The Siren Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Read Online Free Page B

apparently, by a hood that dipped above the center of the forehead, into a heart-shape, often edged with pearls or lace, and the latest ruffs were very big indeed. Too big, I thought, for beauty. The new starch had made them possible, but I didn’t like them and said so to Hugh, when, at last, we reached the courtyard of Howard House, Norfolk’s London residence, and my husband climbed out of the coach.
    “You’d better invest in some up-to-date fashions, all the same,” he remarked with a chuckle. “Whether you like them or not, or you’ll look provincial. His Grace is a widower, so the woman coming down the steps must be his housekeeper, but if that ruff standing out behind her head is under a foot wide, I’m the King of Cathay.”
    “I’d estimate eight or nine inches but I still think I’d better address you as Your Majesty of Cathay. There’s gold thread in that embroidered stomacher and look at the pearl edging on her hood. She can’t be just his housekeeper. He must have got married again.”
    We smiled at each other in friendly amusement and once again, as so many times before, I was thankful for Hugh. I liked everything about him: his spare body, which always smelled clean; his intelligent blue eyes, his maturity, the peace of our life together. With Gerald life had been happy and exciting, but I only enjoyed it because I was young. I didn’t long for it now. With Matthew I had known the wildest passion, but he often made me unhappy, for he was an enemy to the queen I served and had loved even before I knew she was my sister.
    By the time I met Hugh, dear Hugh, on whose goodwill and good judgment I had learned to rely, I only wanted serenity andhe had given it to me. The Brockleys, who had shaken their heads at first when I said I meant to marry him, had long since agreed that I had chosen wisely.
    Even in such matters as the difference between a duchess and a ducal housekeeper, Hugh was right, and the fact that the housekeeper was dressed like royalty was hardly surprising in Thomas Howard’s house, which was virtually a small palace full of servants who mostly thought themselves superior in status to anyone else’s servants—or even, in some cases, to their employer’s guests.
    The housekeeper was merely the vanguard of an army. Pages came, maids and grooms, and a terrifyingly dignified butler who stepped in front of them all to bow to us, wish us good afternoon, and snap his fingers at his underlings by way of telling them to see to our horses and luggage. Then he led the way inside. Even Brockley, who usually insisted on making sure that our horses were properly looked after, was overborne by assurances that the ducal stables were an equine paradise and was swept indoors with the rest of us.
    Howard House was in the City, but it was a different world from that of the raucous London streets. We were shown to rooms overlooking peaceful gardens, and there provided with every possible comfort: ewers of hot and cold water, basins, soap, warm towels, capacious clothespresses; and for me and Hugh, an immense four-poster bed. Even our two extra men were assured of good pallets in the grooms’ dormitory above the stable, while Gladys was given a similar pallet in the maids’ quarters on the floor above the guest chambers. Sybil and Meg had a room to themselves with a tester bed in it, and since, in my letter of acceptance, I had asked to have Brockley and Dale accommodated near me, they were given a small chamber adjoining ours.
    Later, while they attended to our unpacking and Gladys helped them, Hugh and I, accompanied by Sybil and Meg, were collected by a page, shown downstairs, handed to the care of the butler, and led to a parlor in the style of a small-scale hall, where the walls were adorned by stags’ antlers, costly tapestries, and twofine Turkish carpets. Two clerkly individuals were seated at a table, examining some documents, and perched casually on the window seat, reading what I saw from