At my insistence, we helped each other dress in our complicated outfits and ate a leisurely breakfast of manchet bread rolls, hard cheeses, and stewed fruits in the privacy of the bedchamber. Thomas Grey, Bishop Winchester, and my ladies had already left Robin House to give us some time alone, and, at last, Nick had nowhere more important to be but beside me in a simple bedroom. It felt like heaven.
Given how short the days had become, he suggested a walk outside while the sun was still high. With plain-clothes guards trailing us, we set off past the jumble of rose bushes becoming dormant for the winter and down the slope of wild lavender. We reached the clearing where we’d once shared a picnic and nervous glances, pausing to take in the memory with our arms entwined. And now we were back here as a married couple. The thought was almost insane.
The wind whispered at us through the fruit trees as we strolled farther from the house, coming to the curve of a small hill. We hiked to the top, catching our breath as we took in the bird’s eye view of a honey-toned meadow interrupted by a village that was too small to be walled. In the distance, a handful of residents milled about in their veggie gardens like toy figurines. A girl in a white coif tilted her face up toward us.
I instinctively stepped backward. “Do you know that village?” I said to Nick.
He was snapping pink wildflowers off at the stems. “The hamlet? They are all about the place. Hardly more than farms and cottages.” He presented me with a bundle of fuchsia blooms. “For my queen.”
I brought the fragrant petals to my nose, feeling my coy smile stretch my cheeks. Nick’s casual leathers clung to his legs in all the right places. It was still so long until bedtime.
“Shall we make our return?” he said, heat stirring in his eyes. “I am feeling rather in need of rest, my beautiful wife.” His forearm pressed mine.
I switched the flowers to my opposite hand so I could tug him down the hill. “I’m also beat from all this walking,” I said. “I could use a lie down.” We headed back for the house with flutters of anticipation that made my legs weak. Being married was wonderful.
Later that afternoon, I sat wiping off my makeup with a damp cloth, buzzing with happiness. While Bridget and Lucinda had become my beloved girl crew, I didn’t ache to have them back in my company at all times with little privacy. I imagined Nick and I never returning to the palace, just living out our lives at Robin House while I learned how to grow vegetables like the villagers from the hamlet and he tended to his roses. This was what I came back for. This was the life I craved with Nick.
He dropped to one knee behind me, swiping my hair to the side. The touch of his lips sent a ripple of goosebumps across my skin. “We must soon determine your royal badge,” he said. “I propose a swan.”
I reached behind me to glide my hand up his neck, warming my fingers in his soft curls. “A bit graceful for me, don’t you think? Do you really see me as a delicate little swan?” I fluttered my eyelashes.
“An elephant?” he offered, sliding into a chair beside mine.
I whacked his arm. I’d actually been thinking about this. “A phoenix,” I replied. “The bird that rises from its ashes to be born again. A bird that begins a new life.”
His tender smile fired another love-dart into my chest.
“A phoenix is fitting.” The soft tips of his fingers stroked my forearm. “We must also settle upon your household, your patronages, your council. Do you enjoy your ladies? We will appoint them in greater numbers.”
A mild-mannered knock tapped the door. Nick rose to his full, imposing height. “Come,” he said.
A skinny attendant with acne pustules bowed from the doorway. “Your Majesty, a messenger brings urgent news.”
Nick stepped closer to me. “What news?”
When the kid glanced at me and hesitated, Nick commanded, “Speak, boy!”
“The Duke of Norfolk has escaped capture by night and is believed to have made for Dover, Your Majesty,” he stumbled. “There is word the duke is planning a revolt on the grounds of your betrothal to the Lady Pembroke.”
Nick grabbed the boy by his stiff collar. I cried out, scratching at Nick’s arm to let go. He obliged, and the kid dropped to the floorboards.
Nick leaned over him, speaking through his teeth. “The Duke of Norfolk has been stripped of such title. On pain of death, you will refer to his person only as Henry Howard, the traitor.”
The boy hunched forward and begged for forgiveness, his bony shoulders shaking.
“Make ready the horses and coaches to return to Hampton Court at once,” the king snapped at him. The poor kid couldn’t get out the door fast enough.
Nick dropped into the chair, catching his head in his hands.
My voice wavered with both shock and guilt. “You didn’t kill him,” I said, the memory crystallizing. “I accused you of executing Norfolk and lying to me about it, but you didn’t. You did send him away…I’m so sorry.”
Nick’s chest swelled with tense breaths. “That is true. I killed him not, Emmie, but I should have. For now, that traitor Henry Howard is intending to kill us.”
15
Nick and I rode back to Hampton Court Palace at first light, leaving the cherished privacy we’d shared at Robin House behind in a cloud of dust. Our honeymoon was officially over now that a disgraced former duke was raising an army to bring us down.
From the moment we returned to court, the king disappeared into secretive council meetings for hours on end. When I did get to see him, I expected the dark moods and outbursts that were his trademark in tough times. Instead, however, he adorned me with jewels and gifts, spoiled me with fancy feasts, staged private performances in my chambers, and issued a wedding announcement across the country. While behind the scenes Nick may have sent soldiers to find Henry Howard—the man formerly known as the Duke of Norfolk—publicly, he was playing every kingly card he had, flaunting his wealth and power to me so I would feel protected rather than afraid. I didn’t want to muddle things further by telling him that all I needed to feel safe was to have him close to me.
But instead of privacy and seclusion, the king had put every aspect of our public life on fast-forward. He ordered the commissioners in charge of my coronation to work quickly, and my crowning as queen was scheduled for the first week of December in a flurry of dress fittings, practice ceremonies, and etiquette coaching. I missed Alice even more, who would’ve kept me calm with her wry jokes and explanations of things I didn’t understand. As pleased as we all were for her to be reunited with her mom, it wasn’t just me who felt the pinch of her absence. Francis Beaumont didn’t dance with anyone at the court feasts, and his usual wayward spirit had simmered, which I suspected was also because Nick had gone ahead with our wedding, despite Francis’s misgivings. Fortunately for the both of us, a letter soon arrived from Alice that announced she’d be back at court in time for the coronation. Yes!
Whether Kit would join the festivities, however, was another battle between Nick and me.
“She didn’t even get to come to our wedding,” I pleaded to him over our supper of roasted fish in his dining chamber.
His face made it clear that his sister traveling was still a sore point. “The roads are too dangerous for the princess to travel such a distance, especially with that traitor about. You know that I had wished to wait for a summer coronation, but now that Henry Howard intends to turn the people against us and bring my kingdom to bloodshed, we must delay no longer. As it is God’s will, I will see my wife become queen, and I will thereafter crush that spawn of the devil and make an example of him.”