Your most true,
NR
* * *
I flopped back onto the bed, my heart a racehorse flying at top speed. My season ticket back to my homeland sat on my thumb, ready for boarding. But Nick had trusted my promise not to use the time-traveling ring without him, and I had to be worthy of that. Plus, it had taken a few goes to work correctly last time. What if I used it to pop home and then I couldn’t get back here again? It was unthinkable.
What I needed was to find out more about the enchanted ring…like why it sends people through time when they fall asleep and its reasons for acting so strangely the other night. There was so little I knew about it, apart from the fact that it had been cursed by a soothsayer hired by Mary, Queen of Scots. Bridget Nightingale had said that her cousin was a renowned soothsayer in Buckinghamshire—perhaps she could help; maybe she was even the same soothsayer! Feeling the dangers of witchy business in Tudor England creep up my spine, I turned to the map of England on the paneled wall, but I was terrible at English geography. My fingers traced the parchment, searching.
The front doors to my chambers banged shut, making me jump. I slid off the ring and locked it inside my jewelry coffer.
In the drawing-room, Alice was helping Bridget out of her cloak. Bridget fell into a curtsy. “Oh, my lady, Mistress Grey and I searched for you.”
Alice tugged off her fringed gloves with her teeth. “We found you not, but Mistress Nightingale did discover the Earl of Surrey making his way to a tennis match.”
“His silk shirt was so fine that one could see his flesh right through it,” Bridget added, her bronze eyes glinting. “Surrey must have felt the chill. It was no wonder that his handsome tennis partner closed his arm around him as if to keep him warm.”
“Never mind that,” Alice replied. “It is the king’s pleasure to begin your lessons this day, Mistress Grace. The pavan, the almain, and the volta.”
Lines of confusion touched Bridget’s brow, and I flushed hot. These were basic sixteenth-century dances, and a queen-to-be should have learned this stuff years ago, if I’d been of this time. Now, if I had a hope of convincing people like the Duke of Norfolk that I wasn’t an appalling substitute for a French princess, I needed to become a total badass at all things Tudor, starting with the weird dancing.
“I’m ready,” I said. “I’ll get up to speed with all the moves, and the three of us can put on a show that’ll bring the house down.”
Alice laughed, drawing my smile to hers. Her icy expression had thawed a little.
Bridget had to finish her embroidery, so she stayed behind while Alice led the way to the rehearsal room. I fumbled for something to say as we strolled in awkward silence, but it was Alice who spoke first, sounding surprisingly choked.
“I pray you forgive me for my earlier words about your closeness with the king,” she said. “I meant not to upset you. My damn tongue.”
I nearly tripped at the apology, my pulse soaring. “It’s okay,” I said. “Your summary about us wasn’t exactly off the mark.”
As we turned into the clock courtyard, I gathered the courage to ask Alice the question that’d been on my mind since the feast. “Are you mad at me because I disappeared from Whitehall a few weeks ago without telling you?”
Her lips turned downward. “Well, it was not the first time you vanished from court, and I understand if you are unhappy here; sometimes, I miss Northamptonshire in great measure. But you did not even speak a word of farewell, yet you know what I have suffered with my mother’s passing from sight.”
“I know.” We reached the gatehouse bustling with courtiers queuing to ascend the staircase to the Great Hall. “I’m so sorry, Alice. Please believe me that I’ve never wanted to hurt you.”
She pulled me outside to a streak of graffiti chipped into the brick wall, lowering her voice. “Then why must you lie? I once asked you if you had a dalliance with the king, and you assured me that you did not. We spent every day together, yet you never mentioned your pursuit of His Majesty’s hand. Now you return from Sussex as our promised queen?” Her tanned forehead rumpled. “For how long had you been plotting this?”
I’d started to tremble. “I never wanted to keep this from you. There was no plot. I only became close with the king after I caught the one-day fever, but he was still pursuing Princess Henriette…he asked me not to tell anyone. I didn’t know what to do.”
She exhaled, shaking her head and staring at her feet. I’d never known life at Tudor court without the friendship and support of Alice Grey. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off.
“Why does it bother you so much that he and I love each other?” I said, a little exasperated at the constant disapproval.
“It bothers me not!” She spoke quietly but vehemently. “I can think of no one I desire to see His Majesty with more than you. But the last time I saw you, you told me you loved Lord Warwick. You were weeping over him. And then you left court without a word—was it not Lord Warwick who drove you away?”
Shock overcame my face. One of my countless lies to Alice Grey was that I was in love with Francis Beaumont, the Earl of Warwick. I’d forgotten all about it. No wonder she was so angry with me!
“Alice, no,” I said. “I made the Lord Warwick thing up as part of my cover for being with the king. God, I’m so sorry. I don’t love Francis; I never did. The person I’m in love with—the one I was weeping over—is Nick.”
There had been so many lies that I didn’t know how to untangle them. When tears threatened my eyes, Alice pulled me into a hug, her fern-colored gown silky beneath my fingers. “I have been furious with Francis for driving you away like he did Violet,” she said into my hair. “I have not spoken a word to him since.”
I pulled back, gutted at my role in this. “Are you serious? I already told you: I think that Francis Beaumont loves you. In fact, I know he does. Please don’t push him away because of me.”
She blanched at my endorsement of Francis as her potential boyfriend, keeping her focus on me. “Emmie, I am happy for you, truly. I am happy for King Nick…for the realm. While the advantages of marriage alliances are plain, I do feel our glorious king is deserving of a love match of the greatest measure.”
I squeezed Alice’s small hands, the return of her favor lifting a boulder off my chest.
Inside the dance chambers, a stout man with a beard clipped into a triangular point greeted us with a bow. I recognized him from Whitehall as Lord Mayberry, the Master of the Revels. He invited us to sit on the window seat while he barked in French at the quartet of musicians who were warming up their instruments.
We sat down, and I begged Alice to catch me up on any gossip. She beamed, seemingly only too happy to do so, intense relief loosening my shoulders. We fell back into our old routine as easily as slipping on a cloak. She told me that the Dowager Countess of Warwick was still under house arrest for her suspected role in her daughter Isobel Beaumont’s plot against the king, and that Robert Fox, the twin brother of the traitor Mathew Fox, had been exiled because of the disgraced family name.
“Yikes. How’s your old man, Sir Thomas?” I said. I kind of missed Alice’s cantankerous dad, even if he did once try to bribe me to break up with the king.