Constant Heart (3 page)

“Only John Stump.”

“Of Fisherfleet?”

“The very one.”

“With seven children?”

“Aye. And three wives buried.”

Three wives buried could not be held against a prospective suitor . . . unless those wives had been helped toward death by the back of a man’s hand.

We looked at each other in a long silence.

“Could you come with me to London?”

“Could I go with you to London?”

I could not say whose petition was presented first.

It took, however, no little amount of persuasion to convince Joan’s father to let her come into my service. My father’s first request to him was denied.

I questioned him about it at supper. “He said, ‘Nay’? But why?”

He shrugged, then tugged at his ear. “I cannot account for it. You do not offer her a position as a scullery servant. She is to be your personal companion!”

“And you told him that?”

“I did, the obstinate dogfish! And I talked to him in monies too. In keeping Joan from marriage, he could save what he might have paid out for a dowry.”

“And?”

My father threw his hands into the air. They came down around a tankard of ale. He took a long draught, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve before he continued. “He has not the sense of an ass. And he has never operated his trade according to how much money he can make but according to how many enemies he can create. So one cannot hope that talking sense to him would change his mind.”

“But how can this not benefit Joan? And she so clearly does not want to marry John Stump . . .”

“Who would?”

“Her father cannot have her interests in mind.”

“For certes he does not! Any man worth the name marries off a daughter for his
own
interests. And any man who does not should consult a physician. But the thing of it is, I cannot see how Joan’s service to you could fail to benefit him.”

I despaired of ever gaining her when, two weeks before my marriage, well past supper, she pounded upon the door and was shown up into my room. I was already abed but folded back the coverlet so she could join me.

She slipped in, thin as an eel, and curled herself into a ball.

“Are you cold?” I questioned.

“Nay.”

“Are you well?”

Joan’s voice was barely a whisper. “I will be in two weeks’ time.

Once we have journeyed far from here.”

“Is here so very bad?”

She slipped a thin hand around my forearm and tugged at me until I turned to look at her. “I will never make you sorry you took me with you. Only promise you will never hit me and I will stay with you until death. Mine or yours.”

“Hit you? Why would I do such a thing?”

“Promise.”

“What has—”

“Promise!”

I had no choice but to agree if I hoped to quiet her. But still, I wished I knew the source of her desperation. “I promise.”

3

A
nd so Joan came into my service. On the day I was to put on my marriage gown, she put on a livery of the Earl of nd Lytham’s colors: a red gown with azure sleeves. I fingered the material as I helped her pull it down over her head.

She shook out the gown to arrange it over the farthingale hoops. “I have never seen anything finer.”

Neither had I. And to think that it had been provided for a simple servant!

“Come! ’Tis my turn to help you.” With Joan’s assistance, I came to be dressed in a shift of fine linen. While Joan occupied herself with finding my corset, I pulled silk stockings up over my knees and tied them just beneath with a length of gilt ribbon. We wrestled with the corset, finally cinching it tight to flatten my breasts. And then my farthingale hoops and petticoat. And finally the gown.

Made from crimson satin, it was embroidered with gold and pierced with pearls. Joan worked around me to fix the folds of the ruff with pins. And then, when I could no longer see my feet for the ruff, she helped me push them into my shoes. When she at last combed out my hair and pronounced me perfect, we went downstairs, where my mother placed a garland of rosemary and red roses into my hands.

I felt, that day, as though my stomach encaged some mad beast that was using his claws to find a way out. I recited the sonnet to myself
ad infinitum
, hoping that like some charm of magic it would soothe my nerves. It was only when I saw the Earl of Lytham that my belly began to fashion itself back together. Joan had spied him from a window of the great hall as he stood talking to my father.

“There, now! He does not look so very old, does he?” Joan must have read my mood, for her voice was colored by false cheer.

I joined her at the window, pushing back a curtain so I could see more clearly. He did not look old, though he did seem closer to my father’s age than my own. His hair was dark and curly. His brows were still black. His beard had been tamed, clipped close to his chin, leaving his jaw clear. And his mustache followed the wide curve of his mouth.

We kept watch as he spoke to my father.

“His eyes are kind.” Joan said it as if she begrudged him that quality.

“Are they?”

“Aye.”

I stayed for a while and watched and indeed, it seemed to me that there
was
kindness in the way he held his lips and in the lines around his eyes. And I decided then that I would rather meet him in my own courtyard than in front of the church.

When I stepped out of the door, the earl left off conversation with my father and looked upon me.

I smiled.

And at that, he seemed to recoil. His eyes darkened in alarm, as if, instead of comeliness, I offered him some sort of misshapen horror.

I blinked. And blinked again. The girl’s father continued to speak, but I no longer heard his words, for standing before me was a vision of . . . Elinor . . . as she had been ten years before. Still possessed of grace, still infused with innocence. Change the black hairs for red and . . . this girl was even more lovely than my wife who had never been.

And she expected me to marry her. This day!

I clamped a hand around Nicholas’s arm, wheeled us around, and took us toward the stables, sword slapping angrily against my thigh. “I cannot marry that girl. And why is she wearing my mother’s ring?”

“A betrothal gift, my lord. You said to find something I deemed adequate.”

“That you would give such a girl the ring of my beloved mother . . . !”

“She is to be your countess.”

“Nay. I will not marry her.”

“You must, my lord.”

“I will
not
marry that girl.”

Nicholas opened his mouth, then closed it. He leaned to my left, looking, no doubt, at the girls standing behind me. “Is there something . . . wrong with her, my lord?”

“Aye. Everything! She is too young . . . she is too . . . beautiful.”

Relief colored Nicholas’s smile. “As I told you when I had returned from delivering the betrothal gift.”

“But I thought that surely . . . surely you had exaggerated. That a knight’s daughter could possess such . . . perfection . . .”

“You would have the other, then? The one who stands beside her?”

I turned and looked to where the girls waited. Standing beside the one I was pledged to marry stood precisely the sort of woman I had hoped for. A horse-faced, tired old-woman-of-a-girl. “Aye. That is exactly whom I wish to marry!”

“But you have pledged yourself to—”

“To a devil in women’s weeds! I will not do it. Not again! Beauty is deception. Beauty is . . . ’tis nothing but a lie!”

Nicholas stepped near and laid a hand upon my arm.

I shook it off. “You forget yourself!”

“She is not Elinor, my lord.”

“I am being punished. May God help me . . .”

“She is
not Elinor
. I have observed her, my lord. I have spoken with her. She will not disappoint you.”

“How could she do anything other? You should have told me.”

“I did, my lord.”

“You should have made me listen.”

“I thought you were. My lord.”

I sighed, closed my eyes, and turned my face toward heaven and prayed for God to give me strength. I do not know why I bothered; He clearly was not listening to me. There was no help for it: I had to talk to her. Had to meet her. Courtesy demanded it of me. Oh, to have worked so long and so hard to shed myself of one siren only to arrive once more at the beginning of the nightmare. It was not to be borne. Yet what could I do?

Like Odysseus, I would take every measure to keep myself from her. I would stop my ears to her voice. I would turn my eyes from her face; I would do what I must. I would not have my life’s blood drained from me again.

I would not do it.

My father had ceased talking, and together, Joan, my father, and I had watched as the earl stalked away with his messenger. If truth be seen, with someone who was clearly
more
than a simple messenger.

Something was wrong. I knew it. My hand found Joan’s as we stood there watching. Waiting.

The men had argued. The earl had quieted. And now he was walking back toward us. Back toward me.

My right foot stepped backward. My left foot joined it. Were it not for Joan’s hand grasping mine, I would have fled from the anger, the rage I saw in his eyes.

But he did not come on the attack. Once before me, he removed his hat and swept it toward the ground, its crimson feathers trailing in the dust. He followed that gesture with an elegant bow. Then he took my hand in his.

“Mistress Barnardsen, you have done me a great honor by pledging to become my wife.”

I would not have thought it by his tone, nor by the way his fingers barely grazed mine. What had I done to disgust him? And where was the man who had written the sonnet?

After the signing of the wedding contract, we proceeded from my father’s house to the church. The only two people who did not speak or sing or tell jokes were the earl and me. Around us rang out laughter and good wishes to the accompaniment of instruments. And then we reached the church.

Standing before the altar I pledged, in front of the rector, my friends, and my God, that I would take the earl to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold, from that day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, to cherish, and to obey, till death us depart, according to God’s holy ordinance.

It was over. I was bound to the girl for time and all eternity. Until death us depart. I could not think a gloomier thought.

Aye.

I could.

I could think on the night’s festivities and what lay ahead.

God, please help me. Help us both.

Sliding a look toward her beneath my cap, I saw a face too young to hold such . . . misery. She was thinking thoughts no happier than my own. Perhaps then all would come right. I was no beast. Perhaps if I smiled.

There. I tried.

And was rebuffed. Hibernia never saw a chillier maid. It would take a tankard of ale for me to do . . . what must be done.

Holleystone.

I must think on Holleystone. Holleystone was worth any trial.

Holleystone was worth any harpy. With Holleystone regained, I could set my thoughts on other things. Things such as Brustleigh and the Queen’s favor and all that would follow from that triumph.