Constant Heart (33 page)

“He accuses me—” I could not bring myself to say it. “He accuses me . . .”

“He accuses you of something you cannot have done.”

I had not done it, but I had been offered the opportunity. Was this my punishment? And had I not flirted with the men at court? Why should he believe me? What evidence did he truly have that I had not done what he had said? Though God had saved my virtue, He had done it in spite of myself. “I did not . . .”

“Hush you now.”

“I cannot . . .”

“Nicholas will talk some sense into his thick head.”

“Nicholas was not here.” If I could not be trusted, then neither could any who had been at Holleystone with me.

Elinor had cuckolded me once. I would not be made a fool of again.

“Nicholas! I have want of Nicholas!” At my demand, one of my chamberers ran from the room in search of the man. If I could not sleep, then I would have company in my misery. It took Nicholas several minutes to reach my rooms, and when he finally did, sleep still clung to his eyes.

“Marget is with child.”

“Felicitations, my lord.” He lifted a hand to stifle a yawn.

“I sent her away from me in . . . one state . . . and have returned to find her in another entirely.”

Nicholas frowned. “Babes take no little time before they begin to show themselves, my lord. Surely you cannot accuse my lady of—”

“The very same thing which Elinor did? Did I not tell you she was a devil in women’s weeds?”

“My lord, surely you cannot mean the words you say.”

“I do not know what I mean!” My voice cracked with emotion.

“When is the babe to be born, my lord?”

“In February. Least that is what she tells me.”

“Then it cannot be any man’s, my lord, but yours.”

“But how can I truly know it? How can I trust her?”

“How can we know anything? How can we trust anything? One first must know of whom one speaks, my lord, and then one may do the judging. Surely you know the countess is incapable of—”

“I need you to ask the servants, to find out if . . . whether . . .”

“My lord, please do not ask me to do this.”

“I must know.”

“You will lose more in the asking than you will gain, my lord.

And if, as you must already know, there was no assignation, then you will have ruined your marriage forever. For nothing.”

“I fear it is already ruined.”

When Nicholas found he could not dissuade me from my course, he left, fairly slamming the door shut on his way. I remained within my chambers for two days. I longed for sleep, for the obliteration of reality that only dreams could provide.

I looked for it in my cups. I looked for it in my books and in song, but still it eluded me. Finally, I fell to my knees on the high-backed stool I used for prayers and I wept in my misery to God.

God, how can I know? How can I be certain that Marget is telling
the truth?

But how
could
she be telling the truth? No one at court told the truth. Truth was weakness. Truth could be turned into a weapon. Truth could always be wrested from the hand of its possessor and then turned and plunged into his heart.

But had I ever known Marget to tell a lie?

If she had told me the truth, then surely I was a despicable creature. I had questioned her constancy, I had impugned her honor, and I had abandoned her at a moment that should have been heralded with great joy.

Surely, then, I was the greatest of wretches.

But surely, given the court in which we lived, I could be forgiven my transgression, God, could I not?

But why would there come no peace?

Perhaps . . . perhaps because I had not asked for it? Perhaps because I had not . . . prayed for it? There had to be something, some prayer, some invocation that would work.

I grabbed the
Book of Common Prayer
from the shelf of the stool and flipped through its pages until I came to one.

“From all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisies,
from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. Good Lord,
deliver us.”

Good Lord, deliver me.

“From fornication, and all other deadly sin, and from all the deceits
of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Good Lord, deliver us.”

Good Lord, deliver me.

With my head in my hands I thought about the words I had just read. And then I began to laugh. For what had I just done than prayed that I might be delivered from court? For where else in all the kingdom could be found pride, vainglory, and hypocrisies in abundance; envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness; fornication, deadly sin, the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil than in court, before the Queen’s own throne.

Well, if God could deliver me, then let Him do it!

But as for me, I could see no other path than that which I had chosen. No other way to fortune than that of the courtier. If there was any position for me to maintain, any influence that could be gained, it was at court that I would accomplish it. Two things were certain: I could never give up my title, and I could never leave the court.

But now, at this moment, there were many choices to be made. The next step along my chosen path was deciding how, exactly, I was going to apologize to Marget.

I stayed in my chambers for two days. On the third day, as I was reading to my maids, after a sharp rap on the door, Lytham appeared. He looked at me and then pointedly looked at my maids. He wanted me to dismiss them.

I would do no such thing.

He bowed and then came toward me and knelt by my side. “Tonight I have commanded radishes for supper.”

If he had hoped to make me smile, he had failed.

“Bowls of them.”

I turned a page of my book.

“And I shall eat them all.”

I continued my reading in silence. Until he placed a flower upon the page.

It was a pink late-blooming rose nestled in ivy.

Love and fidelity.

“Nicholas verified that . . . you were . . . are . . . constant.”

I lifted my eyes from the flower and looked into his. “Because my own word cannot be trusted?”

“Because I am a fool.” There were all sorts of misery at work in his eyes. All manner of pain. All kinds of anguish.

I fingered a petal. “Aye. You are.” But if he was a fool, then so was I, for I loved him. God had cursed me with love for him! I suffered from a constant heart that nothing could shake, and I could do nothing else but love him.

37

T
he next week, after supper one night, after all in the household had taken themselves to bed, I threw on my night-robe and knocked upon the door to Lytham’s chambers.

He bid me enter and I shut the door behind me.

“My lord, I must speak to you.”

“Pray, speak then.” His eyes reflected back a taper’s light, looking at once both daunting and inviting.

“It is about the accounts.”

“Aye.”

“The workers at Brustleigh have asked, several times, to be paid.”

He dismissed my concerns by returning his attentions to the ledgers in front of him. “The workers are always asking to be paid.”

“Have you no . . . sum . . . set aside, perhaps?”

“Set aside?”

“Is there no money anywhere?”

He glanced up from his ledger. “Of course there is money; I have the rents.”

“The rents!” That was it. I had forgotten about the rents. But . . . I had looked at all the accounts.

“When they come in, I put a bit into foreign ventures. And another bit into whatever expedition is going to the Americas or the Indies.”

“To foreign ventures and the Americas? But . . . it could take months for there to be any return. If there is ever to be any return . . .”

“You are worried about the accounts?” He placed his arm across the ledger and leaned upon it, fixing his glowing eyes upon me.

“Aye! How can we ask people to do work for us for which we cannot pay?”

“When I have the money, then I will pay them.”

“But people who work need to be paid when we make use of their labors. We cannot spend at the rate we have been spending. We must begin to set aside some of the . . . something . . . some monies . . . in order to pay off our debts.”

Debts. She said the word as if they were some foul thing newly discovered. As if they threatened our very existence. As if, in my folly, I had no knowledge of them. No knowledge of them? They haunted me! I lived with them as my closest friends. And everything I did, every action I took at court, every venture I took part in was calculated to relieve them. How could she not know that? Did she think me a fool? But all would be remedied once Her Majesty visited Brustleigh. They would all disappear in an instant.

“Set aside some monies? You mean, save them?” She had to be mocking me. I rose to my feet and crossed the room in quick paces, letting my eyes dart toward all the corners. “Where? Where shall I hide them? Underneath . . . underneath the bed?”

She gave me no answer.

“And then what would you have me tell all those people? All those poor. And not even those who are poor now, but the almost poor. How do I explain to them that I have pulled my wealth from circulation so that the monies I pay to the merchant tailor cannot be paid to the sempstress which cannot be paid to the baker and the fishmonger and the water carriers and the tanners and the—” I halted in my tracks and stood there, panting from my efforts. “Aye. We should look to our own interests and not to the interests of others.”

“I beg your pardon, my lord, I—”

“What would you have me do? What would you have me do other than what I have done?”

“I do not . . . I have no . . . I do not know, my lord.”

“
La noblesse nous oblige
.” She had to understand that. Nobility obligated me. Obligated us.

“But if we fail, if we are ruined, how can we fulfill the obligation?”

“They cannot afford for us to fail, and so they will make certain that we do not.” That truth was the only thing that kept me standing beneath debt’s heavy burden. That, and the hope of Her Majesty’s visit.

After a week’s stay at Holleystone, Lytham took me to court with him by way of Brustleigh. I was shamed to have to show my face to the overseer, but Lytham appeared to harbor no such qualms. Once there, his attentions were entirely devoted to the renovations. He hoped to entice Her Majesty into Berkshire while on Progress. And then to host her visit at Brustleigh Hall.