I suspected that my aunt’s prickly temperament would keep suitors at bay, but I did not voice that thought. “I wonder if she will have the use of her jointure, now that Sir Thomas is dead. He was stingy about providing for her while he was alive. He supported her at first. She told me once that he paid her an annuity for a number of years after they separated. But then, all of a sudden, he cut her off without a penny. That’s when she came to live with us. She had nowhere else to go but back to her family.”

“He had a mistress,” Kate said, proving once again that children hear more in a busy household than their elders realize. “Last year, when Sir Thomas was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London, the king made him promise to give her up and take Aunt Elizabeth back. Sir Thomas wasn’t set free until he agreed.”

“But he didn’t reconcile with Aunt Elizabeth. She stayed right here with us.” As I slowly munched the remainder of my apple, I could not help but feel a grudging respect for my late uncle’s courage. A courtier would either have to be very brave . . . or very foolish . . . to deliberately ignore a royal decree.

3

My mother’s mother, Lady Bray, and her only remaining unmarried daughter, Dorothy, came to us for a visit during Lent. Kent had a better supply of fish than Bedfordshire and more variety, too. We dined on sea bass, red mullet, cod, haddock, pollack, hake, halibut, turbot, plaice, flounder, sole, salmon, sturgeon, trout, herring, and eels. Father arrived home several days later, after both houses of Parliament adjourned for the Easter holy days.

Although I was very fond of Grandmother Jane, I had mixed feelings about Dorothy’s presence at Cowling Castle. At our last meeting, nearly fourteen months earlier at court, she had been angry and unpleasant. She did not appear to have mellowed since.

On the day before Palm Sunday, the nineteenth of March, I came upon her in the garden where I walked daily for exercise. Dorothy sat on a stone bench, wrapped tightly against the cold in a bright red cloak. She was reading a letter and had about her the air of a cat that has just licked up an entire bowl of cream.

“You will have icicles hanging off the end of your nose if you do not get up and move around,” I said.

Dorothy’s glance was as sharp as a poniard. “I have memories to keep me warm and the promise of more heat to come.” She folded the single page with exaggerated care, smoothing the edges flat with gloved fingers.

“Is that from Lord Parr?” It was a logical conclusion but Dorothy’s reaction surprised me.

“I am going to marry him.” Her voice, her bearing, even the way she clasped the letter to her bosom, shouted defiance, as if she expected me to argue the point.

I reined in an unwanted pang of envy. “I am sure he will make you an excellent husband. Have you seen him since you left court?”

“We have been reduced to writing to each other.” She tucked the letter into a pocket sewn in the lining of her cloak. When she rearranged the garment’s folds, she made room for me to join her on the bench.

“It seems a most suitable match,” I said. “When will you be formally betrothed?”

“There are . . . reasons we must delay. And keep matters between us private for now.”

“What reasons? Is it Cousin John? Must your brother approve of the contract?” Cousin John was Lord Bray, and as such, I supposed, the head of Dorothy’s family.

“John is a mere boy. He cannot approve or disapprove of anything.” Contempt laced Dorothy’s words.

I bristled. The “mere boy” was my age. “Then it must be Grandmother Jane who objects. You’ll have to elope.”

“If only it were that simple.”

“Are you certain Lord Parr wants to marry you?”

Too late, I realized how Dorothy would interpret my impulsive question. Truly, I had not meant to imply that he had no need to marry her, having already sampled her favors, but she took my words that way and sprang to her feet, incensed.

“You know nothing of matters between men and women! Will Parr is besotted with me and has been since first we met. And I will be Lady Parr one day, while you, you foolish country mouse, will be fortunate if some simpleminded yeoman farmer can be found to marry you!”

After that encounter, I gave Dorothy a wide berth. When we were obliged to be in the same room—often the case, since I delighted in Grandmother Jane’s company—I was careful to keep Kate between us.

On the last day of March the weather was bleak. A constant drizzling rain and gray skies dampened spirits as well as objects. In the solar we lit candles, but it was still difficult to see our stitches.

Grandmother Jane complained that her swollen knuckles were even less flexible than usual. She clenched and unclenched her hands in the hope of working the stiffness out of her fingers. She had lived more than six decades and borne eleven children, but that was the only sign of age or infirmity I ever saw in her. Small and sprightly, my grandmother was the liveliest person I knew.

All the women of the castle except the laundresses and the girl who helped in the kitchen had gathered, with their needlework—Mother, Grandmother Jane, Aunt Elizabeth, their gentlewomen, Kate and I, and Dorothy. Dorothy sat hunched over a piece of embroidery, a sour expression on her face. In addition to the human inhabitants, the room was occupied by a linnet in a cage, three spaniels—Yip, Perky, and Sleepy—and Hunter, an old hound so devoted to my mother that he slept with his muzzle resting on her shoe. Two charcoal braziers gave off fitful heat and the fire in the hearth smoked and spat with every draft.

Warmly dressed, I’d chosen to curl up on the window seat, as far from Dorothy as possible, and thus I was the first to see three men ride in. I recognized one of them at once, even though he wore a long cloak and his rain-sodden hat drooped down over his ears.

“Lord Parr has just arrived,” I announced.

Dorothy went perfectly still. Her needle froze halfway through a stitch. As I watched, a satisfied smile curved her thin lips upward and she resumed stitching.

Grandmother Jane’s reaction was both more vocal and more volatile. “That blackguard! Anne, you must not let him into the house.”

My mother stared at Grandmother in astonishment. “Why ever not? He is high in King Henry’s favor and I have never heard any ill report of him.”

“Immured here in the country, you would not, but take my word for it, he’s a bad lot. And I hear he’s an evangelical, too, all for doing away with what’s left of the Mass and tearing down every church in the land to use for building stone.”

“Mother,” Dorothy warned, not quite under her breath.

Grandmother jabbed a misshapen finger in Dorothy’s direction. “Not a word out of you, girl. I know what I know.”

I wondered how, since she spent most of her time at Eaton Bray. Bedfordshire was even more remote from court and courtiers than our rural peninsula. News took a long time to reach us and sometimes people forgot entirely to send us word of events that took place elsewhere.

“Do you suppose Lord Parr will sup with us and stay the night?” Kate asked, oblivious to the daggers shooting back and forth between Dorothy and her mother. The linnet, equally unconcerned, began to sing. High, lilting notes filled the chamber, forcing Mother to raise her voice in order to be heard.

“It is too late in the day for him to travel elsewhere,” she said, sending Grandmother a stern look. “It is the obligation of every household to offer hospitality to travelers. If you cannot behave civilly toward him, perhaps you should sup in your chamber.”

“And miss hearing the latest scandals from court? Never think it!”

And so it was that we all went down to supper. I anticipated an entertaining evening.

The great chamber of Cowling Castle rose to a height of two stories but had few windows, making it a dark and dismal place even on sunny days. For family meals we customarily used the much smaller dining chamber and we continued that practice even though we had a guest. The younger boys ate with their tutors, but Father decided that George, who had turned ten in January, was old enough to join the rest of us. My little brother sat next to me, so excited at being treated as an adult that he could barely sit still. I knew just how he felt.

However much Grandmother might have disliked Lord Parr, she had no qualms about interrogating him. “Does Sir Anthony Browne still live?” she demanded the moment everyone was seated, “Or has that young bride of his danced him into his grave?”

Old Sir Anthony, I recalled, had married a lady more than twenty-five years his junior in late December. News of the wedding had reached us at Cowling Castle more than a month after the event but had still provided several hours of entertaining conversation. The age difference was not all that unusual, but the bride, Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, was the same young noblewoman who’d once been the subject of a sonnet written by Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey. Surrey’s name never failed to stir comment at Cowling Castle. My cousin, Tom Wyatt, was one of Surrey’s boon companions. Because he was, and because the earl had admired the poetry written by Aunt Elizabeth’s late husband, Sir Thomas the Elder, Surrey had composed several laments to commemorate Wyatt’s death. My aunt despised both the poet and his poems and, by association, anyone else Surrey honored with his verses.

As I’d predicted on the day we learned my uncle was dead, Kate and I had soon learned the rest of the story, the part Father had tried to keep from us. It was not a pretty tale. Sir Thomas Wyatt had died deeply in debt, obliging Cousin Tom to sell most of his inheritance to the Crown in order to raise enough money to settle with his father’s creditors. Tom had instructed Master Rudstone to obtain Aunt Elizabeth’s permission to include in that sale some of the properties that comprised her widow’s third of the estate. My aunt had been willing to agree . . . until she’d discovered that, in spite of Tom’s desperate need for ready money, he intended to grant an entire manor in Kent to his father’s longtime mistress. Mother and son had not spoken to each other since.

Lord Parr could add nothing to our knowledge of the new Lady Browne. She’d retired to the country after her marriage.

“And what of your sister, Lady Latimer?” Mother asked Lord Parr. “How does she fare? We heard of her husband’s recent death.”

Lord Latimer had died at the beginning of the month. Father had brought that news home with him. Since I had never met either Lady Latimer or her late husband, I was not much interested in Will Parr’s reply, but Dorothy was acquainted with both of Lord Parr’s siblings.

“The other sister,” she whispered to Kate, “was a maid of honor until she married William Herbert, one of the King’s Spears.”

“Kathryn joined the Lady Mary’s household some months ago,” Lord Parr said, “and has resumed her duties there.”

“So soon?” My grandmother, who still wore black for Grandfather Bray, dead these four years and more, looked disapproving. Widows customarily went into seclusion, at least for a while.

“The king insisted that she return,” Lord Parr said, “and by His Grace’s decree, Kathryn has also forgone wearing mourning dress.”

The exchange of meaningful looks between my mother and grandmother assured me that they thought this as odd as I did, but no one pursued the subject.

“What else is new at court?” Dorothy asked.

“The king has acquired a new pet,” Will Parr said as he sampled the stewed pike, a favorite of mine. It was seasoned with currants, sugar, cinnamon, barberries, and prunes. “An ape. The creature is half as big as a man and wears a damask collar studded with pearls. It has its own keeper, but I fear it needs more than one man to look after it. The beast escaped last week and went on a rampage in the lodgings of an unfortunate courtier. It ripped his best bonnet to shreds.” Parr’s light brown eyes twinkled as he paused for effect. “And then it ate the feather.”

When our laughter died away, I realized that Father was frowning.

“Did they ever identify those drunken ruffians who caused so much damage in London back in January? It was one night after curfew,” he explained for the benefit of those of us unfamiliar with the incident. “They broke dozens of windows, targeting prominent citizens and churches, too. Then they crossed the Thames in boats and attacked several whorehouses in Southwark.”

“I am certain no one complained about that,” Aunt Elizabeth said with some asperity.

We all looked at Lord Parr expectantly. He toyed with his food and appeared ill at ease.