No Will But His by Sarah A. Hoyt

Author:Sarah A. Hoyt
Language: jpn
Format: mobi
Tags: Kathryn Howard, Wife of Henry VIII
Publisher: Goldport Press
Published: 2013-09-02T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-six

Kathryn was crying by the time they arrived at the Duchess's chambers, clutching her sheet around her and trying to look as though she had been innocent, though she rather suspected from what had passed that her grandmother knew far too much to be taken in such a way by mere pretending.

The duchess pushed Kathryn onto a chair and only then did Kathryn notice several things: that the room was well illuminated, with multiple candles on several locations, both on the wall and at various tables. And second, that two people were sitting on chairs, on either side of the one onto which Kathryn had been pushed.

The people, she saw but could not understand, were her uncle the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Howard, and his wife, Elizabeth.

Since it was well known that the duke and his wife lived at daggers drawn with each other over the fact that the duke had taken a mere laundress for his mistress and sired several children upon her, it seemed odd to see them both in the same place at the same time. The dowager duchess herself had told Kathryn more than once that she had rarely seen the two in the same room and sometimes she thought they had divided the house in such a way that they need not run into each other.

Even now, they were not looking at each other, and only slowly turned to look at her, even as the duchess circled around the three to go sit in front of them, facing them, as though she were a judge evaluating their sins.

"I had a letter today," she started, after she sat down, speaking in that brusque manner she had, as though she were continuing an interrupted conversation and everyone should know what she'd said before that. "That displeased me much. It was left at my seat in the chapel during the evening mass, and you may judge how it distracted me from my prayers when I read its contents." She nodded. "It told me that my granddaughter, Kathryn Howard, a wench I brought onto my household out of the goodness of my heart and to lighten the burden of her father, Edmund, may God rest his errant soul, had not only been entertaining Master Francis Dereham, but she had, if you please, pledged her troth to him. Like that, with no blessing and no permission. And they've been calling themselves husband and wife, as though all were proper in their relationship."

She paused and looked at Kathryn. "Right well I knew that something was forward between Master Dereham and Mistress Kathryn Howard, for I am no fool, and I can see well enough. And I knew he went into the dormitory, sometimes. I have, in truth, told his uncle to seek him in her chambers, hoping this would give him the understanding he needed to talk with his nephew and stop anything that might be excessive. Alas, this did not happen, and alas it seems to me the affair was far more advanced than I believed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.