“Not well, I fear,” Lady Latimer responded quietly. “He shall … recall me soon, I expect.”
I was not surprised. Margaret Neville had returned to Charterhouse the week before but Lady Latimer was not given leave to return yet.
“You must return to him,” Henry said. “And then, perhaps afterward, you shall grace our court again?”
“As you wish, Your Majesty,” Kate said. They spoke together for another fifteen minutes, in muted voices, so I knew not what they said. But you’d have had to be a fool, or blind—I was neither—to not see that the king was besotted with Kate.
The next day the Lady Mary’s tailor came by Lady Latimer’s chamber once more. Kate talked to him quietly and then closed the chamber door behind him. We all looked at her expectantly.
“The king has kindly ordered half a dozen gowns of the highest quality for me, as well, in light of the tailor’s error.”
My breath suspended for a moment, and none of us dared to look at one another for fear we’d disclose our dismay.
Later that night as we reposed I heard her sister, Lady Herbert, speak to her about it in a hushed voice in the next room as she changed into a bed gown.
“They say the king is looking for a new wife,” she began. “It has been nigh on a year since Queen Catherine Howard’s unfortunate death.”
“What is that to me?” Lady Latimer asked.
“Come now, Kate. You are young, but not too young to make folly. You are beautiful—yes, you are! Your husband is unto death and the king is ordering very expensive gifts for you.”
Lady Latimer snorted, mayhap willing herself blind to what she did not want to see. But when Kate returned to the chamber the merry look she had entered the closet with had hardened into one of disquiet and fear.
Lord Latimer died on March 2, 1543, after having been shriven, according to his desire. His lady did not hold with such practices any longer but she honored her husband. Within a week, Henry recalled Kate to court. To my sorrow, I was required to send Lucy home to Marlborough, to the young man she’d intended to marry and to assist her mother at Brighton Manor. Whilst at court, we maidens had to avail ourselves of the king’s servants.
“Who will assist ya if one of them dreams comes?” Lucy asked while packing her things.
I shook my head. “I shan’t need anyone,” I said with confidence. “I haven’t had any since we’ve been here. Mayhap it was Marlborough that troubled me, and once I departed, the dreams departed too.”
She looked doubtful but said nothing, hoping for my sake, I knew, that it was true.
I hoped so too.
To celebrate the arrival of spring His Majesty held a series of festivities at Hampton Court Palace. First was to be a pageant and then a dinner followed two evenings later by a masked ball. I hoped beyond anything that Jamie would be present, and spent much of my prayer time, I was shamed to admit, to that end.
Lord Latimer had left his wife a rich widow and she supplied each of us in her household with coins so we could purchase a new mask. I had made the acquaintance of one of the seamstresses through Kate and the Lady Mary and I knew where to find her. “I shall have a mask made to exactly match my dress,” I whispered to Dorothy. “Should you like to come along and have one too?”
“Oh yes,” she said. She showed me the lovely blue gown she planned to wear. The color set off her fair skin and eyes but I could tell that the fabric had been turned. I knew the others would notice it, too, at the event.
“’Tis a beautiful gown and color,” I said. “I have one of a similar hue, a gift from my mother. Alas, it goes poorly with my complexion and I do not wear it.” I fixed a look of surprise upon my face as though something had suddenly occurred to me. “Mayhap you would like it? It would be an honor to have it worn since it is my misfortune that I do not look well in it.”
The expression upon Dorothy’s face resembled that of a fish who had been stunned with a quick slap to a table, which troubled me greatly, but then she recovered. I had meant the offer to be a pleasure and not cause pain. “If it shan’t unsettle you, I should like to,” she said. “Thank you.”
“’Tis my pleasure,” I said, and took the expensive gown from my wardrobe. “I am glad that it will get some use, and your lovely coloring suits it admirably.” Afterward, we walked arm in arm to the seamstress’s and bid her to make masks for us.
“I believe we shall be the only ladies in Lady Latimer’s household with masks to match our gowns,” Dorothy said with excitement. Mayhap it was the gift of the gown, but she grew friendlier on the walk back to our chamber, even speaking of how she came to be in Lady Latimer’s household, which she had not told me of in detail before. Her mother was a distant cousin and her family had thirteen children; they could not afford to keep all of them in their own household.
I shared that my mother was of a higher-born family, too, which had fallen upon difficult circumstances many years back. “You and I are not so very different,” I said.
“How did you come to stay with Lady Latimer?” she asked.
“Sir Thomas Seymour was an associate of my father. When my father became ill, Sir Thomas had, apparently, agreed to advance my brother on my father’s behalf. And then, I suppose, me as well.”
“I haven’t seen Sir Thomas seek to advance others without also advancing himself in some way.” Her tone was sharp and disdainful.
Dorothy was my friend, but I was not likely to let my benefactor go undefended, regardless of my niggling misgivings. Sir Thomas had helped Jamie, too, after all. “He seems right kind to me and likely to keep a promise,” I replied promptly.
“He’s right kind to all the ladies,” Dorothy said, seemingly taken aback by my tone. “But he keeps an especial eye out for what will please Lady Latimer. Now that I know Sir Thomas placed you with Kate, ’tis easy to understand why you are becoming her favorite. She prefers all things connected to Sir Thomas.”
I was uncertain if she had insulted me with the insinuation that Kate could not prefer me on my own merits, or if she was being honest, which I normally preferred but did not just now. I did not know what to believe about Sir Thomas, nor about most anyone at court. At least in Marlborough I knew where the wolves denned.
I said nothing more for a moment as our slippers tapped down the long stone hall. She spoke up again, pressing her point. “It was said that one of the women executed for robbery last year accused Sir Thomas of debauching her some years back, which left her little recourse but a sinful life and poor company thereafter.”
I rolled my eyes in exasperation. I had been going to let the matter rest but now she had forced me to respond yet again. “I don’t listen to servants’ tittle-tattle.”
“’Twasn’t servants passing that along.” We soon reached our chamber and I handed over my linens to one of the court laundresses and then retired to bed early.
That night we lay quietly in our beds, which were mere feet from one another, not chatting as we usually did. My vision of Sir Thomas chopping the young maiden’s dress into pieces while she looked on in agony joined neatly with Dorothy’s tale of Sir Thomas’s careless treatment of another woman. But both of those images collided with the friendly face and demeanor Sir Thomas had at court, and with his generosity in looking out for me and for Jamie, and with his affections for Kate. I did not know what to make of any of it.
And yet, I did not want to leave things unsettled between Dorothy and myself. I finally spoke into the dark silence. “I think your new mask will look quite becoming on you. It sets off your hair color just so.”
“It shall,” she said softly. “With the beautiful gown you’ve given me. You shall look becoming too.”