Royal Inheritance (29 page)

A flicker of interest showed in the queen dowager’s hazel eyes. One of her carefully plucked eyebrows lifted. “Tell us more.”

I told her
almost
everything. Since she knew the truth, she could surmise the rest. Aloud I said only what I was content for the world to know—that Sir Richard Southwell pursued me for his son because I had a goodly dowry and, now that I had the freedom to refuse, was plotting with my half sister to force me into an unwanted marriage.

I did not realize that Princess Elizabeth was also at Chelsea Manor until a rustle of brocade gave away her presence. She had heard all I’d said to her stepmother.

If there was anyone who could understand a half sister’s jealousy, it was Elizabeth Tudor. From an early age, she and Mary, King Henry’s daughter by Catherine of Aragon, had been at odds, simply because Elizabeth’s mother had replaced Mary’s as queen. Elizabeth remembered me from that long-ago progress. And I remembered that, at the time, I had wondered if it had been a question about my parentage that had been responsible for the king’s decision to send his daughter away.

The queen dowager, too, seemed to find something in my plight that she could sympathize with. “You fear and despise the young man’s father,” she said. “Knowing Sir Richard, I can understand your feelings. But is there more to your reluctance to wed an otherwise unobjectionable young man? Is there another, mayhap, you’d prefer to take as your husband?”

I hesitated. “I thought there was. I . . . I think he has been frightened off.”

Some strong emotion flickered across the queen dowager’s
features but it was gone again so quickly that I thought I might have imagined it. I did not imagine her compassion.

Pocket chose that moment to poke his head out of the placket in my skirt. He was no longer overweight. Indeed, he reminded me a little of Father at the last, shrunken and wasting, but he still held a place in my heart and he loved me unreservedly.

“Why, it is the little dog the king gave you!” Princess Elizabeth exclaimed.

I drew Pocket out. “He is very old now for his breed, but I could not abandon him.”

“Nor will we abandon you, Mistress Malte,” the queen dowager said. “For as long as is needful, you shall have a place in my household.”

T
he queen dowager’s entourage at Chelsea was not unlike that she’d maintained as queen consort. A number of her ladies remained with her and she’d been joined not only by her stepdaughter, Princess Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s household, but also by her sister Anne, the wife of Lord Herbert. He used Baynard’s Castle as his London residence, and since Lady Herbert’s three-year-old son was there, she spent much of her time traveling back and forth on one of the small row barges at Queen Kathryn’s disposal.

Within days of my arrival, another familiar face turned up at Chelsea, bringing a message to the queen dowager from the Lord Admiral. Jack Harington’s eyes widened when he caught sight of me among the women in the queen’s presence chamber, but more than an hour passed before he was able to seek me out in private.

“What are you doing here, Audrey?”

We were alone in a quiet gallery and he had me pinned between his arms, one on each side of me, his palms resting against the wall that supported my back. I was hemmed in. Surrounded by him. And yet nowhere did his body touch mine.

I glared at him. “Keeping myself safe. And you?”

Taken aback by my blunt reply, even though it was in direct response to his own rude question, he dropped his arms and stepped away from me. “Safe?”

“Yes, safe.” I stayed where I was. “Did it not occur to you that I’d need protection after my father died?”

“Whi—? You mean John Malte?” He took off his bonnet, slapping it against his thigh, and raked his fingers through his hair until it stood up in disordered peaks. “I was saddened to hear of his death, but with the king so recently dead . . . That is no excuse, and well I know it. I should have sent a message of sympathy. I should have attended the funeral. I do most sincerely beg your pardon, Audrey.”

“I suppose your employer keeps you busy.”

I do not know why I wanted to ease his conscience by making excuses for his neglect. Who can explain the attraction that draws one person to another or the urge to defend one’s beloved? I knew full well that Jack Harington had flaws, but from very nearly the first moment I saw him, when I was still a child, I had felt a powerful bond with him. As I grew older, the need to have him in my life had blossomed into desire. It no longer mattered to me that my feelings for him were so much stronger than his for me. This was the man I would have for my husband, or I would take no husband at all.

“I am Lord Seymour’s man,” Jack said. “I do as he bids me. Of late, that has meant that I am here at Chelsea as often as I am at Seymour Place.”

For a moment, I did not grasp his meaning. I’d been so absorbed in reacquainting myself with his physical appearance—his tall, muscular form, his thick brown curls, those brown eyes with their amber flakes in the depths—that his words had made little impression. I shook myself free of carnal thoughts and sent him a hard look of another sort.

“Why
are
you here?”

He laughed. “Can you not guess? The Lord Admiral Sir Thomas Seymour is most assiduously courting our widowed queen, as he has been ever since he received word of the king’s death.”

I must have looked shocked, because he laughed again.

“Why do you find that surprising? They are in love. They have been since before Kathryn Parr caught King Henry’s eye. It was the Lord Admiral’s interest in her, back before he
was
Lord Admiral, that prompted His Grace to send Seymour abroad on one mission after another. Anything to get him out of the country and keep him far away from court.”

“Is that why Sir Thomas did not pursue a marriage to the Duchess of Richmond?”

Jack nodded. “One reason, at least. His feelings for the queen have been one of the worst-kept secrets at court. I am surprised you were unaware of them.”

“I did not go to court all that often,” I reminded him. “And of late the only news I’ve heard has come through my sister’s husband.”

It was cold in the long, nearly empty room. Drafts seeped in through the many windows. But when Jack indicated that I should sit on a padded bench in front of one of them, I was willing enough to oblige. I caught his hand and pulled him down beside me. Knee to knee, his gloved fingers clasped in mine, I told him everything that had transpired since the last time I’d seen him.

When I got to the part about Sir Richard Southwell’s plan to kidnap me with Bridget’s help, he let out a low whistle. “I always knew she hated you, but such wickedness is beyond belief.”

“Believe it, Jack, for I do.” I marveled that he, who had lived at court so long, could be surprised by anything. Perhaps it was that a woman was involved.

“Does Sir Richard know where you have gone?” he asked.

“Not yet, but he is sure to learn of my whereabouts eventually. When that happens, I pray that the queen dowager can keep me safe.”

“You are of age and—”

“Merely having the law on my side may not be enough to save me, not if Sir Richard is high in favor in the new regime.”

His face a solemn mask, Jack confirmed my worst fear. “He is on the Privy Council, and he is one of the Lord Protector’s favorite toadies.”

“There must be something more I can do to protect myself.”

Jack stared out at the bleak landscape beyond the window. “The Lord Admiral is not without influence. He’s the new king’s uncle, too. I will speak to him, Audrey. And I can ask the Marquess of Dorset and his wife for help. I was kindly received by them when I carried messages back and forth concerning the Lord Admiral’s plan to advance the interests of their eldest daughter at his nephew’s court.”

I frowned, trying to sort out what family he meant. I was not familiar with every title, and several noblemen had been advanced in the peerage in the new reign, thus changing the names by which they were known. “Who are they?” I asked.

“Lady Dorset was born Lady Frances Brandon. Her mother was the late king’s younger sister.”

My cousin,
I thought. We’d never met and I wondered if she had ever heard of me and if it would make a difference if she had.

“After the negotiations I conducted on the Lord Admiral’s behalf, Lady Frances’s daughter, Lady Jane Grey, went to live at Seymour Place in the care of Lady Seymour, the Lord Admiral’s mother.” Jack was already speaking softly, but he lowered his voice still more. “If all goes according to the Lord Admiral’s plan, the Lady Jane Grey will marry her cousin the king.”

This scheme was of little interest to me. I was only concerned with one thing—would the Dorsets lend their support to my cause. “Will they help me if you ask them to?”

“I think they will. Their influence, added to that of the Lord Admiral and the queen dowager, should be sufficient to keep you safe from Southwell’s machinations.”

“If you are so certain of that, then why do you still look worried?”

His frown smoothed out as if by magic. “It is nothing.”

I sighed. Jack now sat as far away from me as the window seat allowed, careful not to touch me even in the most casual way. And yet I did not think it was because I repelled him. I was certain the most obvious solution has already occurred to him, and if he would not voice it, for whatever reason, then I knew I must. “I would be truly safe from Sir Richard Southwell once I wed someone else.”

My words hung between us. Jack took a long time to respond to them. Too long. I tried to take comfort from the fact that he did not react with surprise or distaste or even discomfort. It was that he did not react at all that defeated me.

“Say
something,
” I begged him, “even if it is to tell me that you cannot bear the sight of me.”

“My dearest Audrey! How can you think such a thing?”

“How am I to think otherwise? You said once that you would marry me if you had land and wealth, but you have never said that you loved me. You are a poet, but you have never made me the subject of one of your poems! And now that I am truly free to choose my own husband, you still say nothing.”

“I still have nothing to offer a wife.”

“You do not
need
anything. I am an heiress.”

“Unless Scutt contests the will. Or destroys it.”

“I would still come into a considerable fortune in land. I have the right of survivorship in the king’s grant—a manor called
Kelston in Somerset, a house called Catherine’s Court, and four hundred ewes.”

“Sheep?”

“Yes, sheep. Will you marry me for my ewes, Jack?”

“I will marry you for you, Audrey.”

And then,
finally,
he gathered me up in his arms and gave me a proper kiss.

S
ir Richard Southwell did not quite dare threaten the queen dowager, but he made it clear he was not leaving Chelsea until he had spoken with me. “She is my son’s betrothed,” he insisted.

“I am no such thing,” I assured Queen Kathryn.

She addressed Sir Richard in a stern voice. “Have you signed a pre-contract?”

Sputtering, on the very verge of swearing in Her Grace’s presence, Sir Richard finally had to admit that he had not. I breathed a little easier. I had been afraid he’d counterfeit one. It would not have been difficult to forge my signature, or my father’s.

“A word with the young woman, Your Grace? In private.”

“I cannot permit you to hound her, Sir Richard. Her maid will accompany her and at least one gentleman, and that is only if she agrees to speak with you.”

Since I had a thing or two I’d like to say to Sir Richard, now that I felt he’d been put in his place by the queen dowager, I consented.

“Are you certain this is wise?” Jack asked. He’d been at my side
throughout Sir Richard’s audience with Queen Kathryn. He’d followed at once when he’d learned from one of the Lord Protector’s servants that Sir Richard was on his way to Chelsea.

“You will be with me. And Edith.”

“Best take Pocket along, as well. If all else fails, your little dog can bite him.” Pocket had, quite sensibly, taken an immediate dislike to Sir Richard the first time he’d caught a whiff of him.

We adjourned to an antechamber. Sir Richard sent Jack a baleful look, having no doubt by now about who his son’s rival was. How long he’d known, I could not begin to guess, but it scarce mattered any longer.

“Ever the knight-errant,” he sneered.

“Jack and I intend to wed. You can do nothing to stop me from choosing my own husband. I know the law on marriage.”

I did not like the way he was smiling.

“I cannot stop you,” he agreed, “but there is one who can. The king is your half brother, Audrey. You know it and I know it and soon the king will know it.”

I could not see what difference that would make, but the pressure of Jack’s hand on my arm warned me not to speak, not even to deny that King Henry was my father, until Sir Richard revealed what he had in mind.

“His Grace has two half sisters already, Mary and Elizabeth. Legally, both of them are also bastards, since the late king’s marriages to their mothers were annulled. King Edward would regard your situation as no different from theirs.” He paused, to make sure I was following him. I was not, but when I said nothing, he continued, his tone that of a teacher speaking to a dull-witted child. “A king’s kinswomen are subject to his control in the matter of their marriages, no matter how old they are.”

This threat had teeth, but I had been intimidated by this wicked
man for far too long already. “You are mistaken, Sir Richard, in thinking that King Henry fathered me. He did not.”

“Can you prove it?” He laughed, certain I could not.

I had the good sense not to answer him and, after a moment, still chuckling to himself, he left.

“
Can
you prove it?” Jack asked.

I threw my arms around him. “Yes! The wording of John Malte’s will proves I am
his
merry-begot, not the king’s. He even names my mother.”