“I never said I loved you,” Elizabeth whispered softly.
“Nay, you did not, did you?” he responded as softly.
“If you were only just a Scot instead of a king’s brother,” Elizabeth said sadly.
“But I am a king’s brother,” Flynn Stewart replied. “And now because it is best I will bid you adieu, lambkin. We will not see each other again.” He took her shoulders in his two hands and, leaning forward, placed a kiss upon her forehead. Then, turning, he disappeared into the darkness that was enveloping the palace lawns.
Elizabeth began to cry. It was not fair! It was her birthday, and she should have what she wanted, but she could not. “I want to go home,” she whispered to the night. “I want to go back to Friarsgate!” And then she felt a comforting arm slip about her shoulders, and looked into the face of Lord Cambridge. “Ohh, Uncle!” she sobbed.
“He is wiser than you, Elizabeth, but that does not mean his heart is not breaking too,” Thomas Bolton told her.
“It is not fair!” she cried.
“Life, dear girl, seldom is,” Lord Cambridge said gently. “Your position as the mistress of a large estate has certainly taught you that. You are not one of these no-thought-for-the-morrow courtiers, and neither is he. Come, let us go home now.”
“To Friarsgate?” she asked, and he nodded in agreement.
“To Friarsgate,” he told her, and together they walked from the palace while the moonlight shimmered on the river behind them, and the lanterns began to burn low on the May-green lawns.
Chapter 8
Elizabeth slept late the next day. She never wanted to see the court again, but Philippa’s wisdom prevailed over her emotions. “You must remain until the end of the month. You cannot depart until the king is ready to depart,” she told her younger sister.
“I cannot bear to see him again,” Elizabeth said, and tears filled her eyes.
“What is the matter with you?” Philippa scolded. “Your acquaintance was a brief one. He is not suitable at all, and he knew his place. God’s wounds, sister! The man is a Scot, and worse, a Stewart’s by-blow. You are behaving like a little girl with her first love. I hope you were not silly enough to be seduced.”
“Flynn is a gentleman,” Elizabeth snapped back, “and there is nothing wrong with being a Scot, Philippa. And yes, if the first man to engage my hopes can be considered a first love, then he is. And no, I am not like these little maids who come to court all aflutter, only to lose their virtue to some overweening courtier. If passion drove me as it has our mother I should have lost my innocence long since to some handsome shepherd.”
“Do not say such a thing!” Philippa cried.
Elizabeth laughed. “Oh, sister, my reputation is pure and will not harm yours, but if I remain away from the court today it will cause no gossip. My moment in the sun departed with moonset. Someone else, something else, will engage the court today.”
“You cannot leave Greenwich without bidding the king farewell. I am certain he will have a message for Mother,” Philippa said.
“Another amusing tirade about her husband, I have no doubt,” Elizabeth murmured. “Do you think Mother was ever his lover?”
“There was a rumor to that effect years ago, but Mother always denied it. One of the queen’s Spanish women swore she saw them together, and told the queen out of spite because she was jealous of mother’s friendship with Queen Katherine. Mother said it was Charles Brandon, and it had been nothing more than a flirtation. It was before he was married to Princess Mary. The Spanish lady was sent back to Spain with her husband, for the queen believed Mother in the end.”
“Did you?” Elizabeth asked wickedly.
“Of course,” Philippa said. And then she added, “It was better that I did. How would it have appeared if I had doubted my own mother?”
“You think she did!” Elizabeth said.
“I honestly don’t know,” Philippa replied. “What I do know is that there are certain ladies of whom the king is most fond now, but not in a lecherous way. Yet they have been known or rumored to have shared his bed at one time. Bessie Blount, the mother of his eldest son. The Countess of Langford, who was briefly his mistress. They called her the Quiet Mistress because she asked nothing of the king for either herself or her family. Even Queen Katherine liked her. But the rumor about Mother was no more than a whisper on the wind, and quickly forgotten, particularly as she hasn’t been to court in years. Yet he is openly sentimental of these ladies when they are mentioned, and kind to their families. You are the daughter of Rosamund Bolton, a childhood friend. He and the queen have been very good to Banon, to me, and to my family. I believe he would even find you a husband should you ask it of him, Elizabeth. So you cannot leave the court without bidding the king a gracious farewell. And there is your friend Mistress Boleyn to consider as well.”
A small smile touched Elizabeth’s lips. “You will not be friends with her yourself,” she noted. “But if your sister is, then our connection cannot harm your sons if she becomes queen one day. But is not one of my nephews in the service of her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk?”
“Aye, thanks to the king. When Wolsey fell shortly after Owein joined his household he would have lost his place but that the king told Norfolk to take him, for, he said, a duke could always use another page. Owein might have had to come home but for the king. The Howards are a very powerful family, Elizabeth. Your nephews serve the two most powerful men in the kingdom.”
“I will not leave without making my proper farewells,” Elizabeth promised her sister, “but today I wish to be alone with my thoughts.”
“Very well,” Philippa said, rising from her sister’s bedside, where she had been seated. She shook her skirts out. “But do not dream of what cannot be, sister. Consider what you will do now, for you must have a husband. It is rare that Mother and I agree on anything, but it this matter we stand united, and Banon too.”
“Go away!” Elizabeth said, and, snuggling back down in her bed, she pulled the coverlet up over her head. She heard her older sister’s footsteps crossing the bechamber, and then the door opened and closed. Elizabeth peeked from beneath the covers. Philippa had gone. She heard the murmur of voices in her dayroom—Philippa undoubtedly giving Nancy instructions of some sort. She lay back and considered the day ahead.
It was a beautiful late-May morn. Much too good a day to remain in bed, Elizabeth thought, sitting up and swinging her legs over the edge of her bed. But it was also much too nice a day to go to court. She wanted to go riding. “Nancy,” she called.
