A Dangerous Inheritance Read Online Free PDF

magical, filled with promise.
    Servants wearing the green dragon badge of Pembroke hasten to take our cloaks, unload my gear from the barge, and attend us to our chambers, and then Harry leads me through room after room appointed with lavish splendor. Yet the fine furnishings, the costly carpets, the brilliant tapestries, are as nothing compared to the young man at my side. Soon we will be alone together. The thought of that makes me catch my breath.
    “This is a very old house, but you will grow to love it,” Harry tells me, squeezing my hand again. His eyes are merry, warm, and inviting.
    “The first building on this site was built in the time of William the Conqueror, for defending the City of London,” the earl adds, “but later it was sold to our former neighbor, the Black Friars’ monastery. This house was built early in the last century, on land reclaimed from the river. It was the London residence of the royal House of York.”
    “It was a fine mansion then, by all accounts,” the Countess Anne continues, “and parts of it still remain today—I will show you tomorrow, if you wish—but much was remodeled by King Henry VII, who converted it into a royal palace.”
    “Indeed, many illustrious royal persons have lived here,” the earl says with pride as we pass into a vast, opulent chamber graced with tapestries threaded with gold that glitters in the torchlight. “It was in this hall”—he waves an expansive hand at the cavernous timbered space—“that Edward of York was acknowledged as King Edward IV after his victory over the House of Lancaster. And it was here too, regrettably, that his brother, that villainous crookback Richard of Gloucester, was later offered the crown.”
    “You mean Richard III?” I ask.
    “Yes, Katherine. He had no right to it, of course, but nevertheless he accepted it. He had meant to have it all along. He stood in that gallery up there, pretending reluctance.” I look up, suddenly chilled.
    I have heard this tale from several people over the years: how, seventy years ago, Edward IV, dying long before his time, had appointed his hitherto loyal brother, Richard of Gloucester, as Lord Protector ofEngland during the minority of his twelve-year-old heir, Edward V. Our tutor, Master Aylmer, told us the story, for there was some talk of these events in my childhood, after King Edward VI succeeded to the throne at just nine years old, and the kingdom again came under the rule of a protector. That was the late Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, brother to Queen Jane Seymour, and therefore uncle to King Edward, my cousin: the “Good Duke,” the people had called him. I’m not sure just how good a duke he was, for there were those who resented his rule. Overthrown by Northumberland, he met his end on the block last year.
    Richard of Gloucester had fared rather better in his struggle for power—at least to begin with. According to Master Aylmer, he was an ambitious man, a tyrant even, twisted in body and soul, and Aylmer held him up as one of the worst moral examples in history. Having ruthlessly eliminated all opposition, Richard had deposed the young Edward V and usurped the throne himself. By then the poor little King and his brother had been imprisoned in the Tower of London, and soon afterward they were secretly murdered, although even to this day no one knows for certain how. Because of this, their fate has never ceased to fascinate me. Certain it is that King Richard ordered their deaths, and Aylmer told us that, in the end, his ill fame was such that his supporters deserted him and switched their allegiance to the rightful Lancastrian heir, Henry Tudor. And everyone knows what happened at the Battle of Bosworth …
    I gaze about me, awestruck, suppressing a shudder. This was where the usurper had stood, reading a prayer book to boast his piety, as his henchman, the Duke of Buckingham, recited his virtues and his right to the crown to the leading citizens of London. And