6
Elizabeth
I
could not remain at court, for the Lord Protector had decreed that during the King’s minority, while Edward was unmarried, it would not be seemly for single ladies, including the King’s sisters, to reside at court. I thought I was destined to go, yet again, back to Hatfield, and languish there for many years to come, with only occasional visits to Mary and the court at Christmastime to relieve the tedium, but Katherine Parr came to my rescue once again. I was like a daughter to her, she said, and she dreaded so to part with me, and asked me if I would like to come live with her.
It was a dream come true to be at cheerful Chelsea, Katherine’s redbrick manor house set in a verdant green heart of woodlands, parks, and gardens overlooking a usually placid expanse of the Thames. The mullioned windows welcomed in the sun as if to dare the gloom to intrude, and everyone, even the lowliest servant, always went about with a smile on their face; everyone was happy at Chelsea. And I settled happily into a quiet routine of study and pleasant pastimes in Kate’s company.
And there was a mystery to spice up this bland but nonetheless pleasant existence—titillating gossip that Kate had a lover. And so soon after my father’s death! It was as unexpected as it was scandalous. Who would have believed it of Kate? I had always thought of Kate as such a practical, prim, level-headed, decorous lady, altogether lacking in passion, but apparently she had hidden depths. Even though her beliefs about religion and education were newfangled and excitingly bold, I never once thought of her as the sort of woman who would fling herself into a lover’s embrace, especially not before the official period of mourning for her husband had expired.
My dearest, darling Kat, my plump, fussy, mother hen of a governess, Katherine Ashley, and I would crouch on the window seat in my bedchamber at night, bundled in our velvet dressing gowns, and watch by moonlight as Kate crept out cloaked and veiled amidst the night blooming jasmine to the gate at the back of the garden to let him in, a tall, dark shadow stealthy as a phantom.
He would take her in his arms, bend her over backward, and kiss her with a scorching passion that even we, sitting there watching from the window above like a pair of giddy, giggling housemaids, could feel as we tried to guess his identity. Then she would take his hand and lead him to the house and, presumably, up the back stairs to her bed.
And with the dawn’s first faint light, when Mrs. Ashley still slept soundly, snoring in the small room adjoining mine, I would sometimes creep from my bed, the stone floor cold beneath my naked toes, making me shiver, to watch them, arms about each other’s waists, leaning into one another, as they walked slowly back to the garden gate, pausing to steal one last, lingering kiss before he took his leave, as the jasmine closed its petals for the day.
And then came the day when it wasn’t a secret anymore. I received a summons bidding me to come to Kate’s chamber. And there he was—the rash and reckless, hotheaded and handsome, Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour of the winning smile and ready laugh. Handsome beyond words and measure, with sun-bronzed skin, wavy auburn hair, a long luxuriant beard, twinkling cinnamon-brown eyes, and a voice like a velvet glove on bare skin, he moved with a bold, larger-than-life, confident swagger that suggested he had never in his life known a moment of self-doubt, and wielded his charm like a weapon. Every woman who crossed his path seemed to succumb to that charm. Even staid and proper matrons were reduced to giggling, giddy schoolgirls simpering and blushing in his presence, with hearts aflutter and knees like butter, hanging on his every word, and men were enraptured and enthralled by his tales of adventure and derring-do upon the high seas and his dealings with the pirates who plied the Scilly Isles. He was the complete and contrary opposite of his icy, calculating, meticulous cold fish of a brother, the Lord Protector. Tom Seymour was the man every woman wanted to wed or bed and every man wanted to be.
When I walked in he was standing before the fire in Kate’s bedchamber, stretching his hands out to the welcoming warmth of the fragrant applewood logs as raindrops dribbled from his cinnamon velvet cloak onto the bearskin rug upon the hearth.
The moment I saw him my heart felt a jolt as if it had been struck by lightning and unaccountably I began to blush and tremble. I could not speak; my lips could not form the words to utter even a simple greeting. I felt as if my tongue had become a useless pink ribbon all tied up in tenacious, impossible knots. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why. Then he was crossing the room. His hands were on my waist and he was lifting me up high, my feet dangling uselessly above the floor. My long red hair swung down over my shoulders to tickle his face as I gazed down at him and he in turn fixed me with an intense, penetrating gaze. Then, very slowly, he lowered me, and pressed me close against his strong chest—I felt sure he could feel my heart pounding as if there were a wild, bucking horse trapped inside my breast—and then . . .
he kissed me!
Long and lingeringly upon my lips, he kissed me! I surprised myself, even as I knew I should shove him away and slap him for his impertinence, and instead I wrapped my arms around his neck and clung to him.
“My Lord!” I gasped, blushing and befuddled, when his lips left mine.
“Well met, My Lady Elizabeth.” He smiled at me, displaying a set of perfect pearl-white teeth, sparkling from amidst his bushy beard, as he released me and his hands reached out knowingly to catch my elbows and steady me as my knees threatened to give way beneath my black damask and velvet mourning gown.
“I thought it only fair that since I have swept you off your feet at both our previous meetings I should continue in the same vein,” he said teasingly.
As he spoke his eyes roved over my body and I felt as if every stitch I wore was being peeled away, leaving me stark naked before his piercing gaze.
“Do you not remember?” An incredulous little frown creased his brow before he shook his head to chase it away and smiled again. “No, you cannot have forgotten! I am a man who
always
makes a lasting impression! The first time was on the occasion of my dear sister Jane’s first, and sadly last, Christmas as Queen . . .”
“Y-Yes, M-My Lord, I . . . I . . . remember . . .” Blushing and tongue-tied, I stammered, as my mind hurtled back in time to that Christmas of 1536 when Tom Seymour, dressed in motley colored silks and ribbon streamers all trimmed with tiny bells, and a gilded tin crown, had presided over the Yuletide celebrations as the Lord of Misrule. All of a sudden he had swooped down on me and swept me up high into the air and demanded a kiss from me. Laughing, I threw my arms around his neck and complied wholeheartedly with a hearty smacking kiss that made all those about us laugh. I was but three at the time and not so mindful of my dignity, and everyone is apt to let decorum slip when the jolly, cavorting Lord of Misrule holds sway and the wine and wassail are flowing freely. Everyone looked on smilingly, observing that “Jolly Tom” had such a way with children, they naturally responded to him, and what a shame it was that he was still a bachelor and had none of his own. Then he set me down, and taking out a flute, called the other children to gather round, and bade us follow him, forming a living serpent of gaily garbed little bodies, weaving our way through the adults amassed in the Great Hall.
“And the second time,” he prompted, “was when I carried you in the procession for . . .”
I gulped and nodded. “. . . my brother Edward’s christening.”
“Yes! God’s teeth, you
do
remember!” He smiled broadly. “I
knew
you could not have forgotten! My brother Ned was supposed to have the honor of carrying you, but you took an instant dislike to him—and who could blame you?—and kicked his shin and ran to me and threw yourself into my arms and said as regally as a little queen, ‘You may carry me,’ and when he tried to take you from me you bit him.”
I blushed at the memory and hung my head; I could not meet his eyes knowing my face was all aflame, and my stomach felt as if it were aswarm with thousands of anxious bees.
“Y-Yes, M-My Lord,” I said quietly, “I . . . I remember.”
“And now . . .” Tom smiled, oblivious to my embarrassment. “Here I am, to sweep you off your feet every day for many years to come! What, can it be? Have you not guessed, my clever Princess?” He threw back his head and laughed at my befuddled countenance. He spread wide his arms to show off his fine manly physique and the equally fine clothing beneath his sodden cloak. “Your new stepfather stands before you!—Here I am! Come, embrace me, Bess!”
I felt the most peculiar feeling then, a breathlessness that left me reeling, as if the breath had suddenly been knocked violently from my lungs. I couldn’t understand it then, my mind churned with confusion, but knowing that he was married made me feel as if a crushing blow had been dealt me and made me want to rage against fate, to shriek and strike out with my fists and tear with my nails. “He
can’t
be married!” I kept wailing despairingly over and over in my mind, “He just
can’t
be married!” I cried without understanding why the news should so distress me. Tom Seymour was a grown man about to cross the threshold of forty; he had remained a bachelor long past the age when most men are many years married, and the gossips had long wondered why he tarried so long without taking a wife. Now he had only done what society had always expected of him. So why should the news leave me reeling and ready to burst into tears? God’s bones, I hardly knew the man, so why was I ready to curse and shriek at the Fates that he should have been mine?
He took a step toward me, reaching out, as if he would draw me back into his arms again. I stepped back, even as I longed to run forward and hurl myself into them. I stumbled as my limbs tangled in my skirts, and only the quick grasp of his hand around my elbow kept me from falling.
“Tom!” a soft, gentle voice behind me said, and I started, unaccountably feeling a hard jolt of guilt, as if I had been caught doing something illicit, as my stepmother quietly entered the room and stepped past me to lay a gentle hand on her husband’s arm.
“For shame, Tom! You have broken the news too abruptly! Can you not see you have nearly felled her with the shock? Tut, tut, you are too impulsive, My Lord Husband! And take off that wet cloak, before you catch a chill; I want to be a wife this time, not a physician in petticoats. Sit down, please, Bess”—she turned back to me, smiling gently, encouragingly—“and I shall tell you all about it.”
Seeing me rooted there, my distress plain, Kate instantly took pity on me and guided me into the chair nearest the fire and knelt down before me, rubbing my hands.
“
Please,
dear, do not think unkindly of me—of us—for marrying in haste. I assure you no insult was intended to the memory of your father. I know many will think we have done wrong by not waiting a full year, until the mourning period had ended. But, dearest, the truth is, we were in love and planned to marry before your father’s eye lighted on me. But when it did, I renounced my own desires and did my duty to my King and country, and now . . . I am a woman five years past thirty and I
long
to be a
true
wife, and a mother, if God will so bless me. As you know, Bess dear, I was married twice before I wed your father; my youth was spent caring for husbands far older than myself with children older than I was. I thought it was my lot to go through life as a caretaker for the old and infirm and other women’s children. When I married your father and met you and Edward, and your little cousin Jane Grey, all in dire need of a mother’s love and guidance, it reawakened my desire for motherhood, to have a child of my own, and stirred such a longing in me I know not words great enough to convey the urgency and strength of it; there were times I wanted it so much it hurt me, as I thought it was a hunger that would never be sated. Please, judge me not too harshly, Bess, for grasping greedily at my last chance to fulfill my heart’s most ardent and deeply felt desire. Few of us are fortunate to marry where our hearts lie; do not condemn me for grasping at Fortune’s blessing, the chance to have happiness in this life, to not have to wait, to live in expectation of Heaven’s promise.”
“I . . .” I shook my head to clear it as I struggled vainly for composure; I heard her words but I was having trouble putting them together in coherent fashion. “Indeed, Madame, I . . . I do not blame you! I . . . It was just a surprise, that’s all,” I said abruptly, snapping my mouth shut and lowering my eyes as I could not bring myself to meet her loving and concerned gaze for fear that she might divine the truth that even then I was still floundering and grappling to understand. “Have I your leave to retire now, Madame? The surprise has brought on one of my headaches.”
“Of course, my dear!” I surrendered gladly to her gentle ministrations and let her help me from my chair and put her arm about my shoulders to guide me to the door.
Then he was there again, bounding in front of us, barring our way.
“But I’ve not told you how the deed was done!” he protested, taking my arm and leading me back to my chair.
“Tom!” Kate protested. “Let Bess go; there will be time aplenty for you to tell your tale later!”