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  “Thank you, my lady,” Bess said, surprised but pleased at the offer.

  “And see that Jane is presentable.” Lady Dorset disappeared in a flurry of crimson skirts.

  “I think she would prefer it if you were her daughter,” Jane said, her eyes sad. Bess’s heart flooded with an aching sympathy for the girl.

  “Nonsense. She’s just busy, and wants to ensure that all is as it should be for tonight.”

  * * *

  BESS COULD TELL FROM THE EXPRESSION ON FRANCES GREY’S FACE that the supper had been a success. Most of the guests had left, and now Harry and Frances Grey sat at ease in the withdrawing room with only a few close friends. Bess knew many of them, but still, she was surprised when the guest of honor approached her. She could not recall having spoken to Sir William Cavendish before. Certainly he had never sought her out, and she wondered what he could want. He was an important man, the treasurer of the king’s chamber and the Court of General Surveyors, and had just become a member of the privy council, as well as being auditor to great men such as Edward Seymour, the Earl of Hertford.

  “Mistress Bess.” He inclined his head, and Bess curtsied.

  “I wish you joy of your knighthood, sir.”

  “I thank you.”

  “Good night, Will!” A departing guest hailed Sir William, and Bess studied his face as he turned away from her. He was in the later part of his thirties, she guessed. A tall and sturdily built man, the broadness of his face was emphasized by the square cut of his beard. Like the king’s beard, Bess thought. But Sir William’s gray eyes, when they turned back to her, were kind.

  “Your mistress tells me that you are experiencing some difficulty in connection with the estate of your late husband, and asked if I might counsel you.”

  “Oh!” Bess said. “Yes, sir, it’s most kind of you to ask. When Robbie died, his younger brother inherited from him, and as he is only a boy, Sir Peter Frecheville bought his wardship and gained control of the property.”

  “And now he will not give you your widow’s dower?”

  “No, sir. He claims in the first place that part of the land doesn’t belong to the Barlows at all, but is only leased. But the greater difficulty is that he says I am not entitled to anything because we were not truly married. That is . . .” She broke off, blushing.

  “Because the marriage was not consummated?” Sir William’s voice was matter-of-fact, with no tinge of bawdry or humor, and Bess relaxed.

  “Exactly. Last autumn Sir Peter offered me a yearly sum if I would waive any claim to my widow’s third of the property, and though I had misgivings, I agreed out of necessity, for I was then back under my parents’ roof, and their means were stretched already.”

  “Which of course he knew,” Sir William said, “and wished to take advantage of your hardship.”

  “Yes. But then Robbie’s uncle objected to even that settlement, so now I have nothing and am like to get nothing. Not even my dowry.”

  Bess felt her anxiety rising at the thought that she would be left penniless and powerless. What could she do then? No man would take her without a dowry, and it would strain her parents’ resources to have her return home.

  “Well, we’ll see about that.” Sir William shifted so that his feet were set firm and far apart, as if preparing for a fight, and he seemed to stand a little taller. “They won’t get away with it if I have anything to say about it, and you may have heard that I am known as a man who does not easily back down from a fight.”

  Bess’s hopes rose. “You would fight for me?”

  “I would and I will. I will file a suit on your behalf, and call upon my patron Edward Seymour for his assistance, and they will find that they cannot bully you as they thought.”

  “Oh, I thank you, sir! I thank you so much.”

  Sir William smiled and Bess felt as if rays of sunlight shone on her.

  “You are most welcome, my dear. I will be pleased to be your champion, and I warrant all will come out right.”

  “It’s so kind of him!” Bess cried to Frances Grey the next day.

  Lady Dorset glanced up from her dressing table with a speculative look in her eyes. “What do you think of Sir William, Bess?”

  “Why, what should I think? He will help me to get my money! I think he’s wonderful!”

  “Yes, yes, but I don’t mean that. It’s been several months now since his wife died and he’s sure to be looking to marry again.”

  Bess blinked in astonishment. Did Lady Dorset mean that Sir William might look upon her as a possible wife?

  “His wife died after giving birth to a dead child,” Lady Dorset continued, “and both of their other babies died as well, but he has three little girls by his first wife, and they need a mother.”

  Bess’s heart filled with pity at the thought of the motherless girls. She loved little children. She had eased her heartache at being parted from her younger sisters by spending time with the Zouche children, but she had fallen in love with the three little Grey girls. Jane, impossibly smart and yet endearingly vulnerable. Six-year-old Kate, sweet and beautiful. And poor little baby Mary, who had something wrong with her spine so that she was growing crooked.

  “Sir William is a man of keen intelligence,” Frances Grey said. “Much respected and growing apace in power and influence. It would be a brilliant match for you.”

  Sir William would make quite a different husband than poor Robbie, Bess thought. He was old enough to be her father, probably twenty years older than her eighteen years of age. He was a man of property and with powerful connections. As his wife she would be well cared for and comfortable. She would not have to endure hardships or fear the future. And he had already shown that he was kind, and would fight for her and protect her.

  “Give the matter some thought,” Lady Dorset said. “You’ll spend time in his company when he helps you with your suit, and have the opportunity to get to know him better.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  May 1546—Whitehall Palace, London

  BESS KEPT PACE WITH JANE GREY, WHO WAS TROTTING IN AN attempt to keep up with her mother. Far ahead, Frances Grey’s skirts billowed out behind her as she sailed toward the queen’s privy chamber.

  When Bess and Jane entered the queen’s domain, Frances was already curtsying to the queen. Catherine Parr, in scarlet silk and at the center of a dozen or more ladies, looked up and smiled to see Jane, but Frances’s eyes were cold when she looked back at her daughter.

  “Your Majesty,” Jane murmured as she sank into a curtsy.

  “Dear Jane,” the queen said. “I’m so glad you’ve come.”

  Frances Grey’s young stepmother, Catherine Willoughby, the Duchess of Suffolk, her blue eyes and pale skin set off by her gown of dove gray, came forward to embrace Jane.

  “I know your uncle will be pleased to see you,” the queen said to Jane. “He and the prince are at their lessons just now, but be sure to visit with him before you go.”

  Bess recalled that Henry, the ten-year-old Duke of Suffolk, had been sent to join the household of Prince Edward when his father had died the previous summer. The queen smiled at Bess and Bess curtsied as she passed, catching a faint scent of roses and cinnamon in the movement of the queen’s gown.

  “I thank you, Your Majesty.” Jane bowed to the queen again, and Bess followed behind her as she made her way around the room, greeting the queen’s attendants. She had seen many of these ladies at court before, but had never been among them so closely. Many of them were the wives of the most powerful men in England, she knew. She held them in awe and was impressed by Jane’s easy grace as she made small talk. Jane Dudley, who had long been a friend of the queen, was wed to John Dudley, Lord Lisle, a member of both the king’s privy council and his privy chamber. Anne Seymour’s husband Edward, the Earl of Hertford, was the elder brother of the late Queen Jane, and still inward with the king.

  And there was the Lady Elizabeth, the king’s younger daughter. She must be about twelve now, Bess th
ought, and no longer looked like a little girl, but was on the cusp of womanhood.

  “My dear cousin,” Elizabeth greeted Jane. “It has been too long since we have seen each other.”

  Lizzie was there, too, and embraced Bess. “I hope we have a chance to talk before you go. I’ve missed your company so!”

  There was one man in the room, a black-robed cleric, and soon the queen called to her attendants to gather and listen. “We’re honored to have Dr. Crome to speak to us this afternoon.”

  The queen sat, and her ladies settled around her in a multicolored sea of silk. A little black spaniel frisked toward the queen, barking, and put his paws on her lap.

  “Gardiner!” the Duchess of Suffolk called sharply, clapping her hands, and the dog guiltily returned to her side.

  “Gardiner?” Bess whispered to Lizzie. “Like the archbishop?” Lizzie only smiled mischievously.

  Bess did her best to follow the preacher’s words, but she found what he said to be convoluted, and what she did understand alarmed her slightly. Was he really saying that Purgatory did not exist? And that Christ was not present in the consecrated bread and wine of the communion?

  After Dr. Crome had left, the queen took up a sheaf of papers and read aloud. She spoke of King Henry, likening him to Moses, leading his people out of captivity and bondage.

  Jane must have caught Bess’s frown of concentration, for she leaned close to her and whispered, “Freedom from slavery to the pope, she means.”

  When the queen had finished reading, she led the ladies in discussion. Bess felt herself far at sea. She gathered that the words the queen had read were her own. She had never heard of a lady writing a book before, much less holding forth at length in a learned manner as the queen did. She felt herself nodding off and roused herself. It would never do to fall asleep in the queen’s presence.

  Lizzie caught her eye and motioned her head toward the doorway, and Bess rose, moving as unobtrusively as she could.

  “That’s quite enough of that for me!” Lizzie said with a laugh when they were outside the queen’s chamber. “It’s such a beautiful day, let’s go outside.”

  “Why do the other ladies take such an interest in it?” Bess asked as she and Lizzie made their way down a stairway and out into a garden. “Or do they only feign to do so, as it’s the queen’s writing?”

  “Oh, some of them are very earnest in their beliefs,” Lizzie said, squinting at the sun. “Me, I don’t care too much.”

  A tall, dark-haired man wearing deep green velvet entered the garden, in conversation with an older man. Lizzie noted him and raised her eyebrows at Bess.

  “Thomas Seymour,” she whispered.

  Bess recalled thinking him handsome when Doll had pointed him out to her at court three years earlier, and she thought he was even more so now. He broke off the conversation with the other man and walked toward where she and Lizzie sat, moving with arrogant assurance.

  “Mistress Brooke.” He stopped before them and bowed, smiling down at Lizzie with more heat in his gaze than Bess thought seemly, and then turned his eyes on her. “And who is your pretty companion, Lizzie?”

  “Elizabeth Barlow,” Lizzie said. “An old friend, for we served Lady Zouche together. Now she is in the household of Lady Dorset.”

  “Ah, then you are well placed,” he said to Bess. His gaze drifted down her body, and though she was modestly dressed, she flushed, feeling as though he saw through her garments. He roused in her the same feelings she had experienced when she danced with Christopher Winters and when Edmund had kissed her at Lady Zouche’s house, and she dropped her eyes in confusion. He laughed, his voice deep and rich, and he wandered on.

  Bess recalled that before Catherine Parr had married the king, she had been in love with Thomas Seymour. “I wonder if she finds it difficult to have him around,” she said, speaking her thoughts aloud.

  “She may yet be his wife.” Lizzie spoke quietly, but Bess sensed a world of meaning behind her words and turned to her in surprise.

  “The king is old,” Lizzie said, glancing around to be sure she was not overheard. “But perhaps things will change sooner rather than later.”

  Whatever Lizzie was implying could not be good, Bess feared.

  “The king wearies of the queen, some say,” Lizzie murmured. “And she has not got with child.”

  “Oh, no, not that again.” Bess was aghast. Surely the aged king would not cast off yet another wife. “Is not Prince Edward enough to reassure him of the succession?”

  Lizzie shrugged. “William says that the king is no longer making daily visits to the queen. And he has been paying especial favor to the Duchess of Suffolk.” Frances Grey’s stepmother was only twenty-six, and was very beautiful, Bess thought. But surely she would be canny enough to avoid being caught in the king’s snares?

  * * *

  AS THEY WERE ROWED HOME FROM THE PALACE LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Bess’s mind was awhirl with anxiety over what Lizzie had told her. She had thought the days of plotting and fear were done at court, but perhaps that was not so.

  Jane, who had spent the entire visit in the company of the queen, was full of admiration for her and all that had been discussed that day.

  “It is her second book from which the queen was reading,” she said, breaking in on Bess’s thoughts. “After she published the first, last November, the universities at both Oxford and Cambridge begged her to become their patroness! It is a wonderful thing she does, to take up such weighty matters.”

  “Does she argue, as Dr. Crome does, that the Lord is not in the sacred bread and wine? Is that not contrary to what the Bible tells us?”

  “That is not meant to be taken in literal terms,” Jane said. “Christ’s meaning in that passage is similar to the meaning of those other places of Scripture. When He says, ‘I am the door,’ ‘I am the vine,’ ‘Behold the Lamb of God,’ ‘That rock was Christ,’ and other such references to Himself, you are not in these texts to take Christ for the material thing which He is signified by, for then you will make Him a very door, a vine, a lamb, a stone, quite contrary to the Holy Ghost’s meaning.”

  “So He is not those things?”

  “Yes, all those indeed do signify Christ, even as the bread signifies His body in that place.”

  “I don’t understand,” Bess said, “why these things should matter so. Or why anyone would die for what they believe.”

  “Do you not?” Jane asked. “I do.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ONLY A FEW WEEKS AFTER THE VISIT TO WHITEHALL, THE DUCHESS of Suffolk arrived at Dorset House, visibly distressed. Bess accompanied her to Frances Grey’s withdrawing chamber and offered her refreshment, but the duchess waved her off silently, then pulled off her gloves and dropped them onto a table and paced until Frances Grey arrived.

  “Why, Catherine, what’s amiss!” she inquired as she embraced her stepmother.

  “Have you not heard? There have been a spate of arrests for heresy. Including Edward Crome and Anne Askew.”

  “Dear God.” Frances went white. And no wonder, Bess thought, for Edward Crome was the preacher who had been in the queen’s privy chamber when they were there. And Anne Askew had visited Frances Grey at Dorset House. Bess recalled her well, a spirited and attractive young woman only a few years older than she was. Jane had told her that Mistress Askew had been cast out by her husband for disobedience, and then come to London where she had become some kind of preacher or reformer, and had been arrested for distributing evangelical books that had been banned.

  “Both were questioned about evangelicals on the privy council and in the queen’s privy chamber. Frances, they were asked about me.” The duchess’s eyes were dark with fear. “And they put Anne Askew to the rack!”

  Bess’s stomach gave a lurch of terror and revulsion.

  “The rack?” Frances gasped. “B-but she’s a gentlewoman. Surely the privy council did not authorize such barbarism?”

  “No, but it was done, nonetheless.
The Lord Chancellor and solicitor general ordered the lieutenant of the Tower to rack her. He would not, and went to the king to object. So they did it themselves.”

  “Thomas Wriothesley.” Frances spat out the name. “He would do it. And Richard Rich, too, I would believe it of him. But how came you to learn this? What happened?”

  Bess felt rooted to where she stood. She felt exactly as she had when the horror of Cat Howard’s downfall was unfolding—afraid to hear what terrors she would learn of next, but unable to stop herself from wanting to know. For only by knowing what was happening could one hope to guess what way to run, where safety lay.

  “She managed to smuggle out an account of what was done to her,” Catherine Willoughby said. “Wriothesley and Rich stripped to their shirtsleeves, and stripped her to her shift. They tore her on the rack. They tore her sinews and cracked her bones. The wife and daughters of the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower heard her screams, where they were walking on Tower Green.” The duchess was weeping now, and Frances Grey took her in her arms. “They racked her so that she fainted. And then they revived her to do it again.”

  Bess found that she was holding herself, wrapping her arms around her chest and shoulders, as if she could feel her own arms being pulled from their sockets. She could imagine only too well Anne Askew’s face, contorted with agony, her soft voice raised in a wordless shriek under her torment. Jesu, if they could treat Mistress Askew in that way, they could do it to anyone. She wondered wildly if she could flee from London and return to the safety of Hardwick.

  “Sweet Christ, would no one stop them?” Frances cried.

  “Who was to stop them? At last they laid her on the floor and crouched by her for another two hours, demanding whether the queen or any of her ladies believed as she did, and whether they had aided her.”

  Was the queen in danger then? Or Frances Grey? Or Jane? Or Lizzie, or Bess herself? They had all been at Whitehall to hear Crome. Bess found that she was trembling.