Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her Read Online Free PDF Page B

penetrating stare Bryan felt she had turned to
    glass, empty, transparent, brittle, and heartless. So she knew! One of the
    maids must have told her, some silly gossiping hussy with nothing better
    to do.
    Tears glimmered suddenly in Bryan’s hard eyes. Such a difficult child
    in so many irritating ways and yet, if it were not for the honour and the
    status, nothing in the world would have parted her from her present
    post. Suddenly she pitied Kat Champernowne—young, inexperienced,
    unhardened, she wouldn’t stand a chance. And when you were paid to
    take care of a child, the worst thing you could do was to give your
    heart—you never got it back intact.
    Behind her the door opened. Someone announced, “Lord Hertford,
    madam,” and Bryan started to her feet, tumbling Elizabeth from her
    lap in her confusion. As she sank into a hasty curtsey before the King’s
    eldest brother-in-law, Bryan saw the haughty gentleman was not alone;
    his younger brother, Thomas Seymour, lounged just behind him in the
    doorway and gave her a rake’s amused, appraising gaze. She blushed like a
    girl and lowered her eyes, remembering tales about him that, in modesty,
    she would have preferred to forget.
    23
    Susan Kay
    The two men, blood uncles to the little Prince, were as different as
    chalk and cheese. One, cold and cheerless as a crescent moon, the other,
    glowing like a noon-day sun; the sight of them standing side by side was
    charged with all the drama of a total eclipse. Cain and Abel, thought
    Bryan irrelevantly, and we all know how that finished—
    “The Lady Elizabeth’s Grace will accompany my lord at his immediate
    convenience.” She got quickly to her feet and put a hand on Elizabeth’s
    shoulder, pressing her down into a curtsey.
    The moment she had dreaded was at hand. Elizabeth, smiling obliquely
    at the younger man, held her fingers out formally to be escorted from the
    room like a court lady; and in that moment Hertford bent down without
    ceremony and picked her up.
    The door closed and for the space of perhaps twenty seconds there was
    silence; then a familiar little voice shrilled into fury in the gallery beyond
    and Lady Bryan cringed and wished she had taken Parry’s unethical advice.
    “I don’t want to be carried. I can walk—I can walk all by myself. Put
    me down, my lord. Put me down!”
    “Cromwell told me the brat was a handful,” remarked Hertford
    sullenly over his shoulder. “I had no idea he meant it quite so literally.”
    He broke off abruptly. “She kicked me, did you see it? The mannerless
    little wretch actually kicked me!”
    “I’m not surprised,” said his brother, smiling unpleasantly. “She’s the
    King’s daughter, not a sack of vegetables. I’d kick you too if you held me
    like that.”
    “I’m sure you would.” Hertford’s glance was frigid with hostility. “And
    enjoy it if I gave you so much as half a chance—isn’t that so, dear brother?”
    Tom patted his brother’s hand with a maddening air of patronage.
    “Claws in there, Ned, let’s draw no blood on a family occasion. This
    is our day of triumph—remember?”
    “What triumph is there for me, I’d like to know, playing nursemaid to
    the illegitimate child of a low-born strumpet? Everyone will laugh at me.”
    “They wouldn’t dare!” said Tom maliciously. Hertford marched on,
    impervious to sarcasm, his lean face longer than a mournful bloodhound’s.
    “As I said to the King at the time,” he muttered half to himself, “it
    should have been you.”
    The light-hearted mockery died out of the younger man’s eyes, leaving
    them hard and unsmiling.
    24
    Legacy
    “Any particular reason why it should have been me?” The voice was
    deceptively calm and still suggested half-hearted banter.
    “Well, naturally, being the youngest, you have less stature to lose.
    When you consider my position as the Prince’s eldest uncle—”
    “Christ’s soul,” exploded his brother, “the boy’s no more your