“Do you blame me? He promises to legitimize my poor children,” Elizabeth shot back. “I do what I can for them. Is that not what we mothers all do? And, may I point out, Henry Tudor is no parvenu; he is the Lancastrian heir to the throne.” She sat back, a smug smile on her face. She doubted Anne knew yet, as they bickered here, that another attempt at invasion was being planned for the spring. Elizabeth would take her daughters home to Grafton Manor, the only residence left to her now, and await the event. With help from the French and those exiles gathered with Henry—including her son, Dorset—she had no doubt Richard would be deposed in short order. She wished she had proof he had killed her boys, but all she knew was they were no longer alive. Her son, Dorset, had heard it from the now-executed Buckingham. Hearsay is all it is now, she lamented.

Anne regarded the still-lovely widow with a mixture of sympathy and disdain. Anne was not a woman to hate easily, and Elizabeth had never done anything to hurt her. But she knew she had the upper hand and was emboldened to state: “Edward would never have condoned such an unholy alliance, and you know it. Where is your loyalty?”

“Pah! You speak of loyalty in the same breath as my philandering, lying husband—oh, no, I am forgetting, he was not my husband, was he?” Elizabeth’s claws were showing, and she needed to control them before Richard changed his mind about allowing her to leave. Because she could, Elizabeth chose to bring tears to her blue eyes. “How would you feel if Richard had lied about loving you all these years? That he had secretly loved someone else so well he had pre-contracted with her?” She was so self-absorbed, she failed to see Anne wince. “And now I am left with nothing to offer my six daughters. Can you not see, Anne? I had to at least help Bess to a future. And what about my boys…my poor bastards…” she broke off, dabbing at her eyes, “I have lost my boys…”

“Aye, you have my heartfelt sympathy for them, Elizabeth,” Anne broke in not unkindly. Best not to travel that path, she thought. “but you must look to your daughters now.” She could not blame Elizabeth for wanting what was best for her children. Would she not do the same for Ned? She softened her tone. “As I said, I am sorry for you, but I am here to tell you that Bess and Cecily are welcome at our court, and Richard has promised me that he will find suitable matches for them—and your other daughters when they are of age, if you will allow him to help you.” She looked across the refectory where the two older girls sat quietly sewing and pitied the boredom they must have endured shut in a cloister for almost a year. “I must commend you, they are exquisite.”