Constant Heart (19 page)

A dance was commanded by Her Majesty one day for the evening’s entertainment. As I stood in the Presence Chamber, praying I would not have to dance the volt, I heard some person address me.

“My Lady Lytham?”

I turned to find a courtier bowing before me. The knot in my belly tightened. Of all the courtiers present, it was he I misliked the most. His dress and demeanor were that of a courtier, but his eyes were those of a beast. And when they looked upon me, I felt hunted.

I sought the earl’s help and found him to be watching me with unblinking eye, but he did not act in my defense. So there was to be no direction, no guidance, no interest.

Taking the courtier’s arm, I let him lead me to the dance. We began with a regal pavane and then sprang into a lively galliard.

But soon my worst fears were realized and I was drawn close in the steps of a volt.

His embrace was too close, his eyes too bright, his hands too busy.

And so, after he had lifted me the first time, once my feet touched the ground again, I feigned illness and withdrew.

By the time I reached the door, my nostrils seemed too small for the breaths I needed and my head too small to contain my anger.

I broke out of the palace and into the courtyard. But just when I would have called for my horse, the earl came leading her with his own hand.

It was the first true kindness he had ever shown me. But I could not open my mouth to thank him for fear all my sentiments would tumble forth. For fear that I would accuse him for leaving me susceptible to such indecent fumblings instead of thanking him for his thoughtful gesture.

And so I said nothing at all.

The next day, when I appeared at the stables to ride to court, the earl was having his own horse saddled. I could not think that he had waited for me, but I had no other way to explain our convergence in that place at the same time.

I nodded and he returned the greeting.

I could not stand long in the earl’s presence without conversing, for it would be impolite. I opened my mouth to speak as he did the same.

He bowed swift and gave me to speak.

I did not know what I would say but opened my mouth once more. “Your ruff is very handsome, my lord.”

He straightened with a stiff back. And in doing so, withdrew from me.

“A man could grow rich in starch.”

He looked at me with keen eye. “Why would you say that?”

“As ruffs grow larger, so does the need for their stiffening. A man could grow rich if he supplied the stuff.” Good heaven, could I sound any more like a merchant’s daughter? I only wished I could stop speaking.

“
If
he supplied the stuff ?”

“Aye. If one cannot supply it, of course, then one must buy it.”

There was nothing I could add to my words that could possibly make me sound more daft.

His smile, when it came, was dazzling. And it left me, for a moment, as befuddled as my words. “You are brilliant.”

As brilliant as a dimwitted oaf.

The groomsmen appeared then with my horse and saved me from speaking any further inanities. But after that conversation, the earl’s scrutiny grew more pointed. He watched me. Constantly. If I had once wished for his attentions, I wished for them no longer.

I had asked, in all of the ways that I could, for an appointment with Her Majesty. At last I was alerted by her secretary that my request had been granted. I dressed with particular care, in the white and black which Her Majesty favored. I had my hat replumed and selected my best cloak.

I was told to go to her privy chamber, where she would speak with me. I found her playing at the virginal. She played for some time before she turned her head and noticed that I was there. And still she began another song and finished it before she deigned to speak to me. But when she did, she rose and held out her hand for me to kiss.

“Lord Lytham.”

“Your Majesty.”

“Does your gypsy wife play so well as that?”

“She does not play at all, Your Grace.”

“You ought to have asked my permission for your marriage,

Lytham.”

“I did, Your Majesty.”

“I ought to have met her. In advance.”

“It seems, Your Majesty, that you had met her father on your progress through East Anglia when you knighted him. I had assumed that you would not have bestowed such an honor on—”

“Do you not dare to assume what I might think!”

I bowed. Blinked hard when I faced the floor to try to clear my thoughts. How had the conversation gone so wrong? It was not of the girl that I had wished to speak. I straightened. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace, for having offended you with thoughtless words.”

“Well. You are not the first to have been lured by such . . . baseborn looks. Though most noblemen seem to have no need to legitimize such liaisons.”

I could think of no words with which to reply. Perhaps . . . an apology? “I fear, Your Majesty, that I have made a very great mistake.”

“I fear so as well, but perhaps we might yet find a way to rescue you. You have given me good advice on occasion.” She leveled a look at me. “You have
almost
always told me the truth. I do not know why you do not sit on my Privy Council.”

Her Privy Council! I bowed once more. “Your Grace.”

“You have been begging to speak to me.”

Begging
was not quite the word I would have chosen. “On the matter of starch, Your Majesty.”

“What of it?”

“It has come into my head, Your Majesty, that a large sum of money might be made for the . . . treasury . . . if a monopoly were sold.”

“I have sold more than one monopoly. Monopolies are odd. They promise very much, but in my experience they deliver very little.”

“But a monopoly for starch, Your Grace, might well be different.

The size of ruffs only continues to grow. And bigger ruffs require more in the way of starch . . .”

She paced the floor in front of me. And then stopped. Sat once more at the instrument and plucked a few chords. “How much do you think a person might pay for such a monopoly?”

“Two thousand pounds? Three thousand?”

Her hands fell to the keyboard. “As much as that?”

“
I
would, Your Majesty. Should you ever choose to sell it.”

“Some more good advice, Lytham? And more truth? I shall keep that thought at hand.”

Lady de Winter herself had noticed some difference in Lytham’s demeanor. “You know he watches you?”

“Of whom do you speak?”

“Your earl.”

“I did not know him to be present.”

She made the smallest of gestures with her head.

I followed the movement with my eyes. And certes, past her shoulder, against the wall, stood the earl, watching. Waiting. Driving me mad. “First he will not claim me, and now he will not let me tarry long from his sight! He studies me as if I were some exotic creature.”

“He exhibits pride of ownership. Methinks he wishes to tame you.”

“That, I doubt. He wishes only to be sure I do not wander far.”

“Perhaps. But you could change that.”

I turned my eyes from him back to her.

She smiled. “I think it time, my dear, to change your feathers.”

“But . . . he does not seem to want me . . . for anything more than my dowry. And he has already used it.”

“Aye. But he is in need of an heir as well.”

“A babe can hardly be made when he stays a room’s width apart from me.” Not that I was complaining.

“A room’s width? You jest.”

“I do not.”

She probed me with her eyes.

“A table’s width.”

“At no time has he been closer?”

“There was the one time . . . in the stables . . .”

She smiled.

“. . . when we
talked
.”

“Talked?”

“Aye.”

“Of what?”

I paused before answering. “Of ruffs.”

“Ruffs?”

“And starch.”

“What of it?” Lady de Winter looked perplexed.

I shook my head, willing the memory to go away.

She shook hers as well. “If he cannot see your beauty, then we must get him to feel his age. For then he will know an urgency for progeny!” She glanced around the room and then moved still closer.

And when she spoke again, it was with lowered voice. “I know an apothecary who is very discreet. For the right sum, one can purchase a powder. If it is placed in the earl’s cups, he will begin to feel all the pains of age.”

“I do not wish to poison him!”

Her eyes threw darts at me. “Quiet your words! Those services are not widely known, and I wish to keep them that way. Besides, ’tis nothing which cannot be reversed.”

“Nay.”

“For just one week. And upon recovery, he will be so exhilarated he shall fairly leap into your bed.”

“Absolutely not.”

“A philter then, to induce love?”

“And have a raving beast loosed in my chambers?”

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. “You sound as if you despise him.”

“I do not despise
him
. I despise his kind.”

She took a step back and surveyed me. “How noble. And what is his kind? Are you speaking of the courtier? He is a perfect specimen. But how can you despise him for that?”

“I despise him for his flirtations. For lust unbridled that makes sons without fathers to claim them.”

“You despise the lust? Then get you far from here. Lust is what makes this kingdom go round! ’Tis very useful.”

“Useful! I come from a village where every third boy had the unmistakable look of my father about him. It was not useful; it was shameful.”

“And so you refuse Lytham his just desires so you can drive him out into the city to satisfy himself there? I am far from a soldier, but that seems to me to be a poorly wrought strategy.”

20

P
erhaps my strategy was a poor one, but I could think of earl could be doing during the hours of night but frequenting the Southwark stews. I could think of nothing to stop him. Until one day I had been watched too well for far too long. Then my strategy turned to offense. I left the group with whom I had been speaking and went to confront the earl.

“What do you want of me?”

“I assure you, Lady—”

“Do you think me blind?”

“Nay.”

“Do you think me deaf?”

“Nay.”

“Do you think I do not know what you are about? At least have the decency to save my dignity. And do not expect that you will creep into my bed as easily as you do one of your maid’s. I may be a knight’s daughter, but you pledged a vow to me. And as far as I know, there is only one night that you have kept it.”

His eyes flashed steel. “My bed, I assure you, has been cold as a grave.”

“Then for that I beg your pardon.”

“It is offered as freely as your indictment.”

We were at the crossroads of accusation and incrimination, and neither of us would yield. But I was driven to make amends. I was haunted by the marriage that was my parents’, and the fate that was my mother’s. “What have I done to make you so mislike me?”

“I have been taught not to place my trust in beauty.”

“You mislike me for my beauty?”

“I do not trust you for your beauty.”