Page 45 of Love, Remember Me

"Are you jealous?" Cat Howard asked her, curious.

The look Nyssa gave her was incredulous. "Jealous? God's blood, Cat! If the king had had a romantic interest in me, I would have died of fright!But he did not. Your uncle, the duke, made a miscalculation there in his eagerness to be a queen-maker. His grace favors me for my sweet mother's sake, and no more. She petitioned him for my place at court, and he promised her he would look after me as if I were his own, for my stepfather did not want me to come. Your uncle's overweening ambition has cost me the chance of marrying for love, as my parents promised me I could. I think little of him for that, and for other reasons as well. But nay, dear friend, I am not jealous of you. I have grown to love you as a sister. I fear for you, Cat."

"The king is in love with me," Cat Howard said softly. "He has told me so. I know he is old enough to be my father, but I think I can really love him. I have learned not to be repulsed by his bad leg when it swells and runs with pus. I can even dress it. He says my touch is healing. I know I can be a good wife to him, Nyssa. He will have no reason to cast me off. You need not fear for me. I will be all right."

"I pray it so, Cat, but what of your cousin, Thomas Culpeper, who professes his love for you? You have flirted with him for months now. Will he not be heartbroken by your match with the king?"

"Tom Culpeper is a fool," Cat said angrily. "He did not want to marry me, Nyssa. He wanted to seduce me, the rogue! Why, last Christmas he tried to bribe his way into my affections with some cloth for a gown with which he gifted me. In exchange he expected a romp in my bed. I quickly set him straight. Let his fickle heart be broken! I care not a whit for him. He will quickly find another gullible maid upon which to affix his affections."

Nyssa thought her friend's denial a bit too vehement to be believable. She thought perhaps Cat cared for Tom Culpeper, but Catherine Howard claimed she had what she wanted: a man who would love her, and make her a queen. And what have I got? Nyssa wondered. Who is this man I have been married to so precipitously? When good Queen Anne shortly ends her brief reign, I am going to have a lifetime to find out, she realized.

PART II

THE BRIDE OF WINTERHAVEN

Spring 1540–Spring 1541

CHAPTER 7

IWOULDnot be as brave as you in such circumstances," Anne Bassett said to Nyssa that afternoon. "I should want to hide myself away."

Nyssa, conscientious in her new duties, was carefully cleaning a diamond and gold necklace belonging to the queen. "What on earth do you mean, Mistress Anne?" she inquired sweetly.

Indeed she had some idea, having been subject all day to the stares, some hostile, some simply curious, of the queen's ladies. What hypocrites they were. They thought little of their secret meetings with their own lovers—most of which were not secret. Oh well, eventually something else would capture their fertile imaginations. She would be ignored again. Nyssa had no intention, however, of allowing the Bassett sisters to prolong her discomfort. She must bear the mild insults of the king's daughter-in-law and his niece, and the others of higher rank than she, but not of her former fellow maids.

"Ohh, come now, Nyssa Wyndham," Anne Bassett began with a knowing smirk upon her pretty face.

"De Winter," Nyssa corrected her. "Nyssa de Winter. Her ladyship, the Countess of March, Mistress Anne." She rubbed with exaggerated diligence at the necklace.

"You undoubtedly invited your fate," Anne Bassett said waspishly. "No gentleman, even one with as unsavory a reputation as Lord de Winter, would rape a woman without a certain amount of provocation. That is a very well-known fact."

I will not slap her, Nyssa thought, struggling to control her outrage. Was Anne Bassett really one of those stupid souls who believed women invited their own rapes? "What provocation?" Nyssa demanded icily of her. "When was I even in the gentleman's presence that you can testify to, Mistress Anne? When have you known me to encourageanygentleman of this court? My reputation for virtue is above reproach."

"Certainly no longer, I would think," Anne Bassett replied meanly.

"My cousin, Thomas Culpeper, raped a gamekeeper's wife last year," Cat Howard said, coming to Nyssa's defense. "She was a very pretty girl. She rebuffed Tom on several occasions that I was witness to myself. I would hardly call that encouragement, but he raped her nonetheless. He waited until her husband was gone from their cottage one day. Then, with three friends holding her down for him, he had his way with her. Men do rape women without cause, Anne. Perhaps you had best beware, for you flirt far too much with the gentlemen for your own safety, I fear. Why, even the king, I am told, is prone to force on occasion." Cat Howard smiled brightly at the girl, but Anne was not yet beaten.

"A gamekeeper's wife is hardly a lady," she sneered, "and certainly cannot be compared with one. Besides, the girl had probably had her skirts lifted any number of times, and enjoyed it. She but taunted your cousin. As for the king, Cat Howard, beware! You speak treason when you criticize our sovereign lord. It is his right to do as he pleases."

"You are heartless," Nyssa told her. "No woman, no matter her station, should be thought fair game for violence by any man."

"Aye!" the others agreed, glaring at Anne Bassett and finally silencing her. The Bassett sisters were dreadful snobs, though Katherine was really the nicer of the two, particularly when her sister was absent.

In late afternoon the queen dismissed Nyssa. "You may haf the next two days for yourself, madame. Even a lady in the qveen's service should haf a honeymoon. Ya?" She smiled broadly, and Nyssa's friends giggled while the other ladies looked scandalized.

"Brazen hussy!"

Nyssa heard it as she prepared to leave the queen's apartments.

"Aye," was the reply. "She should be ashamed of herself, yet she holds her head high like a decent and virtuous woman,the slut!"

Nyssa whirled about to see who it was who would dare to pass judgment upon her, but the queen's ladies were silent now, though smirking. She could not tell who had spoken, for the voices, though plainly heard, had been unidentifiable. She walked over to the queen and curtsied low. "I thank your grace for her generosity and kind wishes," she said.

"Go! Go!" the queen answered, smiling.

Nyssa found her uncle dicing with several of his friends in one of the public rooms. "Will you take me to your house, my lord? The queen has granted me several days' rest, and I would retire now."

Owen FitzHugh nodded. "Do you want your aunt for company?" he asked her. "She is with Adela Marlowe, I believe."

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