A VERY TUDOR CHRISTMAS Read Free Page B

contents of her pockets—a bundle of herbs, a handkerchief and a folded note—tumbled unseen into the well....

Chapter Two
    London, December 1571
    “Can you believe it, Meg? We are to be goddesses!”
    Meg smiled at Bea as her cousin took her arm and pulled her
through the doors of Cecil House in Covent Garden. They were part of a flock of
young ladies and gentlemen of the court recruited to perform in a masque
celebrating the upcoming wedding of William Cecil, Lord Burghley’s, daughter
Anne to the handsome Earl of Oxford. Lord Burghley was the queen’s chief
secretary and closest adviser, and the earl the most eligible of noble
bachelors. It was the wedding of the year, an essential event in the Christmas
festivities, and to perform in the masque was a great honor, a chance to be seen
in front of the whole crowd.
    But Meg would just as soon not be seen. After nearly three
years of being at court for part of every year, she had found the chiefest joy
there to be in observing all that went on. The people surrounding Queen
Elizabeth were like a swirl of brilliantly colored glass, dazzling, gorgeous,
enticing, but liable to cut if touched.
    “I am just here to chaperone you, Beatrice,” she said. She held
onto Bea’s hand as the other masquerade actors crowded into the entrance hall
around them. Bea was always liable to dash off when she became too excited. And,
being somewhat new to court and eager to see and do everything, Bea was always
excited.
    Like now. Bea held tightly to Meg’s hand as she stared around
her with bright eyes, taking in the rich tapestries covering the
linenfold-paneled walls, the thick carpets underfoot, the blazing fire in the
grate that all chased away the icy day outside the grand edifice of Cecil
House.
    Beatrice bounced on her toes. Meg smiled at her, and wondered
if she herself had ever been half so excited by life, half so eager to rush out
and grab onto its glittering promise with both hands. Perhaps when she first
came to court, first saw the queen and all the bejeweled splendor around
her?
    Nay, Meg remembered sadly. When she first came to court, she’d
been too cast down by the loss of a handsome man who was never hers to begin
with. Who had only been a silly girl’s dream.
    A man who never came back from France, but proved himself so
valuable to the queen that she sent him on to Venice and thence to the wilds of
Muscovy, where he formed alliances and gained royal honors. Lady Erroll was
always boasting of her illustrious son.
    But Meg was glad he didn’t come back. He would only remind her
of how silly she’d once been. Now she was too busy, too responsible, too old to
have such fancies. As she’d said to Bea, she was only here to play chaperone
now. Beatrice would surely make the glittering marriage Meg could not.
    “Nonsense, Meg!” Beatrice cried, at last turning her attention
from the grand house and swinging around to smile at Meg. “You are no elderly
spinster to spend your days clucking at wild young folk. You are much too pretty
for that.”
    “Not even a fraction as pretty as you, Bea,” Meg said fondly,
tucking back a strand of her cousin’s golden hair that had fallen from her
velvet cap. “That is why I must keep an eye on you.”
    “Nonsense, I say! I am perfectly sensible, dearest cuz. I know
better than to listen to their blandishments.” Bea tossed her pretty head
disdainfully toward the young swains who watched her. “I will take nothing less
than marriage, and a grand one, too. Just like Anne Cecil.”
    Meg thought of Anne Cecil, the reason they were all there on
this cold day, to rehearse festivities for her grand nuptials. Her match was
outwardly a splendid one indeed—the handsome young Earl of Oxford. But Mistress
Anne was barely fifteen, sheltered and carefully educated by her protective and
powerful parents, and the earl was known as a fiery-tempered troublemaker.
Mistress Anne would be a countess, true, but would she find happiness?
    That was