“Excellent! ” gibed Elizabeth.
“But the R, now, that’s too hard for me. I’m but a seafaring man and have not Latin — as some others do—”
“Oh—peace to your foolishness!” she exclaimed, irritated.
Seymour continued to peer at the embroidery.
“I have it! Edward Rex! Aye — and could serve again for another … an ambitious little wench with eyes too large for head … Elizabeth Regina! ”
Elizabeth slowly and deliberately rose from her chair, crossed the room leisurely to where he stood and struck him as hard as she could across the face. Seymour snatched her hands and pulled her to him roughly.
“Faith!” he breathed heavily, “you go too far!”
“Tom, leave me be!”
“You’ve asked for this—”
“Tom—” She was struggling and twisting in his grip.
“Pretending innocence—”
“Tom—” The sound was a moan against his devouring lips.
Elizabeth’s arms crept upward, locked about his neck. Her mouth was welded to his, she was answering his kisses, answering his arms…
“Bess—Bess—”
“Tom—” They were gasping each other’s names in a surge of ecstasy.
“God help me—I should not—” he groaned.
“I want you to!” The smothered cry pierced him in its childishness.
“You’re a child — a child — and yet—”
“You want me too!” she called with a mad gaiety. “I know it-”
“By the soul of me! Flow could I help it?”
With a high, broken laugh, Elizabeth stopped his mouth with another kiss. They stood locked in each other’s arms, blind, deaf. Deaf to a soft, slow footfall and the whisper of a loose silken gown … as Katherine came into the room.
Even in that moment she could pause, half-smiling, half-rebuking, seeing only one more rough-and-tumble, one more passage of arms between these two. Then words reached her.
“Fire in a man’s blood … she knew it — and you know it too, you little white devil. Bess—”
“Don’t speak! Don’t even think! Kiss me, Tom—”
“Bess—” said Katherine, very quietly and simply.
Her still voice was a ghostly echo of Seymour’s frenzied mutter of the girl’s name an instant before.
They broke apart and stood staring at the queenly figure in the ample blue gown, with a soft white scarf over her head-Seymour laboring for breath; Elizabeth standing taut, her eyes black in a face that seemed to burn with a white flame.
Into Elizabeth’s whirling brain, throbbing with defiant resentment, a thought pierced. Kate looked like Our Lady Herself—in that blue robe and white scarf, and with that grave, ineffable smile on her calm face. That smile of heartbreaking understanding…
It was Katherine who broke the stunned silence, still smiling, and with the utmost graciousness, her own warm graciousness, taking the words out of her husband’s mouth which hung open for speech that could not come.
“I know. It was nothing. Or—it 'will be nothing.”
Elizabeth’s lips were shut tight in a thin line. She had no intention of speaking.
Thomas drew a gusty breath of relief. Tried, even, a shamefaced chuckle.
“Aye, there’s my Kate! There’s my dear Kate, with her golden good sense! Well, then—”
Katherine ignored this ignoble display.
“I felt so well,” she said in an ordinary tone of voice, “I came to ask you if you would play cards. Now I see I’d best have words with my ward.”
She laid a slight stress on the last word.
The girl who stood facing her, she was reminding him, was not only her stepdaughter, and her heart’s dear child, but her faithful charge.
“Kate, blame her not,” Thomas urged uneasily. “ ’Twas but a jest—”
“A goodly jest and hearty,” Katherine agreed serenely. “But leave us alone.”
“I will not leave you angry,” he persisted.
“I am not angry.”
“Then — a kiss!” He strode to her.
“You have my kisses, all of them, and know it. Now be gone.”
“Kate-”
“Press me not, Thomas.” There was a new authority in her voice and her whole air. This was not his Kate; this was not even a woman affronted and hurt. This was the Queen…
He looked at her, irresolute and extremely uncomfortable. He looked from her to Elizabeth, and found that Elizabeth had moved to the curtained window and that her slim, straight back was turned on him. With a resigned shrug, and a jutting of his full lower lip, Thomas walked out.
There was a moment of silence. A long moment. The lowering fire ticked, whispered, feathered a trail of ash on the hearthstone. The wind whimpered outside and the curtains stirred.
Elizabeth stood with her back to the room, furious and at bay. Everything within her was tensed to save her dignity; but she was utterly at a loss how to achieve that end.
“Bess-”
The girl whirled about, her skirts spinning with the sudden energy of the movement. Dignity went to the winds.
“For God’s sake, Kate,” she exploded, “take that saintly look off your face.”
“I do not feel saintly,” Katherine answered with quiet gravity.
“Then say what’s to be said,” Elizabeth urged peremptorily, “and let’s be finished.”
“It is not so readily finished,” Katherine said. “This is no child’s misdoing to be met with a scolding and a whipping and there’s an end. Bess, was it the first time?”
“What matter?” Elizabeth returned hardily.
“The matter is, of what’s to follow.”
“So!” Elizabeth jeered. “A jealous wife we have. I cannot say the fashion becomes you.”
“Bess, I’m not quarreling with you. I’ve better use for my breath.”
“Then use it—”
Katherine looked at her steadily.
“Do you think you love him?”
The words hung on the air.
“Do you think I do?” Elizabeth shot at her.
“I think you think you do,” Katherine answered sadly. Not angrily. She drew a breath, and moved heavily to a chair.
“And I am sorry for it,” she went on. “So, I’m fair caught by the first love of a child for a man — and that man’s Tom.” Elizabeth melted.
“Kate, you’re building something out of nothing.”
“I have seen much to happen out of nothing.”
“Aye, if you prod the nothing into being all.”
“Bess, this prating in riddles is no help.”
“Then tell me what I am to do? You’ve asked for me, got me here, wanted me, said you loved me—” Her voice came tumbling in a breathless rush. “Well, do you love me now? …”
Katherine did not speak. She had sunk her head on one hand as she sat.
“Kate! Answer me! What would you have me do? … You’ll not answer? Why then—I’ll go away!”
Katherine lifted her head.
“It would be best,” she said.
“What?” Elizabeth’s eyes widened incredulously. Her voice rose to a cry. She had never expected that answer.
“Best for you to go away. You said it…”
“But I …” Elizabeth faltered for the first time, then changed tone and manner abruptly.
“Well! You would make this into a thing indeed! Crying like any common housewife who sees her man look on a kitchenmaid!”
Katherine turned on her that level, steady look.
“You’re no kitchenmaid,” she said. “You are Elizabeth, King Henry’s daughter. And—you could be Queen…”
Elizabeth caught her breath sharply—caught at bitterness to cover her sudden tremor of feeling.
“If I do not first become a bawd.”
“Keep that small tongue to yourself, Elizabeth, and hear me out. I said you could be Queen. And that is true, if you do live to be so, and escape—the block. So … Princess … keep your eyes from Tom, for your indiscretions may carry
others to their graves. I’ll have him with his head upon his neck, whatever you may choose to do with yours.”