The Virgin Queen's Daughter - Ella March Chase (15 page)

Elizabeth stood, quiet for a long moment. I feared I had been too blunt. Yet she claimed to crave honesty. I had given it to her. She paced to the window seat, where a book lay open atop loose pieces of parchment. An astrological chart, I realized, noting the squared center and the lines radiating out from it. I had often seen the one Dr. Dee had drawn for my father in its place of pride in Calverley’s study. The book was familiar, too.
Propaedeumata Aphoristica,
Doctor Dee’s effort to explain how the movement of the sun, the planets, and the stars affected events on the earth.

Strange, the queen had been perusing the very things that had made me crave her company. She touched the pages. “Dr. Dee is a friend. Perhaps next time I have need of him I will send you to Mortlake.” My heart thudded in anticipation as the queen continued. “I have heard he has cobbled together wing after wing on his house to store the books he’s gathered from all over the world. I wish I could explore them, but a queen cannot go poking about a commoner’s house. Even a very gifted commoner. But you might delve into his library to find such books as I might enjoy.”

“I would be delighted to serve Your Majesty in that way. You could lock me in Mortlake forever, and I would welcome it!”

“You are very young, Elinor.” It was the first time she had called me by so informal a name. “How can you know how bleak any cell can be?”

I remembered where we had met—when she was the Lady Elizabeth who seemed to have no hope of a crown. She startled me, grasping my chin and forcing it upward.

“It is not an easy task, being a woman.” She examined my face so intently I feared my skin would peel. “I wish all lessons might be learned from books, but there are lessons only life can teach you.” She released me, but I did not look away. I could still feel the print of her fingers.

“Your father is dead.” The words knifed my heart, more brutal because they were unexpected. Elizabeth’s voice softened. “You miss him terribly. It is writ upon your face. He cannot protect you now. But neither can he hold the reins to your future. Your fate is in your own hands and depends solely upon what choices you make.”

“I will endeavor to choose wisely.”

“Do you think anyone sets out to choose badly? Yet my prisons are full and destined to be fuller still. There are many kinds of prisons. Of that you may be sure.”

Elizabeth fingered something at the end of a gold chain—a miniature, I noted, recognizing Robert Dudley’s chestnut hair and handsome face. This time I did avert my gaze, feeling as if I had intruded on something private, knowing the queen would not thank me for the trespass.

After a moment she spoke again. “Let me settle one facet of your future right now. Lord Calverley requested I grant you the title that has been in his family these hundred years. I will do so.”

Delight rushed through me. I thought of my beloved Calverley—Crane and Jem and the crofters de Laceys had guarded for generations. To win the title meant I would have the power to stay at Calverley instead of losing it to some interloper—protecting the people my father had loved, the farmers, the village folk—that gift was precious indeed. “I will strive to deserve such an honor.”

“I hope so. It is a rare chance we two women have. Freedom to shape our own futures. Do not jeopardize it for any man.”

“I have no intention of doing so, Majesty.”

“Your intentions may not matter. Men are not to be trusted. Once they get you in their power it is too late to save yourself. Yet a woman is under constant pressure to marry. Even a queen is forced to acknowledge her husband as her lord and master.” She picked up a terrestrial globe that had been buried among the mess on the table. I wondered if the sphere was one of Mercator’s. I wished I could examine it. The queen caught the direction of my gaze. She almost smiled. “You look as if you would like to snatch it out of my hands. Remember in the Tower? You told me your father called you Little Bird because you were so hungry to learn things.”

“I am astonished you remember it.”

The queen ran her thumb across the globe’s surface.

“I sense you are being honest about your reason for coming to court. But now that you are here, you must understand the hard truth. You stand to be heiress to your father’s wealth, and will be heir to his baronetcy as well. You will be a tempting prize for any ambitious man to pluck. A man, for instance, like Sir Gabriel Wyatt.”

“I do my best to avoid him. I would sooner wed the devil than such a man.”

“You would strike a better bargain if you cast your lot with Lucifer. I have known many ambitious men in my life. Men who crave power, wealth, and would do anything to attain them. Sir Gabriel Wyatt is as hungry as any I have ever known and he has obviously taken aim at you.”

“He will find me a hard target to hit, Majesty.”

“Unlike the doe we brought down this morn?”

I winced, remembering the hiss of cross bolt through air, the thud of its point striking living flesh, the metallic scent of blood as it flooded, hot over my hand.

“Never forget it is the
chase
men prize. Once their prey surrenders, be it in their bed or in the fields, their passion quickly wanes.”

I remembered a poem Father read to me, likening Anne Boleyn to a hart.
No lo me tangre, for Caesar’s I am, and wild for to hold though I seem tame
. King Henry had defied the pope to possess her. Murdered his friends. Disinherited his eldest daughter. Yet only three years after he wed the black-eyed Boleyn, he signed her death warrant, hungry to wed another. How could any woman forget that grim warning?

The queen took up a goblet, tipped it to her lips. Light chased bright crescents along the moons engraved on the gold cup. “It is my duty to give my ladies the benefit of my experience in the world,” she said as she set the vessel down. “Experience earned most painfully. I was once young, like you. Innocent of the traps the heart can lay to snare the unwary.”

Pity welled inside me for the bewildered girl she must have been. “I am grateful for your warning, Your Majesty,” I said.

“Disregard my words at your peril,” Elizabeth said, lost in thought. “The cost can be higher than you can imagine.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “A scholar is not convinced by pretty words, as you well know. A sharp mind looks to actions for proof. Go now. Send Kat Ashley to me. My head is aching.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.” I felt the gulf that stretched between us, knowing I could never cross it. “It must be a great comfort to you, to have Lady Ashley with you. Such love as a nurse gives is rare.”

“I hear grief in your voice. Did your own governess die?”

“I do not know. She and my mother argued over some foolery of mine. Mother dismissed her and I never saw her again.”

I curtseyed, then did as the queen bade me, seeking out Kat Ashley. The older woman drowsed near the fire. I touched Ashley’s shoulder, shaking her gently. “Your pardon, my lady.”

Kat climbed unsteadily to her feet and rubbed her eyes with blue-veined hands. Perhaps her part in the night’s festivities had been too much for her. It was easy to forget Kat must be nigh sixty years old. She had waited upon Anne Boleyn when that lady was queen. “Is something amiss?”

“No. The queen has need of you before she retires.”

Kat smiled with tender affection. “Her Majesty ever did need me to wish her goodnight. When she was a babe I chased the monsters from beneath her bed so she could rest safe. If only it was as easy to drive away the French and Spanish.”

I thought of Hobgoblin Puck, Eppie’s creation to keep me from wandering at night. Moved by loneliness of my own, I hugged Kat Ashley. “Her Majesty is lucky to have you with her still. I would give anything if my old nurse Eppie was waiting for me upstairs, to unsnarl my laces and brush the tangles out of my hair . . . out of my life.”

“Eppie? That was your nurse’s name?”

“Yes. Hepzibah Jones.”

“Upon my life, I have heard that name before! She was to aid the dowager queen when that poor lady gave birth. Elizabeth and I were not at Sudeley Castle for the queen’s lying in. We were exiled to Cheshunt by then. People blamed me because Thomas Seymour loved Elizabeth. But how was that my fault? He had tried to wed Elizabeth even before he settled on the dowager queen, but the council would not hear of it. Lord Thomas always loved Elizabeth best. Passion such as that must come out.”

Kat flushed, as if suddenly aware of her unruly tongue. “You must forgive a foolish old woman her ramblings when woken from sleep. You will not speak of this, Nell? It was a dark, dangerous time. I can only thank God my sweet girl and I survived.”

“I will never speak of it,” I promised, feeling fragility in the older woman I had not noticed before. I walked arm in arm with her toward the queen’s quarters, pretending it was to enjoy her company, not because she was unsteady.

“You must come into the queen’s chamber for a moment,” Kat urged. “Tell Her Majesty who your nurse was! What a strange world it is, paths forever crossing and recrossing!”

We entered the chamber, Kat’s delight masking her weariness. I could not be so blissfully oblivious to the queen’s sudden frown when she set eyes upon me.

“I dismissed you as I recall, Mistress Nell,” the queen complained.

Kat brushed the queen’s ill humor aside. “I insisted she come, my dearest Majesty. I have news that will stun you! Guess who Mistress Nell’s nurse was these many years!”

“Nursery matters can hardly have any interest to me.”

“Hepzibah Jones! The woman who tended your beloved stepmother!”

The queen stiffened. “I can hardly be expected to have tender feelings for the woman who allowed my stepmother to die.”

I hastened to Eppie’s defense. “Majesty, I would wager my soul Eppie did everything she could to save the dowager queen. She saved my life and my mother’s when all hope seemed lost.”

“A veritable miracle worker, was she?” Elizabeth demanded bitterly.

“Everyone at Calverley was certain I was dead in my mother’s womb like her other babes had been. But when mother returned from the abbey with me in her arms . . .”

“You were born in an abbey?” Elizabeth interrupted. “Why not at Calverley?”

“My mother went to pray at the holy well, begging God for a miracle. Eppie went to comfort her through another still birth. Eppie used to say that once I was delivered into her hands alive she could not bear to let me go. She had to be my nurse or die.”

“And where was this holy well that offered up a miracle?” Elizabeth asked.

“St. Michael of the Angels.”

“Astonishing how small the world is!” Kat exclaimed. “Who would have guessed that the midwife who tended the dowager queen would tend Thomasin de Lacey as well! It near strikes me speechless! Of course, it is tragic about your stepmother, my sweet, but the fact that Hepzibah Jones delivered Lady Calverley safely is remarkable—”

“Kat!” Elizabeth interrupted, an edge to her voice. “When one is struck speechless, it usually means a blessed silence.”

Unfazed by her mistress’s outburst, Kat laughed behind her hand. “So it does. There is nothing more tedious than a foolish old woman, caught up in the past.”

“I much prefer the present.” Elizabeth sank down onto the stool at her dressing table and began kneading her temples. “My head aches. I wish to be alone.”

I curtseyed, backed toward the door as Kat hastened to where the simples were kept for the queen’s megrims. Ashley crooned, beginning to mix the dose. “Your Kat shall fix you right up, sweeting. You look pale as if someone walked over your grave.”

“Alone, Kat!” Elizabeth snapped, sharper than I’d ever heard her. “I wish to be alone. This is the second time tonight you have not obeyed my orders.”

Startled, Kat dropped the twist of paper whose contents she was dumping into the queen’s goblet. She fished the paper out, then passed the mixture to the queen. “Forgive me, pet. I did not wish to distress you.”

“I am not distressed.” Elizabeth shoved Kat’s physic away; her hands trembled.

Chapter Thirteen

Elizabeth

I
T WAS ABSURD TO LET THE MENTION OF
C
HESHUNT RATTLE
her after so many years, Elizabeth scolded herself. Yet, when Kat had echoed the superstition about going pale when someone walks over a grave she had raked coals to life, set old fires ablaze.

Thomas
.

She closed her eyes in an effort to blot out visions of that long-ago day, the laughter, the feel of Thomas’s hands on her body as he slashed her gown to ribbons with his dagger, taunted her with illicit pleasure. A feminine triumph had blazed in her—triumph over her stepmother, who was solemn, pregnant, and far past the bloom of youth. The gullible woman had even helped hold Elizabeth down as if it were child’s play!

Katherine Parr is a fool,
Elizabeth remembered thinking at the time. And yet, if Elizabeth lived to be a hundred she would never forget the expression on Katherine Parr’s face the searing August day she and Thomasin de Lacey had discovered the two lovers. Elizabeth winced at the memory of how shamed she had felt. Her bodice unlaced, her shift pulled down beneath one breast, her skirts bunched around her waist while he lay atop her . . .

Not until she’d glimpsed her stepmother’s stricken face had Elizabeth realized this was no game. Not until Katherine Parr summoned Elizabeth to her chamber had Elizabeth realized what she had lost.

“I do not blame you for what happened.” Katherine’s eyes were puffy from weeping. “You are very young, Elizabeth. A child, really.” Parr’s hand had curved, protective, over the bulge where her own babe grew: the evidence of Seymour’s love the dowager queen had once rejoiced to see. “You cannot stay here. You understand that.”

Elizabeth did, yet it struck her that she was losing the first real home she had ever known. Katherine had been so delighted to be awarded custody of Elizabeth and Elizabeth had been overjoyed to go to her. This sudden break between them would have to be explained, and her stepmother was not one to fall easily into a lie. Fear knotted cold in Elizabeth’s belly. “Where will you send me? What will you tell my brother the king? Sister Mary?” Mary would be horrified. Worse, she would feel vindicated that Anne Boleyn’s daughter had shown herself as much of a whore as her mother was.

“We will tell no one of what happened here. I have spoken to Kat. She is packing your things. You will go to my stepdaughter’s estate at Cheshunt. Lady Tyrwhitt will protect you for my sake, whatever comes.” Elizabeth looked at the floor. She could not bear to see the motherly love still marked on the dowager queen’s face.

“Elizabeth, please tell me he did not . . . No. Do not tell me. I do not want to know. It is punishable by death, to deflower a princess, and he is the father of my child. You must guard yourself, Elizabeth. Trust those I charge to protect you. Promise me you will be guided by them if your situation grows . . . complicated?”

How could it be more complicated than it is now?
Elizabeth remembered thinking.

“No one must tell me if the worst happens,” the dowager queen warned. “No one must ever discover or all will be lost—for you, child, as well as for me.”

Shame drove Elizabeth to her knees. “My lady mother, I am so sorry. By the time your babe comes you will forget all but your joy in it. Surely that child will prove more worthy of your love than I have.”

Katherine Parr had not survived long enough to find out. Struck mad with childbed fever, the gentle queen had raved, accusing her husband of poisoning her so that he could wed Elizabeth. Far away, in Lady Tyrwhitt’s care, Elizabeth had sunk into illness, too. She had all but barricaded herself in her bedchamber, spent hours with the curtains closed about the bed, imprisoning her in a feverish haze of guilt and horror, suffering the accusation evident in Lady Tyr-whitt’s thin-lipped face. When the message came, telling of the dowager queen’s death, Elizabeth knew she had lost the only powerful ally she had, the woman who had loved her and had vowed to protect her.

No one must ever know,
the dowager queen had warned. Elizabeth pictured Seymour’s handsome face the last time she saw him alive. Saw the passion in him, the hunger.
There is nothing to stand in our way now
. How wrong Thomas had been. The shameful past had poured out when his plot to wed her was discovered. Salacious details pried from Elizabeth’s comptroller, Thomas Parry, and from Kat’s own lips from cells in the Tower. Elizabeth still cringed every time she thought of the scandal being gossiped about over tankards of ale and the golden goblets of noblemen. Still, there were secrets that remained buried, shadows she could not quite bring into the light.

Logic insisted it was impossible for such ghosts to show themselves at last. But her instincts . . . She dared not discount them entirely. There was something about her newest maid of honor that made her uneasy. Linked Mistress Elinor to places and times and people. But how to make certain it was coincidence, nothing more?

Elizabeth’s gaze lit on the astrological chart John Dee had drawn for her. Of course. How did one plumb the unknowable? Consult a man able to delve into realms of spirit, peel back the armor of mortals. A man she had already informed Elinor de Lacey she was to visit. Dr. John Dee. But she would have to be subtle. Dee was a brilliant man. Still, she was tilting at shadows, reason asserted. She wished only to ease her mind, demonstrate how absurd it was to seek ghosts among the living. She crossed to her desk, took up a blank sheet of parchment and a quill.

Queries in the matter of Mistress Elinor de Lacey . . .