Free Court of Traitors (Bridget Manning #2) by V.E. Lynne Page B

went to plan, Gregory Cromwell could be in a position one day to call the next King of England “nephew.” His father, the son of a shearman, as the Marquess of Exeter had so loftily pronounced, had secured him the most dazzling match possible, short of marrying him to the Lady Mary, a feat that not even Thomas Cromwell was capable of achieving. No wonder he looked so pleased with himself. Bridget arched an eyebrow in admiration. Cromwell accepted the gesture with a self-deprecating shrug.
     
    “Well, so much for my family’s matrimonial matters. I had much rather talk about you. I see you have come unaccompanied to court. I had expected that you would have brought your young friend Joanna with you, or even your old abbess. I hope nothing is amiss with them.”
    “ No, no, they are well, at least the abbess is. Joanna was ill with a cold when we left London, otherwise she would have come with me. She will join us when she is recovered.”
    Cromwell nodded sympathetically. “I am glad that the abbess, your aunt Joan as she now is, keeps good health. I am a great admirer of hers, as you know. Which is why I was quite baffled when I heard,” he adjusted a signet ring on his finger, “that she had taken into her household a well-wisher of Robert Aske’s, a woman called Margaret Welles. We think she was a correspondent of his during the time of the rebellion in the North, or the Pilgrimage of Grace, as people are wont to call it. You do know who Robert Aske is, or rather who he was?”
     
    Cromwell’s voice had dropped to a low octave, and Bridget had to bend her head close to his in order to hear him. Her mind was in a whirl as she searched for an answer. Sister Margaret was a “well-wisher” of Aske’s? She was his “correspondent”? How was that possible? Yes, Sister Margaret was very much a traditionalist in her religious observance, and she still mourned the loss of the abbey deeply, as did they all, but none of them had played any part in the chaos of the uprising. Bridget could not remember either her or the abbess even making any particular remarks about Aske, or any of the other rebels, let alone writing to him. But clearly Cromwell knew something. Or was fishing for something. She thought it best to be as discreet and as brief in her responses as possible until she had a better idea of what it was, exactly, that he knew.
     
    “Yes, I know who he was,” Bridget answered slowly. “He was the man who led the rebellion against our king and, for that act of treason, he was hung in chains at York less than one month ago.”
    Cromwell curled his right hand into a fist. “That is correct. An entirely fitting end for a jumped-up lawyer who presumed to tell the king his business. Did you hear that he wanted my head? Oh, yes, that was one of their demands, you know, the rebels, that I be ‘removed.’ Fortunately for me, I enjoy the full protection of His Majesty. He knows I am a valuable servant and, more importantly, a true subject. But can we say the same of Mistress Welles or indeed of the venerable Mistress Joan?”
     
    Cromwell placed his clenched fist on top of Bridget’s hand and exerted a little pressure. “It has come to my attention that Margaret Welles is known as being against the king’s religious reforms. Apparently, she has been quite vocal about it, from the day that Rivers Abbey was suppressed to the present. She has not guarded her tongue since she fetched up at Thorns either. One must wonder, if she is so against the reforms, whether she actually supports the king at all. Perhaps the best thing to do would be for me to question her so I may get a fuller sense of the way things stand—”
    Bridget suddenly moved her hand and placed it on top of Cromwell’s. He looked down at it wonderingly. “Please, my lord,” she said, “there is no need for you to question her. Mistress Welles and the abbess, I mean to say Mistress Joan, are both completely loyal to the king. I do not know what