In the interests of getting towards the end of Marie's pregnancy sooner rather than later - she'll thank me, I'm sure, - have another chapter!
Kathy sat alone before the looking glass, peering at her reflection.
The gown of virginal cream satin, embroidered with dark blue falcons and chevrons, clung tightly to her slender figure and the pearls in her hair caught the light as she turned her head.
She looked pretty, she knew she did, yet she couldn’t help but be apprehensive. She was about to go out and marry George Boleyn. George Boleyn, the newly-created Earl of Pembroke. The newly-created Earl of Pembroke and brother to the Queen. Brother to the woman her father had tried to poison. Brother to the one he
had managed to poison.
Kathy could only hope George wouldn’t hold her heritage against her. She did so want to be a good wife to him, if he’d let her. But she just didn’t know if he would.
A knock at the door startled Kathy out of her musings. Her little half-sister, her father’s bastard daughter Margaret and her cousin Dorothy Hastings, looked in.
“Are you ready, Katherine?” Dorothy asked, as Margaret clapped, “You look beautiful!”
“Thank you, Meg,” Kathy smiled, stroking the child’s hair. She’d always liked Meg, if only because liking her had made her closer to Papa than her other siblings, who all took their mother’s lead and pretended their illegitimate siblings didn’t exist, unless they absolutely had to acknowledge them.
But today was not a day that she wanted to flaunt the fact that she’d been close to her father. Having Meg at the wedding, alongside her other siblings, was as daring as she was going to get. Hence why Dorothy was her bridesmaid, rather than her youngest full sister Mary. A Hastings was a far better choice than a Stafford, given the circumstances.
She looked up at her cousin, “Ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s go.”
Dorothy nodded and beckoned their Uncle Humphrey to enter and give Kathy his arm.
And so Kathy went into the chapel to marry George Boleyn in a flurry of lesser Stafford relations, close enough kin to prove she had a family, but not so close as to remind the King too heavily of her traitorous father.
The ceremony itself was muted, considering it was Easter and the status of those getting married, but that didn’t matter to Kathy. All she was worried about was how her husband to be would behave. She’d always dreamed of marrying a man who would treat her like a Princess. Goodness knows her father had encouraged her in those dreams. But she’d never dreamed she’d be marrying in these circumstances, with her father an avowed, unrepentant traitor, one caged in the Tower, in fear of his life. Despite herself, Kathy couldn’t help but be nervous.
It took all her training in self-control to keep her voice steady as she said her vows, and when the priest said, “My Lord of Pembroke, you may kiss the bride,” her heart literally missed a beat. Would he do it? It was tradition for a marriage union to be sealed with the kiss of peace between the bride and groom, but would George kiss her? Or, given the circumstances, would he refuse and humiliate her before the King, the Queen, Princess Mary and all the courtiers?
She needn’t have worried. George Boleyn was too much of a gentleman to go back on his word and he’d given his word to Marie that he’d try not to resent Katherine for her Stafford blood any more than he could help.
Forcing some sort of a smile to his lips, he leaned in, lifted her veil and placed his lips briefly against hers. Applause broke out, led, in no small part, by the King and Queen, and, duty discharged, he pulled back, offering Kathy his arm.
“Shall we, Lady Pembroke?” he asked, surprised at the evident relief that flashed in her eyes as she nodded, “Yes, my Lord husband.”
The two of them went down the aisle, no longer Sir George Boleyn and Lady Katherine Stafford, but George and Katherine Boleyn, the Earl and Countess of Pembroke.
*** *** ***
Thomas Boleyn watched the newly-weds proceed down the aisle, gritting his teeth behind a false smile.
How on Earth had this happened? One minute he’d been father to the Queen and one of King Henry’s most trusted councillors, even close to being father in law to the King’s cousin as well as the King. He’d nearly been so high he could never fall. Yet now, even as his grandson grew stronger day by day in the Queen’s belly, he seemed to be losing everything. He was no longer trusted by the King, his daughter never spoke to him except when she had to and he wasn’t even allowed to choose his own son’s wife. He’d been forced to accept a traitor’s spawn as the future Countess of Ormonde. To make matters even worse, his reckless fool of a son had been named Earl of Pembroke, so they were of equal rank. His once-sure authority was crumbling.
His authority was crumbling and it was all Marie’s fault. She’d once been the most docile of his children, but ever since the King had taken an interest in her, she’d been nothing but ungrateful for all he, her own father, had done for her. She’d pulled away and encouraged her younger siblings to rebel too.
Well, no matter. He’d regain the influence he’d lost. He’d do it on his own merit and then, when Marie needed him, when the King no longer doted on her every breath, he’d show her what it felt like to have your family abandon you. He’d think very long and hard about ever helping her again. He’d only do it if he could see something to gain from it.
But for now, he’d have to play the proud father. The court expected it of him and Thomas Boleyn was never one to disappoint an audience.
Clapping heartily, he offered Elizabeth his arm and led her out of the chapel behind Marie and the King, graciously accepting the congratulations people showered him with as they went.
Unfortunately for him, the King, necessarily adept at reading faces, given his position, had seen the danger in Thomas’s eyes as he passed. He’d seen it and didn’t like it one bit.
