No Will But His (16 page)

And then she felt cold lips at the back of her neck, while cold fingertips pulled her hair aside, so that the lips may kiss her. "Kathryn, sweetheart. It is I."

She turned, still half asleep, and looked into Francis Dereham's dark eyes, barely visible by the light of the moon, which came through the window and bathed the room.

"Oh," she said, rubbing her eyes.

He smiled at her. "How prettily you sleep," he said, "like an innocent child, and so beautiful, I thought it would break my heart to wake you."

He smelled of roses, she thought, which made sense if he had climbed up the trellis that went from the ground to the window of the dormitory, since that trellis this time of year was loaded with fat, open red roses.

He now produced just one of those roses, and caressed her forehead and nose with its velvety petals. "It waylaid me on my way up the trellis," he said, and smiled. "It asked me where I was going, and I told it that I was going to see one who was far fairer than the moon up in the sky and, force, much brighter than the sun during the day, and then it begged me that I should pick it off it its stem and carry it up to you. And so I did. I had to hold it in my teeth, since both hands and feet were to be used for the climbing, but how could I refuse the wish of a flower that desired but to see true beauty before it wilted and died?"

She giggled, as he kissed the rose, then laid it upon her chest. Looking around she perceived he had opened the bed curtain a little to come in and hadn't bothered to close it after. Through that opening the moonlight came, and she liked the way it shone upon is face, making him seem very pale, and his eyes and hair darker than ever. But she dared not be like this, with him, in bed, and the curtain open. Let the curtain be closed, she thought and provided they speak in whispers, no one would know that he was not Alice.

He objected to the comparison, even as he closed the curtain. "Fie. You cannot think I sound like Alice, even in a whisper. Surely my manly and distinguished voice sends different vibrations through you."

Kathryn blinked. "Art drunk?"

"Only from your presence," he said, and grinned disarmingly. "Your eyes have bewitched me, your smile has entranced me, the sound of your voice makes me stumble like one quite out of his senses, and your smell"—he inhaled deeply—"is far sweeter than that of any rose. If I have to die, fair Kathryn, let me die in your presence."

"I think you are drunk."

"In truth, I am not. Only happy that after so much waiting I have finally made it here. Alice, who does not treasure the joy of sharing your bed as she should, is off to her secret room with that laggard Edward Waldgrave, and I am here with you for the night, when I am all yours. What do you think we should do, Kathryn?"

Kathryn, smelling the rose, looked shyly at him. "Well," she said. "I would like to kiss you."

"Well, then kiss me you shall," he said. "Provided only that I may be allowed to kiss you also."

She started to protest that he was drunk or mad, but he didn't give her time, as he leaned in and closed her lips with a kiss.

Kathryn was afraid he would be like Manox and that after kissing her he would want to lift her shirt and look under it at her body and feel her skin and perhaps even kiss more intimate parts than Kathryn had ever thought anyone would want to kiss. But he did not do so. Instead he kissed her and let her kiss him, their lips joining, their bodies pressed against each other, until it seemed that the only breath they could draw was through each other's mouth.

After a long time, Kathryn, blissful, happy in Dereham's arms, felt her eyes closed and was kissed, face and forehead, nose and lips, very gently, until presently sleep enveloped her completely in arms as soft and loving as those of any lover. She tumbled, headlong into them and woke up the next morning with Alice asleep next to her.

She would have thought it was all a dream, except that next to her on the floor was a red rose, starting to wilt for lack of water. She reached out a hand and touched the velvety petals with her fingers. She had not dreamed it. Dereham had been here and—oh—how sweet he'd been.

Chapter Twenty-one

"We must do something," Alice said. They were in their bed, once more, side by side, sitting up with their backs against the log that served them as a head rest.

"Something to make it easier for them to get into the dormitory?" Kathryn asked.

Alice inclined her head to one side, as though agreeing and thinking at the same time. "Yes," she said.

It had been many days now that Dereham had come up the trellis and that she'd fallen asleep kissing him. And now Alice said, "I can get the key from Her Grace, mind you, it's only . . ."

"It's only?" Kathryn said.

"That key or no key, even when I get it, we must hide and make sure that the rest of the room does not wake. And I think it is no way to conduct an affair, and so I've thought, and I've thought, and I've talked to the other women. All of them have beaus, you know, save only Dorothy Barwick," she said. "But her I think we can tempt with sweetmeats and other dainties."

Dorothy was the least attractive of the maidens, and her lack of attraction was due to her love of sweetmeats and other dainties, which had caused her to grow fat and so slow that she could get her wind up climbing two flights of stairs to their dormitory.

"So what do you propose to do?" Kathryn said.

"Only this," Alice said, her eyes sparkling, if with the joy of intrigue or because she genuinely loved Edward Waldgrave, Kathryn could not say. "Next time I get the key from the duchess, I shall give it to Edward, who says he can make a mold of it from wax and can get a copy made from that mold by a cunning smith he knows."

"Oh, it would be marvelous if he did that!" Kathryn said.

Alice smiled. "He is quite sure he can," she said. "And Edward says that he and Francis will be quite happy to bring in dainties—sweetmeats and oranges and all sorts of sweets and wondrous foods, only . . ."

"Only?" Kathryn said.

"Only you have to talk with Dorothy Barwick, because she likes you far better than she likes me."

"Oh, no," Kathryn said. "Dorothy doesn't like anyone."

"Not very much, no. And if you looked like her, perhaps you might not also," Alice said. "But among all the women in our dormitory that Dorothy hates, shall we say she despises you a little less than the rest."

Kathryn sighed. "I cannot imagine why."

"Oh, my dear, because you are the granddaughter of the duchess and play music very well and are very pretty. Dorothy is convinced you shall go far and, doubtless, wishes to hitch her star to yours, which, you must admit, is her only chance to get somewhere."

Kathryn was not all too sure, but after Dereham came and went, the next morning she endeavored to find some way to get close enough to Dorothy to speak to her without anyone else listening in and in such a way that Dorothy might be inclined to grant Kathryn a favor.

She found it by lingering after breakfast, having finished her ale and half of her bread, she sat taking dainty bites of the remaining bread and cheese, while everyone else left the table. Everyone but Dorothy. It was a well-known habit of Dorothy's to wait till all the others left the table, and to eat any leftover bread and cheese that they had chanced to leave behind.

This time, before she reached for the next abandoned slice of bread, Dorothy cast Kathryn a sidelong glance, and asked, "Do you wish—"

"No, no," Kathryn said, and pushed her own bread across the table at the other girl. "I only stayed because I wished to speak to you."

Dorothy took the bread, but her jaws stopped mid chew. "With me? About what?"

"Well, you know . . . some of us have . . . That is, there are gentlemen who care a great deal for some of the maids in the dormitory."

Dorothy looked at her a while with an expression that was somewhere between confusion and disgust. At length, she spoke. "I know Alice and the others have long since allowed men to whom they are not married to break their maidenhead," she said. "Sinners all. God shall have no mercy for them."

"Not their maidenheads," Kathryn said, in an appeasing tone, vowing to pay Alice back for setting her this hopeless task. "Or not all of them. I for one am still a virgin."

Dorothy looked at her then shrugged. "Not for long. Beauty is a snare that the devil sets to catch men and women in the sin of lust. It is said," she said, in the tone of one making a deep pronouncement, "that Lilith was beautiful."

Kathryn bit her tongue. Were she being her natural self, she would tell Dorothy that food was a trap the devil set to catch men and women in the sin of gluttony. But it seemed hardly worth her while, and besides, it was likely to kill any chance she might have to get Dorothy to wink at their own transgressions. "Well," she said. "And it may be so, but it is no great sin we're after, but only . . . only a little amusement in the evening. Music and gentlemen visitors and some . . . and some food. The gentlemen are willing to bring dainties. Sweetmeats and oranges and other good things to eat."

Dorothy looked up at her a long time. For a while Kathryn was afraid she would call out or say she was going to the duchess and tell her what was afoot. But instead, Dorothy chewed in silence, eating Kathryn's slice of bread and another slice of cheese, and then yet another slice of bread and cheese that one of the maids who had left had forgotten behind upon the table.

"And I would have my share of these dainties?" she asked. "Even though I have no lover."

"Oh, you'll have your share of the dainties," she said. "We will let you pick first."

As the other girl nodded, Kathryn thought that it might be easier to procure a willing man to be Dorothy's lover than to bring enough dainties to satisfy her.

Chapter Twenty-two

It turned out neither was so difficult, either finding enough sweetmeats to satisfy Dorothy Barwick or finding her a lover, for once word of the maids revelries spread, it became a point of hankering for the other gentlemen in the household to wish to join in the revelry, just to be near that many beautiful women and to partake in the dainties and the feast by candlelight.

Kathryn never knew if the rather heavy young man, the scion of a local squire family, was truly taken with Dorothy or only appeared to be so to be allowed to follow these other, more socially accomplished men, into a place where all of them hankered to be. It could be either, though the young man and Dorothy sat together and kissed a lot, and Dorothy seemed to eat less and smile more than she was used to.

Other than that, the whole thing was very easy. Easier than a dream. Now that they had a key to the maids' dormitory, the young men would arrive by twos and threes, sneaking up the stairs and getting in through the unlocked door, which was locked only after their number was fully admitted.

They brought, as they had promised, candles and sweetmeats, oranges and wine, and whatever other dainties they could acquire. By candlelight, the dormitory became something of an enchanted realm where no desire was fully forbidden and where they could engage in revels, without fear of censure from their elders.

There weren't enough beds that each couple might have one, but people didn't mind sitting by the wall, on the floor, embracing and kissing. In fact, many was the time that Kathryn and Francis did just that, holding each other and kissing, so that Alice and Edward could have the bed that Alice and Kathryn were supposed to share.

Wine was passed back and forth in cups and flagons, sweetmeats were eaten, and jokes and jests enjoyed. Kathryn played the lute sometimes and sang, taking care not to project her voice too high, that she might not wake the maids in the other dormitories or, worse yet, the duchess herself.

They ate and they drank, they sang and they kissed.

And then one day Kathryn found herself under the covers with Dereham, the curtains around the bed closed. Dereham was in his doublet, which she unfastened, questing with her fingers, to feel his shirt and beneath it is chest and muscles. He let her feel as far as she would, and then he flipped her, so she was on her back, and gently, carefully, giving her full chance to say no, he lifted her shirt.

"Such pretty duckies," he said, as he ran his hand over her breasts. "A pair of twin duckies such as I've never seen, lifelong."

She laughed at him, but it came out shaky, for the movement of his fingers upon her skin, tracing the contour of each of her breasts and feeling along them with reverent care, seemed to send her quite out of her mind. She arched into his hands, as he caressed her, and his lips joined his hands in exploring her body. "Ah, Mistress Howard, how beautiful you are," he said. "And how much I love you."

She let him touch her and caress her, until she was all aflame with his lust for her and till she wanted him as much as he wanted her. And then she turned, and she made him lie back, and she quite undid his doublet and felt his chest, and down his flat belly, onto his codpiece, where his penis could be felt, through the velvet, erect and hot and pressing against her hands as she pressed back at it. Quite without knowing what she did, she found her fingers untying the ribbons on his codpiece and setting his penis free. It felt hot and velvety against her hands as she caressed it.

Francis arched his back and moaned, and the curtains on the bed parted, and a head poked through. "Hark to Francis Dereham, broken winded," Edward Waldgrave said, sounding much the worse for drink.

Kathryn pulled her shirt down and shrieked, and Dereham pulled a blanket over to cover himself. He laughed feebly in his friend's direction, even as Waldgrave announced, "It is time to go, now, love birds, for it is not possible to stay here and love till dawn, since the servants, and the duchess and all the rest would be bound to notice it."

Dereham made a sound that wasn't quite words, which signified that he knew this well, and when Waldgrave had retreated, he turned to Kathryn, "And now, my love, now, will you pledge to marry me? For I can't imagine myself being happy with any other woman but you, and if it requires me to work or adventure or do what I must to get enough of a fortune to aspire to your hand, I will do so. Only, fair Kathryn, say that you will marry me, and be my own sweet wife."