The Taming of the Queen Read Free Page A

came my way in Richmondshire, and I didn’t have any time to sit around reading. Lord Latimer wouldn’t have had them in the house. So I don’t know what all the fuss is about, and I certainly don’t have any influence with the king.’
    ‘But Kat, there are four men, who only wanted to read the Bible in English, accused of heresy in Windsor prison right now. You must save them.’
    ‘Not if they are heretics, I won’t! If they’re heretics they’ll have to burn. That’s the law. Who am I to say it’s wrong?’
    ‘But you will learn,’ Nan persists. ‘Of course you were cut off from all the new thinking when you were married to old Latimer and buried alive in the North, but when you hear the London preachers and listen to the scholars explaining the Bible in English you’ll understand why I think as I do. There is nothing in the world more important than bringing God’s Word to the people and pushing back the power of the old church.’
    ‘I do think that everyone should be allowed to read the Bible in English,’ I concede.
    ‘That’s all you need to believe for now. The rest follows. You’ll see. And I will be with you,’ she says. ‘Always. Whither thou goest, I will go. God bless me, I’ll be sister to the Queen of England!’
    I forget the gravity of my position and I laugh. ‘You’ll puff up like a cock sparrow! And wouldn’t Mother have been pleased! Can you imagine?’
    Nan laughs out loud and claps her hand over her mouth. ‘Lord! Lord! Can you imagine it? After marrying you off and setting me to work so hard, and all for brother William’s benefit? After teaching us that he must come first and we had to serve the family and never think of ourselves? Teaching us all our lives that the only person who mattered was William and the only country in the world was England, and the only place was court, and the only king was Henry?’
    ‘And the heirloom!’ I crow. ‘The precious heirloom that she left me! Her greatest treasure was her portrait of the king.’
    ‘Oh, she adored him. He was always the handsomest prince in Christendom to her.’
    ‘She would think me honoured to marry what remains.’
    ‘Well, you are,’ Nan points out. ‘He will make you the wealthiest woman in England; nobody will come near you for power. You’ll be able to do exactly as you please, you’ll like that. Everyone – even Edward Seymour’s wife – will have to curtsey to you. I’ll enjoy seeing that, the woman is unbearable.’
    At the mention of Thomas’s brother I lose my smile. ‘You know, I was thinking of Thomas Seymour, for my next husband.’
    ‘But you haven’t said anything directly to him? You never mentioned him to anyone? You’ve not spoken to him?’
    Bright as a portrait I can see Thomas naked in the candlelight, his knowing smile, my hand on his warm belly, tracing the line of dark hair downward. I can smell the scent of him as I kneel before him and put my forehead against his belly, as my lips part. ‘I’ve said nothing. I’ve done nothing.’
    ‘He doesn’t know that you were considering him?’ Nan presses. ‘You were thinking of marriage for the good of the family, not for desire, Kat?’
    I think of him lying on the bed, arching his back to thrust inside me, his outflung arms, the dark lashes on his brown cheeks as his eyes close in abandonment. ‘He has no idea. I only thought his fortune and kin would suit us.’
    She nods. ‘He would have been a very good match. They’re a family on the rise. But we must never mention him again. Nobody can ever say that you were thinking of him.’
    ‘I wasn’t. I would have had to marry someone who would benefit the family; him as well as any other.’
    ‘It has to be as if he is dead to you,’ she insists.
    ‘I’ve put aside all thought of him. I never even spoke to him, I never asked our brother to speak to him. I never mentioned him to anyone, not to our uncle. Forget him; I have.’
    ‘This is important, Kat.’
    ‘I’m