No Will But His (19 page)

She paused and looked at Kathryn. "Right well I knew that something was forward between Master Dereham and Mistress Kathryn Howard, for I am no fool, and I can see well enough. And I knew he went into the dormitory, sometimes. I have, in truth, told his uncle to seek him in her chambers, hoping this would give him the understanding he needed to talk with his nephew and stop anything that might be excessive. Alas, this did not happen, and alas it seems to me the affair was far more advanced than I believed.

"For once I questioned one of the wenches, Joan Bulmer, she right away told me everything I needed to know. How Alice Restwold had made free of my key and had it copied by a cunning artificer, and how each of the girls had been admitting lovers in to disport with them, long after they should have been asleep. How those lovers brought many good dainties to east. And she particularly told me how Francis Dereham—who before Kathryn was a devotee of Joan Bulmer herself—had spent more than a hundred nights in my granddaughter's bed."

Kathryn was crying. She realized it because she felt the tears falling down her cheeks, but she did not dare say anything or make any sound, as she was quite sure that her grandmother was working up to banish her forever from the house. Why else make reference to having taken her by charity and to relieve Edmund of her care? And where would she go, now?

She didn't dare look toward the duchess, so she looked toward her uncle who was sitting at her right side.

The duke gave her a pale smile. "And someone wrote Your Grace about it?" he said, and smiled broader and winked at Kathryn. "What madcap wenches you are," he said. "Can't you just make merry among yourselves without these falling outs?"

"It wasn't a wench who wrote me," the Duchess said, ponderously. "It was that Henry Manox who used to be Kathryn's music teacher."

A long silence stretched, during which Kathryn had time to realize that both her uncle and her aunt were as aware of her past indiscretions with Manox as her grandmother was.

Her aunt cleared her throat at long last and said, "Well, girl, beshrew my soul. You should be careful about this. Were these parties every night?"

Kathryn looked over at her aunt and nodded a meek yes.

"Well, then," Elizabeth Howard said, heatedly. "You should be careful, for you must know that so much eating every night will injure your figure. Only look you to Dorothy Barwick and—"

The Dowager Duchess coughed. "Well, let us hope, Elizabeth, that what she's been doing with Dereham hasn't already injured her figure."

The adults fell quiet till Kathryn suddenly realizing what those words tended toward said, "Oh, no! For we knew a way where we could . . ." She went red in the face. "Where no child would result."

The duke moaned softly, as though his worst suspicions had been confirmed and the dowager duchess said, "Mean you it truly went so far?"

"We were married," Kathryn said, hysterically. "Or at least we thought ourselves so, for we'd pledged our troth, and does not the law count that as married?" Her tears started again, on hearing the thin, desperate note in her voice, and she covered her face with her hands.

Nothing was said in the room, but she had the odd sense that the duke and the dowager duchess, his stepmother, who normally did not see things the same way, were looking at each other and forming some understanding.

At long last, the duke's fingers touched her arm. "Kathryn, listen, child, this never happened."

She rubbed her eyes to clear the tears, then looked at him. "But it did, milord. We pledged our troth, both of us, in my bed when he—"

"No, Kathryn, listen, it never happened." The duke looked intently at her. "Those words were never said, and he was never in your bed with you."

"But—"

"Child," the dowager duchess said. "I have told you before, and I will say it again. Do not be more stupid than you can help. Who is there to say any of this happened?"

"The . . . the other maids!"

The duchess made a gesture dismissing the other maids. "Unless they were in the bed with you, faith, they cannot know what you said, and besides, Kathryn, they cannot know what you did, not if you kept the bed curtains closed."

"Oh," Kathryn said, as the hope of escape presented itself to her. "There is . . ." she said. "Francis."

The Dowager made a clicking sound with her tongue. "Some of my gentlemen are having a talk with Master Dereham and, Kathryn, when they're done, he'll have no inclination at all to claim better acquaintance with you than of what can be seen between your dress and your bonnet."

"But . . ." Kathryn squirmed. Into her knowledge of what passed between her and Francis went her fascination with him and her love for him, or what she thought had been love. But had it truly? She thought of that moment in her bed, when he'd thought she'd changed her mind on her promises and how suddenly dangerous and ugly he looked, and she shivered, as though a window had opened somewhere, letting a cool breeze in. "But I did give him my promise. Of my own free will."

The duchess shook her head. "He knows more than you do, Kathryn, and he used you as he pleased. I would not doubt—not for a moment—that he has had such a string of broken promises at his back. He's a beautiful gentleman, is Francis Dereham, and he has a good head on his shoulders, generally, but . . . He's young, and I'm sure he hasn't reached his present age without pledging his troth to half-a-dozen maids, promises that he forgot when they were no longer convenient. This is why one doesn't do it without consent and not without proper witness."

"And sometimes even then," Elizabeth Howard said. "It is not all clear."

"No," the dowager said. "So, Kathryn, your uncle is right and this never happened. It was a dream you had and nothing more. We will talk to the other girls, also. Even Mistress Restwold will be given a chance at reprieve if they learn to hold their tongues."

"And if Francis is still inclined to talk . . ." the dowager said. "Well, there are other things that can be done. Things of a more permanent sort that will ensure he never again blackens your name."

"Indeed," the duke said. "You cannot let a mere scallywag like Francis, with hardly a feather to fly with, stand in your way. Not when you're so beautiful and talented at dance and music and . . ."

"And other arts which gentlemen love," his stepmother finished. "Only, listen, remember what I once told you about this—remember that as far as your husband, once you marry, is concerned, these arts are a closed book to you. Let him teach you, so that he can feel sure that he is always the most important, the central person in your life."

It seemed to Kathryn that her Aunt Elizabeth snorted, but all Kathryn did was nod.

"Good," the duchess said. "You shall go to your room and put your shirt on and go to sleep. And tomorrow we will pack to go to Lambeth in London. For we have arranged for you a most glittering marriage."

"With Thomas Culpepper," the duke said.

"My cousin?"

"Well . . ." the Dowager said. "I believe he is some form of cousin to you, though distant, but the more important thing here is that he is a well setup gentleman and has been raised, as it were, in the king's chambers and in the king's favors. Being well set and smart, there is nowhere he might not rise."

"Only of course, he cannot marry you while you remain wholly provincial," the duke said. "So we've arranged it so that before your marriage is announced, you shall go to court."

"To court, but . . ."

"Oh, there will be a queen soon enough, and the king is giving signs of reorganizing the ladies, so that the queen might have attendants. So we'll go to Lambeth and from there it will be easy to put in an application—which I believe your uncle has already made—that you should become one of the queen's maids-in-waiting."

"So you see, my poppet," her uncle said, patting her awkwardly on the arm, "how important it is that you be clean living and innocent with your maidenhead still intact and that you never have pledged your troth with any man."

"Yes, indeed," the duchess said. "It is a good thing you've been brought up so carefully. Otherwise, Lady Rutland, who oversees the ladies-in-waiting at court would never allow you in, for she's very strict about morality and upholding all such just standards."

Kathryn inclined her head. She still felt as though Francis Dereham were being unjustly treated, but it seemed as though, for his safety as well as hers, she must treat their love as though it had never happened.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Before leaving, Kathryn went to the stable to say her good-byes to the horse she'd ridden. Strangely, though she was not sure about her love with Francis nor anything that had passed between them, she remembered those rides fondly and wished that they'd stayed only at those rides.

She patted the horse and gave it an apple as a treat and then as she was crossing the yard toward the house, one of the stable boys intercepted her. He stopped in front of her, with his hat removed, and his head downcast, and she thought the man had lost his mind, or else was so lost in some form of thought that he did not see her.

Annoyed at his impertinence, she made to skirt him. But his hand shot out—a large hand, at the end of a muscular arm, a hand she knew all too well, and it held her by the wrist. "Stay, sweetheart. Stay."

Fearful she looked up at this man, who was clearly not a stable boy but Dereham: a Dereham with his hair in disarray, a thick stubble of dark beard upon all of his face, and, she noted as he smiled at her, two black eyes and a bruise covering all of the left side of his face.

Kathryn realized she must have made a sound of shock when he smiled at her and said, "It looks worse than it is, Kathryn. Worry not. It is nothing but a bruise, and I'd endure a thousand such for you."

She started to open her mouth to tell him that he must not speak like that. To tell him, for their safety, never to speak again about their betrothal.

But he shook his head. He looked hastily one way then the other, then whispered heatedly, "No, Kathryn, there's no time for that, and no time for long and sad good-byes, either. I am off, as I told you I might be, to the coast of Ireland on that enterprise I spoke to you about." As she started to open her mouth, he seemed to rush to speak. "Do not you worry. I'll take good care to keep my head upon my shoulders, and to keep myself hale and well so I can come back to my sweetheart. This thing with Culpepper, from what I understand, will take time to arrange. One of those slow negotiations between two old families. If God be with me, I should be able to make my fortune before then and come for you. And then, if your family still won't give their yes, we'll have the money so that we can go somewhere—perhaps France—and live without hardship. So wish me well, my sweet, and I shall be gone, to get both our futures."

Again, he looked both ways, and then he extended a tied bundle to her. It seemed like a very grubby handkerchief. "While I'm gone, keep this safe. If things come to an extremity and they're ready to drag you to a contract with this Culpepper, this money will allow you to run and hide yourself, and keep yourself safe till I come for you."

She opened her mouth, but she couldn't really refuse the money, which he was thrusting into her hand, without calling attention to their interaction. So far the only other people in the yard were stable boys and though one or two had looked curiously their way, none seemed disposed to interrupt them. In fact, Kathryn would lay a bet that Dereham had bribed them not to see them. But if she made any loud sound or argued, she was sure other people within the house at the other end of the yard would come to see what was happening or, at least, look out their windows.

Dereham said, "God bless you, Kathryn Howard, and keep you safe till I return for you."

Before he could quite go away, Kathryn heard words come out of her own lips, in a whisper that was slightly more than a sigh. "Take me with you!"

He turned around to look at her, and smiled, "What, my dear? So loathe to part?"

She nodded and felt tears come to her eyes. She wasn't sure herself that she understood what her crying was about. Part of her was enthralled with the idea of going to London. The court, and her memories of Thomas Culpepper conspired to paint a glittering picture of what lay ahead for her—even if Thomas had never brought her oranges.

And yet something else inside of her thought of Dereham and the coast of Ireland, and it seemed to her as a blessed refuge. It was, she realized, that she had never seen the court and her one meeting with Thomas Culpepper was so short as to qualify as none. She couldn't imagine putting herself in the hands of this man she knew not at all and making him her god on Earth.

And she was sure the court would be as bewildering as the duchess's household had first been—rules and events she didn't understand, all of it happening in a way no one would bother to explain. It was, in a way, as though she were leaving her father's house once more.

In Father's care, she might have suffered hunger and deprivations. She might have been ill kept and her clothes too short and too worn. But she'd known her father and her siblings, and understood the rules of living with them. In the duchess's household, she was not sure she understood all that was happening, even yet. And now she was about to step forward into a bigger and more complex household.

"Take me with you," she said in a rush. "I'd rather endure privations and danger by your side than stay here." And it was true, because though she probably would know nothing on shipboard, yet she would be with Francis Dereham whom, temper or not, she knew as well as she knew anyone.

But Francis only laughed at her, a bitter laugh deep in his throat. "It cannot be, my sweet, for women are held to be ill luck aboard ship, and besides, I'm not such a cad that I'd expose you to the mortal dangers I will face." He squared his shoulders, and she perceived he was doing his best to look powerful and strong. "Only you remain brave and faithful," he said. "And you shall see that before very long, I shall come and claim you."