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In memory of two incredible women: my grandmothers, Lily Bogdan and Helen Baer
Table of Contents
Read on for an extract from Darcey’s first book, Secrets of the Tudor Court
Lincolnshire, England Summer, 1527
She hid in her mother’s wardrobe. The Sickness would not find her there. Shoulders scrunched, limbs hugged close to her body, eight-year-old Cecily Burkhart huddled against the silks, taffetas, and damasks of the baroness’s elegant gowns. She fingered the materials, thinking of her beautiful mother, murdered by the dreaded sweat. She heard the servants’ dresses as they rushed in and out of Lady Ashley’s chambers. They rustled, stiff with starch, crude gowns of homespun and wool. They did not flow the way her mother’s did when she walked across the floor.
But she was not walking across the floor. The footfalls that click-clacked against the rush-strewn chambers now belonged to the physician, the servants, and, finally, the priest as he administered the last rites.
Cecily’s mother was dead.
Cecily buried her head against the fur hem of her mother’s gown and offered silent sobs. Her mother was the last of them, her father, Lord Edward Burkhart, passing the week before. He had joined Cecily’s four brothers, who met the angels when they were but infants. Now she was alone.
Someone called her name. She hugged herself and began to rock back and forth. She did not want to answer. She did not want to think of anything but her mother’s gowns. She smiled to herself, remembering Mother gliding across the floor, hand on Cecily’s father’s arm, in the very gown her tears wetted now. How gentle she was and how merry was Cecily’s father in her mother’s company.
“Lady Cecily, do come out, lamb!” begged one of the servants, Mistress Fitzgerald. “You must come out of Lady Ashley’s wardrobe now; we must know if you are ill!”
“Supposing she passed on and we’re not being aware of it?” another of the servants added, her voice wrought with anxiety.
Silence.
“Lady Cecily!”
Cecily drew in a breath. She must not evade them any longer; it was cruel to cause them distress. “I am here,” she said in soft tones.
Footfalls bounded toward the wardrobe. “Lady Cecily, child, are you ill? Do you feel hot, child, achy?” Mistress Fitzgerald’s voice was taut.
“I am … well,” Cecily assured her. She was not well. Her parents were dead, her family was wiped out, she did not know what was to become of her. But she was alive and there was no other response she could think of.
Mistress Fitzgerald threw open the doors to the wardrobe. Cecily squinted against the painful light and retreated farther back within its reaches. Meaty, chapped hands parted the gowns, revealing Mistress Fitzgerald’s broad face and teary brown eyes.
“Lady Cecily,” she said in gentle tones. “What have they done with my mother?” Cecily asked, sniffling.
Mistress Fitzgerald expelled a heavy sigh. “Lady Ashley has been promptly put to rest, to help contain the spread of the Sickness.” She narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “Blast the king for bringing God’s wrath upon us and all for lust of that Boleyn Whore, witch and heretic that she is! And blast your parents for supporting him! That’s why God took them, you know. They supported the Boleyns and their despicable lot.”