Soon after, my brother, Hugh, came to see me. I abandoned the game of peek-fingers I’d been playing with the delighted Mary and greeted him in her reception chamber. Lucy stirred the fire for us, greeted Hugh with warmth and affection, and then took her leave.
“Things go badly,” he said. “I remain with Cecil, as you know, and Cecil with the protector, though for how much longer I know not. There is rude murmuring against the lord protector, who continues to alienate friends by his high-handedness. And I have heard of the proceedings against Lord Thomas.”
“And?”
He drank of the goblet of wine and took some meat from the cold platter Lucy had delivered before answering.
“The lord protector and the council have found that, during varied and sundry times, Lord Thomas has sought to subvert their will, and the well-being of the realm, for seditious purposes.”
Sedition! “What has occurred?” I asked.
“He is accused of arranging a marriage with the Lady Elizabeth without the permission of the council. And it is said that she has agreed. She is being interrogated even now, or will be soon.”
“That is all?”
He shook his head. “He has arranged for funds to overthrow the council.”
“Sharington,” I said.
“Yes, Sharington. And the lord protector owes Sharington a tidy sum of money—a debt that will disappear if Sharington is attainted. Even now, Lady Seymour has taken Lady Sharington’s jewelry into her possession and is shamelessly wearing it.”
I could not believe it, and yet I could! “Is that all?” I asked.
He looked at me grimly afore finishing off his goblet. “No. Though that is enough, the worst is yet to be shared. He is accused of endangering the king’s person.”
“Never!” I said.
“But he has,” Hugh told me. “Word filtered back to us that Thomas tried to reach the king, in the night, either to speak with him or to take hold of his person for ransom. But then the king’s spaniel started to bark. His Majesty awoke and shouted, ‘Help! Murder!’ alarming the household, which rushed to his side. When they arrived, they found the king safe—for now—but the dog was shot to death to quiet it.”
My hand flew to my mouth. “And they caught Lord Thomas?”
“No, he’d be a dead man already if they had. But they questioned the king’s household and many of them had been sent on various and sundry errands so they would be dispersed at the time of the offense. Lord Thomas had sent them, and paid for these errands.”
“What a fool, an unthinking fool,” I said, “who makes mischief where there need be none.”
Hugh took my hand. “Juliana, all associated with Sir Thomas scatter. And ’tis for the best, because if, or rather when, he be attainted, he will crush all those who lie close to him as he falls upon them. You must return to Marlborough. I admire your constancy to the queen in continuing on with the babe’s household. But we are so lowborn as not to be noticed if we slip away from this mayhem once and for all. I myself will take my leave of Cecil’s household soon. And Cecil himself”—he lowered his voice—“intends to leave the lord protector’s household for Dudley’s as the council grows displeased with the protector, who may follow his brother in short order, as Scotland is a mess and Boulogne all but lost.”
I could not, would not, tell Hugh why I must stay with Mary till she was safely placed. That was one relationship I was not going to taint. “If this be true—and Thomas a dead man—I suspect that the Seymours or the Herberts will take guardianship of the child, and when she is well settled I shall return to harry you and your Cecily.”
He stood and embraced me. “Do not tarry overlong.”
A week later he sent me a letter, via messenger, saying that he had located Sir Richard Hibbart, recently returned for a time from Scotland, and made his introductions. “Alas,” Hugh wrote, “when I shared with him that you were yet attached to Lord Thomas’s household he declined to pursue further interest. It grieves me to tell you. With deepest love and affections, Hugh.”
I now resigned myself to life with Hugh and his Cecily. I prayed in earnest that night for the Lady Elizabeth, that she would be able to withstand during her interrogations and would face friendly questioners, though I deeply doubted that she would.
Whilst Lord Thomas’s household was being disassembled—which when done in advance of a trial was always ominous—Mary’s household was to be placed with Lady Seymour, Edward’s wife. Lady Seymour had a word for me one day.
“Have you made the household as small as possible?” she asked me. It was unbelievable how high-handed she was. In truth, she was my aunt, and the lord protector my uncle—and both knew it. Yet they had not a vial of compassion or affection between them for me.
I coolly shared with her the number of attendants and maids, the amount set aside for clothing, for plate, for horses and litters, and for all other manner of goods.
“Fine,” she said curtly. “Sadly, there be no way to do with less for the daughter of a queen.”
There was little to do but wait for gossip and reports of Lord Thomas’s fall, so it was with enthusiasm that I looked forward to a visitor—Lady Fitzgerald Browne, who had written to say she was coming to stay for a day or two whilst she tended to her dower estates in London. I was not expecting the woman who accompanied her, though.
Dorothy Skipwith Tyrwhitt.
“Elizabeth.” I embraced her first, as she led. Dorothy hung back, not knowing, I supposed, how I would receive her.
“Lady Tyrwhitt, I am pleasantly surprised to see you as well,” I said, and fully embraced her. Once I did, she smiled back and embraced me with real feeling.
“Lady Tyrwhitt is visiting Hatfield; her husband’s aunt is presently the Lady Elizabeth’s governess.”
I raised my eyebrow and was about to ask after Kat Ashley when Lady Fitzgerald Browne shook her head a little. That would wait for a later time.
“I’m going to rest for a bit,” Elizabeth Fitzgerald Browne said. “And I’ll leave you two to reacquaint yourselves.”
I motioned, awkwardly, toward a richly stuffed chair in the receiving chamber. “Please.” A manservant came and stirred the coals, and Lucy brought a tray of wafers and cheese and some watered mead and then took Dorothy’s wraps from her.
“How do you fare?” I asked her.
“I fare well,” she said. “My daughter grows. And I expect another child, though it does not yet show.”
I kept a pleasant smile on my face and hoped I did not let the hurt bleed through.
“I came to see Kate’s child,” she said. “I hope ’tis meet with you. The queen had been so kind to me.”
I stood up. “Of course.” I motioned for one of the serving girls to come near. “If Lady Mary is not with Mrs. Marwick, could you please have her brought to me?”
The maid dipped and nodded her head and within a few minutes brought Mary to me. The babe wavered unsteadily in the servant’s arms—she was just now able to hold herself erect, and her pretty brown hair was swept into one long curl on the side. She broke into a gummed grin when she saw me and reached both arms out toward me. I stood and grinned back and took her in hand before kissing her cheek. I spun her about a little and then handed her to Dorothy.
Dorothy handled the babe with assurance, as she was an experienced mother. She looked her over and made some quiet trilling noises for a moment and then looked her full on in the face.
“She does look like Kate a bit. But mainly, she looks of Lord Thomas.”