Queen by Right

Queen by Right Read Free Page B

Book: Queen by Right Read Free
Author: Anne Easter Smith
Tags: Biographical, Fiction, General, Romance, Historical
Ads: Link
yard.
    Feeling sorry for her, Richard said loudly, “I should thank your sister if I were you, George. She saved you from a certain drubbing!” The other youths roared with laughter, and it was George’s turn to redden.
    Cecily’s heart warmed to this newcomer, and she walked off with her head held high.
    S EATED ON A footstool near her mother, Cecily watched intently as Joan showed her an intricate embroidery stitch on a piece of linen covered with Cecily’s previous attempts to learn the skill. She was proud that her mother thought she was old enough to move from the basic and boring chain stitch into making knots and loops that would one day form intricate designs.
    On the other side of Joan sat Cecily’s twelve-year-old sister Anne, her pale blue eyes alternately lowered to her sewing and watching Cecily receive all the attention from their mother. She appeared to be a model child—never speaking out of turn, never causing her nurse or tutor trouble, and always seeking the approbation of her elders—but once out of adult view, Anne guarded a jealous heart and a spiteful tongue, and she resented her father’s favoring of Cecily. When Cecily found a toad in their shared bed a few years ago, she knew it was Anne who had put it there; when her favorite bonnet went missing, she knew Anne was responsible but said nothing—not even when Anne pretended to come upon it unawares folded inside Cecily’s second-best gown and was praised for her diligence. The two sisters dutifully said their nightly prayers side by side, but when the nurse had tucked them in and snuffed out the candle, there were no shared giggles or secrets. Each turned on her side and went to sleep.
    Earlier that summer, when Anne was contracted in marriage by proxy to Humphrey, earl of Stafford, Cecily wanted to ply her sister with questions, but Anne had returned from the civil ceremony in her father’s privy chamber and snapped at her sister, “I am married, ’tis all, Cis. Nothing has changed. All I know of him is that he is twenty-one and has been an earl since he was one. I do not even know what he looks like.” To hide her bitterness, the older girl had knelt down to fondle a little Italian greyhound.
    The countess finished instructing Cecily in the intricacies of a blanketstitch and, turning to Anne, asked her to demonstrate her progress on the psaltery. Anne gladly relinquished her embroidery and ran across the room to where one of Joan’s ladies was quietly plucking the instrument. Making certain her mother was watching her, Anne pushed her floor-length sleeves out of the way, steadied the boxlike instrument on her knees, and began to play. Joan smiled encouragingly as Anne painstakingly struggled through the song.
    Joan waited until her daughter was well along before nodding to her ladies to continue their quiet conversation and then turned back to Cecily. The maternal gesture was not lost on Cecily, and she marveled at how her mother made each one of her children feel special. And there are so many of us, Cecily grinned to herself. ’Tis a miracle she even remembers all our names. I shall have but two children, she decided then and there. A boy first, who will be a big brother to my little girl—just like George and me.
    “Are you listening to me, Cecily?” Joan’s voice interrupted her thoughts. She blinked up at her mother. With a heart-shaped face and complexion of a pink-tipped briar rose, a generous mouth, and a pair of blue eyes that could melt the stoniest of hearts, it did not surprise Joan that the villagers in Staindrop had begun calling Cecily their Rose of Raby. Ralph said his daughter’s eyes reminded him of cornflowers. Bishop Henry Beaufort, Joan’s brother, thought of a jay’s feather. But Joan knew they were the color of her own father’s eyes—of the sky above his beloved Aquitaine—and she smiled now as Cecily lowered her head.
    “Aye, my lady,” Cecily acquiesced sheepishly, “I am now.”
    “Your father

Similar Books

Conned

Jessica Wilde

Kavin's World

David Mason

Pepped Up

Ali Dean

Underdead

Liz Jasper

Chocolate Bites

Vic Winter

Birdie's Book

Jan Bozarth