The Tudor Secret - C. W. Gortner [20]
Lurking at a sideboard not far from that noble company was Master Shelton.
Chapter Six
I stepped into a surge of incoming courtiers, evading an onslaught of servitors carrying platters as I navigated toward a cluster of ladies in mammoth gowns, who blocked my way.
Someone hauled me by my sleeve.
“What are you doing here?” hissed Master Shelton. I smelled wine on his breath as he pulled me to the sideboard. He had a foul frown, the same one he wore when the household accounts failed to add up or he’d discovered one of the gamekeepers poaching Dudley livestock.
“Well?” he said. “Aren’t you going to answer? Where is your master Lord Robert?”
I decided that the less I said, the better. “His lordship the duke sent him to the Tower on an errand. He asked me to meet him here.” As I spoke, I was distracted by a shift in the ebb and flow of the crowd, through which I caught sight of the princess, standing by the chairs.
“Then you should have gone with him,” said Shelton. “A squire must never be far from his master’s side.”
Elizabeth was talking to a diminutive girl seated in one of those grand chairs. The girl wore simple garb that resembled Elizabeth’s, as did her copper-tinted hair and pale skin, only hers was freckled. Sprawled in a chair at her side, flushed from wine, was Guilford Dudley.
“Stop staring!” barked Master Shelton, but his face was set like mortar, his own eyes focused on Elizabeth, who smiled at something the girl was saying. He seemed to have trouble looking away, his big hand fumbling as he reached for his cup. As he quaffed its contents, I remembered that I had never seen him drink while on duty. But perhaps he wasn’t on duty tonight. Perhaps Lady Dudley had given him the night to himself. Somehow, I doubted it. For as long as I had known him, Master Shelton had always been on duty.
“Who is that?” I asked, thinking I might as well draw him into conversation while I debated how best to deliver the ring hidden in my pocket.
He frowned. “Who else would it be? Are you blind? That’s Lord Guilford, of course.”
“I mean the lady sitting next to Lord Guilford.”
He went silent. Then he muttered, “Lady Jane Grey,” and I thought I heard a pained timbre in his voice. “She’s the eldest daughter of Her Grace the Duchess of Suffolk.”
“Suffolk?” I echoed, and he added impatiently, “Yes. Jane Grey’s mother is the daughter of the late French queen, Mary, younger sister of our King Henry the Eighth. Jane is now betrothed to Lord Guilford.” He took another sip of wine. “Not that it has any concern for you.”
That tiny slip of a girl was the she-bitch who’d allegedly given Guilford sour ale? I found that amusing and was about to probe further when another figure caught my attention.
Elizabeth’s other attendant had discarded her cloak somewhere and now moved confidently through the crowd, dressed in a tawny velvet gown that matched the umber in her hair, which tumbled, loose, under her crescent-shaped headdress. She was quite striking, a vivid contrast to the painted creatures around her, with natural radiance to her skin and easy grace to her movements. I thought she must be seeking out an admirer—a girl like her must have many—but then I saw that she seemed intent on avoiding the gallants who eyed her, sauntering instead past the immense white hearth and nearing the noble company. She must be returning to attend the princess, I started to think, but then I saw Elizabeth make a pointed turn, acting as though she did not recognize her own attendant.
I stared. I may not have been at court long but I knew theatrics when I saw them. It looked to me as if the girl was eavesdropping on her betters’ conversation, and Elizabeth, her mistress, was fully aware of it. As if she sensed my scrutiny, the girl paused, looked up. Her gaze met mine. In her regard, I read defiance, arrogance—and definite challenge.
I smiled. Besides her evident attractions, she offered the perfect solution to my dilemma.