title: The Rose Without a Thorn: The Wives of Henry VIII
author:  Jean Plaidy 
description: From the pen of legendary historical novelist Jean Plaidy comes an unforgettable true story of <br />royalty, passion, and innocence lost. <br />Born into an impoverished branch of the noble Howard family, young Katherine is plucked from her home to live with her grandmother, the Duchess of Norfolk. The innocent girl quickly learns that her grandmother's puritanism is not shared by Katherine's free-spirited cousins, with whom she lives. Beautiful and impressionable, Katherine becomes involved in two ill-fated love affairs before her sixteenth birthday. Like her cousin Anne Boleyn, she leaves her grandmother's home to become a lady-in-waiting at the court of Henry VIII. The royal palaces are exciting to a young girl from the country, and Katherine ?nds that her duties there allow her to be near her handsome cousin, Thomas Culpepper, whom she has loved since childhood. <br />But when Katherine catches the eye of the aging and unhappily married king, she is forced to abandon her plans for a life with Thomas and marry King Henry. Overwhelmed by the change in her fortunes, bewildered and flattered by the adoration of her husband, Katherine is dazzled by the royal life. But her bliss is short-lived as rumors of her wayward past come back to haunt her, and Katherine's destiny takes another, deadly, turn.
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  “I wish to warn you of what is to come.”
  
  He had seen the sensual, enticing, womanly Marguerite at first. This was the
  angry, controlling, warrior-like Marguerite.
  
  Was there some other plotting going on? He took a breath and asked, “And what
  is to come?”
  
  “My lord Henry is simply putting me in my place. He wishes me to know what he
  could do if he is displeased with me. I fear you have been caught up in a
  lovers’ quarrel.”
  
  “Henry will call off the wedding today?” His instincts told him there was much
  more going on here.
  
  “Of course he will! He loves me and will not give me away to some northern
  lord who never attends court.” She must have seen his look of disbelief, for
  she added, “I was raised as consort for a king, not some…some…”
  
  “Barbarian of mixed blood, my lady?”
  
  The King’s Mistress
  
  Harlequin Historical #735
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Praise for Terri Brisbin
  
  “A lavish historical romance in the grand tradition from a wonderful talent.”
  
  —New York Times bestselling author Bert