The Secret Bride by Diane Haeger

happen . . . wanted it to happen . . . all of it. Be careful what you wish for, her father had always said. And she knew, only now that it was too late, just how true that maxim was. But it did not matter anymore.
    Nothing did. Not her body, or her heart. Might as well give it to the next highest bidder when the time comes. Might as well get something for my troubles. . . . Something to ease the humiliation that had begun already to eat at her very soul.
    “Jane?”
    She turned with a start and saw Mary standing behind her. Mary, so elegant, Jane thought. Even as young as she was, her beauty was astonishing, and her face was alive now with concern. Jane loved Mary with a devotion that always surprised her. She could not recall a time when they were not the dearest friends, did not know everything about one another, even finish one another’s sentences. Yet the one thing that did matter to Jane, a thing Mary did not know, was that she was darkly envious, not only of Katherine, but of Mary as well. They had the lives she would never have—the future and the men. A dark little part of herself hated the king’s daughter for the very different futures that lay before the two of them.
    But when Mary advanced, Jane only smiled, feeling tears flood onto her face. Both girls moved to speak. A moment later both of them realized that words were not necessary between them as Jane collapsed like a child, and Mary held her in her thin arms until she stopped weeping.

    Mary watched Katherine stand in the elegant, furniture-stuffed expanse of Mary’s wallpapered privy dressing chamber inside Richmond Palace before an audience of Dona Elvira, Maria de Salinas, Jane Popincourt, Lady Oxford and Joan Guildford. The dress Katherine wore—Mary’s dress—fit her exquisitely, and suited her far more than it ever had Mary. It was fashioned of crimson satin, with a black velvet petticoat and brocade oversleeves, which she had now ornamented with pearls. She wore a matching pearl-studded coif with a black velvet fall. The colors perfectly complemented her hair, face and skin. Henry would be so pleased. For the first time in weeks, Mary watched Katherine smile as she regarded her own reflection in the looking glass of polished steel, that thick onyx hair drawn sleekly back, so that her dark, almond-shaped eyes dominated her face.
    “It is far too lovely a thing,” she said so softly that Mary almost did not hear her.
    “Not for the Queen of England—and my sister.”
    “You have been a good friend to me, Mary, but you know well I am only Dowager Princess of Wales, to be returned to Spain any day.”
    Mary smiled at her supportively, feeling much older than her years for how she was being trusted and made a part of things. “Not if my brother has anything to say about that. He loves you, Katherine, and he shall be king. Then everything will change.”
    “I only hope there will be time,” she replied, in English still so thickly laced with her Spanish roots that it was often difficult to understand her. “But I do love him too, with all of my heart.”
    “That is a good quality in a wife, so that we might bring many fine young sons into the world with ease,” Henry declared as he stood, unexpectedly, in the doorway. They all turned to him admiringly, but he was looking at Katherine as if she were the only one in the room. Mary’s brother was so commanding now, tall and fit, clothed in a bold blue riding cape, edged in silver, an embroidered and braid-trimmed doublet, trunk hose and soft leather boots. Behind him, Henry’s friends Thomas Knyvet and Charles Brandon stood with smiles.
    Mary nodded to Lady Guildford, who gently drew her arms around Jane and Mary in response and led them, with Henry’s friends, out into the long oak-paneled corridor so that Henry and Katherine might have a moment of privacy. It was all so romantic, Mary thought, absolutely obsessed with eavesdropping on their exchange, and frustrated beyond belief that