No Will But His

by Hoyt, Sarah A.

  She’d come out of the house tying her bonnet, and now paused, having made only a simple knot in the ribbons, and stared at the horse and then one gentleman or another. “Did the old horse die?” she asked. “Or did they just finally perceive that it was dead when it fell over?”

  The young man nearest her, whom she was sure she’d never before seen, graced her with an impish smile. He had dark hair and dark, dark eyes, the color of midnight, the same lack of color as the space beneath the stairs outside the chapel.

  Kathryn remembered being caught, and looked away from the young man and toward the other, whom she remembered, though she’d never exchanged words with him. He was one of the Duchess’s retinue, Edward Waldgrave. She remembered that he was also cousin to Henry Manox—even if better furnished with both rank and money—and just as fair and wild-haired as his cousin, though his eyes were a dark blue to Manox’s impish green ones. She inclined her head to him, soberly.

  “Ah, Mistress Howard,” he said, with equal sobriety, as though he were aware of what must be on her mind. “No, indeed. The other horse still thrives and is well enough. But the gentlemen teaching you thought you were good enough on horseback that perhaps you were ready for a beast with more blood …” He smiled. “Still perfectly well behaved, of course.”

  “Of course,” she said, and looked at the dark-haired man, waiting for him to introduce himself.

  It was Waldgrave who introduced him, though. “And that is my friend, Francis Dereham,” he said. “Who has but joined the household, needing to leave his surroundings behind for a bit.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Master Dereham,” she said.

  “As pleased as I am to make yours, Mistress Howard,” he said, in a perfectly proper way. But something lay behind the property, and Kathryn was not sure what. All she knew is that light and shadow played in his dark eyes, and seemed to give them unsought for depths.

  It was the leaves of the trees overhead, Kathryn told herself. The leaves and the sun, playing in his eyes, and nothing more. But, as he dismounted, and he and Waldgrave, very properly, helped her climb her horse, it was as though—it seemed to her—something shifted in Dereham’s expression. He’d seen her ankle, she thought, and looked at him, disturbed, wondering if such a thing should give him some great thrill.

  His gaze met hers with neither shame nor openness, and a slow smile slid upon his lips to disappear as quickly as it had formed.

  She could not read his thoughts. Now and then, she would look toward him, during their ride, and it seemed to her he was immersed in some secret and strange plotting, so intent was his look, so dark his expression.

  He was the one who corrected her, too, while Waldgrave rode by placidly, not seeming to care whether she was hurrying the horse or not. But Dereham was very careful, watching her always and with an attention that might have denoted ulterior motives or, there again, might simply have been directed at the way she rode and what she did with the reins.

  His comments to her were the most prosaic. “Pull yourself up, Mistress Howard, and make sure to rest your feet on the footrest, else, once we teach you to ride faster, you’ll slide out of the saddle entire.”

  And then later. “Do not pull the reins so, Mistress Howard. You’re going to hurt his mouth.”

  And then again, “You may now spur him a little. He can give better than this.”

  They rode for an hour, never deviating from the paths of the orchard, and he never told her anything that was less than proper, but Kathryn sensed something from him—something both dangerous and thrilling, both intense and well controlled.

  She watched how his heavy dark hair fell over his forehead, and how he pushed it back, and she found herself imagining that he held her in her arms and kissed her.

  Then she shivered as she remembered the duchess’s sermon on the all-important maidenhead and how Kathryn should preserve it at all costs.

  But surely, she thought, as they returned to the stable, kissing had never broken anyone’s maidenhead, else hers would already be well lost. And surely, she thought, as much as she had despised Manox’s touch for being Manox’s, she had enjoyed being touched all the same.

  She realized, of a sudden and unlooked for, that she missed being held and caressed, as though her body—once having known it—had now a craving for a man’s touch, as though it were a food that she would like to enjoy again.

  A sigh escaped her, and she realized that Dereham was looking at her as she sighed, and that he smiled a little just at the corner of her mouth.

  She felt her color come up in waves, and looked down at the saddle just as they came to the stables and Waldgrave dismounted and tied the horses. He then walked toward Kathryn, to help her dismount. Somehow, though, Dereham was already there.

  “Don’t trouble, Waldgrave,” he said. “For I am here, and no more is needed.” He reached up, his hands on either side of Kathryn’s waist.

  It could have been an embrace, or he could have pulled her close to him, but he did not do either. Instead, he lifted her, at arms’ length from the saddle and, effortlessly, set her on the ground, next to the horse.

  “Such a small lady,” he said, and grinned at her.

  She curtseyed to him but dared not answer. She was thinking of the feel of his hands—so powerful and strong on either side of her waist. She remembered how large and powerful Manox had felt when he bent over her, but then later she had realized he was not so very big and that it was only her own small stature that made him seem so strong.

  But now she had grown and gained weight, and even so, Dereham could lift her from the saddle with no effort at all, as though she were a small child or a feather.

  She walked toward the house, her face warm, her body tired from the more arduous ride than she’d grown used to. She had supper with her fellow maids of honor, and she tried not to consider or think of Dereham, and who Dereham might be and what he might be thinking.

  But though she put him entirely out of her mind while awake, at night she found that he came back to it in dreams, his lips smiling enigmatically upon his unreadable face, while his dark eyes looked at her with a strange sort of hunger—a hunger that mirrored her own.

  And then he pulled her to him, his body next to hers, and their embrace went on and on.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “He’s well born, and he is a gentleman of substance,” Alice Restwold said, when Kathryn Howard, late the next night, her knees wrapped in the sheet and thin blanket she shared with Alice, asked about Dereham. She had had one more disturbing lesson with the dark gentleman with his unreadable gaze. And though she’d enjoyed riding the horse more than at any time in the past, his company discomfited her. She wondered what he thought of her when he looked at her so steadily during the rides. And she wondered what he meant to do about it.

  Alice’s answer was casual in response to what Kathryn hoped was her own casual tone.

  “He’s normally in the Duke of Norfolk’s household,” she said. “One of his gentlemen. Only he came to us just now, as I understand there was some misunderstanding or some problem,” she said, “at the household.”

  “What kind of misunderstanding or problem?” Kathryn asked. She braided the end of her hair as she spoke.

  “How am I to know?” Alice asked irritably. “No doubt one of the stupid things that men do. A duel, or an unsuitable woman, or words said that the duke misliked.” She shrugged, consigning all those offenses to the same level of unimportance.

  “And why comes he to us?” Kathryn asked.

  “Ah, that—” Alice smiled. “First, the duchess likes a well-turned man around her, and force, you must agree that he’s as well turned a man as ever any eye has seen.”

  Kathryn made only a noncommittal noise, and shrugged. She was remembering two strong hands lifting her from the horse, as though she were of no consequence at all, her weight less than a child’s.

  Alice gave a gurgle of laughter. “And besides, he’s very much in love w
ith Joan Bulmer.”

  This statement, so casually uttered, startled Kathryn very much, but she thought she had suppressed the tremor of surprise, because Alice did not remark on it. “Is he now? But how can it be, when he’s only now arrived?”

  “Oh, we’ve known him for years and years,” Alice said. “Remember the night of the coronation? He was one of the gentlemen who received us—waiting for Joan already he was. And then, you know, when we lived in London we were so close to the household of the Duke of Norfolk that he and Joan could make sure to meet often.”

  “Are they going to marry, then?”

  Alice shrugged. “I don’t believe so. For you see, I’ve heard that Joan’s parents are preparing a marriage for her.”

  “Ah,” Kathryn said. “Lucky Joan.”

  “Think you so, indeed?” Alice asked. “Don’t you think that while we live here we may do as we please, but once we’re married and consigned to the work of our lives, we’ll live only for the pleasure of our husbands and the birth of our children?”

  Kathryn sighed. “I know not,” she said. “I know only that I would fain be married and know there was someone out there willing to marry me than to live here in this uncertainty.”

  Alice laughed at her, throwing her head back. “You don’t have to worry about that, Kathryn, sure, for even if you buried yourself in the country in a high tower, men would beat a path to your door and climb the tallest height for your favors.”

  “Perhaps,” Kathryn said. She’d heard this before. How beautiful she was, and how attractive to all men. If it were true, she saw none of its effects. The only man who had asked for her favors so far had been Henry Manox, and he’d done it in such a way as to make it not at all flattering to her. She sighed as she remembered that Thomas Culpepper had never even bothered to visit, much less to bring her the promised oranges.

  Oh, she was willing to admit that when they’d met she’d been much more the child than she was now—her breasts just nascent, her mind still provincial and small and looking to the girls around her as guides that would take her through the bewilderment of adult life, more than as equals and companions and—in the case of Alice who merely came from a well-to-do rural family—somewhat inferior. She hadn’t learned to value herself then, and she didn’t think about herself as a woman, yet, so how could she blame Thomas for not thinking so.

  “Remember when we did the divining in the dormitory, that summer?” she asked Alice.

  Alice started to shake her head, and Kathryn cut in, impatiently, “With the lace.”

  “Oh,” Alice said. “Oh, yes I remember. Great fun, was it not?” she said leaning back onto the smooth round log that served them as pillow.

  “Remember then you said that I would marry a Henry?” Kathryn asked.

  “Did I now?” Alice asked. She frowned, as though trying to reach back through the clouds of memory to remember such a small and unimportant fact. “And did you like that prediction?” she asked.

  “No,” Kathryn said. She shook the blanket out and lay herself down fully under it. “Not at all, for I know of no Henry whom I might marry.”

  “Save only Henry Manox,” Alice said, and the way she said it made Kathryn realize that the talk in the household had gone further than the kitchen maids.

  She considered ignoring Alice’s comment, but then thought that it would be best if such talk were put to rest and properly, and her ignoring it would not do such. “I was a very young girl,” she said in tones that sounded, to her own ears, like the duchess’s for all that the duchess was not her blood relation. “And it is all past.”

  “Yes,” Alice said. “I heard he got a position teaching music to the children of Lord Bayment.”

  “Has he now?” Kathryn said, and felt a small prickle of conscience, because all this time she knew that Manox had not the substance to live on his own without a patron and yet she had never enquired how he lived or how well he did. “I am glad. He is a good music teacher. But I am sure he is not the Henry you saw on the lace that night.”

  Alice cast her a curious glance and frowned slightly.

  “Are you sure you read the lace carefully that night?” Kathryn asked.

  Alice giggled. “Oh, Kathryn, I was only fooling, and I don’t even recall what I saw or what prompted me to say it was the name Henry. You see, I … I was very careful not to tell two ladies the same name, and all I knew about you was that you had no lover.”

  Kathryn felt angry and was not sure why, but she thought it was that she couldn’t depend on anything that Alice said. Had she lied then, or was she lying now? Had she read Henry in the lace, or had she made it up, whole cloth, for a game?

  Kathryn turned away from Alice, and tried to go to sleep, but it took her a good long time. And when she finally slept, it was to dream of lace falling on the floor of the dormitory, again and again, slithering like a serpent and willfully forming itself into the name Henry.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The rides continued, faster and faster, more and more daring. A few weeks later, Kathryn was riding through the paths of the forest with Dereham and Waldgrave.

  She’d grown confident enough in her mount, and Waldgrave told her she would make a fine horsewoman. This surprised and pleased Kathryn, though she thought that perhaps it shouldn’t have been so unexpected. After all, she’d played all kinds of physical games with her brothers—chasing and running, climbing and throwing—and at none of them did they excel more than her, though she be the smallest.

  Kathryn enjoyed the rides and, if she were to admit it, she enjoyed the company of Francis Dereham. She looked in vain for signs of his present attachment to Joan Bulmer, but she saw none, save once, as she approached the stables, ready for her ride, she saw Dereham and Bulmer speaking to each other by a little flowering edge. Only they didn’t seem to be loverly. In fact, Dereham was shaking his head and Joan looked as though she were ready to spit. As Kathryn walked past, Joan gave her a long, evaluating look and said in a spiteful tone, “Well, I care not, Francis Dereham, only be sure that your blood is good enough before you take that step.”

  Kathryn didn’t know if Joan meant his blood to be his ancestors or if she simply meant that force of the blood, the strength of will, that was often referred to by the same name. It was none of her care, and she walked on.

  Francis Dereham was in a black mood throughout the ride that day, and after he had pulled her from the horse in a customary way and set her down on the ground in front of the stables, he’d kept his hands on her waist.

  Kathryn’s heart sped up, and she thought—madly—that he was going to kiss her. She could almost feel those generous, sensuous lips against hers, and she felt her body go limp in response, ready to swoon into his arms.

  But then Waldgrave slapped at Francis’s arm and said, “Not here, man. Don’t play the fool.”

  Francis shook, as though waking up, removed his hands from her waist, and made her a deep bow, and Kathryn left, feeling strangely unsatisfied.

  Though she normally paid little attention to the moods and humors of her fellow maids, save only those of her closest fellows, she noted now that Joan Bulmer looked as if she were in deep melancholy and also that she, for no reason that Kathryn could imagine, kept giving Kathryn the blackest of looks.

  The whole event made Kathryn feel uncomfortable and, the next day, it was with some trepidation that she approached the stables for her riding lesson. Only she found Francis Dereham in an expansive mood and Waldgrave seemingly morose.

  Nothing in particular happened during that lesson, except that Dereham offered to race Kathryn, and Kathryn raced by his side, well ahead of Waldgrave, and as fast as the wind among the paths of the forest. Faster and faster, and Dereham could not lose her, though they left Waldgrave behind.

  After a long while Dereham slowed the pace of his horse, and Kathryn matched it, and because the animals looked sweaty, they walked the horses back to the stable. During that time they said almost nothing, which for Kat
hryn was very strange as she dearly loved to talk and tease. She didn’t know if it was strange for Francis Dereham, but the occasional stare from his dark, dark eyes was all she could handle.

  As she was leaving the stable, Waldgrave came in, riding his horse apace. He looked at Dereham and some intelligence seemed to pass between the men, then Dereham shrugged as if to say he didn’t care. Kathryn, in turn, unable to understand what was happening, decided it was nothing to do with her and walked out. But Waldgrave cut her path at the door. “Mistress Howard,” he said.

  The way he pitched his voice low seemed to Kathryn as though he could want nothing proper with her. It reminded her of Manox and his ways. She took a step back, afraid of what might follow, and he said, “Mistress Howard, hold. I would … that is, I have a letter for you.”

  Kathryn looked at him in astonishment. “A letter,” she said. “But we’ve barely spoken three words together.”

  “Oh, not from me,” he said. “From my cousin, Henry. Henry Manox.”

  “What does Manox have to do with me that he should be writing to me?” Kathryn asked.

  “Only he’s working for a lord’s household, teaching music to children, and always he says that he’ll never forget you and that he’s always thought himself bound together to you by promise.”

  Kathryn frowned. “There was no promise between us, no, and nothing to bind us either.”

  “But he said,” Waldgrave started.

  “Well, then he was mistaken.”

  Waldgrave proffered a much scuffed, folded piece of paper, sealed with wax. “If you’d but read his letter. He said that whatever you did, you should be sure to read his letter, for he is pining with loneliness for you.”

  Kathryn shook her head. “He has nothing to say to me, nor I to him,” she said, and walked away so blindly that she almost ran straight into Francis Dereham. He had the oddest smile on his face, and she wondered what he meant by it. Perhaps he had heard her discussion with Waldgrave, and perhaps he truly thought she had pledged her troth to Manox. She didn’t know why this idea vexed her so, but it did, and she slapped her bonnet against her thigh as she left the stables area to go to her room.