Too late. Seymour charged in behind us, penning us like calves herded for slaughter. I faced him, mouth dry and eyes wide, while Catherine and Elizabeth collapsed into each other in laughter.
Seymour came forward, growling and lurching in bearlike fervor. Catherine flung her arms around Elizabeth from behind.
“I’ve caught her, darling,” she said breathlessly. “I’ve caught her!”
Elizabeth continued to laugh. Her long hair came free from her hood and spilled down her shoulders in a cloud of red gold.
Seymour ignored me completely, intent on Elizabeth in his wife’s arms, a feral light in his eyes.
“You’ve caught us a lovely fawn, my dear.” He swatted playfully at Elizabeth, fingers barely brushing her bodice. “Naughty fawn, to run away.”
Elizabeth gazed at him in enjoyment. Seymour caught a lock of her loose hair and wound it around his fist. “What shall we do to punish our pet, my dear?” he asked his wife.
The love in Catherine’s eyes for him was painful to behold. “Naughty girl,” she said, hugging Elizabeth. “Naughty child.”
I stood in a daze, realizing with a cold jolt that three games were being played out before me.
One was Catherine’s—she happy to be lighthearted and jubilant with her husband.
The second game was Elizabeth’s. Catherine, behind her, did not catch the admiration in her stepdaughter’s eyes for Seymour. Elizabeth had wanted him to chase her, and she liked, better still, that he’d caught her.
The third game belonged to Seymour. He had exactly what he’d planned—Elizabeth cornered, with his wife’s help. I in his play, only Seymour knew all the parts.
Seymour’s gaze slid sideways to me. “You, Needlewoman. You must go nowhere without your needle and thread, eh?”
“Yes, my lord.” The words were a bare whisper from my dry mouth.
“And your scissors? What needlewoman is without scissors?” Before I could answer, Seymour held out his hand. “Give them to me.”
I froze in astonishment, but Catherine’s face lit. “Yes, dear Mistress Rousell, give them over.”
Elizabeth struggled in some earnest, though she laughed through her words. “No, no, Eloise, do not let them cut off my hair.”
“Give them.” Seymour’s command seared like ice.
Quickly I dipped my hand into my pocket and drew out the scissors. Seymour snatched them from me.
He rearranged his expression as he turned back to Elizabeth and Catherine, becoming the teasing gentleman once more. “Hold her, my love.”
“No.” Elizabeth squirmed against Catherine. “I beg of you, not my hair.”
“Very well,” Seymour said, pretending to concede the point. “Your hair is safe.”
He snatched up a handful of her skirt and began to snip it instead.
I cried out in anguish. I had labored over that skirt and knew every stitch of it. The intricate gold and silver pattern had been difficult to match, the black overskirt so fine it was like gossamer. I was very proud of that gown, which I’d designed to be beautiful for Elizabeth. I watched, my heart sick, as Seymour proceeded to ruin weeks of my work.
Snip, snip went the scissors. Catherine and Elizabeth shrieked in delight. Seymour concentrated on his task, his breath coming fast, his gaze fixed.
I stood against a hedge, the twigs prickling my back and poking through my hood. Pieces of skirt fluttered to the earth to lay like fallen flowers.
Seymour continued cutting like a man obsessed. In the end, the ground was carpeted with silk scraps, which swirled up on the breeze to be caught in the yew’s branches.
When Seymour finished and tossed the scissors aside, Elizabeth had nothing to cover her loosened stomacher and chemise but her stepmother’s cloak.
“For shame,” Aunt Kat admonished Elizabeth later that evening.
Elizabeth, in a dressing gown in her bedchamber with a cup of sweet herbal tea, at last looked stricken.
