Her Highness, the Traitor - By Susan Higginbotham Page 0,10
me, I shall be active in reminding him. Mind you, I don’t plan to push your daughter upon him, as he’s so young; I want to ease them into marriage slowly. Give the young people a chance to get better acquainted, for the king to see your daughter’s fine points, so he naturally thinks of her as his first choice. That shouldn’t be hard. After all, she’s a brilliant girl, and a pretty one, too. She takes after her mother in that respect.”
I took the wine cup that was offered to me, embarrassed to find myself actually blushing at this compliment. Though I had never matched my own mother in beauty, and was approaching my thirtieth year, I knew myself to still be comely, with reddish-gold hair and a slender figure, and it was pleasant to be reminded of it occasionally by a man not my husband. But Tom Seymour, I reminded myself, was no doubt profligate in paying his compliments, as he was rumored to be in other matters, as well.
“And, of course, she is third in line to the throne,” said Harry. “And indisputably legitimate, not to mention having received a godly upbringing. That can only increase her appeal to the king. He has decided views as to religion, I understand.”
“Indeed he has,” said Tom Seymour rather gloomily.
“What of the Protector?” I asked.
“What of him?” Seymour’s good-natured face darkened, and I realized I had made a conversational misstep. “He can’t rule the king, as much as he’d like to. Or England.” His face cleared, and he said more lightly, “He might be the king’s protector, but I’m the king’s favorite uncle. Always have been. That counts for a great deal, whatever Ned might say.”
“Ned?” I asked. “You are still speaking of the Protector?”
“Yes. It’s what they called him at home when he was a boy.” He anticipated my next question. “No one calls him that now but me.”
“I am surprised he tolerates it.”
“Oh, he hates it,” Seymour said breezily. “So what of it, my lady? Will I have the privilege of welcoming your daughter into my house?”
***
“I think it’s a fine idea,” Harry reiterated as we rode back to Dorset House.
I pulled my cloak closer around me. “I know. You all but agreed to it.”
“So what’s the harm? Our Jane’s of the right age to go to another household, after all. The worst that can happen is that the king marries someone else. Even if Seymour can’t bring it off, it’s bound to lead to a good match.”
“Harry, have you considered that Tom Seymour might mean to marry her himself?”
“You would think that, with your father’s history,” Harry said, grinning at me. Just three months after the death of my mother, my father, nearly fifty, had shocked his family by marrying fourteen-year-old Katherine Willoughby, whose wardship he had acquired. Katherine, to whom I’d become close after she had joined our household, had been intended for my brother. Father, on due consideration, had decided that matching himself with the young heiress was too advantageous to be passed up, especially as my brother had long been ailing (and indeed died not long afterward). If he had thought to have the upper hand in the marriage, he was sorely mistaken. Katherine, as Duchess of Suffolk, had used her status to fill the house with clergymen who shared her reformist religious views. Poor Father had eventually found himself surrounded by them. “But in this case, you’d be wrong.” Harry lowered his voice. “I have it on good authority that Tom plans to marry, but it’s not to our daughter.”
“So who is the bride-to-be?”
“The queen.”
I gasped. I was well familiar with the gossip that, years before, Seymour had set his cap at Catherine Parr, only to have his suit curtailed by the king’s own interest in her—but back then she’d only been a baron’s widow, quite suitable for Seymour. “On whose authority?”
“Tom Seymour’s own authority. And she’s not at all unwilling.” Harry gave me another grin. “Think of the advantages to Jane from being in the queen’s household.” Harry winked. “After all, your mother stooped to marry your father.”
He was a duke, at least, I thought to myself, albeit one who owed his dukedom solely to the late king’s affection for him. But I knew when I was beaten. “Very well. We shall send Jane to his household.”
***
“What are you translating?” I said, looking at the open book on my daughter’s desk.