A Woman of Passion (29 page)

Bess embraced her aunt Marcy. “Nay, I've only just begun.”

*   *   *

The London house that Cavendish bought from William Parr was in Newgate Street, not far from St. Paul's Cathedral. When they arrived and William took her on a tour, Bess was surprised to find many of the rooms empty.

“I want you to start fresh. This is your house, Bess, and I want you to furnish it with things that will please you. You'll have to start by hiring your own staff. You are completely in charge here. You will also have to keep your own accounts; I'm far too busy with the accounts of the treasury.”

She flung her arms about his neck and went up on tiptoe to kiss him. “Thank you, William; I swear I won't disappoint you.”

Bess immediately threw herself into making her new household a rival of those of the Greys and the Dudleys. The seaport of London had the treasures of the world to choose from, and Cavendish gave her carte blanche to purchase whatever she fancied. She began interviewing servants the first day and decided to keep on two men who already worked for her husband, Francis Whitfield and Timothy Pusey. She hired a cook and a cook's assistant, as well as housemaids and footmen. She decided she needed a full-time seamstress to fashion her clothes and was lucky enough to find a woman who also did exquisite embroidery. Bess sketched out the scenes she wanted for a pair of wall hangings and set the woman to work immediately.

By the end of the first week, Bess had a staff of twelve servants. This was in addition to James Cromp, William's valet, and his secretary, Robert Bestnay, whom Bess kept close beside her all week to record every expenditure. Bestnay showed her how to prepare a set of household
account books, which she kept meticulously, and at the end of each day she signed
Elizabeth Cavendish
with a great flourish.

They went to Northaw for the autumn hunting and stayed until Christmas, entertaining all their friends. Bess took great delight in her role as hostess and, after a full day's hunt, presided over the gaming room, where they played cards and gambled into the night. But Bess also took a great interest in the estate's administration.

It had languished in Church hands and had not kept pace with current methods of management. William showed her how to increase the rents and revenues by enclosing commons and wasteland on which their tenant farmers could now graze extra herds of cattle and flocks of sheep.

William also put the Northaw property in both their names and taught Bess how to convey property to trustees and back again to them jointly to establish indisputable title to their lands. “I am much older than you, Bess, so if we hold our property jointly, it will be yours when I die, and there will be no question of wardship for our children. And speaking of children, my darling, when are you going to divulge your deep, dark secret to our friends?”

He was sitting before the roaring fire, and she climbed into his lap. “William, don't you dare to breathe a word of it!”

His hand slipped to her belly, which was hardly mounded in spite of her being in her sixth month. “But I'm so damned proud of it. I want to exercise my bragging rights.”

“I'll tell them at New Year's,” she said loftily.

But when New Year's came, Bess changed her mind. They had been invited to spend the revels at Chelsea,
where Thomas Seymour was determined to entertain the king and Court with a lavish celebration, complete with the traditional masked costume ball. When the crowds were at their greatest, the admiral announced that his new wife, Dowager Queen Catherine, was with child.

Princess Elizabeth, standing next to Bess, clenched her fists so tightly, her nails cut into her palms. “That's disgusting! Men love nothing better than to shout their virility to the world. Strutting about, displaying their codpieces like cocksure, cock-proud boys!”

Her words wrung Bess's heart. Elizabeth had idolized and loved Tom Seymour since she was a little girl and would no doubt have given her soul to be wed to him.

Elizabeth's envious eyes swept over Bess's costumed figure. “Next it will be you who is swollen with child, displaying your belly like a symbol of womanhood.”

Bess knew she could not tell her. She would not add to her friend's misery for all the Crown jewels.

Finally, in mid-February, when she and William were dining at Suffolk House, Bess took great delight in telling Frances and Henry that she was going to have a baby.

Frances raised her glass to William. “Well, that didn't take long, you randy devil.”

William's eyes danced with amusement. Frances had no idea.

“How far along are you?” Frances inquired, her speculative eyes roaming over Bess's expanding midsection.

“I'm not really sure,” Bess said vaguely. “Perhaps five months.”

William choked on his wine. The little minx had conceived seven and a half months ago. Henry clapped him on the back and offered his heartiest congratulations.

“You wretch, why didn't you tell me sooner?” Frances demanded.

“Well, I was going to tell you at New Year's, but when the admiral made his grandiose announcement, I found it rather vulgar and William thought we should be more discreet.”

Cavendish choked once more.

“You look absolutely blooming.”

“I've never felt better.” It was the first truthful statement she'd uttered since she sat down to dinner.

“From what her sister tells me, Catherine Parr is suffering for her sins. She's sick every day; in fact she's been ill since the moment of conception.”

Bess had such a tender heart when someone was ill. She invariably felt guilty because she enjoyed robust health. “Poor lady. Having a baby should be a happy time.”

“The woman is crowding forty; she's far too old to be having her first child.”

Henry changed the subject. He knew Frances would never utter a kind word for the woman who had usurped Chelsea. “Would you like a girl or a boy?”

“A girl,” William said without hesitation, “a little redhead exactly like Bess.”

“Whoever would have thought the dissolute Rogue Cavendish would turn into a fatuous fool?” Frances drawled.

The corners of Bess's mouth went up. “If it's a girl we shall call her Frances, and if it's a boy we'll name him Henry.”

“You don't have to do that,” Henry protested, though he was highly flattered.

“Speak for yourself, Henry. My goddaughter should certainly be called Frances,” his wife hinted broadly.

“Now who's being a fatuous fool?” her husband teased.

*   *   *

That night William sat on the edge of the ornate bed and undressed Bess. He stood her between his thighs and caressed her belly. Her skin was so taut and smooth it looked like ivory satin, and her breasts were lush and full. “You are so beautiful.” The light from the fire played across her flesh, turning her skin to glowing amber. He traced kisses across the lovely outward curve of her belly.

“Do you really want a girl, William?”

“Yes, a beautiful little liar like her mother.” His hands slipped around her and cupped her buttocks. “Bess, you are always honest to a fault. Why the devil did you lie to Frances?”

“I don't want them counting on their fingers and whispering behind their hands about me,” she cried passionately. “I want no scandal attached to the name of Cavendish. We'll leave the scandal to the bloody Tudors!”

“But, my darling, they will know when you go into labor,” he pointed out gently.

“No, they will not!” she insisted stubbornly. “Next month I shall go into seclusion at Northaw, and no one in London will know what date I am delivered.”

His eyes brimmed with amusement. “You are so willful and stubborn.”

“Qualities that arouse you, I see.”

“I'm sorry, sweetheart, I can't help it—you're so ripe and luscious.”

“Don't be sorry; I want you to make love to me!” She slipped down between his muscled thighs and touched her lips to his arousal, then took him into her mouth.

“Don't, you know I'll spill, then what will you do?”

“But you are too careful—you are afraid to put your weight on me.”

“Come on, you know there are other ways to take your pleasure.” He pulled the red silk curtains about them and stretched out supine upon the bed. “You enjoy being on top sometimes. Mount me and ride me. This way you will be able to take as much of me or as little of me as you can. You will be in control.”

“You don't like to give up control.” Bess straddled him.

“Tonight I will. I'll be putty in your hands.”

“Marble in my hands.” Her voice was sultry as she reached out to toy with him. Then she sank down upon him slowly, sheathing him inch by delicious inch until he was seated to the hilt. She splayed her hands against his hips and slowly lifted until he was almost fully withdrawn, then she sank down upon him, making him groan with a hunger of his own.

He could feel the brush of her thighs and her bottom against his groin. When she bent her head to look down at him, her flaming hair cascaded down, whispering across the muscles of his chest and his rib cage. His hands came up to caress her body, and her luscious breasts spilled into his palms.

She eased into a tantalizing rhythm that inflamed him. As she slid sleekly around him, he wanted to thrust hard and deep but held himself in check, allowing her to lead the way.

“Watch this,” she whispered.

As Bess began to increase her speed and her undulations became intensely erotic, the red silk walls about them began to flutter and ripple in the breeze she created with her gyrations. Then she began to ride him like a
stallion, and the crimson silk flew like victory banners streaming past them as she galloped to her goal.

He was reeling with need as fire snaked through his groin, and he thrust wildly until they exploded together, shuddering out their release.

Bess finally wrote home to tell her family that she and William were expecting a child, and her favorite sister, Jane, came to be with her. The moment Jane arrived, Bess moved her household to Northaw, and William took Jane aside the following day.

“Bess will never admit it, but the baby was conceived before we were married. She could go into labor at any time now. Mistress Bagshaw's sister is a midwife and she's already here.” He ran his fingers through his hair distractedly. “Jane, I'm worried to death about her.”

Jane was only momentarily shocked. Bess did everything her own way. “I'll get her to bed. Don't worry, William, when Bess does something, she invariably does it well.”

Jane's prophesy turned out to be true. The following afternoon Bess delivered a baby girl. Her daughter had not red hair, but the same shade of dark auburn as her father. The very next morning the proud mother was sitting up in bed, feeding her daughter, and looking radiantly beautiful. She told William her plans for the christening. “I want Frances and Henry Grey to be her godparents, but we won't ask them until June.”

“But, darling, that is two months away. Babies are baptized within days, not months.”

“There is no law about the time of baptism of which I'm aware!”

Again William took Jane aside. “Can you talk to her and persuade her she is being silly about this?”

Jane looked at him in surprise. “William, Bess isn't like other people, you must know that by now. When she makes up her mind about something, nothing and no one can persuade her otherwise.”

As Bess decreed, little Frances Cavendish was christened in June with Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, standing as godfather. Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk, and her close friend Nan Dudley, Countess of Warwick, were the two exalted godmothers. This was a far-reaching choice since the Dudleys were politically powerful. A huge christening party followed at Northaw, where no one seemed to know or care that baby Frances was over two months old.

London, September 10, 1548

Dear Mother and Marcella:

I know you will have heard rumors about the explosive situation at Court, so I will bring you up to date. Protector Edward Seymour refused to hand over to Catherine Parr the jewels that King Henry left her, claiming they belonged to the new king. As a result Thomas Seymour made threats against his brother and suggested that
he
should be lord protector. As lord high admiral, Thomas has hired ten thousand men into the navy, and Edward Seymour is so fearful, he put Tom under surveillance.

Bess paused. She could not bring herself to tell them of the scandal that had exploded at Chelsea when Catherine Parr had caught her husband, Thomas Seymour, and Princess Elizabeth
in the act
, on the floor of Elizabeth's bedchamber!

Bess continued her letter on a sad note.
I am so sorry to tell you that four days after Catherine Parr was delivered of a baby girl, she died of childbed fever.
Bess lifted her pen once more, as her thoughts flew about like wild birds trapped
in a cage. Had Seymour had a hand in his wife's death? Would the ambitious devil find a way to make Elizabeth his next wife?

It is rumored that the admiral is abusing his position by extorting bribes from vessels sailing to Ireland and that he condones piracy for a share of the loot.
Though Bess dare not put it in her letter, she knew Marcella would conclude that Seymour needed cash to mount a rebellion.

Events at Court moved forward so rapidly that Bess wrote home often, informing them of the political intrigue as it unfolded.