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Rivals in the Tudor Court
Darcey Bonnette
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
First published by Kensington Publishing, New York, 2011
RIVALS IN THE TUDOR COURT. Copyright © D.L. Bogdan 2011. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
D.L. Bogdan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9781847562586
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2011 ISBN: 9781847563026
Version: 2018-07-25
Dedication
For my sailor
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Book One
Thomas
The Tower of London
Armor
Two Bonny Lads
A New Allegiance
Family Man
The Passing of a Crown
Book Two
Elizabeth
Kenninghall
A Little Maid
Of Princes …
… and Pirates
Change Winds
The Fruits of War
A Countess’s Life
The Isle of Erin
Traitors and Lovers
The Duke of Norfolk
Book Three
Bess
Mendham, Suffolk
A Real Live Duke
Two Ladies
The Palace Shaped Like an H
The End of an Era
For the King’s Pleasure
Kenninghall
The Redbourne Years
A Howard Rose
Blossom of Hope
Book Four
The Howard Legacy
Fall from Grace
Gratia Dei, Sum Quod Sum!
Norfolk House
Further Reading
A Reading Group Guide
Discussion Questions
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by Darcey Bonnette
The Tower of London
Thomas Howard, January 1547
Two bitches, a bewildered dolt, and a hothead have condemned me to this wretched place. The first wench would be my lovely wife, Elizabeth, whose list of virtues is far too extensive to catalogue. The second is my mistress, Bess Holland, who found it expedient to trade her lover for jewels and lands. The dolt is my daughter Mary, whose endless capacity for ineptness exempts her from being entirely to blame. But the hothead! The hothead is my own son Henry, Earl of Surrey, that talented boy I put such store in. My Surrey. Surrey, who claims to loathe upstarts with all his being yet decides to become one himself, quartering his arms with that of Edward the Confessor (a right reserved for kings alone!), bragging about what we Howards would achieve while ruling through Prince Edward when he comes to power, even plotting the kidnapping of His little Highness…. Oh, I cannot think of it! Fools!
It is cold in the Tower. Dampness seeps through the bare stone walls, rats scamper about, eager to feast upon my flesh should my soul decide to vacate it.
“You will have to wait,” I tell them.
I lie on my bed and scowl at the ceiling. This will not do. I have written to Henry VIII. I have grovelled and snivelled and humiliated myself to the fullest extent. But why would he break with tradition to spare me? What am I saying? It is thinking like this that will kill me. I have never entertained such notions before. I have always survived. I have always pressed on.
I am Thomas Howard.
