by Anna Castle
“Oh.” Catalina’s wide lips curved in a warm smile. “I like your father.”
“So do I, as it turns out.” Trumpet turned toward the other woman with a short nod. “You must be Jane Switt.”
“Yes, my lady.” The whore dropped a nimble curtsy.
“I must say you do look astonishingly like me.” Trumpet cocked her head and walked all the way around her, studying Catalina’s work.
The substitute wore Trumpet’s least alluring nightdress, an opaque linen shirt that hung loosely to her ankles and closed at the neck of a high ruffled collar. It was richly embroidered in white silk thread, so it would pass for a bridal garment, but it would never arouse any lusty thoughts. One could almost wear the thing out of doors without loss of modesty.
Catalina had dyed Jane’s long hair black, remembering to darken the eyebrows and the lashes. The hair had been polished with silk and shaped into loose curls with chin-length wisps drifting across the face. Trust Catalina to think of every detail!
She’d dusted a fine powder all over her face and upper chest to match
Trumpet’s color. Ladies were supposed to maintain that perfect whiteness, but she hated vizards or anything that obstructed her view. And she’d spent many hours walking abroad with a bare face during her year as a boy. She’d done her best to restore her complexion since then, but she was nothing like as pale as a whore.
A mirror hung on the wall above a wide table littered with jars of unguents, pots of paint, small brushes, and wet rags. She linked arms with Jane and stood before it. “God’s blessed breast! We’re as alike as two peas.”
Not really, but perhaps as like as a large pea and a small brussels sprout. The hair was the same thanks to Catalina’s alchemy, and Jane’s eyes were almost as green. But their noses were quite different. Trumpet’s was straight, if a trifle long, while Jane’s had a noticeable bump and wider nostrils. Worse, Trumpet’s eyes tilted up at the corners, giving her an elvish look, while Jane’s were round and sat closer to the nose.
But the overall effect was really quite good.
“Close enough, my lady,” Jane said. “With the veil and one small candle, and me gritting my teeth with my eyes squeezed shut, he won’t know the difference.”
“Are you sure he won’t insist on nakedness? He won’t demand the right to explore or inspect —”
Both experienced women shook their heads. Jane answered, “Trust us, my lady, once he understands that you don’t want it, he’ll aim to get it over with as quick as he can.”
“He will want to leave as soon as he may, my lady,” Catalina said. “To meet the Lady Anne. Your Tom, he told me he heard them say it during the acrobats.”
Stephen had gotten up after the sweet course to wander down the dais to sit with his friends. They’d been passing some little bottle around, Trumpet had noticed, waving it at her once or twice. Maybe it was a sleeping potion, meant to put her to sleep so he could do his duty without conflict. Or a love potion. She’d heard dark tales about those too, back when she’d been a boy.
“Don’t drink anything he gives you,” she warned her substitute. “I saw his friends passing an odd little bottle around.”
“I’ll be careful. And I’ll make sure it doesn’t take long.”
“Good. The quicker, the better.” Trumpet turned to Catalina. “Let’s try the veil.”
The maidservant drew out a length of white gauze and draped it over Jane’s head. Trumpet helped to straighten the folds, then stood back to admire the effect.
“I might think it was you myself, my lady,” Catalina said.
Trumpet nodded. She reviewed the scenario in her mind, imagining Stephen’s point of view as he came through the door, half-drunk, to find this muffled creature waiting reluctantly to receive him. She felt a twinge of guilt. He hadn’t done anything to deserve this deception other than not be Tom. He could scarcely be blamed for that.
“Don’t help him any more than you must,” she said. “Whimper a little — but not too much. Don’t overplay it. No need to make him feel like a brute.”
“Perhaps a little sigh at the end, like this.” Catalina acted out her suggestion. “So he does not feel so bad.”
Jane lifted the veil to glare at them, offended. “I think I know my business, my lady! I’ve played the virgin a hundred times. I’ve got my phial of pig’s blood under the pillow, ready for the right moment.”
“I’ll leave it in your hands, then,” Trumpet said. “Help me change, and I’ll be gone.”
Three pairs of hands made quick work of getting her out of her bridal garb and into her working woman’s costume. Catalina draped a cloak over her shoulders and drew the hood down to her nose. Trumpet cracked open the chamber door to peek out. All clear. She turned back toward her co-conspirators with an excited grin. “Good luck!”
Catalina said, “Have fun, my lady!”
How not? After two long years of planning, she would finally get to spend a night with Tom. Trumpet had to drag her heels against the cobbles to keep from sprinting across the courtyard. She mustn’t attract attention at this late stage. She kept her eyes on the ground and her lips pressed together to keep from singing along with the heavenly choir chanting, “Tom! Tom! Tom!” inside her mind to the rhythm of her racing heart.
She found the small door leading up to the rooms built above the kennels. Tom’s was the third one, over Lancelot and Guinevere’s den. Those names had never seemed more fitting. She knocked once. “It’s me.”
He opened the door and stood back so she could enter. The room was barely ten feet on either side, with a narrow bed, a small table, and a single chair. Tom’s two large chests provided more surfaces but left little space for moving around. He’d lit several candles, setting them on the high shelf that served as mantelpiece for the mean little grate — just a brazier set into a stone hollow. He’d also scavenged some food and drink from the feast, leaving jugs, cups, and things wrapped in coarse linen jumbled on the table.
She remembered the elaborate preparations she’d made for her last wedding night — the one that had ended so badly. She’d scattered rose petals around a silk-lined chamber twice this size with windows overlooking the Thames. Tom had turned her down that night. But that was then, and everything was different now.
The look in his eyes as he took her cloak cast her into a sort of waking swoon. The words she’d planned caught in her throat. She untied the bow at the top of her bodice lacing and in the next moment found herself pressed full-length along Tom’s tall frame with his strong arms around her, lifting her right off the floor.
Their lips parted as they gasped for breath. “Clothes,” she said, wanting to be rid at last of the layers separating her skin from his.
He set her down, and she started unhooking his doublet while he loosened the lacings of her bodice and skirt enough to slide the whole works off her shoulders and over her hips. She reached around his waist to untie the laces holding up his trunk hose, and down they fell. Tom kicked his feet free, bending sideways to pull the bows of his garters loose, and used his toes to push off his shoes and stockings.
They stood face-to-face in their shirts. He smiled into her eyes, and she smiled back. A sort of quietness spread through her, balancing her excitement, tempering it. All her plans and preparations ended here. Now it was up to Tom to take them the rest of the way.
He nodded as if he heard her thoughts. He untied the lace at her collar in one slow pull, then touched the hollow of her throat with one finger, tenderly, as if making a prayer. Then he took her face in both hands and gazed deep into her eyes. Candlelight cast a golden glow across the planes of his cheeks.
“I love you, Alice. I think I have since that moment when I fished you out of the duck pond and first knew you for a girl. You might not believe me, but it’s been years since I even thought about another woman — seriously thought, I mean. You’re always with me, always in my head, always in my heart. It’s only you. It’s always you. And now —”
“As you wish, my lady.” He reached behind his head and pulled his shirt off in one swift motion. Without giving her time to do more than gawk at the naked chest before her eyes, he pulled her smock up and over her head as well.
She shivered as her backside was exposed to the cool air, but forgot the chill when she placed her whole palm on Tom’s bare chest for the first time. She spread her fingers and moved her hand slowly across the flat muscles over his stomach, through the coarse curls over his heart, and up the smooth expanse of his collarbone and shoulder, wondering at the sheer solidity of him. So this was a man. This was Tom.
She knew his voice as well as her own, that beloved tenor with its Dorset burr. She’d heard him sing, shout, pray, lecture, and tell rambling, stupid, unfunny jokes while three sheets to the wind.
She knew the features of his face better than her own; better than anyone’s. His eyes seemed a darker blue when he wore a green velvet cap and his nostrils quivered when he was trying not to laugh. She could write a whole book about that spine-melting dimple.
She knew how he smelled too, every way that he smelled: perfumed for court, sweaty after a hard bout of fencing, or drenched in slimy pond scum.
She’d even seen him stripped to his breeches, back when he’d thought she was a boy. But he’d been a youth then. His body had hardened in the past five years, crafted into this sculpted figure, as perfect as a marble statue, but warm, golden-hued, and covered in fine blond hairs that glinted in the candlelight.
She stroked a questing hand across his lower belly and smiled at the rippling tension her touch provoked. She molded the curve of his waist and smoothed both hands up his broad back, pulling her own exquisitely sensitive body toward him inch by deliberate inch.
He chuckled, a throaty sound. “That’s enough, Alice.” He tilted her chin up and kissed her on the mouth, thoroughly, deeply, until everything fell away except his warm skin, his weighty mass, and his strong, knowing hands. He loved her with skill and purpose, tenderly but comprehensively. She finally learned what rapture meant. Catalina hadn’t described it properly at all. She even reveled in the pang when he took her maidenhead. She’d finally left her girlhood behind.
A while later, they got up and stripped the stained sheet from the bed, bundling it carefully into a ball. Trumpet would take it back with her to replace the one with the pig’s blood. She didn’t know who might inspect the proof of consummation and feared an experienced midwife could tell the difference. They shook out a clean sheet, though neither of them was much good at bed-making.
Tom poured wine and unwrapped the collection of oddments he’d stolen from the banquet table. Trumpet drank thirstily, but had no appetite for food.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Like a whole new person. Like every inch of me has been stripped off, refashioned, and put back again.”
He nodded. “Me too. Everything’s different now. Which I have to say surprises me a little.”
She squealed in mock outrage and launched herself at him, knocking his cup into the rushes. This time there was no pang. She knew what went where and how it got there. This time she took her natural role as the instigator.
Trumpet felt as if she were throwing herself off a high cliff purely to enjoy the sensation of flying, secure in the knowledge that her best friend in all the world would be there to catch her.
SIXTEEN
SOMETHING RATTLED AGAINST the windows, a series of short raps, piercing Tom’s dreamless bliss and forcing his sated body into wakefulness. His eyes fluttered open, finding scarce enough light to see the window.
Birds tapping on the glass? No, there weren’t any trees in the kennel yard.
Another spatter of raps rattled across the diamond panes. This time he recognized the source: Catalina must be throwing pebbles at the window to wake them up. Time for Trumpet to sneak back to her own bedchamber.
He shifted his weight, kissing her on the head as he eased his shoulder out from under her. “Wake up, sweetling! It’s morning.”
She groaned. “No, not yet. Sleepy.” She rolled over, pushing her beautiful round arse against him, and buried her face in the pillow she’d stolen and then not used.
Tom chuckled and wrapped his hand around one perfect buttock and gave it a nice firm squeeze. She squealed and kicked him. He knew she hadn’t gone back to sleep. One thing Her Majesty’s service taught you was discipline.
He sat up, yawning. The touch of his bare feet on the cold floor made him wish for stockings, so he stood up and felt along the shelf over the still-glowing brazier for a splint to light a candle. Then he pulled the covers all the way off his lazy partner. “Arise, Lady Slug-a-Bed! You don’t want the sunrise to catch you out of doors.”
“I know, I know.” Trumpet rolled over and yawned, stretching her strong arms over her head and displaying her delicious body for his enjoyment.
He watched with full appreciation as he pulled on his shirt. He was both sorry and glad that he didn’t have it in him to go another round. Their whole plan depended on her getting up and out before the palace began stirring. He’d spend an easy day in the kennel office and be ready for more fun tonight.
She rose and found her white chemise with its wealth of blackwork running down the front. No working woman could afford such a shirt, but then, she wasn’t meant to be seen up close. She found her plain dress flung across his only chair and shook it out. “You’ll have to help me with this. Roll up the skirt from the bottom in both hands so you can lower it over my head.”
“Yes, my lady.”
They managed to get her into her clothes with a minimum of distraction. Tom picked up his trunk hose from last night and started to climb into them, then thought again. “Why am I getting dressed? I’m going straight back to bed.”
“Don’t say that word to me now that I’m all laced up.” She spoke teasingly, but her eyes held something else, something more serious. Their night of marvels and mutual discovery was over. It was time to go.
They faced one another, knowing the world was waking up outside, but not yet ready to leave their sanctuary. Tom looked into that heart-shaped face, and his chest swelled as if it would burst apart with love for this matchless woman. He wanted to say the perfect thing to commemorate their first enchanted night together, but he knew she would scoff at any effort to be artful. Trumpet had never appreciated his poetry.
So he just grinned at her, the way he always did. “You snore.”
“I do not!”
“Oh yes, you do. You sound like this.” He closed his eyes, dropped his head to his shoulder, and produced a chortling nasal snore.
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him through narrowed eyes. “Well, I made you whimper. More than once.”
“You did.” Tom grinned, remembering that exquisite torment.
“It’s very unmanly.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I think it is!”
He shrugged. “Only because you’re a virgin.”
“I am not!” She grabbed the balled-up sheet and found the vital evidence. “What do you call this?”
Tom gazed down at the dark stain with mock sorrow. “I would call that the least lamented maidenhead in Christendom.”
“That’s right.” Trumpet balled up her sheet again, tucking it under her arm. “And don’t you forget it.”
Tom caught her chin to hold her gaze, putting everything he felt for her into his eyes. “Not if I live to be a hundred. Not one single minute.”
She nodded. Tears glistened in her green eyes.
He bent his head to kiss her tenderly, but someone pounded on his door, startling them both. A hoarse voice called, “Tom! Wake up!”
Trumpet whispered, “That is not Catalina.”
“It’s a man.” Tom glanced at the door and shrugged. “I have to answer. He’ll wake the dogs.”
“Curse the man, whoever he is!” Trumpet looked around the tiny room, which offered scant choice of places to hide. “He mustn’t see me here.”
“Jump back in bed and pull the covers over your head.”
“He’ll still know you have a woman in your room.”
Tom shrugged. That was nothing. “But he won’t know which woman. Just stay quiet. I’ll get rid of him as fast as I can.” He rubbed his hands over his head and slapped his cheeks, reminding himself there was a world beyond that door. He gave himself a good shake and blew out a noisy breath. This had better be important.
The hollow pounding sounded again — a coiled fist beating on the oak. Tom opened the door a crack, holding it with his foot. “Stephen! What in the name of all that’s holy are you doing here?”
Stephen stood on the landing, wearing his wedding clothes under a dark cloak. “God’s teeth, you’re a hard man to wake! How much did you drink last night?”
“Not much. What do you want?”
“I need you.” He cast a glance at Tom’s unlaced shirt. “Get dressed. Be quick. You must come with me at once.”
He tried to press his way into the room, but Tom blocked him. Stephen pushed harder and got his head far enough inside to see the sixty-one-inch lump under the bedclothes. “Oh, a woman. Who is she?”
“Someone who prefers to remain anonymous.” Tom moved to block Stephen’s view. “As you can see, my lord, I’m a little busy. Can’t this wait?”
“No, it can’t.” Stephen drew back, jerking his head to signal a private conversation.
Tom stepped out onto the cold landing, drawing the door almost shut behind him. “What is it?”
Stephen bit his lip and turned to stare into the gray shadows outside the window. “It’s Anne. Lady Anne Courtenay. Do you know her?”
Tom shook his head. “By sight, maybe.”
“Well, she’s dead, in my bed. She died right before my eyes, not long after we —”
“God’s bones, Steenie! What did you do?”
“Nothing! I swear it! She had this phial, some stupid potion. She poured it in my cup, but I didn’t want it. I don’t need love potions. Then we . . . you know. And then we slept for a little while. Then we woke up and we went around again, and then she wanted a drink. So she drank that, all of it. And then she —” He clutched at his chest, his face contorted, whether imitating the woman’s death or reacting to it, Tom didn’t know.