The Baker's Daughter Volume 2

by Bonny G Smith

  And then, inexplicably, she had become very ill. Mostly in the mornings. After the third such episode the doctor was summoned. And the malady that he confirmed was that in September, or thereabouts, the queen would give birth.

  Catherine had been so deliriously happy that she wanted everyone to know, and so she had written to Mary, begging her forgiveness for their quarrel, and asking for her blessing.

  “I can hardly believe it!” cried Mary. “How wonderful! Oh Anne, my disagreement with Catherine seems so silly now. I must write to her straightaway, and wish her well.”

  And so it had been for two weeks now; Mary had recovered her spirits and this happy state of affairs had been bolstered by a letter from Elizabeth, who also wished to mend fences. Mary had responded positively to her sister’s letter, and all was well again.

  Mary had written Philip that she planned, with his concurrence, to approach the Council for their permission to marry as soon as he was able to get to England. The Council would almost certainly wish to speak with him, and when that formality was fulfilled, the banns could be called, and they could be married. It made her want to laugh aloud every time she thought of it.

  Apropos of nothing, Mary ceased her playing, turned to Anne and said, “The Council are faced with some dire issues, Anne. There are grim economic problems facing England; the debasing of the coinage was a terrible mistake, and the cost of Somerset’s wars with Scotland have nearly bankrupted the treasury. And for what? He has accomplished nothing there. Even Pinkie Cleugh was a Pyrrhic victory…it failed to bring Scotland within England’s control, and occupying the territory won costs more than its worth.”

  Anne used a pudgy index finger to sift through a tray of tiny seed pearls; she tried one iridescent orb after another until she found one that would fit her needle and not get stuck halfway down. Finding her quarry, she replied “Worse than nothing, ach? Der Scotlands regent hass sent der youngk qveen to her French relations, ya?”

  “Somerset will never realize his dream, my father’s dream, of uniting the two crowns,” said Mary. “The French and the Scots may make for strange bedfellows, but their alliance has always made political sense. And always will, I trow.” She arose from the bench and walked to the window seat. It was a fine day for January, but still cold. She opened the window and breathed deeply of the fresh air, then closed it again; the draft caused the fire to flare and a log fell in a shower of sparks onto the grate. She walked to the hearth and gave the logs a stab with the poker.

  “Indeed, yes,” said Anne. “Der little qveen iss to marry viss der dauphin, ya?”

  “There is no doubt of it,” replied Mary. She walked back to the window seat, positioned her lute, and began idly picking out a tune. “But even worse, the French want Boulogne back. My father would turn in his grave if he knew. But England cannot afford to keep it or defend it. We shall sell it back to the French, methinks. It is only that which will save the treasury!”

  “Ya, der new kink in der France must make a show for hiss people,” Anne said, shaking her head. “One shouldt never, Marie, give up landt.”

  “But the French and Scottish alliance leaves England out in the cold, regardless of what happens with Boulogne.” Mary continued strumming the lute, her fingers moving as nimbly over its strings as they had over the keyboard. “This is when my father would have wooed the emperor, but Charles is mightily displeased with England’s heretical government. He will never ally with Somerset, even though he may make vague promises of doing so. It is simply good policy. But sometimes I wonder exactly what my brother will find in seven years’ time, when he comes of age.” She shook her head.

  “Thank Godt,” said Anne, “that your coussin holdts such a stick as dat over der Protector’s headt. Der Protector wouldt not dare to forbidt you your religion ass long ass der emperor iss dere to threaten him.”

  “Yes, it is a mighty stick,” laughed Mary. “But I do not fear the Protector; he dare not forbid me my religion. I will do nothing, as far as it is in my power, to anger him. But he knows that I hear Mass and help others to do so. And he is not pleased by it!”

  A commotion in the antechamber resulted in a one of Anne’s ladies softly knocking on the door to the solar.

  “Eintreten, “said Anne.

  “Es ist ein bote einem dringenden fur deine Gnade,” said the woman, in rapid German. Anne was now fluent in English, but few of her ladies had ever learned to speak it; they all, suspected Mary, cherished hopes of someday returning to their homeland, where it would not be needed.

  “At lasst!” said Anne, putting aside her sewing. “A messenger. Newss of Philip, I hope!”

  The woman showed the messenger into the solar, and he knelt before Anne, holding up a folded parchment with a large red seal.

  “Geb und frefresh selbst,” said Anne, dismissing the weary man that he might find food and drink after his long journey. She cracked the seal and unfolded the letter.

  Wanstead Hall, May 1548

  The yew hedge was high and thick and made an excellent hiding place. Elizabeth crouched low behind it. Thomas was tall and had very keen sight; if she did not make herself small, he might yet spy her out. Suddenly all was silent except for the raucous call of the snipe.

  “Got you!” Thomas roared with laughter as he snatched her up from behind, spun her around to face him, and held her in his arms.

  Elizabeth squealed and tried to wrestle herself free and back onto the ground, but she knew her efforts were futile. Elizabeth stopped her shrieking, ceased struggling, and their eyes met, for just that moment too long.

  “There you are!” cried Catherine, breathless from her efforts to catch them up. She was six months pregnant, but as yet showed little sign of it. Her doctors all encouraged exercise and plenty of fresh air, and so they had moved the household out of the city. The warm weather was approaching; there was always the threat of plague. Thomas had thought it best to move now while Catherine was still spry.

  Wanstead Hall had been built by Henry the Seventh, and the surrounding parkland enclosed for the king’s pleasure. Elizabeth’s father had used it as a royal hunting lodge. At the old king’s death, the ownership of the property had devolved onto Elizabeth; it was her pleasure to host her stepmother and…startling thought! …stepfather for the duration of the Queen Dowager’s pregnancy.

  Thomas, instead of lowering Elizabeth to the ground, held her fast. “I have caught me a wood-nymph,” he laughed. “What shall we do with her? I understand that they are very rare.”

  Catherine, who was feeling deliriously happy, went along with the fantasy; with a finger laid to the side of her face and her eyes cast up to heaven, she replied, “I think me that we should see if wood-nymphs really do have wings!” With that she reached up and began pretending to tear open Elizabeth’s bodice, but in reality, was tickling the girl.

  Elizabeth, trapped in Thomas’s strong arms, roared with helpless laughter, the tears streaming down her face.

  “I think me that you are right,” laughed Thomas. Still holding her fast in his iron grip (Elizabeth felt an unaccountable thrill at the hardness of the muscles of his arm), Thomas, as quick as lightening, drew his knife from the scabbard at his belt. Before either Catherine or Elizabeth realized what his intentions were, he placed the blade at the waist of her kirtle and with one mighty thrust, ran it up through the length of her bodice. It fell open, revealing her under-gown.

  At first both women were shocked, and then both burst out laughing. Thomas also roared with laughter; he placed Elizabeth’s feet on the ground, but kept his hold on her neck; his arms were long and although Elizabeth struck out with her fists, her efforts were in vain. Thomas began slashing her kirtle and did not stop until it was in shreds. He let go her neck, spun her around, and slit her under-gown up the back from neck to waist. Her skin, he noticed, was like alabaster.

  Finally he sheathed the knife and dropped to the ground where he supported himself on one elbow, panting from his exertions. “No wings!” he
said jovially. He made a face at Elizabeth. “Fraud!” he cried.

  Catherine sat down facing her husband, and Elizabeth lay, her hair a riot of tangled red, in the crook of Thomas’s arm.

  The three of them were still laughing, but finally, exhausted, they stopped.

  Elizabeth closed her eyes and held her flawless face up to the sunshine. “Mistress Ashley will be wroth with you, My Lord, for ruining my kirtle and gown!” She giggled.

  “Ah,” said Thomas. “If she says a cross word I shall beat her on her ample backside!”

  Catherine was used, by now, to her husband’s crude side; it came from all the time he spent at sea. She was no prude; she enjoyed a ribald jest and took his indiscretions in stride. In the relaxed atmospheres of Chelsea and Wanstead, she could see no harm in it. She lay back on the clipped grass and gave herself up to sheer enjoyment of the moment.

  Elizabeth sat up, cross-legged, and suddenly she felt a gentle touch on the bare skin of her back, revealed by the torn gown. It was Thomas’s finger; he touched her between her shoulder blades and moved his finger slowly, ever so slowly, down the track of her spine to the small of her back. She shuddered; the feeling was delightful, and when Thomas withdrew his finger from her skin, she was sorry. She wished that he would touch her again; the queen could not see.

  Catherine opened her eyes. “The shadows grow long,” she said. She leaned over and tousled Elizabeth’s already tangled hair. “How in the world are we going to get you back into the house with no one seeing!” She laughed and helped her stepdaughter to her feet.

  The day was warm, and they had been sitting in the sun. Thomas’s face streamed sweat. “I will leave you ladies to make your shameful way back on your own. It were better that I am not seen with you if Mistress Ashley espies you from the window! I am for the lake!” With that he rose and trotted off down the hill.

  Elizabeth wished with all her heart that she could have gone with him. The thought of Thomas stripping off his clothes and diving his strong, sweaty, muscular body into the cool waters of the lake made her stomach do the queerest flip-flop. All the way back up the hill to the manor she tried to picture what he must look like naked.

  # # #

  Kat Ashley also loved a coarse jest, and far from being angry at the loss of the kirtle and gown, she rocked with laughter as Elizabeth told her governess how she had come to return to the house with her clothing in shreds.

  “Aye,” said Kat, with a twinkle in her eye, “such a man he is, as never there was!” She was eight years the Lord High Admiral’s senior, and tended to look upon him as a younger brother. He could do no wrong in her eyes, just as Elizabeth could not. She had cherished great hopes that the Council would assent to Thomas’s bid for her charge’s hand in marriage. Granted, he was not royal but he was uncle to the king; surely that must count for something. Elizabeth was a handful, and she would need such a man to tame her. Thomas was so youthful in both looks and manner that it was hard to believe that he was Elizabeth’s senior by twenty-five years; but what mattered that? He was handsome, virile and if she had not herself been married to such a one as Sir John Ashley…

  She stuck her tongue firmly in her cheek and asked, “And what thought her majesty of such a romp?”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “She laughed as hard as ever Thomas and I did.”

  “There now, my little dove,” cooed Kat. “Let us get a new shift on you, then.”

  Elizabeth lifted her arms and Kat gently pulled what was left of the shredded gown over her head. When she could see again, there she stood, stark naked, and Thomas was standing in her doorway. Kat’s back was to the door of the bedchamber. Elizabeth met Thomas’s frankly admiring gaze for a few moments before she shrieked and dove for the cover of the only thing to hand, the bed curtains.

  Kat turned and stood with her hands on her ample hips. “My Lord!” she scolded. “Thou shouldst not enter my lady’s bedchamber in such wise!”

  Thomas grinned and leaned casually against the door jamb, chewing a reed he had brought back with him from his dip in the lake. His hair was wet and hung in strings past his shoulders; his shirt stuck to his muscular form. “In what wise is that? Is the lady not my own stepdaughter?” He took a step forward.

  Kat, who was very short and stout, resembled nothing so much as a bantam hen protecting its chick. But Seymour knew the power of his charm; he chucked her under the chin, which made her blush and titter, and then strode about the room, throwing the lids off of coffers in his mock search. “Where is she?” he queried, almost to himself, and rubbing his chin, where an intriguing golden stubble held sway. Finally he approached the bed and threw its covers back, then one by one, he started exploring the bed curtains. He knew which one contained his quarry; and as the moment approached when he was likely to have the naked princess again in his arms, a voice sounded from the open doorway.

  “What goes on here?” asked Catherine. She smiled uncertainly and looked quizzically at Kat.

  Thomas smiled his cavalier smile. “We are searching for a lost princess,” he said, quite seriously. He knew that Elizabeth liked nothing better than to be called princess. Like Mary, she had enjoyed the title and its privileges, only to have them taken away by her father, henceforth to be called bastard. The slight had always rankled.

  “I think me,” said Thomas slowly, “that there is only one place left that she might be.” He caught Catherine’s eye, cocked his head in the direction of the last bedpost, and simultaneously both Catherine and Thomas pounced on the swathed Elizabeth, tickling her mercilessly, right through the heavy velvet of the bed hangings.

  Or so Catherine thought; Thomas had found the breach and although Elizabeth remained covered from head to toe, she felt the rough skin of Thomas’s sailor hand cup one of her tiny breasts. The shock of it almost silenced her, but she had the presence of mind to keep on squealing at the tickling fingers, seemingly with delight. But the thrill that Thomas’s intimate touch sent through her was like nothing she had ever felt before.

  When the three of them were exhausted from their second such frolic of the day, Kat, who had been helpless with laughter herself, took charge and said, “Now, Your Graces, enough is enough. I must see the princess ready for supper.”

  At this Elizabeth peeked a wary head out of the protection of the red velvet curtains. Once again her eyes met Thomas’s. He was bold and would not look away; she was less so, and finally, she dropped her gaze. When she did, it was to find Catherine eyeing her curiously.

  Kat shooed Catherine and Seymour out of the room, and then drew Elizabeth from the curtains. “That was most unseemly, Your Grace. You ought not to encourage such behavior on the part of the admiral.” But her dancing eyes belied her words.

  # # #

  And so the weeks passed, with Catherine growing bulkier and more unwieldy as week followed week. She had thought that her time of sickness was past, but as her belly grew, she found herself more and more in need of bed rest. It was a good day when she was able, on the arm of one of her women, to trundle down to the garden to take the air.

  Thomas was extremely attentive. He had seemed very pleased to hear that he was to be a father. He made a point of spending part of each day at her side, his hands on the little bulge waiting to feel the sporadic movements that it made, laughing uproariously when it did.

  Catherine was grateful for his presence and his continued solicitousness. She knew of women whose husbands absented themselves for the duration and went off hunting, or worse, until the ordeal was over and his wife was useful to him again. Not so Thomas! The Protector had several times sent scolding letters to Thomas, asking him to pay a little less attention to his pregnant wife and attend to his duties. But Thomas just laughed and said that there were others to attend to his duties on his behalf, but who was there to attend to his wife?

  This was all very gratifying, but she wondered still where he was during the times when he was not at her side. She had noticed the attentions he paid to Elizabeth, and at
first, she had been glad; Henry had been a dismal father at best and as Elizabeth had grown, their relationship had sadly deteriorated. Elizabeth evinced all the worst traits of both Tudor and Boleyn; she had a sharp wit, but exercised it often at the expense of others; she was very aware of her royalty, but was overly sensitive to perceived slights; she had a short temper, an unforgiving nature, and she would hold onto a grudge long after its object had forgotten what had caused the rift to begin with.

  Far from resenting the presence of his stepdaughter, Thomas seemed quite taken with her. Catherine could not help but remember Mary’s biting words at Chelsea. At first, Catherine had thought them bitter words spoken in anger and with no truth to them, but simply a desire to wound. Discreet enquiry had disabused her of this notion; it was quite true that Thomas had sought the hands of several other women before settling on herself. This had caused her a great deal of hurt, but she had borne it bravely, and silently. Men hated discord and the worst thing she could have done would have been to confront Thomas and demand explanations. To do so was unnecessary, in any case; she had been at court for most of her life and she knew that considerations other than love took precedence when a man was to marry. He must do so to his advantage, not to the dictates of his heart. She could only be glad that Thomas’s other pursuits had come to nothing, and that she finally had him for herself. He had lied to her about the circumstances of his marital quest, but only to save her feelings. Surely that was laudable?

  In the end, none of it mattered, anyway. She had her precious Thomas and she was with child; both of these things, in the circumstances, were like little miracles in themselves.

  She felt the child move and shifted to a more comfortable position. She looked wistfully out of the window. The day was so fine. Perhaps she should try to sleep for a while, and then she would see if Thomas would walk with her in the garden.