Read Online The Tudor Rose by Margaret Campbell Barnes - Free Book Online Page B

at Elizabeth. She had always been attractively slender, but now it struck him that she had become altogether too fine drawn for a girl of eighteen. By the light of a long window by which she stood he could discern small hollows beneath the lovely moulding of her cheekbones so that it seemed for the first time that she bore some resemblance to the sharper beauty of her mother. “Does that mean that you are actually hungry?” he demanded, with rising indignation.

    “No, no, of course not!” she denied cheerfully. “It is just that Cicely, as you know, is a horrible little gourmand. All the same,” she admitted, compelled by his searching gaze, “it seems a long time since poor little Katherine had any sweetmeats, and I do wish the good lay brothers would sometimes devise some dainty morsels to tempt the Queen's appetite. Though I suppose it is ungrateful of me to say so when we must all be such a sore burden to them.”

    “But surely you can send your servants out to buy whatever her Grace fancies, or your friends can bring in a capon or some fruit?”

    “It used to be so until a few days ago, Tom, but now it is not so easy. I am sure we are quite safe in sanctuary, for my uncle is not the man to violate the protection of Holy Church. But, as my astute brother foretold, he can set a guard outside to prevent anyone from getting either in or out.”

    “Set a guard?” exclaimed Stafford. “I had not heard of it.”

    “It has happened only within the last day or so.”

    “Come and see, Tom,” invited Cicely, catching at his hand and drawing him closer to the window. “Look, there is John Nesfield, that horse-faced squire of his, barking orders at the men-at-arms. Bullying them for allowing you to pass, no doubt.”

    “How did you manage to pass?” asked Elizabeth, who had been too overjoyed at seeing him to think about it before.

    “No one challenged me, and I am afraid I did not even notice Nesfield's men,” confessed the warlike Duke of Buckingham's son, shamed by his absentmindedness.

    “Then you must have been making up a sonnet to Bess's eyebrows!” giggled Cicely.

    “The fact is that as soon as the Countess of Richmond had your message she asked me to bring her physician to see if he could be of service to the—to your lady mother. I suppose she must have persuaded her husband, Lord Stanley, to get the new King's permission, for certainly Doctor Lewis was conducted immediately to your mother's room.”

    “That was very kind of the Countess, and I pray you convey to her my deep gratitude. Although her sympathies must be Lancastrian, I sometimes think she is one of the best and ablest women in the realm.”

    “And certainly the greatest patron of learning. You should hear the students up at Oxford and Cambridge singing her praises!”

    While Cicely joined her younger sisters and shared in the gifts he had brought to relieve their tedium, Stafford beckoned to his servant to bring the book of poems he had chosen for Elizabeth, and they sat for a while reading some of his favourite passages.

    “I so much miss the books my father used to bring me,” she said gratefully, poring over the exquisite illuminations. “This will help to pass the hours and be a kind of—escape.”

    “You do not need to stay here. King Richard would willingly have you all at Court, you know.”

    “In his power, you mean.”

    “I think he would be kind.”

    “Ah, well, my mother is so certain this is best for our security; though, for myself, I would barter security for freedom.”

    “Because half your heart is in a place you cannot get to.”

    “Yes. I would sooner be a servant in the Tower so that I could make my brothers' bed!” Elizabeth forgot the poems and began moving restlessly about the room. “Is there still no news of them, Tom?”

    “My father, although loyal at heart to all of you, is often called there to Council-meetings, and he makes what enquiries he can,” answered Stafford,