The Sixth Wife_ The Story of Katherine P - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,61
her red hair just visible under her pearltrimmed hood.
Seymour lost no time in approaching the Princess Elizabeth.
He bowed and took her hand.
“I was admiring the flowers,” he said; “then I saw that I wasted my admiration on them.”
“It rejoices me that you realized the wastage in good time,” she said, “for I know you are a man who does not care to waste his talents. It grows chilly.”
“Then I must fain give you my cloak. We cannot allow the Lady Elizabeth to be cold.”
“My walk back to the Palace will doubtless warm me.”
“I hoped that you would tarry and talk awhile.”
“Your hopes, Sir Thomas, I doubt not are always high. Perhaps too high.”
“Hopes can never be too high, my lady. If we hope for much, we achieve a little. But to hope for nothing is too achieve nothing. That, you will agree, is folly.”
“You are too clever for me, my lord.”
“Nay. There are times when it saddens me to think that I am not clever enough.”
“You speak in riddles and I must leave you to them. My lord …” She curtsied, and would have walked past him; but he had no intention of letting her go.
“Could we not dispense with ceremony now that we are alone?”
“Alone! Who is ever alone at court? Such as you and I, my lord Admiral, are never alone, for there will always be eyes to watch us when we do not see them, and ears to listen. There will always be those who treasure your simplest utterances—and mine—and mayhap use them against us.”
“Elizabeth… most beauteous Princess….”
She flushed. Clever as she was, she was susceptible to flattery, even as was her royal father; and she lacked his experience in hiding this fact. Important as she knew herself to be in the affairs of state politics since she had been reinstated at court, and much as she enjoyed her new position, she was more pleased at hearing herself called beautiful than she would have been by any reference to her importance in the realm.
Seymour kept his advantage. “Give me this pleasure…give me this pleasure of gazing upon you.”
“I have heard the ladies of the court say that it is not wise to take too seriously the compliments of the Lord High Admiral.”
“The ladies of the court?” He shrugged his shoulders. “They are apart. You are as different from them as the sun from the moon.”
“The moon,” she retorted, “is very beautiful, but it hurts the eyes to look at the sun.”
“When I look at you I feel myself scorched with the passion within me.”
Her laughter rang out clear and loud.
“I hear talk of your marriage, my lord. May I congratulate you?”
“I would welcome congratulations, only if I might announce my coming marriage to one particular lady.”
“And can you not make the announcement? I have heard that there is no man at court more likely to sue successfully for a lady’s favor.”
“She whom I would marry is far above me.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Do I hear aright? Is the Lord High Admiral losing his belief in himself?”
“Elizabeth…my beautiful Elizabeth….”
She eluded him and ran from him; she paused to look back, artful and alluring, urging him on, yet forbidding him to come.
She was aware of the Palace windows. Much as she would have enjoyed a flirtation with this man, who fascinated her more than any person ever had, she did not wish to endanger her new position at court.
If Seymour had his dreams and ambitions, the Lady Elizabeth had hers no less. Indeed, they soared higher even than those of Seymour; and if they were more glorious, they were more dangerous.
He would have followed her, but she had suddenly become haughty.
“I wish to be alone,” she said coldly, and she walked from the garden, forcing herself to conquer her desire to stay with him, to invite his warm glances and perhaps the caresses which he longed to give and she would not have been averse to receiving.
Coquettish as she was, she longed for admiration. Flirtation was an amusing pastime, yet beyond the love of light pleasures was her abiding ambition.
As he watched her, Seymour had no doubt that she was the woman for him.
NAN CREPT SILENTLY out of the Palace of Greenwich. She was covered from head to foot in a dark cloak, under which she wore many thick petticoats which she would not be wearing when, and if, she were fortunate enough to return to the Palace that night.