Three Maids for a Crown: A Novel of the Grey Sisters by Ella March Chase Page A

mouth with invisible purse strings into a smile. “We must keep her occupied until I can think.”
    “You had best be kind to her,” I said. My parents started, as if they had forgotten I was there. I did not falter. “When King Edward dies, she will be queen.” Everyone knew Cousin Mary was heir to the throne until Cousin Edward wed and had babies. If he were dying any day, there was no time for that.
    My mother’s voice grew as chill as ice slivers. “We must trust the succession is in God’s hands.”
    “Or in the hands of His Grace of Northumberland,” Father muttered.
    I rubbed my crooked back, the lightning threat I sensed in my mother growing fiercer. Something dreadful was rumbling beneath the surface of my parents’ smiles, I knew not what. Suddenly I wished my cousin were riding out of the manor’s gates instead of waiting to be received in the great hall below.
    “Daughter, get to the nursery,” Father said. “We have enough to manage without a child getting in the way.”
    My lady mother looked at me. I did not trust the set of her mouth. “Mary shall accompany us to greet her cousin.”
    I blinked in surprise. “Will I?”
    “Frances,” Father said. “I do not think—”
    “Do not attempt it, husband. That is what you have me for. My cousin has always been fond of our Mary. Is that not true, daughter?”
    I felt as if I were treading on rotted boards, ready to fall through. “She is very kind.”
    “Yes, and you are most bereft without your sisters, are you not? I am certain Cousin Mary will give a good deal of attention to easing your loneliness. She experienced much painful solitude when she was a girl. Do you not see the solution to our dilemma, Henry? If the girl is about, Lady Mary can scarce pursue more troubling questions.”
    Father kissed my mother on the cheek. “You are a wonder, Frances. Wily as Machiavelli himself. It was a fair day when I wed you.”
    My mother straightened my headdress, her nails scraping my temples. The scratches burned. “Mary, you look a fright, but I know you cannot help it,” she said, trying to right the kirtle and petticoats that had come askew when she shook me. “Be a good girl now, and you will have a sweetmeat.”
    After smoothing her own rumpled garments and replacing Father’s cap, she went to the door and summoned the usher. “Before a quarter hour has passed, I want this chamber to sparkle as if naught had happened here. Not a trinket out of place. Do you hear me?”
    The usher bowed in assent.
    My mother offered her arm, and Father linked his through it. “We shall see this through,” he said. “In six months’ time we will laugh over how raw our nerves were on the princess’s final visit.”
    Her final visit? What could that mean? Would she not come to Bradgate once she was queen? That would be sad indeed. As the three of us descended to the great hall to greet our visitor and her retinue, my parents’ smiles turned as slick and sweet as sun-melted butter. Cousin Mary stood in shadow, her auburn hair caught beneath a cloth of silver headdress sparkling with amethysts, her thrice-piled velvet gown the deep, rich purple she favored. A table-diamond as big as my fist hung from a gold chain that circled her neck. Sparkling rings piled on her fingers until her hands looked too heavy to lift. She had been pretty once, I had overheard our lady mother tell Kat some time ago. It was hard to imagine because of the sadness deep-drawn on Lady Mary’s face. Kat said the sadness was because they had taken the princess away from her mother for four long years and had not even let her see Queen Katherine when that good lady lay dying. Of course, their suffering was not our uncle King Henry’s fault. It had been that witch Anne Boleyn’s doing, the royal whore trying to protect her bastard Elizabeth. Or so Kat had assured me.
    In Lady Mary’s presence my father tried to act his usual hearty self, only a spot of color on each cheek hinting at