Whitehall Episode 8: Ambitions Which Climb Upwards by Madeleine Robins

Author:Madeleine Robins [Robins, Madeleine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical, romance
ISBN: 9781682100752
Publisher: SerialBox Publishing
Published: 2016-06-29T04:00:00+00:00

“Master Gilman wanted me to show Her Majesty the lining for her spring cloak,” Thom began. Then, “What’s amiss, Jen?” He looked to put the fabric down, but Jenny shook her head and steered him toward the room where Her Majesty and her ladies were still sitting, and murmured to Lady Suffolk what his errand was.

Then she returned to the tiring room and, again, put away her mending. Her mind was not upon her work, and that would show.

“Why am I here?” she murmured to herself. “How can I do this?” It had seemed so simple: come to the palace, use her wits and her talent to become a lady’s maid. When she was taken up by the queen herself, she had believed her future secure. It should have been so simple.

She heard Thom’s voice. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I will convey your instructions to Master Gilman.” She looked up to see him bowing himself out of the sitting room and back to the tiring chamber. “Now, hayatim, come for a walk with me. There’s still light, and the air is soft. And you need a moment away. And perhaps . . .” He pulled her gently to her feet. “Perhaps we may talk a little, yes?”

Without knowing quite how it happened, Jenny found herself in the Privy Garden, walking among plots of new-budding daffodils, the scent of apple blossom soft on the air. Thom walked beside her without touching her, but she felt his presence very strongly.

“We should not walk here,” she said. “This is for the king and queen and the—”

“They won’t grudge a hardworking maiden a moment in the air.”

“Hardworking maidens are supposed to take their air in the kitchen garden.” Jenny meant to sound dry and humorous, but her voice caught.

“Shh, shhh, hayatim. Tell me what is wrong. I thought nothing could break your peace, and yet I swear you were near to tears when first I saw you.”

“What is that word you use?” she asked, hoping to distract him.

“Hayatim? It is Turkish. It means—” He hesitated thoughtfully. “Sweetheart? Dearling? I won’t call you so if you dislike it. But you must tell me what is amiss.” He smiled teasingly. “Do I need to thrash one of the fellows in the kitchen?” She had told him of the episode with the queen’s tea, and he had helped her to see the humor in it.

Jenny shook her head. “It is nothing.”

“By which, methinks, you mean that it is something but you do not want me to do aught.”

“There is naught to be done,” Jenny said unhappily. “I have made myself the queen’s woman, and there are so many who don’t like her, her foreign ways and her . . . her popishness. They hate me because—”

“Because you are smart and hardworking and fair—yes you are, do not shake your head at me.” Now Thom took one of Jenny’s hands in his square, long-fingered one, dusky enough to make Jenny’s own olive-complected hand look pale beside it. “You have ambition, yes? And brains.

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