The Queen's Mistake by Diane Haeger Read Free Book Online Page B

narrowed as he tossed sand on the wet ink before him. “Why did you not come for me sooner?”
    “Your Grace did not answer the door, and when I called out to you some moments ago, you were most firm that I should go away.”
    “Yet you are here now?”

    The servant inclined his head. “This time His Majesty the king sent me for you, so I let myself in.”
    Norfolk jumped to his feet and hurried, nearly at a run, down a staircase and across a covered bridge lined with oriel windows, then down the paneled corridor, shoe heels clicking across the intricate tile floor in the vast echoing silence. The lime-washed walls he passed were lined with massive tapestries and torchlight that flickered in the dim light of early evening as he neared the great hall and the sound of the music.
    The banquet in honor of the new queen and her German emis saries had already begun when he arrived in a sweep of fur-lined black velvet. But there was an empty seat beside the king usually reserved for Cromwell. Since it was Cromwell who had orchestrated, then pushed for this already disastrous union, it came as no surprise that he was nowhere in sight.
    Norfolk had been given a chance with Anne. Now he had a second chance.
    Catherine must not disappoint him.
    Her future and his own depended upon all she had learned at Horsham.

    Catherine stood in the courtyard of Horsham, putting on her riding gloves and gazing into the dry-lipped, scowling expression of her grandmother, who had come out grudgingly to bid her farewell. A cool breeze blew across the gently rolling terrain as Catherine curtsied properly to the woman who had been more keeper than relation.
    “Remember,” the dour old woman finally said, “you’re going to court with nothing beyond your passable looks and your Howard name. If you are very, very fortunate, you may become a maid of
honor, but your personal state of poverty keeps you no better than the girls with whom you shared that dormitory, unless you do something bold about it. Never forget that.”
    Catherine had an overwhelming urge to make a face just then, or to say something spiteful in response. She had been aching to do that for years, and yet she had always been forced into compliance.
    “I understand, my lady grandmother.”
    Agnes arched a silver brow. “Do you? Are you certain?”
    It would be impossible not to understand your contempt of me, she thought. “I do,” she said instead.
    “Do you also understand, somewhere in that empty head of yours, how that lark to seduce not one but two of my servants could put you in jeopardy of never making any sort of important match at court?”
    “How would anyone discover such a thing, and why would anyone care about the indiscretions of a country girl from Sussex?”
    The retort came tumbling out like marbles rolling across her tongue before she even knew what was happening. She stood stone still, but refused to drop her gaze from the dowager duchess’s cold stare. But this time Agnes would not dare to hit her, not when her soft skin and smooth face were the only chance in the world to regain the Howard standing. Catherine knew it and belligerently took full advantage. The silence stretched on. Catherine still did not break her gaze.
    “So you do have something of your cousin Anne in you, after all.”
    “Thank you, Grandmother.”
    “Pray only hope it is not the part that landed her on Tower Green, separated from her head.”
    Catherine felt a shiver deep in her chest, but she would not show it. “Everyone wishes me well, as I do them. They will speak against me to no one.”

    “A spurned heart is a dangerous thing.”
    She was not certain whether her grandmother meant Henry Manox or Francis Dereham.
    “They shall marry one day and forget the past, just as I plan to do.”
    “And for your sake, and for the family’s, I shall pray for that, since the alternative could be ghastly.”
    Suddenly, before she could say anything more, the old woman drew something