A VERY TUDOR CHRISTMAS by Amanda Mccabe

Chapter One
    England, 1569
    “Hush, Bea! They will hear you. We’ll never be able to hear what’s happening if they find us here,” Margaret Clifford whispered fiercely as she and her cousin squeezed into the tiny closet right above her parents’ great hall at Clifford Manor. Beatrice was her best friend, but she was three years younger than Meg’s eighteen, and inclined to be giggly. It had been that way ever since Bea’s parents, Meg’s mother’s sister and her husband, died and Bea came to live with them as a toddler.
    Beatrice clapped her hand over her mouth and huddled closer to Meg as they knelt on the floor. “I won’t say a word, Meg, I vow it.”
    “I never should have let you come with me,” Meg murmured. She had tried to slip out of their shared chamber without Bea seeing her, but she hadn’t been quick enough. Beatrice had begged and cried so very much that Meg knew she had to drag her along. Time was short, and she had to discover what her parents were talking about with Lord and Lady Erroll.
    Meg drew her velvet skirts close under her and she lowered her knees to the rough plank floor and tried to peer through the tiny knothole to the hall below. Bea clutched at her sleeve, fairly vibrating with excitement, and Meg had to shush her again. She could barely hear as it was. And it was vital that she hear.
    God’s truth, but it was so maddening that her parents refused to talk to her! They treated her as if she was the veriest child, younger even than Beatrice. She was not a child at all now. She was more than old enough for...
    For marrying.
    Was that why the Errolls had come to Clifford Manor now? Meg curled her fists against the wood floor, feeling her heart pounding. Please, let it be true!
    Yet it all seemed too, too glorious to ever be true. Ever since she had seen Robert Erroll at the Christmas festivities a few months ago, ever since they’d danced, touched, looked into each other’s eyes, she had not been able to think about anything else at all. Even when she walked in the garden with Bea, or when her mother shouted at her for snarling the embroidery silks, she could only see Robert Erroll’s sky-blue eyes. Could only remember how it had felt when their fingers twined together.
    Remember—and wonder when she might see him again.
    Until today. Today when she’d been walking along the lane, and glimpsed a horse galloping toward her....
    * * *
    “‘Or call it winter, which, being full of care, makes summer’s welcome thrice more wish’d, more rare...’” Meg hummed the Christmas song as she swung her basket. Go fetch some eggs from Mistress Brown, Margaret, her mother had snapped, shooing Meg’s little twin brothers out from underfoot. You are of no use to me with your daydreaming today. Beatrice can finish the mending.
    The Cliffords were an old family, at Clifford Manor for centuries, but not rich enough to hire people do all their mending for them. Or fetch their eggs.
    It was a chilly day, a cold wind snapping at her cloak as smoke curled from Clifford Manor’s old chimneys behind her, but Meg didn’t care. She had a few moments to be alone away from the chaos of her home. Not even Beatrice was with her today to interrupt her thoughts. The farther she walked, the quieter the countryside grew, until she could imagine she was dancing again.
    Until she spun around the corner of the lane, humming louder, and saw the great black horse swooping down on her.
    Meg screamed and ducked toward the hedgerows, snagging her cloak. She almost fell into the mud, and the panic fell over her like a cold cloud as her hood drooped down in front of her eye.
    The horse thundered by, mere inches from her foot. As she struggled to push herself right, she heard the great beast whirl around and a man’s shout.
    Meg shoved her hood back and glanced back over her shoulder to see a man leaping down from his saddle. His clothes were fine velvet and leather, cut close to a handsome body and far too fine for