“You won’t lose me,” I said, stepping closer to him. “You are the only reason I’m here. But if you need me to destroy the ring to prove it, then I’m not ready for that yet. So I’m sorry, but the answer to that is a hard ‘no’.”
The grind of boots on gravel severed the cord of tension between us. Francis Beaumont bowed to the king from the shadows. “Your Grace, the members of the Privy Council have been seized, as you wish, and are being taken to the Tower.”
Nick squared his shoulders. “You have pleased your king. Now, I instruct you not to draw Lady Pembroke into this matter any further. My lady has been burdened enough. You will lead the interrogation of the councilors and determine who is to be charged.”
Francis offered a stiff, reluctant bow before leaving us alone. Nick shrugged off his velvety coat that smelled like freshly cut roses and draped it over me.
“I don’t want those men to be killed because of me,” I said to him. “I’ve never been a fan of the death penalty.”
His bottom lip disappeared between his teeth. “A king cannot appear weak, Emmie.”
“No one heard their seditious words but me,” I argued. “If they’re found guilty, can’t you keep them locked up instead? You can’t behead them just because they don’t like me. It’ll sicken me with guilt. It’s not the way things are done where I’m from.”
He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger and brought his lips close to mine. “How any man can think ill of you, I will never know,” he said, the heat of his breath tickling my skin. His hand slid down to rest on my shoulder. “If it shall please your heart, then I will pursue imprisonment for those convicted of speaking out against our marriage and forgo the scaffold. However, I cannot make the same pledge for those who are found to have plotted against your life or mine.”
“That’s fair.” My fingers found his and held tight. “My only worry is what Norfolk knows about me. He could tell people that you asked him to lie about being my uncle.” I hushed my voice so the guards couldn’t hear, not that they’d ever speak out.
Nick’s eyes shone brighter than the cabochon emeralds sewn into his doublet. “If that dimwit Norfolk would be so foolish as to make that claim, I will heartily refute it. You would have the word of a king to support you, my lady. There is none stronger than that.”
The next week that passed was eerily quiet at court. Only six members of the king’s council had been cleared by Francis to return to work; the rest were embroiled in a trial that I wasn’t allowed to witness. Nick assured me that any punishments resulting from the matter would be imprisonment and not execution, but Alice thought that was a fairy story. While she painted on my makeup one morning after breakfast, we debated over how merciful King Nick really was. For every example Alice had of a violent beheading ordered by the king, I had zero rebuttal. My only choice was to trust that my boyfriend wouldn’t lie to my face—including about getting snuggly with his ex.
At least Lucinda Parker had taken leave from court to visit her daughter, assuming that poor Ellie was still alive. While the thought of seeing Lucinda still turned my stomach, I’d simmered a little on the whole kiss thing. Alice told me she’d given plenty of men a peck on the lips without any hint of flirtation, and even Bridget thought it was common practice, despite her obsessions with romantic passion.
For now, my wedding and coronation were proceeding like nothing had happened with Norfolk and his treasonous tribe. Nick was full steam ahead on the marriage mission, and I sensed that he was trying to prove his affection for me more than ever after the Lucinda incident.
The week after the Michelmas train wreck, the painter George Gower rode into court on king’s orders to compose my formal portrait.
I was never gifted at sitting still for long periods, but posing for a taciturn artist was the break I needed from the pressures of my lessons. I didn’t have to pretend to speak Shakespearean to anyone, perform an oddball Renaissance dance, or play an instrument I’d never even heard of. Gower only needed me to sit deathly still, and it took all the mental space I had to keep my feet from falling asleep. I focused on a pretty fringed cushion in the chair behind him, my fingers clasping a single red rose. Nick had sent in a harpist to keep me entertained, and the glittery tune lulled me into a blissful meditation.
Just before supper, the oak doors swung open, shocking me from my trance. “His Majesty the King!” cried a guard.
“Your Grace, the portrait is not yet complete,” spluttered Gower in a deep bow.
“I wish to see it not,” Nick replied, covering his eyes as he sidestepped the canvas to approach me.
I blushed at him through a tangle of butterflies at the rare sight of him in casual black leather. He glided a scented hand down my cheek, turning my legs so weak that I could’ve sunk right into the woven matting.
“My love, I come to share news, and I plainly could not wait,” he said, the playfulness in his voice divulging that the news was good. “I have made formal the preparations for our marriage rites. Before this, we shall leave Hampton Court on progress. The castle must be cleaned and replenished to make welcome the many men who will wish to behold the wedding of our most blessed queen.”
“Progress…isn’t that like a king’s tour of the country?”
He nodded, kissing the back of my hand. “Occurrences remain of the one-day fever on the roads to Sussex, so we shall travel west, and perhaps north. First to Windsor, then over to Oxford, and God willing, to Kenilworth to meet the Princess Catherine.”
“Oh please, yes—can we visit Kit?” Nick’s little sister was one of the only people here who felt like family. I ached to see her.
His dimpled smile was infectious. “Kenilworth it is. Kit will be enamored to see you. We shall depart on the morrow.” Nick spun to the painter. “You will finish the portrait this day. Our Lady Pembroke will inform you when she is weary and in need of rest.”
Gower’s oil-stained fingers flew to his goatee as he watched the king leave.
“It’s okay,” I reassured him. “I’ll stay as long as you need.”
He tipped his head at me in gratitude, before his hand dashed across the canvas with panicky scrapes. I became a sitting statue again, processing the good news: I was about to travel through sixteenth-century English villages and meet some of the common folk…those who were surely more like me than anyone in this posh court. It would be an escape from the constant unease I felt from not being able to perfect the Tudor protocols quickly enough. A smile tugged at my lips, inducing a tsk-tsk sound from Gower. My cheeks slumped back into somber Tudor portrait mode.
I climbed into bed after midnight, making a stop at the map on the wall in my bedchamber. The route we’d take on progress was northwest, passing right through Buckinghamshire, where Bridget Nightingale’s family was from.
My eyes flickered to the jewelry coffer still protecting the blue-diamond ring. This was my chance to show the enchanted ring to Bridget’s cousin—the soothsayer Agnes Nightingale—and find out what it was meant for and why it’d been acting strangely. If I could just prove that the ring wasn’t going to conk out on one of its journeys to the twenty-first century—erroneously trapping us there—Nick would stop freaking out, and we could even visit there now and then. I wouldn’t have to choose between Nick and my mom.