“I do not lie!” Katherine cried, wringing her hands.“He spared me my virtue, I vow it on all that is holy! Oh, God, I am sorry, I am so sorry!”
The queen stared at her assessingly. “Get down on your knees and beg Our forgiveness.”
Katherine obeyed. “Please, Your Majesty, forgive me—I beg your pardon most humbly.”
The queen’s tone softened. “Rise, Katherine, and wipe the tears from your eyes.”
Katherine got to her feet.
“You must proceed with caution. You are very beautiful, and many men will chase after you with little or no provocation. You must remain strong, you must not yield. Not even to a handsome rogue like Liam O’Neill.” Her gaze darkened. Katherine knew she thought of Leicester.
“You are right,” Katherine said, clenching folds of her dress. “I have made a grave mistake.”
“Perhaps court life does not suit you,” the queen said reflectively.
Dismay flooded Katherine. The queen was going to send her away—and she could not be blamed for doing so.
“We think that today you will not attend Us. Go to your chamber and ponder upon the past—and the future. Meantime, We will think on what should be done with you.”
Katherine had been dismissed. Consumed with dread, feeling more trapped with every passing moment, she left the antechamber. Outside the queen’s ladies, advisors, Gentlemen Pensioners, and assorted noblemen awaited Elizabeth. Katherine did not look at anyone as she pushed through the crowd. Until someone touched her arm, forcing her to glance up. Her gaze met Leicester’s. A question was in his eyes.
With a small cry, Katherine tore free of him and ran down the hall.
No way out, she thought incoherently. There did not seem to be any way out of her terrible dilemma, caught as she was in a web formed by so many men, one consisting of their secret intrigues and powerful ambitions.
Katherine was subdued when she came down to supper, finally allowed from the confinement of her room. As she took her seat at the dining table in the Banquet Hall, shehad the feeling that most of the court knew that she was in disgrace. She prayed it were not so. She prayed that, if anyone knew anything, it was that she was in disgrace for sharing a few minutes alone with Leicester. Should the world know that she had entertained Liam O’Neill in her chamber last night, she was ruined, no matter that she was still chaste.
But the stares which were turned her way were not snide or lewd or wolverine, merely pitying. Katherine hesitated, unsure of where to sit and whom to sit with. Anne Hastings smiled at her, waving her over. When Katherine approached, she stood and put her arm around her. “You poor dear! Do not fret overly, Katherine,” she whispered. “You are not the first that Leicester has eyed and that the queen has reprimanded so sharply. She is but protecting the man she thinks she owns.”
Katherine felt hot relief as she sat down beside Anne on the crowded bench. “But she does own him, does she not?”
Anne shrugged. “She has made him, enriched and ennobled him, but he is manly enough to one day do as he wishes. He must eventually marry again if he wants a legitimate heir.”
Katherine bit her lip. She would not tell Anne that Leicester had hardly suggested marriage. She twisted to face the dark-haired lady. “Anne? What else do they say about me?”
Anne cast a sidelong look upon her. “Not much, in truth.” She wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “Well, there is a strange rumor going about—that your pirate attended last night’s festivities.”
Katherine froze.
“’Tis not true, is it?”
“I know not,” Katherine managed to lie.
“Hmm. Surely had he appeared, one and all would have remarked him. A man like that could not possibly be missed, even in disguise.” Anne picked up a chicken leg and began to nibble upon it.
Katherine felt more relief. If that was the extent of the current rumor about Liam O’Neill, then her reputation wassafe. But in that moment she realized that she had come dangerously close to ruining her life. So dangerously close. It must never happen again. Katherine was astute enough to know that if it did, she would be a hairbreadth away from marriage to the pirate, and she was not ready yet to give up all of her dreams, despite what her father asked of her.
Surely there was some way to help Gerald, some way which did not involve her becoming Leicester’s leman, or becoming O’Neill’s wife.
Katherine thought about the earl of Ormond. It seemed that her half brother was her champion after all, urging the queen to find a suitable marriage for her. Another irony struck Katherine. Of all the men here at court, somehow her father’s greatest enemy was proving to be her best ally. Perhaps Ormond would succeed—taking the matter of her future out of her own hands entirely.
“She has confessed. She was with Liam O’Neill last night.”
Ormond flushed. “The next time I see him, I shall kill him.”
The queen was not looking at him, but at Leicester, who stared at her, frozen by her words. Elizabeth smiled at him, far too sweetly. “Is something amiss, dear Robin?”
Dudley came to life, his expression relaxing, a smile forming upon his dark, handsome countenance. “The pirate has great gall, to come uninvited to your court, and to sneak into a lady’s room.”
