardens, she had become more dogged in her watch over me. Whenever Thomas invaded my bedrooms, she was there; she was holding me as he tickled me, standing between us as he hunted me around the room like a wild beast. Whatever new game my stepfather had, she was always there, which meant that Thomas was less able to accidentally stroke me or touch me as he did when Katherine was not around; he could not very well actually molest me in her company after all.

  But this also meant that in the few times she was not there, his intensity, his desire to touch and be near to me increased three fold in its strength. When he found me alone without her, the shining of his eyes turned to a flame.

  If he came upon me when I walked in the gardens, he would try to sneak kisses from me. If he found me with lesser company such as servants in a chamber, he would soon be hugging and stroking me. He would press himself against me and run his hands over my back and buttocks, caress my hair and try to kiss my neck. I found myself watching the space behind me in fear when I walked down a corridor. I found myself trying to hide in the gardens. Even as I desired him back, I was becoming more and more aware that he was the one with the power in our little dance, and it scared me.

  It felt as though things were coming to a climax; this man would not be stopped in his pursuit of me.

  I stopped sleeping and my eating became sparse. I was nervy and jumpy about the house, unable to concentrate on my studies, unable to find rest and refuge in my books. I could not reconcile my contradictory feelings for him. I lived in fear of him as much as I longed to see him.

  But then you must remember, I was only fourteen years old. Those who are few in years are always more convinced than those long in them, of their maturity and ability to cope with the adult world. It is a fiction born of lack of experience. The older we are, the more we understand our lack of ability, the more we see the flaws in our rationalising. When we are young we may be resilient in many ways, often courageous to the point of idiocy, but we are no match for an adult who is a predator. We think we are the mongoose to his snake, when we are in fact the mouse.

  Kat was worried enough about me that she went to Katherine to talk to her about Thomas and his behaviour towards me; his visits to my chamber in the morning had become almost daily. I had started to rise early to stop him finding me abed in my night shift, but this meant that he was also rising very early to try and surprise me again. As I tried to hold him off, he just kept coming at me. My nights were starting to be dogged by the fear that he would simply come to me then instead of waiting for the morn. Sleep was a stranger.

  But I wanted him to com
e to me too. In so many ways I was fascinated by him. I managed to convince myself that none of the servants would notice he and I loved each other; that his advances to me might soften and become romantic rather than physical. But if I thought the servants did not know, or that this man pursuing me had any intentions that were romantic, I was a fool.

  Katherine told Kat that her fears were foolish. Thomas’ regard for me was but the sign of an overly-boyish fatherly affection. He had never really been a father before, she told Kat, and he did not realize that his actions were slightly over the normal bounds of affectionate display.

  Kat, however, pressed that I was a very young girl and my reputation both as a princess and as a maid, were things that I had to keep intact should I wish to remain unstained and pure, as every maid should be, in the eyes of the public.