Wary, I approached her, braced for a slap. She’d boxed more than one of her ladies’ ears in the past. I bobbed a curtsy. “Your Grace?”
“Do you know what that jumped-up country housewife has done?”
“No, madam.” Nor did I know who this “housewife” was.
Lady Somerset’s nostrils flared. “The queen dowager has secretly married Tom Seymour.”
I felt my jaw drop. I took a quick step back, but there was no blow aimed at my head. She was too busy cursing Will’s sister. Once the duchess had been Queen Kathryn’s devoted friend. Now she looked upon her as a bitter rival.
Her displays of temper went on for days. She had convinced herself that her brother-in-law had married the king’s widow in a bid for power. She suspected Tom Seymour of conspiring to put himself in his brother’s place as lord protector. And she accused Will of being hand in glove with the newlyweds. This made me guilty by association.
Any possibility that Anne Somerset would eventually persuade her husband to support Will’s right to remarry vanished overnight. I thought of leaving her service, but Will insisted I stay. Since we did not wish to provoke Lady Somerset further, I gritted my teeth and persevered.
The sad truth was that I had nowhere else to go. After our last quarrel, Father had forbidden me to return to Cowling Castle unless I was prepared to forsake Will and marry a man of my family’s choosing.
Matters came to a head when Kathryn Parr, the new Lady Seymour, came to court to visit her stepson the king. The queen dowager and the lord protector’s wife met in the king’s watching chamber. At court, matters of precedence were never trivial. My place was clear. Since no one knew of my clandestine vows to Will, which should have made me Marchioness of Northampton, I was naught but a lady-in-waiting to a duchess. But that duchess was also the wife of the lord protector. No one had held that position before.
Lady Somerset approached her sister-in-law with fire in her eyes. “I will enter first,” she announced.
Queen Kathryn glared at her former lady-in-waiting. “My superior rank must be observed. You may have the honor of carrying my train.”
“It is unsuitable for me to perform such a menial service for the wife of my husband’s younger brother.”
The queen dowager refused to give place. Ordering Lady Tyrwhitt to carry her train instead, she advanced toward the king’s presence chamber.
The Duchess of Somerset elbowed her aside.
For two such tiny women, each possessed formidable strength. The moment Anne Somerset tried to dart ahead of her, Queen Kathryn gave her a shove and swept through the door in triumph. Furious at the insult, Lady Somerset followed at a run. I trailed after them, heartily wishing I was anywhere else.
The young king greeted his stepmother warmly. He seemed unaware of the tension between the two noblewomen. He was a slender lad with angelic looks—golden hair, pink cheeks, and his mother’s pointed chin. Indeed, there seemed to be little of his father in him. Edward had, however, approved Kathryn’s marriage to Tom Seymour before it became public knowledge. The lord protector and his wife were thus prevented from taking overt action against the newlyweds.
If only, I thought, Will and I could appeal directly to the young king. But that was no longer possible. Tom Seymour’s coup had cost all of us private access to His Grace.
Anne Somerset was still fuming when she returned to her own lodgings, formerly the queen’s apartments. She vented her feelings by throwing a hairbrush, a wooden box that held trinkets, and her prayer book, ranting all the while.
“Who is she but a nobody?” the duchess demanded. “If her new husband cannot teach her better manners, then I will do so.”
Keeping an eye peeled for flying objects, I began to gather up the trinkets. I had just retrieved the hairbrush when the lord protector entered his wife’s bedchamber.
“Was it wise to create a scene, my dear?” he asked in a quiet voice.
I froze, trapped on hands and knees on the rush matting, hidden from view by the duchess’s bed. Why did this sort of thing keep happening to me?
Lady Somerset flung herself into her husband’s arms and burst into tears. “She is a wicked, wicked woman to marry again so soon after her husband’s death.”
“Impulsive, certainly.”
I peeked around the edge of the heavy velvet bed hangings. The duke’s hand inscribed soothing circles on his wife’s back. He was so tall that her head barely reached the bottom of his long, flowing beard.
“She must not be allowed to profit from her wanton behavior.” Lady Somerset’s smile was sultry as she gazed up at her husband’s angular features.
His well-formed lips curved upward, making the beard twitch. “What did you have in mind, sweeting?”
“Her jewels. I want her jewels. The ones she has been asking be delivered to her.”
He frowned. “The jewels were left to her in the king’s will.” He spoke in a slow, deliberate manner, his words carefully measured. “It was only by chance that they happened to be stored in the King’s Jewel House in the Tower at the time of his death.”
“If you say they are the property of the Crown, you can refuse to give them to her.” She purred the suggestion, putting me in mind of a sleek, pampered kitten—with very sharp claws.
“And I suppose that next you will say that I also have the authority to let you borrow them?” His wry tone suggested that he knew his wife very well.
“Why not?” She pouted and began to toy with the laces at his throat. I winced, remembering the countless times I’d done the same thing to Will’s clothing. I knew what came next.
“They are royal baubles, my sweet.” He kissed the tip of her nose.
“She should not have the keeping of anything royal. Bad enough that the king’s sister was sent to live with her. You must forbid her to visit His Grace again.”
“I will deny her the jewelry,” he temporized.
“You are executor of the late king’s estate,” Lady Somerset murmured. “That gives you the authority to make decisions about her dower lands.”
An avaricious gleam came into the lord protector’s eyes. “I do have the right to lease parks and other properties. Still, it is customary to obtain the widow’s consent before doing so.”
“Customary but hardly necessary.” The duchess went up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the lips.
While they were both distracted, I scurried around the bed and slipped quietly out of the chamber.
As summer advanced, relations deteriorated further between dowager and duchess. It galled Lady Somerset that her rival continued to have custody of Princess Elizabeth. When she heard that the king’s sister had been allowed to go out at night in a barge upon the Thames, unaccompanied by any older ladies of consequence, she used this as an excuse to meddle. She ordered Elizabeth’s governess, Mistress Astley, to present herself at Syon, the mansion near Richmond Palace where the Somersets lived when they were not at court.
The duchess ordered me to attend her. Her sense of her own consequence was such that she was never without at least one waiting gentlewoman.
Mistress Astley crept into the room, timid as a mouse. I had expected someone with a commanding presence, accustomed to giving orders in a royal household and being obeyed. Instead, she was short, plump, and so nondescript as to be almost invisible. Her plain, round face was twisted into a mask of anxiety.
“You failed in your duty!” Lady Somerset’s words snapped out like a whip, causing the governess to shrink into herself. “To give the princess too much freedom is to put not only her reputation but her very life at risk.”
The duchess continued in this vein for some time, heaping abuse on the poor woman’s head. When she paused for breath, Mistress Astley tried to defend herself.
“It was little more than a moonlight boat ride, my lady. Her Grace was not alone. Two of her maids of honor accompanied her.”