Her Highness, the Traitor - By Susan Higginbotham Page 0,74

or heat,” I recited softly.

Ambrose nodded dumbly, my words small comfort to him. Then Robert—who like the rest of my children had been barred from the sickroom—walked in and knelt beside his brother. “Come with me,” he said after a while, and gently led Ambrose away.

A few days later, we left Otford Palace, never to return. The next spring, John exchanged it for other land. It was too large to keep up properly, he explained to the king.

22

Frances Grey

August 1552

Had someone told me in the summer of 1552 that it would be the last one I would spend at Bradgate, I surely would have lived it differently. I would not have passed my days indoors, sewing or listening to music or reading or playing cards, for those were things I could do anywhere. Instead, I would have spent my days in our gardens and in our parks, breathing in the sweet fragrance none of our other properties, no matter how grand, could match. I would have sat on the grounds at dusk and watched the rays of the dying sun cast a mellow glow upon the red brick walls of the manor house. I would have taken off my stockings and waded through the cool streams like a young girl, and tried to see if I could balance myself on the thick log that had fallen across one of them. I would have said a last good-bye to my little Henry, sleeping in the chapel with his father’s ancestors. But no one around me could foretell the future, so I spent that summer like any other.

It was indeed a rather ordinary summer. Harry was with the king on his progress through his southern estates. Jane was devoting herself to her latest course of study, learning Hebrew, and had quite pushed Plato aside, which I thought would undoubtedly have annoyed that august gentleman. Twelve-year-old Kate was rapidly developing into a young woman, and a very pretty one at that; it was clear she would be the family beauty. To her mixed irritation and pride, she had started her monthly courses. Mary, at seven, was the size of a girl two years younger, but she was perfectly intelligent and could sew almost as well as I could. For myself, I enjoyed paying and receiving visits from my various friends and relations.

In early August, my stepmother was one of my visitors. The last time I had seen her, soon after the death of my brothers, she had been almost immobile with grief and shock. Now, no longer wearing mourning for her two sons, she had gone further and put on an elegant green gown, which made her look younger and more handsome than she had appeared in several years. “There is something I must tell you, and I won’t dawdle about it,” she said before she had barely cleared the threshold of my private chamber. “I am remarrying.”

I mentally surveyed all of the eligible single men and widowers among the nobility. No name came instantly to mind: all I could summon up were either too old, too young, too poor, too Catholic, too remotely situated, too testy, or (it had to be admitted) too homely.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Katherine said, seeing my difficulty. “I am marrying Master Bertie.”

I goggled at her. Richard Bertie was Katherine’s gentleman usher, who had handled her business affairs since the death of my father. An Oxford graduate, he was unquestionably a clever and trustworthy man of business, but… “Master Bertie?” I said stupidly.

“No doubt you are going to tell me that he is not of my station, that he aspires to my hand only for my wealth, and that I am disgracing my title by marrying him.”

“I—”

“Well, I say fie on that! Master Bertie is a gentleman of good abilities and unimpeachable character, who has been kindness itself since my poor boys were called to God. Why shouldn’t I marry him? It is true, as you say, that he is meanly born—”

“Katherine! I haven’t had a chance to say anything yet,” I protested. “You are carrying on this argument quite adequately all by yourself.”

“True,” Katherine admitted.

“But I must admit I am shocked. With your beauty and wealth—”

“I could marry a man who would perish on the scaffold. I want no nobleman who will involve himself in this miserable business of running England. I want only to be left to enjoy my estates in peace, and perhaps to bear more children. Master Bertie can help me do the first most