Free Prisoner of the Queen (Tales From the Tudor Court) by Eliza Knight, E. Knight

could not. That would only have started more talk, and the last thing we needed was more talk.
    If only there was someone who could deliver me from this place, from this pain, from this confusion! Flashes of my dance with Lord Beauchamp invaded my mind. A vision of his formidable mother quickly shoved them aside. ’Twas a fanciful thought. He may have been the only man I’d thus far in my life felt understood me, but there was not even a smidge of a chance he would come to my rescue. Most likely he barely remembered me.
    Mayhap, I should write to my step-grandmother , Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk. She had a way of swaying people to her cause, especially now that her two sons, the heirs to the throne, had passed away—she was no longer a threat.
     
    July 25, 1553
     
    An urgent letter arrived from my mother. I excused myself from the few servants I’d been advising on herbal remedies to read her missive. She feared my father’s imminent arrest and begged me to pray for him. It was as if they had forgotten my sister, who languishes without any hope for release other than the queen’s consideration. I burned the letter, hating every scrawled word written upon it. My father should have had to take Jane’s place. Had not Jane done what he wanted? She’d borne the brunt of his cruel words and the backlash of my mother’s anger for not obeying them in doing what was right for England until she’d given in. ’Twas for those reasons she was in the position she was in today.
    Another letter gave me greater pleasure and eased some of the ache in my head from reading my mother’s news. It was from my step-grandmother relaying that she would visit me in a few days’ time. Even better, she would be venturing to Baynard’s with Lord Beauchamp’s mother, the Duchess of Somerset and her daughter Jane Seymour.
    The duchesses were both in good standing with Queen Mary—at the moment—and so had been allowed to come to me. Hope ignited inside me, although I would not allow even the smallest spark to flourish into flames—if I could be put into the queen’s favor, perhaps I could ask her to be more lenient on my family, seek pardon for them?
    But even this bit of reaching out could put me in a bad light. It was a quandary, a game. Lady Katherine was staunchly evangelical, and Queen Mary could take great offense to her displeasure with the Catholic Church the queen so aptly loved. Unless she were paired with Lady Anne, whose late sister-by-marriage, Queen Jane Seymour, loving wife of Henry VIII, had been a true friend of the queen, as had Anne herself.
    It would be a great risk to ask these women for guidance, but a risk worth taking, nonetheless.
    I hurr ied to the chapel within Baynard’s to pray. For only God was on my side, it seemed, and perhaps if I reached out to him, he would cast a hand of light upon me and spark a mercy within the queen herself for my sister Jane.
     
    July 27, 1553
     
    Though I’d been allowed to plant some herbs, the gardens at Baynard’s were pitiful compared to Bradgate. But even still, it was the only place on this vast manor where I felt comforted. I shooed away a bee, gathering a basket full of lavender. The scent calmed me, and lavender tisane helped with the exhaustion and headaches I suffered from.
    After the news I’d received, I was certain to need it. Father had been arrested as Mother feared, along with Guildford’s brothers and father, and many other courtiers who were seen to have played a part in Jane’s crowning. I was not surprised, as many, including me, had wondered only when—not if—the arrests would take place. I was, however, surprised my mother and myself had not also been taken.
    My father-by-marriage had all but guaranteed my marriage to his son would be dissolved as he gathered men close to him in secret meetings. His efforts were to gain the queen’s favor. If only I could do something to sabotage his plans. The man was so uniformly selfish. Did he not