No Will But His (18 page)

Oh, true, and she'd heard this, in cases when a husband decided to put his wife away or else claim the marriage had never happened, contracts such as theirs—no more than two children pledging troth in dark, with no sanction from any authority—were used as an excuse. But that's all they were ever used as—an excuse. There was nothing more in it, and she didn't remember a single case when authorities bowed to the pre-contract of two mere lovers.

"But you . . . can't you offer for me, Francis?" she asked softly. "Then we could be contracted to be married, and no one could separate us."

"We are contracted to be married, and no one can separate us," Dereham said.

She shook her head. "We are contracted, it is true. But—"

The dark eyes acquired a dangerous shine. She'd seen it before, when Dereham looked hard at a man whom he thought was disputing his word or contesting his place. Sometimes he even looked that way at his friend Edward Waldgrave. "Mean you to play me false?" he asked. "To forget our contract as though it had never happened. I warn you, Kathryn—"

She didn't want to know of what he warned her. She cut in with, "No, no. I mean to play you true. I mean to be your wife in law as I am in troth, but, Francis—"

"Do you not but me, Kathryn Howard, for of sure fact you are plighted to me in the eyes of God and if you were to lay with any other man, it would be adultery."

His voice had risen so much that Kathryn was sure it would be heard all through the dormitory. She thought that the other sounds, out there, of laughter and voices and kisses, had stopped. She thought everyone out there was eagerly listening to them. She swore they were even holding their breath as they listened to their argument.

She put her finger to her lips then spoke in a whisper, "Calm yourself, Francis. I never mean to lay with another, ever. You are my husband and I am your wife." Even as she said it she felt a little shiver, for she'd never meant to tie herself to a man who'd ill-treat her or behave as if he owned her, and from the dark look in Dereham's eyes, it seemed to her that he was just one such. How had she never seen it before? He'd always seemed so easygoing, such a gentle lover.

"But you said," he said, his voice somewhat lower, "that you might have to marry whomever your family decides."

She shook her head. "It is not like that. Only that. . . . Surely you understand my wishes are never made much of. And then, you know, no woman gets much say in whom she marries . . ."

"You just tell them that you're pre-contracted," he said. "And they cannot force you." But he must have caught the look of fear on her face, because he ran his hand gently down her cheek. "Ah, Kathryn," he said. "What a foolish girl you are. If you are already married, how can they make you marry another?"

She sighed. "Only, I'd feel much better," she said, desperately thinking of another way to tell him her thoughts, one that would not cause him to upbraid her for unfaithfulness or lack of love, "if you could ask my grandmother for my hand. Sure she'd give it to you, for she likes you well. And then we could be married in the eyes of the world, as well, and you could kiss me in public if you so wished."

He laughed, a laughter that sounded sad at the same time. "Ah, Kathryn. If only it were that simple. Oh, it is true that the dowager likes me well enough . . . How well, I don't know, but she grants me much indulgence. I've long suspected she knew how it was between us, too, for when my uncle came looking for me, he says she told him that if he could not find me anywhere else, he should look in Kathryn Howard's chamber." He shook his head, slightly, as though considering the strangeness of his elders.

"But she hasn't punished us," Kathryn said. "You see, she approves of you!"

Francis laughed again, that odd, broken laughter that seemed amused at itself. "Of me, perhaps, Kathryn, but not of my fortune. My birth is well enough, I'll give you that, as is my means . . . but not enough to marry the daughter of a Howard."

"But I am the daughter of a penniless Howard," she said, softly. "My father . . . if only you knew it. He lived on my mother's fortune and then the fortune of his next wife and then . . . I heard that he had died, or at least the duchess talks of him as though he'd died, so perhaps his last wife, Dame Margaret, managed to keep some of the money she brought into the union. But between his marriages, we lodged at common boarding houses, or else we presented ourselves, all ten ill-dressed children, at the door of better-heeled relatives and made ourselves guests there for as long as we could before they turned us out. My clothes were small and much mended, my food was scant, and there was never any money for masters . . ."

He shook his head. "And yet all that matters not, for you are still a Howard, and still the granddaughter of a duke. If you were begging in the gutter, yet you would be above my means. I misdoubt your grandmother will let you go to anyone with less than a manor at their command, and I don't have that, nor will I have it, unless my uncle dies and dies childless."

"What then?" Kathryn said. "Yes, yes, I can tell them I am pre-contracted, but you know they have means to make me obey."

She was afraid he'd be angry again, but this time he wasn't. Instead, he seemed to be deep in thought. He shrugged at her. "Well," he said. "We will . . . There is perhaps an enterprise I may join, off the coast of Ireland. It involves . . . some business in which it is possible to make enough money to amass a fortune overnight."

"Privateer?" she asked, having heard of some of these enterprises.

He shrugged. "Something like," he said. "But not quite." He frowned, his features becoming for a moment cold and dark and distant. "I do not care what risks I run, nor even if I die, Kathryn, only you stay faithful to me till I come back."

And then, as though he were a man dying of thirst, who'd been lost in the desert a long time, he tore at her shirt, pulling it up in a passion, till he had her wholly naked upon the bed. And then he fell on her, kissing her—her forehead, her eyelids, her lips, her chin, her neck with light butterfly kisses; her breasts with kisses so rough and hard that she cried out; and then continued kissing down her stomach and her legs to her feet, and then back up again.

When his face was close to hers, she was shocked to see that he was crying, great tears falling down his face and dripping from his well-trimmed beard. "Ah, Kathryn, the thought that I might lose you makes me want to end my life, entire. Ah, Kathryn."

She squirmed under his touch, and she could tell that he was serious, and she could tell that he was passionate and indeed that he was starving for her touch and her kisses and her love.

But for the first time in their lovemaking, she felt much as she had with Manox—something had put a distance between them. His display of temper, she thought, and the way he had looked at her, as though he might crush her in the pursuit of his desires. It seemed to her that there was another Francis Dereham beneath the man she knew, one that she'd never encountered, one that she was not absolutely sure that she wanted to be exposed to.

It was this Francis, she thought, who was ravaging her now, for his lips and hands were rougher than they need be, and he seemed to be slaking his appetites on her more than caring if she enjoyed it or, indeed, if she experienced any pleasure in his touch.

His hands moved only to feel her, and his lips kissed her hard and rough, and now his fingers were between her thighs, probing at her most secret place, but he hadn't noticed that she just lay back or that her body was perfectly unresponsive to his probing. He didn't seem to know or care if she were as inflamed with his passion as he was. Not even as he entered her and called her name, softly, many times.

She felt the rise and fall of the rhythms of passion in her body as though it were happening to someone else. Her head turned, she was looking through the thick, dark, bed curtains, and seeing the candles flicker out there and the candle flames move, as someone wished more light for what he was doing.

The lute played plangently, and she heard someone laugh loudly—she thought it was Dorothy Barwick. And then a murmur of voices. Dereham was panting, as he thrust into her. How could she feel so distant from it all? Was he not her husband before God? Had she not pledged her troth to him? And why did some part of her very much hope that wasn't true, even if it meant that by allowing him this liberty, she was a slut.

Dereham whispered once more, with feeling, "Kathryn!" and collapsed upon her, his weight only prevented from crushing her by his taking his weight upon his elbows.

"Sluts, slatterns, abandoned women," a voice yelled and for a moment—for the time of a breath—Kathryn thought that it was her conscience that was upbraiding her.

Then Dereham jumped and started frantically doing up his codpiece, and she realized the voice had sounded from outside and, in fact, was no other voice than Mary Lassells. "What a pretty party to be having here, when her ladyship is abed and your dormitory is supposed to be locked!" Mary Lassells yelled. "Sweetmeats and wine and all. What a pretty pastime for ladies and gentlemen to be meeting thus in this place, like common thieves and gluttons."

There was a pause. Kathryn could hear shuffling and movement out there, and one or two girls were crying, but she could not imagine what was happening from the sound of it. She pulled her knees up and into her, and hugged them fiercely, while she closed her eyes and prayed with all her might that God might protect her, and that Lassells and whoever else was out there—for she doubted that Lassells alone would cause that much consternation—would simply think that she was asleep.

Dereham must have thought the same thing, for he rolled off the bed, and she could hear him squeezing himself into the dusty space underneath.

Confirming Kathryn's worst fears, the duchess's voice sounded, loud and ominous. "Put all those foodstuffs into that basket there. I doubt not you've been raiding my pantry, for else, where would you have got such. Mistress Alice Restwold, you may pack your things separately from those of us who will be going to Lambeth, for you will be returning to your father's household upon daybreak with a full account of what I saw with mine own eyes between you and Master Waldgrave. How your father deals with you, it is his choice, though I've been told it was you who stole my key and had it copied, and were you mine I would have you beaten then sent abroad to some foreign convent. But you're your father's daughter, and he may do with you as you please."

Kathryn shivered, and she prayed harder. She could hear steps out there, but she didn't realize anyone was approaching her bed, till the curtain was torn open, and she found Mary Lassells staring at her. Then she heard the tap-tap of the duchess's walking stick, and she thought that it would presently fall upon her, but instead, the duchess said, sharply, in a tone that made it clear she was being sarcastic, "Oh, and look. Here is my virtuous granddaughter, sitting all alone amidst the debauchery. Be it not that she sleeps naked, she could be the most honorable maiden in the kingdom."

Kathryn looked at the duchess with piteous eyes, trying to form a lie in her mind, but none would come. The only words that came to her mouth were, "Oh, please—"

At that moment a sneeze sounded from beneath the bed. In less time than it takes to say it, the duchess had fallen upon her knees with quickness that should be impossible for a lady so advanced in years, and she was thrusting her stick under the bed.

There was a loud yelp, and then Dereham shot out the other side on his hands and knees.

The candles had gone out, and so, though Kathryn could see he was grabbed by two tall men, she could not tell who the men were. She gave them no thought, at any rate, sure they were the sort of men that her grandmother kept around her whenever she needed strength and muscle. "Take him away," the duchess said drily. "And teach him a lesson he won't soon forget for daring to meddle with a Howard."

She looked back at Kathryn. "As for you, you must come with me and we must talk."

Kathryn, in expectation of the stick falling upon her, tried to grab at her shirt but failed, and instead got the sheet. This she wrapped around her as her grandmother herded her with the walking stick out of the room and onto the silent hallway and stairwell, leaving Mary Lassells and however many strong men behind to deal with the rest of the unruly dormitory.

Chapter Twenty-six

Kathryn was crying by the time they arrived at the Duchess's chambers, clutching her sheet around her and trying to look as though she had been innocent, though she rather suspected from what had passed that her grandmother knew far too much to be taken in such a way by mere pretending.

The duchess pushed Kathryn onto a chair and only then did Kathryn notice several things: that the room was well illuminated, with multiple candles on several locations, both on the wall and at various tables. And second, that two people were sitting on chairs, on either side of the one onto which Kathryn had been pushed.

The people, she saw but could not understand, were her uncle the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Howard, and his wife, Elizabeth.

Since it was well known that the duke and his wife lived at daggers drawn with each other over the fact that the duke had taken a mere laundress for his mistress and sired several children upon her, it seemed odd to see them both in the same place at the same time. The dowager duchess herself had told Kathryn more than once that she had rarely seen the two in the same room and sometimes she thought they had divided the house in such a way that they need not run into each other.

Even now, they were not looking at each other, and only slowly turned to look at her, even as the duchess circled around the three to go sit in front of them, facing them, as though she were a judge evaluating their sins.

"I had a letter today," she started, after she sat down, speaking in that brusque manner she had, as though she were continuing an interrupted conversation and everyone should know what she'd said before that. "That displeased me much. It was left at my seat in the chapel during the evening mass, and you may judge how it distracted me from my prayers when I read its contents." She nodded. "It told me that my granddaughter, Kathryn Howard, a wench I brought onto my household out of the goodness of my heart and to lighten the burden of her father, Edmund, may God rest his errant soul, had not only been entertaining Master Francis Dereham, but she had, if you please, pledged her troth to him. Like that, with no blessing and no permission. And they've been calling themselves husband and wife, as though all were proper in their relationship."