to distinguish assault from innocent good fun.
Thomas. In the gardens offering her delicate bouquets he’d fashioned with his own thick-fingered hands.
Thomas. In her bedchamber merrily pestering her every morning.
Thomas. Romping round the schoolroom like a silly boy as she tried to study.
‘Thomas. Teasing her. Chasing her. Touching her.
She had finally become unable to hear the man’s name without blushing furiously. It was commonly taught that infatuation was itself a form of unchastity, and that a maid should not be proud that no man had touched her body if men had pierced her mind. And Thomas Seymour had more than pierced her mind. Like a fortress with its walls breached, he had invaded and entirely overrun it.
It did no good to confide in his new wife.
“How can you think such things of Thomas!” cried Lady Catherine Seymour, absently twisting the pearl ring on her finger round and round and round. “He’s playing, Elizabeth. He is a spirited man, and he loves you like a father.”
“But, Mother, the servants are gossiping. Kat says my reputation —”
“Kat is a foolish woman!”
Elizabeth was worried about her stepmother. Something, she knew, was terribly wrong. Catherine was not herself. The queenly confidence and serenity that had suffused her whole being were gone, replaced by a strange nervous discomfiture. She had done nothing to curtail either Thomas’s early morning visits to Elizabeth’s bedchamber or the rumors. They were beginning to spread even beyond Chelsea’s walls.
“Listen to me, Elizabeth,” demanded Catherine. “You must learn the first rule of a royal household. You are the princess. They are the servants. All their scandalmongering can do you no harm.” Her voice, once so calmly modulated and assuring, had a new edge of shrillness. And the words she spoke … Even a child would know they were illogical.
“You always told me that a girl’s modesty —”
“How dare you turn my words back on me!” Catherine shrieked. “Go now, leave me in peace and let me hear no more of your complaints about my husband. I’ve had three others before him, and I can tell you I have had more joy from Thomas Seymour in one year than from all the other three in a lifetime!”
Elizabeth squinted at her volume of Cicero in the muted afternoon light of the deserted schoolroom. Her beloved tutor, Asham, had taken suddenly ill with a flux and retired to his bed for the day. The other learned virgins of Lady Catherine’s household had leapt at the opportunity for a day off from their lessons, but Elizabeth was well into her translation of the Roman statesmen’s observations on the last days of the Republic. It was only her studies that gave Elizabeth any relief from her troubling thoughts, for these days Catherine had actually taken to joining Thomas Seymour in his early morning escapades, jumping into the bed with him and tickling the Princess unmercifully. And just last week the dowager queen had held Elizabeth’s arms while Thomas had inexplicably slashed her gown to ribbons with a long knife.
It was all so confusing, thought Elizabeth. Why was Catherine acting so queerly? Could it be because she was finally pregnant with Seymour’s child? The news filled Elizabeth to overflowing with equal measures of love and joy for Catherine — mingled with wholly unmanageable jealousy and terrible shame for her torrid secret fantasies about the husband of the woman she loved most in the world. She prayed fervently and daily for guidance, but found little help from God. So she turned back to her books.
Elizabeth was so involved in her translation that she never knew Thomas Seymour had entered until he quiedy spoke her name. She turned, expecting the usual teasing playmate she had known, but was met instead by a sober and mannerly gendeman. Elizabeth searched Seymour’s face and was alarmed to see tears threatening to spill from his eyes.
“Lady Catherine? Is she ill?” Elizabeth clutched
Thomas. In the gardens offering her delicate bouquets he’d fashioned with his own thick-fingered hands.
Thomas. In her bedchamber merrily pestering her every morning.
Thomas. Romping round the schoolroom like a silly boy as she tried to study.
‘Thomas. Teasing her. Chasing her. Touching her.
She had finally become unable to hear the man’s name without blushing furiously. It was commonly taught that infatuation was itself a form of unchastity, and that a maid should not be proud that no man had touched her body if men had pierced her mind. And Thomas Seymour had more than pierced her mind. Like a fortress with its walls breached, he had invaded and entirely overrun it.
It did no good to confide in his new wife.
“How can you think such things of Thomas!” cried Lady Catherine Seymour, absently twisting the pearl ring on her finger round and round and round. “He’s playing, Elizabeth. He is a spirited man, and he loves you like a father.”
“But, Mother, the servants are gossiping. Kat says my reputation —”
“Kat is a foolish woman!”
Elizabeth was worried about her stepmother. Something, she knew, was terribly wrong. Catherine was not herself. The queenly confidence and serenity that had suffused her whole being were gone, replaced by a strange nervous discomfiture. She had done nothing to curtail either Thomas’s early morning visits to Elizabeth’s bedchamber or the rumors. They were beginning to spread even beyond Chelsea’s walls.
“Listen to me, Elizabeth,” demanded Catherine. “You must learn the first rule of a royal household. You are the princess. They are the servants. All their scandalmongering can do you no harm.” Her voice, once so calmly modulated and assuring, had a new edge of shrillness. And the words she spoke … Even a child would know they were illogical.
“You always told me that a girl’s modesty —”
“How dare you turn my words back on me!” Catherine shrieked. “Go now, leave me in peace and let me hear no more of your complaints about my husband. I’ve had three others before him, and I can tell you I have had more joy from Thomas Seymour in one year than from all the other three in a lifetime!”
Elizabeth squinted at her volume of Cicero in the muted afternoon light of the deserted schoolroom. Her beloved tutor, Asham, had taken suddenly ill with a flux and retired to his bed for the day. The other learned virgins of Lady Catherine’s household had leapt at the opportunity for a day off from their lessons, but Elizabeth was well into her translation of the Roman statesmen’s observations on the last days of the Republic. It was only her studies that gave Elizabeth any relief from her troubling thoughts, for these days Catherine had actually taken to joining Thomas Seymour in his early morning escapades, jumping into the bed with him and tickling the Princess unmercifully. And just last week the dowager queen had held Elizabeth’s arms while Thomas had inexplicably slashed her gown to ribbons with a long knife.
It was all so confusing, thought Elizabeth. Why was Catherine acting so queerly? Could it be because she was finally pregnant with Seymour’s child? The news filled Elizabeth to overflowing with equal measures of love and joy for Catherine — mingled with wholly unmanageable jealousy and terrible shame for her torrid secret fantasies about the husband of the woman she loved most in the world. She prayed fervently and daily for guidance, but found little help from God. So she turned back to her books.
Elizabeth was so involved in her translation that she never knew Thomas Seymour had entered until he quiedy spoke her name. She turned, expecting the usual teasing playmate she had known, but was met instead by a sober and mannerly gendeman. Elizabeth searched Seymour’s face and was alarmed to see tears threatening to spill from his eyes.
“Lady Catherine? Is she ill?” Elizabeth clutched
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