by Deryn Lake
‘Why do you say that?’
‘She blushes whenever we mention your name and the other night when we played the game of Drawing Hands, she chose you, my Lord, and then chased you away. We teased her greatly, did we not, Master Cofferer?’
‘Yes,’ said Parry, ‘yes.’
He was thinking something, wondering how the Admiral could be so intent on another when the grave had scarcely closed over Katherine Parr. He slid his eyes sideways, surreptitiously staring, and noticed that Lord Seymour’s face was very slightly flushed.
He’s not well, Parry thought.
The Admiral had become momentarily serious. ‘Tell me, Kat, why did you write me a letter of condolence and not the Princess?’
‘She wouldn’t, my Lord. I’ve never seen her so strange. She said that neither you nor she deserved sympathy but that I could write to you if I wished. I showed her the letter but she had no interest in it.’
‘Umm.’ Tom had stroked his reddish beard. ‘She’s a funny little wench.’
That had been a good evening and the sport that ensued as a result had been amusing too, the more intimate servants making it their business to see Elizabeth blush. Typical conversations had all been on similar lines.
‘Of course the Lord Admiral is free to marry now.’
‘Indeed he is. I’ve heard he’ll wed the Lady Jane Grey.’
‘Really? I thought it might be someone nearer home!’
But Kat Ashley had taken the bull by the horns, repeating the conversation to her fellow conspirator, Parry.
‘I said to my Lady that she could have the Lord Admiral for husband if she wished to.’
‘And what did she reply?’
‘She asked me what made me say it. You know her way, answering a question with another.’
‘Indeed I do. What did you say?’
‘That it was the rumour in London that she and the Admiral were about to be married.’
‘How did she take that?’
‘She laughed and said it was but London news.’
A cool reply, thought Parry now, staring with mixed feelings at Elizabeth’s lithe shape, sitting her horse with almost masculine ease. And a cool young woman at that. But how long would her coolness last now that they were on their way to London to keep their Christmas in Seymour Place, loaned to the Princess by the Lord Admiral for the duration of the festivities?
She had been desperate for accommodation, for over a hundred people were accompanying Elizabeth to keep the Twelve Days. And then, with Christmas only a fortnight away, Seymour had contacted Parry and offered the use of his mansion. The cofferer had never seen anyone so delighted. The Princess had smiled, showing her small, seed-pearl teeth, the ivory face turning the colour of a pink.
‘He has done that for me?’ she had said, looking as if she was about to whirl Parry round and round. ‘The Lord Admiral has offered me his home?’
‘Yes, Your Grace. He told me to tell you it was the very least he could do for a lady of such merit as yours.’
The seed-pearls had shown again, briefly. ‘The Lord Admiral is a flatterer, Parry.’
‘Ah, Madam, but he follows through. Those were not just empty words.’
‘That is true.’
Parry had cleared his throat. ‘Your Grace, I hope I do not presume …’
Elizabeth had smiled a scampish smile. ‘I hope not indeed.’
‘… but it has been in my thoughts to ask you whether, should the Council and the Lord Protector approve, of course …’
‘Of course.’
‘… you would marry with the Lord Admiral?’
The shutters behind the dark eyes had visibly closed. ‘If that comes to pass, I will do as God shall put into my mind. Good day, Master Cofferer.’
It had been a rebuff and Parry supposed now that he had deserved it. Nonetheless, the cofferer had reported by letter straight away and the Admiral had declared himself delighted.
‘Tell Her Grace I will come and see her at Seymour Place when she has settled in.’
‘Yes, my Lord.’
Elizabeth had instantly issued an invitation of course, one which Thomas had gladly accepted. They were to have a private supper together two days after her arrival.
On a sudden impulse Cofferer Parry dropped back in the calvalcade so that he drew alongside the litter in which Katherine Ashley was travelling, the curtains drawn back so that she could see her charge, riding like an arrow with the men at the front, declaring litters ‘stuffy’.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘I think all will be,’ she answered guardedly.
‘Has she’ — Parry’s eyes flickered over the distant figure in scarlet — ‘said anything?’
Mistress Ashley lowered her voice. ‘We must be careful. The whole household knows what is afoot and my husband has warned me not to tease her further.’
‘Why?’
‘He fears that she truly bears some affection for my Lord Admiral.’
‘Does he, by God!’
‘Yes. So from now on we must act for Lord Seymour with great circumspection.’
The cofferer gave her a wink, his eye momentarily vanishing in the fold of his portly cheek. ‘In view of what you have just said I believe there will be no need for circumspection. I think the affair will soon be public knowledge.’
Kat looked concerned. ‘I hope the Lord Admiral will inform both Protector and Council before he makes a move. Think how furious they were when he secretly married the Queen. I do not think they would stand for it twice.’
Parry frowned. ‘But Her Grace is cautious.’
‘No woman,’ answered Mistress Ashley wisely, ‘is cautious when she is in love.’
*
It had taken hours and reduced two waiting women to tears before she had finally been pleased with her appearance. But eventually, dressed in the colours of a water nymph, the shades that suited her best, Elizabeth had been satisfied. Her kirtle, worn beneath an open gown, was of soft aquamarine taffeta, encrusted with pearls. The gown itself was green, its skirt tucked back in an A-shape to reveal the kirtle’s adornment, its sleeves tight from wrist to upper arm, where they prettily puffed out. On her head was a close-fitting cap, also pearl covered, while her hair, red as fire in the candlelight, flowed loose and lustrous to her shoulders.
Mistress Ashley had stared at her charge long and hard, wondering if the Princess was really lovely or if it were an optical illusion, forgetting that this had also been the enigma of Anne Boleyn. Finally Kat had decided that Elizabeth’s looks were too fierce for real beauty, the milky skin contrasting too harshly with the vivid hair and dark eyes. And yet, dressed in those soft greens, she had an unforgettable radiance, a splendour, that was quite dazzling.
Tonight my Lord Admiral will propose, thought Kat, and for a moment got carried away by a romantic vision of the mating of two spectacular beings, Adonis and Phoebe, brightness personified.
‘Well, Kat?’ Elizabeth was looking at her, almost anxiously.
‘You look splendid, Your Grace.’
‘As splendid as my mother?’
‘Equally so.’
‘She was fifteen when my father first fell in love with her.’
Kat smiled. ‘I know that. Just the age you are now. And, of course, a great man is in love with you too.’
Elizabeth caught Mistress Ashley’s eye in the mirror into which the Princess still gazed. ‘How can he do it, Kat? He loved her, my stepmother, the late Queen. I know he did.’
Mistress Ashley said the most perceptive thing of her life. ‘I think he loves you both, Your Grace.’
‘But how?’
‘One like a chair, comfortable and easy, a warm, friendly kind of love. But the other like a fire that burns in his soul. The Lord Admiral is consumed by you, Your Grace.’
‘Is he?’ asked Elizabeth, turning away from her reflection at last. ‘Is he really?’
‘I have no doubt. Now go to the reception room and await him; you will not be d
isturbed.’
‘And later?’ asked the Princess, very, very softly.
‘Nor then either.’
*
He was now very slightly crazed, that was obvious. The second that Elizabeth set eyes on him, the first time since she had been expelled from Sudeley, she knew it. It was as if a caricaturist had over-emphasised each of Thomas Seymour’s features just a little cruelly. The hair, too long, separated where it touched his shoulders; the handsome face was fractionally bloated; the beautiful eyes, once so sensational, were feverish and somehow dangerous. Even the lithe body had parodied itself; where once the Admiral had walked with jaunty confidence, now he swaggered like a fop, his gait exaggerated and foolish.
The Princess saw all of it and none of it. She was desperately in love, her frenetic desire for Tom fuelled and fired by the months they had spent apart. It was all she could do to remain seated as he came into the room but with her enormous control she did so, merely glancing up and smiling. But Tom came striding towards her, his eyes blazing with open adoration.
Taking her hand to kiss it, he said, ‘I have missed you, my Lady.’
Elizabeth gave him a very straight look. ‘I would have thought you to be still in mourning, my Lord Admiral.’
‘Mourning?’ he repeated thickly, almost as if he were drunk. ‘I shall never stop mourning. But that is one thing, you are quite another.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That I am obsessed by you, Elizabeth. When you were a child it was just the same. Then I castigated myself for indecency, for perversion, for disgusting thoughts about a little girl. At Chelsea I couldn’t keep my hands off you. But now, thank God, you are a woman and I may pay court and make love and do all the things I have been longing to do to you.’
Elizabeth smiled. ‘Yes, it is true. I am a woman at last.’
But she was lying. Though her thoughts and emotions were ready for love, though she felt desire so strongly that sometimes she wept, Elizabeth’s body still had not started the moon’s mysterious cycle. But not even Kat Ashley knew that secret. The Princess had told her long ago that the flux had come, and pricked her finger occasionally and rubbed it on the sheets to lend authenticity.
Thomas gave her such a look at those words, as if he would have taken her to bed there and then, that Elizabeth grew nervous, for tonight there was something frightening about him.
‘My Lord Admiral, a good repast is prepared for you in your own dining room,’ she said quickly. ‘Nor have I thanked you yet for the loan of this magnificent mansion.’
‘Everything I have is yours, my Lady,’ said the Admiral with a smouldering smile. ‘My land, my property, my body, I lay them at your feet.’
‘Then in that case, do me the service of enjoying the board prepared. My household, here in London to attend my brother, and myself mistress of your house, makes me feel that I have truly arrived at woman’s estate.’
‘I wish that you were mistress of more than my house,’ answered Thomas softly, ‘unless, of course, you were mistress of it permanently.’
Elizabeth, if she heard him, made no sign, merely rising to her feet and by a nod of her head indicating that he should give her his arm to escort her to the dining room. And there, too, he would have thought Elizabeth had planned to distance herself, for she had put herself at one end of the table, he at the other.
The fierce feelings they had for each other, the strange compulsion that triggered longing, was stultified by being apart. Tom sat in his place, savage as a bear, while in hers, Elizabeth picked at her food as was her habit.
Throughout that strained meal the Princess’s musicians had played and now, with the table finally cleared, they made music in good earnest. Tom, who had drunk enough to be bold but not enough to make him foolish, deliberately moved from his isolated place and pulled a chair before the hearth, and after a while Elizabeth joined him.
Very subtly the mood between them changed again, growing comfortable, so that the girl was no longer frightened by the feverish quality that had raged in Tom ever since Katherine had died. But eventually, when wine and love songs had had their predictable effect, sentiment and sweetness slowly turned to the white-hot passion they had known at Sudeley Castle during that last fateful week. It was time for consummation.
The faithful Kat, thinking all to be for the best, had made sure that the servants kept their distance that night, so when the Princess and Thomas Seymour ascended to her chamber, really his own bedroom, they were unseen. Thus they were together at last, lying on his bed, and to Tom was to befall the task of robbing a Princess of the Blood, the second in line to the throne, of her virginity.
A long lean body revealed itself to him, as white and unexplored as arctic snow, its breasts small and beautiful, shaped like moons. While Elizabeth saw for the first time hard muscle and sinew, a tanned skin, an exciting part of a man that she had never yet glimpsed. She was afraid, that strong fearless girl knew what it was to fear as Thomas, having kissed her so often that it ceased to be enough, in an almost leisurely way rolled himself on top of her.
Elizabeth had heard from Kat Ashley that love could not be bought without pain, knew that the giving up of her virgin state would hurt just once, or a few times possibly, and then never again. So now she prepared herself, gritted her teeth a little, as Thomas pushed against her.
Nothing happened. She could feel his thrusting between her thighs but that was all. There was no searing hurt as she had been led to believe, no sensation of a largeness entering within, nothing.
‘My God,’ said Tom, raising himself to look at her.
‘What is it?’ asked Elizabeth, more than half afraid already.
‘I am not sure. Perhaps I have drunk too much. I cannot enter you, sweetheart.’
‘Why can’t you?’
‘You are very much a virgin.’
Now she was terrified, the thought of her flux, or rather the lack of it, beginning to pose frightening questions.
‘I know that young girls have a membrane, perhaps mine is strong.’
It was horrible. The Lord Admiral was swinging himself into a sitting position and reaching for his clothes. At that moment Elizabeth felt more degraded than the lowest member of the animal kingdom.
‘It is not my fault,’ she cried. ‘it is you, you are not man enough to take me. I despise myself that I loved you. I do, I do.’
She burst into a flood of weeping and for a terrible, clinical, passionless moment, Thomas Seymour saw all his schemes slipping away from him.
‘But my Princess, I adore you,’ he said.
‘Then prove it.’
Tom’s mind rushed like a trapped rat. He was almost certain that there was something wrong with the girl, that where all normal females, however young, had an entrance, in Elizabeth’s case there was nothing but a shallow dimple.
‘I am too tired,’ he answered in a lather of desperation. ‘I should have drunk nothing. To avoid scandal I shall leave you, my pretty sweet. But I shall return tomorrow when I am stronger, to consummate our love.’
There was silence as Tom looked warily at Elizabeth. He had never seen her so tense, bleached with shock, her hair hanging round her shoulders like a red shroud.
‘I think it would be best not, my Lord Admiral,’ she answered in an oddly low voice. ‘My reputation is probably already gone because we are alone together late at night. I think it would be more politic if from now on we see each other only when I am accompanied.’
‘How can that be resolved if we are never by ourselves?’
‘The future will take care of itself, Lord Admiral,’ she said icily.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that. Goodnight, Sir.’
And with that the Princess Elizabeth turned her back on Thomas Seymour and feigned sleep as he slowly and in bewilderment left the room.
Chapter Forty
How strange it seemed that on Twelfth Night, considered to be the most exciting of all the days of Christmas, t
he Adonis of Henry VIII’s court, the most dashing man in England, sat sad and solitary in the banqueting hall of Sudeley Castle, drinking himself into a stupor, having long ago sent everyone else to bed; mother, gentlemen, servants, musicians, all dismissed.
Tonight Thomas felt utterly bereft, the wretched business with Elizabeth being the final blow to his hopes of replacing Katherine. For though the Princess had seen him since, as custom decreed she must, she had made quite sure that they were never alone together, keeping Kat Ashley at her side as if stuck by glue.
Thomas had left Elizabeth on that terrible night, sure that something was wrong with the girl. But now, after the passing of days, he was no longer certain. Had the fault lain with him, had he been mistaken about her? If so, he had obviously antagonised Elizabeth so greatly as a result, that Tom doubted he would ever be able to win her back. In a storm of self-pity, he wept.
‘Nothing,’ he said drunkenly, ‘I’ve got nothing. My pretty Kate, my sweet Elizabeth, both gone. My brother is holding the reins of power so that I have become a laughing stock. I, the King’s uncle, a pauper in every respect.’
And there had been signs recently that the little boy Tom had nurtured so carefully with bribes of pocket money was developing a mind of his own.
I’ve got to act quickly, the Admiral thought desperately. I’ve got to make a move as soon as I get back. I’ll make that child a proper King if it’s the last thing I do. I must have a say in affairs. I have just as much right, by God’s precious blood, as my conniving brother and his bitch of a wife. It is time that Edward Seymour moved over and made way for a younger man. And if he doesn’t I would rather be dead.
It was very cold in the hall now, the temperature freezing. Tom raised his head from his wine cup and glanced about him. There was nothing to see. Yet his hound, lying at his feet, was alert too. With every hackle on its back raised, the dog whined as it appeared to watch somebody or something traverse the length of the huge room.
‘Kate?’ said Thomas hoarsely. ‘Kate, is that you?’
There was no reply and nothing stirred, only the candle flames seeming to bend as if a breeze had just blown past them.