Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1: The Constant Princess, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Boleyn Inheritance. Philippa Gregory
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‘You must have known.’ Henry smiled down at her confidently. ‘You must have known when I came to see you yesterday, and when I sent you the good wine?’
Catalina gave a little nod. She had known something – fool that she was – she had known something was happening; and praised her own diplomatic skills for being so clever as to lead the King of England by the nose. She had thought herself a woman of the world and thought her ambassador an idiot for not achieving this outcome from a king who was so easily manipulated. She had thought she had the King of England dancing to her bidding, when in fact he had his own tune in mind.
‘I desired you from the moment I first saw you,’ he told her, his voice very low.
She looked up. ‘You did?’
‘Truly. When I came into your bedchamber at Dogmersfield.’
She remembered an old man, travel-stained and lean, the father of the man she would marry. She remembered the sweaty male scent as he forced his way into her bedroom and she remembered standing before him and thinking: what a clown, what a rough soldier to push in where he is not wanted. And then Arthur arrived, his blond hair tousled, and with the brightness of his shy smile.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. From somewhere deep inside her own resolution, she found a smile. ‘I remember. I danced for you.’
Henry drew her a little closer and slid his arm around her waist. Catalina forced herself not to pull away. ‘I watched you,’ he said. ‘I longed for you.’
‘But you were married,’ Catalina said primly.
‘And now I am widowed and so are you,’ he said. He felt the stiffness of her body through the hard boning of the stomacher and let her go. He would have to court her slowly, he thought. She might have flirted with him, but now she was startled by the turn that things had taken. She had come from an absurdly sheltered upbringing and her innocent months with Arthur had hardly opened her eyes at all. He would have to take matters slowly with her. He would have to wait until she had permission from Spain, he would leave the ambassador to tell her of the wealth she might command, he would have to let her women urge the benefits of the match upon her. She was a young woman, by nature and experience she was bound to be a fool. He would have to give her time.
‘I will leave you now,’ he said. ‘I will come again tomorrow.’
She nodded, and walked with him to the door of her privy chamber. There she hesitated. ‘You mean it?’ she asked him, her blue eyes suddenly anxious. ‘You mean this as a proposal of marriage, not as a feint in a negotiation? You truly want to marry me? I will be queen?’
He nodded. ‘I mean it.’ The depth of her ambition began to dawn on him and he smiled as he slowly saw the way to her. ‘Do you want to be queen so very much?’
Catalina nodded. ‘I was brought up to it,’ she said. ‘I want nothing more.’ She hesitated, for a moment she almost thought to tell him that it had been the last thought of his son, but then her passion for Arthur was too great for her to share him with anyone, even his father. And besides, Arthur had planned that she should marry Harry.
The king was smiling. ‘So you don’t have desire, but you do have ambition,’ he observed a little coldly.
‘It is nothing more than my due,’ she said flatly. ‘I was born to be a queen.’
He took her hand and bent over it. He kissed her fingers; and he stopped himself from licking them. ‘Take it slowly,’ he warned himself. ‘This is a girl and possibly a virgin; certainly not a whore.’ He straightened up. ‘I shall make you Katherine of Aragon, Queen of England,’ he promised her, and saw her blue eyes darken with desire at the title. ‘We can marry as soon as we have the dispensation from the Pope.’
Think! Think! I urgently command myself. You were not raised by a fool to be a fool, you were raised by a queen to be a queen. If this is a feint you ought to be able to see it. If it is a true offer you ought to be able to turn it to your advantage.
It is not a true fulfilment of the promise I made to my beloved but it is close. He wanted me to be Queen of England and to have the children that he would have given me. So what if they will be his half-brother and half-sister rather than his niece and nephew? That makes no difference.
I shrink from the thought of marrying this old man, old enough to be my father. The skin at his neck is fine and loose, like that of a turtle. I cannot imagine being in bed with him. His breath is sour, an old man’s breath; and he is thin, and he will feel bony at the hips and shoulders. But I shrink from the thought of being in bed with that child Harry. His face is as smooth and as rounded as a little girl’s. In truth, I cannot bear the thought of being anyone’s wife but Arthur’s; and that part of my life has gone.
Think! Think! This might be the very right thing to do.
Oh God, beloved, I wish you were here to tell me. I wish I could just visit you in the garden for you to tell me what I should do. I am only seventeen, I cannot outwit a man old enough to be my father, a king with a nose for pretenders.
Think!
I will have no help from anyone. I have to think alone.
Dona Elvira waited until the princess’s bedtime and until all the maids-in-waiting, the ladies and the grooms of the bedchamber had withdrawn. She closed the door on them all and then turned to the princess, who was seated in her bed, her hair in a neat plait, her pillows plumped behind her.
‘What did the king want?’ she demanded without ceremony.
‘He proposed marriage to me,’ Catalina said bluntly in reply. ‘For himself.’
For a moment the duenna was too stunned to speak then she crossed herself, as a woman seeing something unclean. ‘God save us,’ was all she said. Then: ‘God forgive him for even thinking it.’
‘God forgive you,’ Catalina replied smartly. ‘I am considering it.’
‘He is your father-in-law, and old enough to be your father.’
‘His age doesn’t matter,’ Catalina said truly. ‘If I go back to Spain they won’t seek a young husband for me but an advantageous one.’
‘But he is the father of your husband.’
Catalina nipped her lips together. ‘My late husband,’ she said bleakly. ‘And the marriage was not consummated.’
Dona Elvira swallowed the lie; but her eyes flicked away, just once.
‘As you remember,’ Catalina said smoothly.
‘Even so! It is against nature!’
‘It is not against nature,’ Catalina asserted. ‘There was no consummation of the betrothal, there was no child. So there can be no sin against nature. And anyway, we can get a dispensation.’
Dona Elvira hesitated. ‘You can?’
‘He says so.’
‘Princess, you cannot want this?’
The princess’s little face was bleak. ‘He will not betroth me to Prince Harry,’ she said. ‘He says the boy is too young. I cannot wait four years until he is grown. So what can I do but marry the king? I was born to be Queen of England and mother of the next King of England. I have to fulfil my destiny, it is my God-given destiny. I thought I would have to force myself to take Prince Harry. Now it seems I shall have to force myself to take the king. Perhaps this is God testing me. But my will is strong.