Chapter Twelve #2
I gesture for Francis to sit in the chair opposite me. He begrudgingly does, and his posture is weighed heavy with defeat. His hands are balled into fists.
“Can you tell me about her?” I decide to ask. I may be trapped inside her body, but I barely know her at all.
Francis shifts up at my question, slowly bringing a hand to rest on the arm of his chair. It takes him a while before he answers.
“The day we first met, I had only just arrived at the Dowager Duchess’s estate to begin employment as her secretary.
I was alone in the library, answering a letter regarding a new tax on the Dowager’s land when the door opened and Catherine peered inside.
I glanced up, and she was there watching me like I was an unknown creature—some lawless beast she had never yet encountered.
“The room was full of dark tomes and the windows were shut. The curtains were mostly drawn. The airlessness of it was stifling. Then Catherine came in, strode right up to my desk, and asked me to walk with her. ‘We should talk and take in the sun,’ she said. And suddenly, I could breathe again.” His eyes have only now begun to warm since he’s talking about Catherine.
“It must have been nice,” I offer, “to feel a connection like that.”
Francis nods and looks down at his lap. “My first few months there, she was the only one who bothered to speak to me. The others thought I was strange. She was the one person to really see me. And in exchange, I saw no one but her.”
His voice is reverent. Almost pure. Speaking about Catherine is holy for him.
“What did she like to do in her free time?” I ask, trying to lessen the formality.
It takes a moment, but Francis lets a small smile slip—more to himself than to me.
“Not many people knew this, but Catherine was an excellent storyteller. She would come up with tales about princesses and bandits, or princesses who were bandits, and the stories were romantic, but they had such humor in them, too. I had never heard anything like it. I begged her to write any of them down, but she only ever laughed at me.”
Catherine was a writer—or she could have been. I lean my elbows onto my knees as I wait to hear more.
“Until one day,” Francis continues, “she did it. Her story was . . . It was beautiful. Her words were so skilled, and fair and true, just like her—it was as if she poured her soul into the paper itself.”
I’m glad that Catherine showed her writing to someone. Art is meant to be shared, and the fact that she decided to share hers fills me with a proud kind of warmth.
Then I sit up absolutely straight. “Wait, what did you just say?”
Francis spares me a distracted glance. “That her story was beautiful?”
“No,” I snap back. “You said something about her soul . . .”
“Oh,” he answers, “I said it was as if she poured her soul into the paper.”
I lunge forward at Francis and grab ahold of his shoulders. “Holy shit! That’s it! That has to be it!”
Francis tries to pry my fingers off him, to no avail. “What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?”
“The story! Her soul!” I stand and drag Francis up to stand with me. “Where is it? Do you still have it?”
“Her story or her soul?”
I give him a surprisingly violent shake. “The story, you idiot!”
He does break free from me then, stepping away and holding his hands up to defend himself. “I don’t have it. I sent it back to her at Lambeth.”
I can taste the disappointment in my mouth. “No,” I groan. “Why would you do that?”
“Because she asked me to. She asked me to send it back to her in the letter she wrote saying that she never wanted to see me again.”
“Francis, I need that letter. If you can get it . . .” My words abruptly trail off. “Wait, did you just say that Catherine broke up with you?”
He doesn’t answer, which is telling.
I rub at my eyes as I try to gather my shifting thoughts. “Also, I should have asked this earlier, but why did you call me ‘wife’ the last time I saw you? Did you and Catherine secretly get married?”
Francis looks to the ground before leveling his heavy stare in my direction. “We both knew that her family would never approve of the match. But they couldn’t prevent us from being married in our hearts.”
I breathe out a torrential sigh of relief.
“And our bodies,” he adds.
I can’t keep my nose from scrunching as I give him a slow blink. “Okay, well, that’s private information. The important thing is that you and Catherine weren’t lawfully married. That’s an important distinction we should both agree on.”
Francis straightens his shirt, even though there are hardly any wrinkles.
I venture a step closer, keeping my voice calm. “So, why did you come to the palace if Catherine called things off with you?”
“Because I loved her,” he answers automatically. “I still love her.”
I nod as the subtle hurt etches across his cheeks. “And do you accept the fact that she might not love you back anymore?”
Francis opens his mouth to answer, then stops. He turns to look toward the hearth, speaking more to it than to me. “Neither of us can know how she feels until we save her.”
If we were in session together, this would be where I’d dive into some Emotionally Focused Therapy with Francis.
We’d identify unhelpful thought patterns and work on balanced thinking.
But unfortunately, we’re not in session, and right now I need Catherine’s writing if there’s any chance of my getting home.
“You’re not wrong,” I tell him. “But if we want to find out how Catherine really feels, then getting that story is our biggest hope of bringing her back.”
Francis pivots to face me, planting his feet. “I sent the story back to her at Lambeth, but I’m sure the Dowager Duchess intercepted all my letters. And I’m certain they’re still in her keeping.”
I’ve watched enough crime shows to know how deadly a paper trail can be. Those letters might have been used as evidence to prove Catherine’s “guilt” in her lifetime, which means they could also be used to prove the guilt in mine.
“Why would the Dowager keep your letters to Catherine?” I ask.
“Because it furthered her purpose of having Catherine believe that I forgot about her. And the Dowager likes to keep things. As her secretary, I saw that she would often withhold and steal correspondence from her wards as a form of punishment.”
I’m assuming this wasn’t a federal offense in Tudor times.
“I need you to get those letters, Francis. I need to read them to see if they can help us.” As in, they’re going directly into the fire. Except that story.
“I’ll leave tonight. If they’re there, I’ll easily find them, and the story,” he swears. He heads to the door, but then quickly stops to turn back around. “One more thing . . . if Gainsford ever touches you again, I’ll kill him.”
I let out a sigh. “When you get back, we really need to talk about healthy attachment styles and emotional regulation. Let’s block out a consistent time.”
He nods with confusion and slips from the room.
I’m left in silence and can only now begin to process the fact that I just told Catherine Howard’s obsessed ex a secret that could earn me a one-way ticket to a sixteenth-century insane asylum.
I have no idea if it was the right choice, but what I do know is that my head is spinning and there isn’t a shot in hell that I’m falling asleep anytime soon.
Jitters and adrenaline clash in my lungs. I have to move. I have to do something. Francis just left on a whole-ass side quest to bring Catherine back, and I need to take action, too. I think for all of ten seconds before coming to a decision.
I’m going to haunt the Haunted Gallery.