Free Love, Remember Me by Bertrice Small Page B

remained friends with her mother. And the girl, I am told by Lady Marlowe, is an heiress."
    "So, the chit has something to recommend her besides her beauty," Lady Rochford noted. "Still, only the highest born should serve the queen. It was that way in Queen Jane's time . . . and before . "
    She was referring to her late sister-in-law, Anne Boleyn. Jane Rochford had had an unhappy marriage to Anne's brother, George; but Anne, who adored her sibling, could see no wrong in George. In the end, Jane had had her revenge on them both. They were dead, and she was in favor again. Lady Rochford smiled coldly. She gazed across the room at Nyssa Wyndham. She was young, and beautiful, and rich; but it took a great deal more than just those attributes to survive at court. You will have to be clever, little one, she thought. If you are not clever, you will not survive. Yes, you will have to be most clever, I think.

CHAPTER 3
    T HE six English maids of honor had finally all been chosen. They included the Bassett sisters, Anne and Katherine; Katherine Carey, the daughter of William Carey, and his wife, Mary Boleyn; Catherine Howard, the niece of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk; Elizabeth FitzGerald, called the Orphan of Kildare, the late Earl of Kildare's child; and Nyssa Wyndham. To Lady Browne's pleasure, the king had ordered her to fill the other six places.
    "We will send the maidens from Cleves packing in short order," he told her. "If my bride is to be Queen of England, then she should be served by English women, should she not, Lady Margaret?"
    "Yes, Your Grace," the smiling lady replied, her good humor restored. Lady Browne no longer minded that the king had chosen the first six maids. She would profit handsomely from the other appointments.
    Nyssa and the Bassetts were the eldest of the maids chosen, but the sisters were clannish, and enormously proud of the fact that their father was the royal governor of Calais. Anne, the elder of the two, had been the cause of gossip when the king had presented her with a horse and saddle in early summer. There was nothing to the chatter, but the talk had erupted anyway. The sisters, however, had always been a part of court life in one way or another, and Nyssa found their superior airs very annoying.
    "Pay no attention to them," little Catherine Howard said, and she laughed. "They're naught but a pair of babbling magpies."
    "It's easy for you," Nyssa told her. "You're a Howard. I'm just a Wyndham of Langford, and am yet ignorant of court ways."
    "Fiddlesticks!" Elizabeth FitzGerald said. "I've been practically raised here at court, and your manners are impeccable, Nyssa."
    "Indeed they are," Katherine Carey agreed. "No one would guess you are newly come to court. Honestly!"
    They were friendly girls, fifteen and sixteen years of age, and each of them prettier than the other. Catherine Howard had auburn curls and beautiful cerulean-blue eyes. Katherine Carey was a black-eyed blond. Elizabeth FitzGerald was black-haired and blue-eyed. They were also, Nyssa discovered, mischievous and full of high spirits. The gentlemen of the court were eager to be with them. Lady Browne had her hands full keeping her charges in order.
    The Princess of Cleves finally arrived in Calais on the eleventh of December, but could come no farther. The weather simply refused to cooperate. The Channel was ferociously stormy for the next two weeks. It was soon apparent that there would be no gala Christmas wedding. The court, however, was at a fever pitch of excitement. Each day, more and more of the nobility arrived at Hampton Court, summoned by their king to pay their respects to the new queen, who remained stranded in Calais.
    Then on December twenty-sixth the weather lifted briefly, and the Lord Admiral decided that if he did not sail immediately, another winter storm would roar down the Channel, making a crossing impossible until spring. They sailed at midnight. The crossing was fair and pleasant. At five o'clock in the morning