Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set

15

The king’s retinue left for Calais on the ninth day of July. It included Lord Lisle, Harry Dudley, and Will Parr. I found no opportunity to say farewell to Will in private. Indeed, I did my best to avoid being alone with him. The temptation I could resist with Harry would have been impossible to overcome with Will.

For months, I had told myself repeatedly that it was foolish to waste my life pining for a man I could not marry. It was not as if I could not live happily with another. Harry Dudley and I would suit very well. When he returned from France, I might even tell him so. But at the public parting of the king and queen, it was not Harry I looked for, but Will.

He stood well back in the crowd of courtiers, while I was at the rear of the queen’s contingent. And yet he must have felt me staring at him. When he turned his head my way, our eyes locked. Tears blinded me before I finally forced myself to look away.

Once the king was gone, Queen Kathryn, who would serve as His Grace’s regent in his absence, moved from Greenwich to Whitehall. The Earl of Hertford and other councilors left behind to advise her went along. Lady Lisle and I set off in the opposite direction, journeying into Kent, where Lady Lisle’s younger children awaited us at Halden Hall.

Ambrose was the oldest of those still at home. At fourteen, he was about three years junior to Jack. Mary, nearly thirteen, came next, then Robert, who had just passed his twelfth birthday. Guildford—called Gil by the family—was a year younger than Robert. The second child to be christened in honor of the king, called Henry to distinguish him from Harry, was eight. Lady Lisle had given birth to four other children, too, but they had died.

The Dudleys were a lively lot, barely kept in check by their tutors. To my surprise, young Mary shared her brothers’ lessons. I confess that I envied her. When I’d told Father that I wanted to learn everything my brother William did, he’d declared that it was unnecessary for a girl to master more than simple ciphering and the ability to read and write. Even the latter skill was considered extravagant by some noblemen, since there were always clerks available to pen letters for ladies.

Messages from France arrived almost daily at Halden Hall. We rejoiced at the news of the fall of Boulogne to our English troops. I was relieved to learn that no one I knew had been killed in the fighting.

A week later a royal messenger brought a letter to Lady Lisle. She read it in her bedchamber, where she had already been sequestered in anticipation of the birth of her child. All the curtains were pulled tight across shuttered windows, not to keep out the unseasonably cold weather but because tradition dictated that a noblewoman in childbed should be protected from the harmful outside air. Such dark, oppressive surroundings disturbed me, as did seeing Lady Lisle so pale and bloated, but I was careful to hide my uneasiness.

“The queen has asked for you, Bess,” Lady Lisle informed me. “She has an opening in her household and wishes you to fill it. Dorothy Bray has married Edmund Brydges and can no longer serve as a maid of honor.”

“Ned married her?”

“So it seems.” Lady Lisle absently massaged her bulging belly, making me wonder if Dorothy had caught a child. “The queen is currently on progress in Surrey and Kent with the royal children. You are to join her at Eltham Palace at the end of the month. In the meantime, if you wish, you may spend a few days with your family. At present they are at Cobham Hall with my dear friend, the senior Lady Cobham.”

Although my parents and siblings lived for most of the year at Cowling Castle, they left it periodically to allow for a thorough cleaning. At those times, they often visited my father’s stepmother at Cobham Hall, which had been left to her for life by my grandfather. The house had originally been built as a hunting lodge and was located in the center of a park well stocked with deer.

“My father is still in Calais,” I said.

“And likely to remain there for some time,” Lady Lisle said. “The lord deputy usually resides there. If we were not at war, your mother would no doubt have joined him.”

It was difficult to imagine Mother living anywhere but Kent, but I did not contradict Lady Lisle. Nor did I refuse the opportunity to visit my family. The entire household gathered to welcome me to Cobham Hall. They already knew that I was to become a maid of honor and everyone was pleased for me, especially Kate. I could tell she was only waiting until we were alone to pepper me with questions.

I had brought gifts and greetings from Lady Lisle, including a fan made of black ostrich feathers set in gold for the senior Lady Cobham, as Lady Lisle had called her. I had never been able to think of her as my grandmother. She was much too young. But she was certainly family. She’d married my grandfather, one of her brothers had married my mother’s sister, and her mother had been married, as her second husband, to one of my father’s brothers.

There were less spectacular presents for Mother and my brothers and Kate, and then everyone had questions about life at court. It was late before Kate and I finally retired to the bedchamber we shared.

“Do you think Lady Lisle will have me in your place, Bess?” Kate asked the moment the door closed behind us. “I am more than old enough to leave home.”

“Mother can ask her, but are you sure you want to join her household now? Not only is she away from court, but she is awaiting the birth of a baby.”

Kate made a face. She no more liked the idea of being trapped in a dark room than I did.

Together we flung open the window.

“If there are evil vapors in the night breezes,” I said, “I am prepared to ignore them.”

Kate laughed.

All the moonlight revealed were acres of parkland and a massive oak tree that grew close to the house. It had the greatest girth I’d ever seen. I’d been told it was more than a century old.

“Did anyone tell you about the wedding?” Kate asked as we rested our elbows on the casement and breathed deeply of the cool September air. “Mother is still reeling from the shock.”

“Lady Lisle told me Dorothy married Ned Brydges.”

“Not Dorothy’s wedding. Grandmother Jane’s.”

“Grandmother Jane’s what?”

“Grandmother Jane’s wedding. She married right after Dorothy did. She said she’d only been waiting until the last of her children was provided for to choose a husband for herself.”

“But she’s old!” Grandmother Jane had lived for more than six decades. I did not know anyone older than she was.

“That’s what makes her choice all the more astonishing. She picked Sir Urian Brereton. He’s a younger son with no particular fortune or prospects. And, Bess—he’s at least twenty years younger than she is!”

Shock kept me silent, but inside my head were thoughts I’d never had before, half-formed ideas about love and companionship and the many long years that stretched out before a couple after they married. “I think I envy Grandmother Jane,” I murmured.

“Because she could choose?”

I nodded.

“She has to pay a fine,” Kate said, “for marrying without the king’s permission. And her son is furious with her.”

“He’s probably envious, too. He had to wed where he was told to.”

Two days later, news arrived from Halden Hall that Lady Lisle had been delivered of her twelfth child, a girl she had named Temperance. Both mother and daughter were in excellent health.

The remainder of my week at Cobham Hall sped by, enlivened by games with my youngest brothers and visits from neighbors and friends. We all traveled back to Cowling Castle together but I spent only one night there before setting out for Eltham Palace and my new post as a maid of honor.

The queen welcomed me warmly, as did the young women with whom I would now be sharing the maid’s dormitory. I already knew them all, Alys Guildford and Nan Bassett better than the rest. It was Nan, the oldest of the group, who took me aside for a word of warning.

“You owe your appointment to the queen’s brother,” she said. “He heard of Dorothy Bray’s plans to marry and asked this boon of Her Grace before he left for France. But that does not mean you should follow Dorothy’s example and creep out of your bed at night to meet a lover.”

“I am not Dorothy, and I do not believe that Her Grace would honor me with this post if she believed I was.”

Nan fixed me with a steady stare. “Remember that your first loyalty is to Queen Kathryn. You took an oath to serve her faithfully and to abide by her wishes, whatever they might be.”

I frowned after her as she walked away. Had Nan been telling me that it was the queen’s wish that I discourage her brother’s interest? Or was that just a friendly bit of advice, given to any new-made maid of honor? I supposed it did not matter. After all, Will was still in France.