A Rose for the Crown (58 page)

G
EORGE WAS WAITING
to be summoned by Jack to join the fleet. He was in a foul mood. Being with Kate and the baby at Dog Kennel House reminded him constantly of her infidelity, and the prospect of spending several weeks on a ship added to his woes.

Two weeks had passed since the king had left Norfolk for Fotheringhay and thence to Nottingham. En route he had learned the worst. Not only was Clarence in Warwick’s pocket, but also he had married the earl’s eldest daughter, Isobel, without permission from the crown. Perhaps
Clarence had chafed under Edward’s thumb and Warwick offered him a chance to shine. Perhaps Warwick had greater plans: replacing Edward with Clarence and making his daughter queen of England. He appeared to believe his power had no limits.

Edward was only now taking the Redesdale rebellion seriously—finally accepting Warwick as its instigator—and his supporters hoped it was not too late. He had ordered his royal wardrobe to provide armor, flags and a thousand uniform jackets of his murrey and blue colors, and he had sent his closest followers around the country to muster men and arms to his banner. Somewhere in the flurry of activity surrounding the king, Richard found a moment to send Kate the gift he had promised. The letter came with Jack, who had returned to outfit his ships in case Edward had need of them. He gave it to her one morning in his office.

Jack was matter-of-fact. “I was forced to send George back here, Kate. I have need of him now, and I do feel he is better doing my bidding on board ship than attempting to wield a sword on the battlefield. The master-at-arms despairs of his abilities, but he has a head for counting and he makes a fair scribe. He can help me with victualing the fleet.” His eyes twinkled. “You are not vexed with me?”

“How can I be vexed with you, Sir John. I can handle George. You have been more than generous to both of us. And now you have brought me more joy with this letter. I thank you.” She curtsied and left the room, only to bump into George as he was crossing the hall. She swiftly concealed the letter behind her back. “Have a care, George!” She smiled pleasantly at him. “You almost knocked me over.”

He glowered at her. “What is that you are hiding, wife? What has Sir John been telling you about me?”

“Only that he is mightily pleased with you, George, and is sore in need of you this very minute! And I must deliver this to Margaret immediately,” she added, waving the letter and skipping to the staircase. She was gone in a trice before he had time to react. He cursed her and knocked on the office door, convinced she was lying to him.

Kate waited until the office door closed behind George before reading her letter.

“Five pounds annuity for as long as Katherine lives with you. When she is of an age, I shall find a place for her in my household, and she shall be treated as befits a duke’s daughter. That is my promise to you, Kate. I cannot write more, there is much to be done here, and I leave for Fotheringhay on the morrow. But be assured you are in my heart and in my prayers, as is my little rosebud.”
This time he gave his full name, either to dignify the contract or because he was in a hurry and signed it out of habit:
“Richard Gloucester.”

“Five pounds! Certes, ’tis a healthy sum for such a tiny mite,” Kate told her daughter later, who stared at her with her long eyes and then broke into a smile. “Aye, you may smile, sweeting. Your father loves you, in truth.”

Kate read the letter again, and briefly wondered why Richard had been sent back to Fotheringhay when the king was at Nottingham. She folded the letter, hid it inside a letter from Anne and locked it in her chest. Her long-ago gift held her letters from Geoffrey, Richard Haute and Anne among her jewelry, combs and some special stones she had found by the river. Painful though it was to see them burn, Richard’s letters were always consigned to the fire as a precaution. But this one she would keep for her daughter. If something should happen to her, it was proof for Katherine of a loving father.

It was Kate’s wont of a fine afternoon to take Katherine to the hall’s walled garden. It was a warm July day, and Kate took off Katherine’s swaddling bands and watched as the child rolled over and attempted to get onto her knees.

“She is trying to crawl, Molly! Do you see that, she is trying to crawl!”

Molly laughed and showed Katherine how it was done. The baby gurgled and laughed and fell flat onto her stomach. Determined, she tried again and failed. Her little brow became furrowed with concentration, and it made the two women laugh again as she persevered. George heard the laughter on his way back to the house from his session with Jack. He was feeling much relieved. A messenger had arrived from the king. Jack was to give an accounting of any men in the Howard manors who would join the army at Nottingham. Edward also wanted news of the readiness
of the fleet. George was to ride to Ipswich, gather information and from there ride post haste to Nottingham. He might yet avoid going to sea, he thought. He had no reason nor desire to see Kate before he left, and he did not want to alert her to his presence on the path to the house.

He was on a mission, for Jack had inadvertently told him that the letter he had given Kate was for her and not for Margaret. George’s question had been innocent enough: “Kate seemed happy when she came from here with the letter in her hand, Sir John. We did not have time to discuss it as ’twas my duty to serve you at once.” He gave Jack his most charming smile.

Certes, Jack thought, he is a comely fellow, ’tis no wonder our Kate was taken with him. Aloud he said, “Aye, she was pleased to receive it.” And left it there.

Armed with the knowledge that the letter was indeed for Kate and was being kept from him, George was determined to see it for himself. He had no doubt it was from her lover, although he wondered briefly why it had been delivered to Howard. At Jack’s dictation, he scratched out a letter to the king for the waiting messenger and listened to his orders. Armed with several other missives for contacts in Ipswich, he bade Jack farewell and went down the driveway, deciding to make a quick search of Kate’s belongings. Convinced Providence was on his side when he heard Kate and Molly in the walled garden, he sprinted the rest of the way to the house and ran up the stairs. The cook and wet nurse were conversing in the kitchen and did not hear him. Only when dust fell through the floor above onto her apron did Janet know someone was in the house.

“Who be there? Be that you, Molly?”

“Nay, ’tis I, your master.” George was imperious. “Leave me alone, woman. I am about the king’s business.”

Janet rolled her eyes and cocked him a snoot from the room below.

The wet nurse chuckled. “How do the mistress put up with him, Janet?”

Janet shrugged. “What be he adoing of up there? He be making all kinds of a racket. It be none of my business. But I warrant he be up to no good.”

George was pulling Kate’s dresses and shoes out of her wardrobe chest
at the foot of the bed. Finding nothing, he stuffed them back and banged the lid shut in frustration. Then he turned his attention to the little chest on the table.

“Damnation!” he muttered, realizing it was locked. Kate never used to lock the box, he remembered. Why was she now so prudent? It must be because she was hiding something. He pulled his knife out of its sheath and tried to pry it open. The lock was not meant to be anything more than a safeguard against accidental opening and spillage, so it yielded without much resistance. For once George ignored the ready money and jewels and began perusing the letters.

“Christ’s nails, what drivel!” he spluttered, reading a few lines of one of Anne’s.

Then he found it, folded several times inside another of Anne’s. The even handwriting was different from the rest of the pile. He looked furtively at the door and then down again at the parchment in his hand. The broken seal was impressive, although now indecipherable. He scanned the contents, nodding with mounting excitement. When he saw the signature, his mouth dropped open.

“Richard of Gloucester! The king’s brother? Nay, ’tis not possible. It cannot be possible. When could she have met . . .” He broke off and then whistled. “Chelsworth! That day she discovered Simon and me . . . she said Richard of Gloucester had been at the house with another. Jesu, who was that? Think, George!”

But Rob Percy’s name escaped him. He sat perfectly still on the bed, staring at the letter. He ran his tongue over his dry lips and began to formulate a plan. He had thought he would be angry, that he would want to find and kill the man who had cuckolded him. But a royal duke? That was a different proposition. This had possibilities.

George imagined his conversation with Richard. “Five pounds, your grace? That is a paltry sum, in truth. For my silence maybe you would like to pay me, oh, say four times that. Aye, twenty pounds should not hurt your grace too badly in the purse, I’ll warrant.” He put the letter inside his jacket and rubbed his hands together. Now he was doubly glad he was not having to stay with Sir John and go aboard one of those puke-inducing vessels. He was to ride close to where his antagonist was lodged, according to the letter. It was on his road to Nottingham. Perhaps he
would ride straight to the king, deliver his messages and then ride back by way of Fotheringhay.

A noise downstairs roused him from his planning, and he carefully folded up all the other letters and placed them back in the box. He could not resist helping himself to a noble or two before he closed the lid. He hoped Kate would not notice the knife marks around the lock for a while. Grabbing his saddlebag, he pushed a few necessities into it and went downstairs.

“Tell your mistress I am about the king’s business for a few days, cook,” he called as he exited the house. “Wat goes with me.”

He strode up to the Tendring stables, where Wat, dressed in the Howard crimson and argent, was waiting with his horse. Jack insisted George take Wat with him, because two riders were less vulnerable than one. In a few minutes, they mounted and trotted off.

“A
YE, SWEETING,
’tis time for a feeding.” Kate tickled Katherine’s round belly and tried to make her daughter laugh. But the baby was having none of it. Her face began to pucker, and she emitted a few whimpers. Then the chin began to wobble, her head moved from side to side and she flailed her arms and legs in protest. Finally, her cherubic mouth opened wide as the hellgate and sent forth a wail that could have woken the dead. Molly and Kate laughed at her, which made Katherine more furious yet. Her cheeks turned red with the effort of her cries, but she shed nary a tear.

“Mother of God, but she has a temper! My mother said I was independent from the day I was born. Must be Katherine will be like me, heaven help her poor husband.”

“Aye, mistress.” Molly’s assent was ambiguous.

Kate shot her a look as she wound the swaddling bands back around Katherine. The child screamed even louder at this imprisonment, and she and Molly hurried her back to the house and into the waiting arms of the wet nurse.

Janet gave Kate George’s message. “He was in a devil’s hurry, madam. Made all kinds of a racket up there. Dottie and me thought he must’ve lost summatt.”

Kate frowned and followed Molly upstairs. Outwardly, nothing appeared
out of place, but when Molly raised the lid of the big chest and saw the tangle of clothes and shoes, she muttered an oath. “Sweet Mother of God! Why would he look for anything in here? He knows it be your clothes chest, mistress. He never makes use of it.”

Kate was just as puzzled. She looked around the room for other signs of a search, and her eye fell on her precious box of letters and valuables. She snatched it up and sat down with it on her lap, fumbling through the keys on the string at her waist. She was about to fit the key into the lock when she saw it had been tampered with, and using her thumbs, easily pushed the lid open. “God’s teeth! He has been through my letters!”

She found Anne’s protective letter and saw it was empty. Her heart raced and beads of sweat formed on her upper lip. “What now?” she said aloud. She remembered she was not alone and looked over at Molly’s anxious face. “’Tis the worst, Molly. George has discovered who is Katherine’s father. Why, oh, why did I not burn Richard’s letter as I did the others? What an addle-pate!”

“But mistress, what would Master Haute do with the information?” Molly tried to reassure Kate. “He cannot harm a royal duke.”

“George is greedy, Molly. He will try to use the information to extract money from his grace. I must think.” To herself she said, But he is so stupid if he thinks that Richard doesn’t know the reason why we are man and wife in name only. Sweet Jesu, if I don’t do his thinking for him, he does not form one intelligent idea of his own.

Molly stood by as her mistress thought long and hard.

“’Tis not Richard who concerns me, Molly. He will deal with George in his quiet way. George is small fish to fry. And George should feel fortunate he is dealing with a good, honest man. But what if the letter falls into other hands? Someone more powerful than George who could hurt Richard? Oh, how half-witted of me not to burn the letter!” Kate slammed the lid and replaced the box on the table. “I must go and see Lady Howard and ask her advice. I shall be back anon.”

She left Molly to refold the dresses into the chest and went to see Margaret.