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  Bess was mortified at the thought that William Parr might hear the diatribe and think she had said anything to indicate that she regarded his sister with the same disdain that the Duchess of Somerset seemed to. She glanced across the table and was relieved that Jane Dudley gave her a conspiratorial smile and rolled her eyes. Lady Warwick was a close friend of Catherine Parr, Bess knew, but perhaps she thought it pointless to argue the merit of Catherine Parr’s position. Anne Seymour did not observe or took no notice of the reaction, and carried relentlessly on.

  “Why, pray you, should I give place to her who in her former estate was but Latimer’s widow, and is now fain to cast herself for support on a younger brother? If her husband can teach her no better manners, there are those that will!”

  Her voice had risen and the others at the table could not help but hear her. Bess thought that Edward Seymour looked embarrassed, but he said nothing to his wife, only resumed his conversation with Lizzie.

  When the company rose from the table after supper, Jane Dudley came to Bess’s side.

  “You mustn’t mind what Anne Seymour says too much,” she murmured, with a glance at the Duchess of Somerset. “We were all friends together in the old days, you know, she and Catherine Parr and I. Anne wants power above all else, and got a taste of it when King Henry turned his eyes on her sister-in-law Jane Seymour. Queen Jane’s death dealt a blow to Anne’s ambitions, but when Edward Seymour became Lord Protector, she thought herself near to a queen indeed. She finds Catherine Parr’s continued presence on this earth a mighty inconvenience.”

  Bess was a little taken aback and didn’t quite know what to say, so she just smiled, but Jane Dudley didn’t seem to find anything amiss in her response and moved on into the parlor where the sweets would be served.

  “Oh, how cunning!” Lizzie cried, examining a marzipan nest containing brightly colored birds cast in sugar. “And sugar plate goblets! Exquisite!”

  Bess was gratified at Lizzie’s reaction. The banquet of sweetmeats had been the part of the supper over which she had fretted most, and it had cost almost as much as the rest of the meal. The light of the candles shone through the translucent sugar plate goblets and little dishes, their glasslike surfaces painted with flowers and elaborate grotesques.

  After the eating was done, the guests settled down to play primero. The drink flowed, and as laughter rose from where William sat with Edward Seymour, Harry Grey, John Dudley, and William Parr, Bess judged that Anne Seymour’s spite had not ruined the evening after all.

  Lizzie came to her side, a goblet in one hand and a sugared almond held delicately in the fingers of the other.

  “Well, Lady Cavendish,” she said, nodding toward the table of men. “Have we not both risen since when we first made each other’s acquaintance?”

  Bess thought back to the day she had met Lizzie upon her arrival at Codnor Castle. How intimidated she had been to be among Lady Zouche’s servants, and how awkward she had felt, blurting out how hungry she was during the interminable wait for food during that supper. And now she had been presented at court, and here in her home were the most powerful men in England.

  “Yes,” she said to Lizzie. “We have both come a long way from Derbyshire.”

  * * *

  THE GUESTS HAD ALL GONE, AND BESS CARRIED A CANDLE UP THE darkened staircase to her bedchamber, where William was already undressing.

  “Oh, my poor belly,” he groaned as he threw off his doublet, and he put a hand to his stomach.

  “In pain again?” she asked, going to him and putting a hand to his cheek. “I’ll make you a posset.”

  “Ah, you’re the best lass a man could want.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “A most successful evening, my dear. I congratulate you. The Duchess of Somerset asked that we join them for supper soon.”

  Bess laughed. “Then I guess she didn’t read my thoughts! I was wishing her at the bottom of the sea when she spoke so about Catherine Parr. And with William Parr just across the table.”

  “Oh, he knows well enough that she can be a harridan. If he heard what she said, he’ll probably just repeat it to his sister, and it’ll give her the chance to think up some sharp responses for the next time she sees the duchess.” He patted her hand. “No, don’t worry, it was a good evening’s work. Seymour told me, by the way, that the land at Chatsworth will be on the market soon and can be had for a very good price.”

  “It would be good to own land in Derbyshire. I’d like to have a place closer to my mother.”

  “Well, we’ll look into it, then.”

  A little later Bess brought the posset to William, who had already climbed into bed. The steam rising from the cup smelled of ginger and licorice and he inhaled the scent before taking a sip, and then held the warm slipware to his belly.

  “Ah, much better.”

  After Cecily had helped Bess undress, Bess sat in her loose gown at her desk and made an entry in her ledger of the five shillings she had given to the cook for his success in the kitchen.

  “How did you do at cards?” she asked.

  “Lost,” William grunted. “Two pounds, five shillings, and tuppence.”

  Bess raised her eyebrows and silently entered the amount below the gift to the cook.

  William chuckled. “Don’t worry, dear wife. It’s money well spent when it helps cement friendships with such as those we supped with this evening.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  LITTLE MORE THAN A FORTNIGHT AFTER THE SUPPER PARTY, WILLIAM came home with the news that Edward Seymour had received word that Catherine Parr had given birth to a little girl named Mary.

  “It was a difficult labor, so Thomas Seymour wrote, but both mother and child were doing well.”

  “God be thanked for that,” Bess said.

  But within days another messenger arrived in London with worse tidings. Catherine Parr had been taken ill within hours of giving birth, fallen into delirium, and died on the fifth of September. Bess received a letter from Jane Grey, who had been at the queen’s bedside throughout her decline.

  Poor lady, Jane wrote, her brain was fevered, and she seemed to be once more discovering her lord and the Lady Elizabeth in each other’s arms. She was distraught, crying out, “Those that are about me care not for me, but stand laughing at my grief.” I did all I could to soothe her, but she was far gone and knew not where she was or who I was, I think. I had the sad duty of serving as chief mourner at the funeral, walking behind the coffin from the house to the chapel. I will go home to Bradgate for the present, but I long to see you and hope that it may be so before long.

  “So much sadness!” Bess murmured to William that night in bed. “The death of the queen herself, of course, but now Jane Grey has lost the kindest mother she had, and the poor little baby—what will become of her?”

  “And Lord Sudeley bereft of a wife,” William reminded her, stroking her hair.

  “Bereft! More like relieved, I would think, having played her such a dog trick as he did.”

  “No man could be relieved at the death of a wife. And surely his conscience torments him.”

  William gathered Bess to him and, lying close against his chest, the comforting and familiar scent of him in her nostrils, she felt safe and happy. He would never betray her with another woman, she was sure.

  “I am blessed to have such a husband as you,” she whispered, reaching up to stroke his cheek.

  “And I to have you, my darling Bess.”

  * * *

  JANE GREY WAS BACK IN LONDON AGAIN LATER IN THE AUTUMN, and ran into Bess’s arms when they met.

  “What a great girl you are becoming!” Bess exclaimed, hugging Jane tight. “Eleven years old now; I can scarce believe it.”

  Though small and slight, Jane looked even more like an adult in miniature than most children, Bess thought. Her fair curls were hidden beneath a gabled hood, and there was an air of bearing up under weighty sadness that seemed more suited to someone of far greater age.

 
; “The months I spent with Catherine Parr were the happiest in my life,” she told Bess as they stood at a window watching the bustle of traffic on the street below. “I think that now I shall never be happy again.”

  “My dear little sister,” Bess said, pulling Jane close to her side. “You are ever in my prayers, and I am sure a happier time will come.”

  “I’m happiest when I’m with you,” Jane said, smiling up at her.

  “I have good news to tell,” Bess said, deciding on the instant to confide in Jane. “Do not repeat it for I have not told anyone else yet, even William, but I believe I am with child again.”

  “Oh, Bess, how wonderful!”

  “Will you be godmother to my baby? You can come to Northaw while I am lying in, and stay for a good visit after.”

  Jane’s face seemed to glow with joy. “I will be able to get through anything that may come over the next months, knowing that a visit with you lies at the end of it.”

  * * *

  SOON AFTER THE NEW YEAR, LIZZIE’S SECRET MARRIAGE TO WILLIAM Parr became known.

  “Edward Seymour is aflame with anger,” William told Bess. “He’s banished Parr from court. And the council has ordered Parr to separate from Lizzie, or face a charge of bigamy.”

  “Oh, poor Lizzie! Where is she? What has become of her?”

  “Gone to her father’s house, I think.”

  Bess could imagine Lizzie’s distress only too well. Lizzie had loved William Parr since she had met him, and had stayed with him to her own detriment, for what man would marry her now, when she had been Parr’s mistress for almost six years? Bess recalled how she had envied Lizzie when they were in Lady Zouche’s household together, thinking that Lizzie seemed to get whatever she wanted with ease. How different things were now! She was happy and secure, lacking nothing, and Lizzie’s hopes and dreams were in the dust.

  “I must go to see her,” she said. “Oh, God, what can be done to help her?”

  But only days later, greater upheavals shook Bess’s world and threw her into a state of anxiety.

  “Thomas Seymour has been arrested!” William’s voice was hoarse with emotion as he burst into Bess’s chamber, where she sat with her household account books. “On the orders of the Lord Protector, and sent to the Tower!”

  “His own brother gave orders to arrest him?” Bess gasped, dropping her quill so that a splash of ink blotted her page. “Upon what charge?”

  “Treason.” William slumped into a chair, his face haggard. “He tried to kidnap the king last night at Hampton Court—some harebrained scheme gone wrong. He claimed he merely wanted to take his nephew out hunting, but he was armed and had an accomplice with him, and shot the poor king’s wretched little dog because it set up a barking when he entered the chamber.”

  “At Christmas you said there were rumors that he planned to seize the king and the Lady Elizabeth.”

  “Yes, and since then he has been mighty loud in his criticism of the Lord Protector and fool enough to boast that the navy would back him if he chose to take on his brother and try to overthrow him. The privy council learned that he was trying to raise money to finance an attempt to do just that. Edward Seymour tried to save his brother, giving him a chance to vindicate himself before the council, but Thomas did not appear.”

  Bess felt a thrill of fear. So much danger and intrigue. These doings brought back all that had happened under King Henry, the undercurrent of terror and uncertainty.

  “Is the king safe?” she asked.

  “Yes, he is well, but under the circumstances he cannot help but see that his uncle meant him no good. Thomas Seymour has hazarded one throw of the dice too many, and now he has given the privy council all that they need to bring him down.”

  Bess’s heart was pounding. William’s words brought back her terror and anxiety in the days when the fate of Anne of Cleves hung in the balance; when Cat Howard had plummeted, helpless, toward disgrace and death; and when Catherine Parr had been in danger of being consigned to the flames for heresy. She strove to remind herself that she and William were safe.

  “What did he aim to do?” she asked.

  “He probably meant to marry the king to Jane Grey, which he has been trying to do for a long time. Worse, he intended to make himself the husband of the Lady Elizabeth.”

  “Oh, no.” Bess was shivering. “Surely she did not have a part in the plot?”

  “Likely not,” William agreed. “But she has been taken to the Tower, too, and she will have to convince the council that she is innocent. There are rumors that she is Thomas Seymour’s mistress and bears his child.”

  Bess felt ill at the thought of the princess locked away within those dank walls, and could only imagine how frightened young Elizabeth must be. Keep her safe, Lord, she prayed, and give her strength.

  * * *

  BESS HAD FELT RESTLESS ALL DAY AND HAD LEFT THE HOUSE IN Newgate Street to take a walk, with no particular destination in mind. She had skirted St. Paul’s, finding its towering walls cold and imposing, and made her way past the King’s Wardrobe and the church of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe, down St. Andrew’s Hill past Blackfriars toward the water, and now she stood at Puddle Wharf, gazing out over the river.

  A chill breeze ruffled the water’s surface and she drew her heavy cloak tight about her, shivering. The sun was setting bloodred, its dying rays giving the Thames the appearance of a river of fire.

  Thomas Seymour was dead. He had been beheaded that morning, his life the price of his reckless ambition.

  Bess thought back to when she had seen him at court all those years ago, in the company of Catherine Parr, then the not-quite-widowed Lady Latimer, and on that day in the garden at Whitehall, when he had looked upon her so intently that she blushed. She had thought him a handsome man, and so he had been, with luxuriant dark hair and eyes the color of hazelnuts, his voice deep and honey-mellow. And what had it got him? The love of Catherine Parr, the infatuation of poor Lady Elizabeth, the attention of countless other women. Perhaps if women ruled the land, Bess thought, Thomas might have kept his head. But his strutting like a cock in the henhouse had done him no good with the privy council, nor with his brother the Lord Protector, nor even with his nephew the young king.

  Elizabeth had summed him up accurately. William had told Bess that upon learning of Thomas Seymour’s death, she had said, “This day died a man of much wit and very little judgment.” Bess wondered whether grief and passion stirred beneath the princess’s impassive young face. If so, she hid them well. She had learned early that it did not do to give away too much of oneself.

  Across the river the bullbaiting house stood O-like near the shore. The carcasses of several bulls and dogs and a few bears were heaped beside it, and four men were dragging the bloody mass of one animal toward the bank where a barge waited. Bess’s gorge rose as she thought of Thomas Seymour’s body, cold now, congealed with blood. Had his head been sewn back on for his burial? William had said that Edward Seymour had at least seen to it that his brother’s head would not be put on a pike to adorn the bridge or one of the city gates.

  The baby in Bess’s belly kicked, and she felt a pang of guilt. She shouldn’t be thinking such gruesome thoughts; they might harm the child. Perhaps a son this time. She hoped it might be; she would like to give William an heir. But he would be happy with another daughter, as long as it was healthy. Her happiness and life didn’t depend on the production of a male child, as poor Anne Boleyn’s had done, and the first Queen Catherine’s before her.

  It was time to go back to Northaw, she decided. Back to the quiet of the country, the welcoming company of Jenny and Aunt Marcella, her stepdaughters, and of course the smiling face of baby Frankie. At the thought of her little daughter, Bess suddenly had a desperate longing to be away from London and all its ugliness. She wanted to rise with the sun, to hear the birds in the trees, to caress Frankie’s soft fat cheek and have nothing more to do than to see to the workings of the house and farm. Soon there would be l
ambs and calves and colts at Northaw, energetic life, not shadows of death such as those that clung to the darkening stone walls of London.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  May Day, 1549—Northaw, Hertfordshire

  THE DAY WAS SO LOVELY THAT BESS WAS LOATH TO GO INSIDE. Soon, all too soon, she would be taking her chamber to await the birth of her child, shut away in darkness. Until then, she wanted to make the most of the gladsome, sunny world.

  Servants had carried chairs, hassocks, and carpets out to the lawn before the house, and Bess and her flock of ladies basked in the sunshine as they worked. They were embroidering a pattern of leaves on bed linen that was to be a gift for Jane Dudley, Countess of Warwick, who, along with Jane Grey, would be godmother to the coming baby if it were a girl.

  Bess and William had chosen their prospective godparents carefully, with an eye to their child’s advancement. Jane Dudley’s husband had continued his rise in power since Bess’s supper party the previous summer, and some said he held such power over the young king that it was he, not Edward, who ruled. Francis, the Earl of Shrewsbury, a member of the privy council who was a Derbyshire neighbor and patron of Bess’s dead father, was to serve as one godfather. If the child was a boy, John Dudley would be the other.

  “This is lovely!” Bess’s stepdaughter Kitty exclaimed, admiring the yards of creamy cloth swirling over the carpet. She shot Bess a smile, her blue eyes twinkling.

  “It is, and I’m sure her ladyship will be well pleased,” Aunt Marcella agreed.

  Her widowed aunt had been an inspired addition to the household, Bess thought, looking at Aunt Marcella’s broadly smiling face. Bess felt completely at ease leaving Frankie in her care, and she provided a welcome touch of Hardwick for both Bess and Jenny. And Aunt Marcella had taken a warm interest in William’s daughters, who in turn adored her. She had adult daughters of her own, and Bess relied on her advice and experience in her efforts to be a mother to the girls. It wasn’t always easy. Kitty treated her with the courtesy due to a stepmother, but at nearly fifteen, was only seven years younger than Bess, and Bess knew she could never fill the place of the mother the girl had lost. Nan was only nine, and had spent half of her life without a mother. And Bess consulted with Aunt Marcella about William’s poor daughter Polly, and whether it would be best to leave her where she was or bring her to join their household.