No Will But His Read Free Page B

tossed about everywhere, and what seemed like just colorful lengths of fabric thrown over the beds all around. Most of all, there were girls—more than ten of them, though Kathryn stopped counting at ten—all of them much older than Kathryn, talking and laughing and, some of them, sitting upon a bench by the fireplace sewing.
    In one corner of the room, a girl stood, and a woman who looked much older than them was engaged in . . . doing something with fabric around her. Kathryn thought that the woman was a seamstress trying a dress on the girl, but only perhaps because she herself had a new dress made for her so recently.
    As all the girls turned to look at her and Mary, silence fell in the room. The girl standing with the fabric around her turned also, to a sharp reproof from the older woman, "Now, Mistress Jane!"
    This confirmed that the girl was having a dress fitted. Mistress Jane was a thin, pinched-face creature, and the velvet wrapped around her was burgundy and so rich that it made Kathryn stare in admiration. It seemed sad to waste it on Jane, who would more likely look even smaller and sourer within it.
    Kathryn was thinking this as Mary giggled and said, "I give you her grace's granddaughter, Mistress Kathryn Howard."
    Without thinking, without conscious effort, Kathryn curtseyed.
    Like that, the noise resumed, and from the noise, many words emerged "So little!" "Granddaughter? But I thought Her Grace had only—" "Well, step-granddaughter, then." "To live with us!" "Well, then, be nice to her." "Oh, I will. Cousin to the queen and many favors in her giving."
    All of these brought peels of laughter, and the older girls approached, surrounding Kathryn, circling her about, pulling her chin up to look at her face.
    Mary stood aside through all of this, looking exactly—Kathryn thought—like a puppeteer, who had once come to their house when her mother was still living. The man had made many dolls dance and fight upon the stage, and, afterward, while the room applauded, he'd stayed aside with a satisfied smile upon his face.
    Now there was a like smile on Mary's face. That is, until the older woman came from the corner of the room and stood there, looking at them all with her hands on her hips. "Well," she said, and the way she said it, it was a judgment on all of them and perhaps on Kathryn most of all. "Is she to go to London with us then, on the morrow?"
    Mary's smile disappeared. She frowned, the sort of frown people gave when they were thinking deeply. "Well, I vow," she said. "I did not ask, but I don't see how not, for no one of quality is staying here, and surely the duchess wouldn't leave her granddaughter to the cleaning servants and the stable hands."
    The seamstress made a sound that signified as clearly as if she'd said the words that the duchess might well do anything and that this one servant had no high opinion of her mistress. She primmed her small lips. "I don't suppose, Mistress Tilney, that Mistress Howard has brought a trousseau with her or that you've been put in charge of her gowns."
    "Well, no," Mary said. "I've not–"
    "Did you bring gowns, Mistress Howard?" the woman asked.
    And because she sounded exactly like Dame Margaret, Kathryn heard a quiver in her voice as she said, "No, an' it please you. This is the only good gown I have, and Dame Margaret had it made, because she said everything else I have is rags and tatters, not fit for a beggar."
    "Well, an' it not please me," the seamstress said, setting off a round of giggles amid the girls. "And I warrant Her Grace will never give it a thought, but a Howard and the cousin of the Queen cannot go to the festivities in that way. You, Mistress Bulmer, and you, Mistress Tilney, and any other of you who have outgrown gowns recently, bring them to me. I see I shall not sleep tonight."
    Before Kathryn quite knew what was forward, she was set in the corner of the room where the light from the windows fell stronger, and the woman was draping her