Anne’s dark eyes narrowed. “Never presume to tell us what to do, Jane,” the queen snapped at her sister-in-law. “You are here only because you are our brother’s wife.” Her gaze swept the other women. “You are all here because of your kinship to us, and you can all be replaced by other women more respectful and gracious. The lady of Friarsgate is here because we asked her to come. She is our true friend.”
“I am sorry, your highness,” Jane Rochford muttered, her cheeks red with the queen’s rebuke.The bitch! One day I will repay you for that,she thought.
Elizabeth curtseyed deeply. “Will you permit me to withdraw to Bolton House for the night, your highness?” she asked the queen.
“You may go,” Anne agreed, understanding that Elizabeth wished to defuse the situation Jane Rochford had created. Most of the women here with them would put her outburst down to nerves. She was pregnant. She had had several very long days. It would be forgotten in a day or two by most of them.
Elizabeth withdrew, leaving Hugh to console his mistress with his lute and sweet voice. She found Nancy with the little Howard girl. “Where is the old duchess’s tiring woman? Take Mistress Howard to her, and meet me at the barge quay,” she said before hurrying off again. She could scarcely wait to get out of the palace.
“Where are you hurrying to, Elizabeth Meredith?” she heard someone ask.
Turning, she came face-to-face with Flynn Stewart as she had in the gardens of Greenwich several days ago. “I am going to my barge,” she said.
“Not remaining with the queen? You are quite the meat of the gossips these days, Elizabeth Meredith. None can understand the queen’s reliance upon you,” he told her.
“I am Elizabeth Hay, Master Stewart,” she said quietly. “Friendship, I know, is a difficult concept for courtiers to comprehend. Believe me, I should as soon be home as here right now, but the queen commanded me to come. And why are you here? I would have thought you would be riding hard for Scotland to tell your king of this day’s events.”
“King James is more than well aware of this day’s doings,” Flynn Stewart said, matching his step to hers. “His half sister, Lady Margaret Douglas, is one of Queen Anne’s ladies. You once called me Flynn. Where are you going?”
“To Bolton House. That weasel-faced Jane Rochford caused a scene over me in the queen’s privy chamber. To ease the situation I asked to be excused. I do not know how George Boleyn can stand her. She is mean and sly.”
“He can’t stand her, but the marriage was arranged to the advantage of both families,” Flynn explained. “You know how it is among the nobility.”
“She will come to a bad end; I sense it,” Elizabeth said. “God’s blood! I want to go home. I hate it here!”
“Then why don’t you go home?” he asked her. “The coronation is over.”
“The queen begged me to remain until her child is born. I could not refuse her,” Elizabeth told him. “Now there is a piece of prime gossip for your master, Flynn.”
He laughed. “The queen is like all mares about to foal for the first time. She needs a steadying and gentle hand. None of those peahens around her can offer her that.” He chuckled. “She needed her friend, a good country woman.”
“Aye, worse luck,” Elizabeth exclaimed dourly.
He laughed. “Cheer up, sweetheart,” he told her. “’Tis only a few more months until England’s hope is born. Then you can flee north, and be home in time for the grouse. Ah, here we are. Which is your barge?”
“I have to wait for my tiring woman,” Elizabeth said. “She was taking little Mistress Howard to the old duchess’s servants. The great lady forgot to make arrangements to send the girl home. I was delegated to take her to see the queen crowned, but if I am not by the queen’s side then I intend sleeping in my own bed tonight.”
“A lonely bed.” He leered at her.
Now it was Elizabeth who laughed. “Am I fair game then, Flynn Stewart, because I am no longer a virgin?” she teased him. “My husband is a jealous man, and he is every bit as big as the king. Even more so, if rumor is to be believed.”
“You certainly know that I regretted letting you go,” he said to her.
“Pah! Three years ago I should have believed such romantic twaddle, but I have since learned that you Scotsmen are passionately bound to your service first, and not to your women. I seduced my husband shortly after I returned to Friarsgate, and even that was not enough to keep him by my side. He had a duty first to his own sire,” she said.
“You seduced the man?” His look was incredulous. “God’s wounds, that it would have been me.” But he was beginning to laugh as he spoke.
She grinned back at him. “I wanted him,” she replied simply.
“Do you love him?” Flynn asked, suddenly serious.
“Aye, I do,” Elizabeth admitted. “I was starting to love you, and you knew it, but you would not have been the right man for Friarsgate, Flynn. And to be the man for me, you had to be the man for Friarsgate.”
He nodded, completely understanding her. “But we are friends, Elizabeth?”
“We are friends, Flynn Stewart,” she told him. “And I still think your king should give you a nice rich wife to settle down with, but I think you are a happier man without a wife, eh? You enjoy the excitement of this court, and all its intrigues.”
“I do,” he admitted.
