The Virgin Queen's Daughter - Ella March Chase (25 page)

“We could run away. Just slip out in the night and—”

“Where would we go? Even now the queen’s men might be watching us. If we run we will look guilty. No, we must use our wits, Nell. I have been thinking, planning, praying, and I believe I have puzzled out what course we must take.”

I must have looked pathetic, gazing at my mother as if she had the power to save me.

“After Twelfth Night I will take my leave,” she said. “We will part without a fuss, for the queen will be watching for any hint of weakness.”

“I do not think I can.”

“You will behave as if my visit was overlong and you are glad I am gone. I will return to Calverley and you will return to your duties. Act as if you have not a care in the world. When next winter comes I will send word that I am gravely ill. Elizabeth can be compassionate in such cases. Please God, she will send you to my bedside.”

“Next winter is forever away! Why must we wait so long?”

“You are a fine rider, Nell. You know the danger of rushing your fences. If we act too quickly our chance is lost forever. We must be patient, wait until the queen’s suspicions are quieted. Perhaps you will be home by next Christmas.”

“I loathe Christmas now.” I would never again see garlands and kissing boughs without remembering all this season had cost me. “I will loathe winter until I die!”

“Hush, now.” She touched my cheek. “If winter seems bleak to you, look forward to spring instead. Imagine your daffodils and the new lambs. I am so sorry you will miss them this year.”

“I would trade all the springs ever to come if I could take this past year back. If I could do it all again, I would heed you, Mother. I would be the kind of daughter you wished for. I must have been such a disappointment to you.”

“Hush!” My mother grabbed my arms, shook me, hard. “You are everything I could hope my child would be. Brave and bright, loyal and loving.”

“How can you possibly think so?”

“It was writ in your father’s eyes whenever he beheld you and in Mary Grey’s when she gave you her gift. In Eppie’s love for you and in mine. You will survive this, Nell. You are stronger than you know.”

“No, you are the strong one. Father always said so. I am afraid.”

“I am, too, my precious, precious girl,” Mother said, gathering me tight in her arms. “But this must be the last time we say it.” I clung to her until courage born of her honesty poured strength into my limbs. I squared my shoulders, looked into her eyes.

“Spring,” I said.

Chapter Nineteen

January 1565

T
HE HALLS LOOKED NAKED, BEREFT OF
C
HRISTMAS
finery. The garlands and bunches of greens we had labored so hard to weave had been stripped down at midnight and thrust into the fire to burn once the Twelfth Night revels were done. Any faint hope the queen might let me depart with my mother vanished with the pine-scented smoke from the chimneys. Lettice claimed the queen was so eager for my mother to depart that Elizabeth would have ordered a January gale to blow Lady Calverley all the way to Lincolnshire if the wind heeded royal command.

Mother and I lay awake in bed our last night together, knowing come morning she would have to leave the palace and I would have to stay. More sobering still, we must make the whole court believe we were glad it was so. I tried to recall the freedom I once felt when I shed my mother’s presence, counting myself lucky to escape her criticisms. I attempted to school that relief into my expression the following day as I watched her pass beneath the arch of the gatehouse in her litter emblazoned with the Calverley hawks and lions. But now I knew the raw places in her spirit, what she had suffered for me, what she had sacrificed, and all I could feel was shame and grief and a desperate longing to know her better. The strong, pragmatic, brave Thomasin de Lacey I had never troubled myself to understand.

The courtyard boiled with confusion, parties setting out for estates scattered all over England. We members of the court would be leaving Greenwich, too. Twelve days of Christmas revels had left the palace filthy from too many people, too many servants, too many animals, the kitchens and chamber pots in sore need of cleaning. By the time the last Calverley retainer had disappeared through the gate my face felt ready to crack from the effort it took to keep a smile upon my face.

Drawing my cloak tight beneath my chin, I started back toward the stairs leading to the Great Hall, swishing my skirts in the way I had seen other ladies do as evidence of their delight. The performance seemed pointless. In such a welter of confusion I doubted anyone would notice—unless the queen had put Walsingham on alert. Sir Francis had eyes and ears everywhere. Any glimpse his minions might catch of me today must show me merry as a spaniel let off its leash to run.

I started across the courtyard, barely able to see through a brittle icing of unshed tears. A hand caught me from behind, yanking me backward. I saw a blur of manes and haunches followed by the hard, jouncing box of a new coach. Its driver waved his fist barely an arm’s length from my nose, and I was dismayed to realize he might have run me over. I turned to thank my rescuer, saw the wolf’s-fur trimming of Sir Gabriel’s cloak.

“Have a care, Grace. It is madness out here today. You must keep watch where you are going or you will be trampled beneath the wheels.”

It seemed such a straightforward warning on the face of it. So why did I sense he was hinting at something more? I forced a bright laugh. “I fear I got distracted trying to think what mischief to get into first now that my mother is gone.”

“Is that so?”

I groped for one of my old complaints. “You cannot know what it is like with Mother just waiting for me to make a mistake.”

A fleeting shadow crossed his face. “No. I suppose I cannot.”

“Believe me,” I insisted. “Her absence will be bliss.”

“Careful, Grace. When someone at court begins a claim with ‘believe me,’ it is likely they are lying.”

I feigned outrage. “How dare you imply that?”

“I only mean to put you on your guard. Any man canny enough to survive in this court must be a student of human nature. They will know you are up to some trick just as surely as I do.”

“The only trick I want to master is disappearing when you are around. It is obvious I need more practice.”

“What you need is an ally. Someone strong enough to shield you from whatever tangle you are in.”

“You imagine things. Next you will be claiming there is a dragon in the sky.”

“This is no game, Nell. The stakes are high, more than you can afford to lose.” I caught hold of my astrolabe. The treasure Gabriel had restored to me. “I know you have little reason to trust me,” he said. “But know this. I am fascinated by you in a way so new I cannot describe.”

“That is for certain. Spare the art of poetry and never attempt to do so again.”

He winced. “I even managed to appall myself. But that did not keep me from observing the sword that divided your mother and the queen that same night was far sharper than some long past quarrel. I know it. And you are thick in the middle of this battle.”

I shrugged. “My mother is gone now. What can it matter?”

“It matters. I can feel it.” A bitter edge sharpened his voice. “You have been at court long enough to know why people call me the Gypsy’s Angel.”

I sought some shield against him. An insult. “You dig around in the muck to drag bones from the midden heap and carry them back to your master. But you are wasting your time with me. There is nothing to find. You will come away from your search looking like a fool. Why do you not do something noble? Something honorable? Something admirable with your life instead of licking Robert Dudley’s hand?”

“Perhaps I should try licking yours.”

“You disgust me!”

“No. You only wish I did.” The truth thudded into my chest. “Nell, whatever went wrong that night is so dire that the queen will not even speak to Lord Robert about it.”

“The queen has advisers wiser than Robert Dudley.”

“Wiser, perhaps, but not more trusted, more beloved.”

I thought of the two of them—their passion for each other was there for the world to see in their eyes. I longed to be born of that passion, something far cleaner than the murky seduction of Seymour.

Sir Gabriel reached toward me, his fingers brushing my throat as he scooped up the gold chain, the bent astrolabe sliding down into his grasp. “I meant things to be so different when I returned this to you. I hoped I could win your trust.”

“Was it a gift or a bribe?”

He smiled. “Both.”

“Where did you get it? How long did you have it? You never answered my questions.”

“I searched the ground like a beggar who had lost his last shilling. I traced every step I made that night I followed you.”

“So you admit it!”

“I tell you the truth in hopes you might do the same for me. I let it be known among the gardeners that I was searching for something I lost. That I would reward whoever brought it to me, recompense greater than what the trinket was worth.”

“So you were willing to lay gold down to buy my gratitude? That is a merchant’s bargain, not a reason I should trust you.”

Wyatt drove his fingers through his hair in exasperation, knocking his hat askew. “If I merely wanted to buy your goodwill I could have had any goldsmith in London make the necklace’s double and saved myself a deal of inconvenience! I offered the reward because I knew the astrolabe was precious to you. A gift from your father.”

“Why should you care?”

“I should not. God knows I never have before. But my mother once loved stars. And . . . Christ’s wounds, never mind! You wish to be left alone with your trouble? Fine. I have far too much of my own.”

“Angel!” A call rang out from across the yard, another of Dudley’s entourage trying to gain Gabriel’s attention. “Will you come to the tiltyard with us? We thought to take a run at the quintain if the ground be not too slick.”

I had seen the men tilt in the practice yard before, riding full speed at the apparatus mounted upon a pole, a target on one branch and a weighted sack on the other. Gabriel dragged his tongue over his teeth, considering before he turned back to me.

“You know, I cannot imagine anything more pleasant than driving a lance into the shield. Perhaps if I am lucky the weight will swing around so quick it will hit me in the head. I might forget all about you, Grace.”

“I shall go to the chapel at once and pray that is what happens. Do you think God answers prayers to crack open someone’s head?”

“I do not know. God and I have not been on speaking terms for a very long time.”

“Fortunate God.”

Gabriel’s features shifted, solemn. “Fortune is slippery near the queen, Grace. Time is precious. Let me help you.”

For a heartbeat I was tempted, pulled into his eyes. Just as fast, the connection snapped. I dragged my gaze away from his and gestured toward Dudley’s other men.

“I believe your friends are waiting for you.”

“You are cruel, my lady Grace. To cut at a man who wishes to serve you thus. Perhaps you have been taking lessons from the queen. She would be proud as if you were her own daughter.”

A dizzy haze engulfed me. Wyatt could see it. I struggled to regain control of the fear inside me, tried to crush the words that wanted to rise.
What do you mean, Like her daughter? What do you know? “I endeavor to be like Her Majesty in every way.”

“And you are,” Wyatt murmured. “The truth is heavy, Grace. It will tumble out.” His gaze pierced me a long moment. “I will be ready when it does.”

I
T ASTONISHED ME
, how swiftly I started to lie. Lie to the other maids that I was delighted my mother was back in Lincolnshire. Lie to myself that I would be able to return to my old life and forget this year ever happened. Lie that Sir Gabriel Wyatt had not seeped into my heart, invading my thoughts like wine colors water. I should have been more alarmed than ever after the way the Angel and I parted in the courtyard, the words he spoke, the
knowing
in him. He insisted that my secret would come out and he would be ready when it did.

Ready for what?
I wondered for the hundredth time as I slipped across the January-slick courtyard toward Whitehall’s stable late one night.
Ready to take advantage of my vulnerability? To use my secret to his advantage?
That was the logical conclusion.

Yet, what was it about his steady gaze that haunted me as sleepless nights crept past? Was it a dark enchantment, a spell like the one a Gypsy had used on my pony so long ago, to cure its fear of water? What if I grew so much in thrall to the man that I stepped off the bank and was drowned beneath currents under the Tower Bridge?

I clenched my hands around the sticky lumps of sugarloaf I had smuggled from the Great Hall after the court had dined and bent my head into the wind that tugged my hood from my hair. But I never questioned whether it was worth being battered by the cold to sneak the tidbits to Doucette. For a week now, the warm, hay-scented stable was the only place I could breathe, the mare daintily nibbling treats from my palm, my cheek buried against Doucette’s arched neck.

Even on nights like tonight, when Sir Gabriel’s place at table had been empty, my thoughts about him gave me no peace, the subtle change in him a loose thread I picked at even though it could unravel my tenuous hold on my emotions. I could not forget my mother’s description of Sir Gabriel, not as the wolf I had named him, but rather, an adored hound suddenly beaten and flung into the wild to fight for survival.

I found myself watching him when we were in the same room, picturing him as a boy. He could not have been much older than fifteen when his father made the journey to Tower Hill. Had they shared the same cell or had the guard separated them? If apart, had he been allowed to say good-bye? How had Gabriel gotten the news his father was dead? Had it devastated him? Or had every fiber already been concentrated on trying to save his own life? A Herculean task he succeeded in. But at what price?

And what of Gabriel’s mother, the woman who loved the stars? The only thing I knew about her were rumors she was a whore. During the first clash between Sir Gabriel and me, Kat Ashley had claimed it was so. No small insult, considering what was whispered about Elizabeth’s own mother—that Anne Boleyn had bedded her own brother. Yet I had discerned no contempt in Gabriel when he’d spoken of the woman who bore him. None of the reactions one might expect of a son to the woman who had disgraced his family name. More puzzling still, I sensed he understood the value of my astrolabe because of
her
, recognized the scratched gold disk was irreplaceable.

Something had altered between us. I could feel it in his touch when we danced, see it in the way his eyes searched my face. More unsettling still, I could not keep from tallying up his kindnesses to me since my mother had made me aware of them. Pomegranates he split with his dagger to offer me the sweet fruit. Books he claimed he had tired of, and pressed into my hands. The satisfaction he could not quite hide those rare times he managed to surprise a laugh from me with some irreverent observation or command my attention through some insight so learned it startled me. He was a scholar indeed, one of Dr. Dee’s chosen.
Do not underestimate him, Nell,
I cautioned myself as a drowsy lad with chilblained hands sprang up from his place near the stable door to open it for me.
Wolf or hound, Sir Gabriel is still unpredictable, dangerous. A wild thing turns on anyone near it to save its own skin. And yet,
a voice inside me whispered,
John Dee trusts him with his most dangerous secrets.