“Damn him!” shouted Thomas Seymour, pacing his bedchamber floor. “Damn him to Hell and may fire consume him eternally!” He swept the tray with the pitcher and Venetian glass goblets from his table and they crashed to the floor, the glass shattering and the red wine spraying about his room in a wild arc. He had not recovered from Sherrington’s foul betrayal, indeed had grown more and more furious with every passing hour.
There came a tentative knock at the door.
“What is it!” he thundered. His servant, John Martin, asked through the door if all was well. “Bring me more wine and more glasses,” Seymour growled. He had already drunk two pitcherfuls and was roaring drunk, his mind reeling. It was difficult to focus his thoughts, which had been all but overwhelmed by emotion.
This much he knew. The pirate Thompson’s bounty had been disappointingly meager. And he should never have trusted Sherrington. Without the gold he could not pay for his shipment of powder. Without powder he had no rebellion. All of Catherine’s monies were tied up in properties and probate. He would not see much of his inheritance for several months more. And the revolt must be now. Now! But that was impossible. Men and arms were at the ready, and he had no powder. He’d kill the blighted bastard Sherrington with his own two hands!
Suddenly, like the sun peeking out from behind a raft of storm clouds, Thomas beheld a calming light. He slumped heavily in his chair to contemplate it, allow himself to be soothed by it.
Elizabeth. She was on her way to him even now. If he could not have his rebellion, he would simply marry Elizabeth. True, there were obstacles. Though Kat Ashley and the Parrys were his allies, the Council was for the most part opposed to the match, and there was no time to win them over. Perhaps they would never change their minds about him — certainly for as long as that brother of his and his filthy cunt of a sister-in-law whispered behind his back.
But in no time at all Elizabeth would be here with him in his room. Elizabeth the Fair. She would, he realized, be expecting a gentleman this night, a perfectly mannered husband-to-be. But she wanted him, he knew that as well. Remembered her utter compliance to his will in the boathouse. He would lift her skirts and she would swoon in his arms. If she resisted, he thought suddenly, he would simply ravish her. Deflower her. Force their marriage on the Council, for a princess lacking her maidenhead was altogether useless to them.
The image of Elizabeth rose before his eyes, and suddenly the thought of her slender, powdery whiteness struggling under him made him hard, caused a pulse to thump in his throat. Young royal flesh and the crown of England on his head…
Another knock snatched him from his reverie, and he threw the door open. John Martin stood there with a new pitcher and goblets. Thomas turned away and gazed out at the foggy night as the man followed him inside.
“There is a messenger here from the princess Elizabeth,” the manservant muttered, eyes downcast.
“Why did you not say so, man?” Seymour hissed. He wondered with irritation why she had sent a courier. Could she not come herself? Aloud he said, “Send him up.”
“I am here already, my lord.”
Still staring out the window, Thomas heard the messenger’s words through the haze of drink. “Leave us,” he told his servant. “I do not wish to be disturbed.”
“Yes, my lord.” John Martin backed out the door and closed it behind him.
“How does your lady this evening?” Thomas asked icily, assuming that his plans were already in tatters.
“Very well, my lord,” he heard the messenger say.
Thomas found himself even angrier than before, furious that Elizabeth had sent a youngster on so important an errand — a boy whose voice had not yet broken.
“She sends you her most passionate love and undying devotion,” continued the courier.
Seymour, confused by the intimacy of the spoken message, turned and saw the red-gold halo of curls, just now loosed from the felt cap, fall down around Elizabeth’s shoulders.
“Princess!”
“My lord.”
With the shock of so amazing and magnificent a sight, Thomas Seymour found himself suddenly and altogether sober. The look on Elizabeth’s face was pure joy at the sight of her beloved, and pride for achieving such an astonishing masquerade.
“My lord, are you ill?” she inquired with sincere concern, for Thomas had never moved a muscle since his first sight of her, and he had indeed gone pale. He was silently working to quell a faltering of resolve in his planned rape of the Princess, who had by now taken a first tentative step in his direction.
“Not ill, no, Elizabeth. Not ill.”
“Are you not pleased to see me, my lord?” she said, and moved even closer.
“More delighted than you could ever know,” he said, emboldened by the nearness of her nubile body and the soft fragrance of her hair.
“I arrived here almost two hours ago but was afraid to come in,” she said. “So I waited till I could gather my courage. I know it was silly —”
They stood inches apart now, she looking up into his eyes with great and earnest affection.
He was a lion waiting for the precise moment for the strike and kill.
“I have news that will please you, Thomas,” she said, using his name almost shyly, for it was the first time she had done so in his presence.
“News?” Piqued with interest, Seymour momentarily retracted his claws.
Elizabeth was visibly discomfited by the man who now stood before her, her future husband whose many letters had warmed and excited her with their admiration and protestations of undying adoration. He had become strange and cold and reeked of wine. Still she went on.
“I am prepared to write to the Council on our behalf,” she said with resolve. “And to the King. Edward loves you —”
“He hates me!” Seymour roared, startling her with the violence of his reaction. He turned away so he would not have to see her bruised expression.
“He does not hate you, Thomas,” she cried, confused by his strange behavior.
“And you believe,” he said scathingly, “that a letter from a fifteen-year-old girl will persuade a majority of the Privy Council to sanction our marriage?”
“I cannot be sure, but I —”
“You cannot be sure? You cannot be sure! What good is it, then?”
“Thomas —”
“They will never let us marry, Elizabeth. If you think they will, then you are a fool!”
She stood paralyzed, seared by the blast of his fury.
“There is no other way,” he muttered, beginning to pace again like a great caged cat. “No other way ...”
“But there is, love, there is,” said Elizabeth. “I have been thinking long and hard on this. Do you know the story of my fathers sister, Princess Mary, and Charles Brandon?”
Before Elizabeth could utter another word Seymour had turned and leapt at her, pulling her into a deathlike grip, covering her mouth with a desperate, crushing kiss. Though terrified, she at first succumbed, remembering their embrace in the boathouse and her many carnal dreams of him. But this was not the man she knew, nor the way it was meant to be. They’d agreed that the tryst, though secret, was to be chaste and decorous. But his hands were all over her now, pulling at the fabric of her doublet, groping between her legs.
“Stop, please stop!” With all her strength she pushed Seymour away from her. The look on his face was a mask of lust so violent that Elizabeth, instincts screaming, wrenched from his arms and fled for the door.
He seized her as her hand found the latch and snatched her off her feet. She struggled as he carried her across the room, but it was useless. He flung her down across his bed and she lay staring up at him horror-struck but altogether dry-eyed.
“No, my lord,” she pleaded. “Think what you are doing.”
“I have thought, Princess. And thought and thought. ...”
His eyes were terrible, mad.
“Comply and make it easier on yourself,” he commanded her, d
eftly unlacing his codpiece. Then he lowered himself, straddling her, and began to unlace her breeches, muttering curses at her difficult disguise.
She continued to gaze at him, but he did not notice, engaged as he was in his task. The enormity of this man’s betrayal, and the horror of her predicament and fate, descended fully upon the Princess. She might have been smothered, incapacitated by it, but for the great up-welling of rage that suddenly took hold of her — anger not for Thomas Seymour’s heinous actions but for her own fatal stupidity.
She slapped him a stinging blow across his face and began to struggle violently. He stopped, startled by her defense, then renewed his efforts to undress her, seeming untroubled by her squirming. The hail of fisted blows to his face and arms, indeed, enflamed him all the more.
Her breeches undone, he ripped them down off her narrow hips and pried open her legs with his knee.
“No, please, Thomas, please ...” She was crying now, unhinged with loathing and fear.
“Come, Elizabeth,” said Thomas Seymour, staring down at her with the eyes of a snake, “give your sweet husband a kiss.” He leaned down, placing his lips ever so gently on hers.
She bit him hard.
He screamed in pain, pulling away, then slapped her. A trickle of blood dripped from his torn lip onto her doublet.
“You will pay for this, pay dearly,” whispered Elizabeth.
“Oh, Princess, ‘twill be well worth the price.” As he lowered his body to hers, his mouth curled into a leering smile. In the very next moment the smile froze on his face. Someone was pounding on his door.
“Go away!” he shouted.
“My lord, my lord, open the door!”
“Go away, I tell you!”
The frantic banging continued.
“The Council Guard has searched William Sherrington’s home!” John Martin called through the door. “They’ve discovered the armory at Holt Castle!”
As if touched by a hot poker, Seymour leapt from the bed, a wild, animal look of terror in his eyes. Pulling his breeches together, he shouted through the door, “Are they coming here?”
“I do not know, my lord, but they may already be on their way!”
Thomas flung open the door, having altogether forgotten his victim cowering on the bed.
“Have my horse saddled immediately,” he ordered the panicked servant.
“Already done, my lord.”
Thomas was breathing hard, rubbing his forehead with his fingers, trying desperately to pull his thoughts together. What was he to do? What was he to do!
In this moment a slender figure dashed past the men and out the bedchamber door. Thomas Seymour made no move to stop Elizabeth. Indeed, he hardly realized that she had gone. His world, his schemes, the vision of the crown of England on his head, were crumbling, before his eyes, to dust.
Only one hope finally remained. He pushed past his servant and down the stairs of Seymour House. His horse was saddled and ready.
He rode for Hampton Court.
Never in all his thirty-six years had Thomas Seymour felt so unsettling a sensation. As he rode through chilly London in the dead of night, it seemed as if he were incapable of gathering his wits about him, unable to formulate a cohesive plan of action. His previous schemes, so brilliantly conceived, had now collapsed, each and every one. Before his eyes the darkened streets faded and he beheld a vision. A rotting corpse on the ground, wolves tearing at it, carrying away pieces, and ravens plucking out eyes, pulling at the raw stringy sinews. This, then, was all that was left of his master plan, and desperation was his new and unwelcome companion.
Before departing Seymour House, Thomas had directed his servants to alert his most trusted followers to meet him at the palace. Now he wondered bitterly if any of them would appear. News traveled fast in London, and they might be aware of the search and seizures at Sherrington’s house and Holt Castle, might realize the nature of Seymour’s summons — a final hopeless attempt to wrest control of what was now uncontrollable.
He argued silently with himself as he rode, succumbing one moment to despair, enflamed by arrogant confidence the next. He had not struggled and connived for all these months and years to be thwarted at the last moment by the Fates. No! His destiny was the English throne — if not to sit upon it, then to stand close beside. He would simply not be outdone by his brother, outsmarted by his enemies. And who were his enemies? How had his plans been uncovered? Who amongst the high nobles wished him the most harm? When he found out, thought Thomas furiously, he would take revenge on the man and his entire family. They would, indeed, know his wrath.
Stealth being essential this night, Seymour dismounted a hundred yards from the darkest and least heavily guarded entrance to Hampton Court. Several of his people lived within the environs of the palace and they, still unaware of the Admiral’s approach, must be roused once he’d gone inside.
“My lord,” came a harsh whisper from the shadows.
Seymour could see nothing in the darkness and fog. He stopped still and placed his hand on his sword in the event that the whisperer was not a friend.
“I’m here at your command, Admiral.”
“Who is it?” Seymour whispered into the dark.
“Charles Belmont,” the man replied.
Thomas followed the voice till he stood with Belmont, both of them shrouded in blackness. “Have Dorset or Carrington come?” he demanded.
“No one that I’ve seen. But Longly and Pierson should be easily rounded up inside.”
The man’s confidence fortified Seymour. Perhaps none of them had, in fact, heard of this evening’s misfortunes. Perhaps they still believed that all was well with the rebellion.
“Come, lets begin,” said Thomas commandingly as he moved toward the East Gate.
“Should we not wait for the others?” asked Belmont. “And why have we met here and not at Holt Castle to arm ourselves before assembling the troops?”
Good, thought Seymour. Belmont knows nothing. “Plans have changed,” he muttered, “and if Lords Dorset and Carrington could not see fit to make haste, as you have, then they shall be left behind.” He said no more, for he did not wish anyone to know what exactly he had in mind. It was clearly dangerous, and this was no time for disagreement or a lessening of confidence in his leadership.
Assuming his most commanding attitude, Seymour approached the East Gate with Belmont at his side, nodding to the two guards armed with halberds. Seymour knew one of them well. The man snapped to attention, returning the Admirals good-natured smile as the noblemen entered the palace.
Once inside, the men’s movements assumed an altogether secretive demeanor. The palace halls were quiet and deserted, the hour being late, and all but the guards and several whispering stewards were asleep in their beds. Thomas could not be sure if his brother was aware of the raids at Sherrington’s house and Holt Castle, but a careful peek at the Privy Council chamber assured him that no all-night session was being held by his enemies there.
First he and Belmont must find the balance of their coconspirators in the enormous palace without alerting anyone who might be suspicious of their presence, their movements, or their motives. It would be best, explained the Admiral, if Belmont found the others and convened them in a prearranged location to wait for Thomas’s return. Belmont agreed and stole off down the corridor that flickered eerily with torchlight.
Thomas moved swiftly now through the square palace to the southwest staircase. He climbed to the second floor, nodding offhandedly to the guards at the entrance to his brother and sister-in-law’s apartments — the queens chambers. Those were the rooms, he thought bitterly, that should rightly have been granted to him and Catherine. But all would be different after tonight.
Presently he reached an alcove where hung a long tapestry, which he pulled aside to reveal a little-known door. It was not guarded but it was tightly locked, for it was the entrance to a warren of secret rooms and winding passageways leading to the King’s apartments.
/> Smiling to himself, Seymour withdrew from his doublet the set of keys he’d had Highsmith cut for him. Though it had never occurred to Thomas that the keys would have been needed for the precise purpose to which they’d be put this night, he had known that such a tool would be invaluable to his plans.
Confidence was surging back into his blood like a tonic. What had seemed, an hour before, a harebrained scheme — the kidnapping of the boy king — was now entirely plausible as the unguarded doors opened one after the other, and the object of his pursuit was nearly in his grasp. He imagined the surprised look on little Edwards face as Thomas roused him gently, the child rubbing sleep from his eyes, wondering why his uncle had come. He’d be quickly mollified by Seymour’s smooth answer — that a dangerous rebellion was even now raging all round the palace, that the duke had been slaughtered by the rebels, and that the only safety Edward would know was in the arms of his uncle Thomas. Edward, terrified, would go willingly with Seymour, allow himself to be spirited out of the palace before he noticed that there was no armed revolt in progress within the palace walls.
But a shock awaited Thomas when he opened the final door leading to the back entrance of the King’s bedchamber. There he saw his nephew’s favorite dog, a normally sweet-faced brown-and-white hound, on its feet and, though still silent, entirely alert and watching the intruder with its hackles raised.
Thomas froze. Why was the dog not inside the bedchamber with the King as he always was? How was Thomas to get past the beast without its setting up a racket? He knew the dog, of course. Indeed, as all animals did, it liked Thomas. But here, late at night, the hound seemed confused by the presence of this stranger from the shadows. And whilst it had thus far refrained from barking — no doubt owing to Seymour’s familiar scent — it was surely aroused and unpredictable.
Thomas went down on one knee and remained still as he clicked with his tongue, a signal for the hound to come to him. With only the briefest hesitation it did, and within moments the animal was licking Seymour’s fingers and allowing itself to be patted and stroked by the familiar hand.
The Virgin Elizabeth Page 20