The Rose Without a Thorn: A Novel by Jean Plaidy

Author:Jean Plaidy [Plaidy, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: C429, Extratorrents, Kat
ISBN: 0609810170
Publisher: Broadway
Published: 2010-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

The Duchess asked me to visit her. This was not the command to which I was accustomed, more a request.

I sailed upriver in a barge which had been sent to take me from Greenwich to Lambeth.

She greeted me warmly.

“Ah, granddaughter,” she said, “you have become a success at Court.”

“I am not sure. But the King has spoken to me.”

“Spoken to you indeed! I heard he had you seated beside him and that you talked together. What could you have had to say to the King?”

“It was easy. I just talked. I forgot he was the King and I told him that.”

She looked at me in horror.

“It was all right,” I assured her. “I am not to be sent to the Tower.”

“Do not say such things … even in jest!” she cried, and I knew she was thinking of my cousin.

“Oh, it mattered not.”

“And it was at the Bishop’s residence that this happened?”

I nodded.

“Stephen Gardiner does not forget his allegiance to your uncle. That is as it should be, for where would Gardiner be without His Grace? He came up from nothing … his father a clothworker, was it? Something such. And if your uncle had not brought him to the attention of Wolsey … poor Wolsey. These people … they come and go. Wolsey … Cromwell … who next? We have to walk through life with the greatest care … those of us who live near the crown. It is well to remember that. So, it was at Gardiner’s place … and your uncle was there … and you did not know that you should meet the King.”

“No … no one knew. The King came without telling them that he would.”

She gave me a slightly supercilious smile.

“And the King paid attention to you … had you sit beside him? He talked to you and you forgot he was the King and he liked that. Is that all?”

“What else should there be?”

“I was asking you. Ah, I think I hear sounds of arrival. It will be the Duke himself.”

The Duke saluted his stepmother and acknowledged me with a nod.

“Katherine is here, as you see,” said the Duchess.

He turned to me then and I recognized the speculation in his eyes as he looked at me: there was a certain interest there which had never come my way before.

“You stand well with the King,” he said. “It is good that you have pleased him.”

“I have done as you asked,” put in my grandmother. “She shall not be short of a gown or the occasional trinket. The seamstresses are here now. They are waiting to fit her as it is necessary.”

The Duke was actually smiling at me. “I doubt not that you are eager to try these new gowns, and I’ll warrant you are as fond of finery as most girls are, eh?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

He glanced at my grandmother, who nodded.

“Then go, child,” she said. “Try the blue velvet. They used one of your old gowns for size. It should fit. There are some beautiful materials and the colors should become you well.

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