Lady in Waiting: A Novel by Susan Meissner Read Free Book Online Page A

carriage ride from her home.
    On the long journey here, I’d wondered how the Lord Admiral figured into the marquess’s betrothal plans for his eldest daughter. The Lord Admiral was himself already married when Jane came here, having wooed and won the widowed Queen Katherine four scandalous months after King Henry’s passing. And the Lord Admiral had no sons. I didn’t know the Lord Admiral personally. I only knew that he was brother to the Lord Protector, the man who managed the affairs of the young King Edward, Henry’s only living male heir.
    Bridget had supposed it was for marital prospects that the marquess placed his daughter in the household of the lord whose brother directed our sovereign’s associations. Young King Edward was nearly eleven, like Jane, and not yet betrothed. Also like Jane.
    It would not be the first time a monarch married a cousin. And Bridget told me the Lady Jane was fourth in line to the throne, in her own right. The marchioness, her mother, was King Henry’s niece.
    But as the carriage had rolled along, I endeavored to imagine myself eleven years old—not so hard, as I was not much older at fifteen—shuffled about in clandestine marriage campaigns, handed over to a man I perhaps did not esteem and made to share his bed and bear his children, all for the prosperity of the young male heir that I simply must produce.
    I’d fingered the delicate beading in the mounds of black organza and silk in my lap and wondered what it must be like to wear a dress so heavy, bejeweled, and bedecked, and which, if sold, could feed a family in a croft for nigh a whole winter. Could have paid for my father’s medicine. Could have paid the doctor who cared for him, while my mother and I did what we could—she at my father’s tailoring shop and I at the marquess’s household—to keep him well. I had once thought I would sew happily alongside my father until the end of his days, perhaps marrying late, if I married at all. But there I was, many miles from my childhood home in Haversfield, my parents, and what I had thought would define my quiet life. Everything that mattered to me waited for me in another place.
    And now that I stood gazing at the young maiden who would wear the dress I’d carried—a wisp of a girl whose melancholy filled the cavernous room—the gown weighed like lead in my arms, holding me fast.
    I took another step, and at last she turned her head.
    She had her father’s eyes and her mother’s Tudor bearing. Her hair under her hood was brown like mine, unremarkable like mine. The dress she wore was the deepest green, very nearly black. Whispers of white lace peeked out from the sleeves and neckline. A gold sash at her waist glittered in the only spill of sunlight penetrating the dark stillness of the room. At her throat lay a necklace of pearls and tiny emeralds. Her cheeks were wet.
    I fell to a curtsy.
    “Beg your pardon, my lady. Shall I come back later?”
    She didn’t answer, and I slowly raised my head.
    The Lady Jane was looking at the folds of fabric in my arms. Staring at them. Willing the dress, it seemed, to fill itself with bones and muscle and walk out of the room to find some other person to trifle with.
    “You came from Bradgate?” she finally said. Her voice was thin and smooth. Cultured. But immature.
    “Yes, my lady.”
    “Did my mother send that gown?” Her eyes were still on the dress. The room was not so dark that I could not see her unease.
    “Yes, my lady.”
    “She is not coming.”
    It was not a question. But I answered as though it was. “No, my lady.”
    She turned back then, back toward the window. She hadn’t dismissed me, so I stood there with the yards of fabric wanting to spill out of my arms like buckets of water and waited for her. Her head was cocked in a childlike way, as if she was wondering when she would wake up from this dream.
    It was inconceivable to me that one so young should be the chief mourner at the funeral of the Queen