Constant Heart (2 page)

The east. Perhaps . . . I made quick work in breaking the seal, but then found my eyes could not deal so deftly with the words contained inside. If only my hands would stop shaking.

I spread it on the desk before me but still could not focus on the words long enough to read them. Pushing away from the desk, I gestured Nicholas toward the paper. “Read it.”

“My lord.” He stood beside the desk and took the letter into his hands. “ ’Tis dated King’s Lynn this twenty-second day of June. ‘To Simon St. Aubin, most gracious lord, Earl of Lytham, I humbly take my pen in hand to—’ ”

“Aye, aye. Does he accept the terms or not?”

“It seems, my lord that . . .”

“An aye or nay will suffice.”

“If you could find the patience to allow me the opportunity to simply—”

“You vex me.”

Nicholas’s lips twitched into the briefest of smiles. “If
you
would rather have the reading of it, my lord?”

“Nay! And may the devil take you.”

“Then . . . it would seem as if . . .”

“Aye?”

Nicholas held up a finger to stay my words. If he had not been my most trusted friend, I would not have forborne the insolence, but he was my Gentleman of the Horse. And I had marked him as mine in my younger days. Had it not been for my youth’s ill temper and the sharp end of a stick, he would now be absent a star of a scar that marred his left cheek.

“What say you?” I asked again.

Using that same finger, he reached down and slid it beneath a line of text. And then, finally, he lifted his eyes to mine. “Aye. After all of that, in the very last phrase, he agrees. You shall have the hand of his daughter in marriage.”

“Thank heaven!”

“Congratulations, my lord. It is my fondest hope that the young lady will bring you nothing but happiness.”

I looked at him. Though his mien revealed nothing but innocence, I knew him too well. “You mean to say, as opposed to the first young lady?”

Nicholas merely stood there.

I frowned as I regained my desk and removed my quill from the inkpot. “The young lady is of no importance.”

“I beg to argue, my lord.”

“You have never begged for anything in your life, Nicholas.” I looked up just in time to see him hide a smile by tucking his chin into his chest.

“Be that as it may, that young lady shall soon become your countess.”

“Aye. ’Tis the manner in which these things generally occur.”

“A countess who will represent you. A countess who may bear you an heir.”

I put the quill back into the inkpot and turned to look at him.

“Pray, be plain.”

“As a knight’s daughter, her only wish will be to please you. You must not punish her for another’s mistakes, my lord.”

“Do you think me some cruel tyrant?”

“Nay, my lord. But it was you who said she was of no importance.”

“
Relatively
speaking, Nicholas. ’Tis her dowry that I am after. Her knight-father’s riches will allow me to regain Holleystone. If there is anything to rejoice over, ’tis that fact. You and I shall both be going home. ’Tis for
that
God is to be praised.”

After being sold to pay for another’s destitution—my brother’s, the former earl—Holleystone was once again to be held by its rightful owners. And never again would it leave the family’s possession.

Coaxing the lease of my other estate, Brustleigh Hall, from the Queen had been a victory, but the return of Holleystone would be a triumph. It was a shame I would have to marry for that pleasure, but the return of Holleystone was worth any tribulation. Surely the girl could not be so bad as my first wife, Elinor. I gathered those thoughts before they could gallop away from me. Though I had taken Elinor to wife, Parliament had recently annulled that marriage and so, in fact, I had no wife. Had never had. But the Act of Parliament that had expunged a marriage had failed to obliterate the memories . . . that the face of an angel could hide a heart so duplicitous . . . that beauty could be so deceitful.

It still cost me to think of the ways, all the very
many
ways, in which she had betrayed me. Though I had tried everything I knew to mend the wound, each thought of Elinor pulled at the edges, threatening to start it bleeding once more. And now I was to bind myself to another woman.

At least this one was just a knight’s daughter. Surely I would not be expected to keep her long at court. Just as soon as I was able I would hide the horse-faced young girl away at Holleystone. Would that I could send her to Brustleigh and keep Holleystone for myself, but it seemed it could not be helped.

If Holleystone was personal, a family wrong to be righted, then Brustleigh was for the Queen. The renovations were nearly complete, and with what would be left of the girl’s dowry, the remaining work could be finished sooner rather than later. And when it was, I would persuade Her Majesty to visit. With that sign of preference, along with some small sign of the Queen’s preferment, then I could finally be first among her courtiers.

Nicholas cleared his throat, a sure sign that I had been ignoring him. “The young lady, my lord.”

“What of her?”

“You will not neglect her, my lord?”

“Certainly not! Luck’s chosen vessel must be looked after . . .”

My thoughts turned toward all the ways in which I might, very soon, become lucky. I might be selected to receive a venerable Garter Knighthood. I might be asked to take a seat on Her Majesty’s Privy Council. I might be given another estate or even a chance to purchase a monopoly.

Nicholas coughed.

“What is it?”

“The gifts, my lord.”

“The gifts?”

“If you are to be married in several months, then I have only several months to attend to the preparations, my lord. First among them, the gifts.”

“What gifts?”

“For the betrothal, my lord. And the morning after.”

“Morning after what?”

“Your
wedding
, you great dunce!”

I waved him away. “Choose something you deem adequate.

And since you concern yourself with the girl’s welfare, take the gift there yourself.”

I am certain he thought I did not see him shake his head over my words; I did. But I could not care. Fortune had finally smiled upon me. My ship had turned its sails toward home. That I would soon be married and have some girl by my side as I sailed could hardly matter.

Marriage
.

That was it! Carriage, marriage. Her Majesty’s
carriage
could be compared to a
marriage
of . . . grace and virtue? Of grace and . . . beauty? Grace and something. Why did poetry have to come in fits and starts? My only hope was that the more I practiced, the more I wrote, the easier it would become.

As Nicholas left the room, I reviewed the portions of the sonnet I had already written. I had been writing on the subject of Her Majesty, but as I contemplated my future, I decided to write instead about Fair Fortune.

I put the one sonnet to the side and began anew.

2

T
he Earl of Lytham sent a letter agreeing to the terms of the marriage. Along with the notice of his concurrence was sent a betrothal gift. It arrived in a small chest, carried by a messenger clad in the earl’s colors of azure and red.

“Perhaps a gift of coin!” My father had never been able to shed the gowns of his trade, and a merchant’s interests were both singular and constant.

“It could hold a prize other than gold. It might be jewels.” With those words, my mother had come as close to scolding Father as ever she had. “Go on, Marget. Open it!”

I did not want to. I did not wish to know what it contained. A gift always reveals its giver, and I was afraid that it would tell me something I did not wish to know about the man, the earl, who was soon to be my husband.

Were it coins, I would know he was assuming me to be some ill-bred spendthrift, concerned only for the state of my purse. Were it some piece of frippery, I would know he was assuming me to be a wanton, bent only on frivolity.

I walked toward the messenger who held it; he dropped to one knee at my approach. As soon as I had closed the distance between us, he lifted the lid of the chest and then offered the whole of it up to me. But not without first meeting my eyes. I found his gaze filled with understanding. It was oddly reassuring.

I did not relieve him of his burden but took only from the chest what the opening of the lid had revealed: a letter and two packages, one large and one small.

As I began to open the letter, my mother grasped my arm. “The gifts first!” She took the letter from me and replaced it with the smaller of the packages.

My fingers fumbled with the ribbons that bound it, so I handed it to her.

She made quick work in revealing the contents. “I was right— ’tis a ring!” She tried to give it to me, but I did not want it. “Rubies.

And . . . sapphires? They are strangely blue.”

“Azure.” I looked toward the messenger and he nodded. “ ’Tis a ring of the earl’s colors.” There had been enough messengers going back and forth between the earl and King’s Lynn that if I knew nothing else of him, I knew the St. Aubin family colors.

“Well, ’tis . . . ’tis fine, then. Put it on, child.”

If I had not held out my palm for it, she would have dropped it to the floor, so great was her eagerness to have me wear it. But I did not yet wish to be marked like some prized mare.

“And the other? The larger?” My father was leaning across the table in his impatience to discover the contents of the remaining package.

I took it to hand and was surprised by its weight. This one was easier to open, contained inside a velvet pouch. Upon being released from its tether, the gift, a golden disc, slipped out into my hand. I turned it over. Its flat surface was marked by a winding of golden scrollwork and its edges measured off in regular increments. It was divided in two by a golden bar.

“What is it?” My father had no use for things which had no purpose.

“Let me see!” My mother was standing upon her toes, trying to see over my shoulder.

The messenger cleared his throat. “ ’Tis an astrolabe, my lady.”

“An astrolabe?”

“An instrument, my lady, for navigation.”

“Navigation?” I could not treat this man any longer as a mere servant. In this matter, clearly, he had more knowledge than I.

Above a star-shaped scar, his eyes seemed, for a moment, to twinkle. “Perhaps if the lady read the letter . . .”

I put the gifts on the table and returned to the task I had first undertaken. I broke the seal and spread the letter before me. But in this, at least, the messenger was mistaken. It was not a letter. It was a poem. A sonnet.

“What does it say?” My father was squinting in his attempts to read it.

I began to read. “It says,

Every man who claims a destiny
Is giv’n a ship of fate on which to sail
Some guide their course by basest treachery
While faint hearts anchor far from life’s travail
But take to hand the Astrolabe of Love
And soon you find that your course does run true
Through day and night, gales thundering above
All the sailing leads to naught but you
To you alone I give Love’s astrolabe
That in your sailing you might find the same
Gale winds that blew my soul to you to save
Might in return give you to me to claim
Coupled, may we kneel before love’s altar
Clasping hands that bear faith’s ancient color.”

At the end of its reading, I discovered myself to be smiling. A quick glance at the messenger told me he had discovered the same. Trying to turn my lips into a frown, I returned my attentions to the poem. If the earl were true to his words, he was a man who seemed to want to love me. Or, at the very least, to respect me.

I could wear a ring given me by such a man.

While my father tugged the sonnet from my hand, I turned to question the messenger. “Ancient color?”

“Azure, my lady.”

“And faith?”

“ ’Tis the Earl of Lytham’s motto, my lady:
fortiter fideliter
.”

“Bravely, faithfully?”

“Well said, my lady.”

“I am not your lady.”

My words were inexcusably sharp, but the messenger met my gaze with one of mild amusement. “Nay, madam. You may not be
my
lady, not yet, but you are one just the same.”

I refolded the poem and put it back into the chest with the astrolabe. Then I took the ring from the table and pushed it onto my thumb. It was heavy but it fit.

Our banns, the Earl of Lytham’s and mine, were read at church three weeks in succession. With each reading, the knot within my belly that had eased upon the delivery of the earl’s sonnet began to tighten once more. I felt a giddy excitement about leaving the marshes of Norfolk for the storied opulence of the Queen’s court. But lying beneath it was a pressing anxiety. In spite of Joan’s attempts to buoy my spirits, I felt as if I were an impostor. Who was I to launch myself upon the royal court as a countess? And, more importantly, how was I to survive upon my own?

With each twisting of my innards, I read the earl’s poem anew. Surely life would not be so bad if it were lived beside the man who had written such a poem. After two months’ time, the parchment had grown soiled from my fingers and worn from being folded and refolded. But it had also become fixed in my mind.

And my heart.

I was given leave by my father to take a servant with me from his household, but in my new life I desired more than a servant. I wanted a companion. My old nurse had died. I had my own maid, but she was a simple girl and cowed by the least change in daily routines. I might have settled on one of the maids-of-all-work, but to what advantage? I had almost resigned myself to leaving alone when Joan saw me passing her father’s tavern and begged a word.

In private.

“My father searches a husband for me.”

I clasped her hands, excited by the prospect. “But surely this is good news!”

Her face became even more drawn than normal. “How can it be good? Who would want me?”

I restrained my sigh but could think of no reply. Who indeed would want her? Her father, a publican, was not so rich that a dowry would long distract a man from Joan’s face. “Does he . . . has he mentioned any names?”