The Boleyn Inheritance Read online

  “I want my perfume!”

  “Leave it.”

  “I can’t see him like this.”

  “Shall I stop him at the door and tell him to go away again?”

  “No!”

  There is a little tap on the door, so soft that I could not have heard it if I had not the ears of a spy. “There he is now.”

  “Don’t let him in!” She puts a hand on my arm. “It’s too dangerous. Dear God, I shan’t lead him into danger.”

  “He only wants to talk,” I soothe her. “There can be no harm in that.” Quietly, I open the door to him. “It is all right,” I say to the sentry. “The king wants Master Culpepper.” I open the door wide, and Culpepper steps into the room.

  At the fireside, Katherine rises to her feet. The glow of the fire illuminates her face, gilds her gown. Her hair, tumbled about her face, glints in the light; her lips part to whisper his name, and her color rises. The ribbons of her gown tremble at her throat where her pulse thuds.

  Culpepper walks toward her like a man in a dream. He stretches out a hand to her, and she takes it and puts his palm at once to her cheek. He holds a handful of her hair, and his other hand blindly finds her waist; they slide toward each other as if they have been waiting for months to touch like this; indeed they have. Her hands go to his shoulders, he draws her closer, without a word being said, she gives him her mouth, and he bows his head and takes her.

  I turn the key on the outer door so the sentry cannot come in. Then I go back to the bedroom door and I stand with my back to it, my ears pricked for any noise from the king. I can hear the stertorous sound of his wheezy breath, and a loud wet belch. In the fire-light before me, Thomas Culpepper slides his hand inside the throat of her gown; I see her head drop back, resistless, as he touches her breast. She lets him caress her, and she runs her fingers through his curly brown hair, pulling his face down to her bared neck.

  I cannot tear my gaze away. It is as I always imagined it when I used to think of George with his mistress. A pleasure like a knife, desire as pain. He sits on the high-backed chair and draws her to him. I can see little more than the back of the chair and their silhouettes, dark against the glow of the fire. It is like a dance of desire as he takes her hips and pulls her astride him. I see her fumble with his hose as he pulls at the ribbons at the front of her gown. They are about to do it as I watch them. They are shameless: me in the same room, and her husband behind the door. They are so wanton and so helpless with their desire that they are about to do it here and now, in front of me.

  I hardly dare breathe; I must see everything. The sleeping king’s heavy breathing is matched by their quiet panting; they are moving together, then I see the gleam of her pale thigh as she pulls her nightgown aside, and I hear him groan and I know that she has straddled him and taken him in. I hear a little sigh of desire, and it is me, aroused with stolen lust. The chair creaks as she clings to the back and rocks forward and back on him; her breath is coming fast. He is thrusting up inside her; I hear her start to moan as her pleasure mounts, and I am afraid that they will wake the king. But nothing could stop them, not even if he were to wake and shout, not even if he were to try the door and come out; they are tied together by lust, and they cannot break free. I feel my own legs weaken with mirrored desire as Katherine’s little cries mount, and I slide down to the floor, to my knees, watching them but seeing George’s desirous face, and his mistress astride him, until Katherine suddenly lets out a gasp and falls to Thomas’s shoulder, at the same moment he groans and grips her, then they both subside.

  It feels like a long time before she gives a little murmur and stirs. Culpepper lets her go, and she rises from the seat, dropping the hem of her nightgown and smiling back at him as she goes to the fire. He rises from the chair and ties his laces again, then he reaches for her, wraps his arms around her from behind, nuzzles at her neck, her hair. Like a young girl in love for the first time, she turns in his arms and gives him her mouth. She kisses him as if she adores him; she kisses him as if this is a love that will last forever.

  In the morning I go to find my lord duke. The court is preparing to go hunting, and the queen is being lifted into the saddle by one of the king’s friends. The king himself, hauled to the back of his hunter, is in a merry mood, laughing at Culpepper’s new bridle of red leather and calling up his hounds. The duke is not riding today; he stands at the doorway, watching the horses and the hounds in the cool of the morning. I pause beside him as I go to my horse.

  “It is done,” I say. “Last night.”

  He nods as if I am telling him of the cost of the blacksmith. “Culpepper?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Will she have him again?”

  “As often as she can. She is besotted.”

  “Keep her discreet,” he says. “And tell me the moment she is with child.”

  I nod. “And my own affair?” I ask boldly.

  “Your affair?” he repeats, pretending he has forgotten.

  “My marriage,” I say. “I… I need to be married.”

  He raises his eyebrow. “Better to be married than to burn, my dear Lady Rochford?” he asks. “But your marriage to George did not prevent you from burning up.”

  “That was not my fault,” I say quickly. “It was her.”

  He smiles; he does not have to ask whose shadow fell on my marriage and set the fire that burned us all up.

  “What news of my new marriage?” I press him.

  “I am exchanging letters now,” he says. “When you tell me that the queen is with child, I shall confirm it.”

  “And the nobleman?” I ask urgently. “Who is he?”

  “Monsignor le Compte?” he asks. “Wait and see, my dear Lady Rochford. But believe me, he is wealthy, and he is young, handsome, and – let me think – no more than three, perhaps four, steps from the throne of France. Will that satisfy you?”

  “Completely.” I can hardly speak for excitement. “I shall not fail you, my lord.”

  Anne, Richmond Palace,

  June 1541

  I have a letter from the Lord Chamberlain to invite me to go on progress with the court this summer. The king is to go to his northern lands, which were so recently in revolt against him for his attack on the old religion. He is going to punish and reward; he has sent the hangman ahead of him, and he will follow safely behind. I sit for a long time with this letter in my hand.

  I am trying to weigh up the dangers. If I am at court with the king and he enjoys my company and I am high in his favor, then I secure my safety for perhaps another year. But equally, the hard-faced men of his court will see that he likes me again and they will put their minds to how to keep me from him. Katherine’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, will be anxious to keep his niece in high favor, and he will not like any comparison that is made between her and me. He will have kept the documents that prove that I was part of a Papist plot to destroy the king. He may have created evidence of worse: adultery or witchcraft, heresy or treason. Who knows what solemnly sworn statements he gathered when they thought they would put me to death? He will not have thrown them away when the king decided to divorce me. He will have kept them. He will keep them forever in case one day he wants to destroy me.

  But if I do not go, then I am not there to defend myself. If anyone says anything against me, links me with the northern conspirators, or with poor Margaret Pole the countess, with the disgraced Thomas Cromwell, or with anything my brother may do or say, then there is no one to speak in my favor.

  I tuck the letter in the pocket of my gown and walk to the window to look out at the bobbing branches in the orchards beyond the garden. I like it here, being my own mistress; I like being in command of my own fortune. The thought of going into the bear pit that is the English court and having to face the monstrous old terror that is the king is too much for me to dare. I think, pray God I am right, that I shall not go on progress with the king. I shall stay here and take the risk that they may speak against me. Better th