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.












43

Chelsea Manor, April 1547

Sir 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.”

“But Audrey, for all you know, John Scutt destroyed your father’s will. It has not yet been probated.”

“We have to convince him to produce it. Failing that, those who have read it must be forced to come forward.”

“Bridget?”

The reminder earned him a scowl but did not dent my certainty. “I will find a way. I cannot believe Master Scutt would destroy the will. There were too many witnesses to its making. And besides, it contained generous provision for Bridget and her son. If the estate has to be divided among Father’s heirs, as it will if Father is declared to have died intestate, then Bridget could well end up with less.”

“I will ask the Lord Admiral to lend his support. And you must talk to the queen dowager. She still uses Master Scutt’s services, does she not?”

“She’s had little need for them, being in mourning, but that will not last forever. In the meantime, the Lord Protector’s wife is his patron. She is the Lord Admiral’s sister-in-law. Perhaps—”

Jack cut me off with a short bark of laughter. “I would not look for help from that quarter. The Lord Protector and his wife have refused to return Queen Kathryn’s jewelry, even those baubles she owned before she married the king. For that reason alone, there is no love lost between the brothers.”

“Still, you will try, will you not?”

“I will do my best,” he promised, “but we must proceed with caution. The last thing you want is to remind Sir Richard of the existence of that will.”

I resolved to bide my time, but others saw no point in waiting for what they desired. The plans Jack and I had made were thrown into confusion by love. Not my love for Jack, but the Lord Admiral’s for Queen Kathryn and hers for him. Too impatient to let a respectable period of mourning pass, they wed in a private ceremony shortly before April turned into May.

The secret was ill-kept, at least at Chelsea. The servants and the ladies who attended the queen dowager knew that the Lord Admiral spent his nights in Queen Kathryn’s bed. Rather than be thought a whore, she told a select few of her household the truth and they spread the word. By mid-May everyone knew.

“You should follow our example,” Queen Kathryn advised me. “You are free to wed whatever man you choose, just as I was as a widow. Why not do so? Let the legal matters sort themselves out later.”

I saw the sense in what she said even as I recognized the irony of her words. There was a storm coming over her hasty marriage. At court, her new husband was just waiting his chance to speak with King Edward in private so that he might ask the young king’s blessing for their union. Without it, should the news break too soon, the Lord Admiral might even find himself in the Tower for having had the audacity to wed a royal widow without prior permission. Queen Kathryn, whether she was willing to admit it or not, was bound by the same law that controlled the marriages of the king’s half sisters. It was treason to marry one of His Grace’s kinswomen without first securing royal approval of the match.

“What would happen if we married now?” I asked Jack when he returned to Chelsea with a message from the Lord Admiral to his wife—a report that, as yet, he’d had no success in meeting with the king.

“I have been thinking about that. It is possible that the very fact of our marriage might push Master Scutt into producing the will. He knows I have powerful friends. I just wish we knew whether or not Sir Richard has had anything to do with Scutt since you slipped out of their clutches.”

“Mother Anne might know.” I felt a pang of guilt. I’d left a note telling her I was going somewhere safe, but I had not been in touch with her since taking refuge at Chelsea. For all she knew, I could be dead.

Jack went in secret to the house in Watling Street. He returned with Mother Anne’s blessing on our union and the news that Bridget had complained long and loud about Sir Richard’s failure to do as he had promised and send new business Master Scutt’s way.

“Southwell openly snubbed Scutt at court,” Jack reported, “acting as if he was too good to be seen associating with a mere artisan. He made a mistake there.”

“Bridget will never forgive him,” I agreed. “She’ll help me now, if only to spite him.”

As soon as the banns could be read in Chelsea church, Jack and I were wed. It was a quiet ceremony, with only the queen dowager and the Lord Admiral as witnesses. The next day, we paid a visit to my sister and her husband to announce the happy event.

Bridget looked down her nose at us. To her mind, I’d married a nobody. Jack had no profession and no fortune of his own.