“Your brother Thomas, all know, married a whore who makes her way round the realm like a coin. I’ve no intention of doing that, nor risking my son’s bloodline with a woman who has an easy shift. Think on this tonight. I shall visit your apartment tomorrow afore the evening meal and you can tell me if these letters, and the sentiments within them, are from long ago or mayhap are still fresh in hand and heart. I bid you a good evening, my lady.”

He stood up and took his leave, and as he did, I noticed that others remarked of it. ’Twas common knowledge that we were to be married and his rude dismissal would be noted.

I made my apologies and went back to my room. I did not share my concerns with Edithe as it would only vex her further.

After she helped me to bed I blew out the candle and lay there under the grimace of a cold January moon. I would not sleep all night, and that reminded me of Simon and his physic draughts, ones certain to keep the baron from being intimate with me and therefore from producing an heir to undo Simon. Of feeble-minded Meredith, pregnant more likely by Simon or one of his boon companions than by a stable boy. Of Simon’s threat to Roger. Was this a man I could trust with my life or the lives of my future children?

And yet, I had few choices. Edmund would be livid if this did not come to pass. Indeed, he’d like as not been plotting this very outcome with Simon from the beginning. I was not exactly the village old maid but even Anthony, who was older, had been partnered with a much younger and supposedly more fertile bride. My niece was years younger than I and newly wed. And I’d been well trained to understand living with a tyrant.

Anne would not turn me out, this I knew. Perhaps she could help find me a husband.

And strangely, the option I had so long ago dismissed out of hand grew more welcome. Mayhap I could serve You in an abbey, eventually.

I allowed myself to sleep, then, to rest my bones for the winter storm I’d face on the morrow. One thing still troubled me. What benefit did this hold for Rose, and why had she approached Simon?

SEVENTEEN

Year of Our Lord 1533

Greenwich Palace

The Tower of London

Simon appeared early the next afternoon. I met him in the greeting room of my apartments. “You are right,” I said. “My sentiments remain as they are expressed in the letters.”

“I knew it!” he screamed. “You’ve been betraying me, and my uncle, all along. Your family’s contemptible morals are never better displayed than in these debauched letters.”

“Come now. Debauched? Hardly. I do not act upon those feelings. Nor does the man in question, if he even holds them at present.”

Simon’s face was still twisted. “So you say, though I do not believe you, nor am I certain that you had not acted on them afore and may well again in the future. I have no desire to share my wife, neither her affections nor her caresses, with another. I would likely take you to wife only to find that you are not a maid.”

I looked him in the eye and kept my voice low. “Why ever would you expect to find me a maid, Baron? I am a widow, you recall.”

He returned my gaze, malevolently, then blinked like a lizard. “I leave, immediately, to inform your brothers that my offer of betrothal has been withdrawn.”

Within an hour Edmund burst through my door and took me by the hair. “For what means, Sister, do you speak to Lord Blackston of lies? You have had no correspondence with Will Ogilvy. I’d know.”

Mayhap he had spies?

“I have not claimed that,” I choked out, my neck bent backward. “Simon stole old letters and made of it what he would.”

He let go of my hair and shoved me into a chair. “They should have been burned long ago. They should never have been written. I myself would not marry a woman so compromised. So you’ve ruined your life. Fool! Then where will you go?” he taunted. “Because of your imprudence you have set aside years of planning and negotiations. I’ve already paid a dowry for you with the highest titled position you could hope for. I will not allow Father to pay another, bankrupting us for your lack of judgment.”

I knew this was coming, because it always came down to money and position with Edmund, and yet still took chill. There was no honorable way for me to marry any man above a serf without a dowry, and no good family would take on that shame. “I can serve Her Grace forever. Or the king will provide a dowry for me. Or I’ll go to an abbey.”

Edmund laughed. “There will be no abbeys left when the king is done dismantling the Church’s properties. And he will not be willing to pay a dowry for a disobedient wench. Cromwell keeps a good hand on the king’s money, as I know. Even Lady Anne,” he said with contempt, “must pay expenses of her own pocket or beg the king to cover her debts.”

There had been rumors that the king was considering reclaiming the monasteries from the Church in Rome for the Church in England. Anne’s plan was to use them to provide income for the poor, traditionally the responsibility of the Church, which would now become the king’s purview and which she had hoped to administer for the good of the needy. Could Henry really be planning to empty them into his own coffers?

If ’twere so…. there might be no abbeys left where unmarried highborn women may live out their lives in a gentle manner. Deep in thought, I was distracted and didn’t see him swing.

He hit me with a closed fist. From experience, I knew it would bruise and I’d need to remain in my rooms for days. “Do not come looking to me for assistance. You are on your own. And if I should hear any rumors that call my own reputation in question over this matter or any other I will put word about of your indecency, embellished, if necessary, which will make you unfit for royal service to a queen.”

I had Edithe send for Anne and she came as soon as she could. Edithe let her in and she found me in my bedchamber, where I lay, quietly, on my bed. Forgive me, Lord. I now imbibe too often of a convenient mistruth. And yet, I had feared for my life.

When Anne came into the room I rose to approach her and she settled me back onto my bed.

“No, no, do not disturb yourself,” she said. She ran a finger around the bruise on my face. “’Tis not a trivial wound.” She sent Edithe to her rooms to instruct her lady maid to ask the king’s physician for some ointment. “What happened, dearest?”

I poured out my story to her, holding nothing back. “Was I wrong? Wrong to admit to it? Wrong to do so knowing he would refuse me?”

She held me in her arms. “It matters not now, either way. ’Tis done and your conscience intact.” After a moment she continued. “The king and I steal away to be married—again. This time in front of a court priest, Rowland Lee. Henry Norris will witness as well as Sir Heneage. I’d wanted you to come, but I think it best be Lady Berkeley.”

I nodded. “I shan’t be able to be seen for a bit. Mayhap when the swelling goes down the gossip will too.” Of course all would know that I had been repudiated.

“No one will speak against you,” she promised, “for fear of me.” I took comfort in that, for I knew it to be true. “And when my son is born, I shall ask the king, as an especial favor to me, to give you a dowry so you may marry a kind man of the gentry or a second-born son.”