Free Brandy Purdy by The Queen's Rivals Page B

occasional murmurs of marriage plans for Jane and the Lord Protector’s eldest son and namesake, Edward Seymour the younger, the Earl of Hertford, whom everyone called Ned. He was a likeable lad of fifteen, soft-spoken and rather reserved, but handsome beyond words, tall, slender, and hazel-eyed, with gleaming waves of golden brown hair, and a somewhat shy, but oh so charming smile. And when he truly smiled, broad and wide, with laughter in his eyes, he could light up a room. He came to visit us once, bearing letters from his father, and stayed overnight. Jane exhibited a rude disinterest. She donned her dullest gowns, addressed as few words as possible to him, speaking mostly in mumbled monosyllables, and pointedly settled herself in the window seat with her nose buried in her Greek Testament, curled on her side so that her back was turned to him, and refused to budge. And on the sly she downed a purge, so that when our lady-mother stormed in that evening in all her finery to drag Jane down to supper, she found the room stinking and Jane with her shift bunched up about her waist crouched over her chamber pot with a volume of Cicero balanced on her bare thighs.
    The next morning as Ned was descending the stairs to take his leave, he was waylaid by Kate, wringing her hands in a teary-eyed, trembling lipped tizzy. She seemed to come out of nowhere, springing from the shadows, her shimmering copper ringlets glowing like embers, a vibrant vision in a satin gown the exact same heavenly vibrant blue as a robin’s egg.
    Ned was thunderstruck, dazzled by her beauty, and all he could do was stand and stare as Kate grabbed hold of his arm and implored, “ Please , sir, can you sing? Please say you can!” She was already dragging him after her, even before his lips could form an answer.
    Her beloved cat, Marzipan, was birthing a litter of kittens and enduring a hellish long labor that Kate was convinced she could help make easier by singing. She had been up since before dawn singing herself hoarse. Now her voice needed a rest. She simply could not sing another note and needed to find someone who could, and my own voice she rightly deemed too shrill and reedy to soothe poor Marzipan. “Mary, I love you dearly, but I think your voice will only add to poor Marzipan’s woes,” she said, tempering her blunt honesty with a kiss and hug before we each set off in search of someone blessed with a more melodious voice. Thus, Kate found her Ned; it was as if Fate pushed them together and struck the tinder that would ignite the first spark of love—if it ever truly was love, cynical me has to say—in both their hearts. And Ned spent the next two hours kneeling beside Marzipan’s basket while Kate sucked mint lozenges to ease her aching throat and strummed a lute as Ned sang his heart out until the seventh and last kitten was birthed and Kate was all smiles again, hugging an armful of squirming, mewling kittens to her breast and lavishing kisses, praise, and loving pats upon dear Marzipan. She lingered long enough to kiss Ned’s cheek and thank him yet again before she hastened to the kitchen to fetch a bowl of milk for Marzipan.
    “That was the day I fell in love,” both Kate and Ned would always say each time they fondly recalled their first meeting. But both were nobly born children, well-schooled in their duty, and they knew all too well that their hearts would not dictate who they married; their parents would make that decision. And Kate knew that Ned was supposed to be Jane’s suitor, and Jane was her sister and as such had a prior claim upon Kate’s heart. At eleven, almost twelve, with her head full of tales of chivalry and doomed love, like her favorite story of Guinevere and Lancelot, Kate saw exquisite beauty and true nobility of the heart and soul in making such a sacrifice for her sister’s sake. She had yet to learn that life isn’t like stories, and the things that sound beautiful and grand on the golden tongues of