Her Highness, the Traitor (34 page)

With Kate settled among the maids at court and thriving, Adrian and I traveled to Beaumanor in Leicestershire. Although it had belonged to Harry and me, we had seldom stayed here, and I was pleased to find the house more attractive than I remembered. It did not have Bradgate’s mellow beauty, but it was a place where I could be at peace. “It does need some repairs, though,” I told Adrian that afternoon. “And it could be made more comfortable, also. It is rather old-fashioned. I think we can afford some work to it, don’t you?”

“I suppose.”

“If you think we cannot afford it, tell me so.”

“If you think we can, we can. You’re careful with money.”

I smiled modestly, for I always had been meticulous with our household accounts. “Harry once said that I took after my grandfather,” I said, referring to the seventh King Henry. “Mind you, I don’t think he meant it as a compliment.”

Adrian did not smile. “I was joking,” I said lightly.

“Yes, I know. There is something else we need to talk about.”

“Adrian?”

“I am considering leaving England, just as so many have.”

“Leaving? With me?” Adrian shook his head no. “But we are married!”

“Are we?”

“You know we are! We had a priest, we exchanged our vows, and you gave me a wedding ring.”

“Which is nowhere on your hand.”

“Of course not. We agreed to keep our marriage a secret.” I looked up at Adrian, puzzled. “Didn’t we?”

“Yes, of course we did.”

“Then why are you speaking of leaving? Why are you acting so peculiar?”

“Why do you think I married you?”

“Why, because I begged you to.”

“No. Because I’ve wanted you in my bed since I first laid eyes upon you.”

I drew back, shocked.

“When you and your stepmother made that very businesslike proposal to me, I did want to oblige you. Who could resist two duchesses? But I never would have agreed if I thought that I would never get to take you to bed at some point. Why, our marriage could easily be held invalid, being that we’ve never consummated it. Has that ever occurred to you?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “But —”

“I didn’t expect you to lie with me when we first married, not so soon after your husband’s and your daughter’s deaths. I’ve been patient, knowing that you needed time to grieve. But as each day goes by and we’re as businesslike as we’ve ever been, I’ve been asking myself, is this really worth it, this being not quite a servant and not quite a husband? Is it ever going to change? Would I be better off just going abroad and forgetting we ever exchanged vows?”

“Harry… Jane…”

“The Duke of Suffolk himself urged me to take care of you; you heard him. The lady Jane? She’s happy in paradise. Why would she begrudge you a little happiness on earth?”

“But—”

“Our marriage was your idea. Or was it? Was your stepmother merely putting words in your mouth?”

“She did give me the idea. But I wanted to marry you. I thought it was a good idea. I do want to be your wife—a true wife. I just—” I gestured hopelessly, feeling tears come to my eyes. “Perhaps this was a mistake, marrying you so hastily. I have only caused you pain, and I never meant to. I—I like you. Better than any man I’ve ever known.”

Adrian’s voice softened. “Did you bring your wedding ring here?” When I nodded, he asked, “Can you find it?”

I went to my chamber and retrieved the coffer where I kept my ring, wrapped inside a handkerchief. It had sat there undisturbed since our wedding day. When I returned, I held it out to Adrian.

“Did you ever look inside it?”

“No. It never occurred to me to look.”

“Well, look now.”

I obeyed. Inside the wedding band, engraved in a fine italic, were the words “A to F:
Amor
Vincit
Omnia
.”

“‘Love conquers—’”

“I know what it means. I always did like Chaucer’s Prioress.” I looked up from the engraving at which I’d been gazing. “Are you saying—?”

“I love you, Frances. I’ve loved you for a very long time. I can remember the very day I fell in love with you, as a matter of fact. It wasn’t long after I came to your household. I’d been looking for horses for your new litter, and I found two fine ones. Matched greys, I told you, and you said, ‘How appropriate.’ When I chuckled, you gave me the sweetest smile, as if you were so pleased, and so surprised, to have someone laugh at your joke. From then on, all I wanted was to have you smile like that at me again.” He shook his head. “I never even dreamed of the possibility of you marrying me. All I could ever hope for was that I’d always be able to serve you faithfully, as the lady of my heart. Then out of nowhere you asked me to be your husband, and that’s when you gave me that sweet little smile of yours again, when I accepted.”

My eyes were filling with tears again, but they were not tears of sadness. I stepped forward and raised my lips to Adrian’s. He accepted my invitation, and we kissed. It was not like our previous polite efforts. This time, we kissed as passionately as though our lips had been made for no one else’s. “Adrian?” I said when we pulled back at last.

“Yes?”

“Will you take me to bed with you?”

My husband took my hand. “I thought you’d never ask.”

***

“Tomorrow we shall start living as man and wife,” I told Adrian much later. For hours after consummating our marriage, we had lay entwined, talking not of business but of ourselves, of those we had lost and what we had gained in each other. “I am sorry I have waited this long. Will you forgive me?”

“Only if you will forgive me.”

“For what?”

“I hadn’t the slightest intention of leaving you, Frances. I could never do that. It was a lie I told you back there.”

“I am very glad you told it.” I snuggled closer to Adrian. “The whole household shall know me as your wife when I rise from this bed. But I am so comfortable, I don’t want to rise.”

“Will you tell the queen of our marriage?”

I hesitated. Even with Adrian’s arms around me, the prospect of facing my cousin was a daunting one. “I should like to wait a little longer, to find a good time.”

“Very well.” Adrian held me closer. “As long as you are truly mine now, the queen can wait.”

I leaned over Adrian and shook my hair over my shoulders and breasts so it tickled his belly. Earlier in the evening, when we had first disrobed, he had stared at my hair in awe as I let it fall to my waist, and for the first time in my life, I had felt beautiful. “What if I asked you to make love to me again tonight?”

Adrian smiled up at me and tapped my nose. “I’m not one and twenty any longer, sweetheart, but I think I can manage that.”

In December, my one son remaining imprisoned, Ambrose, is freed from the Tower. It is then, and only then, I keep my promise to Robert and let a physician examine me once the Christmas and New Year’s festivities have passed. What he tells me, I have figured out for myself long ago, without having to pay a fee.

When he leaves, I go to my desk and begin writing my will.

***

It is not hard to write my will once I get into the flow of it. Money to the poor, money to the prisoners in London’s various jails. Gowns to my dear John’s sisters, to my daughters, and to my daughters-in-law—all but Jack’s widow, who has proven only too eager to cut the last tie between my family and hers, except for the title of “countess” and her jointure lands. Those things will probably make her happier than anything I could give her, I tell myself, and write on.

John’s clock, ticking peacefully as I write this, will go to our daughter Mary. A tawny velvet jewel coffer to Susan Clarencius, a gown to Lady Paget, and a black enameled ring to Lord Paget: all were kind to me and helped me intercede for my boys, though none could save my John. I leave my lands to my children but remember, just in time, that all are under attainder and cannot inherit: I must leave my lands to my executors.

My green parrot, looking at me with interest as I write, I leave to the Duchess of Alba. She is a wealthy woman and will have no need for more fine gowns or beds. I have nothing else worthy of her.

I am not quite sure it belongs here, but I beg my executors to give my thanks to those men of the privy chamber who helped my sons, and to ask that they continue to do so. God, I know, will requite them for it.

It occurs to me that someone, after I am dead, may decide to open me up for embalming. That will not do. Although circumstances have forced me to assert myself when needed, I have not liked to be bold even before women, nor do I want any man’s hands upon me when I am dead. All I want is to be wound up in a sheet and put in a wooden coffin, then given such a funeral as my executors see fit, seeing that none of my children will inherit John’s forfeited title.

I
would
rather
that
my
debts
be
paid, and the poor given their due, than that any pomp be showered upon my wretched carcass, that has at times been too much in this world full of vanities, deceit, and guile. For whoever trusts to this transitory world as I did, may happen to have an overthrow as I did.
Yet I am smiling as I write these words, for each one of them brings me closer to my John.

***

My will is witnessed and safely in the hands of Henry Sidney, one of the executors. This feat accomplished, I am dozing when someone glides into my chamber. I open an eye. “Andrew!”

“Yes, it is I.”

“You are free?”

“Yes.”

This is indeed my brother-in-law Andrew, a man of few words. Imprisonment turns some men voluble after they are freed, but not this one. I push myself farther upright. “You have been pardoned?”

“No. I’m still in that no-man’s-land between prison and freedom. I’m on a bond for good behavior, and I daresay I needn’t behave very badly to find myself back in the Tower.”

“Jerome will be so glad to see you. Even with my sons back, he has still missed you. I have been afraid that he will pine away.”

“I’ll take good care of him.”

“I am sorry about the Clifford girl,” I say gently. Her engagement to Andrew was broken off after his arrest and trial; evidently God did not intend her as a Dudley bride. Perhaps it is just as well. She stands after the surviving Grey sisters in line for the crown.

Andrew shrugs. “Probably she would have talked too much anyway.”

My sons and Jerome soon follow my brother-in-law into the room. For a while, they sit around my bed, talking of a tournament Robert and Ambrose were in recently—thanks to the king, who had invited them personally to take part. Then they all drift away except for Robert. “I wanted you to know that I heard from the lady Elizabeth the other day.”

“I thought she was still under house arrest.”

“She is, but she has her sympathizers.”

“Robert, you are still under attainder. Not to mention a married man.”

“The lady Elizabeth and I are old friends, Amy knows that. And it’s not treason to send my good wishes to the queen’s sister, surely?”

“If you put it like that, no, but do be careful.”

“I will. I can’t help but think, though, that someday my friend Elizabeth will be queen. No, we haven’t spoken of it!” he says, forestalling my protest. “Not to each other or to anyone else. I’ll do nothing to shorten Queen Mary’s reign. But I think God means Elizabeth to rule, and years ago, she promised me that if she did, I would be one of the first she calls to her side.” He smiles at me as fatigue begins to make me sink back into my pillows. “It will be a golden age, Mother.”

***

Over the next few days, letters come while I slumber. Many of them are from people who have studiously avoided contact with me since John was arrested and who deem it safe to renew our acquaintance now that I am so soon to pass out of this world.
Vanity, deceit, and guile
, I think to myself and order Katheryn to toss them—the letters, that is—into the fire.

But there are other letters. My daughter Mary writes to inform me that while she was holding little Philip in the nursery and reading—it strikes me as entirely natural that my daughter should be doing these two things at once—the child grabbed the edge of her book and held it fast.
He
displays
a
most
encouraging
interest
in
the
written
word
, Mary writes smugly.

Another letter, however, makes Katheryn, who is reading it to me, break out crying. Good Lord, I think, has the Earl of Huntingdon chosen this time to dissolve our daughter’s marriage to his son? “Tell me what it says.”

“It is from the Countess of Huntingdon. She writes that she is very sorry to hear of your illness, and that when you can no longer take care of me, she will welcome me to Ashby-de-la-Zouche as her very own daughter. She has set aside a pretty chamber for me there, which I may furnish just as I like. And there is a postscript by Lord Hastings, telling me he will come to take me there himself whenever I please. He calls me his very own sweetheart and his darling wife.”

I join my daughter in her tears, thinking that sometimes, the goodness of human beings can make one weep harder than their follies.

***

It is the twenty-second day of January, a miserable day outside. Even behind my bed curtains, I can hear the sleet coming down and the wind beating against my windows. Faintly, I feel sorry for anyone who is abroad on this bleak day, but I myself am quite content, for John’s clock ticks steadily and John himself is holding me tight in the bed we shared for so many years, keeping me safe from all that is without.
Patience
, his voice tells me.
Soon.

All it took to bring him back to me was to do
this
, just as Anne Boleyn taught me so long ago. Why did I not try it sooner?

There are footsteps and a jumble of voices. “Has she been like this long?”

“Most of the day, my lords. I don’t believe she can last for much longer.” Nurse Stacy, my laundress who also attends me in my illness, adds uncertainly, “She received the last rites, my lords, when she could still respond to them. The Catholic rites, of course.”

Someone grumbles about this, but not too strenuously.

“Can she hear us?”

“You can try, my lords.”

Someone bends over me. He is speaking too loudly, really, for my hearing is perfect, but under the circumstances, I can be forgiving. “We have received our pardons from the queen, Mother.”

Pardons.
I have done all I can do on earth for my sons; there is no need for me to linger here any longer. I start to smile, and just as my mouth crinkles upward, my John bears me away.