Chapter Forty-Nine Howard
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Howard
It takes only a matter of days for Culpepper to find the information she asked for, though she cannot fathom when he did so, for he seems to shadow her.
Applauding her when she plays the harpsichord in her music room.
Watching from the tower tops if she takes a walk with her ladies.
Nudging Florin aside if he leans in too close as they discuss Perfugian customs.
When he comes with the news, though, she is alone, in her own private chambers. The servant looks pointedly away when they tell her he is waiting.
It would have been more proper for him to find her in her study, even though she so rarely goes there now that Voda Kelaverinn is gone.
But despite his protestations of loyalty, she is wary of angering Culpepper.
Until she knows, the way she knows her ladies, the way she knows Florin, she cannot risk alienating him.
Still, she slips out of her bedroom and finds him in her antechamber, examining the veneer on one of her jewellery boxes.
When the servant has gone, he bows low over her hand.
“Have you been busy, Master Culpepper?” she says.
He runs a hand over the veneer, where a rose is picked out in cherry and sandalwood.
“This is fine craftsmanship.”
“It was a gift from my husband. Florin tells me it was likely made in Perfugi.”
He looks puzzled, then remembers. “Oh, the Dowager Queen’s young toy? You know, if I had realised who he was, I could have helped disguise him a little better than as a servant. He’d have been less conspicuous if he’d come into my service.”
“Well, no one has found him yet,” Howard says, moving away from the jewellery box. “Did you find out what I asked?”
He follows her across the room. She doesn’t know why his touching the box grates so – it is hardly as though the item means much to her. “It is very irregular. I don’t think you will be able to guess where the Moon Ball is being held.”
It is a challenge wrapped in charm. It reminds her of her first lover, who was so adept at delivering insults wrapped in compliments, then weeping when she expressed hurt.
“Is it High Hall, perchance?” she says.
A tight flicker crosses his handsome features. “How did you know?” Then, more shrewdly: “Did you engineer it so? How? How did you trick the king?”
She tilts her head. “You seem angry, Master Culpepper.”
He bites his lip, then smiles and comes closer. So close she can smell him – bergamot and peppercorn. “Forgive me. I only wish you would trust me. I could be so useful to you if you only told me all.” He sighs. “But I understand. You must be careful, and you have seen me close to your husband.”
“If I trust the wrong person, I and all who follow me die,” she says.
“I would die for you,” he replies.
“For me? Or for the goddess Medren?”
He laughs. “It is the same to me.”
There is little more than a breath between their bodies. The topmost buttons of his doublet are undone, so that she can spy his chest beneath. An old scar runs across the skin. She traces it, and his smile widens.
“What happened?” she asks.
He shrugs. “That dragon we used for sport.”
She remembers, then, the way he lashed the creature to bend it to his will, and the care he took over her when Henry injured her. She knows, better than anyone, that a person can hold many facets within them. A hall of many mirrors. What she does not know is which facet is the true Culpepper.
Tentatively, he places his hands on her waist. She could almost feel safe with him. She should feel safe with him. He wants to help. He pulls her closer. The hardness beneath his hose ignites something she had thought dormant.
“I’ve seen the way you look at me,” he murmurs, before pressing his mouth against hers.
Her mouth opens automatically. His tongue meets hers, and he sighs very softly, as if he has imagined this moment for so long. He backs her up against a chest, his hands stroking her arms, twining in her hair.
He is a very, very good kisser. His touch speaks of attentiveness and respect. Yet she is frozen still. She suddenly imagines herself a doll being played with. But dolls do not have voices. They do not move themselves or say yes or no.
All this time, she has thought this his test. A test she set for him. But it never was. It was a test she set for herself.
She presses a hand to his chest, stopping the kiss.
“Kneel,” she says, her voice husky.
His mouth goes thin, but then he drops to his knees before her.
She thinks of the way she has explored her own body of late, and leans back against the chest, pulling up her skirts.
“Here,” she says, guiding his touch to the point of exquisite pleasure. As soon as she moves her hand from his, he goes faster, harder. Too hard.
“Gently,” she says, closing her eyes, trying to lose herself.
“I know,” he says, easing only a little. It is still too much.
The freeze is seeping up her body once more, like mould. She shifts, moving his hand away, and drops her gown.
“What’s wrong?” he says.
“Kiss me,” she says.
He does so, then grabs for her again. “Let me bring you to a finish,” he murmurs against her lips. She stops his roving hand. “Not now. Tonight,” she says. That satisfies him.
Suddenly, he is all upright, all command, all gloating smile.
“I have never seen your bedchamber.” And he makes for the door to her most private room, as if it belongs to him.
“What do you gain?” she blurts out.
He turns, his hand resting on the door to her room.
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you really helping me? Why are you so quick to commit treason?”
He shrugs, that smile still there. “Because yours is the true cause. It’s just the right thing to do.”
“But why is it the right thing to do?” she asks.
He laughs. “If you cannot tell me, then why are you so willing to commit treason?”
“I …” She flounders in the face of his laughter, in the face of her own tumbling thoughts.
For she has asked herself, time and time again, why she is doing what she is doing.
She has no real wish for the power that comes with being a true ruler.
She is not certain that she is a good queen; she does not have the attention span or the education for it.
So why has she risked everything for these queens who barely tolerate her?
Some rageful creature lets out a shrill note inside her, and is still, and her thoughts settle.
“Because I have been told that I am lesser when I am not.”
Culpepper nods, like a teacher. “Exactly,” he says. “Exactly.”
He holds out a hand, inviting her to join him. She does not take it.
“What will happen next?” she asks. If he will not answer philosophical questions, perhaps he will answer practical ones. He returns to her, cupping her face in his hands.
“We will destroy the king. There will be some fighting, I’m sure, but with your power and Queen Cleves’s and Seymour’s power against him, the king will fall. You will be Queen of Plythe in your own right. You and I can marry, and I will be your devoted helper in managing your new kingdom.”
He kisses her again.
In another life, she would have missed the implication of that word: kingdom. But she has known Boleyn, and Cleves, and Voda Kelaverinn, and all the other queens. In another life, before Boleyn, she might even have convinced herself that this was love.
But not this life, not now.
“What if I do not want that?” she asks.
Culpepper makes a noise in the back of his throat.
“I mean it. What if I do not want to marry you?”
He sighs and looks to the ceiling, as if all her questioning is growing tiresome. “We would make a handsome pair, would we not?”
Something flicks in her mind. He turns for the door, but before he can reach it, Howard seizes the nearest heavy object – a bust of some long-ago queen – and hefts it with all her might at the back of his head.