SEPTEMBER 1472

Edward beckons me to one side after dinner one evening at Windsor Castle and I go to him smiling. “What do you want, husband? Do you want to dance with me?”

“I do,” he says. “And then I am going to get hugely drunk.”

“For any reason?”

“None at all. Just for pleasure. But before all that, I have to ask you something. Can you take another lady into your rooms as a lady-in-waiting?”

“Do you have someone in mind?” I am instantly alert to the danger that Edward has a new flirt that he wants to palm off on me, and that he thinks I will make her my lady-in-waiting to make his seduction the more convenient. This must show in my face, for he gives a whoop of laughter and says, “Don’t look so furious. I wouldn’t foist my whores upon you. I can house them myself. No, this is a lady of unimpeachable family. None other than Margaret Beaufort, the last of the Lancastrians.”

“You want her to serve me?” I ask incredulously. “You want her to be one of my ladies?”

He nods. “I have reason. You remember she is newly married to Lord Thomas Stanley?”

I nod.

“He is declared our friend, he is sworn to our support, and his army sat on the sidelines and saved us at the battle of Blore Heath, though he was promised to Margaret of Anjou. With his fortune and influence in the country I do need to keep him on our side. He had our permission to marry her well enough, and now he has done it, and seeks to bring her to court. I thought we could give her a position. I must have him on my council.”

“Isn’t she wearisomely religious?” I ask unhelpfully.

“She is a lady. She will adapt her behavior to yours,” he says equably. “And I need her husband close to me, Elizabeth. He is an ally who will be of importance both now and in the future.”

“If you ask it so sweetly, what can I do but say yes?” I smile at him. “But don’t blame me if she is dull.”

“I will not see her, nor any woman, if you are before me,” he whispers. “So don’t trouble yourself as to how she behaves. And in a little while, when she asks for her son Henry Tudor to come home again, he may—as long as she is loyal to us, and he can be persuaded to forget his dreams of being the Lancaster heir. They will both come to court and serve us, and everyone will forget there was ever such a thing as a House of Lancaster. We’ll marry him to some nice girl of the House of York whom you can pick out for him, and the House of Lancaster will be no more.”

“I will invite her,” I promise him.

“Then tell the musicians to play something merry and I will dance with you.”

I turn and nod to the musicians and they confer for a moment and then play the newest tune, straight from the Burgundian court, where Edward’s sister Margaret is continuing the York tradition of making merry and the Burgundian tradition of high fashion. They even call the dance “Duchess Margaret’s jig,” and Edward sweeps me onto the floor and whirls me in the quick steps until everyone is laughing and clapping in a circle around us, and then taking their turn.

The music ends and I spin away to a quieter corner, and Anthony my brother offers me a glass of small ale. I drink it thirstily. “So, do I still look like a fat fishwife?” I demand.

“Oho, that stung, did it?” He grins. He puts his arms around me and hugs me gently. “No, you look like the beauty you are, and you know it. You have that gift, which our mother had, of growing older and becoming more lovely. Your features have changed from being merely those of a pretty girl to being those of a beautiful woman with a face like a carving. When you are laughing and dancing with Edward, you could pass for twenty, but when you are still and thoughtful, you are as lovely as the statues they are carving in Italy. No wonder women loathe you.”

“As long as men do not.” I smile.