Seymour sighs. “Of course you did.”
“Of course I did.”
“I am curious – did you truly think that your brother would give you a castle in exchange for me?” Seymour says.
“Do you doubt your importance to him?” Cecilia says.
“I know that he wishes to have me under his control. But to maintain the pretence that Cernunnos needs him to marry six queens, he would need to marry you. Henry is depraved, but not depraved enough for incest.”
Cecilia kicks Seymour on the shin with her stockinged foot. “And yet you think me depraved enough?”
Seymour shrugs. “I witnessed you condemn your friend to death in order to capture me. Who am I to say what lengths you will go to in order to get what you desire?”
Cecilia sticks the needle in more forcefully, and almost ruins the tension in the weave. She does not like to think about Lorena. Or Lorena’s brother, Florin. Both dead now. The end of their common little line.
“I would be able to persuade Henry. We would invent a way to explain it to the people.”
Seymour shakes her head, amused. Cecilia does not like being laughed at. She considers pricking Seymour with the needle. But then she thinks of another way to wrest back control.
“How do you and your ugly Ezzonidian princess plan on persuading the people of Elben that you should rule instead?”
Seymour makes a valiant attempt to hide her shock.
“What are you talking about now?” she says. It is a weak rejoinder, and they both know it.
“You can drop your pretence. For all your deceit and the pitiful acting of the servants in this house, you cannot hide the truth from me. The Queen of Cnothan is in league with you.”
The silence stretches between them, so long that any further attempt by Seymour to deny it would be laughable. Cecilia wants to drive the point in further. She cannot forget the humiliation served upon her by Seymour and her panther.
“I suppose,” she says, returning her focus to her embroidery, “that it should come as no surprise that Henry’s ugliest queens should turn against him. You, Cleves, Boleyn. You could not gain his attention any other way, so now you seek to overthrow him. He who raised you up.”
It is a misstep. She should have remembered that Seymour places no importance on appearance.
“When is the last time you spoke to your brother?” Seymour says.
“We write to each other.”
“You think him very noble and just.” It is a taunt.
“If he has any fault, it is that he gives his love too freely to those who do not deserve it.”
Seymour scoffs. She leans forward, forcing Cecilia to look at her. Such a curious woman – so retiring one moment, on the attack the next.
“What do you know of love? What do any of your family truly understand of the notion?”
“I know that commoners like yourself use my brother’s love against him in your grasping quest for power.”
Cecilia does not usually put herself out for others, but she will not have this upstart bitch pretend that Henry is ungallant.
“And what does he grasp in return?” Seymour says. The bones in her neck stand out.
“Oh, spare me your outrage.”
Seymour opens her mouth to protest, but then thinks better of it. She sits back, looks to the fire as Cecilia returns to her embroidery. To a stranger, it must be the very image of feminine domesticity. As she stitches, Cecilia realises what a mistake she has made in defending Henry so vehemently. For now, Seymour will not believe any attempt she makes at bargaining her way out of this imprisonment. She cannot bring herself to regret it, though. There are but two people in the world she would defend to her detriment, and Henry is one of them.
As if reading her thoughts, Seymour says, very softly, “He saved your life, I think.”
He did. Many times over. But Cecilia will be damned before she tells Seymour that.
