The Lady Elizabeth (27 page)

“What am I to do, Kat?” Elizabeth wept. “I do not want to leave. I am very happy here. I love the Queen, who has shown me so much affection, and I like the Admiral. How could I abandon them?”

“I think you would do well to heed the Lady Mary,” Kat urged her, grateful for an unexpected ally. “I must confess, I had misgivings when you told me you had given this marriage your blessing. Elizabeth, your father the King was but lately dead; you must see that it was ill timed, to say the least.”

Elizabeth looked uncertain.

“Yes, it was too soon,” she agreed. “I did think so. But apart from the fact that they did not wait a decent interval, the Queen and the Admiral are lawfully wed. It’s not as if they are living in sin. And I have been so happy here that I will not say anything against their marriage. Truly, I wish them well, and I will stand up to my sister and tell her. Tactfully, of course.”

“Is that wise?” Kat asked. “I am only considering your reputation, you understand. I make no judgment against the Queen and the Admiral.”

“Dear Kat.” Elizabeth smiled, curling an arm around her. “You are ever thoughtful on my behalf. I do understand your concern, but I tell you it is needless. I will write to my sister tonight. I will dissemble and tell her that all is well with me here, that things are not quite as she perceives them, and that I will wait to see how matters turn out. Is that not the best course? After all, neither Mary nor myself has any power to change what has happened. We must make the best of what we cannot remedy.”

“Very well,” said Kat, knowing herself defeated, and trying to still a small sense of dread.

“Since the Admiral came to live here, this has been a much happier house,” Elizabeth observed to the Queen. She had feared to begin with that it would be as if a serpent had invaded Eden, but after two weeks spent getting to know her new stepfather, and experiencing the positive impact he was making on all their lives, her worries had been dispelled. “Life is more exciting, we laugh a lot—”

“And we are full of joy!” finished Katherine. “In faith, we have not stopped making merry. Every day has seemed like a holiday. And I will never weary of it.”

“Everyone speaks highly of the Admiral, madam,” Elizabeth said. “He is affable to all, and not one whit condescending, even to the least of the servants. They all love him.”

The Queen smiled. They were sitting companionably at a table under a peach tree on the lawn overlooking the river, enjoying a picnic. Picnics, Katherine had declared, were her favorite way of dining, and she had ordered a veritable feast: The table was laden with silver plates of chicken, game, pasties, peas, and fish, with Elizabeth’s favorite candied fruits to follow. Beneath the trees, at a discreet distance, a musician sat softly strumming a lute. A gentle breeze stirred the air, which was heady with the scent from two hundred damask rosebushes. Elizabeth was consumed with a sense of well-being. Life was good, and already she understood that to be aware of happiness when you were actually feeling it, and not just in retrospect, was to be happy indeed.

Marriage suited Katherine well: There was a radiance about her, and she delighted in talking about her handsome husband.

“I told him,” she was saying, “that if he must devise new pleasures and pastimes every day, then he would see other things slide.” But she did not look too worried about this. “What matter, eh? This life is short, and we must make the best of it. I admit my lord is rather a naughty man, and not perhaps as devout as he might be. Strangely, he always has some urgent matter of business to attend to when it’s time for morning service in the chapel on Sundays, but he is a law unto himself, I have found.” She grimaced ruefully, yet her eyes were dancing.

“And it is good for you to have a father figure in your life, Elizabeth,” she went on, reaching over and patting the girl’s hand. “A proper guardian who can look to your interests.”

“I am glad of it,” Elizabeth told her, and suddenly there he was, that guardian, striding along the path from the house, his smile dazzling in the sunlight.

“Good day, Your Grace, ladies!” he cried, sweeping an exaggerated bow. “Can you spare a chicken wing for a starving man?”

“I think we’ve eaten everything,” Katherine said mischievously.

“For shame!” he told her. “You will all get very fat!”

“Here, sir,” Elizabeth said, passing the dish. “Her Grace but jests.”

“Are you enjoying yourself, my Lady Elizabeth?” the Admiral asked, turning the full force of his intense eyes and brilliant smile on her. Her heart began to beat faster, and there was that strange sinking feeling low in her belly once more. He really was the most attractive fellow…

She pulled herself together.

“I cannot believe my good fortune, my lord,” she replied. “I should be mourning my poor father, yet Her Grace here enjoins me to be happy, and you and she have made this place a very paradise for me.”

Thomas regarded her for a minute, admiring her regal bearing and the way she held her head, and noticing also the budding breasts beneath the tight bodice.

“I am glad,” he answered, then turned to his wife. “I go to court again tomorrow, Kate, to take my brother to task for giving the Queen’s jewels to his grasping wife.”

“They are mine by right, until the King marries,” Katherine said. “I pray you be forceful. We cannot let them get away with it.”

Thomas bent and kissed her full on the mouth. Elizabeth looked away, not understanding why seeing them thus caused her to feel such a pang.

By and by, Elizabeth realized that she was taking more and more notice of the Admiral. She was becoming increasingly aware of his presence, in the house, at table, in the gardens, or at chapel—on the rare occasions he was there. She would find herself surreptitiously sneaking a glance at him, noting his finely boned features, the dark, wicked eyes, straight nose, and bushy dark beard. She could not get her fill of looking at him.

There were plenty of opportunities to indulge this fancy, for although the Admiral often haunted the court by day, his barge would bring him back to Chelsea in the evenings, in time to eat supper with his new family. His manner toward Elizabeth was always exaggeratedly chivalrous, and he was fond of teasing her—for she always rose to the bait. Yet never once, in these early weeks, did he appear to remember that he had proposed marriage to her.

As the time passed, she found herself longing for him to appear. His sheer physicality appealed to her, as did his flamboyant personality. One morning, waking early, she looked out her window and saw him making his way back to the house from the tennis court, clad only in breeches and hose, a white towel around his bare shoulders. His hair was damp with sweat, so he must have been playing with some ferocity. One glance at his broad muscular chest, lightly covered in dark hair, and Elizabeth was lost. She had never seen anyone as pleasing to the eye, with all his limbs and features so well put together. What a proper man he was!

She knew of course that men were differently formed from women, and why, and she could not but surmise what wonders that well-stuffed codpiece concealed, although she had only the vaguest idea of how a naked man might appear, for the only male she had ever seen undressed was her brother as a baby. But alongside the delicious infatuation and fevered imaginings, she felt guilt too, for this was the Queen’s husband, and she loved the Queen and had no wish to hurt her. Yet there was no harm in daydreaming, surely?

A new portrait of the Admiral had been hung in the great hall—a very good likeness. Kat came upon Elizabeth staring entranced at it one day, and summed up the situation at once.

“A fine man, isn’t he?” she said. Elizabeth jumped.

“Indeed he is,” she agreed, somewhat breathlessly.

“The Queen is a lucky lady,” Kat went on. “But never forget that you were his first choice. And if I’m not mistaken, you’re a little bit moonstruck on him, aren’t you?”

She smiled questioningly at her charge.

Elizabeth blushed and said nothing, all the time gazing wistfully at the portrait. The artist had caught the Admiral to the life.

“Ah, Kat, I do not understand myself,” she said at length. “You know that for a long time I was resolved never to marry. And you were right—now I am not so sure. It seems to me that love between a man and a woman is a thing that perhaps ought not to be denied. I should have listened to you, for I know now that marriage with a man such as the Admiral would surely have swayed my opinions.”

“Well, it is too late now,” Kat said flatly. “You cannot guess how bitterly I regret that it did not come about, for you and he would have made a handsome couple; and I’ll warrant you’d go a long way to find so dashing a bridegroom. But he is married to the Queen now, and you must not think of him in that way.”

“He is so handsome and charming, I cannot help but think of him,” Elizabeth whispered.

“You will get over it,” Kat said brusquely. “Young maids often develop a fancy for an older man, especially one as good-looking as the Admiral. Such an infatuation is harmless, and of no consequence, although I know it seems of great import to you. But he is forbidden fruit, child, so put him out of your mind.”

But Elizabeth could not. He was with her everywhere she went. Even the unworldly Master Grindal noticed that she was not as attentive to her studies as before. Into her mind, unbidden, came tantalizing but uninformed images of herself and the Admiral in bed together, of him performing that intimate act which Kat, red-faced, had described to her in such embarrassing detail. And when she tried to imagine how it would feel to have such a man love her in that way, her heart would pound and her palms sweat.

She could not stop thinking about him.

Kat climbed into bed beside her husband and doused the candle. As usual, John Astley leant over and kissed her before lying back on the feather pillows. Kat relaxed. She would not have to pay the marriage debt tonight. What men got out of it she could not imagine. For her, it was an uncomfortable, messy business, and quite unnecessary anyway, since she was past the age for childbearing. Still, she loved her husband, who was a good and kind man in many ways.

“Kat,” John said in the darkness, “something is worrying me. It concerns the Lady Elizabeth.”

Kat was startled. “Whatever are you talking about?”

“I’ve been watching her,” John explained, “and I’ve noticed that, whenever the Admiral is mentioned, she becomes very attentive and stops whatever she is doing to listen. When the Queen praises him, she is immoderately pleased, and today, when someone spoke his name, I saw her blush. I think you should take heed, for I fear that she bears some hidden affection for him.”

“Nonsense!” said Kat tartly, jolted into defensiveness by his perspicacity. “He’s an attractive man, and she’s at an age when she notices such things. It’s entirely innocent, and even if she
is
harboring romantic feelings for him, she would never do anything to hurt the Queen.”

“
She
might not, but what about him?” John sounded agitated. “Think about it, Kat. I’ve seen him looking at her, and that look didn’t seem innocent to me. You must speak to her, warn her. Just think, if there were ever any impropriety between the Admiral and the Lady Elizabeth, both would be guilty of high treason.
High treason,
mark me!”

“He wouldn’t be such a fool,” Kat opined.

“Many men have been made fools by pretty young girls,” John interrupted. “And may I remind you of the penalty for high treason. For him, hanging, drawing, and quartering, although because of his rank they’d probably just chop off his head. And for her, it’s beheading or burning.”

“They’d never dare—she’s the King’s sister,” Kat retorted, aghast.

“Two queens have already been beheaded, and not that long ago,” John reminded her. “Her own mother was one of them.”

“I tell you, there’s nothing in it,” Kat insisted, after a pause. “It’s an innocent infatuation, nothing more.”

“I hope to God you’re right,” John said with a sigh. “But just in case you’re not, keep your eyes open, and if you see anything that troubles you, anything at all, put a stop to it.”

“The Admiral would never take advantage of her,” Kat said angrily. “He’s an honorable man,
and
her guardian while she is under his roof. I cannot believe he would stoop to such evil conduct.”

“Charmed you as well, has he?” John asked sourly.

“Oh, stuff and nonsense!” Kat was having none of it.

“In faith, Wife, you are too trusting of others,” John observed, then turned over to face her, his eyes troubled. “As your husband, I command you to be watchful. Otherwise we could all end up in the Tower.”

Kat said nothing. She did not believe it could ever come to that.

Elizabeth had just finished dressing one morning when the door opened and there stood the Admiral, elegant in a dark green suit.

“My lord!” cried a flustered Kat. “I beg you, please knock before you enter. My lady might not have been ready to receive you.”

“Good morrow, Elizabeth,” smiled Thomas, ignoring the governess and patting her nonplussed charge on the shoulder.

“Good morrow, my lord,” Elizabeth answered, her cheeks flushed with the pleasure of seeing him.

“Are your attendants awake?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the maidens’ chamber. “If not, I will go and rouse them! We cannot have tardiness in this household.”

“They are awake, my lord,” Kat said hastily. “I heard them moving about a few minutes ago. May I ask why you are here?”

“Why, I came to bid good morning to the Lady Elizabeth,” he said, grinning. “May not a man pay such a courtesy to his own stepdaughter?”

Kat looked unhappy.

“Good morrow, my lord,” Elizabeth said, coolly enough, although her cheeks were flaming.

“I trust you are well, my lady?” he smiled, nodding. “Do you always arise this early?”

“I do, sir,” she told him.

“Well. So do I! Every morning!” Something in his tone, and the twinkle in his eye, made Kat blush. The naughty man! Fortunately, Elizabeth was too innocent to have understood his meaning.