The bed curtains parted and there, as Elizabeth had known there would be, was Thomas Seymour, clad only in nightgown and slippers. He was smiling down challengingly at Elizabeth.

“How …how dare you, my lord!” she demanded. “How dare you come thus into my bedchamber!”

He drew the curtains farther apart and continued to smile at her.

“Come, Elizabeth, you know you expect me to pay this morning call. An I did not, you would be most offended.”

“It is customary, my lord, to put on conventional garb before calling on a lady.”

“What are conventions…between friends?” His eyes looked saucily into hers.

She said haughtily: “Pray go, my lord. My women will hear you. Yester-morning they were shocked because I had to run to them for protection against you.”

“And this morning,” he said, “I was determined to catch you before you could. And, my lady, am I right in believing that you were determined to be caught?”

“I will not endure your insolence.”

“What cannot be prevented must be endured.” He came closer to the bed. “May I not look in to bid my stepdaughter good morning?”

“Nay, you may not!” But she knew the sternness of her words did not tally with the merriment in her voice.

“Your eyes invite, Elizabeth,” he said; and his tone was no longer one he might use to tease a child.

“My lord…”

“My lady…”

He was kneeling by the bed, and Elizabeth laughed uneasily. He caught her suddenly and kissed her heartily on the check and sought her mouth. Elizabeth made a pretense of struggling, and this only served to encourage him.

The door opened suddenly and her stepmother came in.

“Thomas!” ejaculated Katharine.

Elizabeth dared not look at her; she knew that her face was hot with shame; she felt guilty and wicked.

Imperturbably Thomas said: “What a wildcat is this daughter of yours, my love! Refuses to be kissed good morning by her old father. I declare she was ready to leave the mark of her nails on my face.”

Katharine laughed—the easy, pleasant laugh which Elizabeth knew so well.

“Elizabeth, my dear, my lord but meant to give you good morning.”

Elizabeth raised her eyes to her stepmother’s face, and she decided to be wise.

“That I know well,” she answered, “but I would be accorded more respect. It is not the first time he has come in, clad thus… in nightgown and slippers and drawn the curtains of my bed to laugh at me.”

“It is wrong of you both,” said Katharine, smiling lovingly from one to the other. “Tom, you behave like a boy of sixteen.”

“But hark to the child, my love. She talks of her dignity. What dignity hath a chit of thirteen years?”

“I would have you know, my lord, that I am nigh on fifteen years old.”

He bowed over her, his eyes sparkling mischievously. “I beg your pardon, Madam. You are, of course, of a great age and…”

“Tom, pray do not tease her so,” pleaded Katharine.

“God’s precious soul, but I will tease her!” He seized the bedclothes and pulled at them, while Elizabeth screamed and clung to them.

“Help me, Kate! Help me!” cried Thomas. “We’ll show this chit that she is but our daughter. We will teach her to give herself airs.”

Thomas pulled and Katharine helped him. In a few minutes the bed was stripped bare, and Elizabeth lay uncovered except for her nightdress. All three were romping in childish fashion; Katharine artlessly, the other two with a secret purpose behind their looks and actions.

“She is very ticklish, I vow,” said Thomas, and they tried to tickle her. Elizabeth wriggled. Thomas held her firmly and bade Katharine tickle her until she should beg forgiveness for her haughtiness.

Kat Ashley came in to see what the noise was about, and so the game was broken up.

“It is time you were up, Elizabeth,” said Katharine with mock severity; and she and Thomas went out, laughing together.

As for Elizabeth, she lay back in bed, smiling at Kat Ashley, who was preparing to scold her for her unseemly behavior.

“MY LORD ADMIRAL,” said Kat Ashley, “may I speak to you?”

“What, again?” said the Admiral.

“My lord, I must tell you that there is gossip about the Lady Elizabeth and…”

“And whom?”

“And yourself.”

“This grows interesting. What tittle-tattle have you heard?”

“That you and the Princess are more fond of each other than is seemly.”

“Have you then, indeed! And how many bastards are we two said to have brought into the world? Tell me that.”

Kat Ashley flushed. “My lord, there is talk that the Princess has given birth to a child.”

“Who told these lies? They shall lose their heads for this.”

“It is not known. I had it from a gossip who had it from another gossip who had heard it in the streets.”

The Admiral laughed.

“There will always be such talk, Kat. I’ll warrant our little King has fathered many a bastard, if you can believe what you hear in the streets.”

“My lord, it is not good that the Lady Elizabeth should be evilly spoken of.”

“Next time then, catch the slanderers and bring them to me.”

“And you, my lord … dare I ask that you will be a little more… restrained…in your manner to the Princess?”

“I? Indeed I will not. By God’s precious soul, I will tell my brother, the Protector, how I have been slandered. I will not curb my fun. No, I will not; for, Mistress Ashley, I mean no evil; nor does the Princess.”

And he strode away, leaving poor Kat Ashley disconsolate and wondering whither this romping would lead, and dreading that the Dowager Queen might eventually understand its real meaning. Then, she was sure, much trouble would await her reckless little Princess.

THE RUMORS CAME to the ears of the Duchess of Somerset.

She was great with the child she was expecting in August. June was hot and it was difficult to move about, so she contented herself with making plans for the future of her family.

She was growing more afraid of her husband’s brother. How she hated him, he who had charmed the King and advanced himself by marrying the Queen.

She sent for one of her serving women to come and sit beside her; she had trained this woman to keep her eyes open when in contact with the servants of her brother-in-law’s household. She was wondering whether, if it were proved that immorality was going on in that household, it would be possible to remove little Jane Grey from the care of the Sudleys and have her brought up by the Somersets.

What she had heard so far was promising.

“What heard you this morning, Joan?” she asked her woman.

“My lady, they say that the Princess and the Admiral are acting shamefully…more so than usual. He goes to her bedroom, and sometimes she runs to her women, pretending she is afraid of him, and… sometimes she does not.”

“It disgusts me,” said the Duchess with delight.

“Yestermorn he tore off her bedclothes and she lay there without them, my lady.”

“I can scarcely believe it.”

“The Queen was there. It was a game between the three of them.”

When the woman had left her, the Duchess thought a great deal about the rompings which went on in the Admiral’s household. Was he wishing that he had not married Katharine Parr? It was clear that he had hopes of the Princess. Suppose Katharine were to die, which she might well do, bearing a child at her age, and suppose the Admiral wished to marry the Princess. Suppose he asked the King’s consent. The King would refuse his beloved uncle nothing that he asked.

Her husband, the Duke, was too occupied with his parliaments and his matters of state, thought the worried Duchess, to realize what was happening. But matters of state were often decided in bedchambers. It had been so with the last King. There was no doubt that the Admiral would try for the Princess…if Katharine Parr were to die.

She would give Joan further instructions. The woman must become even more friendly with the servants in the Admiral’s household. Nothing that happened there must fail to reach the ears of the Duchess of Somerset.

BOTH ELIZABETH AND THOMAS felt that this strange, exciting and most piquant situation could not continue as it was. It must change in some way.

Katharine, who was now heavy with her child, moved about ponderously and some days kept to her bed. The glances between the Princess and the Admiral had become smoldering; each was waiting for the moment when change would come.

It happened on a hot summer’s day when they found themselves alone in one of the smaller rooms of Chelsea Palace.

As Thomas stood watching her, a deep seriousness had replaced his banter. They were no longer merely stepfather and daughter; they were man and woman, and neither of them could pretend it was otherwise.

Elizabeth was a little frightened. She had never sought a climax. She wished to go on being pursued; she wanted to remain provocative but uncaught.

She said uneasily, as she saw him shut the door and come toward her: “There are rumors about us two.”

“Rumors,” he said lightly. “What rumors?”

“They are whispering about us…here…at court … in the streets. They are saying that you and I are as we should not be… and that you come to my bedchamber.”

“What! By morning and in the presence of the Queen!”

“You must desist…or it will be necessary for me to leave your household.”

He caught her and held her fast. “I will not desist. I mean no evil.”

“If you will not desist, I must leave here.”

“You shall not go.”

“My lord …” she began weakly.

But he interrupted passionately: “Elizabeth, why did you say me nay?”

She was alarmed, and she sought to hold him off. “You loved me not,” she said shrilly. “If you did, why did you go straightway to the Queen on my refusal? Did you not turn over in your mind whether or not you could hope even for little Jane Grey? Did you ask my cofferer the extent of my possessions?”