The Tudor Secret - C. W. Gortner [78]
She smiled. “Suitors have been begging for my hand since I was a babe, of course.”
“Then add my name to the list.” The words did not disconcert me as much as I had supposed. I had never fallen in love before; now it seemed the most natural thing in the world.
She looked into my eyes. “Must we wait that long?” She took my hands, guided them to her bodice. I undid the laces. The bodice slipped from her shoulders. Moments later, she was stepping out of her skirts, shrugging off her chemise until she stood naked, patterned in candlelight and slivers of moon, desirable as no woman I’d ever seen.
I gathered her up, burying my face in her breasts. She gasped involuntarily as I carried her to the bed, where she reclined and watched me cast off my robe before she sat up on her knees to help me pull my shift over my head. My shoulder ached. She frowned at the fresh spotting of blood on the bandage. “I should change that,” she said.
“It can wait,” I replied against her lips. As I drew back, her gaze traveled down my torso, resting for a moment on the blemish on my hip. Then she brought her gaze lower.
I lay down beside her. Her experienced air did not deceive me. Under my hand I could feel her pulse racing, and I knew that if she had explored the ways of the flesh to a certain extent, in the end, like so many girls of breeding, she’d remained shy of the consummation.
But I soon discovered that I too was innocent, in every way a man can be. As I pressed her length against me and we tasted each other with fervor, I realized I could not hope to compare this luxury to my rambunctious couplings with the castle maids and damsels at the fairs. I worshipped as I might at a temple, until the desire in Kate’s eyes turned to flame and she was shuddering beneath me, rising to meet my ardor. Only once did she cry out, but softly.
After we were spent and she cradled in my arms, I whispered, “Did I hurt you?”
She laughed shakily. “If that was pain, I never want to know anything else.” She spread her hands over my chest, resting her fingers on my heart. “All I want is here.”
I smiled. “Be that as it may, I would still make an honest woman of you.”
“For your information,” she said, “I am eighteen. I can make my own decisions. And I’m not sure I want to be an honest woman quite yet.”
I chuckled. “Well, when you do decide, let me know. I should at least request Her Grace’s blessing; you are her lady. And your mother, I’m sure she too will want to be asked.”
She sighed. “My mother is dead. But I think she would have liked you.”
I detected an old pain in her voice. “I’m sorry. When did she pass away?”
“When I was five.” She smiled. “She was so young when she bore me: just fourteen.”
“And your father … was he also young?”
She gave me a curious look. “I’m a bastard. And no, he wasn’t. Not as young as her.”
“I see.” I did not look away. “Do you want to tell me?”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “It wasn’t a love affair. My mother was born of servants who served the Carey household; they died in the sweating sickness outbreak that killed Mary Boleyn’s first husband. When she remarried and became Mistress Stafford, my mother served her. Mistress Stafford wasn’t rich; her new husband Will Stafford was a common soldier but she had two children by her first marriage, a stipend, and her late husband had left her a house. She also liked my mother, so she offered her a post as her maid.”
“This Mary Stafford,” I said, “is she the same who was sister to Anne Boleyn?”
“Yes, but she had none of her sister’s pride, God rest her soul. When my mother became pregnant, the morning sickness gave her away. She was terrified; but Mistress Stafford did not utter a word of reproach. She knew the hardship women can suffer, so she bundled my mother up and sent her to live under Lady Mildred Cecil’s care. I was born in the Cecil household.”
So, this explained Kate’s connection to Cecil. She had lived under his roof.
“Did Mistress Stafford know who your father was?” I asked.
“She must