Read Online SHAKESPEARE’ SECRET by Elise Broach - Free Book Online Page B

its outstretched claw when her father touched her hand.
    He looked at her drawing, frowning slightly. “Where did you see that?” he asked.
    Hero felt a quick pulse of guilt. She swallowed nervously, crumpling the pencil rubbing in her fist and dropping her hand beneath the table. “What do you mean? I’m just fooling around.”
    â€œIt’s not a branch,” he said. “It’s a scepter.” Deftly, he sketched over her picture, putting a crown on the head of the bird and turning the tree branch into a monarch’s staff.
    Hero stared at him. “How did you know what I was drawing?”
    Her father looked at her strangely, then smiled suddenly. “You’ve been in the study after all, haven’t you? That story about Shakespeare and the Earl of Oxford has got you all fired up. You’ve been looking through my books on British nobility!” He nudged Hero’s mother, his face flushed with pride. “Look at your daughter. She’s drawn the Pembroke falcon, the crest of Anne Boleyn.”

CHAPTER
11
    Hero’s mother glanced at the sketch. “Really? Oh, yes, a falcon. I see it.” She turned to Hero, eyebrows raised. “What’s gotten into you, Hero? Is this something else you’ve been discussing at Mrs. Roth’s?”
    Hero couldn’t think what to say. She could barely think at all. In her mind, she kept seeing the initials on the back of the pendant, tiny and faint on the gold. Not AE, AB, Anne Boleyn, the wife of Henry VIII. The one who was beheaded. One of the ones who was beheaded. Hero couldn’t remember anything else about her. She felt a shiver of excitement. Was it possible that the necklace had once belonged to Anne Boleyn? Was it a queen’s necklace? A queen’s diamond?
    She tightened her fist around the pencil rubbing and looked up at her parents, trying to make her faceblank. “Well, I was talking to Mrs. Roth about, you know, Shakespeare, and then we just started talking about English history. I got kind of interested in Anne Boleyn.” That should be enough to get her father going.
    â€œI can certainly see why,” her father said, beaming at her. “She’s a fascinating character. Started out as the king’s girlfriend, just another pretty courtier, but she was clever and strong-willed, determined to be queen. She got her wish—his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was annulled—but she ruled only a few years before Henry’s eye wandered again. Her enemies plotted against her and had her executed.”
    â€œShe was beheaded, wasn’t she?” Hero asked.
    â€œYes, on Tower Green. Falsely accused of adultery. Five men, including her brother of all people, were tortured to provoke confessions. Like your namesake, Hero: ’Done to death by slanderous tongues.’ At the end, when she was imprisoned and sentenced to die, she showed extraordinary courage. And of course she was the mother of Elizabeth I, the greatest ruler in English history. I have a couple of excellent books on the era. I’ll take them out for you.” Her father went eagerly to his study.
    Hero’s mother continued to look at her curiously. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” sheasked. “Your father could tell you more about Anne Boleyn.”
    â€œNo, Mom,” Hero said with conviction. “I really just want to stay here.”
    Hero was beginning to abandon all hope that she’d ever have the house to herself, when— simultaneously—Kelly’s mother drove up, calling for Beatrice, and her parents realized there was a docent tour of the Van Dyck exhibit at eleven o’clock. With barely a goodbye, everyone rushed off at once.

    As Hero watched their car swing out of the driveway, she sighed with relief. She couldn’t wait to tell Mrs. Roth about Anne Boleyn. She saw that her father had left a fat history book on the counter for her: Tudor