Free The Tudor Bride by Joanna Hickson

you again, my dearest lord. It has been weeks and I have been churlish for the lack of you.’
    Precedence ruled that the king be offered the basin first and he gave me a rueful smile as he dipped his fingers in the water. ‘I cannot imagine my beautiful Kate being churlish, Mette. Tell me what she means.’
    Handing him the napkin to dry his hands, I jogged the basin and a little water spilled over my apron. Brushing it off gave me a moment to gather my thoughts for a response. ‘I am sure I do not know, your grace,’ I said, retrieving the napkin from him. ‘Churlish is not a word I would associate with Madame. But I do know that she refused to be shown Kenilworth castle by anyone but you.’
    King Henry turned to Catherine, raising an enquiring eyebrow. ‘Is that true?’ he asked.
    I turned to offer the basin to Catherine. Her face wore a slightly mulish expression and I thought she was going to chastise me, but eventually she gave a direct answer to the king’s question. ‘Yes, it is true and it is because you once told me that this is where you discovered love – the love of your mother and your brother Thomas.’
    I could not see King Henry’s face because I was dealing again with the bowl and napkin but his voice sounded gruff. ‘We were always happy here at Kenilworth when our mother was alive,’ he acknowledged. ‘But my younger brothers and sisters cannot remember her as vividly as Thomas and I. She made this place a playground and every corner of it contains memories of her presence.’
    King Henry leaned over to take Catherine’s hand. ‘I learned my military skills on the Welsh border, but it was here that my mother taught me to love music and books and poetry and all the things that raise men above the animals. In recent years I have been too busy fighting to enjoy the finer things of life, until God blessed me with a beautiful wife as my companion. I too have missed you and missed sharing your bed, my sweet love, but I thought it best to let your body recover after our great disappointment. I believe that my mother died from giving birth too young and too often. My sister Philippa was her eighth child in ten years and she was worn out. She died of exhaustion at the age of twenty-four. I hold you too dear, my Catherine, to allow anything similar to happen to you.’
    At this point I thought it tactful to move away from the table. I may be accused of undue prurience, but I was as anxious as they that normal marital relations should be resumed and the essential heir conceived as soon as possible. At the same time, I needed to preserve my close relationship with Catherine because while King Henry would doubtless be off on campaign as soon as a pregnancy was established, I was the one he would hold responsible for nurturing it to a successful conclusion. It was obvious that they both fervently desired each other – you could feel the sexual urgency crackling between them – but while Catherine’s desire for him was artless and emotional, his desire for her was controlled and dynastic – or so I thought …
    I took a seat in the shadows beside the fireplace hood where I could not see or be seen by the two diners, but it was not long before I leaped up again in response to a loud bellow from the king.
    ‘Guillaumette! Where are you when we need you? Come and unlace this tiresome gown!’
    The sunset gown was beautiful to behold, but needed the services of a maid to release the wearer from its clutches. I hurried to perform the task, pulling the gold laces from their hooks as quickly as I could while the squire Robin took the narrow stair down from the minstrel’s gallery two steps at a time to come to the aid of the king. Nothing was said but the king and Catherine never took their eyes off each other as we undressed them and when they were both reduced to their chemises, King Henry gathered his queen in his arms and almost threw her onto the embroidered silk cover of the great tester bed. The