Lady of the Roses by Sandra Worth Read Free Book Online

dance to myself as I drifted off to sleep once more, the song a lullaby for my heart.
    Sustained by the knowledge that the visitor had to have been Sir John, I poured my energies into getting well. When Sœur Madeleine returned, she was pleased to find me recovered, and I, for my part, was delighted to see her again, for I had grown fond of her over these many weeks. “Sœur Madeleine, I don’t want you to go back north,” I pleaded as she dressed me for my first outing from the bedchamber. “Pray, ask the queen to let you stay with me.”
    “Dear one, I’m needed back at the priory. No doubt the queen will appoint a gentlewoman for you when you have your audience.”
    “When will that be?” A stab of panic came and went at the thought of an audience with the fearsome Marguerite d’Anjou.
    “Whenever the queen can find time for such small matters. She is busy running the realm now that the king is ill again, so it may be a while. You will have to be patient.”
    “The king is ill?” I inquired.
    “Aye, he needs rest. State affairs have proved too onerous a burden of late.” She knelt down and busied herself with the hem of my gown. I had the feeling this was a subject she had no wish to discuss.
    Unwilling to cause her discomfort with any more questions, I said, “Then I shall pray for his recovery, Sœur Madeleine.”
    She nodded her approval.
    Ill was the word Sœur Madeleine had used, but over the next few days, as I strolled through the gardens of Westminster Palace and ate in its halls, stealing wistful looks at my rose, I brooded over the open secret of the king’s madness. He was shut up in the royal apartments so no one would see that he sat silently all day, unable to speak, staring at the ground, not comprehending a single thought. But in a castle, light falls into the darkest corners, and secrets never remain secrets for long.
    When the queen’s royal infant, Prince Edward, had been presented to his father for his blessing, Henry had glanced at the boy and cast down his eyes, saying nothing. It was spoken in hushed tones that Edward had been sired by the late Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. He could always be found at the queen’s side until his death at the Battle of St. Albans, which had taken place in May 1455, a year before I’d met Sir John Neville. In this battle, fought between the Yorkist party headed by Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and the queen’s party, headed by Edmund Beaufort, the Nevilles had sided with York, and it was by a Neville that Somerset had been slain.
    The horn sounded the dinner hour. Securing Sir John Neville’s rose to my bodice with my brooch, I abandoned the garden seat where I had been watching the sunset and reliving the ecstasy of the evening at Tattershall. The flower had wilted since he had delivered it to my sickroom, but to me it was still the most beautiful rose in the garden.
    I made my way to the great hall reluctantly. Sœur Madeleine was still away, and I dreaded eating alone in the great hall. At the priory I had made few friends, for the girls were wont to cast me long looks and whisper behind my back, jabbing each other in the elbow when I passed. One who had befriended me—a girl named Alice—had given me the reason.
    “They think you beautiful and wish to punish you for it,” she had said.
    “But why?” I asked, stunned by this revelation.
    “I suppose it’s because they think your beauty gives you the right to be loved, and to be happy.”
    “But why , when my hair is dark and my eyes brown, and my lips so full?” I persisted.
    Alice had laughed. “You have no idea, have you?”
    I’d shaken my head.
    “’Tis what I like best about you,” she’d replied.
    Alice had died of the plague the following year, when she turned fifteen. I felt a squeezing hurt and whispered a prayer for her soul, as I always did when I thought of her.
    I crossed the circle of green and headed to the keep. I had become accustomed to the loneliness,