Heart of Gold (35 page)

Ambrose nudged open the small window of the cabin with the heel of his hand and stepped back as the fresh night air rushed in. He filled his lungs with the cool breeze, leaning his broad back against the closed door.

“Elizabeth, tell me what you smell when you breath in this air.” The Highlander watched as the young woman lifted her chin a fraction. “Tell me.”

The painter paused for a moment. “I smell the night scents of the river. I smell the clean cold of the water, and the faint odor of fish that mixes with the good smell of earth.”

“And the scent of grapes.”

He paused as she nodded vaguely.

“Those are the smell of living things, Elizabeth. Growing things.” He moved to the bunk and sat beside her. “You are alive. But she is gone. It is time now for you to accept this and let her go. We never know when our time here is finished, but I’ve seen many people in my life who walked around more dead than alive. I won’t be letting you become one of them.”

She leaned her head against her knees to hide the tears that rolled uncontrollably down her face.

“You don’t understand.” Elizabeth squeezed her eyelids shut. She wanted to tell him that the dagger that robbed her sister of her one chance to regain the happiness in her life was meant for her own fraudulent heart. Indeed, she struggled to tell him how she had put their lives in danger. All of their lives—including his. Those killers knew of her identity. They had tracked her down and found her. And they would find her again. Who would be the victim next time? She shuddered at the thought.

Ambrose placed his arm around her shoulder and pulled her to his side. “I might not have known your sister as well as I should have, but I know that she was a woman who was, perhaps for the first time in her life, beginning to appreciate the things that life had brought her, instead of mourning forever the things she had lost. Elizabeth, she could only have learned that from you. Right now I see you hiding yourself away, and I know this is not the Elizabeth that your sister finally learned to appreciate so much.”

“I’m not hiding.”

“Aye, you are. And you know you are.” He gently caressed her back. “You are hiding because you don’t want the world to know that you have a right to grieve. You are hiding because you are afraid of admitting who you are.”

She looked up at him, her anguish showing in her eyes. “Please, Ambrose. This is not the time.”

“But it is, lass,” he continued. “You need to face the truth now, not sometime in the distant future. Out there, at this very moment, messengers are taking the news of your sister’s death to the English court. And to your father.”

She looked up at him in alarm. Her voice was low and guarded. “Did you send them?”

“To the
English
court? Nay, Elizabeth. Not I.” He held her icecold hand in his. “But the man who killed your sister was an English knight. And he was killed by a Scot. Now, think. That market is filled with merchants from all over Europe. If the word is not being conveyed by English merchants, then the Flemish merchants are doing it. They all know how much money there is to be made conveying information. In fact, I heard your sister’s name going through the crowd, though how that happened, I don’t know. But the fact that she was an Englishwoman, the daughter of a member of the king’s council, is no small matter. All Europe knows the power and influence Thomas Boleyn wields in Henry’s court.”

Elizabeth had heard all this about her father before. But she’d always assumed he would just count her long dead. Now a thought that had been nagging at the corners of her consciousness pushed to the forefront. “You think he had something to do with this, don’t you?”

Ambrose said nothing, considering how far to take this.

“Tell me,” she persisted, her voice flat and emotionless. “What interest would he have in me now?”

“His interest would be to destroy you, Elizabeth.” The Highlander decided to go all the way with this. To scare her. To bring her to her senses. “To make you suffer for your rebellion years back. He could feel he owes that to his king.”

“We’ll never cross paths. I am going to the Scottish court.”

“Which is ruled by Henry’s sister, Margaret Tudor!”

She paled. “Your queen...”

“Would she consider handing you over to your father?” he asked. “Aye, she would. You mean nothing to her, Elizabeth. But what’s worse, you have lied to her. And betrayed her, as well.”

“I have done no such thing. I’ve never even met her.”

“By then you will have.” He pressed. “By the time your father arrives at her court, you will have been presented to her as a man, even though you’re very much a woman. You’ve pretended to be what you are not. But to make matters much worse—Margaret Tudor’s a wildly superstitious woman. And you know how superstitious minds work as well as I. She’ll think you’ve done all of this out of sheer witchcraft. To cast an evil spell on her, to bring her bad luck. Now that I think more on it, she might not hand you over.”

“She won’t?”

“Nay, she won’t. She would want to keep the pleasure of burning you at the stake herself.”

“You are cruel!”

“Nay, lass,” Ambrose said sadly. “I just know my queen all too well.”

Elizabeth felt a knot tighten in her gut as the thought of Jaime rushed into her mind. Whatever would become of the child if Elizabeth were to die?

“Perhaps he won’t know,” she whispered. “Perhaps my father won’t find our trail. Perhaps he won’t recognize me.”

He shook his head. “What are the chances of that? As soon as he gets the news of Mary’s death, he’ll also learn that you are traveling with me. Pretending to be Mary’s brother for years is all the clue he’ll ever need.” He took hold of her chin and brought her eyes to his. “I recognized you, Elizabeth, as soon as we met. Your father will, too.”

“What will happen to Jaime?”

“She’ll go to King Henry’s court in the custody of her grandfather, Thomas Boleyn. And that will mean one more earldom for your father.”

During those years in Florence, Elizabeth had always considered Garnesche to be the one they should fear the most. Peter Garnesche had been the villain to hide from. But now she knew—it had been her father that she had been running from all along. Indeed, perhaps this cowardly attack at Troyes had been set up by her father. By her own kin.

It was from her father’s tent that she had been running, that fateful night at the Field of Cloth of Gold. That night when she had witnessed a murder. But perhaps after all these years, Peter Garnesche had pushed the entire event from his memory. Perhaps he no longer cared.

One thing was certain, though. Ambrose was correct—her father would never forget.

For a moment, Elizabeth considered telling Ambrose about Garnesche’s treachery. She had never seen any reason to tell him before. She had never seen any purpose in involving Ambrose in a long-buried secret about a crime that had happened so many years ago. After all, even Friar Matthew had counseled her to let the matter rest.

She stared at the burning candle. Jaime was all that really mattered now. Elizabeth had to make the decision that was right for the child. It was up to her to do the right thing for Jaime.

“Tell me what you advise, Ambrose,” she said simply. She knew she could trust him. She valued his judgment. With the exception of her encounter with the Englishman in the Golden Vale, the Highlander knew everything about her. And she knew he understood her.

Ambrose looked steadily into Elizabeth’s alert eyes.

“To start with,” he said calmly, “you can’t go on sitting in the dark of a boat, mourning a sister who is gone and who entrusted you with her wee one.”

“Aye. I know that, too.” Elizabeth stood up and walked to the small open window. The night sky was clear, and she could see the moon rising through a grove of trees that ran right to the river’s edge. The barge would soon be getting under way again, as soon as the moon rose high enough to cast sufficient light.

With the cold moonlight bathing her face, she thought about the life that she had been living. It had never been easy. But now she would need to carry on the deception when the price of being unmasked was so high. It was no longer just herself now that she needed to fear for if she should be caught. Perhaps—for Jaime—it would be best to try to forget the past four years. Perhaps it would be best to become, once again, faceless and nameless, a woman hiding this time in some remote corner of the country. The choice was clear.

“Do you advise that I become a woman again? Become Elizabeth Boleyn once more?” She turned from the window and faced him.

“I am saying you should leave this cabin.” He stood and crossed the floor to her. “Jaime needs you. Your being hidden away has bothered her deeply. She saw her mother spending a great deal of time in this cabin before her death. I think she is afraid. She thinks she might lose you, as well. I don’t think I have to tell you how she feels about you, but she told me that she wants her Uncle Phillipe to be her mama now.”

Ambrose gently wiped away the tears that were rolling unchecked down her face. “Ernesta told me that the wee one depends on you more than she ever depended on her mother. She loves you, lass. And if all this means you should turn back to being who you truly are, then perhaps you should.”

Jaime must be cared for, Elizabeth thought.

“And there’s something else. It means less to you than it does to me, but there’s Gavin.”

“What?”

“Aye, Elizabeth. I’m deadly serious. Right now, the man is as broken in spirit as he was after Flodden. He blames himself for the death of your sister, and he sees your withdrawal as proof of it.”

“Ambrose, I could never blame him. It was I who should have—”

Ambrose took her face in his hands. “Just tell him. Talk to him.”

“Aye,” she said. “I’ll do that.”

Change. She could already taste the sweetness and the bitterness that goes with all change. But she’d had her moments in the sun. She’d had her opportunity to paint. She’d felt the glow of success in doing the thing she wanted most to do. And now it was time to change. There were new pages that needed to be turned.

“I need to find Friar Matthew.”

Ambrose raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

“The priest that sold you Henry’s ring at—”

“I remember him. The one who helped you get to Florence.”

“Ambrose, I’ll give up the pretense. But I need a way to support Jaime and myself.”

“Elizabeth, I—”

Placing her hand over his lips, she hushed his words. “I can’t ask any more of you than what I have already asked, Ambrose. Friar Matthew helped me once before to sell my paintings, under different name. He could do it again. Jaime and I could remain in Paris. We’ll change our names. No one will know our whereabouts or who we are. Nay, perhaps it would be better if we moved to one of the villages outside the city. That way I could raise her in safety.”

Roughly, he pulled her hand from his mouth and held it.

“Nay! I won’t let you do that, Elizabeth.”

She could see he was angry. “You’ve just said yourself that we can’t go to the Scottish court after what has happened.”

“Elizabeth, do the things that we’ve shared mean nothing to you?” He took hold of her shoulders. “Do you honestly think I could just walk away? Just leave you somewhere in France and forget about you?”

“Ambrose, I don’t want you to do anything dishonorable. I don’t want to see you shamed before your queen for protecting us. And I also don’t want you to do something for us simply because it is the honorable thing to do. I know how men such as yourself readily sacrifice your own happiness because of some perceived sense of duty.”

She looked straight into his cobalt-blue eyes. They burned her soul with their intensity. She knew she loved him. She hated the thought of parting from him. She could feel the ache of longing in her chest even now. But she wasn’t about to let him hold on to them for the wrong reasons. “I won’t accept your charity, Ambrose. We can look after ourselves.”

“Damn honor and damn you, Elizabeth Boleyn! Can’t you see what I feel for you?” No longer could he hold back the emotions hidden just beneath the surface, feelings straining to surge into the open. “Don’t you know what you’ve done to me? How my life has changed since we first met at the Field of Cloth of Gold?”

His fingers were digging into the flesh of her arms. But she prized this mild pain. “Aye. I’ve ruined you.”

“Don’t jest with me, damn it,” he growled, shaking her once firmly. Ambrose quickly let his hands drop to his sides as he realized what he was doing. “Look at me. I’ve become a raving madman. I used to be cool, controlled, even-tempered.”

She reached out and brought his hand to her face, gently placing a kiss on his palm. “I like you better this way.”

His hands framed her face. His gaze locked with hers. “Is that all you will admit feeling for me? Elizabeth, I think from the day we first met, your eyes have betrayed you. You care for me as I do for you. Are you willing to walk away, to forget?”

She shook her head as tears once again coursed down her face. “I am simply trying to do the best thing, Ambrose. That’s all.”

“The best thing for whom, lass?” he asked gently. “The best thing for Jaime? What you think is best for me? Forget the last, for what you’ve just suggested is as wrong as it could be. Elizabeth, in this room you are the one who is bound up by your sense of honor and duty to those who depend upon you. You place everyone above you. You think of everyone but yourself.”

Elizabeth stood shaking her head. “Nay, I—”

“And also, don’t try to talk as though ‘honor’ belongs in some male dominion. Nay woman, you are living proof that it is not.”

She couldn’t stay away from him any longer. She slipped her arms about him, placing her face against his chest, holding him tightly. She needed his strength. She needed his love.

Ambrose held her trembling body against his.

“Elizabeth, it has taken me a lifetime to find you and another lifetime to get you back.” He kissed her soft ebony hair. “I don’t know if you perceive this to be right or wrong. But know this, lass. I am not letting you go. The past two days have been worse than a thousand years in hell for me. I never want to go through that again. I never want to be away from you again. Never. Do you understand?”