The Virgin Queen's Daughter - Ella March Chase (21 page)

I had recovered my father’s instruments and his precious celestial charts. But I could not carry them with me every step, a talisman to remind me of the safety that was once mine. A safety built on lies, I reminded myself with brutal honesty.

“I thought you valued the necklace much,” Gabriel said. “Perhaps more than the Saint Jacob’s staff that Dr. Dee gave you. And then, you were almost moved to tears.”

I dragged the tattered remnants of my pride about me. “There are far more important things to lose.”
Like your father. Your mother. Every piece of who you are.

“I liked it better when you hissed at me like a cat,” he said, so soft it almost sounded like tenderness. “You are far too silent now.”

“People here talk too much. They wield words like knives. No one tells the truth.”

“I will.”

“You are the worst conniver of them all! Everyone I know has warned me against you. Kat Ashley. Mary Grey. Even the queen herself. The cunning of a Gypsy, the face of an archangel. What could such a man as you want with me?”

He regarded me, solemn. “I swear, I cannot say.”

“Is my virtue the prize you seek? Tell the world that you’ve claimed it.” I thought of the queen’s wrath once he did so. “Other maids have surrendered their maidenheads to courtiers and are none the worse for it unless they get with child. Just stay away from me is all I ask.”

“I cannot. You are too thin, too pale.” The pearl earring glimmered, taking on a dragon shape of light and shadow against his skin.

“I have worn myself out dancing for joy while you’ve been gone.”

“You will not drive me away by wounding my pride. It seems with you I have little.” His jaw tightened. “Something is not right with you. I can sense it. And I am not the only one. Even Lord Robert has spoken of the change.”

“Extend my apologies to your master. I am sure you will soon find some other intrigue to occupy your time. A real intrigue instead of a maid of honor who dislikes your company and misses her home.”

“Perhaps that is some of it, but not all. You look as if . . . almost as if someone has broken your heart. But I know you have no lover. I made certain that was true.”

Fear threaded my nerves, reminding me too vividly of Gabriel’s face when he’d caught me in the garden, demanding to know who Eppie was, what she had said to me. I still did not know how much he had heard that night, nor could I question him. I dared not risk stirring his already dangerous curiosity any further. Instead I locked onto anger, as much as I could muster. “So you continue spying on me. And you wonder why I despise you?”

“I do not wonder that at all.” Laughter echoed from the far end of the gallery where the queen’s fool capered about—a dwarf named Thomasina.

“Nell, I can tell something is amiss between you and the queen. Just know there are few things that cannot be mended at court if you have the right friends to help you.”

My knuckle brushed the binding of my book. “You, sir, are not my friend.”

“No. I am not.” Something flickered in his face. Pain? Frustration that I had not succumbed to his legendary charm? I did not guess.

“I am busy with my reading,” I said, touching the pages. “It is a most interesting tract I borrowed from Dr. Dee.” I recalled my last encounter with the astronomer, the sensation I had felt, as if falling into his eyes. “The book is difficult. It takes all my concentration to decipher it.”

“I can certainly see why.” Sir Gabriel took up the volume, turning it in my lap. The print had been upside down. I slammed the book shut, waited for some burning jibe. I could expect no less, considering the opportunity I had given him. “Perhaps your mother can help you with the translation,” Gabriel said. “I was surprised to hear she is to join us this Christmastide.”

“My mother loathes this place and the queen knows it.”

Gabriel regarded me a long moment, his face intent. “I will plague you no longer. I have pressing business to attend. I have just remembered it.”

I did not reply, just turned my face back to the window. It was not long before I caught a glimpse of movement in the garden below, the flash of a jaunty feather in a ruby red cap, the flutter of emerald green velvet, faced with silver wolf.

Where was he going? To make note of everything I had said? To consort with Dr. Dee or unravel the secrets in my words, searching for something that might betray me?

M
OUNTAINS OF GREENERY
trundled into the Great Hall in carts from the countryside, until it seemed all of England must be stripped bare this Christmas Eve. Holly with its spiked leaves sported berries like drops of blood. Evergreen with its piney scent whispered of Calverley’s hills. Leathery bay leaves, boxwood, and holm oak waited their turn to be bundled into kissing spheres or garlands to deck Greenwich’s Great Hall as all the queen’s ladies labored to make this the merriest festival ever.

Thrice I had slipped and cut my hand as I snipped off bits of green. I nearly jumped out of my skin as Mary Grey bustled up with an expression disgruntled as I had ever seen on her face.

“You are a menace to the whole season.” She groused so loudly that Isabella Markham, Elizabeth’s current favorite lady-in-waiting, laughed from across the room. Mary removed the scissors from my hands. “Let me take those before someone loses a finger.”

Startled as if she had slapped me, I gave her gnarled fingers a pointed glance. “Do take them if you think you can do better.” Venting my hurt did not take the sting of her sharpness away. Mary and I had managed not only a truce of sorts these past months, but something that tiptoed near friendship.

“Your mother is come,” she whispered. “Thomas sent word. He will keep her at the gatehouse as long as he can.”

Shame welled up at how I had lashed out. “But why would he do that?”

“I asked him to. I always preferred to know when my mother was swooping in.”

Frances Grey was the kind of mother who might have devoured her own young. Looking at what she had done to her three daughters, it might have been a more merciful end.

“Thank you.” I squeezed Mary’s hand.

“Do not be doing that!” She jerked away, sounding for all the world like she was furious, then she hissed. “You are supposed to stomp away in a temper.”

So she had even planned a way for me to quit the circle of ladies, won me time to gather my wits, prepare to face my mother alone.

I left the hall as if I were in a temper. This first meeting with my mother since hearing Eppie’s claims would be the hardest thing I had ever done. It was evident Mother had forgiven me for the way I left Calverley, but who could say how she would feel hours from now? My willfulness had dragged her back into the intrigue she had escaped. And yet, the lies she had told, the false life she had woven for me . . .

My heart raced as I hurried to the door, almost upsetting servants bringing trays of the fruit suckets the queen so loved, confections dusted with sugar soft as new-fallen snow.

I exited the door leading from the Great Hall and raced down the steps. Without bothering to grab pattens or cloak I hastened into the courtyard. Snow welled over the edge of my slippers as I rushed toward the gatehouse. Snowflakes stung wherever my skin was bare, but I scarce noticed, my gaze locked on the banner that rode gusts of wintry wind. The Calverley lion that had guarded me all my days, my birthright. Now, even the heraldic beasts seemed to show their fangs in disapproval.

The curtains on Mother’s litter were drawn back, the interior empty. A jolt of panic made my ruined slippers even fleeter. Had the queen ordered my mother taken for questioning the instant she arrived?

No. I glimpsed a tiny figure in a serviceable gray cloak. She stood in the glow of a lantern under the roof that spanned the gatehouse’s two towers. Thomas Keyes’ mammoth hands held a coffer I recognized as my mother’s physicking chest, while a young yeoman of the guard allowed my mother to peer into his throat. What on earth? I wondered, trying to make sense out of the situation. Back at Calverley mother prided herself on nursing our ill crofters. Nothing was more likely to consume her attention than someone in need of her skill. But how on earth had Thomas Keyes guessed that?

“It is not so very red, Sergeant Porter,” I heard mother say. “Yet a putrid throat is painful. Boil the herbs in this pouch into a hot tisane, sweeten it with honey and—”

“My lady?” I called. I did not add “mother,” the word awkward on my tongue.

Even so, she spun around at the sound of my voice, all but dropping the infusion of herbs into the snow. “Nell?” Her cry was so glad I wanted to turn and run from the welcome in her face. Father would have eschewed formality and scooped me into an embrace. For an instant, I feared my mother might do the same and I was uncertain of my own reaction. But she approached me with all the dignity of a baroness encountering her daughter before the eyes of the world. Embraces would come later, when we were alone. I was glad of that little time to compose myself.

“Arabella,” she called, summoning her maid. “Fetch Mistress Nell a cloak out of my trunk. It is freezing out here. She will catch her death.”

Keyes intervened. “Please, my lady Calverley, allow me to see your daughter warm.” He swept off his own cape, settling it around my shoulders. It was so long it pooled on the ground in a crimson puddle. “I would hate to have Mistress Elinor take sick or carry fever back to the maids’ quarters. I can gather it up once my shift here is done.” It could only be Mary Grey he would recover it from; the other ladies would hardly give the “commoner Cyclops” a civil good morrow.

“I thank you,” Mother said, with a wry smile. “I had hoped life at court might make my daughter a trifle less impulsive, but I can see it has not changed Nell at all.”

Resenting her for picking at me about not wearing a cloak seemed absurd under the circumstances, but it provided a familiar island in the tumult that raged inside me. I wished I could beach myself on that island and rest. But before I could, my mother caught my hand in a grip that conveyed more than she would ever allow herself to put into words.

Tears sprang to my eyes. I bit down, hard on the inside of my lip, praying the pain would drive my emotions back behind the dam that had contained them for so long.

“Come, sweeting,” my mother said. “We have much to talk about.”

The child in me longed to bury my face in her lap and weep. The Nell forged in a crucible of lies and betrayal could only say: “We do.” How I had changed in the months we had been apart. I knew fear now, and self-doubt.

“Have you made any friends among the ladies-in-waiting?” Mother asked as we made our way toward the warmth of the palace. “My affection for Katherine Parr and Kat Ashley was the only precious thing I found at court.”

“I have not much time for friends,” I evaded. “Elizabeth is a demanding mistress, and you know how I am. I always did prefer to be alone with my books.”

Mother tsked, then smiled. “You always were just like your father.”

“Do not say that,” I cried, voice raw.

“What?” My mother exclaimed, surprised.

“Do not say I am like him!”

A gust of wind pelted us with snow crystals, making our cheeks burn. “Let us go inside, Mother. I will order hot ale for you and a bite to eat. You must be iced through and famished after your travels.”

Mother looked at me, a crease appearing between her brows. “The Nell who left Calverley would not have noticed such things. You are much changed, daughter. Thinner. More reserved.”

It was not until Mother was divested of her snowy garments and toasting her stocking-clad feet at the fireplace in the deserted maids’ chambers that I dared broach the subject that infected every corner of my mind. I had tried to compose my questions a thousand times, but they knotted on my tongue.

“Eppie found me,” I said. “She told me wild things about my birth.”

Mother clutched her stomach. “You are
my
daughter.”

“Do not lie.” Tears burned. “Your face tells the truth! You did not bear me.”

“I am not denying that!”

“You brought me home and told Father I was his child. That is why he loved me. If he had known the truth—”

“John knew.”

“You told him?” Possibility rushed in: If Father had known and loved me in spite of my birth I could let go of my greatest terror, that he would have rejected me. “Eppie said you kept it secret.”

“I did not need to tell John de Lacey you were not of my womb. He had eyes to see, Nell, and the keenest mind God ever put inside a man. Even when you were a babe you were fair of face, with a red-gold cap of curls. So hale and lusty no one could look at you and believe you’d been snatched from death’s door. Our other babes, your sister and brothers buried in the crypt, they were spindly, wizened, brown little things like John and I. Your father knew. When I started to tell him, he kissed my lips shut, said how beautiful you were, or how bright. He would hold you up into the light from the window in his library—he took you there even as a babe—and he would speak to you of stars and myths and dreams.”

Tears brimmed over my lashes. It was so like Father, I knew Mother’s tale was true. “But I am not his daughter. I never was. You
both
lied to me then.”