Queen by Right (4 page)

“Marriage?” Cecily repeated abruptly and searched her mother’s lined face. “But I thought I must be twelve before I am married. Anne said . . .”

“Anne is quite right, Cecily. Twelve is the legal age for marriage, but you can be promised at any age,” Joan told her.

“How old were you when you were betrothed, Mother? Older than eight, I’ll be bound!” Cecily immediately regretted her outburst. The countess’s expression hardened, and she gave a quick look around the room to make sure no one else had heard her daughter’s insolent remark.

“You forget yourself, Cecily,” Joan scolded quietly. “Your father may indulge you, but it is left to me to teach you manners, and not even he will tolerate disrespect, I assure you. Apologize at once and interrupt me no further.” She chose not to inform her wayward daughter that in fact she had been twelve when her father had given her in marriage to Sir Robert Ferrers.

A tear rolled down Cecily’s cheek, but she swiftly wiped it away and whispered an apology. In moments like these, it was not hard to remember that Joan was one of the children, surnamed Beaufort, of John of Gaunt and thus half sister to King Henry the Fourth. As mistress of the one hundred and fifty members of the Raby household, she was revered for her royal blood and equally regal bearing, but it was the care and concern she showed her servants that made them more devoted. Joan had learned this from her mother, who had begun in Gaunt’s household as a servant—governess to his earlier children. Woe betide, however, anyone who forgot his place at Raby; it was said Joan Beaufort could wither with a look as well as her father ever had.

Seeing Cecily so contrite, Joan reached out and patted her hand. “There is hope, Cecily. I do not think you will be displeased with your father’s choice, and aye, you must wait until you are twelve before you are officially wed.”

Forgetting her dismay, Cecily’s curiosity was piqued enough for her to ask, “Who is he, Mother?”

“A young man with whom you are already acquainted. And this young man will make you, as his wife, the noblest lady in the kingdom—after her grace, the King’s mother.” Joan’s eyes twinkled at Cecily’s open-mouthed stare. “Can you guess?”

But eight-year-old Cecily was not yet well versed in England’s nobility, other than understanding how grand her eldest sister, Katherine, was as duchess of Norfolk. All she knew was that her mother and father were the king and queen of her little world at Raby. She shook her head. “Nay, Mother, I cannot guess.”

“His grace, the duke of York, Richard Plantagenet, your father’s ward,” Joan told her triumphantly. “’Tis a high honor indeed, and one day you will outrank us all, Cecily. Now, what do you have to say for yourself?”

Richard’s gray eyes, wiry body, and lopsided smile leaped into Cecily’s mind, and she giggled. “But he’s not a man! He’s not a husband,” she said, putting her hand over her mouth to hide her merriment. “He’s just a boy. How can he be a duke? I thought dukes went off to France to fight.”

Joan had to laugh. At least the child was not upset. Joan had been elated by Ralph’s plan to secure Richard’s marriage contract from the Crown along with the wardship, and the king’s council had agreed. “As the others of my daughters are already pledged, Richard is the perfect match for my sweet Cecily,” Ralph had told Joan. “There are only four years between them, and I do believe they like each other already.” Joan had agreed and sent a prayer of thanks to St. Monica for her intercession in this affair. “Richard will be with us for several more years, ample time for them even to grow to love each other. They are fortunate.”

“Is he not too young to be a duke?” Cecily was asking her now, and Joan brought her focus back to her daughter. “What happened to his father?”

Joan explained that Richard’s father had rebelled against the late King Harry just before Agincourt and the king had executed him for treason. “This made our Richard earl of Cambridge. And, God is merciful, the king did not attaint him with his father, because he was only a boy,” Joan said. “And when Richard’s uncle, the childless duke of York, was killed a few weeks later at Agincourt, Richard inherited that title too. Are you following me?”

Cecily nodded, though Joan had lost her at the execution of Richard’s father. She understood that to have been executed by the king, the man must have plotted against him. Her father had told her that the word for a person who did that was “traitor.” And then the word “attainted” would be whispered every time the traitor was mentioned. As yet, Cecily had not grasped the significance of that second word, but as it sounded as though it meant rotten or having a bad smell, she would wrinkle her nose every time she heard it. How humiliating for poor Richard, she thought. ’Twas a wonder he could hold his head high or even sleep at night, knowing his father had been such a bad man.

A new question occurred to Cecily. Sensing her mother was in a talkative mood, she made bold to ask, “Does Richard know we are to be married? It will make a difference how I speak to him the next time I see him, I suppose. Do I call him ‘dearest lord,’ as you call Father?”

Joan smiled, wondering what else the little minx had observed about her relationship with Ralph. “Nay, Cecily. You must truly be wedded and . . .” She was about to say “bedded” when she remembered to whom she was speaking.
“And know your husband well before you may call him anything but my lord, my lord husband, or even your grace, the last because Richard is a duke.”

“How silly!” Cecily exclaimed. “I cannot even call him by his first name? Or as George does, Dickon?”

Joan sighed, suddenly weary of Cecily’s questions. Mercifully, Anne’s one-tune repertoire had ended, and she was seeking Joan’s praise. Joan put her finger to Cecily’s lips and frowned a halt to the child’s inquisitiveness.

“That was well done, Anne,” Joan called across the room. “Do you not agree, ladies?” And she led them all in polite applause.

“Y
OUR GRACE
,” C
ECILY
intoned solemnly, curtseying, when Richard approached her with his hand outstretched, asking for a dance. His straight eyebrows shot up, almost disappearing into his fringe. Richard wore his dark-chestnut hair in the old way, the way his first guardian, Sir Robert, did. It looked as though a bowl had been placed on his head and all hair visible below it had been shaved off. Cecily did not care for it and was glad to hear one of her mother’s ladies say that it was unfashionable; she made up her mind that as soon as they were married, she would demand that he grow it.

“Your grace?” Richard quizzed, taking her hand and leading her out onto the floor for a carol dance. Several couples waiting for a full complement of dancers stood in a circle, tapping their feet to the jaunty tune played by the musicians in the gallery. “Why so formal? Have I done something to displease you,
Lady
Cecily.”

Cecily tossed her head, happy that her heart-shaped headdress with its scalloped veil had been anchored so well, and she tried to sound grown up. “’Tis customary for a wife to call her husband ‘your grace’ if he be a duke,” she said. “My lady mother told me so.”

Richard grinned. “But we are not yet married, Cis. I pray you, call me Dickon like everyone else.”

“As you will,” Cecily answered merrily. “A pox on ‘your grace.’”

“I would not say that in front of your mother,” Richard teased. “’Tis not ladylike.” More earnestly, he added, “So you know the way of things between us. What think you of the arrangement? I am well disposed to it. Are you?”

“Aye, I suppose I am. I like you, in truth. But it will not happen for a long, long time, will it?” Now that she was face to face with him, the thought that she would spend her whole life with this person suddenly alarmed her. Her fingers trembled in his, and he squeezed them to give her courage.

“Aye, we shall not be wed for a long time to come, sweet Cecily. Never fear.”

Cecily, trying to show nonchalance, shrugged and lowered her eyes, as was customary. “I am not afraid,” she murmured to her embroidered silk slippers, and as if to prove it, she suddenly said, “I am sorry about your father.”

She felt Richard’s fingers tense for a second. His tone was icy as he told her, “I do not remember him. He was a traitor to our great King Harry and thus deserved to die.”

Cecily gasped. “But he was your father . . .” she trailed off, not understanding this coldness. Surely everyone loves their parents, she thought.

They began to dance, Cecily’s dagged satin sleeves reaching the floor even when her arms were lifted, and while Richard spent most of the carol trying not to trip on them, Cecily avoided stepping on his long, pointed shoes. He glanced at her from time to time, trying to imagine what she might look like as a woman. She was taller than most boys of her age, not much smaller than he was, but he knew he had many years of growing yet to do. He looked forward to the time when his voice would deepen and he would be scraping his face.

He thought she was pretty but in a childlike way. George had told him that Katherine, the eldest, was the most beautiful of the sisters. “Eleanor is fair, too, but short and plump—a bit like Mother,” he had whispered behind his hand. Somewhere in the middle of the siblings was Joan, a novice at an abbey, who had the unkind nickname Plain Jane. And then there was solemn Anne, who unnerved him with her stares. In truth, Richard was contented with the choice Lord Ralph had made, though Cecily was a little more forward a female than he was used to.

Richard’s short, fur-trimmed tunic brushed Cecily’s swirling blue and white skirts as they lightly touched hands to turn in a series of circles. Even though Cecily’s eyes were firmly glued to the floor, as were the eyes of all the dancing ladies, she sensed the spectators were watching them. Usually she would have basked in the attention, but this time she found it disconcerting. She wondered what life with Richard would bring her—a fine stable and splendid wardrobe, she expected, and prayed she would not have to give up her beloved hunting. But she also resolved to pay more heed to her mother’s daily routine so that she would be ready to be a duchess when the time came.

“A penny for your thoughts, Cis,” Richard murmured, when a movement allowed them a few words. “You are looking very serious.”

“I was just wondering what time Father was going hunting tomorrow, ’tis
all,” Cecily lied, hoping her hot cheeks were well hidden by her lowered head. “He has promised I can go with you all to hunt the white hind Master Laidlaw claims runs with a herd at the foot of Cockfield Fell.”

“Aye, George and I are determined to be the ones to find it,” Richard enthused, “although Lord Ralph fears it is naught but a mystical beast dreamed up by Laidlaw after too much wine. He seems to be the only one to have seen it.”

The hornpipe and tabor players ended the carol with a slow crescendo, and the dancers saluted their partners with reverences as the last droned note of the symphonie faded away. But before they were able to leave the floor, they were caught up in a whirlwind of cartwheeling tumblers. They preceded a troupe of mummers enthusiastically shaking bellsticks and shooing the company back to their benches to watch an enactment of the story of St. George and the dragon.

Soon Cecily’s eyelids began to droop, and the ever-watchful Joan sent the girls’ attendants to escort them up to bed. For once Cecily was too tired to protest. She merely curtsied to her parents on the dais and then climbed to her quarters at the top of the keep. The girls were shivering by the time they reached the room, but a servant stoked the fire, and the red-and-green-painted chamber was soon warm enough for them to be undressed and readied for bed by Nurse Margery and Rowena Gower, a fourteen-year-old gently born local girl.

“Will you hunt with us tomorrow, Nan?” Cecily asked, although she knew full well what Anne would reply. “Dickon and George are determined to find the white hind, but I hope Father finds it first—or me. I want to find it.”

Anne made a face and unpinned her long, mouse-brown hair. “How many times must I tell you how much I dislike hunting, Cis? Besides, ’tis likely to snow tomorrow, and I shall stay in where it is warm.”

Cecily sighed and climbed into bed, watching her sister put on her nightcap.

“Now, then, my ladies, go to sleep, and God give you a good night,” Margery said sternly as she drew the tester curtains around the bed, leaving the sisters in the dark.

“How do you like Richard, Cis?” Anne whispered to the drowsy Cecily, whose eyes then opened at the unaccustomed overture. “I confess I like him very much, and I wish ’twas I he must wed.”

Cecily was now wide-eyed. “You do?” she exclaimed, and turned to her sister. “Why?”

“I think he is handsome, and he is a great deal richer than Humphrey,”
Anne answered. “If only Father had waited a few months before betrothing me, then I might have been the daughter he chose for Richard.”

“Oh, Anne,” Cecily whispered, patting the shoulder that was turned from her. “I am sorry for you if you are unhappy. How do you know that Humphrey isn’t twice as handsome as Dickon? And he is a Stafford, after all, and he must be rich, too.”

“Dickon likes me, I know he does,” came Anne’s petulant voice. “And besides, he is the duke of York. Humphrey is but an earl.” She squeezed out a tear and sniffed. “You are naught but a child to him.”

Irritated, Cecily withdrew her hand: “I am not a child! Besides, we have already talked about being wed. He likes me, too, you know.”

“Aye, but, in truth, I think he
loves
me,” Anne replied miserably.

“Like? Love? What is the difference?” Cecily shrugged. “You are pledged, you are wed, you have children, and you have a pleasant time together. What more is there to marriage, pray?”

Anne could not suppress a giggle. “You are only eight, Cis, and not near to being a woman, as I am. Love is when your heart aches for someone so much that you think you will swoon. Love is when you want to be with him, when you dream about him night and day. Can you not see?”

Cecily did not see, but she was not about to admit it. “I love Mother and Father—and I love George—but I do not dream about them night and day,” she reasoned. “Perhaps you are ailing and need a physic.” She was disconcerted to hear another sniff and snuggled into Anne’s back. “What can I do, Nan? We must both do what Father tells us—and you are already betrothed. We cannot exchange husbands—or can we?”