Nan took note of the pity in Kathryn’s eyes. She told herself that was good, nearly as useful as sympathy. Kathryn must believe her when Nan said she did not want the king for herself.

“I do not think I am suited to be queen,” Kathryn said quietly.

“You are as well born as Anne Boleyn or Jane Seymour or Catherine Howard.”

“That is not what I mean.” Color stained her cheeks and she did not meet Nan’s eyes. “There was … someone else who showed an interest in me during my husband’s illness. Someone I would … prefer to the king.”

“Sir Thomas Seymour, I presume. Kathryn, Tom Seymour is a notorious womanizer.”

Nan could have gone on categorizing Seymour’s flaws, but if Kathryn had fallen under that clever rogue’s spell, she was not likely to listen to warnings. Criticism would only make her more determined to have him.

“If you truly care for Sir Thomas,” Nan said instead, “you must have no more to do with him. The king has a jealous nature. He would rather destroy you both than let another man have what he desires.”

“Surely not!”

“I have seen the way the king looks at you, Kathryn. He’ll not let another man have you.”

“But … but I am not suited to be his wife. I cannot give him children. I have been married twice and never conceived. The fault is clearly mine.”

“The king has heirs enough.” Nan lowered her voice. “It is possible he lacks the ability to sire more children. He has not … we have not—”

She broke off when she saw the shocked expression on Kathryn’s face. Checking carefully to make sure no one was near enough to overhear, Nan leaned closer to her friend.

“Could you bring yourself to marry the king if you did not have to couple with him?”

“I … I do not know. But surely, if he is incapable—”

“I cannot be certain, but I think that is why he has not sent for me. Not once since before his marriage to Queen Anna.”

“But with Catherine Howard—”

“If he satisfied her, why did she risk everything to be with Tom Culpepper?”

Kathryn’s brow furrowed in thought. “There was a story that Lord Latimer told me. About the trial of George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, before the House of Lords. He was handed a slip of paper and asked if his sister, the queen, had ever made such a claim. Rochford knew already that his life was forfeit. The king was that desperate to rid himself of Anne Boleyn and marry Jane Seymour. So he pretended to misunderstand. He read aloud what was written on the paper—that the king was well nigh impotent.”

The two women stared at each other in silence for a long moment.

“It is possible his ailments took away his capability, or at least his desire,” Kathryn mused. “Or mayhap the treatments were responsible.”

“In any case, what he wants in a wife is a nurse and a companion, not a lover. You have already proven yourself capable of fulfilling his needs, Kathryn. And he told me himself that you have the gentlest touch of anyone, man or woman, when it comes to tending his leg.”

AS MARCH TURNED into April, Kathryn heeded Nan’s advice and avoided Tom Seymour’s company, but she also took care not to push herself forward with King Henry. It did no good. His Grace was determined to have her, and since she was a kind-hearted woman who hated to see anyone in pain, she went to him when he was ill, nursed him and comforted him. She was, Nan readily admitted, a much better person than Nan was.

On the twelfth of July, twenty witnesses gathered in the private oratory of the Queen’s Closet at Hampton Court to watch Kathryn Parr, Lady Latimer, marry King Henry. Nan was not one of them. She took herself off to the gardens to think about her own prospects.

She left the palace by the southern entrance, with its view of the river landing, but she ignored the path that passed between the pond and privy gardens and ended on the bank of the Thames. Instead she turned east, skirting the privy garden to reach the knot garden. She hesitated there. The knot garden was situated between the gallery wing and the chapel, with the gallery overlooking the garden from the north. The area was too public to suit her present mood.

She continued on, circling the palace but staying inside the moat. A desire for solitude drove her away from the occasional cluster of courtiers. By the time she reached the orchard, the only person in sight ahead of her was one of the mole catchers employed to keep pests out of the gardens.

In common with every other space on Hampton Court’s grounds, the orchard was decorated with numerous heraldic devices. Twenty-five carved beasts—antelopes, harts and hinds, dragons and hounds, gilded and painted—stood on green and white bases. At least here, among the apple and pear trees, they were not so overwhelming. In the privy garden there were 159 heraldic beasts, all aligned with rails painted green and white—the Tudor colors—to surround twenty garden beds. There were twenty sundials, too, but the centerpiece of the whole was a huge stone tablet with sculpted figures of the king’s beasts holding up the royal shield.

Nan wandered past the first rows of trees. The orchard was one of the newer additions to the palace grounds, much of it planted less than a dozen years before. Apple, cherry, pear, and damson were interspersed with oak and elm, medlar and holly, and the open places were planted in grain. It grew high just now, but it would be mowed at harvesttime.

Nan had wandered nearly to the far side of the orchard before she looked back toward the palace. She was taken aback to discover she was not alone among the trees. A man stood the length of a tennis court away from her, leaning casually against an oak tree.

Sunlight winked on the jewel in his velvet bonnet and dappled his dark hair, shaded face, and court gown. Nan squinted, certain she knew him but unable to see his features well enough to identify him. Whoever he was, he was blessed with a sturdy physique and excellent taste in clothes.

Then he moved, and she recognized Wat Hungerford. As she watched him stride confidently toward her, she could no longer doubt that the boy had grown into a man. He was, she realized, just the same age King Henry had been when he’d succeeded to the throne and married Catherine of Aragon, a woman six years his senior. And that marriage, no matter that it had ended badly, had lasted nearly twenty-five years, most of them in harmony.

“Mistress Bassett.” Wat grinned and seized both her hands. “Nan.”

“Wat. I did not expect to see you here.” She laughed softly. “I did not expect to see anyone here.”

“I had just arrived at the landing when I saw you leave the palace. I followed you. I hope you don’t mind.”

She should, Nan thought, but in truth she was glad to see him. It had been just over a year since they’d last met. At odd moments during those long months, she had wondered about him—what he was doing, if he had become fascinated with some other woman.

They began to walk among the apple trees. Above their heads the fruit was ripening. “I have heard rumors,” Wat said.

“Have you?”

“They say the king is about to marry again, and not to you.”

“They say true, for once.” She glanced back toward the palace. “By now, the deed is done and Kathryn Parr is queen of England.”

“Then His Grace can have no further objection to someone courting you.”

She had not thought Wat understood why she’d insisted upon limiting him to friendship. She had underestimated him. It appeared that his advanced maturity was not only physical.

“There are still good reasons why you and I should not—”

“I will not be put off this time.” Wat seized her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. His eyes locked on hers. “I wish to marry you, Nan Bassett. Do you want to marry me?”

She had to swallow hard before she could speak. Wat Hungerford had grown into a man she’d quite like to marry. Her heart thrummed as he drew her close. Her breath caught, but she managed a strangled answer. “No.”

He relaxed his grip but did not release her. “Liar.”

Nan swayed closer to him, inhaling his fresh scent. For just an instant she wished she could throw it all away, run off with him, escape the lies and deceit and danger of life at court. But she could not. Whether King Henry was married or not, she was the only one of her family who had his ear, the only one who might yet persuade him to restore lost properties to her two surviving brothers, her three as yet unmarried sisters, and her mother.

“You are still too young to wed without your guardian’s permission, and I have insufficient dowry to win anyone’s approval.”

His slow smile melted her heart. “Then say you will wait for me until I am of legal age to make my own decisions. Some three years more, Nan. Not so very long, not when I have waited for you nearly twice that long already.”

When she stepped back, he let her go. “I have no plans to marry anyone else,” she said, and began to walk again, in through the pear trees, heading toward the cherries. He followed a few steps behind.

In three years’ time, she thought, King Henry might be persuaded to restore Wat Hungerford to his father’s title. She could have everything she’d wanted, and Wat as well.

“I vow I will keep asking you to marry me until you accept.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Then, one day, I may surprise you by accepting.”

Delight flared in his eyes, quickly followed by desire. This time when he reached for her, she had to push with both hands against his chest to stop him from kissing her. “One day,” she repeated. “But not yet. I can make everything right again, Wat, but only if I am here at court, close to the king, close to those the king loves. When the time is right, I can ask for the return of lands and properties forfeited to the Crown. Lisle lands. Hungerford lands. The Hungerford title.”

“And if he refuses?” Wat’s hands caressed the small of her back, sending shivers of delight all through Nan’s body.

In a dizzying moment of self-awareness, she realized that she could envision spending her life with him, title or no, fortune or no. She could imagine giving him a child.

“Nan?”

“Keep your vow, Wat. Keep asking me.”

“Marry me now.”

But she shook her head. For a moment, she thought he might pick her up, toss her over his shoulder, and make off with her, but he thought better of it. With an exasperated groan, he took her hand and they started walking again, but this time they headed back toward the palace.

He treasured her, Nan thought, clinging to him. That was a great gift. She had once thrown away her chance of happiness with a man who cared for her. She would not repeat that mistake, especially since she was coming to treasure Wat in return. And she realized, suddenly, that although Ned Corbett had been her first love, Wat Hungerford would be her last.

Nan returned to her duties with the new queen with a sense of purpose. She would be patient. She would plan carefully. She might no longer be the youngest of the maids, now that she was twenty-two. Nor was she still the prettiest girl at court. Bess Brooke now had that distinction. But Nan had earned the gratitude and friendship of both the king and the queen. She was right where she belonged and where she needed to be. Until the day when she and Wat Hungerford could marry, she was content to be a maid of honor to the queen of England.


There is no doubt but she shall come to some great marriage.

—Lady Wallop to Lady Lisle (referring to Anne Bassett), 8 August 1538

EPILOGUE—1554

On the eleventh day of June, near the end of the first year of the reign of Mary Tudor, a thirty-three-year-old Nan Bassett, waiting gentlewoman to the queen, accompanied her royal mistress to the queen’s chapel for the last time. Queen Mary’s face was wreathed in smiles, as Nan knew her own must be.

“This is an auspicious day,” the queen said.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Nan agreed.

“Will you miss being at court, do you think?”

“I will miss my friends, Your Grace, and it will seem strange not to be in Your Grace’s company every day.”

“But you will have a loving husband, as I soon shall. And children to complete your life.”

The queen was to marry King Philip of Spain as soon as he arrived in England. He was expected toward the end of July, only a bit more than a month hence. Queen Mary’s happiness at her betrothal had, at last, persuaded her to part with Nan. And to grant her, as a wedding gift, a goodly number of the properties that had been confiscated by the Crown at the time of Lord Hungerford’s attainder.

As they approached the chapel at Richmond Palace, where Nan’s wedding ceremony was to be performed, she could not help but think back over the years since she’d first waited upon Mary Tudor. She’d left Mary’s household to serve Kathryn Parr, content to wait until Wat Hungerford reached his majority before she married. But King Henry had become more and more difficult as his health failed him. He was so unpredictable that even Queen Kathryn had once been in danger of arrest for carelessly expressing a wrong opinion. Although Nan had never given up hope that she would one day achieve her goals, neither had she ever dared ask the king for the restoration of the Hungerford lands and title.