Free Queenbreaker: Perseverance (The Queenbreaker Trilogy Book 1) by Catherine McCarran Page A

She’d wed the Duke of Norfolk’s heir last year. My parents had
attended her wedding. I knew she must be near sixteen like Gabrielle, but she
looked younger than Emma with her child-round face—except for her eyes,
which gleamed with an ancient shrewdness I misliked. She too wore earrings,
little golden dewdrops.
    I
rubbed my left earlobe, imagining their weight.
    “And
who shall it be for you?” The woman on Lady Margaret’s right challenged. “Shall
you uphold the family tradition and marry a commoner?”
    “That
is Eliza, Countess of Worcester,” Seymour said.
    She
didn’t look like a whore.
    But
what would a court whore look like? Not like the slatterns prowling the
riverside in Southwark. Otherwise, they too would dress in gray and crimson
damask, and wear a pearl choker like the Countess of Worcester.
    The
ladies halted two steps away from the sewing circle. Every other conversation
in the crowded chamber stopped. The Queen’s musicians slowed their work to
listen.
    Lady
Margaret—Margot’s russet hair gleamed beneath her silver worked French
hood. She dropped the train of her crimson gown at my feet, crossed her arms.
    “You
mean to say marry for love, do you not my lady Worcester? For what is common
about our Queen Anne?”
    The
Countess tilted her head. A wisp of ash blonde hair escaped from under the
black veil of her hood. “Naught, I grant you. But I will not be diverted. Tell
us whom you love.”
    Margot’s
elegant sigh moved me to sigh with her.
    “Who
is there for me to love?” she said, face forlorn. “There is only one hen the
cocks crow for.”
    “For
shame!” cried the tall girl trailing them, her face flushed piglet pink.
    Seymour
sighed. “Lady Mary Wyatt is too good for this world.”
    I
knew the name and reputation. Madge called her “the last duenna” for her
prudishness. She looked the part. She wore her French hood high, showing just
an inch of the part in her light brown hair. The collar of her blackwork shirt
came to her chin. Her sleeves fell almost to her fingernails. Madge told me to
avoid her company, if I preferred to receive instruction on morality only at
Mass. It was beyond all irony that her brother was Sir Thomas Wyatt—the
scandal of Kent.
    Margot
turned toward Mary Wyatt and executed a wondrous curtsey. Mary Howard laughed;
Lady Frances clapped her hands.
    “Do
not encourage her wayward tongue, Mariah,” Mary Wyatt implored.
    Margot
scowled. “Oh, run away and tell on me, Mary Wyatt, you are spoiling our fun.”
    Mistress
Wyatt straightened her back. “Then I will leave you to your fun, my lady,” she
got out and bolted before we could see her tears.
    “Thank
the Holy Virgin,” Margot said. “Her namesake has finally left.”
    “Hush,
Margot,” hissed Mary Howard.
    I
ducked my head as Margot turned on her, and so turned my way. But they were as
oblivious to their audience as real players on the stage.
    “Well,
‘tis true,” Margot insisted. “And I pity her. She’ll go straight to some old
man’s bed without a clue.”
    “Unlike
yourself?” The Countess served her jibe with a radiant smile.
    “For
shame, Lady Worcester,” Margot retorted. “I am a proper maid and will marry
where my lord uncle the King bids me. I will be the most blameless, chaste,
obedient wife in England—when the time comes. But for now…” Her smile
engulfed me and every other young, daring heart in the chamber. “For now, I
shall tarry.”
    Lady
Frances giggled.
    “Yes,
yes, Margot, but whom shall you tarry for?” the Countess pressed.
    Margot’s
narrow face expanded with joy. “Why, for your husband, of course.”
    Laughter
exploded around the room. Someone applauded.
    “Point
to Margot,” Seymour murmured.
    The
Countess’s oval face shriveled like a dog turd on a hot road. Her jaw worked
and I thought she might respond, but she surprised me by turning on her heel
and breezing out of the Presence Chamber. Honor Lisle and her two companions
followed her. Then