Obediently, I spun slowly in place, my woolen skirts rustling softly in the silence.
“Humph,” my grandmother said. “You’ll do. You dress in fancy finery now, do you?”
My own clothes resembled the styles that I created for Elizabeth, though I continued to design them in a subdued fashion. I did not use the same silks and velvets that garbed her—I wore practical wool today because of the rain-drenched roads.
But I prided myself on looking well, so that any who knew I served the princess would see I was turned out smartly, a credit to her, without overshadowing her.
My grandmother scanned my gown and the little jacket that covered my bodice with undisguised interest. While she’d never say so, she too liked to dress well. She enjoyed little luxuries, as her very comfortable home attested.
The maidservant, Helene, who’d been with my grandmother for many years now, carried in a tray with steaming mulled wine and sweet pastries, which I knew would have come fresh from the bakery in the village.
“I am a seamstress,” I answered Grandmother, hiding my amusement. “I can make even drab fabric seem fine.”
“Have a care with vanity,” Grandmother returned. “It might be the end of you.”
She gave Helene a curt, dismissing nod. Helene sent me an encouraging smile and withdrew.
“I am careful,” I promised her. “How are you, Grandmama?”
“As well as can be expected for someone of my age.” Grandmother’s dark eyes snapped. “My physician threatens to bleed me, despite my health. He’s a quack but an interesting conversationalist, so I send for him when I am weary of everyone else’s company. So.” She sat up straighter in her chair and thumped her stick once to the floor. “You’ve got yourself married, have you?”
“Yes.” My back stiffened but I did not feel the utter defensiveness I’d had with my stepfather. “James Colby is a good man.”
“From Shropshire.” My grandmother went thoughtful. “I’ve heard of the Shropshire Colbys. Decent people,” she said grudgingly.
“They’ve passed away now,” I replied, which saddened me. Not only for James’s sake, but I would have liked to meet them. “James is alone in the world.”
“Sometimes that is better,” Grandmother said. “No awkward connections to make your life difficult. He is good to you?”
“So far,” I acknowledged. “He is an honorable man. Kind. And he cares for me.”
“That is all very well, but be certain he has a warm house where you can be lady of the manor, and an uncomplicated will so you won’t have to go to court to claim your inheritance from him.”
“I imagine he’ll take care of such things,” I said, my heart lightening. Grandmother approved of Colby. She’d have said otherwise, decidedly, if she hadn’t, and possibly had Helene march me back out into the road.
“You are young and gullible. Ensure he does right by you and that you have entire control of his household. Then you can remain on your estate with people to look after you when he decides to turn his sights to a pretty young mistress. Let her have the bother of him while you live in great luxury.”
I hadn’t known my grandfather, but apparently, he’d been quite fond of Grandmother and never gave a thought to another woman. He’d provided for her well, as this house attested, and he’d been devoted, so she was not speaking from harsh experience.
However, I’d observed the gentlemen of the court I’d grown up around and knew that many of them lived two lives—one with a wife, the other with a mistress. Grandmother was not wrong to warn me.
At the moment, I was giddily in love and also knew James didn’t have much time for a mistress, or a wife either, for that matter.
“Have you told her?” Grandmother asked.
I knew she did not mean Aunt Kat. “Not yet,” I admitted, then rushed on. “It has only been a week or so, and Her Grace has been quite busy?—”
“Tell her,” Grandmother interrupted in hard tones. “’Twill be better for you in the end. I hear that young Elizabeth can be harsh with her ladies but also that she will do anything for the ones she loves. It is the only explanation for her putting up with your Aunt Kat all these years,” she finished in a mutter.
I did want to tell Elizabeth—I prided myself in keeping nothing from her—but I feared the interview. Elizabeth had told me repeatedly she did not want to lose me to a husband, and I’d always promised to remain unmarried.
I’d wed Colby to prevent my stepfather from forcing me into a marriage I did not want. Sir Philip had threatened to go through the courts to bring me to heel, but the judges and lawyers might balk at trying to end a marriage that was very legal. They’d have to prove that Colby and I were too closely related, or were already married to others, and things of that nature, none of which was true.
The parish priest Colby had chosen was Catholic, but he’d once been of the reformed religion and performed Catholic masses now to keep himself alive. The bishops would be reluctant to end a Catholic marriage, and the correctly signed registers, with witnesses, showed the marriage was valid, no matter what religion the country embraced. Colby had been very thorough.
I sank to a chair my grandmother waved me to and took up a cup of the warm, spiced wine. “Elizabeth will dismiss me,” I said glumly.
“That is possible.” My grandmother’s words were blunt, but I needed to hear them. “And possibly not. If you are indispensable to her, she’ll keep you on, as she did Kat when she married John Ashley. She brought Ashley into the household, where he remains to this day.”
