Chapter 33
Kat
“I’m pregnant,” Kat whispered to herself, testing the words. “The baby is expected in June.”
It was nearly one in the morning, and Lina had only just left Kat’s suite after hours of practicing her story.
Kat felt shaky and tired but ready for any questions Henry could throw at her.
Lina had helped her trace back to her last sexual encounter with Henry and explained the symptoms Kat needed to pretend to feel.
Kat had been eating well over the holidays, and both her bosom and her stomach could pass for those of a woman a few months into her pregnancy.
She’d have to fool a royal physician, though Lina assured her that wouldn’t be too difficult a job, as the whole country wanted news of a baby and the men in medicine were predictably squeamish and ignorant when it came to women’s health.
Kat planned to follow the pregnancy plot every step of the way…
save one. She knew Anne would be furious if she found out, but Kat had had to say goodbye to Thomas.
It could be weeks, even months, before they were reunited, and she wouldn’t be able to stand it without having the memory of his arms around her waist and his lips on hers.
They had long since worked out a code of sorts for their meetups, and when Kat had seen him at supper, she had slipped their secret words into conversation to let him know to come to her bedroom that night after midnight. [*]
All the candles were doused, and only moonlight lit the room.
Her ladies-in-waiting were tucked away and sleeping in their own quarters, and Kat had changed into a silken dressing gown and pulled her hair out of the complicated pins it had been trapped in all day.
She was barefoot and shivering slightly as the fire wound down in the hearth, and just as she grabbed a quilt from the bed, the secret door to her chambers inched open.
Henry had installed a passageway between his suite and the queen’s, but it was not the king who traveled that route.
A tall, lean shadow slipped into the room, and in a matter of seconds, Thomas was across the floor and kissing her like it was their very first night together instead of their last.
Kat broke from the kiss, horrified by the thought that this could be one of their final moments together, should something go wrong.
“What is it, love?” Thomas asked, scanning her face in the darkness.
As fast as she could, she told him everything. Well, not the bits about Henry’s wives still being alive, but the bits about Lassells and Cranmer and the fake pregnancy. She hadn’t dared meet with him over the holidays while the queens’ plans came together, but there was no time now to waste.
“I’m afraid,” Kat admitted. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Thomas smiled and pulled her closer. “Impossible. I will leave at first light before anyone notices I’m gone, and we’ll be back together in no time once all of the fuss and gossip go away.”
“But this changes everything,” Kat said, tucking her head under his chin. “Our whole lives will be different from tomorrow forward. No more ballrooms or beautiful clothes or fancy meals. We’ll have new names and we’ll have to leave England and—”
Thomas stopped her with a kiss. “It doesn’t worry me. We will be together, and the rest will fall into place.”
Kat wished she had his conviction. “You really believe that?”
“I do.” Thomas stepped back so he could see her expression. “Don’t you?”
It was impossible to say what Kat believed about the future when she didn’t even know what the next few hours would hold.
Her life may not have always been predictable, but she had never faced a world where she had to figure everything out on her own.
“All I know is that I love you,” she answered instead, because that was true.
Thomas smiled. “Good. I love you too.”
There was another kiss, deeper this time, and then they were removing each other’s clothes, tiptoeing toward the bed, getting under the covers, and worshipping each other’s bodies until they were sated and exhausted and dawn was on the way.
Kat knew she’d never regret giving up a night of sleep if it meant another few minutes in Thomas’s embrace, and tears rose to her eyes when he finally slipped from the bed and got dressed.
“You won’t even have time to miss me,” he promised, kissing her forehead. “I’ll see you at Hever Castle in a few weeks’ time.”
Kat wanted to cry and hold him close, but she managed to smile and watch him disappear through the door.
And then, in the space of two breaths, everything went wrong.
There was shouting in the passageway, followed by the sound of steel on steel. Panicked, Kat leaped from the bed and had just enough time to pull on her dressing gown before the door reopened and Archbishop Cranmer emerged.
He said nothing, merely giving Kat a weary, pitying look before stepping aside. Two guards dragged Thomas out, his face bloodied and his shirt torn. Kat gasped and lurched forward, but the fear in Thomas’s eyes brought her up short.
“This is not what you think—” she began, but Cranmer shook his head.
“Lies won’t save you now, I’m afraid.” He motioned to the guard. “Take Culpeper away.”
“Stop!” Kat screamed. “I am your queen, and you will obey my orders, not his!”
The guards didn’t listen. They pulled Thomas through her bedroom, and her last image of her lover was him looking back over his shoulder, trying to meet her gaze, trying to tell her something, before one of the guards struck him in the temple and he went limp.
Only Cranmer remained, still and patient near the passageway door. Kat whirled on him.
“You have no authority over me,” she spat.
“But I do.”
This time, it was Henry who exited the passage, his face red from the effort and his expression full of fury. He was leaning heavily on a gold inlaid cane, and he pointed it at Kat.
“You dared to make a fool out of me?” he asked, his voice rising. “After I plucked you from nowhere and nothing, this is how you repay me?”
For a moment, Kat was at a loss for words. This couldn’t be happening, not like this, not when they had planned everything…
“I’m pregnant,” she whispered.
Cranmer sighed, sounding for all the world like a disappointed parent. “No, you’re not. At least not with the king’s child.”
That was it. Her only card to play. And as Kat saw her chances of escape—of living—dwindle, her own anger grew.
“Do you think I wanted to marry you?” she said to Henry. “Do you think I could possibly be attracted to you? Enjoy your company?” She laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “I owe you no debt. I would rather still be living at Lambeth, where at least I was free.”
Kat didn’t see the strike coming. Somehow, Henry managed to cross the space between them before she could react, and his fist swung out, catching her across her cheek.
She fell to the floor, ears ringing, and distantly noted that something hot and wet ran down the side of her face.
She touched her fingers to her cheek, and they came away red.
One of his rings, she thought over the buzzing in her head.
If only she had a drop of Anne’s magick, she could have stopped all of this with a few sharp words.
Henry sneered down at her. “You are nothing but a whore. A disgrace to your family.”
Kat made herself smile. “I’ll be sure to let Anne Boleyn know.”
He couldn’t have known what she meant, and yet Henry paled and backed away. Oh, what Kat would have given to tell him the truth. It would have stopped his heart on the spot.
“Deal with her,” he ordered Cranmer, and with one final, baleful look, he returned to his suite.
“I suggest you clean yourself up and get dressed,” Cranmer said, his voice quiet. “At least you can hope to leave here with some semblance of dignity.”
“Leave here?” Kat repeated, the words not sinking in.
Cranmer stepped through the door, but his words echoed back. “Yes. You’re headed to the Tower of London.”
This is how Anne must have felt, Kat thought, morose. And to think, she had once believed herself to be so much cleverer than all the queens who had come before.
The White Tower was an awful place, dungeon-like even in its brightest, largest rooms. When she had been deposited here after an uncomfortable carriage ride and icy river crossing, Cranmer had informed her she was in the best suite of the ancient keep, courtesy of her husband’s goodwill.
But the furniture was dusty and ridden with mildew, and the fireplace smoked enough that Kat had to keep the window open.
Her teeth chattered against the January chill, and she pulled a moth-eaten blanket closer around her shoulders.
The linens on the bed were faded but fresh, and despite the questionable state of the mattress, Kat had chosen to curl up in the corner of the bed as far from the door as she could get.
Guards were posted outside, and if she stood too close, she could hear them mocking her.
There had been no sign of Thomas or Francis when she arrived, though Kat flinched at every sound, expecting to hear their screams. Would they be tortured for information? Would they confess to loving Kat or try to make her out to be the instigator, a seductress who lured men to her bed?
That was certainly what John Lassells had believed. He took his sister’s word and had tossed around Francis Dereham’s name like he knew what it meant. Kat clenched her fists. He hadn’t known a thing.
Kat knew her relationship with Francis had been inappropriate, but he had pursued her, not the other way around.
She had wanted no part of it, and yet everyone had created their own conclusions about loose and light Katherine Howard.
Now, whether or not the punishment fit the crime, Francis was going to die for a failed affair three years ago because Henry was too jealous and vindictive to let him live.
Kat peered out the window of her cell, wondering if she could see a light burning in any of the other rooms. If she called out Francis’s name and apologized, would he hear her?
And Thomas…Kat felt her chest crumple, and she wrapped her arms around her knees, trying to keep her sobs from echoing in the room.
Just this morning he had been in her arms, warm and smiling and alive.
Would she ever see him again? Would he die on the gallows in plain view of Kat’s window?
If that came to pass, Kat swore she would throw herself out of the Tower and enter the next life by his side.
She was glad Anne had broken Lassells’s mind—it was a fitting punishment for a man who just wanted to see others suffer. He would get what he wanted, and all of them would soon be dead. But Kat hoped wherever he was, he was suffering a far worse fate.
Night had fallen, the sky heavy with dark winter clouds.
No star was brave enough to shine through, and even the lights of London seemed dim and far away.
Farther still was Hampton Court Palace, where Anne must be worried sick.
Kat couldn’t help but feel guilty—her cousin had come all this way and done so much to try to save her, and yet the ending of her story hadn’t changed.
She didn’t dare dream that Anne would mount another rescue mission.
Kat knew all she had to look forward to were weeks of waiting while Henry pretended to consider the charges against her before he ordered her inevitable execution.
Maybe there was only one fate for the wives of King Henry VIII.
Lina and Anne were alive, yes, but living shadows of the lives they had once had.
Jane Seymour was truly dead, and Anna von Kleve was cursed to live in a country that scorned her.
One day, from time or more bad luck, they would all be gone.
And at least then, Kat thought, as she drifted into an uneasy sleep, her ghost would not be alone.
Skip Notes
* Thomas Culpeper was a man grown, and he would have known full well the consequences of his actions when he slept with the queen of England.
But really, Kat and Thomas were just two young, foolish people who made the mistake of falling in love.
Perhaps all lovers are destined for tumultuous beginnings or middles or ends, and it is only hope that sustains them through it all.