The Secret Keeper: A Novel of Kateryn Parr

THIRTEEN

Early and Late Spring: Year of Our Lord 1547

Somerset House

Chelsea

Baynard’s Castle

The Duke of Somerset, Edward, Thomas’s newly titled brother, held a grand celebration at his enormous and extravagant household on the river Thames. I had some fear about attending, but then I remembered that the duke was unlikely to invite lesser members from the household of Gardiner, his enemy, and I felt more at ease. John Temple would not be in attendance.

I arrived with others of Kate’s household and was seated for the many-course meal. After we ate, the Duke and Duchess of Somerset had music and dancing such as was never seen outside of court. The king, still a child, had long been put abed. Kate, as queen dowager, was the highest-ranking woman in the room and so danced first, with her host. After Kate danced with the duke, she danced with his brother, the lord high admiral, Thomas Seymour.

I hoped that Jamie, as a colleague of Thomas Seymour, would be in attendance. I wished I didn’t care, but I did. I had dressed with care in case he attended, in a gown of rose shot with gold and had worn a strand of pearls. On my finger I wore a matching band of gold and stone.

I felt a hand upon my shoulder from behind and heard his voice as he sweetly spoke my name. “Juliana.”

I turned to face him.

“You will have, I am certain, noticed that I am alone and not surrounded by peach flesh?” Jamie pressed a tease. “Should you care to dance?”

I let him kiss my hand and lead me out; we danced and talked, and whilst I tried to refrain from flirting with him and offering undue affection, he drew it out of me like a lodestone to iron shavings hour after hour. He most certainly did not smell of armor then, but of musk and spice and faintly of mead. I could not but laugh and talk and pleasure in his company for hours.

“I am well pleased to see our relationship restored to one of joy and ease,” he said. “After I last visited your home I was uncertain that you were still pleased with my company. I should like to speak with you privately,” he said insistently as the night grew late and the guests retired.

I hesitated. I knew where the conversation would lead and I did not want to hurt him. It might be that he’d press his suit here if need be, though, so perhaps it would be better to speak with him in private. “A suite of rooms has been provided for the queen dowager and her household.” I told him where to meet me, and said he might find me there in thirty minutes.

I made my way down the long hallway and, once there, was gladdened that the servants were well trained and that my fire was still lightly stirred on this cold night. I pulled the chairs near to it and poked the embers myself afore throwing in a pack of sticks and one large log. Shortly thereafter, a knock came on my door.

I stood for just a minute, crushed in spirit, and thought how different this might have been if not for John Temple. I walked to the door and opened it and he grinned. “May I come in?”

“Yes, of course you may.” Once I closed the door he took my hand in his. I let him hold it for but a moment and then withdrew it. “Please, have a seat.” I struggled to keep my voice cool and my manner aloof, berating myself for my inability to do that earlier in the evening, disallowing myself the sheer joy of reveling in his company, which had given him false hope. He, among all people, was the one I cared for most and therefore wanted least to hurt.

Jamie sat down. “My nephews gaily recounted your telling of St. George whilst they waited yesterday,” he said. “It was their first joust. My brother thinks it’s time they become men,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “Both boys were besotted with you.”

“Seems only right, since you gifted the book to me, that I share the story with your kin.”

His face looked a little bewildered at my unseemly remove, I guessed, but I could not change that. It would do more harm than good to act otherwise.

“My brother and his wife find you delightful.”

“As I did them.”

“I told them I intend to marry you,” he said. “As quickly as I may, and then, with the woman I love, quickly begin producing Scamps and Rascals of our own.”

“Marriage.” The truest desire my heart had ever known.

“You are not the only person who can speak forthrightly, Juliana,” he said as he drew his chair closer to mine. “Though I be delighted that I can still surprise you.”

“You do indeed,” I said, wishing that I could find joy in this news.

“I should like to speak with your brother, if he is here for the coronation.”

I nodded. “He is in Cecil’s household for a while longer; then he returns to Marlborough to attend to our family business.”

“I know of it,” he said. “I have seen Sir Matthias in passing whilst in London, though I am sure he would not recognize me. Has there been … an arrangement made with his son?” he asked softly.

I shook my head. “I told my brother that no arrangement should be made with Matthias, if that were meet with my brother, and he agreed.”

“Excellent! Then I am free to speak with your brother, and your mother, if need be.”

“I cannot leave Kate’s household. She has need of me.”

He seemed slightly taken aback. “Well, I suppose you must stay with her for some short time, whilst she transitions to her dower estates.”

I took his hand in mine and allowed myself to twine his fingers through my own. “I do not intend to marry for some time, if ever, Jamie,” I said softly, and with sorrow.

He withdrew his hand in surprise and then took both of mine in his own. “Why not? Is there another?”

“There is no other,” I said gently. “I promise you this.”

“You shall take religious vows, then?”

At that I giggled, and broke the tension. “Nay, Jamie.”

He laughed himself, nervously. “Well, I thought not, as I believed your religious thoughts veered away from the traditional. But then, is it me, have I misread the situation? I have done as I promised you at your mother’s home. I have not lived as a Turk with many wives.” He wiggled his eyebrows and we both laughed again. “I desire, as I once said to you, only one wife. And that be you.”

I kept my hands in his. “If I were to marry, Jamie, it would be to you. I prefer you above all others. But I cannot, and that is all I can say of the matter. I grieve too.”

He stood up. “And you have nothing further to offer? No reason? No explanation?”

“Alas, I fear not.”

“If I wait?”

I shook my head no, my chest suffocating in sorrow as one closed in a coffin.

“And yet you are firm upon this course?”

“I am.” I left no room for wonder in my tone of voice. It was for his good. I would not force him to make a choice, and should he choose against me, in truth, I did not want to know.

He grew warm in the face. “I do not understand, Juliana, but I will take you at your word and press you no further. I shall sorrow, though. I have a fine manor in the north of Ireland and I desire a family to share it with. As I cannot have the wife I desire, I shall have to soon take one I do not.”

He reached into the pocket of his fine leather coat and withdrew a box. “I had come expecting a better outcome,” he said, “and had this made for you to keep me in your mind whilst I was at sea after we finalized our marriage.” He handed a small black box to me.

I took it in hand and opened it. It was Jamie, a faint scruff on a browned face, blue eyes creased at the corners where his hair met his lashes. I looked at it for a moment and my eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry.” I stood and then held it out to him.

He refused to take it. “No. I had it made for you. You may keep it. You told me once that you do not like to receive a gift without giving one in return.” He took my face between his hands and ran them over it, then pulled me close and kissed me. His rough jaw scratched against my smooth one, his cheek bone pressed into mine. In spite of myself I responded and reached my arms around him till we melded together.

A minute later I pushed him away at last, lest we be further tempted to more.

“You respond with love and desire. I sense it,” he said. “I am confused.”

I opened the doorway afore speaking softly again. “I am so sorry, Jamie. I shall pray for you to have the life of love and happiness that you richly deserve.”

He did not ask a further question and I quickly closed and locked the door behind him before I could change my mind. I sat on my bed before I let the tears course silently down my face, then my chin, then trail onto my chest. I unfurled my fingers from his miniature, which I clutched in my right hand, and met him eye to eye for a moment. He smiled. I grieved.

I could not marry him. He deserved his own Scamp and Rascal whom he could teach to joust and tell stories, who could inherit his purse and lands. These were things I could never give him and things I knew he deeply desired. My gift was not the kiss, but his freedom to have the life he deserved.

’Twas more a sorrow than a pleasure, then, to have learnt that our kiss had rekindled the desire I thought had been permanently snuffed out. I allowed myself the reluctant pleasure of thinking what might have been before lying down to bed, caressing his face once more before gently closing the small black box.

In the main, Lord Thomas had been right: his brother had given him lands and titles and honorary fripperies, but he kept him far from the circle of power. Too, the council understood the motherly sway that Kate had upon King Edward, a solemn boy of but nine who needed, I suspected, to be told the story of St. George rather than rule over the castle that held the chapel named in St. George’s honor. Thomas’s brother kept Kate far from court, too, lest her influence on the king, which he sought to wean him from, should wax instead.

This left Kate and Lord Thomas an inordinate amount of time on their hands in the distant properties of her dower homes and his own home without the watchful eyes of the council.

In March Kate wrote a long letter to Thomas. “I told him within that we should write but once a fortnight,” she said to me, handing the letter over to a page to be delivered to Seymour Place. The next day, though, and the next, she handed me similar letters to pass along to her messenger.

“My lady, are you certain?” She dismissed my concerns and bid me obey. Lord Thomas’s came quickly, too, in return. I saw them on her table and near her bed.

In April, Thomas began to dine with us regularly at Chelsea. They kept about them only the few whom they knew would be constant in their affection toward one or both, and whilst I was still vexed that he led her to grow ever angrier over her treatment after King Henry’s death, I also rejoiced to see her so happy. After having had three husbands chosen for her, it was only right that she would choose the fourth for herself, even if he were not the man I should have chosen for her.

One night, whilst I made my way down the hallway toward my chamber, I heard Thomas plead that he be able to spend the night.

“Not afore marriage,” Kate said insistently. “It would not be right. And with the Lady Elizabeth coming within a fortnight to live in my household, I must have an eye to propriety.”

“But you have said we may not be married for two years!” he wheedled. “If you be certain we must wait, then let it not be two years but two months.” I heard no more after that but giggling and low voices. Aware of the impropriety of my own eavesdropping, I quickly moved on. But one day, not a week later, I was up afore dawn with a painful flux and I happened to glance out my window.

A man approached the manor house and made his way in, quietly. I was still at my window two hours later when he took his leave. He kept his head down but I recognized the jaunty walk. Lord Thomas.

’Twas a most joyous time for all when the Lady Elizabeth and her household arrived at Chelsea. Kate was merrier than I had seen her in some time; she looked upon Elizabeth as a daughter, I knew, and if she could not dote upon the king she would dote upon his sister. The Lady Elizabeth had the finest suite of rooms in the house, after Kate, of course. She had household servants and maidens and gentlemen, and of course her governess, Kat Ashley. Kat was the sister of Kate’s good friend Lady Denny, so it was a most congenial mixture. Elizabeth and I oft played rook or cards, though the times were but few when I bested her at any game. Thomas had a kindly word or two for me, asked about my family or my reading, partnered me at dance or cards.

One day he did not even speak to me afore making his way directly to the king’s daughter. “My Lady Elizabeth.” One of Kate’s men took his coat and Thomas sat near the fire, where Elizabeth practiced her letters.

“Lord Thomas,” she said, a grin on her face. At shy of fourteen she was not yet a woman but no longer still a girl. I kept in mind that my lady mother had been but two years older than Elizabeth when she had married my father and, shortly thereafter, bore me. It put me on guard. He spoke to her softly for a few moments before I heard him challenge her.

“You shall be sure not to bedevil the queen whilst a member of her household,” Thomas said, grinning wickedly in her direction. “Or you shall have to answer to me, my lady, and ye shall find the discipline not to your pleasure at all.”

Elizabeth’s white skin grew red and her freckles darkened. But her black eyes remained calm and resolute, blinking not at all behind their hawk’s hoods. “I shall keep that in mind, sir,” she said with a smile. Then she turned back to her quill and parchment.

Lord Thomas grinned and moved away, but I had the feeling that he did not like being dismissed; rather, he preferred to decide when to draw a conversation to a close. Shortly thereafter, he went to find Kate and once he did, put his hands on her hips in full view of the others in the room. I turned away lest I grow red myself.

One day, the Lady Elizabeth’s governess, Kat Ashley, found me as I was making an inventory of the queen dowager’s gowns as well as her few remaining pieces of jewelry afore she pressed her case to Lady Seymour, to speak with her husband to have Kate’s jewelry returned. Although the queen had them placed in the tower, and the lord protector himself had read the king’s will that gave them to her, Edward Seymour had not allowed any to be taken: not gifts from Kate’s mother, nor her wedding ring from His Majesty, nor any other of her personal possessions.

“Excuse me, Mistress St. John.” Kat Ashley spoke up. “Do you by chance know what Lord Thomas’s marriage plans are?”

I set the gowns down. What an odd question. Had word leaked back to court already that Thomas was pressing Kate to make a quick marriage? Or had Kat seen one of Thomas’s early morning visits?

“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said. She nodded and we made small talk and soon after, she took her leave. I thought it unusual, but perhaps she was concerned for the Lady Elizabeth’s reputation should the household fall under scrutiny. I dismissed the concern.

The next week we all dined at Baynard’s Castle, which Kate had given to her sister, Lady Herbert, and her sister’s husband, Lord Herbert. It was to be a celebratory event, a way to honor the Lady Elizabeth, daughter to one king and now sister of another. She was given precedence after the queen dowager and afterward there was a small musical reception with players Lady Herbert had hired.

“I hear you’ve bought the wardship of Lady Jane Grey,” Herbert boomed out toward Lord Thomas from across the room.

“I have indeed, and it was no small purchase,” Seymour answered.

“Two thousand pounds is what I heard,” Herbert said.

At that, Kate gasped. I suspected Thomas had not discussed this with her.

“A bold man takes risks where the dividends will pay handsomely,” Lord Thomas said.

“Do you mean to marry her to the king, then?” Herbert spoke up.

It was exactly what Thomas intended. All knew that whilst he could not control the king directly, he sought to curry favor with all others who had a claim to the throne. He intended to marry Lady Jane Grey to the king; if he succeeded, he, Thomas Seymour, would have great power as her ward. “My brother may have tied the council’s hands,” he had told Kate, “but I shall hold the children’s hearts.”

“’Tis entirely possible the council will tie your hands when they find out,” Kate had replied, and he dismissed it with a wave of his hand, a merry dance, and a kiss on her lips.

I turned back to look at Herbert, who had handily discerned Thomas’s plan. He was waiting for an answer.

“The king’s daughters marry only upon the approval of the counsel,” Thomas said. “But the king himself only needs rely upon their advice.”

For some reason, the talk of Lady Jane Grey clearly upset Kate’s sister, and I was nearby when she pulled Lord Thomas aside and spoke. “A better question of marriage may be, are you about to marry my sister?”

“Nothing could be more satisfactory to me. Alas, she keeps me at a distance,” Thomas answered.

“Nay, ’tis not the truth. I hear that there be many midnight visits to Chelsea and some lasting hours.”

At this, Thomas blushed like a maiden and owned up that yes, he did visit her but ’twas nothing improper. Lady Herbert raised her eyebrow, after which I kept my eyes fixed to the ground.

In mid-May, Kate and Thomas were secretly wed at Baynard’s Castle, with her sister and brother as witnesses and a priest with reformist beliefs marrying them. They stayed there, as guests, on a honeymoon of sorts whilst the rest of us remained at Chelsea, and Lady Jane Grey and her household at Seymour Place, so it would seem all was normal. They could not tell anyone, of course, till they had the favor of the lord protector and the king on this matter, which they set about to quickly secure.

Kate radiated bliss, and I was delighted for her because this was the first time she’d promised to be bonny at bed and at board where she meant it of her own free will and not as a duty. I could not but be a bit envious of her radiating happiness, wishing I had a wedding day of my own to look forward to. I had some reservations about Sir Thomas, though. Kate looked as though she had just conquered an army, but as I had now seen Thomas’s recklessness regularly and in increasing strength, I feared that she would soon be undone.

There was a night whilst Kate was still at Baynard’s that I awoke to find Kat Ashley standing over me, her hair in her sleeping cap and a candle in her hand.

“Mistress St. John, are you all right?”

I sat up in bed and gathered my senses as I took in my surroundings. It had been a long while since I’d had my prophetic dream, and this strongly, and it had taken me by surprise.

“Yes, I’m all right. ’Twas merely a night terror,” I said, and she returned to her chamber.

It was the dream of Lord Thomas with the dagger that I already knew. And the Lady Elizabeth under duress. Now, dishearteningly, I saw that it was Kate who held Elizabeth firm.

What shall You require me to do?