No Will But His (8 page)

She licked her lips and cleared her throat. "Well, Your Grace, that is . . ." She looked at the gentleman out of the corner of her eye and remembered his quite forgetting he was chaperoning her as he ran about catching coins at the coronation. "Well . . . Master Manox seems well appointed enough, and he is, of course, of respectable parentage."

The duchess made a sound at the back of her throat that sounded as if she were getting ready to spit. "Responsible parentage, girl? What nonsense is this? What does his parentage have to say in the matter."

Kathryn was so surprised, she was momentarily speechless, but she managed to shut her mouth with an audible snap, then open it again, to say in a voice that sounded thin and squeaky. "Why, why . . . parentage is everything in a marriage, is it not?"

"What?" the duchess asked, sounding shocked. Had the old lady gone mad? For certain many of the older people liked to complain in a forlorn manner about how all marriages now a days were about a union of lands or of families, but they were the first to plan them, and Kathryn had never heard anyone claim that family or parentage didn't matter.

"I'm not saying that Master George Manox isn't all that is honorable and . . . and good . . . but I vow, Your Grace, you said I am after all a Howard girl and that my name alone, even if I have scant accomplishments, would be worth more as a wife than . . . than Master Manox, begging no offense." She felt her cheeks flame as she came to an end, and it wasn't at all improved by the old lady's staring at her, with eyes and mouth wide open.

The duchess looked like nothing so much as a landed fish, her mouth moving soundlessly, open and closed and then open again, as if she'd quite lost the power of speech. Kathryn imagined herself about to be turned away from the house in disgrace, and where would she go? She didn't imagine her stepmother would love her any better now than she did when Kathryn was younger. She expected the duchess's stick to hit the floor at any time, while she rose and pronounced a devastating judgment on Kathryn.

Instead, the duchess's thin, reedy laughter started first, and then her stick punctuated it, hitting the floor in rhythm with her cackling. "Well," the duchess said, as she paused to draw breath and then resumed laughing again.

She ran out of air from laughing, and wiped tears with the sleeves of her gown. Through all this, Manox retained the same blush that had climbed to his cheeks during Kathryn's speech. He looked slightly offended, Kathryn thought, and she didn't look his way again.

"Bless my soul," the duchess said, at long last, and coughed, to clear her voice from the last hoarseness from so much laughing. "I forgot how dizzy wenches are. It is all marriage with you, is it not? What gave you the idea I'd got you a groom?" she asked.

Kathryn, confused, thought maybe there was a chance that's not what the duchess meant to do by introducing her to Manox, but all the same she grabbed a bit of her skirt and twisted, wondering if what they'd done in the dormitory would be counted impious and earn them all a thrashing. "You see," she said. "You see, Your Grace . . . we were playing in the dormitory. Yes, playing and . . . and . . . throwing lace and reading the name it formed."

"Ah, that game," the Duchess said. "The name it forms, most times is Llllll, but silly maids read all sorts of things in it. And your bit of ribbon was read as Manox?" she sounded quite disbelieving.

"No, milady. Henry."

"Ah, Henry. Well, a good enough name, though the game be silly. I remember when I was your age I got three names in the same summer . . ." Her grin became something reminiscent, and her eyes misted again but not with laughter. "Well, Kathryn, we can say that Henry is not this Henry. This Henry was summoned here for the purpose of teaching you the more advanced playing of the lute as well as to teach you the virginal."

Henry Manox bowed again and, this time, Kathryn curtseyed. "Begging your pardon, Master Manox. Only I thought . . ."

"There is nothing to beg my pardon for. It is quite understandable," he sounded only slightly amused. "I believe we've met before, the night of Queen Anne's coronation, though you've grown quite a lot since and become such a beautiful young lady."

Unsure what to say, Kathryn bowed again, and the duchess's stick tapped the floor impatiently. "You're not here to make love to my granddaughter, Manox. As she herself said, the name Howard can hope to catch better fish. Bring forth the lute, then, and let the girl show you what she can do."

Manox got a lute from a shadowy corner of the room and handed it to Kathryn, and Kathryn, sitting down upon a chair, plucked the sleeves experimentally.

"‘Greensleeves,' girl," the old lady said, and Kathryn obediently struck up the well-known melody and let her voice rise to accompany the music.

When she was done, the Duchess called out, "Now play ‘Alone, Alone, Alone,'" the duchess said.

Kathryn launched carefully into the more difficult traditional ballad. She wasn't certain of her fingering in certain parts, though she did her best to fudge through them and to cover her errors with her pure, high voice.

When she was done, there was silence. At long last, the duchess tapped her stick once. "Well?" she asked.

"I am glad Your Grace called me and thought of me for this employment," Manox said.

"But?" the duchess said. "You don't find her well enough?"

"Oh, she is well enough. Indeed, I thought me that an angel from heaven had flown down and landed in the room to grace us with melodies so sweet that even the Almighty in his throne would be jealous of our enjoyment. I am honored and hope only that my poor teaching skills can do justice to such an exceptional pupil."

"I said," the old lady's voice rose, acerbic, "that you were not called here to make love to my granddaughter. Lessons will start tomorrow after dinner. You may use my small study and my virginal." But she sounded pleased, Kathryn thought.

And when she looked at Manox, she was surprised to find that his gaze on her had changed. He was no longer smug and vaguely amused, but there was real admiration in his green eyes.

She went to bed with a smile upon her lips, dreaming of the lesson on the morrow.

Chapter Nine

"Repeat that last line, Mistress Howard, please," Manox said. He sat next to her in the small study. They'd been working upon the virginal for over a year now, and Kathryn felt herself quite confident upon the instrument.

She'd stopped marveling at the instrument itself, a beautiful creation of many-colored woods inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the whole forming a landscape of woods and lakes upon which stags and does disported in an eternal spring. That it was a great honor for the duchess to allow her to play upon it, she understood, and also, she'd come to know that all the other girls were jealous of her private music lessons upon such a good instrument.

Kathryn enjoyed knowing that the duchess thought well enough of her to let her use this instrument. And she enjoyed, even, the envy of her fellow maids of honor. For it was a thing she'd never had: the chance to be envied for something she got to see or do that was not quite what the rest of her fellows could see or do. This was something different, something important, something that set Kathryn apart.

She might be the youngest of the maids, and she might be silly at times. She might not have heard as much of court life as some of the other girls, and she might know nothing of what went on between men and women. But this she knew: her voice could rise upon a pure note and fill the room and all the listeners with wonder; her fingers were nimble on the lute; and she was fast becoming a very good virginal player. If the others wanted to envy her for that and the notice it brought her, they might as well do it, and she would warm her soul upon their envy as one warming one's hands before a fire on a cold day.

She repeated the phrasing that Manox had asked her to do and then waited while he corrected some of her mistakes in positioning. This required him to embrace her from behind and place his hands upon her hands.

There was nothing exceptionable about this. The door to the small sitting room stood wide open. Kathryn didn't think that Manox was about to try to violate her right here, and he was only doing what he had done many times before.

Why then, did her heart start beating such a frantic cavalcade, and why did her blood seem to rush past her ears with a whistling sound? Manox smelled good—of some strong perfume like pine or camphor, but more pleasant—and his blond mane tickled the edge of her face as he leaned forward next to her. "Now, put your hand thus, Mistress Howard. You see how much easier this makes it to perform the transition to the next movement? Like this. Turn and turn, and your small finger does this . . ."

She repeated the movements, with his hands still resting atop of her, his face pressed next to hers. She could smell him, and feel his warmth and the hardness of his muscular chest behind her. He'd never seemed like such a big man when he stood next to her or in front of her, but when he embraced her like this, she was conscious of how small she was and how much bigger he was, how easy it would be for him to overpower her—to take her wholly in his arms and capture her, and have her at his mercy.

For some reason, this feeling small and helpless made her pulse quicken and created a warmth within her that she was quite at a loss to explain. Overcome by it, she rushed through the movement and got it wrong.

"No, this way," he said, correcting her.

She attempted it again, this time managing it successfully, the notes rising, then turning for a smooth descent. Relieved and pleased, she leaned back into him.

He exhaled then drew a deep, deep breath, like someone who is wounded or who thinks he might drown and draws breath in big gulps, as though it might be his last chance at life. And then his lips touched her neck, right behind her ear.

She couldn't move. She was shocked by the sensation, by the sudden daring, by his warm lips tracing the soft, sensitive space behind her ear to her neck, and all the way down her neck to her neckline. "Kathryn," he said, more exhaling than speaking. "Kathryn. How I long . . ." He kissed along her neckline. Seizing hold of her with his strong arms, he turned her around and kissed her hard, once, upon her lips, mashing their lips together as though he wished to hurt her.

Kathryn felt quite bewildered, both by his violence and by what he was doing. She was not so naive about the doings between men and women that she did not know that men and women kissed. She had been in the kitchen and seen the servants do it. And she'd lived at enough cheap rooming houses to have seen people kiss. It was that he was kissing her, and like this, too, as though something hurt him and he wished he could hurt her in return.

He kissed her again, this time more softly, his tongue pushing between her lips. She pulled back. "Master Manox," she said. "The door is open."

Like that he straightened himself up and away from her. He took a step toward the window, his hands flying up to his head and clasping it on both sides, as though he were horrified, and then falling again. He stared out the window. He turned toward her, his arms now limp by his side. "Master Manox, Master Manox," he said, mimicking her tones. "Is that all you can say?"

"What else do you wish me to say?" she asked, confused.

Like that he flung himself on the ground at her feet, landing on his knees with an audible crack against the floor. He didn't even wince, but his hands sought for hers, grabbed them in his. His hands felt hot, as if he were feverish, and Kathryn recoiled a little, wondering if perhaps he had contracted some terrible sweating sickness that he would give her, and then they would both die of it.

But she couldn't pull her hands away, because he only grabbed them more firmly and bent his head over them and kissed the back of her hands madly, first one, then the other, and then turned them over and kissed the palms, as though he wished he could devour her.

She felt as if he were hungry and she were his meat, and she couldn't quite understand how he could be so desperate, save that she was sure he was not pretending nor playacting, but truly, maddeningly desperate for her touch, her taste, for everything that came from her.

"The door is—"

"Aye," he said, rising from his knees. "And well I know, the door is open. Cursed be the door. Cursed be all the doors in the world, Kathryn Howard. For a year now, I've sat here with you and I've taught you, the best I know, how to play the virginals and watched your hands caress that keyboard and listened to your heavenly voice and longed, longed for something . . . some token, some show of your affection."

"What token can I give you?" she asked, feeling chilled and small.

Kathryn did not like to see anyone or anything suffer. Once, when they were in London, Alice and Mary had convinced her to go with them to see the whipping of the blind bear. They were not, of course, coarse or abandoned and therefore couldn't go to watch bearbaiting or other blood sports. But the whipping of the blind bear was only a flogging given to a bear so old that he fought it not, even as the blood ran down his hoary sides. It was accounted suitable entertainment for delicate young ladies and children, and indeed, everyone around Kathryn seemed to enjoy it marvelous much, but she had found herself thinking of how the poor animal must feel, being whipped without having done anything to deserve it, except being a bear and old and blind.

For days afterward, she had prayed that she would come by some money so she could pay the men who whipped the bear and they'd stop doing. Her horror at the show had struck Alice and Mary as quite funny for after all, the show amused even very young boys. But Kathryn didn't like to see anything suffer.

And so, she now watched Manox suffer and didn't know how to stop it, and her voice came out small and afflicted. "I don't understand," she said. "I don't know what you want, or what ails you."

"What ails me!" He gave a small cackle of laughter. "What ails me, Mistress Howard, is that I am quite immoderately in love with you."