In Defense of the Queen Read Online Free PDF

thighs. Elizabeth Carew had been the King’s mistress willingly. She would do well to remember that.
    “I could have made a good match for Parker with a daughter of one of my courtiers. His match with you has meant a loss to me. A . . . squandering of a powerful connection.”
    She lifted her head, and made the mistake of staring straight into his eyes. Even though she looked away, she caught the way his lips curled back in annoyance.
    She said nothing. The King had given his permission for their betrothal. He knew why he’d given it. This conversation was a game. A way to show her how much she depended on him.
    “I need Parker. I will admit it. But I do not need you, Mistress. And you would do well to remember that.” He moved, viper-quick, grabbing her fingers in his hand. The touch was shocking and intimate, his grip crushing.
    Without thinking, she pulled them back, curling them into her palms so he could not take them again.
    He hissed, and when she lifted her head, she could see bright spots of colour on his cheeks.
    Her heart was pounding, a slow, massive thump, making it impossible to speak.
    “You will not paint Lady Carew. You can focus your energies instead on a painting of my son, Fitzroy.”
    She dipped her head in acquiescence.
    What could she lose by doing so?
    She was about to lose her place as his painter. Her brother was waiting in his room at home, ready to take this all from her as soon as he could.
    And for the first time, she thought it perhaps not a bad thing. To be out of the Royal eye.
    Parker returned with the dice in hand, and she smiled at him as he sat beside her, let her bruised fingers rub the side of his thigh to show all was well.
    But it was not. Her heart had calmed, but the panic and fear of the King’s menace were still with her, making her hands shake.
    And for the first time, she considered giving the Queen the message from her old patron, Margaret of Austria.
    Considered treason.

 
    Chapter Seven
     
    Now if in such a court, made up of persons who envy all others and only admire themselves, a person should but propose anything that he had either read in history or observed in his travels, the rest would think that the reputation of their wisdom would sink, and that their interests would be much depressed if they could not run it down.
    Utopia by Thomas More (translated by H. Morley)
     
    H e watched her. He should have been watching the road, watching for another surprise attack, but she was too quiet. Drawn in on herself tight as a hedgehog.
    “What did he say to you?”
    She lifted her head, and he caught a slight tightening of her mouth. “That I am not to paint Elizabeth Carew.”
    “He likes to forget them, when he’s done with them. Give it a year, and you could paint her then. He won’t object.”
    She nodded. But it was stiff.
    “What else?”
    She hesitated. “He thought my wanting to paint her was meddling in his affairs. He made a threat . . .”
    Parker waited. He felt each second stretch long and thin, a drop of dew reaching from a leaf to the ground.
    “He said he needed you, but not me. That our betrothal had robbed him of a marriage of convenience between you and one of his courtier’s daughters. He said he could change his mind still.”
    He breathed deep. At last paid attention to the road. “He may change his mind. I will not.”
    “That is what makes me afraid.” Her voice was small, and she leaned into him. “He does not care what you think.”
    Parker slipped his arm around her shoulders, and the small, slender feel of her wound his resolve tighter. Henry had used him before, used him to keep his enemies in check.
    If he were forced, Parker would turn every cold, dark corner of his heart, everything that made him a weapon, back on his master.
    * * *
    Mistress Greene was waiting for them when they pulled into the courtyard, outlined against the back door.
    Susanna went from drowsy warmth, cuddled against Parker, to awake and drenched in icy