Constant Heart (6 page)

“Does Her Majesty have any reason to despise your family?” His tone was not accusatory. But neither was it kind.

“None, my lord.”

“Does Her Majesty have any reason to despise you?”

Do not cry
. Behind the skirts of my gown, I fisted my hands into balls, driving my fingernails straight into my palms. “None, my lord.”

He frowned, then turned and strode toward a door. He shut it firmly behind him after he had walked through, leaving me standing in the middle of the hall, alone, still wearing my marriage gown.

5

I
had fifty men to ride with me and fifty men to serve me, but never had I felt so vulnerable, so . . . alone. Was the whole world against me? God, the Queen, the entire court?

Without Her Majesty’s favor, I had nothing. As a courtier, everything hung in the balance of her affections. And it seemed to rest on the fulcrum of the girl.

But why?

And was there any way to undo what seemed to have been done?

Perhaps. If I could but figure out what it was.

“Nicholas!” I called out to the house in general, knowing that if Nicholas were not in a position to hear me, then word would make its way to him that he was wanted.

Once I gained my room, I unfastened my scabbard and handed it to a chamberer, threw my doublet in the direction of another, and gave my hat to still a third. Then I dismissed them all.

Taking up an English horn, I began to play a melancholy tune as I let my thoughts work.

The Queen was not pleased.

Were she not pleased, she would never visit Brustleigh.

Were she never to visit Brustleigh, I would have no sign of preference.

Had I no sign of preference, I would never receive any signs of preferment. No Garter Knighthood, no seat on the Privy Council; no estates, no opportunity to purchase a monopoly.

Should I never receive any signs of preferment, my resources might never be replenished and I would end up where I had started: facing the possibility of selling Holleystone. And if I could not retain Holleystone, then I would never be able to restore my family’s honor.

That the fate of the Earls of Lytham should rest upon the shoulders of one young girl! But then, had not my own brother traded away our good name and our fortunes for one of that same sex? I would not, could not, do the same. I had a chance to restore all that had been lost. It would not do to let everything slip away just when the means to regain it had been placed at my disposal.

I worked back and forth through the logic of the facts, trying to find some reason to change my conclusions, but the fact remained that Her Majesty was not pleased. And so there could be no other outcome.

The horn was mellow, but it lacked a certain note of misery, which I very much wanted. I put it away and took up a treble viol instead.

I walked up the grand stairs in search of my rooms. And Joan.

After a while I happened upon my chambers, but from a direction opposite of the way I had been shown to them before. And when I finally reached the refuge of those walls, I did not find Joan within them.

My return had not been anticipated, for the curtains had been drawn and the windows shuttered. There was a single candle set upon a table beside the bed. It threw the rest of the room into darkness. I thrust aside the bed’s heavy curtains and sat down on the brocade coverlet. I smoothed my skirts as I sat, habit not allowing me to let them wrinkle.

If only I knew what I had done. I tried to place my thoughts in order to decipher the puzzle of what had happened at court.

We were a good match.
I
was a good match. Everyone had thought so. Ours had been the union of Northern English money to the time-honored respectability of an English peer. There was nothing of which to disapprove.

Had he truly said the Queen despised me?

My eyes cast about the room, looking in vain for something upon which to fasten. I ended by staring into the candle’s flame, letting my thoughts find their own channels. As I watched, a gray moth came to rest upon the candleholder. It climbed the candlestick, undaunted by the flame, until it encountered the dripping wax. And then it was too late to retreat. Once its foot was caught, it could not be unfixed. The moth fluttered its wings faster and faster with urgent imperative. Then the draft in the room shifted and the flame swept horizontal, setting first one wing, then the other ablaze. A crackle when fire met substance, a slender spiral of rising smoke, and the moth was gone.

I watched as the drippings made steady progress down the face of the candle. They slid over the charred insect one by one, until all traces of its fate were obliterated.

A prickling sensation swept my spine and I was overcome by a need to be rid of the wedding clothes. To rid myself of the reminder of a marriage that had been thrust upon me. If I could remove the stiff ruff around my neck and rid myself of my corset, then I could pretend that I was a maiden once more and that none of indignities that had assaulted my person had taken place.

I pulled at the ruff, grasping at one of the hundred pins that held it in place, but it stuck into my flesh. I pulled my finger away and watched a droplet of blood rise from my skin. I sucked at the blood, unwilling to let it mark my clothes.

Pulling at the ruff with the other hand only resulted in pricking those fingers as well. Turning, I meant to release the laces that fastened my gown at the back, but I could not place my hand to them. I could not free myself from anything.

I stood then, turning and pulling, tugging at my gown, desperate to rid myself of its constraints. I heard lace tear and jewels fall but could not rid myself of the desire to be free. Finally, reason prevailed and I stopped, panting, wrapped in the shreds of a marriage gown that had cost a veritable fortune. A gown that was part of my dowry.

What had I done?

And more importantly, what was I to do?

Had I not curtsied soon enough? Had I not curtsied well enough?

There in my chambers, I closed my eyes and bent in reminiscence of the homage I had paid the Queen.

I had done . . . just . . . so.

I opened my eyes and my gaze fell on the same stretch of hem that it had in the Presence Chamber. I closed my eyes again, reliving the audience with the Queen. The earl had urged me to curtsey further. And that I had done.

I closed my eyes and bent again in imitation. Opened my eyes to survey my form as well as I could with the ruff still fixed about my neck.

It was perfect.

I rose and curtsied again. And again. And again. It mattered not that the front of my gown flopped open, giving plain view of the corset beneath. It mattered not that my forepart dangled drunkenly from my kirtle’s skirt. I was searching for some flaw, sought some sign of betrayal in my limbs, searched for anything, any reason to explain the Queen’s ire.

But I found nothing.

I closed my eyes and curtsied once more. And then I remembered that at the last, the earl had forced my hand to the ground, urging me to bend further. But I had not done it. Had thought it impossible to bend further. But perhaps . . .

Bending forward, I felt my busk strain. And then it snapped. The sudden absence of restraint pitched me forward and I fell to the floor.

It was evident that I could not have done more. And lying there alone, with my face to the ground, I cried.

By and by, Joan returned. I heard the door scrape, heard her steps cross the floor. And then, a pause. “Marget?” She soon knelt at my elbow, gripped my forearm to help me up. “What has happened?”

“It was . . . horrible. The Queen did not like me. Everyone . . . laughed . . . at me.” My voice caught on the last word and my eyes overflowed once more.

“They cannot have laughed! Why would they have laughed?”

“She called me a gypsy.”

“The Queen?”

I could only nod.

Joan helped me to a stool. She removed the French hood that adorned my head at a tilt, then pretended to smooth my hair, succeeding only in wiping away my tears. When she left my side to pour me a glass of wine, her work was ruined, for new tears issued to take the place of the old.

I tried to save what remained of my ruff when it became apparent that the tears were flowing from some font that would not be stopped. I scrubbed at them furiously, but it made no difference. I succeeded only in chafing my cheeks and my neck, making me look even more like the gypsy Her Majesty had called me.

“Stop pawing at that ruff. Let me get a chambermaid to help you.”

“Nay! Please. I have no wish for anyone to see me.”

So she removed the pincushion from my jewel casket and proceeded to unpin the ruff even as I tried to hide my face from her. She approached me to fasten a second ruff in place, but I waved her off.

“I cannot wear this gown.”

“Which other do you want?”

I did not know. Neither did I know what I should do. I had examined my every action and found nothing wanting. The Queen despised me, my husband detested me.

What I wanted was to go home to King’s Lynn.

My father could disown me, my mother cuff me, but anything would have been better than being here. My chin began to tremble on its own accord. The harder I tried to still it, the worse it became. My lips began to convulse as sobs wracked my body.

Joan came near.

I shook my head, willing her to go away, but she ignored me, gathering me to her chest like a child.

I threw my arms around her waist and clung to her.

After some time I quieted and Joan brought me more wine. After several sips, my thoughts became sharper and I turned them toward the task at hand, toward something I could do. I concentrated my efforts upon choosing a gown and answering Her Majesty’s only complaint.

“The indigo. I will wear the indigo.” Crimson would have only enhanced the red in my cheeks. I needed pallor. I wanted the alabaster skin for which the earl had praised the Queen.

Never before had I been accused of being common. My skin was transparent, translucent, marred by neither pox nor freckle. My black hair only made me seem more pallid; my blue eyes, it had been said, shone like the palest of winter skies. I had been born with the complexion every woman in the kingdom used artifice to obtain.

And yet, she had called me a Moor.

Fortunately, Nicholas found me before I had wallowed too long in melancholy. As it was, he walked into the room as I was playing an especially dismal rendition of “Flow My Tears.”

“My lord?”

“There is to be a banquet at Whitehall this night. Make ready my horse for leaving, Nicholas.”

“And the countess’s, my lord?”

“What of it?”

“Shall I order her horse readied?”

“Nay.”

“She does not go? Is she ill, my lord?”

She was not ill and Nicholas knew it. He just wanted to hear me say the words. To have me give voice to my own injustice. Only this time, my actions could not be seen by him to be objectionable. “I took her to court. I introduced her to the Queen. The Queen laughed at her. Everyone else laughed at her. I think I have done my duty by the girl.”

“Why did they laugh, my lord?”

“Because the Queen called her a gypsy.”

“A gypsy? But she is as pale as a corpse . . .”

“I know it. But the Queen said it. What would you have me do?”

“I would have you go to the banquet with your countess on your arm, my lord, and force everyone to respect her.”

“That would require a great assumption on your part.”

“And what would that be, my lord?”

“The assumption that I care to
have
her on my arm.”

“So you mean to abandon her? To have her first dreadful experience at court be her last? My lord, that does not become you!”

“I mean to do nothing more with her at all.”

“You must not do it, my lord. What has she done to deserve such ill-mannered behavior?”

“She has . . .”
come to me with the face of an angel and the innocence
of a lamb.

“Aye?” Nicholas prodded.

“She has . . .”
been used terribly by the Queen and all of the court.