In My Tudor Era

Chapter One

“Zoe, you know that I love you and support your life choices, but please don’t meet up with this person.”

My best friend gasps. She only saw Rupert’s picture ten seconds ago, but her heartbreak is palpable. “Why? He looks like a poet who works in finance. He has a tortured past and a trust fund. And he’s six-five!” She rams her phone into my face, and I barely manage to dodge it.

“There’s no shot he’s six-five,” and that statement has so many red flags, I don’t know which to tackle first.” I push the phone away, careful not to swipe anything on her freshly opened dating app. “His facial hair is aggressive, and not in a good way.”

“A man with a mustache isn’t for the weak.”

“He looks like all your exes,” I tell her. “You’re reaching for the past.”

Zoe groans at my assessment. “Will you pull your psych degree out of your vag for one minute and embrace the opportunities in front of us?”

I look around as requested. We’re in a dark, dank hallway of Hampton Court Palace. It’s raining outside, and barely any better inside. The only people in our vicinity are an elderly tour group, and every one of them has a wet cough.

“Which opportunities are you referring to? We’re in a museum on a Tuesday. We’re also the only people in here who can use the stairs without assistance.”

“You know what I mean,” Zoe counters. “We’re in England. We’re twenty-four. We’re on a much-needed girls’ trip and you’d rather be back in the room crocheting instead of meeting people and having fun.”

Okay, this is where I draw the line.

“That is offensive,” I retort. “I don’t crochet, I embroider. And I happen to be at a critical point in my needlework.”

Zoe shakes her head like a woman in mourning. “When you say shit like that, I swear a cold breeze washes over me. I can feel the wrinkles of despair taking shape on your tits.” Zoe was a creative writing major. She has a way with words.

“That’s a stunning visual. On that note, me and my sad, saggy tits are continuing on with the tour.”

I make my way farther down the hall, discreetly adjusting the passport carry-case that I’ve been wearing under my shirt for the past eight days. It’s more or less unisex lingerie for international travel documents, and I regret nothing.

Zoe catches up to me a second later, linking her arm through mine. “Lily, stop. I’m not trying to nag you. I just want you to take a break. You’ve studied and worked nonstop for the past seven years.”

“I am taking a break,” I assure her, glancing around until my gaze lands on an ornate painting. “And I’m having fun. Look, a portrait of a rich guy in a ruffled flea collar, and he has a mustache. Do you think he could join us tonight instead?”

“Depends on the age gap you’re looking for,” she replies, waggling her eyebrows.

I walked right into that one. “You are a troubled woman.”

“I know,” she says, giving my arm a squeeze. “I like that about me.”

She nudges my side with her hip, and I can’t hide my smile. Zoe is the spicy queso to my chips. She’s a fearless, filter-less human chihuahua who will bite the kneecaps off anyone who dares to wrong me. In other words, she’s the light of my life.

“Compromise. I’ll tell Rupert to bring a friend and we’ll all meet up at a pub. If they suck, we’ll ditch them.” I give her a semi-intrigued look and she goes on. “I just want you to put yourself out there again.”

I take a deep breath, and Zoe makes her please-say-yes sad face, which she knows I can’t resist. “Fine,” I eventually answer. “But only because I’m touch starved and even a cordial handshake would sexually sustain me for the next six months.”

“Yes!” Zoe cheers. “I’m going to make sure you have the best handshake of your life tonight!

” I chuckle at her elation as we stop walking.

“Now, I’m going to the chapel to beg forgiveness for the sins we’re definitely not committing tonight.

” She unweaves her arm from mine, granting herself free rein to thrust her hips in her favorite dry-humping gesture.

“Should you really be doing that outside a place of worship?”

“Probably not. Learn some fun facts for me.” She nudges her chin toward the headphones that are weaved around my neck, just above my fiery red hair.

I dutifully reposition the headset over my ears. “No. I refuse.”

“See you in ten!” She disappears past a pair of thick wooden doors, and I turn to focus on the vast corridor in front of me.

Heavy green curtains dangle down the tall, paneled walls.

They’re decorated with a delicate floral pattern, but it reminds me more of subtle snakeskin, seeming more sneaky than regal.

Centuries-old artwork is framed over the fabric, varying in scale from massive to miniature.

The cathedral windows lined opposite the paintings are my favorite.

Speckled with the still-falling rain, they’re gorgeously melancholy, and I have the insatiable urge to don my comfiest wool sweater and fill a journal with prose of female rage.

Alas, the palace closes at five thirty.

Stepping forward, I press play to resume my paused audio tour, and the steady British narrator picks up where she left off.

You are now entering the Haunted Gallery of Hampton Court Palace.

In 1541, Catherine Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth queen, learned that she was to be charged with adultery, a crime punishable by death.

Legend has it that Catherine, terrified and desperate, broke free from her rooms and ran along the processional route in the hope of finding Henry in the Chapel.

Just before Catherine reached the door, she was seized by guards, who dragged her away, struggling and screaming.

If the king did hear her frantic pleas, they went unanswered.

I stop to stand in front of what seems to be a royal family portrait. Henry is sitting front and center, looking puffed-up, pale and constipated in his over-the-top kingly garb. If this is how he looked with Tudor-era airbrushing, then God knows what he looked like in real life.

Catherine was eventually beheaded at the Tower of London along with her suspected lovers, Thomas Culpepper and Francis Dereham.

Her body remains entombed in the Chapel within the Tower walls.

Many believe that Catherine’s ghost can be seen running through this very gallery, wailing for mercy as she tries to reach the king.

Catherine was Henry VIII’s youngest queen.

He was fifty at the time of her death and went on to marry again.

“Asshat,” I mumble, switching off the recording and finding the king’s likeness even grosser than I did ten seconds ago. A dependable theme in history is that there’s a surplus of powerful perverts, and they always seem to be men.

Thank goodness we no longer have that worry in modern times. Ha.

It’s thoughts like these that’ve led to my current romantic dry spell.

I tried to date, I really did. Especially last year.

I approached my search for love like I would a psychosocial experiment—with curiosity, openness, and objectivity.

Even when going for my PhD took everything out of me, I went on a date every other Saturday for six months, meeting up with potentially murderous Tinder dabblers and partaking in less perilous, though more embarrassing, singles’ pickleball and game nights.

Scientifically, my findings were a failed experiment.

Non-scientifically, they were a dumpster fire.

The DMs I received in the process were unadulterated nightmare fuel.

If I had a dollar for every angry boner pic that sprung forth from my inbox like a haunted jack-in-the-box, I could buy this castle.

So, when Zoe suggested a girls’ trip as a mental reset, it didn’t take much to get me on board.

She’s a devout Anglophile who had her heart set on the windswept shores of England, and I was more than happy to hop the Atlantic with her.

We’ve visited all the main tourist attractions, and today’s visit to Hampton Court Palace is our last palatial hurrah. We’re flying back into LAX in two days.

Reaching the end of the hall, I’m reading through a Haunted Gallery informational placard when I start to hear music playing.

It’s soft but insistent, leading me to look down at the audio device I’m holding.

The screen still says it’s paused. I pull the headphones off, but the music keeps playing, growing louder and louder.

The melodic instrumentals have an underlying harshness to them.

The beat is jittery. I can decipher an organ, a horn, and the sharp pull of strings.

Maybe this is how they announce the palace is closing?

I tilt my gaze up, trying to find the speaker system, but see nothing but the white painted ceiling.

“Excuse me,” I say to a woman who’s folding up a paper map a few feet away. “Do you know what that music is for?”

Her eyes are confused as she looks back at me. “What music, dear?”

“Sorry. Never mind.” She walks past me as the music kicks up with a pulsing drumbeat. My ears start to thrum. Loud noises have always been overpowering for me, and as I feel the familiar tightening in my rib cage, a sweet, soft voice begins to sing.

“Pastime with good company, I love and shall until I die. Grudge who lust but none deny, so God be pleased thus live will I . . .”

The music surges, and I feel a slicing pain behind my eyes.

“Does no one hear that?” I lift my hands to my ears, trying to block out the screeching sound.

I think I’m yelling, but I can’t be sure.

Whipping around to look for help, the few other visitors in the hall are either admiring the art or talking among themselves.

No one has heard me. It’s like they don’t see me at all.

The voice sings again, sounding so close that I start to wonder if it’s coming from inside my own head.

“The best ensue, the worst eschew, my mind shall be. Virtue to use, vice to refuse, thus shall I use me.”