“Lie with me, Bess,” he whispers, pulling me on top of him and working at the laces of my dress with nimble fingers. “I must have you,” he murmurs, kissing my cheek, my jawline, my throat. “I must make you mine.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” I respond as I wriggle out of my gown and crawl underneath the covers, marveling at the fact that my bare skin is touching that of this great man.
“I must make you mine. . . .” he says again. He cups my face, gazing into it with adoration and lust.
And with that I am made his. Me, a lowly servant girl, is made the lover of a real live duke!
We remove to Kenninghall and it truly is shaped like an
H
! It is the grandest palace I have ever seen. I have never really seen anything but Hever, so I don't have much to compare it to. But perhaps it is because it belongs to His Grace that I love it all the more.
It is the most resplendent place on earth, with its stables, deer park, sprawling gardens, and mews filled with the finest falcons in England. The duke says he will take me hawking one day and that I can ride any horse I want. When he learns my family forgot my fifteenth birthday, he promises me pretty gowns and a different jewel for every day of the week. Never will my birthday be forgotten again.
“I shall cover your fingers with rings,” he tells me one evening as he kisses each fingertip. “And your throat will be encircled with diamonds.”
“Diamonds!” I cry. “Real diamonds?” Such a thing is beyond my reckoningâme, poor uneducated Bess Holland, wearing actual diamonds!
“You wouldn't expect fake ones, would you?” he asks me, tugging one of my ringlets.
“Oh, Your Grace, you are good to me!” I cry, wrapping my arms about his neck and kissing him on the cheek.
But at Kenninghall the guilt of my secret liaison with the duke assaults me in full as I meet his wife, Duchess Elizabeth.
I had imagined her as sort of homely and haggish, which to me would justify the straying of His Grace to my bed, but to my disappointment, I find her to be of extraordinary youth and beauty, with her chestnut hair and bright blue eyes. Her lips are wide and full and her figure is trim and delicate, whereas mine is full and round. Perhaps that is why the duke likes me; I am her exact opposite. I am blond, she is dark. My breasts are large and hers are average at best.
But it must be more than physical. She must not make him happy anymore. They've been married for years and I'm told men grow weary of their wives after some time.
She assesses me with those keen blue eyes and I tremble before her. She is not dumb at all, that much is plain, and I fear for myself and for her. It is not good to be so perceptive and as she looks at me, I am convinced that she knows what the duke and I have been about.
But she says nothing.
I am introduced to the children. The eldest, Cathy, is two years younger than me and is a haughty little girl, a replica of her mother in carriage and demeanor. But the others are eager for my company and I am delighted to play with Henry and Mary and to hold Little Thomas whenever I get the chance.
Though my age makes it an impossibility for them to be mine, I pretend it is so anyway. I pretend they are mine and the duke's.
Thomas Howard
I did not hire John Holland because I found him to be anything beyond competent. He is not an exceptional human being; nothing about him stands out. Some kind of madness overtook me the moment I set eyes on his daughter, the delectable morsel Bess, and his employment was secured. Ah, but she is beautiful. Sensual yet innocent . . . I admit it is more than mere lust. I've the strange need to protect her, offer her a life she never could have had otherwise.
And how I am rewarded! With her, there are no complications; she is not clever, she is complacent. Willing. So willing . . . Her little button mouth forms all the right answers. “Yes, yes, and yes, Your Grace.”
Nor does she haunt my mind in the fashion others do with their strange resemblances. . . . No, I will not think on that.
She is just the distraction I need, so pretty and round and young. What man in his right mind would deny himself a little dalliance with her? And I am no longer just a man. I am a duke with the needs of a duke.
It is wrong, I know, to install her here. I must try to show some restraint and not dangle the girl before Elizabeth. Everything must be kept in separate worlds. If this is done right, everyone can be happy.
Elizabeth Howard
I don't know what kind of fool he takes me for, but I have overestimated my husband in every way possible. Overestimated what little respect I thought he had for me, overestimated his capacity to be an upright, moral Catholic man . . . oh, everything. The knave!
He
is
the king's man in every way and has allowed himself to be influenced by his boundless appetite for things not his to take! Scoundrel!
I will not have it. Others may look the other way and play the willing fool but not me. I have not suffered this long and waited all these years for my family life to begin, to have it all thwarted by a silly, stupid fifteen-year-old girl.
At first I am quiet. I must play this right. I watch and wait for my moment. I take the girl and show her about our home. Together we make candles and weave, and I show her the kitchens, which she exclaims over in wide-eyed awe. She is a pretty little girlâa little
girl!
Oh, how ashamed of my Thomas I am!
She is placed in the nursery as a washer, and I watch her play with my children. Her affection for them seems genuine enough but it does not change a thing. That she can meet my eyes is an endless source of wonder to me.
Thomas comes to me less and less. He avoids my eyes.
And Bess wears quite expensive jewelry for a washerwoman. Where does she get the funds?
Oh, the pain of it, far worse than any beating. I do not know how much of this I can stand.
Bess Holland
I am very wrong. I know I am wrong. I am worse than the Whore of Babylon and I know Jesus must be very disappointed in me. But I cannot say no. I cannot deny him. What's more, I do not want to, and that is by far the most grievous of my increasing sin list.
Duchess Elizabeth watches me with guarded eyes. She knows. Oh, I know she knows! She keeps me at her side and through her silence antagonizes me. Doesn't she know she has won no matter what my relationship with His Grace? She has his ring, his children, and his name. I have but a few nights of his company. Soon he will tire of me, I imagine, and this whole thing will be but a strange, bittersweet memory for us.
At night the duke creeps into my chambers or sometimes invites me to his luxurious apartments. He praises my every move, worships my body, and decorates me with gifts, elegant night shifts, and beautiful day gowns appropriate for my station, which he promises to elevate. He cannot get enough of me nor me of him.
“Will you stay with me all night?” I ask him one evening as he holds me after our lovemaking. “Sleep beside me as though I'm your wife?”
He kisses my cheek. “Fall asleep in my arms if it pleases you,” he tells me.
I close my eyes. “Thank you, Thomas,” I say, daring to use his Christian name for the first time.
He stiffens.
“You must not call me that,” he says in a tone I've not heard him use before. It is hard, icy. Frightening.
“I'm sorry,” I say. “I just thought, knowing each other as we do thatâI'm sorry. What should I call you?”
He pauses, stroking my bare shoulder. “You may call me Your Grace or simply Norfolk if it pleases you.”
It does not please me at all, but what can I do? “Yes, Your Grace,” I say because I can't bear to call him the name of a stupid county.
I suppose it is a breach in his strange world of etiquette to call him by his Christian name.
That is another right
she
owns.
Elizabeth Howard
If he will not come to me, then I will go to him. I will remind him of what he has been missing. He has no reason to do this to me. I have been a good wife; I've given him five children and I am a lover without equal. There is no reason, no reason at all. I will drive her from his mind and his bed if it kills me in the process.
I stand outside his apartments, listening to the giggling and playing inside, knowing what is going on, knowing I should make for my own chambers and wait till he is alone. But I am his wife. I have every right to enter his suite and I shall, no matter who he is entertaining.
I will shame him into ending this.
I open the door.
He is there with the girl, fully engaged in his romp. They lie with the bedclothes twisted about their writhing naked forms and I am struck dumb. I did not think I would react this way. I had thought to throw myself atop the girl and pull her from him by the hair. I had thought to be uttering a thousand curses at the illicit couple, curses that would cause their immediate repentance.
But I can do no such thing. I just stare.
It is Bess who sees me first. Her wide brown eyes register shock, then horror, then fill with tears as she wraps her arms about my husband's neck and whispers, “Your Grace,” very quietly.
Thomas turns his head.
“Get out,” he says in a low voice.
I stand, rendered helpless by sadness and anger and a sense of betrayal that surges through me like a raging fever.
“Get out!”
he cries, reaching over to throw a little velvet cushion at me. It has very little effect. I am still rooted in place. At last I tear my eyes from them and gaze at the hand that bears his signet ring. The lion with the arrow piercing its tongue. At once I am that lion, my tongue immobilized by the arrow of his infidelity and disrespect.
I pull it off my finger and hurl it at the couple with all my strength.
This gesture gives me the needed strength to quit the room.
I lie alone in my apartments that night staring, staring up at the canopy of my bed, recalling our wedding night, the births of our children, save Mary, and all of our conversations, words that meant so much but now seem so empty.
What happened?
is all I can think. Over and over the question torments me.
What happened?
The door creaks open and I turn to see Thomas standing with a candle in hand. He lingers in the doorway a moment before entering. I do not scream for him to get out. I am mildly interested in what he has to say.
“My lady,” he says in soft tones.
“My lord,” I answer, my voice breaking.
“You should not have interfered today,” he says.
I sit up, my cheeks burning in fury. “I should not have interfered is right! I suppose I ruined your afternoon! My apologies for interrupting!”
“Elizabeth, this is the way of the world,” he goes on in his calm voice. “You must accept it. The faster you accept it, the happier we can all be.”
“The happier you can be, you mean,” I correct him. “Who do you think I am that you can dare treat me this way? Am I not at twenty-seven young and fair enough for you? Have I meant nothing to you all these years?” I add in a voice soft with tears. “I have borne your five children. I have been faithful and devotedâ”
“Devoted?” Thomas cries. “Yes, you demonstrated that when you left me in Ireland to run after your traitor-father! Devoted? I think not. You proved to me then that you did not put me first, that you never put me first. Before me comes the Staffords and, of course, Her Grace the queen. And before them, before us all, your mighty principles. I can't compete with that, Elizabeth. I won't even try. So don't blame me for seeking out someone who isn't going to fight me at every turn.”
There is nothing I can say to this. I bow my head and try to mute the onset of sobs. I do not want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me reduced to such agony.
“If ever I've fought you, my lord,” I say in soft tones, “it is only in the desire to guide you toward right, just as the Lord commands. I have tried to be a good wife to you. I swear by all that is holy that nothing you or that churl's daughter can do will ever stop me from being a Christian wife. I will never, ever cease in trying to steer you toward good. I will not stray from my principles as easily as you can stray from our marriage bed. It is not in me. If this drives a wedge between us, then I am sorry.”
“That's it, then,” Thomas says. “There's nothing more to say or do. You are there and I am here, as always.” He rises. “Good night, my lady.”
“My lord,” I say.
As he moves to quit the room, I whisper, “Did you ever love me, even a little?”
He stops walking. His shoulders slump. “I don't know,” he confesses at last.
“No, I expect not,” I say. “I expect you don't love Bess Holland, either. I expect you don't know what it is to love at all.”