The Virgin Queen's Daughter - Ella March Chase (37 page)

“I did it for the same reason I was fool enough to ask for your favor at the tournament that day. Because I love you.”

“Love me?” My heart turned over in amazement.

“I realized it some time ago. You were playing with Mary Grey’s spaniel in the garden, her puppies frolicking all around. That was when I wrote that abominable poem.”

“Why did you never tell me?”

“You would not have believed me.” He grimaced. “I would not have believed myself. But, Nell”—he caressed my cheek, tender— “this love I feel for you—it is the truest thing I ever felt.”

Chapter Thirty

January 1566

C
ALVERLEY
M
ANOR

M
Y DAUGHTER WAITED TO BE BORN UNTIL WE ARRIVED
at the home where my mother was waiting. How she had reached Calverley before us I would never know, but she welcomed me into a chamber she prepared especially for my confinement, a testament of her love for me.

Father’s chair was placed close by the hearth. The soothing lavender scent Eppie had always loved whispered on the air from bundles of the dried herb mother tucked about the room. A table tucked in a corner was covered in tiny clothes my mother had labored over during my imprisonment, softly stitched treasures for her grandchild to wear. My own efforts in the week that followed were far less perfect, yet it touched me when my mother took up a tiny, plain shift I had finished and smiled.

“Look how soft this is, and how sweet,” she said without a breath of the criticism that once built walls between us. “This must be the first thing that touches your babe’s skin to welcome her into the world.”

Yet no garment, however lovingly fashioned, could have conveyed the welcome of my mother’s hands. Black-and-blue from my clutching them during my travail, full of awe as they caught that fragile new life as I pushed it from my womb.

“She is perfect,” mother breathed, and I remembered Eppie saying mother had once said the same words about me.

I thought nothing could touch me more deeply, not even the tears that shone in Gabriel’s eyes when he first gathered our child in his arms.

But birthing is a woman’s business, like healing wounds, mending tears, as mother once told me, in clothes and in lives. And Thomasin de Lacey had one last thing to teach me.

Three weeks after Grace was born I waked from a nap, drowsy, my breasts heavy with milk. Grace was not in her cradle.

“Lady Calverley took her from the room so you could sleep,” Moll told me, my loyal maid grateful to be back at Calverley, where Jem’s gaze followed her, admiring the polish our time in London had given the once gullible girl. “I saw her ladyship walking toward the privy chambers.”

Yet Mother was not in her own room. I wandered deeper into the private part of the manor, into Father’s bedchamber, and then I saw it, the door to the library standing open, the room within aglow.

Silently I stole closer, seeing the light flickering from a fire upon the hearth, driving back the shadows. I had not entered Father’s library since the day the queen’s missive had arrived, summoning me to court. The room that had once been my haven was now a hard reminder of my folly and the ugliness between me and my mother I longed to forget.

Surprise filled me, then tenderness as I heard the cadence of my mother’s voice and observed the scene within. My mother sat in a sunny alcove, those ever-busy hands still upon an open book, Grace cradled in her arms as she read.

Grace gurgled and looked my way, no doubt scenting her next meal.

Mother looked up, flushed.

“It is time for me to feed her,” I explained.

“You should have sent Moll to find us. It is too soon for you to be walking about. You must get your strength back.”

“I feel stronger than I have ever been. What are you reading?”

“
Le Morte d’ Arthur
. I thought it a bit early to attempt Copernicus.”I chuckled. “A bit.”

“When I returned from court last January I thought I would go mad with fear for you. I began cleaning to distract myself and could not stop. The servants thought my mind had unhinged, I think. But in the process I found the one thing that kept me sane. I was sorting through Father’s things and found journals he kept from the time you were small. Lists of books and the lessons he taught you. As I pored through them I came to know you better than I ever had before. I am grieved that I missed sharing all that with you. When Grace came, I vowed I would do things differently.

“And there is something else you must know. Grace has taken a liking to something else rather unusual.” Mother pulled back the corner of the quilt, displaying what lay beneath, clutched in my daughter’s tiny hands.

“Father’s astrolabe.”

“The sunlight made it shine upon the shelf, so I thought I would just let her touch it. Once she got hold of it she would not let it go. She has a most formidable will for such a tiny maid. But then, she is her mother’s daughter.”

“As I am,” I said, holding tight to my mother’s hand.

Epilogue

April 1603

T
ODAY A MESSENGER ARRIVED WITH A PACKAGE FROM
London. A brooch in the shape of a key with a motto picked out in diamonds: I choose freedom over all. The key, a final bequest from the queen, the symbol of my effort to free Elizabeth Tudor when I was but five years old.

Accompanying the gift: A letter from one of the ladies I befriended. She told of the queen’s last hours, the secret her attendants discovered upon her death on March twenty-fourth: A compartment hidden in a ring she always wore. When the stone folded back, it revealed a tiny portrait—Anne Boleyn, the mother the queen almost never mentioned.

I think of the poetry Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, comparing Elizabeth Tudor to Diana, the virgin goddess, the huntress, and remember the crescent moon, her symbol, so like the ones embroidered on the bit of bed curtain Eppie gave me.
Was there ever so apt a heraldic device for a queen who spent much of her life the hunted one?

Grateful, I consider what the queen’s death means for me and those I love. We are safe: Gabriel, who braved so much to secure our future. My precious wandering princess, my own Grace grown now into a woman, a mother herself. I am safe as well. My story dies with me if I choose it to be so. How simple it would be to pretend such a fantastical tale never happened. It would be as simple as flinging a bit of bed curtain into the flame. But I am too much Lord John de Lacey’s daughter to cast away such a wondrous history. I will spend my mornings writing all that I remember, then hide this sheaf of papers in the space behind the loosened stone at Calverley. The place I hid my treasures as a child, including the letter from the new crowned queen, offering me a future. One even she did not suspect would lead us both into such danger.

I lay down my pen and cradled my astrolabe in my hand, the treasure Gabriel had traced to my Tower guard and restored to me a second time. The light pooling around the tiny cogs shone, watery gold. I smiled, remembering another such glow, the wide-eyed delight that once shone in my Grace’s eyes.

“Look in Grandfather’s magical mirror, Mother! What is that glow?”

“It is magic, my darling,” I told her. “And it is shining from you.”

A
FTERWORD

E
VERY SO OFTEN WHEN AN AUTHOR STUMBLES ACROSS AN OBSCURE
piece of research it can inspire an entire novel. So it was when I read the tale of a midwife who alleged she delivered a baby to “a very fair lady” she claimed was Elizabeth Tudor. Midwives were sometimes blindfolded and taken to undisclosed locations to deliver unwanted babies. Tragically, these children were sometimes murdered by servants or parents to prevent the shame of a bastard birth or the burden of another mouth to feed. Midwives protected themselves from accusations related to such deaths by surreptitiously snipping a bit of bed curtain from the bed where the child was delivered. While the midwife who said she had delivered Elizabeth’s child could not produce this “proof,” I chose for fictional purposes to use the scrap as the last bit of evidence in the queen’s eyes.

As to whether Elizabeth Tudor had a baby, it is doubtful. She may have miscarried. (Some think it might have damaged her so she could never have borne another child even if she had married.) To ease the flow of my story, I took the liberty of lengthening Elizabeth’s stay at Katherine Parr’s Chelsea an extra three months. For this, I ask your indulgence. But the premise of the Virgin Queen bearing a child is one that lovers of Tudor history still debate. It is historically documented that a man claiming to be the son of Elizabeth and Robert Dudley surfaced in Italy, though his identity cannot be proven. Yet, I could not resist the chance to give Elizabeth Tudor a daughter, since my own has given me such joy, demanded of me such strength, and taught me far more about life and love than I ever hoped to learn.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

S
OMETIMES A JOURNEY DOES NOT TAKE THE SHORTEST OR SIMPLEST
route between two points, but you find things all the more beautiful because they were unexpected.
The Virgin Queen’s Daughter
was such a journey for me. It was the culmination of a lifetime of dreams nurtured by my grandmother, Elinor Swanson, a children’s librarian who provided me with biographies and books on history and told me I could write a book, too. My greatest wish is that she had lived long enough to read it. I offer this novel with love to my parents, who bought me books even though it meant I would be holed up in my bedroom all weekend. (They did occasionally make me come downstairs to watch
Bonanza
with the rest of the family.) I never would have survived this past year without my critique partner of twenty-six years, Susan Carroll, a gifted writer and cherished friend who has been to Mordor and back with me and shares my passion for obscure bits of history that whisper the secrets of people long dead.

It is a trait she shares with my daughter, Kate, and son-in-law Kevin Bautch. You inspire me. You make me laugh. (Yes, I am the luckiest mom in the world.) How can I thank you enough for giving me a quiet writer’s retreat in Colorado when I most needed it, and library at UNC Greeley? “Running away from home” would have been impossible if my husband Dave had not volunteered to stay home and take care of the dogs. Never once did he say “You need to get a regular job” during this period of transition. Thank you for your patience. And to my furry muses: three Cavalier King Charles Spaniels named Sir Tristan, Sailor, and Huck, who greet me with the same enthusiasm whether I’ve been gone two weeks or two minutes.

I am blessed with strong, smart, and caring women who bring such gifts to my life: Maureen, who has more energy than anyone I’ve ever known; the Scoobies—who cried in all the right places; the Monday Night Movie ladies, Gina, Stephanie, Sheila, Sue, and Trudy. Thanks for dragging me away from the computer when I get to be a hermit. To the ladies at The Yarn Shoppe in Davenport, Iowa: Laurel, Judy, Joanne, Courtney, and Susan, who offer a wonderful haven where I can sit around their table and knit when my imaginary people are being uncooperative. To the librarians at the Moline Public Library, my second home: Your enthusiasm and knowledge humble me, and the fact that there is now a coffee shop downstairs means you are absolutely perfect in spite of the fines I get when I’m on deadline and blank on returning research books. To the Divas, who have been there since the beginning, especially Karyn Witmer-Gow, who soothed my pre-book jitters and introduced me to a gracious lady who offered me direction. Karen Harper, I can never thank you enough for your generosity to a fellow writer you barely knew.

A huge thank-you to the women in New York who steadied me when my confidence was shaky and my dreams for this book were as yet unclear: everyone at Jane Rotrosen Agency, especially Andrea Cirillo, whose faith in me never falters, and my editor at Crown, Allison McCabe. Thank you for imagining what
The Virgin Queen’s Daughter
could be when it grew up.

Any mistakes in
The Virgin Queen’s Daughter
are my own. I’ve never worked harder or had more fun in my life.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

E
LLA
M
ARCH
C
HASE
lives in Moline, Illinois.
Visit her online at
EllaMarchChase.com