Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set

I have left her as good a maid as I found her.

—Henry VIII to Thomas Cromwell, 7 January 1540 (the morning after his wedding night)

10

His Majesty returned to Whitehall very late and very angry. The maids of honor could hear him from their dormitory, crashing about in the queen’s apartments and bellowing in rage. They could not make out his words, but no one was under any illusions about His Grace’s state of mind. Something had gone horribly wrong at Rochester. Left to her own devices, Nan would not have ventured out from behind the bed curtains. But the king sent Anthony Denny to fetch her.

“The king wants you, Nan.” Denny did not meet her eyes.

Nan took a step back. The cold tiles beneath her bare feet felt like ice, but that was not what made her shiver. “It is the middle of the night,” was the only faint protest she could think of to make.

“His Grace … needs you. Now.” His words carried the force of a command.

Nan drew in a steadying breath, wrapped her black satin nightgown—a robe the king himself had given her—more tightly around her, and followed Denny to one of the small, private rooms, newly decorated, that were part of the queen’s privy lodgings.

A fire burned in the hearth. Someone had brought bread and cheese and wine, which were laid out on a small table beside a chair. His Grace had not touched the food, but he had clearly been drinking, and heavily, too.

A few paces into the candlelit chamber, Nan tripped over one of the furs the king had taken as an offering to his bride. It was a richly garnished partlet of sable skins to be worn around the neck and throat. A furred muffler and cap also littered the floor, as if they’d been hurled down in a fit of temper. Nan wondered if His Grace blamed her for selecting the wrong gifts. Was that why he’d sent for her?

She dropped into a curtsy. Behind her, she heard the door close with an ominous thump. Anthony Denny had left her alone with the king.

Keeping her head bowed, Nan struggled to slow the frantic beating of her heart. Only by clasping her hands tightly together could she stop them from shaking.

“Rise, Nan, and come to me.” King Henry’s voice was hoarse with emotion. He stood at a window with his back to her. The renovated queen’s lodgings boasted a spectacular river view, even at night. “I did all this for her. Beauty and comfort.”

“Yes, Your Grace. These rooms are surpassing beautiful.” Desperate to divert and calm the king, she said the first thing that popped into her head: “And the décor is practical, too.”

“Practical?”

“Why, yes, Your Grace. While it is lovely to have plastered wooden floors, they are very cold at this time of year, but you have provided not just rushes, but rush matting woven in strips.” And sables, she thought on a bubble of hysteria. One bare foot still crushed soft, silky fur.

The king considered the floor beneath their feet. Sections three strips wide, sewn together with twine, covered the entire room. “These are made in Southwark. I granted John Cradocke the monopoly for life. But I intended to put carpets on top of the mats for special occasions and there is nothing special—”

He broke off, shaking his head.

So much for trying to distract him. “Your Grace?”

He turned to her with almost pathetic eagerness, his eyes haunted. “She is not what I was promised, Nan. Nothing like. She is badly dressed and she speaks no English. Her face, far from being beautiful, is very brown in color and pitted with smallpox scars. And she has no charm of manner to make up for her want of beauty.”

This was bad. Very bad. Nan did the only thing she could think of. She moved closer to the king, put one hand on his velvet sleeve, and leaned against him so that her head rested on his shoulder. His arm came around her shoulders, clamping down so tightly that she winced. He did not notice.

“I carried on. What else could I do? As I’d planned, I did not identify myself, but embraced Anna and told her I had been sent by the king. She did not know me, Nan. Not at all, even though she’d been sent my likeness.”

Nan made a sympathetic murmur of sound. She dared not speak for fear she would say the wrong thing.

“She seemed bored!” The king’s voice rose in outrage. “She had been watching a bullbaiting from her window when I arrived. She spoke a few words in Dutch or German. I know not which, but the sound of it grated on my ears. Then she returned to the window.”

Greatly daring, Nan slid her arms around the king and gave him a tentative hug. He might be king, but he was a man, too, and he had received a terrible shock. The bride he had longed for was nothing like her portrait. And to add insult to injury, she had ignored him, thinking him a mere messenger. Had she treated him with proper deference, he might have looked more kindly on her lack of physical beauty. There was no hope of that now.

“I left the room to assume the purple velvet coat I had brought with me.” He was still wearing it. “When I returned, everyone bowed, and Anna seemed to recognize me at last. She realized her error and curtsied, but we still could not converse.” The king expelled a shuddering sigh. “I like her not, Nan. How can I marry her?”

Nan bit her lip. It was not her place to remind him that he’d already signed the marriage contract. All that remained to seal the treaty was consummation.

The king heaved another great sigh and kissed Nan’s cheek. “I’d have done better to marry you, Nan.”

Her heart stuttered. “That is kind of Your Grace to say, but I am only a humble gentlewoman. I am not worthy to be queen.”

“You are a woman of great beauty and you always smell sweet.” He turned her in his arms. “She has a very evil smell about her. How am I to take such a one into my bed?”

He did not expect an answer, and even if Nan had wished to give him one, she was prevented. His lips found hers. His hands slid to her waist and gripped her tightly, molding her body to his.

She did not resist. She did not dare. He was already in a volatile mood and the least resistance would turn him against her as easily as his reception by Anna of Cleves had changed his mind about her. Feigning eagerness, she kissed him back. She thought of Ned in the hope that it would make what was to come more bearable. If she pleased the king, if she eased his acceptance of a marriage he disliked, she would have influence. Prestige. Power. And a baron, at the least, to marry when the king tired of her.

His fingers were clumsy as he unlaced his codpiece. In his eagerness, he tumbled her to the floor. Nan found herself lying on a bed of rush matting and furs with the skirt of her black satin gown shoved up to her waist. The king engaged in a few minutes of frantic pawing and fumbling before he tried to push himself into her body. He’d barely entered her before he spilled his seed. A moment later, he collapsed on top of her and began to snore.

Stunned, nearly crushed by his great weight, Nan struggled to breathe. She pushed at the king’s massive shoulders. He grunted and rolled aside. He did not wake as Nan freed herself and sat up.

In the candlelight, his features slack, King Henry was an appalling sight. He was nearly bald. Even his beard was sparse, and there was far more gray in it than red. His face was deeply lined, with pouches under his eyes and sagging jowls. The rest of him was even worse—a great belly straining against his doublet; a pathetic little male organ, spent, dangling inside the opened codpiece; and, not quite hidden by his hose, the bulge of bandages.

As quickly as she could, shaking all over, Nan stumbled to her feet and straightened her nightgown. She was careful not to wake the king. Her first thought was to run away, to escape, but she stopped herself in time. Her jumbled thoughts cleared. What was done was done. It was up to her to make the best of the situation.

She was the king’s mistress now. He was already married by proxy, but he despised his new queen. He had said that he’d have done better to wed her. There was food for thought. After all, he’d rid himself of his first two wives by having those marriages annulled. Who was to say he might not annul a third?

As Nan stared down at the damp spot on the rush matting, an idea came to her. Perhaps nothing so grand would come of this night’s debacle, but as long as there was a chance …

Moving quietly, her eyes on the king lest he should wake, Nan seized the cheese knife and cut through the twine that held the stained section to those on either side. Slicing through solid matting was more difficult, but she managed it. The knife was very sharp. Carrying the rectangular piece she’d detached to the hearth, she stirred the fire with a poker until the flames were sufficiently high, then tossed in the tightly woven rushes. The material caught instantly and was consumed in moments. Satisfied, Nan returned to the king and lay down beside him to wait until he awoke.

A short time later, His Grace’s puffy eyes opened. He stared at Nan in bleary confusion. She wondered if he recognized her. She’d seen him use spectacles in private. It was possible his eyesight was failing him along with the rest of his body.

“Nan,” he said at last. She could see his struggle to recall where they were and what had happened between them. When he reached for her, she scooted away.

“Your Grace.” She gave him what she hoped would be taken for a shy smile. “I fear I am too sore for more of your lovemaking.” She ducked her head, averting her eyes. “It was my first time, as Your Grace knows.”

She sensed rather than saw the slight start he gave upon noticing the missing piece of matting.

“I … I burned that section. It was stained with my blood. I … I did not think … I did not want everyone to …”

A low chuckle cut short her stumbling explanation. Nan did not dare glance up. She was afraid the king would see the elation in her eyes.

“My sweet Nan,” he murmured, “a virgin no longer.” He sounded well pleased with himself.

“It is not that I am not proud to be your mistress, Your Grace. Never that. You are a most wonderful lover. I never knew … I never—”

“Never mind, sweeting,” the king said. “A foot carpet will cover the hole and it will be our secret.”

Bracing his weight on the chair, he heaved himself to his feet. Nan pretended not to notice how difficult the process was for him. She waited to rise until he offered her a hand, then went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Whether he really believed her or simply thought her too innocent to realize that he was not much of a lover, he was willing to accept that he had taken her virginity. He would demand no further proof of her innocence. He would never know that she had deceived him. And if he did decide to annul his marriage to Anna of Cleves—well, that remained to be seen.

* * *

QUEEN ANNA BROUGHT with her a hundred personal servants, including a physician, a secretary, and twelve maids of honor. When the king rode out of Whitehall toward Greenwich, this time taking with him most of the court—by some estimates as many as six thousand persons—he left Nan behind.

She had hoped to witness the new queen’s official reception. She had expected to enter Anna’s service before the wedding ceremony, which was now scheduled for the sixth of January. Instead, she and the other five English maids of honor selected by King Henry were told to wait at Whitehall until they were summoned.

“It is not fair,” Mary Norris complained that evening. The tall, thin maid of honor had changed little since Queen Jane’s death. At twenty-two, she was now the oldest of the group. She was also the plainest. “Everyone else is at Greenwich, set to enjoy banquets and masques and merry disports while here we sit, miserable and alone.”

“We could disguise ourselves and go,” Catherine Howard suggested. “Hire a wherry to take us to Greenwich. My silkwoman tells me that the London guilds have all procured barges and decorated them with flowers and banners. They mean to row down the river to the palace. There will be musicians onboard, and singers, too.”

Catherine was eighteen, a tiny but voluptuous girl with dark blond hair, hazel green eyes, and an effervescent nature. Nan had not met her until Catherine came to court, but she had known Catherine’s father, who had died the previous year. Lord Edmund had been comptroller of Calais until his death and a good friend to Nan’s mother and stepfather. He’d even consulted Honor Lisle a time or two for her home remedies. Nan felt her lips curve into a smile. Once, when Lady Lisle had given Lord Edmund a mixture to cure the stone, the concoction had caused him to bepiss his bed. His wife, who had been sharing it at the time, had beaten him soundly.

“We were told to stay here,” said dark-haired, brown-eyed Lucy Somerset, the most demure of the group. “I do not think we should disobey the king.”

Nan was not sure what to make of Lucy. She was barely sixteen, but she carried herself with a dignity that made her seem older. Perhaps it was because her father was the Earl of Worcester, which gave her precedence over the rest of them. She lived in the maids’ dormitory and asked for no special favors, but her clothes were much finer than Nan’s and her jewels more expensive.

“No one would know.” Catherine’s wide green eyes sparkled with mischief. “That is the point of being in disguise.”

“But what if we are caught,” Kate Stradling objected. “We might lose our positions.”

Catherine’s giggle was infectious. “We will not be. I am skilled at creeping in and out of places after dark. And good at smuggling people in, too.”

“What people?” The third Catherine, Catherine Carey, a plump girl of seventeen, plainly failed to understand the implications.

“Men,” Catherine Howard said. “What would be the point of secrecy if we only brought other women into the dormitory?”

“I would not boast of such things if I were you,” Mary Norris said. “Not if you hope to catch a husband while you are at court.”

Catherine Howard tossed her head, unconcerned. “Men like a girl who is eager to please.”

“Not if she is eager to please everyone,” Mary shot back.

Nan frowned. Until Catherine Howard came to court, she had lived in the household of the old Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, who had houses at Lambeth, across the river from Westminster, and at Horsham, in the country. Nan had pictured an environment that was dignified and cultured, where young women connected to the powerful Howard family received lessons in music and dancing and other social skills. It appeared that, in truth, those girls had learned very different skills.

“I mean to disguise myself and go,” Catherine announced. “Who will come with me?”

“The last time someone visited Anna of Cleves in disguise, matters did not go well.”

All eyes turned toward Nan.

“You left the dormitory that night.” Cousin Kate made the statement sound like an accusation. “Were you with the king?”

Lucy’s eyes grew round as saucers. Catherine Carey gasped. The look Catherine Howard sent Nan’s way was one of grudging respect.

Nan sighed. “His Grace sent for me,” she admitted. She had not expected to keep that much secret. “It was just after he returned from Rochester. He needed a sympathetic ear.”

“What did he tell you about the new queen?” Kate asked. Rumors had already spread that Anna of Cleves was not quite what the king had expected.

Thinking quickly, Nan chose the lie most likely to divert attention away from the night she’d spent in the queen’s apartments with the king. “His Grace told me that Queen Anna brought her own maids of honor with her and that she meant to keep them.”

“Twelve of them,” Catherine Howard muttered, as if the sheer number offended her.

“You know already that this was the reason we were left behind,” Nan said, “and it follows that we must not go to Greenwich on our own, not even in disguise. We must wait patiently for the king to act.”

Nan did not tell the other maids how the king really felt about his new bride, or of her suspicion that he would try his best to find a way out of the marriage. She doubted he would succeed. If he refused to go through with the wedding ceremony, there would be international repercussions. Likely he would honor the treaty he’d signed and Nan would have to make the best of it. She could be certain of one thing, however—His Grace fully intended to send the twelve ugly Dutch maids home and put six pretty English girls in their place.

ON THE SIXTH of January, King Henry married Anna of Cleves at Greenwich Palace. At the end of January, when the court returned to Whitehall, the Dutch maids were still in place. Two weeks later, Nan was still waiting to be summoned to wait upon the queen. She and Cousin Kate had been moved into Cousin Mary’s chambers, crowding Isabel and Jane. Mary, Lucy, and Catherine Carey were billeted with convenient relatives of their own at court. Only Catherine Howard had left Whitehall entirely, returning to the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk’s mansion just across the river in Lambeth.

“What I mind most,” Cousin Kate complained when she and Nan were alone in the Countess of Sussex’s apartments save for Constance and Kate’s maid, “aside from the loss of income, is the loss of all the privileges to which a maid of honor is entitled.”

“You still have a servant and bed and board.”

“I had my heart set on a spaniel.” The sulky expression on Kate’s face did nothing to improve her appearance as she primped before Mary’s looking glass. It had been a New Year’s gift from the earl to the countess and was garnished with two blue sapphires, two rubies, and twenty-six pearls, and had a small pointed diamond at the top.

“We will probably be paid our ten pounds for the year whether we serve or not.” Nan hoped so. She had very little ready money.

“But we have lost other privileges. Why, just my share of supplies for the six of us comes to more than twenty-four pounds a year.”

“Trust you to know the amount.”

Kate turned away from her reflection to tick off items on her fingers. “A daily ration of two loaves of coarse bread and three of white, four gallons of ale, a half pitcher of wine, and six candles; three torches every week; and from the last day of October until the first day of April, six talshides of wood and six bundles of faggots to keep the dormitory warm. And then there is the matter of getting husbands. I have met a gentleman I fancy and I warrant he’d consider marrying one of the queen’s maids of honor. An impoverished gentlewoman dependent upon a kinswoman for everything she has is another matter entirely.”

Nan could not help but sympathize, and she was as tired of waiting as Kate was, but she said nothing and only half-listened as Kate began to ramble on about a fellow named Parker or Palmer or some such. Nan’s thoughts drifted to King Henry.

The king had been gracious the few times she’d seen him since his return from Greenwich, but he had not sent for her again. She did not believe it was because he was happy with his new bride, or because he wished to avoid being importuned to get rid of the Dutch maids. She suspected he wished to avoid temptation. She smiled to herself, liking that explanation. It fit the fact that His Grace seemed bent on a public display of harmony between himself and Queen Anna.

“Nan?”

She gave a start. From the look on Kate’s face, it was not the first time her cousin had called her name. “I beg your pardon, coz. My mind wandered.”

“Thinking about your son, I warrant.”

Nan felt her cheeks grow warm. Nervously, she glanced toward Constance and the other maidservants, but they were on the far side of the chamber, busy with the mending. Constance was darning the heel of one of Nan’s stockings. Kate’s maid was repairing a tear in a kirtle.

“Have you seen him since you gave him away?” Kate’s sudden interest in Jamie set off alarm bells.

“No,” Nan lied. “That part of my life never happened.”

“That is as it should be.”

Nan did not like her cousin’s sly smile. With regret, she abandoned her plan to pay another visit to the silversmith’s shop. She would wait until Kate lost interest. Another week. Or perhaps two. There was, she supposed, no great rush.

IN EARLY MARCH, Ned met John Husee at the Red Lion in Southwark, the inn Husee had often used as his headquarters before he’d acquired lodgings of his own in London. It was a hospitable place, but at this hour of the day the common room was nearly deserted. Their only companions were an old man half asleep on a bench along one wall and a blue-coated servant distracted by a fight between two urchins in the street outside the inn.

“It is quiet these days in Calais,” Ned remarked, “what with Botolph and Philpott still here in England.” He coughed when he inhaled a wisp of smoke from the fire in the hearth, then took a long pull of ale to soothe his throat.

“Sir Gregory Botolph did not come to England,” Husee said. Ordinarily calm and matter-of-fact, he suddenly seemed agitated, scrubbing at his short brown beard with the back of one hand.

“Are you certain? Lord Lisle gave both Boltolph and Philpott leave to travel to England more than a month ago, to attend to personal business. Botolph was planning to visit his brothers.”

Husee continued worrying his beard. “When I saw Philpott, he told me he was on his way to Leystocke, John Botolph’s country house, on Sir Gregory’s behalf. He was to collect some money owed to Sir Gregory, then travel on to Suffolk to see the third Botolph brother, Sir William, who has a small living as parson of Hofton.”

Ned shifted uneasily on his stool. Something was not right. When he’d last seen Botolph, the priest had meant to catch the tide at two in the morning. He’d left Calais with Philpott before the gates were shut for the night and had planned to pass the time at the Rose until they sailed.

“If Botolph never planned to come to England at all, then where did he go?”

“Catholic lands surround the Pale of Calais. Botolph may have decided to join other English priests who have followed the example of Cardinal Pole.”

“Live in exile?” Botolph, for all that he detested seeing religious houses shut down, had never struck Ned as one who wished to live the monastic life.

“There is another possibility.” Husee had both hands clasped around his flagon and stared disconsolately into his ale. “I have heard a most distressing rumor,” he confessed. “A matter of some valuable gold plate that disappeared from the religious house where Sir Gregory was once a canon.”

Ned’s eyes narrowed. The implication was clear, but he wanted to be sure he understood what Husee was telling him. “Do you mean to say that you recommended a suspected thief to Lord Lisle?”

“I did not know anything about the missing plate then. And, indeed, Sir Gregory came to me most highly recommended.”

“By whom?”

“A number of men. Good men.”

“And how did they know him?”

“I … I do not know. Perhaps a third party …” His voice trailed off. He looked unhappy.

Someone powerful, then. Archbishop Cranmer? Lord Cromwell?

“If Botolph committed a crime in England,” Ned mused aloud, “it follows that he would wish to avoid returning here. The theft of such valuable goods is a hanging matter.” Unless, of course, it was the king who seized religious property for his own use when he dissolved a monastery or convent.

“Speculation is useless,” Husee said abruptly. “The fellow will turn up again or he will not. We have more important matters to deal with.”

Clearly Husee wished he’d never broached the subject of Sir Gregory Botolph. He did not mention him again, but rather spent the next hour discussing Lord Lisle’s business. When they were done, they had a last drink in the dimly lit common room and Husee relayed the latest news of Lady Lisle’s daughters.

BEFORE HE RETURNED to Calais, Ned went to court. He found Nan in the queen’s presence chamber, for in the middle of the previous month, the Dutch maids of honor had been dismissed and the English maids of honor recalled.

Nan took his breath away. She was attired in a new gown of soft tawny velvet with a bonnet in the latest style that showed a great deal of her beautiful brown hair and flattered her pretty face. That face, however, was marred by an expression of alarm when he asked for a word with her in private.

“We have nothing to say to each other that cannot be spoken of before witnesses.”

“Not so, Nan. There is a delicate matter concerning your youngest sister that I have been ordered to discuss with you in strictest confidence.” He had been given no such commission, but it was as good an excuse as any to get Nan alone.

“Mary? Is she ill again?”

“She is in love.”

“Go, Nan,” Kate Stradling said, giving her a shove, “but be prepared to tell all when you return.”

Her laughter followed them out of the queen’s apartments. Nan led the way through a maze of rooms and corridors until they came to a window embrasure that overlooked a garden. Even in winter, it was a stunning sight, filled with topiary beasts and beds set out in patterns.

“Well?” she demanded.

“I lied.”

“Mary is not in love?”

“Oh, she is, but she did not ask me to share that intelligence with you.”

“Who?”

Ned shrugged. He saw no harm in telling her. “The young seigneur de Bours, Gabriel de Montmorency.”

“He’s a child.”

“So was Mary when you last saw her. She has grown up into a beauty.” He reached out to run the back of his hand down Nan’s cheek. “As pretty as you are, my love.”

She jerked her head away. “If that is all you had to tell me, then I will return to my duties. The queen—”

“The queen will not even notice you are missing. She was nowhere in sight when I found you and Kate. What is the matter, Nan? Why does it make you so nervous to be alone with me?”

“I am reluctant to be seen alone with you.”

“Still afraid someone will guess that we were once lovers?”

“I would deny it if any dared suggest such a thing.” Anger flashed across her features, sparking the same emotion in him.

“Have you finally caught the eye of some poor fool of a nobleman?” The thought was more unsettling than he’d anticipated.

“A nobleman?” she scoffed. “Oh, no, Ned. I have done better than a mere nobleman.”

Ned’s stomach twisted. She’d told him of the king’s interest in her. Warned him off. He’d joked that he’d be willing to take King Henry’s leavings. But back then, Nan had not been the king’s mistress. Ned had convinced himself she never would be. The image of them together, his Nan with that fat and diseased old man, repulsed him. “So, you’ve won the prize.”

“And hope for even more. Please, Ned. Do not cause trouble. He believes he was the first.”

He had no difficulty in understanding her. “And to think I once admired your ambition! This is madness, Nan. Remember what happened to the others.”

One divorced. One beheaded. One dead of childbirth. Even if she wouldn’t have him, Ned wanted better than that for Nan. He wanted her to be safe as well as happy.

Nan stamped her foot in frustration. “You’re just jealous and you have no right to be. Go away, Ned. Leave me be. I know what I’m doing.” With a final glare to make her point, she turned on her heel and strode rapidly away from him.

Ned stared after her, his emotions in turmoil. Why was he so upset? Was he jealous of the king? No, that wasn’t it. Not entirely. And he should never have lashed out at Nan the way he had. She could not change her nature any more than he could change his. He should be pleased for her. Instead, he was worried that if she attained her goal, she would pay a terrible price for it.

NED’S VISIT PUSHED Nan into taking action. Because she’d found the king such an unappealing lover the one time they’d coupled, she’d made no particular effort to attract his attention since. But if she was to have the ultimate prize, if she was to be queen, she could not afford to delay any longer.

Henry Tudor was unhappy in his marriage to Anna of Cleves. Everyone knew that. There were rumors that the king had been unable to force himself to consummate the marriage. And Nan had heard there were grounds for annulment—an earlier betrothal between Anna and some minor German prince. If the king decided to pursue that course, he would soon be in the market for a fifth wife.

Nan had dreaded being summoned to the king’s bed as his mistress. But if she could be queen … that was entirely different. The privileges, the power, the beautiful clothes—all those things would compensate for the distasteful aspects of intimate relations with the king.

King Henry believed he was the one who had deflowered her. That meant he would not expect a virgin on their wedding night. There did remain one problem. If His Grace ever found out that she had a child, he would know she’d deceived him.

Nan sighed. If she was to succeed in winning the king, she would never be able to see Jamie again. On the other hand, as queen, she would be in a position to advance anyone she chose. Members of her family, acknowledged and unacknowledged, would profit from her position. When Jamie Carver was a little older, perhaps she could bring him to court as a page.

Nan trusted Constance not to betray her secret. Cousin Kate would expect some material gain for her silence, but that could be arranged. Once she was queen, she would have the means to give Kate many “tokens” to keep her sweet.

The first step was to seduce the king. Nan chose her time with care. There were occasions when Queen Anna did not wish to have an entire retinue following at her heels. When she went to walk in her gallery for exercise, she took only four maids of honor with her, leaving the other two to their own devices.

Freed from her duties on the afternoon following Ned’s visit, Nan hurried to the maids’ dormitory. She washed with perfumed water and changed into clean linen. Constance, summoned from whatever place maidservants to maids of honor went when they were not needed, appeared in time to tie her laces and assure her that her headdress was on straight and her hair, what little showed of it, looked clean and neat.

“Are you certain about this, Mistress Nan?” Constance’s lips pursed with disapproval as she made one last adjustment to Nan’s skirts.

The fluttering in Nan’s stomach intensified. “About what, Constance?”

The maidservant sighed. “There is only one reason you’d be primping in the middle of the day. The mouse is off to play while the cat walks in the gallery.”

Nan had to smile at Constance’s odd turn of phrase. “His Grace means to discard the queen and marry again,” she said. “You have heard the rumors.”

“The wagering belowstairs favors it,” Constance agreed.

That surprised Nan, though when she thought about it she realized it should not have. Servants heard all kinds of things while waiting on their betters. “His Grace told me once that if he were not obliged to marry the princess of Cleves, he’d take me to wife. Once he rids himself of this woman he cannot abide, there will be no barrier to keep him from putting me in her place.”

Constance’s eyes widened. “But if he finds out—”

“He will not.”

“But you are no—”

“His Grace believes himself to be … responsible. Now say no more of this, Constance. If you love me at all, never speak of it again.”

Constance’s expression remained grim but she nodded. “God go with you, mistress.”

Nan sallied forth from the maidens’ chamber in search of the king. She knew his routine. At this time of day he was most often in his own gallery. He was unlikely to be alone. She was prepared for that. But unless someone important, like Lord Cromwell, walked with him to discuss serious matters of state, she was certain he would be happy to send the others away.

She’d smile and tell him how much she had missed him. Flirt with and flatter him. Let him know she wished to be sent for when His Grace retired for the night. How could he resist? If all she’d heard was true, he had not made love to a woman since the night he’d taken her on the rush matting.

The king was indeed in his gallery, but his companion was not the Lord Privy Seal or the groom of the stole or any of his gentlemen attendants. It was Catherine Howard who walked beside him. She was so tiny that she only came up to the king’s shoulder. He had to bend down to speak with her, but this seemed to please him. A broad grin split his face at her answer.

King Henry’s attention was so fixed on the pretty young woman attached to his arm that he failed to notice Nan’s presence in the gallery. Shaken and dismayed, Nan watched the king and his companion. How, she wondered, could she have missed the signs? Catherine Howard had returned to court dressed in the latest French fashions, and yet Nan knew the young woman had no fortune. Her parents were dead. She had numerous brothers and sisters and half brothers and half sisters, all with a claim on what little Lord Edmund Howard had left. A stepmother, too. So those clothes had been gifts from someone else.

Not the king. He’d had no opportunity to catch more than a glimpse of Catherine Howard before he wed Anna of Cleves. The Duke of Norfolk was more likely. He’d already helped put one niece, Anne Boleyn, on the throne of England. It was reasonable to assume that he’d provided pretty little Catherine with beautiful clothing in the hope that she would catch the king’s eye. And she had.

Belatedly, Nan saw Catherine’s sojourn with the dowager Duchess of Norfolk in a new light. She recalled several occasions, during the weeks before the Dutch maids of honor were dismissed, when King Henry had crossed the Thames with only a few of his gentlemen and spent the day in Lambeth.

Then there were the gifts Catherine had received. Nan had seen them in the maiden’s chamber. Small things—quilted sleeves, a painted brooch—but Catherine had never said who’d sent them. No doubt there had been other presents—jewels, perhaps a painted miniature of King Henry, maybe even a horse.

When Catherine laughed and the king joined in, Nan turned and fled back toward the maiden’s chamber. She had left it too late. The king had found someone else to ease his disappointment in the queen.

The dormitory was deserted when Nan reached it. Grateful for the solitude, she flung herself onto the window seat and stared out at the winter-brown landscape. March was not yet half gone. She shivered and thought about stirring the embers in the hearth and adding wood to the fire, but suddenly lacked the energy to get up and do so.

Was the king’s interest in Catherine Howard a passing fancy, or was Catherine’s goal the same as her own, to marry the king? That girl was no innocent. Nan was sure of it. And she doubted that the king would offer marriage without first sampling the wares. When he discovered she was not a virgin, he was unlikely to make her his queen.

So, Nan decided, it was only a matter of time before he tired of his new love. And then what? Nan was no longer so certain she could rekindle his interest in her. Even if she did, it might not lead to marriage.

Nan had never been given to introspection, but she forced herself to examine her reaction to discovering Catherine Howard with the king. Now that the shock had worn off, she knew that what she was feeling was not jealousy. Rather, it was a sort of rueful relief.

It was a pity that her opportunity had been lost, but she was no worse off than she had been and she’d been spared the onerous task of pretending, night after night, perhaps for years, that the king was a wonderful lover.

Perhaps she’d had a lucky escape. Tom Culpepper, whose duties included changing the king’s dressing, had told her that the ulcer it covered never healed. In fact, His Grace’s doctors advised him to keep it open beneath the bandages. Nan shuddered, remembering the nauseating odor she’d caught a whiff of once or twice.

“The king is still fond of me,” she murmured. “I am still a maid of honor, still at court. And so long as those things are true, I can still hope to catch the eye of a wealthy and eligible nobleman.”