The Tudor Secret - C. W. Gortner [79]
I was quiet, struck by the similarities—and crucial differences—between us.
“Of course, Mistress Stafford would have understood,” she added. “After all, she’d been Henry the Eighth’s mistress before her sister Anne caught his eye; she knew fidelity is not a man’s best asset, and no woman invites misfortune willingly. But she let my mother keep her secret and raise me herself, without interference. She also left us with the Cecils. I think she wanted to keep my mother safe and away from her husband.”
She paused. “I owe her everything. Because of her kindness, my mother wasn’t turned out to beg. We lived well; I had a good childhood. I received an education. Lady Mildred saw to it, being an educated woman herself. I’m one of the few ladies in Her Grace’s service who is literate. That’s why she trusts me. If a message needs to be destroyed, I can memorize it.”
“I can see why she would trust you,” I said. “How did your mother die?”
“She caught a fever. It was quick, painless. I saw Mistress Stafford a few times after my mother passed; she was always gracious. She died three years later.”
“And the man you believe is your father…?” I ventured.
“He has remarried. He has children. I don’t fault him. I think he took my mother as men do, in a moment of lust, without thought for the consequences. If he knows about me, he’s never shown it. I’ve lived all of my life without him. But I use his surname. It’s the least he can do,” she said, with a mischievous smile. “It’s not as if there aren’t hundreds of Staffords in England.”
She poked my chest with her finger. “Your turn. I want to make an honest man out of you.” It was out before she even realized what she’d said. She took one look at my face and flinched. “Forgive me. I sometimes speak before I think. If you don’t want to talk, I understand.”
I cupped her chin. “No, I don’t want secrets between us.” I paused. “The truth is I don’t know who my mother is. I was abandoned as a babe. Mistress Alice raised me.”
“You were abandoned?” she echoed. I nodded, waiting for her to collect her thoughts. “Then Mistress Alice … she was the woman in the king’s room?”
“Yes. She saved me.” As I uttered these words, I felt an overpowering need to tell someone, to leave the memory in someone other than myself, so she’d never be forgotten. “I was left in the priest’s cottage near Dudley Castle, presumably to die. I was later told it happens more than we think—unwanted babies dropped off on noble thresholds—in the hope the rich will take pity on what the poor can’t afford. I would have none of it; according to Mistress Alice, I made enough fuss to wake the dead. She heard me wailing all the way from the slop pit, where she was dumping leavings, so she went to investigate.”
My voice caught. I steadied it, focusing on Kate’s eyes for strength. “She was like the mother I never knew. When she died—or rather, when I was told she died—I couldn’t forgive her for leaving me without saying good-bye.”
“That is why you agreed to help Her Grace. You knew she needed to say good-bye.”
“Yes. I couldn’t let her suffer what I had. I know what it is like to lose someone unexpectedly. I believed Mistress Alice was dead. Peregrine mentioned a woman caring for the king when I first met him, and for a moment I felt … But I never truly thought it was her. I couldn’t. Even when I saw her…” I paused again. My voice trembled. “They cut out her tongue, did something to her legs to hobble her. Master Shelton, their steward, whom I’d looked up to, who had told me of her death—he stood there and did nothing when Lady Dudley stabbed her. She bled to death and he did nothing.”
The recollection was like shards in my