Page 88 of Boleyn Traitor
‘Not I!’ Lord William says hastily. ‘Can’t stand the man. My wife can do it. She’s your lady-in-waiting; it’d come natural to her.’
Lady Margaret turns a horrified gaze on him.
‘Very well,’ the countess says agreeably. ‘Lady Margaret can do it.’
‘There you are!’ Agnes, the dowager duchess, says. ‘I knew it’d come out all right.’ She turns for the door. ‘I won’t stay to dine. I’ll tell Dereham to start at the autumn quarter. Hallow’s Eve. Lady Margaret will present him.’
Lady Margaret murmurs something which might be a refusal; but all the Howards ignore her.
‘Does my lord uncle the duke know of this?’ I ask the flint-faced countess as she follows her mother.
‘No,’ she says shortly. ‘Best not trouble him?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Best not.’
THOMASHOWARD THEDuke of Norfolk, with a hunter’s instinct for hidden prey, comes to his niece’s rooms before the rest of the lords and the king before dinner. He bows low to the queen and steps aside to me. ‘I hear that my lady stepmother visited you today?’
‘She wanted a favour – to put her old purveyor into the queen’s household.’
‘Very well. Anything else?’
‘Nothing,’ I say.
He turns to the queen. ‘Your Grace, you are to be congratulated. You are to receive some more lands. Gifts from the king, your generous husband.’
Kitty Howard, who has no more idea of landowning than of coal mining, beams at her uncle. ‘He’s so kind to me!’
The double doors open, and she dances off her throne towards the king as he comes in, leaning slightly on Edward Seymour’s arm.
‘Thank you, my lord husband! My uncle just told me you’re giving me more lands!’
‘Thomas Cromwell’s fortune,’ he tells her, taking her hand and kissing it. She does not flinch, though his kiss shines on her knuckles like slime. ‘You’re sharing it with young Thomas Culpeper here.’
She turns and smiles radiantly, as though she has quite forgotten that he preferred Bess Harvey to her. ‘Oh, congratulations to you, Master Culpeper!’
‘Great work to take them from a rogue and give them to two people that I can trust,’ the king says. ‘But land is wasted on you, pretty one. I know you only like jewels.’
‘Oh no, Your Majesty. I like jewels as well!’ she says, so earnestly that everyone laughs at her childish greed.
‘If you dance very prettily for me after dinner, I shall give you a ruby ring,’ he promises her. ‘Who shall you have as your partner?’
She turns to consider her ladies: Mary Howard is the best dancer, but Kitty prefers a dark-haired partner as a contrast.
‘Take Thomas,’ the king says. ‘You’re well-matched.’
Their eyes meet; Culpeper’s smile is warm, amused. He knows full well that she is still offended with him. But she cannot refuse a partner proposed by the king. And Culpeper knows – as a handsome man always knows – that she still likes him.
‘Would you honour me, Your Grace?’ He bows.
‘As His Majesty wishes,’ she says coolly, and she takes her husband’s arm, and they lead us into dinner.
THE COURT ISto celebrate the feast of All Hallows’ with all the Papist rituals unchanged, despite the disappearance of shrines and the end of chantries. The king will spend the day in prayer, and despite Kitty’s protest, she has to attend two-hour-long masses three times in the day, wearing sombre clothes, and ostentatiously pray for the soul of Queen Jane. She endures this very well, though I know she is almost crying with boredom and she aches from forcing herself not to fidget.
When she is in her rooms, waiting for the king and a reduced court to arrive for a quiet dinner, Lady Margaret Howard, wife to Katheryn’s uncle William, presents herself, as ordered, with a handsome, dark-haired young man following her at a respectful three paces. Charles Howard, Katheryn’s brother, comes in as well, as if to keep Margaret to her script in the masque.
Margaret curtseys to her niece, whispers a few words so inarticulate that no one hears the introduction she is supposed to make. Charles Howard has to say loudly: ‘Why, Francis Dereham! I’ve not seen you for months!’
I dislike him on sight. He looks like a handsome rogue, a man you would trust with neither a secret nor money. Katheryn is superb; she gives him her fingertips with the slightest smile and an inclination of her head. She acts as if she dimly remembers him from her childhood, welcomes him to Windsor Castle, says that her step-grandmother has asked for a place for him in the Autumn, and hands him over, before he can say a single word in reply, to her vice chamberlain brother-in-law Sir Edward Baynton, who discreetly sweeps him away back to Norfolk House.
