“Make haste!” roared the irate voice of Francis Beaumont, and the ground beneath us glided forward with two sturdy arms holding me steady.
“Shush,” Nick whispered soothingly into my ear. I clutched him tightly like a terrified cat, whimpering.
“What happened?” I said, orienting myself so I could sit upright. Nick and I were inside the cabin on the king’s royal barge.
“The people set upon you,” he said grimly. “This is why I shun the city as I would the plague. The people love you so greatly that they could have suffocated you for it.” He nuzzled his cheek into mine. “Dear God, if something had happened to you.”
Nicholas the Ironheart would split this country apart. That’s what would happen.
I gripped my quivering knees, finding a tear in the delicate fabric of my gown. The men and women who’d mobbed me hadn’t looked in love with me. I didn’t want to break it to Nick that their expressions had held nothing but hatred. Just because I’d come around on the concept of Emmie Grace, Tudor Queen, didn’t mean the rest of the country had.
Through the curtains, Francis Beaumont was speaking gravely with the king’s security team. I shut my eyes and curled into my new husband, fighting to forget the feeling of a thousand enraged fingers on my skin. We were supposed to enjoy the coronation feast on the river outside Westminster, but our barge continued gliding farther from London. Cannons blasted salutes as we passed with our procession of boats drifting close behind. Nick announced that the coronation feast was to move closer to Hampton Court Palace, which subdued my thumping heart. It’d be safer and quieter there.
The wharves of greater London were soon replaced with fishing villages and lush parklands. The oarsmen swept the murky water as we coasted along the river’s edge to the cries of swooping birds finding a home for the night. Trying to forget the nightmare at the water gate, I watched a heron land on a grassy river island, its beak digging into its wing. By the time we made our way around the windy bend to Hampton Court Palace, the sky had blackened.
“We shall feast here,” Nick commanded, and our fleet of barges formed a line outside the palace. A crewmember dropped anchor, and a slow barge three times the size of ours drew up beside us, holding feasting tables that were hurriedly being checked and redressed. Sweet herbs were lit to mask the river smells as we climbed on board.
A second boat delivered the senior nobles to the feasting barge, as well as Bridget and Lucinda, who were freaking out about the pandemonium at the pier. Nick left us alone so they could cheer me up, and we sipped wine inside the barge’s cabin while a musician gently strummed his lute. Already, I felt the terror of the mob at Westminster withdrawing from my bones.
Through the cabin window, I spotted a girl in a grape-colored gown standing at the Hampton Court Palace water gate, her waist-length, wavy hair making me sit higher on the cushion. She said something to a guard and pointed at our barge.
“That’s Alice; she’s here!” I cried, jumping to my feet. I leaned out of the open window, waving, but Alice didn’t see. When she climbed into a small boat that began rowing to the furthest barge containing the dullest nobles, I cupped my hands around my lips and called out to her.
“What in the devil?” Nick said, pushing through the curtain. When I explained, he ordered his attendants to retrieve Mistress Grey and make her a place setting on the king’s feasting barge.
“She’ll sit beside me,” I instructed, trying out my new authority. Nobody dared argue with me.
Minutes later, Alice climbed aboard, grinning with a healthy glow. She flew toward me but then remembered herself and bowed, praising me as her new queen. Francis Beaumont tipped his tousled curls to her in greeting, and a deep blush coated her cheeks.
“Can you believe it: I left Northamptonshire a week past, but we were stranded in Aylesbury,” Alice moaned. “We rode so hard that one of the horses came up lame, and we had to acquire a new one.” She gave both Bridget and Lucinda an energetic hug.
Grateful for the heat of the torches in the chilly night air, I caught up with Alice over a sprawling supper of roasted lamb, pheasant, venison, peacock, swan, dolphin, and seal.
As we nibbled on edible marzipan phoenixes with gold wings dressed in rose petals, Alice updated me on her mom. She said that Susanna Grey recognized her former home and appeared happy to be reunited with Sir Thomas, but there was a change in her. Susanna had become frail and unable to look after herself properly. My mind tore back to Massachusetts, where Susanna—as Jane Stuart—had lived in a state of helpless confusion. Alice trembled a little as she asked if her sister Violet could stay in Northamptonshire and care for her mother. Her smile returned when she said there was also a man of three-and-forty years, a Mister William Cornwallis, who had proposed to marry Violet.
“Of course—if Lottie is happy with that, then so am I,” I said, licking cream off my spoon. “I’ll miss having her around, though. She’s a sweetheart.”
Alice’s knee bounced nervously. “I may also wish to return to Northamptonshire to find a husband so I may be of more help to my household.”
I nearly coughed up a coral-colored rose petal. The Alice I knew had mostly shunned the idea of her own marriage. Plus, how would I pull off my new job of Queen of England without her?
She couldn’t look at me. “I wish not to leave your household, my lady. However, I remain but a maiden, and if I find not a husband, I fear that I may end up forever dependent on my sister. If any ill should befall her, I could become destitute and as frantic as my mother has become.”
“I would never let that happen,” I said, sensing the blue diamonds weighing down my earlobes that could probably buy Alice her own house and then some. She had helped me so much already; I would gladly share everything I had with her.
Francis had turned silent beside the king, and I could tell that he was listening. Now if he would just do something about it.
A glittering water pageant abruptly commenced in front of our barge, shutting down the conversation. An artificial island that was tied to the wharf erupted in a shower of fireworks, before entertainers dressed as mermaids dived off the island to perform a synchronized swimming dance with coordinated tails flapping. Before they could catch hypothermia, the swimmers returned to shore, and dancers in glittering unicorn costumes began prancing across the island. A breathtaking performance of sung verses followed, before a ‘wild man’ actor draped with moss and ivy dramatically professed his love to a nymph played by a young man, who suggestively unwrapped his greenery to reveal a suave knight. It was hard to believe that, only a few short hours earlier, a hysterical mob had nearly ripped me to pieces. Now, beneath a blanket of stars and surrounded by people I loved, I was having the best night of my life.
When the pageant ended in a second spray of fireworks, Nick rose to his feet, cueing the courtiers to follow. “Let us dance!” he said. “May I present your queen, Emmeline of England!”
Cheers resounded as Nick took my hand, leading me to a small space in the heart of the barge. Thank goodness for the bit of wine I’d had because he launched me into the volta without a heads-up, stepping and hopping to the lively music. He gripped my waist and lifted me over his hip, and a thrill shook through me that rippled through the audience.