The Flawed Mistress (The Summerville Journals) (11 page)

   
I imagined him with his
wife,
holding her in his arms
and making her understand that this charade was being performed for her sake,
not mine.  I smiled to think that perhaps he would feel happier on his
return, yet he did not wait until the allotted day but arrived at my door late
into the night.  The look on his face was pure rage, a frightening look as
though he could kill someone.

   
"Richard?"  I asked carefully.  "What is it? 
What has happened?"

   
He did not answer at first, just poured himself some wine and stood trembling
while I waited for him to speak.  I was very afraid; this man was not one
I knew
nor ever had.

   
"I have discovered," he said at last, "that my wife has been
using my house and my church and my money to hide heretics and help them escape
to France."

   
I had no idea what to say so I merely waited silently for him to
continue.  He was so angry I was afraid of where his words were leading.

   
"You remember that little cottage next to the church, the one where Father
O'Neil used to live," he said at last.  "That is where I found
her, after I had stood half the night beneath the church altar and listened to
the whole process.  I have never been so angry in my entire life."

   
He turned and looked at me and a shiver ran down my spine. He looked devastated
and full of regret, but he also looked violent, a look I had never seen in his
eyes before.  A vivid picture of my father appeared before me, the last
time I had seen him, giving my mother the very last beating of her life. 
I shook my head slowly in denial - no.  Richard could not have done that,
no matter how angry he was.  It just was not possible.

   
"What happened, Richard?"  I asked fearfully, not really wanting
to know.  "What did you do?"

   
"How could she?"  He shouted.  "How could she do that
to me?  I shall never forgive her, never.  And she will never forgive
me for what I have done to her."

   
He sank down into a chair while I watched him, terrified of what he would tell
me next, but I had to know.

   
"What have you done to her?" 

   
His eyes met mine and I was thankful to see that they were calmer, but still he
did not answer.  He poured more wine and sat drinking it as though his
life depended on it.

   
"She will not return to Summerville Hall," he said at last. 
"She will stay in the cottage, since she likes the place so much.  I
have told her what will happen if she leaves it.  I have taken all the
money and her jewels; she will be afraid to run with no means at all."

   
I had a vivid memory of that place.  It was very old and very dark, being
surrounded by trees, and it had no proper windows, just waxed screens over the
openings.  There was a circle of stones with a hole in the roof above it
for a fire and a floor of impacted dirt.

   
When I had seen it first, I had wondered how a priest could bear to live there
and now he was telling me he had condemned his Countess to stay in it, she who
had lived her life with servants and fine clothes and comfort.  I knew I
had to argue on her behalf, no matter what she had done.

   
"She cannot stay there, Richard, for heaven's sake!  How is she
supposed to survive?"

   
He looked up at me then and his eyes were cold and angry.

   
"I have no interest in how she survives," he said quietly. 
"I have arranged to leave food in the church porch.  She will have to
learn how to cook it."

   
I was totally shocked, not only by this treatment of a woman I know he loved,
but at his anger, at his callousness.  But he could not mean it, could
he?  He was just trying to frighten her.

   
"When do you plan to release her?"  I asked after some thought.

   
His eyes met mine and I shivered once more.

   
"I do not plan to release her," he replied.  "She has
behaved like a peasant; I shall treat her like one.  I told her at the
beginning what would happen if she betrayed me."

   
As I watched him drinking his wine, it seemed as though I had never met this
man before.  He could not be the one who had rescued me, who had built me
a house and given me the means to be independent.  He could not be my
dearest friend who I loved so much.

   
"I cannot believe that you can be so cruel," I protested, still not
quite believing what he was telling me.

   
"Then perhaps you do not know me as well as you thought," he replied
bitterly.  He drew a deep breath in an effort to calm himself. 
"Rachel," he said angrily, "I had my hands around her
throat!  She is lucky to be alive."

   
I watched him carefully for any further sign that he did not yet have himself
under control.  I was afraid to ask my question again, but I had to know
the answer no matter what it cost.

   
"You still have not answered my question, My Lord," I persisted. 
"What have you done to Bethany
that is unforgivable?"

   
His eyes met mine and held my gaze for a few minutes before he replied,
quietly, hesitantly.

   
"Rachel, you are the very last person in the whole world I would want to
know the answer to that."

   
I knew then; I knew what he had done and the shock was immense.  I spun
around and fled from the room, wondering how I would ever face him again.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

   
It was two weeks before I returned to the palace and even then I was still
undecided as to whether I should be there. His anger had terrified me, as had
his actions, and he did not have his hands around my throat so I could only
imagine how afraid his wife must have been.

   
Richard had gone from the house by the time I came out of my bedchamber the
following morning and I never wanted to see him again, but as the days went by
I started to think more rationally.  Yes, Bethany had betrayed him in the worst
possible way, but did she deserve that?  He had gone to see her with anticipation
and yearning for this one woman, nobody else would do, and he had found a
colossal betrayal.  How hurt must he have felt to do what he did? 
How devastated?

   
I settled myself into our apartments at the palace and waited for his return in
the evening.  I had no real idea if he was in the building at all; I half
hoped he had returned to Summerville Hall to release his treacherous wife from
her prison in the woods. 
A love as great as theirs
could not end like this.

   
I felt sick with fear when I heard him coming and that feeling distressed me
more than anything.  I had learned to trust him, he was the only man in
the world I did trust and now that trust had been shattered.

   
I felt myself go rigid as he opened the door, but he stood still when he saw
me.

   
"You came back," he said.  "Thank you."

   
He walked toward me and I cringed away.  I hated myself for that but I had
no help for it.  He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and stopped
some distance away.

   
"You are perfectly safe, Rachel," he assured me.  "My
depravity does not extend to forgetting my responsibility to you."

   
He looked defeated, as though there was nothing more that life could do to
him.  I wanted to comfort him, to hold him in my arms, but I was afraid.

   
"I have no idea how I am ever going to make this up to her," he said
at last as he poured himself some wine, then held the flagon up to offer it to
me.  I shook my head.

   
"You could start by letting her back into Summerville Hall," I
answered.

   
"No," he replied in as tone that would bear no argument. 
"She is better off where she is."

   
"So you are still angry with her?"

   
"I am unsure how I feel about her now.  I trapped her in the cottage
to frighten her, yes, to punish her, but while she is afraid to leave it, she
is safe.  Do you understand?"

   
"I think so, but still it seems a little harsh.  She is your wife,
Richard, and you do love her."

   
"Do I?"  He still looked defeated.  "I am so
ashamed,
I have no idea what I feel apart from that.  I
used my strength to intimidate her; that is despicable.  What has she
turned me into?  Or has this always been me, lurking beneath the
charm?"  He stopped talking and took a long drink from his goblet,
then
he looked at me with such distress in his dark eyes, I
could have cried. "I raped her, Rachel!"  He said. "How are
you even speaking to me?"

   
Somehow just knowing that he was so ashamed made his actions seem so much more
forgivable.  And that hateful word just did not seem to apply.  I
sighed deeply, letting out some of the tension that was making me stiff and
uncomfortable.

   
"She is a grown woman," I said at last, "and your wife. 
She will get over it."

   
His eyes met mine and I was saddened by the look of despair in them.

   
"Even Rosemary never made me this angry."

   
"That is because you did not love Rosemary," I told him.

   
"If this is what love does, then I was happier without it."  He
turned away from me and went to pour wine for us both.  "Are you
staying?"  He asked, passing me the goblet.

   
"I will if you need me to," I replied.

   
"I would not blame you if you decided to go, to never see me again."

   
"Richard, I can only imagine how you feel right now, but you are a good
man and Bethany
knows that.  She will forgive you."

   
"I cannot think of it now.  Anthony's sister is coming from France in the
next few weeks, a last visit before she takes the veil.  She is fiercely
pious, perhaps even more so than the Queen herself.  Bethany will definitely be safer where she
is."  He paused and looked at me for a moment.  "Besides,
while she is trapped in the cottage, she will have no further opportunity to
betray me."

   
He seemed to have calmed down a little, so I thought it might be my only chance
to voice what I had been thinking.

   
"Richard, you married an independent woman then you let her believe that
the man she loved, the man she worshipped, was risking his life to keep another
woman close."  I paused and watched his expression for signs of anger,
but there was only interest in what I was saying.  "What did you
think she would do?  Sit and wait for you to favour her with some
attention?"   

   
"So you are saying it was my fault?"

   
"Partly, yes, I think it was.  I did ask you a long time ago to
explain about me.  I suppose you have not done that, even now?"

   
"There was no point," he answered despondently.  "It is too
late for that now."

   
"Why do you say that?"

   
"I would have thought it was obvious.  She betrayed me, Rachel. 
She no longer loves me; I have destroyed that, it is gone."

   
"I doubt that very much, my dear," I told him and at last felt
comfortable in putting my arm around him.  "She still loves you and
always will, no matter what you do.  And that makes her courage all the
more admirable."

   
"You admire her?  You approve of what she has done?"

   
"I approve of the courage it took, yes.  Do you believe that she
risked so much just
to avenge
herself on you?  Or
do you think she did it to help her friends?"

   
He made no reply, so I waited, wondering whether he intended to reply at all.

   
"I am not sure," he said at last.

   
"Well, I am.  I doubt she even thought about betraying you, much less
getting revenge.  She likely found out that her sister had died helping
her cause and she felt she needed to do the same."  He turned to face
me and I was glad I had got his attention.  "You were not
there.  You were in London,
with another woman, one you loved enough to risk a charge of treason for. 
That is how she saw it because you thought it best not to tell her the
truth.  The blame is not all hers, Richard.  Trust me on that."

***

   
That was our last year at court, of keeping up the charade of being man and
wife, and the last year of Mary's reign.  She had been looking ill for a
long time and things went wrong, one after another. 
First
two imaginary pregnancies and the loss of the Spanish prince, then the loss of Calais.
  She
became less and less rational and began to see conspiracies everywhere she
looked, and she looked most at her ladies in waiting.

   
"You have never told me your own thoughts on the heretics, Lady
Summerville," she said to me one day. 

   
"No,
Your
Majesty," I replied
nervously.  "But I agree with you, of course."

   
"Do you?  Does anyone really agree with me, or do they say that to
keep me appeased?"

   
"I am sure I cannot speak for others, Your Majesty," I replied.

   
This talk was making me nervous and I longed to be out of her presence. 
Then she said something that turned my blood cold.

   
"Your husband is not as attentive as he once was, My Lady," she said
coldly.  "Does he too agree with me?"

   
"I could not say what he thinks, Your Majesty."

   
"Could you not?  You
are
his wife are you not?"

   
There was something in the way she said it, in the emphasis of the
words, that
made me wonder if she had discovered something
of the truth of our relationship.  My heart started to thunder in my chest
and I was grateful when one of the other ladies entered and began to talk of
other things.

   
I met Richard in the gallery, anxious to tell him my concerns, but his
expression stopped me.

   
"Alicia is ill," he said.  "I need to return to Summerville
today."

   
"I will get my things packed at once," I told him, then ran to our
chambers to supervise.  But I took more than enough for a stay, I took
everything I owned.  I was afraid and I had no intention of coming back.

   
We had no opportunity to talk until the carriage had moved away and even then I
had to speak quietly, so that the coachman would not hear.

   
"The Queen is becoming suspicious," I told him.

   
He turned to me with eyes that were dull with sorrow.  I had not realised
when he said his little girl was ill, just how ill she was.

   
"Richard?  What is it?"

   
"She has the smallpox.  I have only just got this despatch, it went
to Richmond
first.  She will likely not recover."

   
And he had missed so much time with her.  This year had been a burden to
him I know, after the terrible argument with his wife and now this.  He
needed to be home, he should have gone weeks ago.

   
He dropped me at the inn near my house as always, but he gripped my hand as I
was about to step down.

   
"Leave here," he whispered.  "The house in Suffolk is still empty, you can move back in
there for now.  If what you say is true, it is no longer safe for you
here."

   
I had not thought he had heard me, but obviously he was paying more attention
than I thought.  Perhaps he, too, had noticed a change in the Queen's
affections.

   
So Louisa and I prepared to return to Suffolk,
while Richard went home to his child and, I hoped, his wife.

   
I wondered how that lady had fared, tending to her own needs and hiding away
all this time, but I thought it likely that someone who had the courage to do
what she had done would soon manage to cope with anything. 
Unlike myself, who, when faced with the possibility of having
nothing, had thought of no other way out except hateful marriage to hateful
men.
  She certainly had more courage than I.