Read Online The Winter Queen by Amanda Mccabe - Free Book Online

corridors for that night’s feast. Tables were set up along the privy gallery, covered with holly, ivy, mistletoe, evergreen boughs, ribbons and spangles. Under the watchful eye of Mistress Eglionby, Mistress of the Maids, they were to turn them into bits of holiday artistry.
    Rosamund sat there with Anne Percy, twisting together loops of ivy as they watched Mary Howard and Mary Radcliffe lay out long swags to measure them. The Marys sang as they worked, sometimes pausing to leap about with ribbons like two morris dancers.
    Rosamund laughed at their antics. For the first timein many days, she forgot her homesickness and uncertainty. She only thought of how much she loved this time of year, these twelve days when the gloom of winter was left behind, buried in music, wine and satin bows. She might be far from home, but the Queen kept a lively holiday. She should enjoy it as much as possible.
    Rosamund reached for two bent hoops and tied them into a sphere for a kissing bough. She chose the darkest, greenest loops of holly and ivy from the table, twining them around and tying them with the red ribbons.
    â€˜Are you making a kissing bough, Rosamund?’ Anne said teasingly. She tied together her own greenery into wreaths for the fireplace mantels.
    Rosamund smiled. ‘My maid Jane says if you stand beneath it and close your eyes you will have a vision of your future husband.’
    â€˜And if he comes up and kisses you whilst you stand there with your eyes closed, so much the better!’ Anne said.
    â€˜That would help settle the question, I think.’
    â€˜But you need not resort to such tricks, I’m sure,’ Anne whispered. ‘What of your sweetheart at home?’
    Rosamund frowned as she stared down at her half-finished bough; last Christmas, Richard had indeed kissed her under one very like it. That was when she had begun to think he cared for her, and she for him. But that seemed so long ago now, as if it had happened to someone else. ‘He is not my sweetheart.’
    â€˜But you do wish him to be?’
    Rosamund remembered Richard’s kiss that Christmas Eve. ‘That can’t be.’
    â€˜Do your parents disapprove so much, then?’
    Rosamund nodded, reaching for the green, red and white Tudor roses made of paper to add to her bough.‘They say his family is not our equal, even though their estate neighbours ours.’
    â€˜Is that their only objection?’
    â€˜Nay. They also say I would not be content with him. That his nature would not suit mine.’ Rosamund felt a pang as she remembered those words of her father. She had cried and pleaded, sure her parents would give way as they always did. Her father had seemed sad as he’d refused her, but implacable. ‘When you find the one you can truly love,’ he said, ‘you will know what your mother and I mean.’
    â€˜But you love him?’ Anne asked softly.
    Rosamund shrugged.
    Anne sighed sadly. ‘Our families should not have such say over our own hearts.’
    â€˜Is your family so very strict?’ Rosamund asked.
    â€˜Nay. My parents died when I was a small child.’
    â€˜Oh, Anne!’ Rosamund cried. Her own parents might be maddening, but before the business with Richard they had been affectionate with her, their only child, and she with them. ‘I am so sorry.’
    â€˜I scarcely remember them,’ Anne said, tying off her length of ribbon. ‘I grew up with my grandmother, who is so deaf she hardly ever knew what I was up to. It wasn’t so bad, and then my aunt came along and found me this position here at Court. They want me to marry, but only their own choice. Much like your own parents, I dare say!’
    â€˜Who is their choice?’
    Anne shrugged. ‘I don’t know yet. Someone old and crabbed and toothless, I’m sure. Some crony of my aunt’s husband. Perhaps he will at least be rich.’
    â€˜Oh, Anne, no!’
    â€˜It