Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1: The Constant Princess, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Boleyn Inheritance. Philippa Gregory
other titles and went in to his daughter-in-law.
She was wearing a dark-coloured gown with blue slashings on the sleeve, a richly embroidered stomacher and a dark blue hood. It brought out the amber in her hair and the blue in her eyes and he smiled in instinctive pleasure at the sight of her as she sank into a deep formal curtsey and rose up.
‘Your Grace,’ she said pleasantly. ‘This is an honour indeed.’
He had to force himself not to stare at the creamy line of her neck, at the smooth, unlined face that looked back up at him. He had lived all his life with a beautiful woman of his own age; now here was a girl young enough to be his daughter, with the rich-scented bloom of youth still on her, and breasts full and firm. She was ready for marriage, indeed, she was over-ready for marriage. This was a girl who should be bedded. He checked himself at once, and thought he was part lecher, part lover to look on his dead son’s child-bride with such desire.
‘Can I offer you some refreshment?’ she asked. There was a smile in the back of her eyes.
He thought if she had been an older, a more sophisticated woman he would have assumed she was playing him, as knowingly as a skilled angler can land a salmon.
‘Thank you. I will take a glass of wine.’
And so she caught him. ‘I am afraid I have nothing fit to offer you,’ she said smoothly. ‘I have nothing left in my cellars at all, and I cannot afford to buy good wine.’
Henry did not show by so much as a flicker that he knew she had trapped him into hearing of her financial difficulties. ‘I am sorry for that, I will have some barrels sent over,’ he said. ‘Your housekeeping must be very remiss.’
‘It is very thin,’ she said simply. ‘Will you take a cup of ale? We brew our own ale very cheaply.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, biting his lip to hide a smile. He had not dreamed that she had so much self-confidence. The year of widowhood had brought out her courage, he thought. Alone in a foreign land she had not collapsed as other girls might have collapsed, she had gathered her power and become stronger.
‘Is My Lady the King’s Mother in good health and the Princess Mary well?’ she asked, as confidently as if she were entertaining him in the gold room of the Alhambra.
‘Yes, thank God,’ he said. ‘And you?’
She smiled and bowed her head. ‘And no need to ask for your health,’ she remarked. ‘You never look any different.’
‘Do I not?’
‘Not since the very first time we met,’ she said. ‘When I had just landed in England and was coming to London and you rode to meet me.’ It cost Catalina a good deal not to think of Arthur as he was on that evening, mortified by his father’s rudeness, trying to talk to her in an undertone, stealing sideways looks at her.
Determinedly she put her young lover from her mind and smiled at his father and said: ‘I was so surprised by your coming, and so startled by you.’
He laughed. He saw that she had conjured the picture of when he first saw her, a virgin by her bed, in a white gown with a blue cape with her hair in a plait down her back, and how he thought then that he had come upon her like a ravisher, he had forced his way into her bedchamber, he could have forced himself on to her.
He turned and took a chair to cover his thoughts, gesturing that she should sit down too. Her duenna, the same sour-faced Spanish mule, he noticed irritably, stood at the back of the room with two other ladies.
Catalina sat perfectly composed, her white fingers interlaced in her lap, her back straight, her entire manner that of a young woman confident of her power to attract. Henry said nothing and looked at her for a moment. Surely she must know what she was doing to him when she reminded him of their first meeting? And yet surely the daughter of Isabella of Spain and the widow of his own son could not be wilfully tempting him to lust?
A servant came in with two cups of small ale. The king was served first and then Catalina took a cup. She took a tiny sip and set it down.
‘D’you still not like ale?’ He was startled at the intimacy in his own voice. Surely to God he could ask his daughter-in-law what she liked to drink?
‘I drink it only when I am very thirsty,’ she replied. ‘But I don’t like the taste it leaves in my mouth.’ She put her hand to her mouth and touched her lower lip. Fascinated, he watched her fingertip brush the tip of her tongue. She made a little face. ‘I think it will never be a favourite of mine,’ she said.
‘What did you drink in Spain?’ He found he could hardly speak. He was still watching her soft mouth, shiny where her tongue had licked her lips.
‘We could drink the water,’ she said. ‘In the Alhambra the Moors had piped clean water all the way from the mountains into the palace. We drank mountain spring water from the fountains, it was still cold. And juices from fruits of course, we had wonderful fruits in summer, and ices, and sherbets and wines as well.’
‘If you come on progress with me this summer we can go to places where you can drink the water,’ he said. He thought he was sounding like a stupid boy, promising her a drink of water as a treat. Stubbornly, he persisted. ‘If you come with me we can go hunting, we can go to Hampshire, beyond, to the New Forest. You remember the country around there? Near where we first met?’
‘I should like that so much,’ she said. ‘If I am still here, of course.’
‘Still here?’ He was startled, he had almost forgotten that she was his hostage, she was supposed to go home by summer. ‘I doubt your father and I will have agreed terms by then.’
‘Why, how can it take so long?’ she asked, her blue eyes wide with assumed surprise. ‘Surely we can come to some agreement?’ She hesitated. ‘Between friends? Surely if we cannot agree about the moneys owed, there is some other way? Some other agreement that can be made? Since we have made an agreement before?’
It was so close to what he had been thinking that he rose to his feet, discomfited. At once she rose too. The top of her pretty blue hood only came to his shoulder, he thought he would have to bend his head to kiss her, and if she were under him in bed he would have to take care not to hurt her. He felt his face flush hot at the thought of it. ‘Come here,’ he said thickly and led her to the window embrasure where her ladies could not overhear them.
‘I have been thinking what sort of arrangement we might come to,’ he said. ‘The easiest thing would be for you to stay here. I should certainly like you to stay here.’
Catalina did not look up at him. If she had done so then, he would have been sure of her. But she kept her eyes down, her face downcast. ‘Oh, certainly, if my parents agree,’ she said, so softly that he could hardly hear.
He felt himself trapped. He felt he could not go forwards while she held her head so delicately to one side and showed him only the curve of her cheek and her eyelashes, and yet he could hardly go back when she had asked him outright if there was not another way to resolve the conflict between him and her parents.
‘You will think me very old,’ he burst out.
Her blue eyes flashed up at him and were veiled again. ‘Not at all,’ she said levelly.
‘I am old enough to be your father,’ he said, hoping she would disagree.
Instead she looked up at him. ‘I never think of you like that,’ she said.
Henry was silent. He felt utterly baffled by this slim young woman who seemed at one moment so deliciously encouraging and yet at another moment, quite opaque. ‘What would you like to do?’ he demanded of her.
At last she raised her head and smiled up at him, her lips curving up but no warmth in her eyes. ‘Whatever you command,’ she said. ‘I should like most of all to obey you, Your Grace.’