“You have torn it,” cried Elizabeth, “and you will have to pay the cost of a new one.”
“You see how avaricious she is!” He caught her skirt as she would have run away.
Katharine began to laugh. “Oh, Thomas, you must not be so childish. You play such games. Are you really a man or just a boy?”
“Do not heed him,” said Elizabeth. “He must amuse himself. It is naught to me that he doth not like my gown. It is naught to me that he hath torn it, since he must provide me with a new one.”
“Undutiful!” cried Thomas, lifting her skirts. “Oh, most undutiful!”
They were both tugging at her skirt, and the stitches gave way.
“Would you then tear the clothes from my back?” she demanded. “Here…in the gardens?”
“I would,” he said.
Her eyes were shining; her mouth was laughing. She could not help it if she loved to play thus with him. It was so safe, with Katharine standing by; it was safe and yet so dangerous. This was the part of courtship which was most enjoyable.
Katharine was quick to see her amusement. Is she completely blind? wondered Elizabeth. Did she not know this man she had married?
He had turned to her now. “Kate,” he said, “help me… help me tame this wild cat. We’ll teach her to parade our gardens in black cloth.”
“Thomas… Thomas…have a care,” laughed Katharine.
“Whose side are you on?” demanded Elizabeth. “His or mine?”
“On mine, of course!” cried Thomas. “Hold her, Kate. Hold her, I say. Take her arms and stop her fighting, and I will show you what we will do with her.”
Katharine obediently ran behind Elizabeth and put her arms about her.
“No,” said Elizabeth.
And “Yes,” said the Admiral.
He had taken the jeweled dagger from his belt and, his eyes gleaming with desire for her, he slashed at her skirt with the dagger; he put his hand in the neck of her bodice and ripped it down the front, so that she stood there in her silken petticoats, flushed and laughing, and loving him, exulting in the feelings she could arouse in him.
“Thomas!” cried the Queen. “What have you done?”
He had his hand on Elizabeth’s bare shoulder.
“I have taught our daughter a lesson, I hope.”
“She should not stand here thus. It is most improper.”
“Aye!” he said. “Most improper. But she must not come parading herself in her black gown, looking like a grownup Princess. She must not blush when we question her as to her secret lover.”
“Elizabeth, run in quickly,” laughed the Queen. “I pray none sees you.”
Elizabeth wrenched herself free. She heard their laughter behind her.
The Admiral put his arm about his wife.
“Dearest,” said Katharine, “how I long for a child! And if I am an even more fortunate woman than I count myself already, how that child will love you! Why is it that you, who are so bold, so much a master of men, a great sailor and statesman, know so well how to amuse children?”
“And is the Princess such a child?”
“Indeed yes. Did you not see how she enjoyed your game?”
“She did, did she not,” said the Admiral somberly; and he tried to forget the passion Elizabeth aroused in him, in his tenderness for Katharine.
KAT ASHLEY ASKED if she might have a word in private with the Admiral.
“My lord,” she said, when they were alone, “I trust you will forgive my impertinence, if impertinence it is.”
“I would hear it first,” said Thomas.
“The Lady Elizabeth came in from the gardens this day—her dress cut away from her, her skin bruised by rough handling.”
“And you, Mistress Ashley, witnessed our play from one of the windows?”
“You know that?”
“I know Mistress Ashley,” he said wryly.
“It is my duty to look after my young lady.”
“That is so.”
“My lord, I beg of you to forgive me, but if any but myself had seen what happened in the gardens this day…”
“Well, Mistress Ashley, what then?”
“They… they might think it unseemly for a Princess so to behave and… and for a gentleman such as yourself….”
