The Boleyn Inheritance. Philippa Gregory

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ misunderstands me, he is always so earnest. ‘So shall we do it? Shall we marry in secret and always be together, and when I have made my fortune, we can tell everyone, and live together as man and wife?’

      ‘Yes, yes.’ I am starting to moan a little from pleasure, I am thinking of nothing but the movement of his clever fingers. ‘Oh, yes.’

      In the morning he has to snatch his clothes and run, before my lady grandmother’s maid comes with much hustle and ceremony to unlock the door to our bedchamber. He dashes away just moments before we hear her heavy footstep on the stairs; but Edward Waldgrave leaves it too late and has to roll under Mary’s bed and hope the trailing sheets will hide him.

      ‘You’re merry this morning,’ Mrs Franks says suspiciously as we smother our giggles. ‘Laugh before seven, tears before eleven.’

      ‘That is a pagan superstition,’ says Mary Lascelles, who is always pious. ‘And there is nothing for these girls to laugh about if they considered their consciences.’

      We look as sombre as we can, and follow her down the stairs to the chapel for Mass. Francis is in the chapel, on his knees, as handsome as an angel. He looks across at me and my heart turns over. It is so wonderful that he is in love with me.

      When the service is done and everyone is in a hurry for their breakfast I pause in the pew to adjust the ribbons on my shoe and I see that he has dropped back to his knees as if deep in prayer. The priest slowly blows out the candles, packs up his things, waddles down the aisle and we are alone.

      Francis comes across to me and holds out his hand. It is a most wonderfully solemn moment, it is as good as a play. I wish I could see us, especially my own serious face. ‘Katherine, will you marry me?’ he says.

      I feel so grown up. It is I who am doing this, taking control of my own destiny. My grandmother has not made this marriage for me, nor my father. Nobody has ever cared for me, they have forgotten me, cooped up in this house. But I have chosen my own husband, I will make my own future. I am like my cousin Mary Boleyn, who married in secret a man that no-one liked and then picked up the whole Boleyn inheritance. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I will.’ I am like my cousin Queen Anne, who aimed at the highest marriage in the land when no-one thought it could be done. ‘Yes, I will,’ I say.

      What he means by marrying, I don’t know exactly. I think that he means I will have a ring to wear on a chain, which I can show to the other girls, and that we will be promised to one another. But to my surprise he leads me up the aisle towards the altar. For a moment I hesitate, I don’t know what he wants to do, and I am no great enthusiast for praying. We will be late for breakfast if we don’t hurry and I like the bread when it is still warm from the ovens. But then I see that we are acting out our wedding. I so wish that I had put on my best gown this morning, but it is too late now.

      ‘I, Francis Dereham, do take thee, Katherine Howard, to be my lawful wedded wife,’ he says firmly.

      I smile up at him. If only I had put on my best hood, I would be perfectly happy.

      ‘Now you say it,’ he prompts me.

      ‘I, Katherine Howard, do take thee, Francis Dereham, to be my lawful wedded husband,’ I reply obediently.

      He bends and kisses me. I can feel my knees go weak at his touch, all I want is for the kiss to last forever. Already, I am wondering if we were to slip into my lady grandmother’s high-walled pew, we could go a little further than this. But he stops. ‘You understand that we are married now?’ he confirms.

      ‘This is our wedding?’

      ‘Yes.’

      I giggle. ‘But I am only fourteen.’

      ‘That makes no difference, you have given your word in the sight of God.’ Very seriously he puts his hand in his jacket pocket and pulls out a purse. ‘There is one hundred pounds in here,’ he says solemnly. ‘I am going to give it into your safekeeping, and in the New Year I shall go to Ireland and make my fortune so that I can come home and claim you openly as my bride.’

      The purse is heavy, he has saved a fortune for us. This is so thrilling. ‘I am to keep the money safe?’

      ‘Yes, as my good wife.’

      This is so delightful that I give it a little shake and hear the coins chink. I can put it in my empty jewel box. ‘I shall be such a good wife to you! You will be so surprised!’

      ‘Yes. As I told you. This is a proper wedding in the sight of God. We are husband and wife now.’

      ‘Oh, yes. And when you have made your fortune, we can really marry, can’t we? With a new gown and everything?’

      Francis frowns for a moment. ‘You do understand?’ he says. ‘I know you are young, Katherine, but you must understand this. We are married now. It is legal and binding. We cannot marry again. This is it. We have just done it. A marriage between two people in the sight of God is a marriage as binding as one signed on a contract. You are my wife now. We are married in the eyes of God and the law of the land. If anyone asks you, you are my wife, my legally wedded wife. You do understand?’

      ‘Of course I do,’ I reply hastily. I don’t want to look stupid. ‘Of course I understand. All I am saying is that I would like a new gown when we tell everybody.’

      He laughs as if I have said something funny and takes me in his arms again and kisses the base of my throat and nuzzles his face into my neck. ‘I shall buy you a gown of blue silk, Mrs Dereham,’ he promises me.

      I close my eyes in pleasure. ‘Green,’ I say. ‘Tudor green. The king likes green best.’

      

       Jane Boleyn, Greenwich Palace, December 1539

      Thank God I am here in Greenwich, the most beautiful of the king’s palaces, back where I belong in the queen’s rooms. Last time I was here I was nursing Jane Seymour as she burned up with fever, asking for Henry, who never came; but now the rooms have been repainted, and I have been restored and she has been forgotten. I alone have survived. I have survived the fall of Queen Katherine, the disgrace of Queen Anne and the death of Queen Jane. It is a miracle to me that I have survived but here I am, back at court, one of the favoured few, the very favoured few. I shall serve the new queen as I have served her predecessors, with love and loyalty and an eye to my own opportunities. I shall once again walk in and out of the best chambers of the best palaces of the land as my home. I am once again where I was born and bred to be.

      Sometimes I can even forget everything that has happened. Sometimes, I forget I am a widow of thirty, with a son far away from me. I think I am a young woman again with a husband I worship, and everything to hope for. I am returned to the very centre of my world. Almost I could say: I am reborn.

      The king has planned a Christmas wedding and the queen’s ladies are being assembled for the festivities. Thanks to my lord duke, I am one of them, restored to the friends and rivals I have known since my childhood. Some of them welcome me back with a wry smile and a backhand compliment, some of them look askance at me. Not that they loved Anne so much – not they – but they were frightened СКАЧАТЬ