Traitor's Kiss (15 page)

“But I've learned the truth about my mother tonight. She
was
innocent. That's what I've been telling T…your husband.”

“I did not hear you speak, Elizabeth. I only saw you kiss.”

Then she was gone.

Thomas Seymour did not follow his wife, but went into the garden. The open door let in shafts of sunlight, and the perfumes of a perfect May Day.

I went into the pastry kitchen, pulled the muslin cloth from the silver tray, scattering flies. On the tray lay a sugar rose, every petal clean and curled.

Maggie's best rose yet.

You will grow into the most beautiful rose England has ever known
, my mother had said.

My beauty now blemished. I crammed the rose into my mouth, worked my tongue around its petals until it dissolved. Its sweetness overwhelmed me.

But it was not enough. I returned to the kitchen, gorged on the rose petals drying on the window sill until my stomach heaved. I tipped the remaining trays onto the floor and stamped on the crisped petals. They released a heavenly fragrance and clouds of sugar, settling on my hair like may blossom. My shoes were sticky with sugar, my eyelashes and hair clogged with them, until Kat was slapping my cheeks, shaking me, and I clung to her, crying, “Oh, Kat, why did I go out tonight?”

Morning streamed through the window. Birdsong began. A perfect May Day, shattered into a thousand pieces. Never again could it be made whole, however skilfully the pieces were stuck together.

Kat paced, face flushed, eyes half-closed. Dragged from her sleep, without her jewels and fine clothes, she looked old.

“What have you done, child?” she asked, again and again. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “And where have you been?” She held up her candle, for the curtains were still drawn in my bedchamber. She studied the soreness on my chin and around my lips, the mud on the hem of my cloak, my torn girdle. “Have you been with Dudley?”

“No. It's Tom Seymour who's betrayed me, Kat. He kissed me and—”

“A May Eve kiss is nothing,” she said, too lightly. I had seen her face turn pale. “May Eve makes fools of us all, bewitches us all as much as midsummer with its new scents that make a woman swoon. But you surprise me, Bess. Surely you learned that lesson from your mother.”

I glared at her. “My mother didn't live long enough to teach me,” she said. “
You're
to blame for this, Kat. You should have protected me, but you simpered and giggled and blushed every time Seymour came into sight.”

“
I
did not kiss him.”

“Neither did I.” I wept piteously. “He kissed me. He saw that I was distracted and took advantage of me. Don't you understand, Kat? It's twelve years to the day since they took my mother to the Tower and now Tom's tainted me. I've tried so hard to lead a good life, but he's snared me.”

“Listen, Elizabeth, you're
not
to blame.
He
is in the wrong, sniffing around the King's sister. Your mistake was going out alone at night.”

I did not allow Kat to wash me before I went to bed. I lay in the filth of Bedlam that dawn. It was my penance for hurting Lady Catherine. As I tried to sleep, I thanked God that I had not babbled about Bedlam. Would Robert search for me there if I did not appear at the May Day joust? There would be no joust for me. I was tainted by scandal.

I never forgave Thomas for one thing: he saw me as my mother's daughter. By kissing me, he must have believed that I was like her, and thus he believed her to be guilty.

Sleep would not come. When I went into Kat's chamber to be comforted, I found her kneeling in prayer – and crying. Then I knew that the threat was great. I knew that the sword that had taken off my mother's head was hanging over mine.

Chapter Fifteen

In seventeen days, my mother was arrested, tried and beheaded. And seventeen days I waited for my punishment. No sugar roses. No egg whites for my skin. Nobody, except my own wretched self – and Kat. I hoped that Robert Dudley would ask to see me; but in my heart I knew that his parents would not permit it.

Lady Catherine announced that I missed the quiet of Hatfield Palace and would return there. I would not go to Gloucestershire for her baby's birth.

“Be thankful,” Kat told me. “It's only Lady Catherine's love for you that might yet save your reputation. She understands what gossip did to your mother and she will protect you as best she can. As for Thomas Seymour, let's pray that he doesn't boast when he's drunk too much.”

The roses were in full bloom the day I left Chelsea Palace – the roses that had led me to the river; the river that had led me to Francis. No fond farewells for me. Only a kiss from Jane, my little cousin, bruised and battered when she came here, now so much cleverer than me. Half-laughing, half-crying, and not understanding why I was leaving, she said, “Never to marry?”

“Never to marry,” I whispered back. “Just two wise virgins.”

When the litter was brought to the front steps – I was too weak and unhappy to ride like Kat – my stepmother showed herself. I threw myself at her feet and wept. It would have been better if I had not, for she took them for tears of remorse. At last, she took pity on me and spoke, fixing me steadily with her grey eyes. “I shall choose my words carefully, Elizabeth, for we both know and agree that once they are spoken, they cannot be returned. Your mother was vain and foolish, like my husband. I knew what he was when I married him, and why he married me, and I know that I love him more than he loves me. This could be his downfall, Elizabeth, and yours. The people will hate you if they hear of this because their hatred for your mother is never far from the surface. They will lick their lips at the scandal.” I shuddered at the word. “You are young and Tom should not have abused you in that way. You have one of the finest minds I have ever met. In time, with wisdom and guidance, you will go far beyond the Tower that took your mother…as far as the throne of England if you take care. But I cannot be sure that you will be safe from this scandal.”

I burst into fresh tears. “How shall I manage without you?” I asked.

“You have managed without a mother all these years,” she replied. “How will you know the difference?” She let me kiss her. “You are not out of the woods yet, Elizabeth. This scandal will haunt you for years to come.”

In Chelsea Woods, no men came from the trees, except Robert Dudley. I did not expect to see him. He had made no contact with me. Even my brother had not sent a word of goodbye.

Kat helped me from the litter and rode to a discreet distance to let us make our farewells under an oak tree, thick with new leaves.

Robert dismounted. In the same woods where I had been called the Boleyn bastard, we faced each other. My heart lifted at the sight of him, until I saw that his face was a mask of dislike and anger. “I didn't need to look for you in Bedlam,” he said. “There was talk of little else at the May Day joust…of you and Tom Seymour.”

“
He
kissed me, Robert. I didn't kiss him,” I said. “You feared Francis, yet the danger came from my stepfather.” I was trying not to cry. “Alys told me the truth and I was so happy when I came back…so happy that I said too much. If Tom's tongue loosens and lashes out, he might seek out Francis…”

“Why? I don't understand.”

“Tom is desperate for power, you know that. He'll say that he uncovered a plot to topple the King and my brother will thank him and…”

“But Tom doesn't know Francis's name or where he lives.”

“He has spies everywhere. How long would it take him to flush out a boy who works on the river?”

“It won't happen,” Robert said, his voice more soothing. “You imagine it will because you're upset now. In a few days…”

“
In a few days
—” I almost screamed. “Lady Catherine says this scandal will haunt me for a long time. Robert, will you promise, although you dislike me today and you don't know what to believe…will you promise that if Francis or his mother are ever in danger that you will warn them to leave England? Give them money to go, if you have to. Will you, Robert? For me?”

His expression softened. “Yes, because
I
should have protected you better. I shouldn't have let you go to Bedlam alone.” He took a rose from his cloak pocket and handed it to me.

I breathed in its beautiful fragrance, felt my mother in the shadows around me. “I don't know when we'll meet again, Robert. I won't be allowed to have visitors at Hatfield Palace, not even you. It will be worse than before, because now I've lost Lady Catherine's trust, perhaps her love.”

Kat signalled that it was time to be on our way, but I did not want to leave him. He helped me into the litter, began to draw the curtains.

“Remember what you said at Shrovetide, Bess, when you spoke from your heart in public?
Life is an illusion. We all see what we want to see, whether it is real or not.
Pretend
this
is an illusion. Pretend that Francis is safe in France with his mother. If you don't, then you'll be as lost as they are.”

I cried. I choked on the tears that I shed for my mother, for Lady Catherine, for Alys, for Francis – for the whole world. Robert held me. He did not try to kiss me on the lips as Tom Seymour had done, but he kissed the nape of my neck. My spine tingled, and I forgot all other kisses, even my mother's.

“God speed you and protect you, sweet Bess.”

I looked at his face which was so dear to me. In the passage of time, his childish cheeks would harden, as no doubt would mine. His soft lips would tighten and I wanted to kiss them before they did. His skin would sprout black hair like Maggie Payne's, not soft gold as it was now, and I prayed that mine would not. “And you, sweet Robert.”

At the last minute, he tried to kiss me, as he had done on my birthday, when I was his moon, his star, his fairy queen. I turned my face away. “No, Robert. We must love in private,
never
in public. We don't know who might be watching us. I'll have to live quietly at Hatfield for a long time, until the King invites me back to court. One day, Robert, when we're alone…”

“You'll always have me, Bess. Wherever you are…wherever I am.”

We parted – he to return to London and me to take the dusty road to Hertfordshire.

I had come this way almost a year before with expectation of great happiness with Lady Catherine. Now I was returning to my palace in disgrace, alone, except for Kat and hanging over me a scandal that might haunt me for years to come.

I held Robert's rose all the way from London, peeling away the damp petals. By the time we stopped for our first night on the Great North Road, its petals had shrivelled in my hand.

Chapter Sixteen

Hatfield Palace, Hertfordshire

Scandal made a prisoner of me that lonely and cruel summer.

I had too much time to lick my wounds, to curse myself for what had happened. I went over the scene in the kitchen many times.
Had
I been to blame?
Had
I encouraged my stepfather in any way? I heard Lady Catherine's pitiful moan, saw her clutch her swollen belly as she called out, “Traitors!” and sometimes her face and belly became my mother's when she had let me pat her belly and promised me a baby brother.

When their faces haunted me to the point of madness, I sought fresh air. I walked in the garden where my mother and I had played hide-and-seek and lingered by the fountain where she had dangled me to cool my feet. And if it rained, I went to the nursery where she had steadied me on my rocking horse. I curled up on my little silver-tasselled bed, my mother's box and Lady Catherine's book side by side on the pillow, breathing in the scent of leather and roses.

As August gave way to early autumn days, I waited to hear the news of Lady Catherine's child. Would she forgive me in the joy of motherhood? Would she invite me to Gloucestershire to see her baby?