Free The Winter Queen by Amanda Mccabe Page B

that. ‘He said he did, when last I saw him.’ But then he had vanished, leaving her alone to argue their cause with her parents. The servants had said he had even quit the neighbourhood entirely in the autumn.
    â€˜You are fortunate, then,’ Anne sighed.
    â€˜Does Lord Langley not want…?’
    â€˜I do not want to speak of him,’ Anne interrupted. ‘Not now. I would much rather hear of your love, Rosamund.’
    Rosamund lay back with a sigh, staring up at the embroidered underside of the hangings as if she could read her answers in the looping flowers and vines. ‘I have not heard from him in an age. I am not sure now I want to hear from him at all.’
    â€˜I would wager he has written to you but your parents intercepted the letters,’ Anne said. ‘That happened with my friend Penelope Leland when she wanted to marry Lord Pershing.’
    â€˜Truly?’ Rosamund frowned. She had not thought of such a thing. ‘How can I be sure?’
    â€˜Aye. We must find a way to contact him,’ Anne said, her voice full of new excitement at coming up with a scheme. ‘Once he knows where you are, he will surely come running to your side.’
    Rosamund was not so certain. Her infatuation with Richard seemed to belong to someone else, a young girl with no knowledge of herself or of the world. But if it helped to distract Anne, and herself, she was willing to attempt it.
    Perhaps then she would cease to drown in a pair of winter-dark eyes.
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    â€˜Round your foreheads garlands twine, drown sorrow in a cup of wine, and let all be merry!’
    Rosamund laughed helplessly as the entire Great Hall rang with song. It was quite obvious that the whole company had already drowned their sorrows copiously as the Christmas Eve banquet progressed. The long tables were littered with the remains of supper, with goblets that were emptied, and the musicians’ songs were louder, faster than they’d been early in the evening.
    The decorations of the hall, lit now by a blazing fire and dozens of torches, fairly shimmered with rich reds, greens and golds, making the vast space a festive bower. Laughter was as loud as the song, and glances grew longer and bolder, ever more flirtatious, as the night went on.
    Not everyone was happy, though, Rosamund noticed. The Austrians seemed rather ill at ease, though they tried gamely to enter into the spirit of the holiday. A few of the more Puritanical of the clergymen hovered at the edges of the bright throng, looking on with pinched expressions.
    Surely they would be happier if everyone passed the holiday in solemn prayer, Rosamund thought, not frisking about with song and greenery, which echoed of the old days of popery. But Queen Elizabeth seemed not to notice at all; she sat on her dais, clapping in time to the song.
    On the wall behind her was a large mural, an earlyChristmas gift from her minister, Walsingham. It was an allegory of the Tudor succession, centred on an enthroned Henry VIII, right here in the Great Hall of Whitehall, with a young Edward VI kneeling beside him. To his left was Queen Mary, with her Spanish husband King Phillip with Mars the god of war, all dark blacks, browns and muted yellows. To his right was Queen Elizabeth, with Peace trampling on a sword of discord, trailed by Plenty, spilling out her cornucopia. They gleamed in bright whites, silvers and golds.
    Just as the Queen herself did tonight, presiding over her own feast of plenty and joy. She wore a gown of white satin, trimmed in white fur and sewn with pearls and tiny sapphire beads. She looked on the holiday she had wrought with a contented smile.
    The others on the dais with her did not look so very sanguine. The Queen’s cousin Lady Lennox, Margaret Stewart, sat to the Queen’s left with her son, Lord Darnley, her ample frame once again swathed in black. He was handsome enough, Rosamund had to admit, with his pale-gold, poetic looks set off by