I went back to Chelsea in mid-May, with Will, as an honored guest of his sister and her husband. I was pleased to see Kathryn and Mary again, but Tom Seymour was another matter. The way he looked at me—at every woman!—made me uncomfortable, but his heated verbal attacks on his older brother alarmed me even more.
“The cursed Lord High Popinjay does favors for everyone but me,” Tom complained, prowling his wife’s privy chamber while Will took his ease in a comfortable chair. Kathryn and I shared a window seat that overlooked the river and the gardens on the south side of the house. I nibbled at a piece of marchpane and forced myself to smile. Kathryn obviously thought the name amusing.
Tom went on in this same vein for some time, his language colorful and sometimes blasphemous. His vocabulary was eloquent in that area. Will quaffed ale and waited until his friend wound down. “Accept it, Tom,” he advised. “Somerset has control and is not likely to relinquish it. We must all make the best of things.”
“You have lands in the north and so do I. We could go there and set up house,” Tom grumbled. “We might build our own little kingdom there.”
“I was not raised in the north and have no affection for the region,” Will said. “I much prefer to remain at court and in favor.”
“I am not in favor now and doubt I ever will be again so long as my brother lives.”
Even Kathryn looked shocked at this statement, and she had no cause to love the Duke of Somerset or his wife. Will tactfully changed the subject. While he and Tom discussed horse breeding, I searched for another neutral topic. Below us, in the garden, I caught sight of Princess Elizabeth walking in company with a tall, slender, red-haired young woman all in black. Her manner of dress told me she was a widow.
“Who is that with Her Grace?” I asked.
“That is Elizabeth, Lady Browne. Her husband, Sir Anthony died not long ago and she is on her way to take up residence in her dower house at West Horsley, in Surrey. She stopped to pay her respects to me and to Elizabeth. A very pleasant young woman.”
“There is something familiar about her, but I do not think I have ever met her.”
“Are you speaking of fair Geraldine?” Tom asked, coming up beside his wife to peer out the window.
At my puzzled expression, Will explained. “Fair Geraldine was what Surrey called her in the sonnet he wrote to her when she was just a child.”
“She was wasted on old Browne,” Tom Seymour said. “He was too feeble to appreciate a nubile young bride.”
“I am sure they managed as well as most couples,” Kathryn chided him. “Still, she was very young when they wed, and he had already seen over sixty winters.”
“And now she is a wealthy widow. Not a bad bargain for her, alhough I imagine she thought she’d have her freedom somewhat sooner.”
“Perhaps she came to care for her husband,” I said, annoyed by Tom’s callous attitude.
He had the gall to laugh at my suggestion. I turned my back on him and resumed watching the two young women below, wondering once again where I had seen Lady Browne before. I was still wondering later that evening when I turned a corner and unexpectedly came upon her. She was not alone. Tom Seymour had her backed up against the wainscoted wall, one hand flat against the surface on either side of her shoulders. His face was only inches from hers and about to move closer.
A moment later, the pomander ball Lady Browne wore suspended from her waist by a long chain flew upward to strike Tom on the side of the head with a dull thump. He jumped away from her with a yelp, cursing fluently. The casing was heavily enameled and studded with semiprecious stones.
“Neither your behavior nor your language does you any credit, Lord Seymour,” Elizabeth Browne said, “and you do not deserve the fine woman who is your wife.”
Tom, still holding his head, paled at her words. “There is no reason to say anything to the queen dowager about this. You know I meant you no harm. You are a beautiful woman. You tempted me.”
“That is a pitiful excuse.” Contemptuous, she shoved him out of her way. She stopped in midstride when she saw me.
Tom swore under his breath.
Suddenly uncertain, Lady Browne sent a nervous smile in my direction. That expression, combined with the shape of her nose and the color of her hair, triggered my memory. I remembered where I had seen her before.
“You were at the banquet King Henry gave, the one to which he invited only unmarried ladies.”
She blinked at me in surprise, then slowly nodded. “That was a long time ago. I was only fourteen.”
“It is not surprising that King Henry should have taken an interest in two such charming girls. He always . . .” Tom’s words trailed off as we both glared at him.
I thought of several tart responses, including one about making a habit of taking the king’s leavings, but I thought better of saying such a thing aloud. Instead I turned back to Lady Browne. “He cannot help being a fool,” I said, “but it will serve no purpose to force the queen dowager to see him for what he really is, especially now when she carries his child.”
“I will say nothing,” Lady Browne promised.
“You are wise as well as charming.” Tom seemed unable to stop flirting even when it would have been the better part of valor to remain silent.
Lady Browne toyed with her pomander ball until he went away.
“He should not be allowed around young, impressionable girls,” she remarked when we were finally alone.
I agreed with her, but there was nothing either of us could do to change the fact that the Princess Elizabeth was in the queen dowager’s keeping, or that Tom held the guardianship of the Marchioness of Dorset’s eldest daughter, ten-year-old Lady Jane Grey, who lived in his London house, Seymour Place.
Whit Sunday of that year fell on the twentieth of May. On the twenty-seventh, Mary Woodhull wrote to tell me that Princess Elizabeth and her entourage had left Chelsea to take up residence at Cheshunt, Sir Anthony Denny’s manor in Hertfordshire. She gave no reason, making me wonder if Tom’s ongoing flirtation with the princess had finally come to light.
In June, the queen dowager and her household, which now included the young Lady Jane Grey, moved to Hanworth, in Middlesex. Tom chafed at not being able to leave London to join her there, but he was both lord admiral and a privy councilor and there were fresh rumors of a new French plot. As soon as he could, however, he left Westminster for Hanworth, and soon after that he and Kathryn retreated to Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. Tom was still there on the thirtieth day of August when his daughter was born.
We had only just received a letter announcing the birth when Mary Woodhull arrived at Norfolk House in person. The moment she entered my withdrawing room, she burst into tears. “Oh, Bess,” she sobbed. “She’s dead. The queen dowager is dead.”
The news stole my breath. I felt as if I’d taken a physical blow. It was not just the loss of a former mistress and a former queen that left me stunned and shaken, but the sudden void that can only be created by the death of a kinswoman. I could not have felt more bereft if it had been my own sister Kate who was dead.
“We thought Her Grace was recovering,” Mary said when she’d taken a few sips of a reviving posset, “but then her condition began to worsen.” She glanced at Will, who had joined us as soon as he heard the news. “The queen grew disturbed in her mind toward the end. She pushed the lord admiral away when he would have lain in the bed with her to offer comfort.”
Eyes brimming, I heard Mary tell us how it had taken nearly a week after giving birth for the queen dowager to lose her battle for life. Beside me, Will sat as stiff and still as a statue. I could sense his struggle not to show the depth of his grief and wished he could give way to tears, as a woman would.