The Catherine Howard Conspiracy Read online

  THE CATHERINE HOWARD CONSPIRACY

  The Marquess House Trilogy

  Book One

  Alexandra Walsh

  To Mum, Dad, Unc and Freda

  Thank you for everything

  Table of Contents

  Prologue: Pembrokeshire, 1542

  PART ONE: Pembrokeshire, 2018

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  PART TWO: London, 1539-40

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  PART THREE: Marquess House, 2018

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  PART FOUR: Northamptonshire, 1541

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  PART FIVE: Marquess House, 2018

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  PART SIX: Marquess House, 1542

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  PART SEVEN: Marquess House, 2018

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Epilogue: 1542

  A NOTE TO THE READER

  Prologue: Pembrokeshire, 1542

  “Is there news?” asked the man as the shadowy figure of the Abbess appeared in the doorway.

  “She bleeds heavily. We may not be able to save her.”

  “And the child?”

  “You must pray, sir, pray as you have never prayed before.”

  The man bowed as the elderly nun glided from the room on silent feet. It had been this way for hours. He did not see how she could continue: his beloved niece, the culmination of his family’s hopes and dreams, whom he had betrayed, selling her into a cursed marriage as though she were horseflesh.

  How, he thought as the hours passed and self-pity, fear and weariness overwhelmed him, has it come to this? Waiting in such a godforsaken place while she fights for her life in childbirth. He swore vehemently to himself, staring out of the window as another bleak, cold day dawned. The sky was heavy and bloated with the threat of more snow; the frost glistened like poison on the rutted track leading away from the tiny priory. Then he heard a step behind him.

  A tall, imposing young man wrapped in a travelling cloak, entered the room. His presence filled the gloomy space with an intense glamour. Even though his cloak had been designed to disguise his status, it was still made from a thick, sumptuous wool and his boots glistened oxblood red. To his side was a sword and in his belt a sheathed dagger. Incongruously, he cradled a newborn baby in his arms, his serious expression softening as his tiny charge gurgled.

  “Well?” demanded the older man.

  “A girl,” replied the younger, handing his small charge into his companion’s arms, “and a boy. Twins.”

  “Twins?” the older man exclaimed. “And…?”

  He could not bear to say his niece’s name.

  “Weak but alive, as is the boy-child. This little one, though, she’s a fighter,” he said, a boyish grin lighting his handsome features.

  “Charles, you mustn’t become attached to the child,” said the older man. “We have no choice but to see this through. If we don’t, you know the consequences.”

  Charles nodded, even though it was clear from his expression that he was apprehensive about their plans.

  The baby gurgled and the older man looked down at his great-niece. His breath caught in his throat as her brilliant blue eyes, still unable to focus, glanced towards him. Her tiny hand came free from its wrapping and waved towards his face. Instinctively, he reached out and her minute, perfect fingers gripped his thumb. She stared at him for a fraction of a moment and as his heart contracted with love, a name floated unbidden to his lips.

  “Elizabeth,” he whispered, and then in a tender voice, almost unrecognisable as his own, “you have your mother’s hair.”

  A sharp knock on the door caused all three to start. Covering the space in two strides, Charles threw it open to reveal a slender young woman. Stepping back to admit her, she gave him a small smile then hurried forward, bobbing to the older man.

  “She is comfortable, as is the boy. If they make it through this day, then there is a chance.” Her voice was low, determined. “Mother Abbess has informed me that the horses and the litter are ready, sir.”

  The older man nodded.

  “Take her, Charles,” he said, thrusting the baby back into the arms of his conspirator. “Take her and flee. The future of our very nation relies upon her safe passage.”

  Charles gathered the baby into his cloak.

  “Until we meet again, sir,” he said. The men clasped hands.

  “Until that day, Charles, may God’s grace go with you.”

  PART ONE: Pembrokeshire, 2018

  Chapter One

  Sunlight glinted on the waves as Dr Perdita Rivers perched on the edge of the dinghy.

  “Ready?” shouted one of her two companions. She gave him a thumbs up. “Go!”

  Tipping gracefully backwards, Perdita disappeared into the shimmering depths of the Welsh sea. Spreading out below the dinghy lay one of the dig sites she was exploring. It was part of an extensive archaeological investigation taking place along the Pembrokeshire coastline.

  As she swam down, she saw other divers picking over the remains of a recently discovered Tudor shipwreck. A storm and unusual spring tides had uncovered it and the team was trying to establish whether the boat had been part of the Spanish Armada; blown off course and lost in a storm on the Pembrokeshire coast hundreds of years ago. On land, a hoard of coins, weapons and jewellery had been discovered, and it was hoped the two would prove to be connected.

  Kicking hard, Perdita swam towards the gathered archaeologists and glided to a stop beside the underwater team leader, Dr Olaf Dade, a man she had worked with many times. He gave her the thumbs up sign, then pointed to the section they were trying to excavate. If she had not been wearing breathing apparatus, she would have laughed. The box they were painstakingly extricating looked like a miniature treasure chest, the kind beloved of pirate films and adventure stories where X always marks the spot. Too perfect, she thought, a romantic Tudor shipwreck complete with buried treasure.

  She returned the thumbs up sign and swam nearer. Perdita specialised in jewellery and its symbolism. Her preferred area of expertise was the Mediaeval period, but she had written papers covering the topic up until the Restoration in the 1660s. While underwater digs were not her usual way of working, she understood why Olaf had asked her to join them: seeing the discovery in situ would be invaluable when she began analysing whatever might be inside.

  The panels of broken up wood around the box suggested this would have been the captain’s cabin, with the small chest secreted in a cupboard. Perdita also mentally noted the rotted remains of another, less robust, wooden container nearby. Then something glinted, a chink of gold caught by one of the underwater lights.
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br />   Touching Dr Dade’s arm, she pointed towards the glimmer. He shone a powerful beam towards it and the treasure shimmered once more. Perdita hung back, allowing her colleague to investigate. After a few moments of careful digging, she saw him pull something from the swirling sand and rotting wood. He rubbed it clean then swam towards her, his excitement palpable, and shoved the golden coin into her hand. Turning it over, Perdita grinned — nestled in her gloved palm was a Spanish doubloon. She handed the coin back to Olaf before giving him a double thumbs up. Finding the coin did not mean the ship was Spanish — it could have been an English ship with a pirate haul on board — but at least it gave them dateable evidence. Coupled with whatever was in the treasure chest, if there was anything, this could prove they had discovered an important new site.

  Perdita felt a buzz on her wrist. The timer on her watch, she had to surface. Giving a final thumbs up to Olaf, she rose slowly, her head gently breaking through the rippling waves, already working out what she would record in the report of her dive. If this was a lost ship from the Spanish Armada, it could give them information on what had happened to the fleet when it fled, their battle lost, their only wish to find a way home. It could, perhaps, even answer the question as to whether any survivors found their way ashore. The hoard on land suggested this was certainly a hypothesis that had to be more thoroughly explored.

  She yelled to the dive boat and swam towards the ladder at the back, hauling herself onto the small rear platform, allowing the team to unbuckle her breathing equipment before freeing herself from her wetsuit hood. It was only as she finished shaking her head to free her cloud of dark, shining hair, that she realised there was another boat moored alongside. Climbing up to the main deck, she started in surprise. Her fiancé, Warren Dexter, was talking earnestly to Maggie Cartwright, the other dig leader.

  “Warren!” exclaimed Perdita, walking towards him and slipping her wetsuit from her shoulders as she went. “What’s happened? What are you doing here?”

  She felt cold fear flood through her. Warren should have been in Peterborough giving a lecture. If he was here, it had to be an emergency.

  “Is it Piper?” she asked, feeling sick at the thought. “Has something happened to my sister?”

  “No, darling, no,” said Warren, hurrying to her side and throwing a towel around her shoulders. “Piper’s fine. We can tell her when she wakes up, the time difference…”

  “Tell her what?” interrupted Perdita. “Warren, what’s happened?”

  Aware she was overreacting, Perdita took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. Her father’s recent death from a rare form of cancer called soft tissue sarcoma was still fresh in her mind. Despite the best care, he had deteriorated quickly, dying only months after his diagnosis. Now she was braced for more terrible news.

  “It’s Mary,” said Warren, “Mary Fitzroy, your grandmother.” Perdita guessed what was coming next. “She died last night. Her housekeeper found her body this morning. I’m so sorry, Perdita.”

  “How did she die? Does anyone know?”

  Warren shook his head. “There’s going to be a post-mortem, but she was eighty-six…”

  Perdita turned away, tears welling unexpectedly in her unusual storm-coloured eyes, as she felt despair wash through her and she mourned another loss.

  The next morning, Perdita lay cocooned in her warm sheets. She had been at the dig for a week and was scheduled to stay for two more. Until now, she had been alone in her hotel room, but a smile crept over her face as she listened to the shower gushing over Warren’s body in the en suite bathroom. For a moment, her mind wandered to her fiancé: tall, athletic, tanned and, despite her shock and grief, she felt a flutter of lust. However, it quickly sparked and fizzled away as the death of her grandmother, Mary Fitzroy, once more clouded her thoughts. Part of her wondered why she felt such bleak, dark grief at the loss of someone whom she had only ever known from afar. Yet, she was astute enough to understand it was not only the demise of the woman she was grieving, but also the end of a dream.

  Rolling over, she pondered the situation. After the death of her mother, Louisa, the only daughter of Mary Fitzroy, her grandmother had disappeared from their lives. Perdita and her twin sister, Piper, had been seven years old and, from then on, had been brought up by their father, the respected artist, James Rivers. When they were old enough to ask for more details, James had dropped hints at a family argument, Mary’s stubbornness and her refusal to back down. On what point she would not be budged, James had never illuminated his daughters. He became so angry whenever they asked. Eventually, they admitted defeat, instead trawling the internet and reading their illustrious grandmother’s books as a way to try to bring her into their lives.

  Over the years, the twins had discussed their grandmother, desperate to remember anything about their lives before their mother died. Now, Perdita screwed her eyes tight shut, searching her memories. Their father had once let slip the name of the village where they had lived, St Ishmaels, and the twins had taken this hidden treasure and stored it in their hearts. Apart from that, all she and Piper had ever been able to recall was the name of their old home, Air House, which was a farmhouse in the Pembrokeshire countryside.

  Perdita knew it must have been near her grandmother’s home, but she could not recall the house clearly. She remembered visiting a stately home with Mary on what must have been a day trip, but the images were fleeting and vague. All she had ever been able to glean from her research was that her grandmother had still lived in Pembrokeshire, as they had once.

  Sitting up, Perdita reached for her laptop and tapped her grandmother’s name into the search engine, suddenly wanting to see a photograph of the woman who had hovered beyond her reach and was now lost to her forever. A black and white image from the inside cover of her last book popped up and Perdita felt a wrench somewhere in the region of her solar plexus, then she noticed a link to an obituary and, taking a deep breath, she clicked on it and began to read:

  Eminent historian Mary Fitzroy died at her home last night, aged 86, wife to businessman Hector Woodville (deceased) and mother to Louisa (deceased). The eldest daughter of David and Eleanor Fitzroy and sister to Cecily (deceased), Fitzroy was known for her championing of women’s rights and of bringing women’s roles in history to the fore. Her first book The History and Symbolism of Names was published in 1955. It received praise but it was not until 1958 when she wrote The Scottish Link: A Study of the Trade and Personal Links between the Tudor and Stuart Courts that she was recognised as a fresh, new historical voice with some gravitas. From then on, her work focused on the women connected with the Tudor and Stuart dynasties: The Winter Queen: Elizabeth of Bohemia — The Forgotten Stuart Princess (1963); Women in Power: The Degradation of Female Autonomy from the Time of the Conquest to the Tudor Court (1966); Catherine de Valois: Tudor Matriarch (1972) and The Anne Boleyn Question (1985).

  However, after the publication of her controversial book The Missing Heirs of Henry VIII, discussing not only his many illegitimate offspring, but also the many legitimate pregnancies and the few children who died shortly after their births, notably Anne Boleyn’s pregnancies, her only child, Louisa Woodville, died, aged 34, and the pen of Mary Fitzroy was silenced for many years. She was not to publish again until 1999, when her area of focus had shifted from the tumultuous courts of the Tudors and Stuarts to pre- and post-Conquest royal women. Her most notable work was a biography of Alfred the Great’s daughter Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercian’s: Warrior Queen (1999), which was followed in 2010 by Edith Swanneck: Wife or Concubine? A Study of King Harold’s Handfasted Bride and, earlier this year, with the groundbreaking biography of King Harold and Edith’s daughters — Gunhild and Gytha of Wessex: Royal Sisters.

  Mary Fitzroy was also known for her philanthropy and…

  Perdita scanned to the end of the obituary where it listed the many charities Mary had helped, the scholarships she had created and the work she and her late husband, Hector, had done with
an historical trust called Jerusalem, but there was no mention of either her or Piper.

  “It’s as if we don’t exist,” murmured Perdita.

  Even in death, she and Piper remained unacknowledged in their grandmother’s life. Sighing, she shut the laptop. Had she really expected their names to be mentioned? Very few people knew they were related to Mary Fitzroy.

  She kicked off the covers, pulled on a robe and, walking over to the dressing table, began to brush out her thick, glossy hair. Although she had not discussed it with anyone, not even Piper, she had been formulating a plan to visit her grandmother. When she had been invited to take part in the dig in Dale, only a few miles from where she hoped her grandmother still lived in St Ishmaels, she had felt the Fates were guiding her and, somehow, whether contrived or by the strange powers of coincidence, she and her grandmother would finally be happily reunited. Mary’s death meant this daydream would never be fulfilled.

  The bathroom door clicked open and Warren emerged, a towel around his hips, rubbing his blonde hair dry with another. He dropped a kiss on the top of Perdita’s head as he passed her. She smiled. “It’s all yours,” he said. “I’ll wander down and grab a newspaper when I’m dressed. Meet you downstairs for breakfast.”

  “OK,” said Perdita as she walked into the bathroom.

  Forty minutes later, Perdita slid into the seat opposite Warren.

  “Anything interesting?” she asked, nodding to the broadsheet neatly folded in front of him so he could fill in the crossword on the back.

  “Not much,” he said. “Although, there is an obituary of your grandmother.”

  Perdita felt her heart contract and said lightly, trying to mask any disappointment: “Does it mention Piper and me?”

  Warren reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

  “I’m sorry, darling, no,” he said, his voice gentle. “Would you like to read it?”

  Perdita shook her head. “No, I read an obituary earlier, they’re probably all the same.”