LITMIR.BIZ

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her teeth against a retort that would do nothing to soften her mother’s determination, Ginny followed her up the wide oak staircase and along a panelled passageway where carved door frames displayed the very best workmanship and, by association, the money that had been poured into this building by Sir Walter. His efforts had been well worthwhile, for now the king himself felt it was good enough for a stay of two nights, to avail himself of the excellent hawking on the estate. Lady Agnes might have been uncomfortable with the short notice, but nothing could have given her greater satisfaction than to know that King Henry was to visit them twice in the same season and to favour the family with a connection Sir Walter had always been keen on. And it had been worth those years Ginny had spent away from home, not to mention the expense, while she had absorbed the attributes needed for a nobleman’s wife and the company of young aristocrats. Things were certainly looking up.

      Ginny knew her own feelings on the matter to be irrelevant, however strongly she might try to present her case. Her mother’s subservience to her husband’s will was absolute. Whatever opinions she had about anything except the day-to-day running of the house, she had been well trained to bend and mould them to her husband’s, though even the housekeeping was not secure from his occasional criticism. So however clear-cut Ginny’s objections, she knew in her heart that her mother would say nothing to countermand her father’s wishes, nor could she expect either sympathy or tolerance from them in a matter that affected them so deeply. For any woman to harbour a preference about her future husband was laughable. Men could choose, women did not, unless they were the flighty kind who fluttered too near the flame of love and burnt their wings in the process, their reputations ruined. And worse.

      ‘Now, Ginny, dear,’ said Lady Agnes, imagining her daughter dressed for the great occasion, ‘let’s just take a look at the rose velvet and see if we can dress it up with my squirrel fur round the sleeves. Is that what the court is wearing nowadays? You of all people should know.’

      Ginny went to sit in the large window recess overlooking the squared herb garden where a fine layer of snow etched the scene into tones of grey. Beyond the low hedge stood gnarled apple and pear trees in the orchard, the rose-covered bowers of summer now drooping and dormant, the stream frozen along its banks. In the cosy room behind her, her mother was trying to urge her into the next phase of her life by throwing gowns onto the silk counterpane to make a heap of colour as if there was nothing else more important to discuss. ‘Mother...wait,’ she said. ‘Can we not talk about this? Surely you cannot have forgotten the answer Sir Jon gave to Father when he offered him my hand? How he told Father he would give it his consideration and the next thing we knew he’d married that heiress? Did you not see how hurtful it was to me? Did you not think he could have been truthful from the beginning and said that his future was already decided? How can you agree to it so readily now, after that rebuff?’

      Laying down an armful of green brocade, Lady Agnes shook her head at it, then came to sit beside Ginny on the cushioned window seat. Taking the folded letter from her pouch, she passed it to Ginny with the words, ‘Perhaps you’d better read it yourself. It won’t make any difference in the long run, but you have a right to know, I suppose.’

      Ginny unfolded it and read her father’s efficient handwriting with sentences as free from sentiment as one might expect. ‘“The king has noticed our daughter...and feels a need of her company at this troubled time...wants her to be at court...but only within the safety of marriage, not as a maid...to preserve her good name...and to have a trustworthy mate already in the king’s employ so that he and she might serve the king as one...”’ Raising her head, she tried to read her mother’s eyes instead. ‘Serve the king as one?’ she said. ‘What on earth does he mean by that?’

      Lady Agnes’s reply came rather hurriedly. ‘He means you to serve Queen Anna, too, dear, the way you have begun to do with her clothes and...well...whatever else it is that you do. So that you can be at court as a respectable married woman rather than a maid, which might set tongues wagging. And Sir Jon will continue to serve the king as he does now, so you need not be separated as husbands and wives often are when one is at court. A most convenient arrangement.’

      ‘Convenient for the king. Nothing to do with Sir Jon’s preferences, then? So he’s been commanded, has he? Just like me. To suit the king. To pander to his sudden need for my company at “this difficult time” and for that, I have to be married, do I? As if not being married would set tongues wagging, for some reason?’

      ‘It’s not a sudden need, is it, Ginny? You know it isn’t. The king saw you here late last year and spent quite some time with you. He made his liking for you quite obvious.’

      ‘Flirting, Mother. As I told you, he flirts with every maid who catches his eye. There’s Anne Basset and Kat Howard, the queen’s maids, and plenty of others who enjoy his attentions. It’s not just me. Really, it isn’t. So it’s no use you thinking I’m anything more to him than the others.’

      ‘He’s particularly asked for you. And he doesn’t arrange marriages to his special friends to every maid who catches his eye. This is a great honour.’

      ‘So you keep saying. Marriages are for families, are they not, rather than for individuals? So any woman who thinks it’s for her had better think again.’

      ‘Dynasties,’ said Lady Agnes, showing no sign of empathy with her daughter. ‘Don’t think your role is unimportant in all this. Men have to think further ahead than we do. Generations ahead. Sir Jon’s wife left him with an infant girl child, but he needs a son, and I know nothing about his reasons for the sudden decision to marry his heiress. Perhaps your father does, but he doesn’t discuss such matters with me. It’s not my business, except to commiserate when a mother dies in childbed.’

      ‘Well, perhaps he’d already got her pregnant when Father made his offer. Perhaps her parents insisted on a marriage. By the way the women at court flutter their eyelashes at him, it wouldn’t surprise me.’

      ‘You should not say such things. If they think him a good catch, that may be as much to do with the wealth he acquired at his marriage.’

      ‘Of which I obviously had so little to offer that I was not even worth looking at.’

      Lady Agnes reached out both hands and took Ginny’s in her own, layering them for warmth. ‘Dear girl, that’s not so. If he’d been able, he’d have accepted your father’s offer without hesitation. You’d been away up north for over four years at the Nortons’ home, remember, and you came back all polished and womanly and well mannered and, best of all, a beauty. Father would have got you a place at court, but you didn’t want that, did you? That, and the business of marriage offers, were the few times he let you have your own way. But it cannot last, Ginny, dear.’

      Ginny smiled. ‘Is it difficult being married to Father?’ she said.

      ‘No. As long as I fall in with all his wishes, it’s easy enough. If I ever want to go and let off steam, I go to see your sister Maeve, when she’s at home. She brings me back to reality faster than anyone.’ A gentle hand came up to rearrange Ginny’s long ash-blonde hair that fell like water over her shoulders. ‘So lovely,’ she whispered. ‘I am blessed with lovely daughters and handsome sons and a successful husband. And now I must send for Maeve and George to come over from Reedacre Manor while the king is here. You know how they love a good feast.’ Lady Agnes did not mention that her daughter Maeve had also once caught the king’s eye with her hair like pale golden honey. But Sir George Betterton had stepped in smartly, too smartly for the king’s timetable, made her pregnant and married her before Henry could deepen their friendship. It had not been thought a good idea to tell Ginny of the reasons for the hasty marriage, and the child’s earlier-than-expected arrival had caused little comment at home.

      ‘Still,’ Ginny said, ‘I don’t like the idea of being married to a man I despise simply so the king can have the pleasure of my company without it being thought he wishes to marry me. I admire Queen Anna. I want to make her happy and fulfilled, and for her to find out how to make him happy, too. Being on the receiving end of Henry’s attentions does not please me the way it does some of the other women. They see it as a way into his bed, but

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