“Duty calls,” I tell Thomas. “Thank you for the stroll.” I give him a little curtsy and he bows. I start to walk toward Lady Rochford when I opt to turn back around. “You know, you could head down to Base Court and help with hanging the new dormitory curtains or something.”
“Oh, yes. I’m on my way.” He walks off, and I call after him as he goes.
“You’re going in the wrong direction!”
“Am I?” he asks over his shoulder without stopping. I press my lips together and exhale through my nose as Lady Rochford settles beside me.
“We have a little problem,” she says. “And by we, I mean you.”
I wheel around to face her, still cocky my staff improvements. “There are no problems, only solutions.”
“Your grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, is here. And she brought Francis Dereham with her.”
I drop my head back. God fucking dammit.
“I’m assuming she caught Dereham trying to retrieve your letters.”
“You’re probably right,” I groan. Then, “Wait, how do you even know about the letters? And how do you know about Francis?”
Lady Rochford gives me a deadpan look. “I know everything, Catherine.”
She’s calling me Catherine, so in truth, she doesn’t knoweverythingeverything. Though with her, you can never be too sure.
“I feel like we should embroider together sometime.”
Her eyes narrow into slits. “I would sooner rot.”
Lady Rochford leads me down a flight of stairs and through a hall I’ve never seen before. At the very end, we arrive at a sitting room. Walking inside, I’m met with a sheepish-looking Francis, and a woman who I can only assume is the Dowager Duchess.
Francis is sitting in a chair with Catherine’s grandmother—my grandmother—standing to the right of him, leaning down on the support of a cane. My first impression is that she’s stately, elegant, and noticeably dressed in all black. She’s smiling at me, but there’s also something subtly menacing about her. I wouldn’t be surprised if her cane doubled as a shank.
“Well, my girl. You have certainly come a long way since Lambeth, haven’t you?” Her voice is rich with age, and in a way, it reminds me of my own grandmother’s voice. It hurts to hear, but I want to hear more.
“That’s one way of looking at it,” I reply.
She crosses the room, stomping her cane with each step until she sits in a chair by the fire. Her skin is wrinkled, but her eyes are young and teasing. “My granddaughter, the queen of England. How does the crown feel?”
I think a moment before answering. “Heavy.”
She chuckles at my response, settling her skirts around the chair. “Yes, well, my stepson, the Duke of Norfolk, is certainly tickled to be related to royalty once again. But I’m sure you already know that. Tell me, has he been in here whispering threatening riddles into your ear this afternoon? If not, don’t fret. The day is still young.”
Looking behind me, Lady Rochford is standing by the door. I move deeper inside the room, taken off guard by the Dowager’s frankness. “I’m surprised to hear you talk about him like that,” I tell her.
She taps her embellished cane on the floor, resting both her hands across the handle. “I am well aware of the sort of man my stepson is. He’s tortured enough squirrels on our estate through the years to know that it was only a matter of time until he moved on to ensnare bigger beasts. And now you are the one who’s caught up in his web of ambition, it seems.”
Her candor is as refreshing as it is concerning.
“Accustomed to mischief as I am, I was still surprised to find this surly field mouse sniffing around my library under the cover of the night.” She nudges her cane toward Francis, and he flinches a little. “If you’re trying to destroy evidence, you should at the very least try to send someone with a little more finesse.”
The Dowager reaches into her pocket then, pulling out a tied-up stack of letters. I look over at Francis, and he grips the arms of his chair as his mouth parts. Those aretheletters.
When I glance back over at the Dowager, she’s watching me with an expectant gaze. “Well then? What do you have to say?”
My heart is beating too fast in my chest. My fingers twitch with the urge to snatch those letters right out of her hands. But I need to stay calm. I need to play smart. Those letters very well might be my execution warrant, and Catherine’s story inside one of them could be my ticket home. But I can’t let the Dowager know just how badly I need them.
I take a steadying breath and walk the few feet to sit in a chair across from her, folding my hands in my lap. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell her innocently.
The older woman only chortles. “Don’t you try your pretty little trickery on me, girl. For all the love this one swears he bears to you, he sang like a skylark when I questioned him.”
