Her Highness, the Traitor - By Susan Higginbotham Page 0,13
seated side by side at table. “He is a charming man.”
Lady Jane looked toward her guardian, who was chatting animatedly with the queen and with the lady Elizabeth. “He is,” she allowed in a low tone of voice. It was clear she had never thought of such a thing.
“They tell me you are quite a scholar,” I ventured.
“My tutors say I get on well,” Lady Jane acknowledged.
“You will like the queen, then. I suppose you have heard that she has written and published her own book of prayers? And the lady Elizabeth translated it just last year for the king, into French, Italian, and Latin.”
Jane’s little nose wrinkled in unmistakable jealousy. “I know French and Latin, and I am to learn Italian.”
“Of course you will,” I said reassuringly.
My companion’s well-bred silence told me I had presumed.
***
After my disconcerting trip to Chelsea, it was a relief to return to our new home in Holborn: Ely Place, which John had acquired after years of leasing lodgings in the city. It was the grandest house in which we’d lived, and we had been staying there for so short a time that I still could get lost in its tangle of staircases and corridors. I managed, however, to make my way to John’s chamber without incident and to tell him the news.
“The queen has married?”
“Yes, and I confess it made me uncomfortable.”
“It should have,” said John. He shook his head. “Why couldn’t she have waited a year? I daresay the king wasn’t a model husband, but she owed him that much respect.”
“So you won’t speak to the Protector?”
“No. What can I say? If they hadn’t married already, I would have been willing enough to say a word; it’s none of my concern if the queen wants to marry a rascal. But now that they have married, I can hardly speak to Somerset as if they hadn’t done the deed already. All I can promise her is to keep silent. That is as much deceit as I care to practice. He is, after all, my friend.” John snorted. “And it won’t be a secret for long, with the Admiral going back and forth to the queen’s place night after night. Especially with the lady Elizabeth in her household, and Dorset’s daughter in his. The lady Elizabeth is too sharp to miss such antics, though I know little enough about the lady Jane.”
I smiled. “The lady Jane would not approve of such romantic folly, but I doubt she pays much attention to anything that is not within the covers of a book. She’s very bright, but a rather frosty little creature.”
“I wonder whom Dorset is considering as a husband for her?”
“Someone with a good-sized library.” I snickered. “And with a great deal of patience, I daresay.”
4
Frances Grey
September 1547
I hardly recognized my Jane when I next came up from our home of Bradgate in Leicestershire to London. Not only had she had a slight growing spurt, but she also was dressed in the height of fashion, in a green that became her very well. “The queen gave me the material,” she said as she spun around, almost coquettishly, for me to better admire her. “Don’t you think it’s pretty?”
“It’s lovely. But I have tried to get you to wear such colors before. You never would.”
“The queen ordered it,” Jane said sensibly. “I could not refuse. And the Lord Admiral pressed it upon me, too. He hates dark colors.”
Just as Harry had predicted, Tom Seymour had married the queen, having been allowed to do so by the king himself—unaware the couple had married long before the royal permission was obtained. That piece of news when it leaked out had been the scandal of the summer, and I had been all for removing my girl lest she be touched by it. I’d expected a proper marriage with the blessing of the king and the Protector, not this clandestine affair. Harry, however, had mandated that Jane stay put. “They’re properly married, after all, and any damage has already been done. And besides, Jane shall now be living in the same household as the lady Elizabeth, the king’s favorite sister. What better way to the heart of the king than that?”
As usual, I had not been able to muster an argument. Instead, I had had to hope Jane would be so uncomfortable with the newlyweds, she would beg to be sent home when I visited. Perhaps the couple themselves might like some privacy, instead of having two young girls underfoot.