The Queen's Lady (20 page)

The earl ran his hand over his golden beard, thinking. ‘I’m partly to blame. It was my idea to send James off to America. I beg the lady’s pardon for causing her yet more pain.’

The countess turned back to Milly. ‘When is the wedding?’

‘It’s almost upon us. This Thursday.’

‘Two days.’ Lady Ellie returned to her seat and sat down with a sigh. ‘That does not give us long to come up with a solution.’

‘And we can’t do anything from here. We’ll have to go to court,’ concluded the earl.

Milly felt a knot in the tangle of her concerns for Jane loosen. This pair had a much better chance of influencing the Earl of Wetherby than she ever did. ‘Thank you. I am more grateful than I can say. I’m only a seamstress – my influence does not count at court. I cannot even get into Whitehall to see Jane at present.’

Lady Ellie shook her head. ‘You may not count at court but you certainly matter to Diego. He is part of our family, so that makes you one of us too. You have our support in this.’

‘Wiiill!’ A girl tumbled into the room from the far door, her red-gold hair flying behind her.

The earl rose and, with what looked like years of practice, caught her before she tripped over in her dash to him. ‘Lady Sarah, we have a guest.’

The girl cast a quick glance over Milly and decided she couldn’t possibly outweigh the importance of her own complaint. ‘But Tobias ruined my bower. He let the dogs run right through it!’

‘Your bower?’

‘You said she could build one by the new maze, remember?’ whispered the countess. ‘In the hazel grove.’

‘It was my fairy bower,’ wailed Sarah. ‘I’d spent ages and ages weaving the garlands and preparing a feast for Robin Goodfellow and the elves – I was going to invite my friends on the full moon tomorrow night so we could watch out for them – but Tobias trampled it all!’

‘And so has spoiled your midnight revels?’ The earl was quickly catching up with the gravity of the sin. ‘But did Tobias know you were building it there? And why did the dogs run through it?’

Sarah frowned, twisting an end of one curl with her finger. ‘I may have borrowed a little cold meat from the kitchen to offer the fairy folk.’

The earl raised an eyebrow.

‘All right, I took a side of honey-glazed ham from the pantry. But … but the dogs have eaten it – they fought over it like … like …’

‘Like a pack of dogs?’ suggested the earl, gamely keeping his face straight.

‘Yes, and now it’s all spoiled and none of the fairy people would be seen dead in my bower – it’s a mess and smelly and horrid and I hate Tobias!’

‘I see.’ The earl stood, momentarily at a loss how to remedy the situation, when his youngest brother sauntered into the room, doubtless fully aware that his sins had been confessed prior to his arrival.

‘What ho, brother and sisters mine,’ Tobias said cheerily. He then spotted Milly. ‘Ah, and who’s this?’ He bowed and smiled broadly at her, bathing her in the full rays of his charm, dark eyes twinkling somewhat like the mischievous elf Robin Goodfellow that Sarah had been trying to tempt. ‘What fair damsel has come to Castle Lacey to bait the dragon earl in his den?’

Milly could not help but be reminded of the overblown gallantry of Christopher Turner. A few years younger, Tobias was obviously treading down the same paths with the female sex.

‘Hold thy peace, Tobias,’ warned the earl good-humouredly. ‘She’s Diego’s. We met her at Dame Prewet’s if you recall.’

Tobias knelt at her feet and kissed her fingertips. ‘She has tamed the African lion – she is a miracle. I am honoured to meet you, fair damsel.’

His flattery was interrupted by the renewed eruption of his volcano of a little sister. ‘To-bi-as!’ She launched herself at him, batting him about the head. ‘What are you going to do about my den?’

He held her off at arm’s length. ‘Will, what are
you
going to do about this little harpy?’

‘I hate you!’ Sarah’s face was flushed with rage.

‘I hate you too, smelly.’ Tobias’s insult was delivered with such a happy grin at her fury that Milly seriously doubted he was in earnest.

‘Right, that is enough!’ bellowed the earl. ‘You, Sarah, sit down like a lady next to Ellie. You, Tobias, stand by my chair and try to be a gentleman for five minutes.’

Sarah appeared cowed by her brother’s shouted order and shuffled quickly into place. By contrast, Tobias merely glanced at the clock on the sideboard as if marking the minutes exactly before he felt free to behave as he normally would. Milly looked enquiringly at Lady Ellie, wondering if she should leave the family to it but the countess gave her a small smile and shook her head slightly. Good. Milly rather wanted to see how all this would turn out.

‘I see two problems before us,’ the earl announced like a judge at the assizes. ‘One: that Tobias did ruin Sarah’s hard work; and two, that Sarah did take food from the kitchen without permission.’ The earl held up his hand to forestall their protests. ‘The remedy is as follows. Tobias, you will report to your sister’s bower and repair the damage. Weave flower garlands and so forth until it is back to how she had left it.’

‘Will!’ groaned Tobias.

The earl ignored him. ‘Sarah, you will confess your borrowings to the cook, apologize and give her the worth of the ham in coin – from your own pin money. No wheedling of Ellie or our mother to make it up for you later. Agreed?’

‘Yes, Will.’ Sarah’s reply was subdued, but she felt she had to justify herself. ‘I didn’t think of it as stealing, you know. My tutor’s been prosing on about Roger Bacon and the need for experimental proof for the existence of things we cannot see, so I wanted to conduct an inquiry as to whether the elves truly existed. You must agree that I needed good bait.’

Milly was vastly impressed by the advanced education the girl was receiving when most ladies had to be content with sermons on manners and morals.

The earl scratched his chin to hide his smile. ‘How very intelligent of you, sweetheart. Do let me know the result of your investigations, but next time ask first before you take something from the house and do not forget to think through all the dangers of your experiment, such as the reaction of other creatures, before laying out bait.’

Sarah nodded solemnly.

‘Now, do we have an accord?’

Tobias checked the clock. His time was almost up. ‘I hear and obey, my lord.’

The earl was also aware that the interlude of his brother’s good behaviour was almost over. ‘Then, Sarah, go back to your maid and dress for supper. And, Tobias,’ he examined his brother and gave him up as a dead loss, ‘just try to do something about the fact that you look like you’ve not seen a comb for three months.’

With a perky salute, Tobias left the room. Wisely, Ellie held Sarah back for a moment then released her when the coast was clear.

‘Well,’ said Milly, thoroughly entertained but aware she had to find lodging before it got dark, ‘I had better be leaving.’

‘Nonsense! You’ll stay here the night, of course.’ Lady Ellie rang a bell to summon her own maid. ‘You’re one of the family – by association.’

The earl put his arm round his wife’s shoulders. ‘I wouldn’t press that fact at this moment, love. After seeing that display, she might want a separation from the Laceys.’

Milly laughed. ‘Oh no, I think you are all just the right kind of family.’

19

Approach to the English Channel

Shut in his cabin, James finished his sketch of Roanoke Island for the draughtsman to interpret in a more presentable fashion for the sponsors Ralegh hoped to attract to fund his colony. He bit his tongue in concentration as his nib scratched out the settlement, the woods and the proposed site for the new houses for the colonists – he wasn’t a natural artist, but he had a soldier’s eye for what he wanted to convey. The visit had been an amazing success. The crew had spent some five weeks among the villagers. Remarkably, the locals had continued to be obliging and seemingly welcoming of the idea that the foreigners might return (that was if they understood what Barlowe and Amadas said, which James sometimes doubted). The crowning achievement was to persuade two young Indian men to accompany them on the voyage home. One of them, Manteo, charmed the crew with his delight in all the novelties they had to show him; the other, Wanchese, an inhabitant of Roanoke itself, was more suspicious but made an imposing presence. The captains had calculated that their appearance at court would do more for gaining public attention to the enterprise than any number of learned treatises on the subject. He just hoped someone remembered to tell them to keep a bridle on that body-thumping business.

A groan came from Diego’s bunk. With the ease of frequent practice, James handed him the bowl in time. ‘Remind me never to allow you to set foot on a ship again.’

‘I’ll hold you to that, master.’

James passed him next a tankard of watered-down spirits to rinse his mouth. ‘Your lady is not going to recognize you: you are thin as a rake and almost as pale as me.’

At the thought that he was almost home, Diego smiled and closed his eyes, hands laced across his chest.

James studied his servant with great affection. The voyage had lifted their relationship beyond that of master and man: they had become friends. They both knew it would be difficult to maintain their informality in the more rigid society of England, but James hoped it would last. For one, it made life so much more interesting. He would have to give thought to how he could even out their unequal positions, find some way of advancing Diego’s career. It would be a challenge, particularly for a person of Diego’s unusual parentage but, on the other hand, that made the blackamoor unique and perhaps rules would be easier to bend for the exception? James wished this would prove the case.

James rolled up his finished map. ‘I don’t think I’ve thanked you for choosing to come with me.’

‘Aye, I’m a hero – I know it.’ Keeping his eyes shut, Diego smirked at the ceiling. ‘But has it worked?’

James pushed back his sleeves and linked his hands behind his head, rocking back on his stool. ‘I think it has. The memories of the winter campaign are less painful. I feel better about myself, having been of real use in this expedition.’

‘That is good. You have lost your haunt.’

‘My what?’ James spluttered, touching the cross on his prayer book. ‘I have you know we mariners are a superstitious lot – you can’t talk of such things.’

Diego nodded. ‘Aye, one should not name them. But it is true – you are free of it. The voyage by water confused it, as I thought it would.’

James rolled his eyes, recognizing it was a hopeless task to correct his friend’s idiosyncratic view of the world.

‘Your brother would say your humours are once more in balance,’ Diego continued sagely. He knew full well what these blinkered Englishmen thought of his knowledge of the spiritual realm and enjoyed tweaking their tails.

‘That is a relief or he might have set the doctors on me, forcing some foul-tasting tonic down my throat in the name of cheering me up.’

‘But this voyage was your medicine.’

‘That it was.’ James absent-mindedly tapped the pile of letters, all unsent, that he had written to Jane over the weeks he had been away.

Diego peeked at him through half-closed lids. ‘Are you going to give them to her?’

James shrugged, trying to disguise the hope he had been nourishing that she would not yet have given up on him. ‘I’ve no right to disturb her peace. I left her. She doubtless has moved on to new scenes, new loves. Someone with her looks and her attractions will not remain unnoticed by the gentlemen at court. How can I hope to compete?’

Diego gave a world-weary sigh. ‘Well, if you do not put yourself in the field, then of course you will not win her heart.’

‘You think I should?’

‘Master Lacey, you would deserve the title of idiot of the year if you do not.’

James laughed. ‘Diego, about this plain-speaking habit of yours.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Do not stop. It is all the tonic I need.’

The Red Lion, Plymouth

James and Diego disembarked from their ship and staggered to the inn to secure lodgings for the night, their legs refusing to cooperate now they were back on dry land.

‘I feel drunk,’ admitted James, leaning heavily against Diego as he steered clear of one disapproving merchant’s wife into whose path he had stumbled. ‘She’s blaming me and for once I am entirely innocent.’

Their arrival went almost unnoticed. The good people of Plymouth, from Sir Francis Drake, the mayor, to the humblest pot boy, had all turned out to gawk at the outlandish strangers the captains had brought back from America. Wanchese stalked down the quayside as if he had a bad smell under his nose – and to be fair the docks did smell very pungent; Manteo gambolled along at his side, smiling and waving at his audience.

‘That man could have a marvellous career on stage when his ambassadorial duties are over,’ commented James.

The landlord assigned them their old chamber for the one night. They had no wish to linger in Plymouth on this visit, eager to bring news of their triumph back to London. Their host was just leaving them to their supper when he remembered the message that had been entrusted to him by Christopher Turner all those months before.

‘My lord, I have a letter for you. Missed you by a whisker when you set out and I promised faithfully to deliver it immediately you returned.’

James’s euphoric mood sobered. Urgent letters rarely brought good news. ‘Let me have it at once, man.’

‘Aye, my lord.’

The landlord returned with the missive, a little battered from having spent the summer on a shelf waiting to be handed over.

James snapped the seal and found enclosed another letter, as well as a scrawled note from Christopher Turner.

‘That’s Milly’s hand!’ exclaimed Diego, barely restraining himself from tugging the enclosure from James’s fingers.

James glanced at the direction and passed it to Diego. ‘For you.’

Diego quickly read the letter. ‘This is not good. Not good at all.’ He handed it back. ‘You should see this.’

Reading the dire news about Jane’s forced marriage, James sank back in his chair, letting the paper dangle from his fingers. ‘We’re too late. This was written months ago.’ He brandished the letter. ‘Jane will have been wed by now.’

Diego took the paper back and folded it carefully to tuck away in his pocket. ‘We do not know that was the outcome, sir. It is possible other friends came to her aid, or her family changed their mind.’

James shoved his fist through his hair and tugged. ‘Possible but unlikely. God’s blood, I’m being punished for being so weak. I should never have gone.’

Alarmed that all the good work of the voyage was about to be undone in a trice, Diego was quick to deny this. ‘Say not so, sir. You did not engineer this plot against the lady – you are not to blame for taking the steps to mend your spirits.’

James was in no mood to listen to such comforting words. ‘We’ll set out at once. I may be too late but until I know for sure, I cannot stay here.’

Diego gazed longingly at the pallet bed he had been planning on occupying until late the next morning. ‘I will order the horses to be made ready.’

‘We’ll leave the rest of our baggage to be sent by carrier’s cart. Make arrangements with the landlord, will you?’

‘Aye, sir.’ Diego turned to the night sky visible through the window. ‘We have a full moon in our favour.’

‘Then let us waste no more time. I want to be in London as soon as possible.’

Whitehall Palace

The court had returned to Whitehall after the summer’s progress. Jane knew she had entered her last few days of freedom before the marriage was solemnized in Westminster Abbey, but still she could not think of a way of escaping her fate, not without bringing a worse outcome down on her head. At times in the small hours of the night, so desperate was she that she had contemplated taking her own life, but she rejected the thought as that would bring eternal damnation. No man, and certainly not a Frenchman, was worth her soul.

Blanche Parry, the senior lady, was the only one in Elizabeth’s circle who recognized that Jane was suffering. Mistress Parry stopped her in the hallway outside the Queen’s apartments the day before the wedding.

‘You’ve lost weight over the summer, my lady. It does not suit you,’ the dame declared in her forthright manner. ‘I would speak with my mistress, but I know your father has done so already. He says you are ailing because you are anxious to be wed. Is this the truth?’

Jane felt like a shipwrecked mariner suddenly finding flotsam to cling to in his sea of troubles. At last, someone who cared about her, and not the benefits she could bring them. ‘No, mistress, I would wish never to be married again. Please, I need help.’

The old lady frowned. ‘Hmmm, I will see what I can do.’

Jane shook her head, struggling to keep her head above the waters that surrounded her. ‘What can you do? What can anyone do?’

‘You may be surprised. Fifty years of service is not to be discounted lightly, even by princes of the realm, such as Her Majesty.’ Blanche patted her arm and hobbled off to the Queen’s chamber.

As Jane prepared herself for bed in her bare room, she clung on to the possibility that Mistress Parry would earn her a last-minute reprieve. Her wedding finery lay spread out on a chest – she had chosen her amber satin doublet with black edging, a mourning garment, which reflected her mood entirely. She still hoped she would not have to wear it.

Someone knocked softly on the door. Jane had already sent her maid away, wanting this last night on her own so that no one would witness her pacing.

‘Who is it?’

The knock came again.

Reasoning that no villain should have been able to get inside the closely guarded palace, Jane opened the door a crack. ‘Who’s there?’ Maybe Mistress Parry had succeeded in her errand and had come to break the good news?

A foot insinuated itself into the gap. ‘It is I, my lady. Come to wish you well on the eve of your wedding day.’

Richard Paton, Marquess of Rievaulx. Jane was tempted to squeeze his foot in the door but her better nature prevailed. She stepped back. ‘Richard, you call unseasonably late.’

Her stepson entered with his usual arrogance, not waiting for an invitation. ‘It was unavoidable, my lady. My horse cast a shoe near St Albans and I arrived much later than anticipated.’ Jane found his apologetic expression hard to believe. ‘I could not, of course, let you leave our family for that of your new husband without wishing you well.’

Jane pulled her robe more firmly over her nightgown and belted it closed. ‘I thank you for your attention. You may report that you have done your duty by me.’ She moved back towards the door, signalling that the interview was at an end.

‘Please, my dear lady, do not be in such haste to be rid of me. This is the last chance for us to make peace before we take our separate paths.’ Richard stepped further into the room, revealing a servant standing behind him. The man carried a tray loaded with a jug and two glasses. ‘I know that we have not always dealt well together and I regret my part in that.’

‘Really?’ Jane doubted that very much. For some reason, Richard had decided to change his tactics towards her. Perhaps he hoped to bring her over to his side when dealing with her husband on her dower rights? If so, he must think her more malleable than a warm wax seal. She had not so easily forgotten their recent altercations.

The servant placed the tray on a little table and retired, leaving the door ajar for propriety’s sake. Richard poured two glasses and sipped his appreciatively. ‘Ah, a good vintage.’ He held the other out to Jane. ‘Come, let us drink to the morrow and the start of your new life as Lady Montfleury. It has a pleasant ring to it, does it not? You must be very pleased with yourself.’

Jane touched Jonas’s wedding band still on her finger; she persisted in wearing it despite the protests of her intended, who had not liked seeing another man’s mark upon her. She had vowed not to remove it until standing in the church porch, and even then she planned to place it on her right hand. Montfleury could take offence if he wished, but she would not surrender that part of her life to him.

‘Where will you live after your marriage?’ Richard asked affably, offering her the glass again. ‘Your good health.’

Jane took it but did not drink, merely raised it to her mouth in pretence of joining him in the toast. ‘In Kent.’

‘The Grafton property?’

‘Yes, I believe that is what Montfleury intends.’

Richard sniffed. ‘It is a small estate, but the fishing rights are lucrative. You should do well there.’ He raised his glass in a second toast.

Jane was amazed by his lack of complaint on the subject. ‘Thank you, Richard. I confess I am much relieved that you no longer protest my interest in the property.’ She raised her own glass and sipped.

He watched her wet her lips with hawkish interest. ‘I decided that there was no point in wasting my money on pursuing the case through the courts – I’d lose the fortune that I intend to regain to lawyers.’

Her throat began to tingle. Jane looked down at her wine glass then back up at her stepson’s face, now wreathed in a vindictive smile. He took the drink from her and poured the remainder out on the floor. ‘Let me help you to the bed, my dear.’

‘What have you done?’ Jane gripped her throat. Her ribs felt as though heavy stones pressed against them; she strained to breathe.