Royal Inheritance (17 page)

“I know you want only the best for me, Father,” I said, resigned. “I will try to be fair-minded when it comes to Master Darcy.”

S
oon after Bridget’s wedding, Father purchased leases for lands and manors in Somerset valued at nearly two thousand pounds. He had some idea of spending summers in the country, where there was less danger from the plague. Mother Anne would not hear of it.

“I was born in London and I’ll die in London,” she told him.

“What would we do with ourselves, locked away in some remote manor house?” Muriel wanted to know. Away from her newly acquired betrothed, she meant.

I was wholeheartedly in agreement with them. Only years later did I come to appreciate the joys of country life. That summer, the one during which I celebrated the sixteenth anniversary of my birth, I fed on the energy created by the sheer number of people living inside the old London wall. The wards and parishes throbbed with it.

Even on those days when all we women did was sit by the window, our needles busy on a piece of embroidery or a hem, all manner of things happened just beyond the panes. London is never quiet, never still. Bells toll the hour. Hawkers shout to sell their
wares. Riders swear, attempting to make their way through a crush of pedestrians. Carts clatter past, filled with wares from every part of England. All that summer, finely dressed ladies and gentlemen sauntered by Father’s shop, surveying the goods on display.

When we ventured out of the house, I found city life even more stimulating. Blue-coated apprentices mingled with black-clad clergymen, serving maids with staid dowagers. There was bustle and confusion and excitement. We had to be on our guard because pickpockets went everywhere to ply their trade, but that was part of the thrill. A retreat into peace and quiet and safety held little appeal.

In that year, the plague was not the threat people feared most. Invasion by French troops appeared to pose a far greater danger to life and property. We were at war again with our ancient enemy. In mid-July, the king himself left England to lead his troops into battle. His Grace named Queen Kathryn as regent during his absence.

The queen took up residence at Hampton Court, where Prince Edward already had his household, and sent for the two princesses to join them. I was not summoned. I had not expected to be. Nor did Father go to court. With the king gone, there was no employment there for the king’s tailor.

John Scutt, Bridget’s new husband, was royal tailor to the queen. He traveled back and forth by boat throughout the last half of July and all of August. When he was at home in London, he shared the latest court news with his young wife. Sometimes Bridget repeated what he told her. At others she hugged it close to her chest, delighting in knowing something Muriel and I did not.

On one late August evening when the air held the threat of rain, Bridget slipped through the yard and into our house by way of the kitchen. I’d seen Master Scutt return from Hampton Court less than half an hour earlier. Add to that the cat-swallowed-the-linnet expression on Bridget’s face as she burst into the hall and it took no astrologer’s
horoscope to predict that she had a secret she was eager to share. I exchanged a speaking glance with Muriel, who knew our sister’s ways as well as I did.

Father and Mother Anne had gone to a supper at the Merchant Taylors’ Hall. So, I presumed, had Master Scutt. The merchant tailors often held meetings and social gatherings there. I do not remember what the occasion was for this one, but in consequence Bridget, Muriel, and I found ourselves alone save for Pocket, and he was sound asleep on a cushion. Edith and the other maidservants remained belowstairs, leaving us to serve ourselves comfits and wine and fresh fruit.

“You will never guess what I just heard.” Bridget’s smirk made me want to strike her.

“That is very true. Perhaps you should simply tell us.” I had been composing a new tune for the lute when she arrived. Now I set that instrument aside and folded my hands in my lap. That seemed the safest place for them if I was to resist the urge to slap my sister’s face.

Bridget wandered with apparent aimlessness from chair to table to window. She ran her hand over every surface, every piece of plate and glass beaker—as if she was trying to evaluate their cost. She had always been acquisitive. Since her marriage she seemed inclined to put a price on everything . . . even information. “What is it worth to you?”

I started to say “nothing” but Muriel spoke first.

“A penny.”

“Not enough.”

“Sixpence, then.” When I looked at her askance, she spread her hands wide to indicate how helpless she was to resist. “Look at her, Audrey. She’s bubbling over like a pot on the boil.”

“And sooner or later she’ll tell all without the necessity of payment. She will not be able to stop herself.”

“Oh.” Crestfallen, Muriel sent Bridget a resentful look. “I suppose you still want the sixpence?”

Bridget held out one hand, palm up, and waited until Muriel paid her. Her fingers curled tight over the silver coin, as if she feared her sister would try to snatch it back. Only after she’d tucked it securely into the purse she wore attached to her belt did she speak.

“The queen means to go on progress next month through Surrey and Kent.”

“There is a royal progress every year,” I said impatiently. “That is not news worth sixpence. I’d value it at less than a farthing.”

“She will take the royal children with her.”

“A penny’s worth. No more.” And not enough to account for Bridget’s barely suppressed glee.

“Master Scutt has seen the itinerary.”

I said nothing to this. A list of stops proposed for the progress did not interest me and I had vowed never to ask why, months after their wedding, Bridget did not yet call her husband by his Christian name. I did not want to be privy to the intimate details of their marriage.

“The queen will stay at Mortlake, Byfleet, Guildford, and Beddington,” Bridget continued, “and at other great houses, too. Her Grace will honor friends at Allington Castle and Merewood with brief visits.”

I pantomimed a yawn. Bridget’s answering scowl pleased me very much.

“Do not tease her, Audrey, I beg you.” Muriel looked truly distressed. “Bridget may decide not to tell us anything exciting, after all.”

“She cannot have a very important secret. If it had to do with the king or the queen, the gossips of London would already have caught wind of it.” Nothing spread faster in the city than a rumor.

Two bright spots of color appeared on Bridget’s cheeks. “At Merewood the queen’s host will be Sir Richard Southwell,” she blurted.

I paused with a comfit halfway to my mouth. My appetite for the sweet abruptly vanished. “Sir Richard Southwell is nothing to me.”

“Is he not? He made a great impression on you the first time you saw him. Do you remember, Muriel? Audrey came home from visiting her fine friends at Norfolk House all aghast at having been in such proximity to a man who had gotten away with murder.”

Muriel shivered. “I remember. You did not like him, Audrey. And you did not like that he had been pardoned.”

“Be that as it may, Sir Richard Southwell has naught to do with me.” I might not have been able to recall telling my sisters about that initial encounter with him, but I was certain I had never mentioned meeting him again at Ashridge. I had tried very hard to forget it had ever happened. Just thinking about the fellow left a bad taste in my mouth.

“Master Scutt,” Bridget announced, “says that Sir Richard will be coming to London soon to talk to Father.”

“Does he need a new suit of clothes?” I threw out the question with what I hoped was a careless air, but my heart was starting to beat a little faster. Bridget was leading up to something and, knowing Bridget as I did, it was not news that would please me.

“He needs a wife for one of his bastard sons.”

“Too late. Muriel is betrothed to young Master Horner and Father has already picked out a likely prospect for me. A Cambridge scholar, no less.”

Bridget laughed. “Is his name Richard Darcy?”

I nodded. Never mind that I’d not cared for him the one time we’d met. I’d take him, gangly arms and legs, tongue-tied mumblings, and all before I’d consent to marry the merry-begot of a murderer.

Bridget’s eyes glittered with a malice she did not trouble to conceal. “Richard Darcy, sister dear,
is
Sir Richard Southwell’s bastard son.”

I
told Father I would never wed Richard Darcy. I even told him why.

He assured me that, given time enough, I might well change my mind. “Get to know the lad,” he urged me, as he had after Bridget’s wedding. “Marriage to a gentleman, Audrey, is not to be scoffed at.”

“He is no gentleman. Sir Richard got him on a mistress. And he cannot be the heir so long as there are legitimate children.”

“The late Lady Southwell bore Sir Richard only a daughter,” Father said, “and so young Richard is his eldest son. He will come into a goodly patrimony. Besides that, his father has often said that he will marry the boy’s mother when he can and make her the new Lady Southwell.”

“If he is already a widower, why has he not done so ere now?”

Father looked uncomfortable. “She has a husband yet living.”

“I am surprised Sir Richard does not simply murder him.”

“A man should be forgiven one mistake,” Father chided me. “The king himself pardoned Sir Richard.”

“Perhaps the
king
made a mistake!”

Father’s eyes went wide. Then he looked uneasily around to make certain no one had overheard my outburst. We were in the shop, but the apprentices had all been sent out on various errands and there were no customers. Father kept his voice low regardless. “You must never say such a thing again. The king is always right.”

Shaken by how tense he had become, I hastened to apologize. “I beg your pardon, Father. I misspoke.”

He pretended to believe me. And he ignored the rest of what I’d said. Negotiations for the match with Richard Darcy went forward. I reminded myself, having witnessed the process with my older sisters, that it could take as much as two years to work out all the details of a marriage contract. I had plenty of time to talk Father out of marrying me to Sir Richard Southwell’s son.

King Henry returned to England at the end of September.

In October, quite by accident, I saw Jack Harington again. He was standing in front of the Sign of the Green Cap, a bookseller’s shop, absorbed in a book of Latin poetry. More than a year and a half had passed since I had last set eyes on him. He was much changed in appearance but I recognized him at once.

I had time to take his measure before he noticed me. He was better dressed than he had been in the old days, but he had lost weight. His face, in spite of a newly acquired beard, had a pinched look. His eyes, when he sensed the intensity of my gaze and glanced up, had the sunken appearance that came from too many nights without sufficient sleep.

My first thought was that he had been out carousing but I was quickly disabused of that notion. Dissipation has a different look. I’d seen it in the Earl of Surrey and some of his friends but it was utterly lacking in Jack Harington. Whatever had left Jack with that bleak expression, it had not been wine and women.

“Mistress Audrey.” He returned the volume to the bookseller’s
stock, displayed on a wooden pentice. At night, the books were removed and the pentice used to cover the open front of the shop.

The act of doffing a cap and bowing meant nothing of itself, but what I saw in his expression warmed me. He was genuinely glad to see me.

“Master Harington. I did not know you were back in England.”

“Only just. Have you come to make a selection?” He gestured toward the offerings; everything from broadsides to Bibles vied for space with Greek plays—in Greek—and printed copies of sermons.

“Only if there are songbooks.”

“I’ve not seen any.”

“How disappointing, but I am not surprised. At the two other booksellers I’ve visited this morning, I found naught but liturgical service-books containing plainsong with Latin words.”

“I am pleased to hear that you have continued with your music.”

“How could I not, when I had such an enthusiastic tutor? But I suspect that my life since last we met has been very dull compared to yours. Will you tell me of your travels?”

Belatedly slapping the hat back onto his head, he said, quite firmly, “I will.”

Then he made so bold as to take my arm and lead me a little apart from the noise and confusion of the street. Edith kept pace with us, disapproval writ large on her countenance. I ignored her. Jack’s manner thrilled me and his touch sent tingles of pleasure throughout my body.

There were no convenient benches to sit upon so we kept walking, wending our way through quiet alleys and lanes to avoid the main thoroughfares. I did not care where we went. I was happy just to be in Jack’s company.

“I have found some measure of success in Sir Thomas Seymour’s service,” he confided as we walked. “As Sir Thomas prospers, so will
I. He keeps me close and employs me as a messenger when he has important communications to send. I deliver his letters and return with the replies. Princes, generals, margraves—I have met them all.”

“Where did you go first?” I asked. “You were bound for the Low Countries when you left England.”

“To Brussels, to the court of Mary of Hungary, Regent of the Netherlands. She is a most remarkable woman.”

“I know nothing of foreign princes,” I admitted. “Who is she?”

“You will recall that King Henry’s first wife was Catherine of Aragon, a Spanish princess. This Mary is her niece, and the sister of Emperor Charles V. It was Mary’s brother who appointed her to rule over the Low Countries upon the death of another aunt, Margaret of Austria.”

“Are the regents always women?” I was remembering that, until he’d returned a few weeks earlier to reclaim the reins of government, King Henry had entrusted Queen Kathryn to rule England in his absence.

“It is somewhat unusual, but then Mary of Hungary is an unusual woman. She is always flinging herself upon horseback and riding off to one place or another. Her courtiers can barely keep up with the pace she sets. Why, once she made the seventeen-day ride from Augsburg to Brussels in just thirteen days!”