Her Highness, the Traitor - By Susan Higginbotham Page 0,89

known.”

“And the lady Mary? The lady Elizabeth?”

“They will know in due time.”

“There are no plans to—” I could not finish my sentence.

“Harm them? Confine them? No. They shall be married to men we can trust. At least, that is what we are hoping for.”

“What if they do not go along? What if the emperor comes to the lady Mary’s aid and decides to restore her to the succession?”

“When has the emperor ever helped Mary?”

“When she tried to flee the country.”

“Yes, and what did she do? Panicked, and lost her chance. She’ll be happy as long as she has her Mass. If she has a husband and a Mass, all the better.” John saw the skeptical expression on my face. “Mouse,” he said gently, “you worry too much. The king has time. The physicians tell him so. Parliament will meet, and the king’s devise will have the force of law. The lady Mary won’t resist, particularly if a sweetener is thrown in. The same with the lady Elizabeth.”

I shook my head. There seemed to be far too many “ifs” in this plan, conceived by a dying lad of sixteen. Nor did the prospect of the crown passing to my slip of a daughter-in-law, who had never been brought up to such a task, fill me with confidence. “But the lady Jane can’t even properly run a household,” I blurted. “Just in that brief time at Chelsea, Guildford said, she drove the servants mad, telling them one thing one moment and countermanding it an hour later. She’s an intelligent girl, but she hasn’t an ounce of common sense.”

“She will learn it, as all rulers must. She will have councilors, remember.” John took my hand. “The truth is, you don’t like this idea. Neither do I. It goes against King Henry’s wishes—more than that, it goes against the law, until Parliament ratifies it. But if I must choose between obeying a dead king and a living king, I must choose the living one.”

“Even when what the living king wants is folly?”

“Is it folly to keep the lady Mary from turning the clock back? Is it folly to prevent bastards from ascending to the throne?”

“I suppose we shall find out,” I said. I stared out the window toward the direction of Suffolk Place, where our unsuspecting daughter-in-law was no doubt settling down with a passage of Greek for the evening. “In the meantime, I shall redouble my prayers for the king.”

28

Frances Grey

June 1553

You should see the Duchess of Northumberland look at her husband,” Jane said on the last day of her visit to us at Suffolk Place. “I call it the Lord and Master look, as if the man was Richard I and Henry V put together. She worships him. It’s sickening.”

I tried to recall what I had said that had set Jane upon her favorite topic as of late: the various shortcomings of the Northumberland household. It probably didn’t matter, as it took little to get her started.

“They had dancing the other night, and dancing makes some old war injury of his ache, so of course she doesn’t dance either,” Jane continued happily. “Instead, she just stands beside him, clutching his hand as if the two were courting instead of man and wife. I even saw them kissing that evening in a corner, like a couple of peasants at the fair. You’d never guess they were a duke and duchess, but of course they were never meant to be, were they? Thank goodness you and Father don’t carry on in such an undignified manner.”

Jane paused for breath, but only for a moment. Had losing her virginity made her so voluble, or was it the irresistible need to complain about her new relations? “They’re all like that, too—all the Dudley children and their spouses. All giving each other the same adoring looks, all stopping by every other day to sup with the duke and the duchess when they could be at their own homes. Except for the Countess of Warwick, of course. She doesn’t like them, either. She and I have become good friends.”

“Do you like Guildford at all?” Kate asked. Hearing that Jane had come to stay with us while Guildford recovered from eating a bad salad, she had decided to visit, too.

“He’s bearable,” Jane said. “At least he treats me with respect. He brought me a book before he fell ill, which was a far sight better than that talking parrot the duke gave to the duchess as a gift before I