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Tilney place two folded nightdresses into one of the open chests. The more blithe of her companions was unaware of the rivalry stirring only a few feet away. Catherine had never felt uncomfortable with any of the Horsham women, because she had believed herself one of them, and learned to behave so. Now, in an instant, everything had changed.
    “Pray for me then, if you like,” Catherine finally amended. “Only make certain He is the Catholic God of the true and proper church that you know I follow.”
    “I shall keep that in mind as with the many things I know about you already, Mistress Howard,” said Mary Lassells.

    In a plain thatch-roofed cottage down a dirt road from Horsham, John Lassells, a little pig-faced, freckle-cheeked young man, pushed a gray, lukewarm leg of mutton around on his dish at the table. His sister, Mary, sat across from him, eating as well, and beyond her through the open window a bee droned, then disappeared.
    They were not far from the manor house, yet they might as well have been a million miles for the difference between the dowager’s residence and the cottage where Mary Lassells had spent her own childhood.
    “She has not told Dereham yet, has she?”
    “Nor has anyone else.”
    “Surely he has been told of the packing. Yet the poor fool goes around the estate like a lovesick pup, still bringing her tokens of devotion.”

    “As he should have done for me, if he’d had any sense.”
    Mary turned to gaze out the open window through which the fresh spring breeze gently blew. Everyone knew about the tokens Francis Dereham had given Catherine, as well as the scarf she had given him in return, embroidered inside with their initials. But with Dereham’s tokens had come the understanding that they would one day marry. Catherine owed him the truth of the real destiny that lay before her now—even if he should have known it himself all along.
    “Mistress Howard would say it began as a lark to them both, something to pass the time,” Mary murmured flatly. “Yet it became much more to Master Dereham along the way. Because of the trothplight he actually speaks of her as his wife to any of us who will listen.”
    Mary took a sip of ale and let out a sigh. “And yet it is a question whether that should be made her fault when he knew perfectly well she was a Howard. Her own uncle is the most notorious person in England for his ruthless ambition.”
    “Surely his reputation does not exceed the Seymours’.”
    “They are the same, I think,” Mary answered.
    “I tried to reason with her myself, but she is still such a frivolous girl,” said the older Dorothy Barwick as she sat down beside Mary on the rough-hewn bench, and lowered a dish of mutton onto the table with theirs. “She seems completely incapable of understanding the consequences of her actions. For all of the education you girls seem to have foisted upon her, Catherine remains dangerously naive.”
    “The ‘poor girl,’ as you call her, has traded on her ability to seduce every man within a day’s ride of Horsham to a future of luxury living beside the queen,” Mary said bitterly, her own envy overtaking her.
    “I don’t suppose it is the queen with whom she is actually being
taken to live. Not if the old duke has anything to say in the matter,” Dorothy answered.
    “You don’t honestly feel pity for her, do you?” John asked Dorothy, his lips parted in an expression of pure incredulity, a spoon poised at his mouth.
    “I pity anyone being tossed to the wolves. Especially a girl who goes to her fate with a smile because she has absolutely no idea what truly lies before her. You all bear a responsibility for the wanton girl Catherine has become. It was love she was searching for while the lot of you were purely pleasuring yourselves.”
    “You know not what you are saying,” Mary snapped irritably. “I have changed, and I have tried to bring the others away from that pagan world. My brother and I have prayed for our