Constant Heart (22 page)

Though I seemed to walk in enchanted lands, not all in the Presence Chamber were as ignorant of our affairs as Her Majesty’s Grace.

“He is enamored of you, and who could blame him?”

My eyes shifted from the earl to Lady de Winter. “Pardon me?”

“What have you done to Lytham, girl?”

A thousand things of which she must never know. I tried to smile although my cheeks burned. “I have only done as you suggested.”

“As I suggested? And
I
suggested that you bewitch him to the detriment of his duties?”

“Nay. You suggested that I change my tactics.”

“Aye. But you may have gained more than I had wanted. You need only produce an heir, not make him grovel at your feet like some lowly serf. ’Tis not long until Her Majesty will notice, and then we shall see where Lytham’s affections take him. To the Tower for certain. To the executioner? ’Tis not rare.”

My cheeks had been doused in iced water. “The executioner?”

I could barely force the words from my mouth.

“ ’Tis a game we all play, but there are rules. And the first is this: never make a fool of Her Majesty’s Grace. She believes her courtiers love her? Then do nothing,
not one thing
, to destroy that illusion!”

My eyes had been straying toward Lytham, but the slap of Lady de Winter’s hand against my cheek gained her my full attention.

“Do you love him?”

“I do not—”

“The only acceptable answer is nay. You may be fascinated, enthralled, and captivated by him. You may sleep in his own bed for all I care, but you must not fall in love with him. I will only help you as long as you help him, and you cease to help him the moment you fall in love with him. Do not do it!”

“I . . .” My cheek stung so much that I could hardly gather my words to speak.

“Understand this: to love him is to kill him. Men have been hung for far less.”

I tried to avoid Lytham in the coming days. If I could not cease to love him, then I tried to protect him from my love. But he knew me. He knew all of my hiding places. And surrounding myself with my maids did no good. He only sent them away.

“Why do you hide yourself from me?”

“I do not hide.”

“Neither do you lie.”

My cheeks flamed. I bent my head to my handiwork.

“At least not with very great success.” He pushed away from the door where he had been watching me and came to stand beside me.

“ ’Tis a beautiful bird you work at.”

I blinked. Looked at the canvas between my hands. Tried to hide a smile. “ ’Tis not a bird. ’Tis a fish.”

“Oh. Aye. Fins, not wings . . .”

He walked to my table, opened my jewel coffer. Shut it. Walked to the window. Looked out. Turned his back to it. Started toward me. Stopped. “Do I . . . displease you?”

My work slid from my fingers before I could stop it. “Nay!” I bent to grope for it among my skirts.

“Do you not wish for my attentions any longer?”

I closed my hand around the canvas and the needle stuck into my finger. “Nay!” Wait. I had meant . . . What was the question?

“Aye! I mean—”

He closed the distance between us with a few long strides. “Please, let nothing I have done come between us. Only tell me what it is and I will right it.”

I shook my head. If I told him I was trying not to love him, it would only reveal how miserably I had failed at that task.

“Marget, my sweet. I cannot bear for there to be discord be– tween us.”

Tears trailed down my cheeks. I moved to wipe them away, but he kneeled before me and wiped them away himself.

“You are unhappy. Is it Lytham House?”

I shook my head.

“Do you wish to go to Brustleigh?”

I smiled through my tears. If he only knew: never again, there.

“I will send you there, though my heart would suffer. You have only to ask.”

I shook my head.

“Then what is it?”

“I have been told I must not love you.”

“By whom?”

“It does not matter. I have seen the consequences of love all around me.”

“But you can. We must only remain silent. We must only keep it a secret and never mention it again.”

“I must keep my love secret?”

“As I do my own.”

“You love me then?”

“Aye. God help me. I know I should not love you, but I do. I cannot help myself. And now that you smile at me like an angel, how can I not kiss you?”

He leaned over my knees and did what he could not keep himself from doing. And then he placed his head on my lap.

I put a hand to his hairs and stroked them.

“Never keep yourself away from me again. I could not bear it.”

As I knelt there with my head in her lap, I could almost convince myself that there was no danger in loving her. That what we were doing, what we felt for each other, could not be wrong. That it would harm no one, that Her Majesty could not begrudge us this one small happiness. But the voice of experience would not be quieted. It howled at me to protect my person, safeguard my neck, and shield my assets. It cried at me to use wisdom, to play the courtier’s game by the rules I knew so well. But how could I when my heart had already been exposed? When my love had been laid bare?

The wisest action might have been to send Marget away from me, far from court, to Holleystone. But who knew how long it would be until I could join her? And how did one go about living absent one’s heart?

I sighed.

Marget’s hand stilled.

Of a sudden I longed for home, for Holleystone. For a place removed from intrigues, from cares, from . . . the Queen. I tried to stop such foolish thoughts, for what was a courtier without a court?

If I dreamed of such things, then I might as well fix my thoughts on Paradise; the one place was just as remote as the other.

But that did not mean I could not partake of temporal pleasures. I could visit Holleystone. And if I did it, if I went and returned within two weeks’ time, then I would not have to ask Her Majesty’s permission to absent myself from her.

I lifted my head, captured Marget’s hand, and pressed a kiss into her palm. “How would you like to go home?”

That fall Lytham took me to Holleystone, the home of his birth. He was a native of Berkshire, and it took us some days to journey there. But it was a merry trip, filled with singing and laughter. We would start out of a morning, the ground and the trees grayed by frost, and then with the sun’s appearance discover that everything frost’s fingers touched had turned to gold, to crimson and ginger. We rode through a gilded fairy world.

And as we rode, Joan regaled the earl and Nicholas with stories of our own county.

“Have you never heard of Old Shuck, my lord?”

I could not believe her boldness! “Nay, Joan! Do not speak of him.” I did not like the tale she wanted to tell. And it was nearing dark. We had yet to reach some place to stop for the night.

“I never have.” Lytham glanced at me. “Although I cannot say that I would not appreciate another story of yours to tickle my ears.”

“ ’Tis no story, my lord. This one ’tis truth.”

Lytham winked at me. “And the Weyborne Witches and Stiffkey Trolls were not?”

“You may mock me if you like, my lord, but Old Shuck is as real as you and me.”

“Perhaps tomorrow, Joan. In the morning.” I wanted illumination for this dark tale.

Lytham examined my face. “The tale scares you then, my sweet?”

“We had a friend die that saw him.”

“T’were Little Mary Bailie. Within a twelve-month of the sight of him. She and her mother both!”

“Pray, tell.”

“Old Shuck, he’s a demon hound, huge as a foal with eyes that burn like fire.”

“We could use him this night. Perhaps he could lead us on our way!”

Nicholas snickered at Lytham’s word.

“You may laugh if you like, my lord, but just you remember Little Mary Bailie. All she did was pay a visit to her mother’s father, who lived at Sheringham. She laughed as well when he told her the tale, but weren’t none of them laughing when she died.”

“Forgive me, Joan. Please continue.”

“Did I tell you Old Shuck is dark?”

“Nay.”

“Well, he is! Black as a moonless sky, my lord. Which serves him well as he sneaks up on you at night.”

“Light of foot is he?”

“Not especially. Just sly. You could not know he stalked you except you can hear his feet. They thump. On the ground. After you.

And then afore you know it, they sound from just behind you.”

“And let me guess: if you turn around to look at him, you die.”

“Nay, my lord. He does not kill so easy as that. You cannot see him at first, for he is darker than dark.”

“Remind me, Nicholas, not to go sparring with shadows.”

Nicholas tried to hide his smile, but I could see the flash of his teeth through the gloom. “Aye, my lord.”

“The trick of Old Shuck is that first you see nothing at all. But if you keep looking long enough, you see those flaming eyes. And ’tis then you know that you will die.”

An owl hooted in the twilight. The mournful sound sent a shiver creeping up my spine.

“And how does he kill you?”

“He does not, my lord.”

“He does not kill you?”

“Nay, my lord. ’Tis the knowledge of him, my lord, that kills.”

“Knowledge?”

“Aye, my lord. He
can
chase you toward danger. But worse, ’tis thinking upon the beast and knowing that he is real that always kills the one who sees him. Before a year is gone, he makes you kill yourself.”

“Mary Bailie?”

“She could not sleep for seeing the hound in her dreams. And soon she could not eat.”

“And her mother?”

“Well . . .” Joan looked toward me.

I shook my head.

She shrugged. “She was mourning her dead girl when she wandered into the Wash, my lord.”

“Aye?”

“ ’Twas
the Wash
, my lord.”

“Aye?”

“Where King John lost all his gold?”

“And so?”

“The Wash takes what it wants and will not return it. The sands swallowed her, my lord. Though they say if you wander about at night, you can hear her cries for help. Terrible cries, my lord. You would not want to hear them.”

We rode uneasy for the rest of the way. Nicholas turned several times to look at the road behind us. I nudged my horse closer to Lytham’s. Joan tucked her mount behind mine. At least we rode with Lytham’s men. Old Shuck or not, they would ensure we arrived safe at Holleystone.

But still, I could not keep thoughts of little Mary Bailie from my mind. I did not believe in ghosts or ghouls, but Mary’s tale was different. She had been my friend, and whatever she had seen had haunted her. Perhaps, as some said, it was a wolf; or perhaps a bear escaped from traveling gypsies. But when she returned to King’s Lynn, she brought a terror with her. The encounter had left her among the living. It was the illusion that had killed her. And perhaps it was that which unnerved us all. The truth might have been reasonable, plausible even. It was the lie that killed.

24

S
everal days later, long after the specter of Little Mary Bailie had faded, we reached Holleystone. When I saw the estate, I was charmed and overcome by sweet relief. There was nothing of Queen Elizabeth there, no structures built in the shape of an E. No royal crests, no royal colors. And, best of all, five of Holleystone’s twins would have fit within the walls of Brustleigh Hall. If Brustleigh was palatial, Holleystone was familial; Holleystone was home.

The house was ancient. It still had a crenellated roof with five old-fashioned chimneys spaced along its pitch and a defensive tower at one end. I could have walked the length of it in thirty strides, it was that small. The windows, what few of them there were, had been set in panes, but not yet latticed.

“It is not of a size with Brustleigh.” Lytham said the words as if an apology were necessary.

“I think it just right.” I amended my opinion when I realized the house was built in the shape of a U. Behind the front stretched two wings in parallel that more than doubled in length the width of the front. But I could not long be disappointed. It was a house to love. And to trust.