No Will But His (27 page)

He kissed her again and again, and he felt her body all over, but she could tell—his breath didn't quicken, and he gave no signs of nearing that point of madness that Dereham reached before he took her—that his body had not responded as it should have.

Also his touch was maddening her and not in the way that Dereham's touch had inflamed her. It was not a pleasurable touch, but it seemed to stop just short of anything that could lead to her pleasure.

His large, clumsy hands, very dry and cold, felt now her sides, then squeezed her breasts, touched her thigh, then squeezed her belly, all of it in haphazard manner. It was—Kathryn thought—like the efforts of an untutored and tune-deaf girl when first faced with a virginal, pounding the keys at random and hoping, somehow that from the discord music would emerge.

She surprised herself with the thought that if this marriage were to work at all, she was going to have to teach the king to play her body as it should be played. But she understood enough of men to know that she couldn't seem to teach him. And certainly not tonight.

Well she minded the duchess's injunction that the man she married should think he was the first, if not the only, and thinking he was the first, he could not be shown that his wife knew more than he did.

No, she would have to teach him little by little with small touches, smaller gestures, and most of all with the expression of her pleasure. Only if she did that, would she be able to teach him without hurting his pride.

As for tonight, something else must be done, and the something else she elected to do was to let her own hands roam over the king's body, from his face—lingering on the red beard that was starting to show traces of grey—down his strong neck to caress his shoulders, then his chest, then trace their path down to his member.

It was smaller than Dereham's but not by much, and when she touched it, it was just as soft and velvety as Dereham's had been. She felt it hardening under her hands and made sure not to grip it in such a way that would betray her experience, but to touch it again and again, over and over, just like she'd done to Dereham when, perhaps, he'd drunk too much or perhaps was too tired for his manhood to spring to life instantly.

Leaning close to the king, she kissed his cheek, again and again and again. "How strong you are, my lord," she said, making sure that her eyes and her voice and everything confirmed her admiration. "How wonderful your body is, so virile, so manly, compared to me who am so slight and so weak."

Her words did it, and his manhood sprang to full life under her hands.

He took her upon the soft feather mattress and the feather bed. It seemed to her that it lasted very little—as little as her first joining with Dereham. And yet the king looked satiated and satisfied, as he leaned over to kiss her. "My rose without a thorn," he said. "In your arms I feel young again.

Chapter Thirty-seven

Kathryn woke up in an empty bed, staring at an embroidered canopy. Light came through the wrought  linen of the bed curtains, and from outside she could hear people moving.

She knew, from serving Anne of Cleves, that well before the queen woke, her chamberers and maids would be busy in the room: warming the queen's clothes by the fire, preparing water for her washing, getting everything ready to spare Her Majesty the smallest discomfort.

Save the discomfort, of course, of having her entire life take place in front of strangers; she was always on display.

Pulling her chemise around her, she sat up in bed and made to open the curtains, which were brought fully open by Lady Margaret Douglas. Lady Margaret was the king's twenty-five-year-old niece, a woman of such headstrong character that four years ago she had secretly married Lord Thomas Howard. The affair had ended with Lord Howard in the Tower and then his death, for daring to marry without the king's permission.

But she had been one of Anne of Cleves ladies-in-waiting and met Kathryn, and Kathryn had done her best to draw this odd royal widow out. Now, Lady Douglas seemed to be enjoying life in a quiet way and had become the chief of Kathryn's ladies, holding the same position as Lady Rutland had held under Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves.

"Good morning, Your Majesty," she said.

"Good Morning, Lady Douglas," Kathryn said, and, looking confused, added, "How late is it?"

"Why, dawn has barely broken, Your  Majesty."

"But . . . where is the king, my husband?" she asked, of a sudden fearful that in her embraces, the king had detected that bit of experience that told him he was not the only and certainly not the first and that even now he was somewhere, plotting to have her seized, perhaps to have her executed. For was it not treason to not let the king know you were not a virgin?

But Lady Douglas only laughed. "His Majesty is out, with his gentlemen, my lady, for bright and early did he ride to the hounds."

"The hounds?"

"He went hunting, milady," Lady Douglas said, and smiled. "He said he felt most marvelous refreshed and as though he were as young as you are."

Kathryn blushed, but got up and submitted to the ministrations of her various maids as she had once watched Anne of Cleves do it. As she did so, Lady Douglas, standing a little aside, talked to her.

"Your Majesty has received several petitions," she said. "For advancement or else for a post at court."

"Do we have vacancies, then?" she asked. "In my household?"

Lady Douglas smiled. "The Lady of Cleve's German maids have left to go with her to Richmond, and that left some openings. But more than that, my lady, it is customary for the new queen to give posts in her household to friends and relatives."

"But—" Kathryn started, meaning to say she had no friends or relatives in need of such bounty.

She was interrupted by Lady Douglas. "Your mother, now widowed, has asked, of your goodness, whether she might not join your household."

"My mother!" Kathryn said, thinking she might be dreaming. She could but dimly remember that Jocasta Culpepper, who had been her mother, but she did know that Jocasta had died, giving birth to yet another child, who had died himself aborning.

"Your father's third wife, Lady Margaret Howard, Lady Margaret Jennings, as was."

Kathryn remembered Dame Margaret more clearly. She remembered her coming into the household and making her rules and buying Kathryn a very pretty gown and . . . sending her off to become someone else's responsibility. She barely prevented herself from protesting that Dame Margaret had never so much as given her the promised oranges, but instead she closed her eyes.

It would be so easy to take revenge. Much too easy. She understood now why people would go in trembling from fear of the king, who could not only separate their heads from their bodies, but also deny them posts and advancement. She might be able to have people killed—from what she understood, Anne had, though it required much more work than simply ordering it done.

 However, because she could  have people put to death did not mean she need to do so In fact, perhaps it meant she shouldn't, for such a power could be its own undoing. She couldn't avoid one part of being a queen: that no one would show her a real face or a true emotion; that no one would tell her, "I like thee not," even if it were true. What she could avoid was the other part. She could avoid knowingly and by her actions giving people reason to like her not or cause them to hate her in secret till they could do her a wrong.

She remembered all too well the closed-in feuds in the dormitory at Horsham. How one girl could hate another forever over a stolen hair ribbon or a man's attention.

But those at least had been open feuds, not the sort of dark, closed in feelings where someone hated you but would not let you know. Where the hatred festered and grew till . . . Till like Jane Boleyn's hatred and jealousy of Anne Boleyn erupted in absurd accusations of incest, which in her madness, she might have believed at the time.

No. Kathryn would not tread hard upon the halls of power. She inclined her head. She had two hundred women. She wouldn't even notice her stepmother among the lot. And then, if she did, what did it mean? She doubted Dame Margaret hated her or even despised her. Doubtless sending Kathryn away had just been what any woman in her circumstances would do, trying to lessen the expenses of a spendthrift and all too fertile husband.

"Tell Lady Margaret Howard," she said, gently, "That I will be glad to find her a place in my household, and then, pray, do you so, Lady Douglas, as I am none too sure how the household is arranged yet."

"Certainly, Your Majesty," Lady Douglas said, even as the chamberers were lowering Kathryn's overgown over her head and cinching it in place.

"And while at it, does Lady Rochefort have a place in my household?"

Lady Douglas hesitated. "Your . . . your grandmother, Lady Howard, she said–"

Kathryn could well imagine what she'd said. Poor Jane had very few friends, since everyone knew she had as good as murdered her husband, even if she'd used the block and the executioner's ax to do it. But if that one sin were held against her all her life . . . and besides, she'd suffered more from her crime than anyone else, arguably perhaps even more than the man she'd killed. "Send word to Lady Rochefort that I'll always have a place for her in my household. She might be what she is, but she's always been a good friend to me."

"If Your Majesty so wishes," Lady Douglas said, and bowed her head. "But . . ."

"I know. But I do so wish."

Lady Douglas sighed. In this, too, Kathryn realized, she was different now. No one would offer her unwanted advice. No one would push upon her their own opinions. All she had to do was say "I do so wish" or "I do so intend" and all resistance would melt.

"I should also tell Your Majesty that we've received a very ill-spelt letter from a woman who calls herself your old friend and dormitory fellow Mary Tilney, who also wishes for a place in your household."

"Mary Tilney!" Kathryn said, this time with nothing but pleasure. "Of course. Please, find her a place where I can see her often and we can reminisce of our days as girls together. You see, she was the person who showed me around my grandmother's house and . . . and helped me with everything when I first joined."

With that Lady Douglas was dismissed, and the queen left her chamber in the midst of a group of her ladies to hear mass.

The king didn't return till the evening.

He came in, bluff and hail, his walking stick quite forgotten, full of sparkling stories about his hunt. By the light of the tapers placed upon the table next to them, he looked younger and almost handsome.

Kathryn knew well enough, from hearing Dereham tell of his exploits, few of which interested her at all, how to keep gentlemen talking, even if she were on the verge of falling asleep from sheer disinterest. There was the smile and the touch and the admiring exclamation.

All of them worked on the king just as though he had been the most inexperienced of courtiers, quite unready for female admiration. He talked fast and happily, of stags missed and stags brought to earth and of his dogs and horses, which were in dire need of exercise.

"I've been a laggard, sweetheart. I see now," he said. "Jane's death so took the joy out of my life that I did not have the strength to do anything and, therefore, let myself get old before my time. But you know, I am not yet quite half a century. That's not so bad, is it?"

And Kathryn, suppressing a quick, lancing pain at the thought that she herself was still far short of a quarter century, said loudly and well, hoping she heard it herself and believed it, "Certainly not!"

The king's eyes sparkled as he smiled at her. "Aye, my rose, I know I am older than you, but the thing is, when you touch me, I feel as though I were young again. I regret only that I can't be truly your age, and live my lifelong with you and sire many children."

"Your Majesty will live many long years yet," she said, laughing. "Perhaps another half century. And we shall see many strong children grow to manhood."

He got out of his seat nimbly, like a young man, and knelt at her feet, kissing both her hands. "May it be as you say, sweetheart," he said, as his eyes sparkled at her, full of love.

That night, by small touches and directions, she started teaching him how to pleasure a woman.

Chapter Thirty-eight

In August they moved to Windsor. Kathryn traveled in comfort in a curtained litter, with a company of ladies. Strangely, the only ones she felt comfortable with were Mary Tilney and Jane Boleyn. The first because Kathryn had known Mary so long, and even if Mary tried not to tell her the truth, Kathryn could read it in Mary's eyes and expressions. The second, because Jane was mad, and being mad she could always say what she pleased, even if often she said it while speaking to the clear air or to that shade of George Boleyn that seemed never to be very far from her thoughts or her sight.

It hadn't been a merry trip like the ones that Kathryn had made with her fellows from the dormitory when she was single. Without being told she guessed it would be unseemly for the queen to sing and make merry jests while in her litter with her ladies-in-waiting.

She did play a little on her lute to pass the time. But most of all, she looked out through a slight opening in the curtains at the dun-colored fields. Here and there, she saw cattle lying about and from the smell perceived they were dead. Men and women lined the roads she passed, their caps removed, their heads bowed. They didn't call her whore or harlot, as they'd called out to poor Anne Boleyn on the night of her coronation, but the voices in which they called out, "Long live Your Majesty" and "God bless Queen Kathryn," were more subdued than not.

It wasn't till they arrived in Windsor, while she was washing away the dust from travel in warm water in front of the fireplace, that she could ask Lady Douglas, "What is it? The plague?"

Lady Douglas shook her head. "Faith," she said. "There are rumors of the plague in London, and that is why the king's majesty doesn't see fit to take you there. But that is not what causes this in the countryside."