The Forgotten Rose {COMPLETED}

Part I: Chapter Twenty-Eight - Guilty as Charged

George held Margaret in his arms. She was the very image of her mother. He smiled at her and kissed her dainty forehead, brushing back the stray hairs which had fallen across her eyes.

"I am leaving Warwick for a while, my sweet," he told her as he bounced her a little on his waist. She coiled her arms around his neck for support and rested her head on his shoulder. "I shall miss you."

"And I you," Margaret chirped back looking back up to her father. "Will you be long, father?"

"I do not know," he sighed. "So long as it takes to get what is need to be done finished. So you can be my little princess and your brother Ned, our little prince." Margaret thought of being a princess in a long flowing dress. She'd be like the princesses were in the stories, she would be beautiful with long gold hair that fell to her feet and bright blue eyes. And Edward, or Ned as her father had taken to calling him, would be a handsome little prince. He'd be clever too. The most clever prince.

"Do not be long," Margaret commanded her father. "Ned and I want you here."

"I shall not be gone forever, little Margaret," he laughed at his daughters stern face. "Only a few weeks, a month at most."

"Then when you come home to us, I shall show you a new dance. I shall have Margery teach me," Margaret proclaimed. She loved her governess, the governess who was once in service to her grandmother, who had raised her mother, now only cared for her and she was glad. Because she had the greatest governess in all of England to herself, until little Ned left the nursery and then they should share her. But until then, Margery was all hers.

"I should like to see that," George smiled thinking of his daughter growing into a woman. And she would one day be a woman but whilst she was still so small, small enough to run up into his arms, a grown woman was hard to imagine.

He placed his daughter down and scooped his son into his arms. "You'll wait for me, my son?" George whispered in young Ned's ear. And Ned nodded obediently, although he did not fully know what he was agreeing to. "And you, Margaret, look after your brother," he ruffled Margaret's hair. She was going to have to be brave. If Edward arrested him like he had done Stacey and Burdett, his fate would be the same and he would never see his little girl grown up. Never mind see little Ned take his first steps.

He kissed his son's fair hair, and ran his fingers through it for it was so smooth as silk. Whatever happened, he and Isabelle had left their mark on the earth. Two beautiful children. One girl who would be so gracious and clever she could be Queen alone and a son who would be a good noble King. They were to close to the throne not to reach out and take it. If he failed, he hoped that when they were grown they too would reach for the throne and get what was rightfully theirs.

"Goodbye, father," Margaret smiled but she was sorrowful. She didn't know where her mother was, they said she had gone away and wouldn't be coming back. Dead. They said that a lot about her mother, but she didn't know what that meant. All she knew was it mean gone, gone a long way away. But she didn't know why her mother would do that. What place was more important than with Margaret and Ned. They needed their mother.

"Don't go," she exclaimed as she grabbed onto her fathers legs. He looked down at her fondly. "Don't leave me. Don't go."

"Hush now," George knelt to be level with his daughter. "I am coming back but if I don't I want you to know that I am with your mother. And I am happy."

"But mother isn't coming back," Margaret wept as she still clung to her fathers leg. He looked down at her before handing her brother back to one of his nurses and crouched down to be on her level.

"No, no she isn't. But one day, you will see her again. You and Ned, but that won't be for a long time, when your both old and greying," George tried to laugh to cheer his daughter, "my dearest Margaret, I want you to do two things for me: for every day I do not come light a candle in the chapel, so that I may know how you long you have missed me and I shall spend just so much time with you and only you." he kissed his daughters brow. "The second, if I do not return. I want you to know it was not my doing it was King Edward, and we do not like him do we?" Margaret shook her head. "No, if I do not return I want you to go live with your Aunt Anne in the north, and be safe and happy. Do you understand?"