No Will But His

by Hoyt, Sarah A.

  “But …” Kathryn squirmed. Into her knowledge of what passed between her and Francis went her fascination with him and her love for him, or what she thought had been love. But had it truly? She thought of that moment in her bed, when he’d thought she’d changed her mind on her promises and how suddenly dangerous and ugly he looked, and she shivered, as though a window had opened somewhere, letting a cool breeze in. “But I did give him my promise. Of my own free will.”

  The duchess shook her head. “He knows more than you do, Kathryn, and he used you as he pleased. I would not doubt—not for a moment—that he has had such a string of broken promises at his back. He’s a beautiful gentleman, is Francis Dereham, and he has a good head on his shoulders, generally, but … He’s young, and I’m sure he hasn’t reached his present age without pledging his troth to half-a-dozen maids, promises that he forgot when they were no longer convenient. This is why one doesn’t do it without consent and not without proper witness.”

  “And sometimes even then,” Elizabeth Howard said. “It is not all clear.”

  “No,” the dowager said. “So, Kathryn, your uncle is right and this never happened. It was a dream you had and nothing more. We will talk to the other girls, also. Even Mistress Restwold will be given a chance at reprieve if they learn to hold their tongues.”

  “And if Francis is still inclined to talk …” the dowager said. “Well, there are other things that can be done. Things of a more permanent sort that will ensure he never again blackens your name.”

  “Indeed,” the duke said. “You cannot let a mere scallywag like Francis, with hardly a feather to fly with, stand in your way. Not when you’re so beautiful and talented at dance and music and …”

  “And other arts which gentlemen love,” his stepmother finished. “Only, listen, remember what I once told you about this—remember that as far as your husband, once you marry, is concerned, these arts are a closed book to you. Let him teach you, so that he can feel sure that he is always the most important, the central person in your life.”

  It seemed to Kathryn that her Aunt Elizabeth snorted, but all Kathryn did was nod.

  “Good,” the duchess said. “You shall go to your room and put your shirt on and go to sleep. And tomorrow we will pack to go to Lambeth in London. For we have arranged for you a most glittering marriage.”

  “With Thomas Culpepper,” the duke said.

  “My cousin?”

  “Well …” the Dowager said. “I believe he is some form of cousin to you, though distant, but the more important thing here is that he is a well setup gentleman and has been raised, as it were, in the king’s chambers and in the king’s favors. Being well set and smart, there is nowhere he might not rise.”

  “Only of course, he cannot marry you while you remain wholly provincial,” the duke said. “So we’ve arranged it so that before your marriage is announced, you shall go to court.”

  “To court, but …”

  “Oh, there will be a queen soon enough, and the king is giving signs of reorganizing the ladies, so that the queen might have attendants. So we’ll go to Lambeth and from there it will be easy to put in an application—which I believe your uncle has already made—that you should become one of the queen’s maids-in-waiting.”

  “So you see, my poppet,” her uncle said, patting her awkwardly on the arm, “how important it is that you be clean living and innocent with your maidenhead still intact and that you never have pledged your troth with any man.”

  “Yes, indeed,” the duchess said. “It is a good thing you’ve been brought up so carefully. Otherwise, Lady Rutland, who oversees the ladies-in-waiting at court would never allow you in, for she’s very strict about morality and upholding all such just standards.”

  Kathryn inclined her head. She still felt as though Francis Dereham were being unjustly treated, but it seemed as though, for his safety as well as hers, she must treat their love as though it had never happened.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Before leaving, Kathryn went to the stable to say her good-byes to the horse she’d ridden. Strangely, though she was not sure about her love with Francis nor anything that had passed between them, she remembered those rides fondly and wished that they’d stayed only at those rides.

  She patted the horse and gave it an apple as a treat and then as she was crossing the yard toward the house, one of the stable boys intercepted her. He stopped in front of her, with his hat removed, and his head downcast, and she thought the man had lost his mind, or else was so lost in some form of thought that he did not see her.

  Annoyed at his impertinence, she made to skirt him. But his hand shot out—a large hand, at the end of a muscular arm, a hand she knew all too well, and it held her by the wrist. “Stay, sweetheart. Stay.”

  Fearful she looked up at this man, who was clearly not a stable boy but Dereham: a Dereham with his hair in disarray, a thick stubble of dark beard upon all of his face, and, she noted as he smiled at her, two black eyes and a bruise covering all of the left side of his face.

  Kathryn realized she must have made a sound of shock when he smiled at her and said, “It looks worse than it is, Kathryn. Worry not. It is nothing but a bruise, and I’d endure a thousand such for you.”

  She started to open her mouth to tell him that he must not speak like that. To tell him, for their safety, never to speak again about their betrothal.

  But he shook his head. He looked hastily one way then the other, then whispered heatedly, “No, Kathryn, there’s no time for that, and no time for long and sad good-byes, either. I am off, as I told you I might be, to the coast of Ireland on that enterprise I spoke to you about.” As she started to open her mouth, he seemed to rush to speak. “Do not you worry. I’ll take good care to keep my head upon my shoulders, and to keep myself hale and well so I can come back to my sweetheart. This thing with Culpepper, from what I understand, will take time to arrange. One of those slow negotiations between two old families. If God be with me, I should be able to make my fortune before then and come for you. And then, if your family still won’t give their yes, we’ll have the money so that we can go somewhere—perhaps France—and live without hardship. So wish me well, my sweet, and I shall be gone, to get both our futures.”

  Again, he looked both ways, and then he extended a tied bundle to her. It seemed like a very grubby handkerchief. “While I’m gone, keep this safe. If things come to an extremity and they’re ready to drag you to a contract with this Culpepper, this money will allow you to run and hide yourself, and keep yourself safe till I come for you.”

  She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t really refuse the money, which he was thrusting into her hand, without calling attention to their interaction. So far the only other people in the yard were stable boys and though one or two had looked curiously their way, none seemed disposed to interrupt them. In fact, Kathryn would lay a bet that Dereham had bribed them not to see them. But if she made any loud sound or argued, she was sure other people within the house at the other end of the yard would come to see what was happening or, at least, look out their windows.

  Dereham said, “God bless you, Kathryn Howard, and keep you safe till I return for you.”

  Before he could quite go away, Kathryn heard words come out of her own lips, in a whisper that was slightly more than a sigh. “Take me with you!”

  He turned around to look at her, and smiled, “What, my dear? So loathe to part?”

  She nodded and felt tears come to her eyes. She wasn’t sure herself that she understood what her crying was about. Part of her was enthralled with the idea of going to London. The court, and her memories of Thomas Culpepper conspired to paint a glittering picture of what lay ahead for her—even if Thomas had never brought her oranges.

  And yet something else inside of her thought of Dereham and the coast of Ireland, and it seemed to her as a blessed refuge. It was, she realized, that she had never seen the court and her one meeting with Thomas Culpepper was so short as to qualify
as none. She couldn’t imagine putting herself in the hands of this man she knew not at all and making him her god on Earth.

  And she was sure the court would be as bewildering as the duchess’s household had first been—rules and events she didn’t understand, all of it happening in a way no one would bother to explain. It was, in a way, as though she were leaving her father’s house once more.

  In Father’s care, she might have suffered hunger and deprivations. She might have been ill kept and her clothes too short and too worn. But she’d known her father and her siblings, and understood the rules of living with them. In the duchess’s household, she was not sure she understood all that was happening, even yet. And now she was about to step forward into a bigger and more complex household.

  “Take me with you,” she said in a rush. “I’d rather endure privations and danger by your side than stay here.” And it was true, because though she probably would know nothing on shipboard, yet she would be with Francis Dereham whom, temper or not, she knew as well as she knew anyone.

  But Francis only laughed at her, a bitter laugh deep in his throat. “It cannot be, my sweet, for women are held to be ill luck aboard ship, and besides, I’m not such a cad that I’d expose you to the mortal dangers I will face.” He squared his shoulders, and she perceived he was doing his best to look powerful and strong. “Only you remain brave and faithful,” he said. “And you shall see that before very long, I shall come and claim you.”

  And then he put his very disreputable cap back on his head and was gone, amid the other barn cleaners and horse tenders.

  She shook herself a little and went on toward the house, hoping no one had seen her.

  What foolishness that had been? Why had her mind seized upon what seemed suddenly to be a vista of freedom? Had she really thought that Francis would take her with him in what amounted to no more than the life of a privateer?

  And she was looking forward to the life in Lambeth and then, at length, in the court, whenever the new queen chanced to come. She could imagine it in her mind’s eye—new clothes and music and dancing. She would amuse herself as she never had so far, and everyone would be enthralled by her.

  But all the same, she shivered, clutching Dereham’s cash bundled in a filthy handkerchief. She felt, in some inexplicable way, as though she were taking a step in the dark, where her foot would meet with nothing when it landed, and she would tumble, headlong, into an abyss.

  What foolishness, she thought to herself, again.

  Later that night, when she was alone, she opened the handkerchief to see what sum Dereham had thought could save her from an unwanted marriage, if it came to that pass.

  Inside the kerchief was a hundred pounds, an amount that Kathryn had never seen all together in one place before, in various currencies from various lands, but all of it good.

  She put it where she had put other treasures in the past—under a loose board beneath her bed.It wasn’t until she was well on her way to Lambeth that she remembered she had never retrieved it, but she reasoned that she would collect it when next she came to Horsham again.

  Section Four

  The Rose Without a Thorn

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Kathryn could hardly sleep for the excitement the last night she spent at the duchess’s Lambeth Palace before going on to the palace to take her place as a future lady-in-waiting to the queen.

  Queen Anne. How strange it was that when last Kathryn had been in Lambeth, it had been to see the coronation of a Queen Anne, her own cousin. And now, she was in Lambeth again, and about to become maid of honor to Queen Anne. This Queen Anne was very different, though the word in the court was that she was very beautiful and that all the potentates of Europe had vied for her hand, which King Henry had won only at great cost.

  She was the sister of a German prince, and the King’s own painter, Hans Holbein, had been sent to paint a portrait of her, which, when shown at court, had caused many a gallant to sigh and vow that he’d never seen a better-looking lady.

  Only the duchess had held out upon the idea that one Queen Anne who’d been a beauty was enough, and that this Queen Anne, “Is very well setup, no doubt about it. Beautiful eyes and a very straight nose. But to my mind, those German women don’t look like our kind. And her face is heavy and set … well, like that of a cow. She’s not a patch on your late cousin, girl, and she never could be. But then, neither could any woman.”

  Yet the king, at least in rumor, was half mad in love with the portrait and the report of this Anne of Cleves, and waited in impatience for her appearance. The queen’s household was forming in all possible speed, and it included a full complement of maids-of-honor—two hundred. As many as had served the late Queen Jane, whom the duchess had finally stopped calling “that whey-faced wench,” perhaps in deference to the dignity of death, or perhaps because the queen was, after all, the mother of the prince heir.

  In early August, Kathryn had been dressed in her best and taken to be seen by Lady Rutland, who had looked her over from head to toe and nodded, approvingly. “She is a very small lady,” she’d said, talking above Kathryn’s head to the duchess. “Though very beautiful.”

  “Although she be small,” the duchess said, “she’s fair vivacious, and always full of fun. She’ll bring joy and life to the court.”

  Lady Rutland had looked doubtful at this, but after she’d asked Kathryn to play the lute and sing, she had sighed and said, “Do you speak French, child? Or German?”

  Kathryn had curtseyed in the exact way she’d been taught to and said, “If it please you, my lady, neither, for my kind grandmother doesn’t think it good that women should be too educated or too clever.”

  At this the two older women had traded a look over Kathryn’s head, and Lady Rutland had nodded once. “A good thing, that,” she said. “For a repeat of that is not needed.”

  “No,” the duchess said. “And you know, it was only Thomas Boleyn’s fancy to educate that girl as though she were a princess. Everyone in their place, I always say.”

  Lady Rutland had conceded the wisdom of this and inclined her head. “Well, and mind you,” she said. “The only good thing about her speaking German would be that she might be able to talk to our new queen, for I have heard that the dear lady speaks nothing but German. Not one word of English.”

  And with that the two women traded a look over Kathryn’s head again, and something seemed to be understood between them that neither took the time to explain to Kathryn.

  Lady Rutland had given the duchess a long list of clothes that Kathryn must have—a seemingly unending number of dresses in the French fashion, as well as coifs and undergarments, which must be made of lawn and not of the linen that Kathryn had worn her whole life. There were even lists of how many pearls and other adornments must be sewn to what garment, till Kathryn was sure that the Duchess must refuse—for she’d never even heard of such a rich trousseau, much less wearing one.

  But the duchess had smiled and told Kathryn that the Duke of Norfolk had contributed a fair amount to his niece’s elevation and that everything should be done according to the best possible manner and in the most expensive and easiest way.

  For the first time in Kathryn’s life, such promises were true, and the next few months were spent very pleasurably, indeed, choosing material and jewels, and having things done the way she’d always dreamed they should be: This she desired, and it was given to her. That she craved, and it was handed over. She had only to say a word, and things would be showered on her.

  In Lambeth, this time, she slept not in the maids dormitory—in fact, since that infamous night, she’d been kept almost completely away from her peers—but in the antechamber to Her Grace’s room, and Her Grace took care to show Kathryn how to array herself and what to do to make herself attractive, as well as imparting to her a thousand small tips about how to go on in the presence of any nobleman, even the king.

  “You’ve been too easy with your smiles and your favors, so far, my
girl,” the duchess would say. “Far be it from me to impair that natural friendliness, which is one of your principal attractions, but at court you cannot go on like that.”

  Fortunately, though she’d never been schooled, Kathryn found she had a natural quickness for gestures and words, for orders of precedence, for how far one curtseyed for an earl, a marquess, and even the king himself.

  “Mind you,” the duchess said. “Don’t you go into the palace starry eyed and full of nonsense, for that is a sure way to your doom. As married as often as Harry has been, he is an old reprobate and as likely to tumble a pretty young thing as not. Mind you the fate of Bessie Blount, got with child and then married off to Lord Clinton, who never, ever forgave her indiscretion, even though it was with the king and even though Clinton benefited by it in honors and lands. Mind you that, my dear, as well as the fact that your cousin Thomas is a proud man and is not likely to take used goods, even from the king.”

  “But how am I to respond?” Kathryn said, perturbed. “If the king importune me?” So far she hadn’t done so very well at refusing the attentions of far lesser gentlemen, much less the king.

  The duchess had seemed to understand that. She had smiled wryly and said, “For all the king’s vices, he has never yet imposed on the unwilling. Tell him you are honored, of course, and prostate yourself, but always remind him that you are a poor maid, whose only form of riches are in your honor—and that you have nothing else to tempt a husband with. Which, mind you, is near enough to the truth, considering how your poor father left you penniless. You must tell the king that, and also that you trust in him not to do you violence. And also—” Here the duchess’s smile became yet more broad and yet more wry, as though she could well imagine what was going on in Kathryn’s head. “If he tells you how much he is suffering and what a great need of you he has, you are to tell him that you hate to give him pain, but you cannot give in, because your future as well as the well being of your soul depends on it. Promise to remember that!”