Mary & Elizabeth. Emily Purdy

buttocks as if they were a Christmas goose!” he would jestingly declare, making her giggle and exclaim, “Oh, you are a naughty man!” waggling a finger at him as if he were a naughty schoolboy, and he would playfully snap his fine teeth at it as if he meant to bite it, and make her laugh all the more. There would always be an affectionate undertone to mar the severity of the scolds and reprimands she addressed to him. “A very naughty man!” she would repeat as she simpered and preened, blushed, and giggled, before she fluttered away, putting a little more sway into her steps and swing into her hips, darting a furtive glance back over her shoulder through coyly fluttered lashes to make sure that he was watching.

      But Tom had achieved what he set out to do – he had won an ally – and Kat began to sing his praises to me at every turn. And every night thereafter when she tucked me into bed with a peck upon my cheek she would wish me “sweet dreams of the Lord Admiral, my pet”. She seemed to forget that she was a governess, not a matchmaker, and that Tom was married to our hostess, my own dear stepmother. She would spin elaborate, fantastical dreams, castles in the clouds in which Tom and I dwelled as man and wife in wedded bliss, and she proudly presided over a nursery filled with our fine, handsome children. Her dreams were so vivid I could feel his ring upon my finger, the weight of the gold, the flashing green fire of the emerald that stood symbol for his everlasting love, and his naked body, muscular, hard, virile, and strong, spooned around mine beneath the covers of our marriage bed, with the warmth of his breath against the nape of my neck, the tickle of his beard, and his hand lovingly cupping my breast, the hardness of his manhood pressed against my bare bottom. I could even smell and taste the food and wine on our table, and hear the merry chatter of our guests. And there were our daughters, Emily and Cassandra, playing with their dolls, dressing them up and talking to them like little mothers, and our sons, Christopher and Mark, cantering about on hobby horses and fighting mock battles with wooden swords, shouting with laughter and crying when they took a tumble and scraped their knees, all under the watchful eye of their governess, Kat, of course.

      Though reason tried to hold me back, Kat dragged me into her dreamworld, and they became my dreams as well. And oh how my heart leapt and soared each time he called me his, and melted at each endearment, each “darling”, “sweetheart”, “dear heart”, and “dear one”.

      But what about Kate, his wife and my stepmother – where was she in all this? She had no place in our realm of dreams, though I loved her dearly and wished her no ill, certainly not the cruel fate of a forsaken wife like my father’s first bride and Mary’s mother, Catherine of Aragon, had been, nor the cold bed of the grave where my own mother, Jane Seymour, and Catherine Howard now reposed. My heart felt a sharp twinge of guilt whenever I thought of Kate, vying emotions of resentment and regret. I knew I wronged her, and part of me was sorely sorry for it, yet another part of me did not care one whit.

      In times of quiet, away from Kat’s chatter and fantasy prattle, I fought at times to face and at other times to stave off stone-cold reality. Tom was a married man. I was a royal princess, with my reputation to guard as if it were a priceless treasure. If we gave in and surrendered to our passion, what kind of life could we have together? My warring emotions reminded me of my long-held conviction that I did not want to be a wife, yet a part of me deep down and buried kindled to that urge. But did the role of mistress suit me? Could my proud spirit buckle to and accept a life lived in waiting and longing and hoping for stolen moments, treasuring each tryst, prizing each pilfered hour as if it were a precious, perfect pearl pried from the heart of an oyster? And to know that I was a luxury, a pastime, a private pleasure to be enjoyed in strictest secrecy and the utmost discretion, fated always to come second, never first, to live on crumbs from Tom’s wife’s table. To always temper passion with precaution lest I face the deathly perils of pregnancy and the ignominy and disgrace of bearing a bastard. To dwell forever in the shadows, while Kate walked openly in the sun at his side, unless the Wheel of Fortune spun in such a way that fate would one day let me take her place, but that was far too cruel and horrid to contemplate, for I truly did love Kate and never for a moment wished her in her grave. And to never be able to take up my pen and write to him the words I love you, lest they fall into the wrong hands, and our secret be betrayed, and he, for the presumption of dallying carnally with a royal princess, face the headsman’s axe that was the penalty for high treason. Could I? Would I? Yes! In defiance of all risk and reason my heart sang out like a whole choir of fallen angels, Yes, yes, and again yes! Anything to be with and belong to Tom! For him I would play Love’s prisoner and Love’s fool! Oh, and I was indeed a fool for him!

      Every night, when the time came to say good night, I would watch Kate take Tom’s arm and ascend the stairs, clinging lovingly to him, the perfect picture of the devoted wife. And he, with his free hand, holding a candle to light their way. I would lag behind, my steps as leaden as my heart, my mind in an agony of torment as I watched their bedchamber door close behind them. Sometimes, Tom would wink back at me and then seize hold of Kate and sweep her up in his arms saying, “Did you not promise to be buxom and bonair in bed and at board? Well, tonight’s the night to make good on your promise, wife, then on the morrow we shall see how you do at board!” And, kicking the door shut behind him with his boot heel, he would carry her, giggling and snuggling in his arms, in to bed.

      Alone in my bed, I would toss and turn as I imagined them locked together in a naked embrace, all caressing fingers and hungry lips. Every male organ I had ever seen started to thrust itself into my mind, a parade of phalluses, crude woodcarvings of cocks, illustrations in scholarly tomes pertaining to medicine and anatomy, paintings and statues, naked peasant brats howling at the roadside or playing in the mud, and my brother Edward as an alabaster-skinned infant being bathed in warm rosewater poured into a golden basin. And in the privacy of my bed, shrouded in the dark of night and drawn bedcurtains, my fingers began to stray more and more often down to the secret place between my thighs, to delve and explore where Tom’s ardent lips and tongue once had, but my own efforts were a poor proxy for his bold, practised touch. In a fever of frustration, seething with a jealousy that verged on hatred for my good stepmother, I would roll onto my side, pound my pillow with an angry fist and sometimes bite it with my teeth to stifle my frustrated sobs, and weep until at last I fell asleep.

      Then morning would come, and with the dawn came Tom. Sometimes striding in garbed in the gardener’s guise, ready to tend his “rosy buds”, others fully dressed for the day in fine velvet court attire gleaming with golden braid, or booted and gloved in riding leathers with a jaunty plume swaying in his cap, brandishing his riding crop and announcing, “I have come to spank my slug-abed!” But no matter what he was wearing he was always ready to rouse me. Sometimes he would come to me naked and bare-legged beneath his garnet velvet dressing gown with his cock protruding like a cannon at the ready to introduce to my eager, inquisitive hands and hungry mouth, to make me believe that I had some heady, intoxicating power over him.

      I tried, albeit halfheartedly, to resist and do the right thing. Some nights I leapt into bed, gloriously and wantonly nude, wiggling and writhing sensuously against the sheets, impatient for the dawn and Tom to come and rouse me with his caresses. Other nights I forced myself to show more restraint and donned a proper form-concealing white linen nightgown or gossamer-thin cobweb lawn night-shift to tantalizingly veil my burgeoning woman’s body, so that he would tease me out of it, shouting, “Be gone, virtuous raiments!” and chastise me for my false modesty and pull me naked and squealing across his knees to spank my bare bottom until it bore a matching set of smarting red handprints and he could truly say, not just in jest, that he had left his mark on me.

      Some mornings, to give myself the illusion of being in control, in full command of my body and emotions, I rose before the dawn, and bade Kat lace me into a severe high-collared black mourning gown with a stiffly boned bodice, and sat myself down upon the window seat with my head bowed over a book, so that when Tom arrived he found a proper paragon of virtuous and modest maiden-hood waiting for him.

      And there were other mornings when he would catch me in the act of dressing. He would come in determined to play lady’s maid, and shoo the tittering, blushing Mrs Ashley out of his way with a swat at her “great buttocks”. He would help me draw the sheer cobweb lawn shift over my head, and help me with my stays and bodice laces, always letting his fingers dally most familiarly, standing behind me, pressing his loins close, as his hands