The Rose Without a Thorn by Jean Plaidy

her chair and rambled on about the dangers that could beset young girls, and the need to keep themselves untouched; and how this applied especially to those who belonged to noble families.
    “It will not be long now,” she was saying, “before it will be time for you to look to the future. There might be a place at Court. Of course, it would have been different …” Her lips trembled. If only her once-brilliant granddaughter had kept her place instead of losing her head, what glory might have been in store for little Katherine Howard.
    I did not tell her that I did not want such glories. All I wanted was to marry Francis Derham, to whom I was troth-plighted.
    Her wrath had subsided a little. The Duchess was a lady who would make herself believe what she wanted to—particularly if the alternative was too unpleasant to contemplate—so she sat in her chair, talking of the pitfalls which could befall a young girl—particularly one of a great family. She was deluding herself into believing that I was an innocent child who knew nothing of the urgent desires of young men and the readiness of young women to yield to them.
    I was dismissed and, bruised and very frightened, left the Duchess and tried to forget my stinging cheek by telling myself I had had a lucky escape. But I could not stop worrying about Francis.
    She might think that I was an innocent, but could she apply the same judgment to him? If what we had done was due to my ignorance, youth and general stupidity, what had such a romp indicated about him?
    A few days passed. I saw Francis surreptitiously in the garden. We clung together, dreading we might be seen.
    “Has anything been said to you?” I asked.
    “Nothing,” he replied.
    “Have you seen the Duchess?”
    “
En passant
. She did not look my way.”
    “Do you think they will send you away?”
    He was silent, and I knew he did. We clung more closely together in desperation.
    He was not sent away. Until this happened, he had, I believe, been a favorite of the Duchess. She did have a liking for handsome young men. I think she decided to forgive us, for a week or so passed and nothing happened. We were beginning to think that the escapade had been dismissed as a matter of little importance.
    As time passed, we were lulled more and more into a sense of security; we slipped back into the old ways, and at night Francis would come up to the Long Room; but everyone knew that we had been caught rolling on the floor together in a compromising situation, and there was a certain uneasiness.
    “What if Her Grace should discover that the room is left unlocked through the night?” asked Dorothy. “We shall have to be very careful. If she found Derham in Katherine Howard’s bed …” Dorothy suppressed a giggle. “Well, that would not be so easy to explain as a romp on the floor.”
    “We should hear her coming,” I said. “She would be using her stick to mount the stairs. Then Francis could slip into the little gallery. She would not know he was here then.”
    I could not bear that we should be deprived of those meetings. It was not long since he had returned from that long absence.
    Fewer people were coming to the Long Room. Many of them had decided that it was too dangerous.
    The Duchess, however, did not come to the Long Room, nor did she discover for herself about the matter of the key. It happened in a different way.
    One of the maids, terrified, I suppose, that we were in danger of being discovered, went to her and confessed what was happening. I was sure that that was the last thing the Duchess wanted, and she was more angry than ever.
    It might have been Dorothy, Joan or Mary Lassells—she was a sly one whom I had never understood—or someone quite different. I never knew. All I was aware of was that one of the maids went tothe Duchess and told her how the men came to the room, how the door had remained unlocked throughout the night; and chiefly how Francis Derham called Katherine Howard his wife,