My instinct was to back away, forever out of my depth on important Tudor matters, but Nick spotted me and ushered me over. Francis had been addressing the king, but when I approached, the earl’s mouth clamped shut.
“You may speak freely in front of your promised queen,” Nick ordered him. “Inform Mistress Grace what you did me. There will be no secrets between us.”
Francis’s throat bulged in a tight swallow. “Madam, I have it on good authority that a squadron of Spanish warships was sighted this night in the English Channel.”
I felt the blood leave my skin. “Warships?”
My reaction sent Nick stammering like he was embarrassed. “Four ships, which is hardly a fleet. King Philip seeks peace more than I, given the mess he has made of the Low Countries. It is no more than a pretense.”
Francis gripped his hat so tightly that his knuckles whitened. “Sending warships as a mere performance? Majesty, Spain has more than a hundred ships like it…the strongest navy in Christendom.”
“You need not remind me of King Philip’s admiration for his glorious self,” Nick said with sarcasm.
Francis gnawed at his lip, unable to conceal his annoyance that I was privy to this discussion. I was more than happy to leave them alone, but I didn’t dare move. First the nobles disliking me, and now the threat of war with Spain. What had it been—less than a day since I arrived? Tudor England needed to take the intensity down a notch.
Nick’s eyes flashed with anger. “My patience with King Phillip is at an end. That idiot seeks to increase my troubles while we are preparing for a new queen. We shall remain idle no more.”
Francis stuttered through his nervous suggestion. “Majesty, before such a glorious occasion as the crowning of your chosen queen, I counsel you to propose a meeting with the King of France. If you sail to Calais in haste, you may yet save the peace treaty between France and England. When King Henry beholds the magnificence of the King of England in person, he will be persuaded. A visit of your sacred person is a pledge of commitment…an apology for what transpired with his sister, Princess Henriette.”
Henriette’s name felt like a shard of glass in my throat, and Francis probably meant it to have that effect. She was the French princess to whom Nick had once proposed but then ditched for me. Now Spain was taking advantage of the severed marriage alliance between England and France by taking a swing at England. I wanted to disappear for my part in this unfolding disaster, but instead, I stood there, coiling my fingers into tight fists. Was Nick already regretting his decision to leave Henriette and marry me?
The king drew a deep breath and then expelled it. “I will think on it. Inform the Lord High Admiral to examine the forts and make ready the beacons and warships.” Francis made a gracious nod as if he was accepting a gift. “My lord Warwick,” Nick added, “I am trusting you to see to it that the Spanish withdraw their provocation, or you will answer for it.”
Francis bowed as he backed away, sweaty curls pasted to his neck. A flame of sympathy sparked in my chest for his thankless position as the king’s right hand, which had eclipsed the cheerful friendship they’d shared until now. Alice’s father, Thomas Grey, had the job before Francis and had been only too glad to throw in the towel.
Nick scooped up my hand into his soft fingers. I was well acquainted with how my fiancé could flip from Jekyll to Hyde—the drawback to dating a Tudor king.
“My love, we must part,” he said. “I must think on this issue of Spain.”
His palm skated up my cheek, and I tilted into his touch. I brought my lips to his fingers and kissed them like they were strips of candy, one by one. A fluttery sigh escaped his mouth, and he turned into me. “Baby,” I whispered, wishing we could just be alone.
A moment later, feet thudded, pikes detached, and members of the Privy Council began filing in, headed by the formidable Duke of Norfolk.
Nick drew away from me and ordered the gentlemen to follow him into his council chamber. They disappeared through the Great Watching Chamber like a consortium of high-powered CEOs, leaving me alone beside a candelabrum of polished gold.
A pair of polite guards offered to escort me back to my chambers, and I accepted with relief. I’d had more than enough excitement for one day. The opulent palace corridors and gemstones swinging from my earlobes would never get old, but as we headed downstairs to my rooms, I felt only the terror of Nick facing a medieval-style war. Having him hacked to bits by a Spanish sword was so not my idea of wedded bliss.
Eager for sleep, I avoided chatter with Bridget Nightingale about the night’s events as she undressed me. I climbed into the warmed blankets and breathed in their orange scent, the oppressive silence clawing at me. At my home in modern-day Hatfield, my mom often left her television on, even when she was at work. Cars sped up and down our street at all hours. Dogs barked at annoying times. Here, the only background noise was a deathlike silence. I blew out the candle and rolled onto my side in the empty bed, my fingertips tracing the pattern of entwined vines embroidered into the curtains. A gentle pattering crept through the window, and I closed my eyes, relieved for the sound of falling rain. Just any sound at all.
At the first blackbird’s cry, Bridget heaved open the window shutters like a boarding school mistress, leaving me to eat breakfast in bed and say my morning prayers. I sat up on the mattress and massaged the back of my neck while chewing crispy white bread and pondering the timeline of coffee.
Bridget poured me a bath at my request, and I sank into the water strewn with fragrant herbs and rose petals. My fingers swirled through the cloudy liquid, circling the small scar from the old arrow wound on my thigh, which had healed nicely.
My head exploded with thoughts about how I might help Nick with his war pressures. I wanted to be more than an obedient Tudor queen who decorated the king’s court as a silent symbol of piety. That was definitely—and hilariously—not me, but I was kidding myself if I believed I had any advice to offer about sixteenth-century European conflicts. Sir Thomas Grey’s earlier plan of a marriage alliance between King Nicholas of England and Princess Henriette of France was sounding more ideal for England by the minute. Now I’d woken up freaking out that Nick would regret his decision and send me on a one-way ticket back to the twenty-first century, where I’d never see him again.
My toes squished the cloth lining the bathtub as I climbed over the wooden edge, landing on a linen sheet. After I’d dried off and slipped on my smock, I dunked the ewer into the bathwater and carried it out to Bridget.
“Where can I put the water?” I said to her. “Is this the best way to empty the bath?”
She swerved away from her sewing. “Oh, my lady, I will attend to it.”
“It’s okay; I want to help.”
She wrestled the ewer from my hands. “Forgive me. I must complete my tasks, or I may be relieved of my duties.”
With a sigh, I relinquished the ewer, reminding myself that Tudor folk were comfortable with their rigid master-servant roles. I didn’t need to call extra attention to myself by challenging the system.
After Bridget had rubbed my teeth with mint water and a tooth cloth, she dressed me in a pretty ivory gown embroidered with hundreds of tiny botanicals. She fixed my hair into a plaited bun and pinned a pearled hood over the top, before handing me an embroidery hoop, a silver thimble, a pincushion, and a monster-sized needle. I barely restrained a sigh of annoyance. Had I seriously just spent an hour getting dolled up for a spot of sewing in my private chambers?