"When Matilda the elephant had a baby, I named him Perkin, and he
became my playmate. I fed him peanuts and washed him down with the
giant brush they had to clean them with. I would grab his trunk and
he would curl it round my hand like a real friend would.
"Then one day, returning from the menagerie, my mother and I climbed
the stairs to the Bell Tower and I saw... They were dragging him
away..."
Matthew knew she was not referring to the elephant.
She stopped abruptly, not wanting to relive this particular scene.
"Taffy Harry had my father executed when my mother was breeding with
Emerald. Just because he was a threat to the crown. It shows how
preposterous it all was! My father, imprisoned since age eight, who
they said was so simple-minded he couldn't tell a hen from a goose,
trying to depose the King!
"He was executed on Tower Hill. Didn't even have the honor of the
green, where the nobles get their heads lopped off. We were all sent
to live with my father's sister Margaret and her husband Richard
Pole, and their brats.
"I began collecting animals, healthy ones as well as sick ones. I
gave them names, I cared for them all, and learnt how to heal the
sick ones in very much the same way our family physician cared for
us. I made medicines for them and birthed them and set the birds'
delicate broken wings. That was my only escape, the menagerie they
let me have. Animals were my only friends. It was my whole world."
"Until now?"
She nodded. "Until now."
She sounded to Matthew like the pain was permanently embedded within
her soul and fought to get the best of her at times.
But he understood and he held her and let her cry, and when she
calmed down, he found himself asking her to marry him and praying
that he could help ease her pain at last.
CHAPTER FIVE
Warwick Castle, October, 1512
Topaz strolled across the footbridge crossing the River Avon and
headed for the Peacock Gardens, where she was meeting her betrothed.
Kenilworth Castle wasn't as grand as Warwick, but it was close
enough to her rightfully inherited home that she could visit her
family whenever she pleased and set up another animal hospital
there.
She was now living at Warwick, since Lady Margaret had moved to
court at King Henry's invitation to serve as Princess Mary's
governess, and had taken all her servers with her.
Topaz raised her left hand, and for the dozenth time that day,
admired her betrothal ring, holding the cluster of rubies set in
gold up to the sunlight. It glinted, twinkled and winked at her as
if to commend her on her choice of such a handsome and charming
husband. She would never succumb to any arranged marriage, as her
sisters inevitably would. Marriages in her social circle were
primarily for combining lands and titles, and the parties involved
were merely vehicles to secure the claims.
But no, Topaz, Duchess of Warwick, would bestow her generous dowry
on the man of her choice, not her mother's choice, not that
fraudulent Henry's choice, no one's but her own.
She watched the peacocks strutting proudly, the males displaying
their brilliant tails like the plumed hats of the realm's mighty
nobles. How much like Henry VIII they were, so pompous and haughty,
so pretentious and proud! And what were they really, without that
majestic splaying of feathers? Just ugly, scrawny birds, like Henry
undoubtedly was under his royal regalia of ill-gotten jewels and
robes.
He was a pretender, nothing more. Males. Phonies, one and all. From
the highest ranking noble to the lowliest slug burrowing through the
soil. Matthew was no exception. Handsome and comely as he was, he
was there to serve one purpose—to sire her heir, her future King of
England, Edward the Sixth, she reminded herself with a sneer.
How easy it had all been. She had found herself a fairly worthy
companion to help her on her mission of revenge and quest for power
and all it had taken was a bit of cunning strategy and feminine
wiles.
She turned away from the peacocks and decided to head for the
stables to check on her animals before Matthew arrived.
As she crossed the moat towards the east entrance, she noticed an
ornate carriage drawn by four white palfreys heading for the
gatehouse. Surely that wasn't Matthew. Even he wasn't that
extravagant. She broke into a run through the inner courtyard in
order to greet them, excited at the prospect of a visitor, and a
noble one at that.
The carriage halted and the horseman dismounted to help his
passenger alight. She didn't recognize his livery. Perhaps it was
someone calling on Amethyst or Emerald. They were being wooed by
several noble gentlemen, the most persistent being the Duke of
Norfolk, who'd had an eye on young Emerald for some time now.
She gasped in delight when she saw the passenger daintily stepping
to the ground was none other than her dear Aunt Margaret Pole!
"Auntie! God's foot, you look splendid!" And indeed she did. Her
golden cloak was trimmed in fur, and the circlet on her head glinted
with clusters of sapphires.
"I bring wonderful news!" She greeted her niece with a kiss on each
cheek, and a small box. "Don't open it yet. I have gifts for all of
you."
"Gifts!" Aunt Margaret always had a heart of gold, and a large
portion of her annuity was distributed to the poor. But this one
looked beyond the norm. "What is the occasion? Another betrothal
party? But I just had one last week!"
"No, my dear. Let us all assemble and I shall dispense the glad
tidings. Pray tell me your mother and sisters are in residence?"
"Aye, they are. I believe they're in the Green Drawing Room working
on their needlepoint," she said, leading the way. She glanced at the
carriage once more before entering. One day, she would have
something as fine…
Nay, finer even than that
, her perverse
spirit of ambition preened.
They entered the private apartments and found Sabine, Amethyst and
Emerald in the Green Drawing Room, chatting and sewing. A servant
was lighting the logs in the great fireplace as they stepped in.
After exchanging warm greetings, Margaret took three small boxes
from the velvet sack she held and gave them out. "One for each of
you. One for each of my jewels."
Amethyst's gift was a gold brooch inlaid with a round-cut amethyst,
Emerald's was an emerald-cut emerald in a gold bracelet, and Topaz's
was a teardrop-shaped topaz suspended from a gold chain. Sabine
received a pearl choker of stunning beauty.
"They're just magnificent, Margaret," Sabine exclaimed. "But pray
tell us, what is the news?"
"I have just been created Countess of Salisbury by His Majesty the
King, ratified by Parliament. He bestowed upon me the family lands
of the earldom of Salisbury, as well as property in Hampshire,
Wiltshire, and Essex!"
Her words gushed forth hurriedly, and she beamed like a child with a
new toy.
Sabine squealed in delight, for now she and her sister-in-law were
both wealthy, titled noblewomen.
Amethyst and Emerald glowed like the jewels they beheld as they
hugged their beloved aunt and congratulated her on her good fortune.
Only Topaz scowled as if she had tasted something foul.
"How kind of His Majesty the King," she snickered. "No matter how
many benevolences he conjures up, he cannot undo what his father
did. He reversed the attainder against our father ten years after
his death! Is that going to bring him back? Lands and titles mean
nothing to him. They are no sacrifice. Let him give up something
that would hurt him to give up and then you can say how kind and
generous he is!"
"Like what?" Sabine asked wearily, wondering why she even bothered
to argue with her daughter anymore on this matter.
"Like the crown, perhaps," she retorted. With that she twirled away
to meet her fiancé, leaving the four women sighing after her
and shaking her heads.
"She gets more bitter with every passing year and new honor
conferred, not less so," Margaret observed ruefully.
"Mayhap marriage will steady her down," her mother prayed. "Once a
child comes, well, perhaps she will be content with all she does
have, instead of wishing for all she feels she has lost."
Amethyst nodded, but deep down, she wondered if her marriage might
make Topaz even more discontent that she already was…
CHAPTER SIX
It was the evening before her wedding, and the three sisters were in
Topaz's bedroom, appropriately named the Blue Boudoir, as it was
decorated in an array of blues. The silk wall hangings were a
delicate French blue, a light lapis satin covered the furniture, and
the velvet draperies around the carved bedframe were the color of
bluebirds on a summer's day.
The two younger sisters sat on the bed watching Topaz smear an oily
concoction on her face.
"What is that?" Emerald asked, wrinkling her nose.
"Lanolin, oil from lambs."
"Are you going to do that every night after you're married, also?"
asked Emerald.
"Why, of course. Just because I've landed a husband doesn't mean I'm
not going to keep myself looking young."
"God's truth, Topaz, you're only eighteen!" Amethyst exclaimed.
"We'll be old hags before we know it, children," she replied,
applying more of the odiferous oil to her throat.
"But I'm sure Lord Gilford finds you just as beautiful. You need not
make your face all slippery and slimy for him."
Topaz looked at her sister in the mirror and laughed. "I do it not
for him, nor for any other man, dear sister. I do it for myself.
Once I am old and Matthew is gone and my looks are withered away by
the ravages of time, I'll have naught but my wits to see me through.
Men don't age as quickly as women, but I daresay look at your King
Henry in the next few years, after a war or two and a few personal
tragedies, and I can assure you he will begin showing his age. He
won't be the pretty boy ass he is now."
"Topaz! What a way to talk about our King!" chided Emerald.
"Your
King, you naïve child,
your
King? I
referred to him as such as I feel generous tonight, and do not wish
to insult him."
"I've heard you say worse things about your own husband-to-be," said
Amethyst. "And he's the one you'll be abed with every night."
"Every night—posh! I plan to maintain my own chambers, into which he
will not set foot uninvited."
"Surely you won't lock yourself away in separate apartments on your
wedding night, Topaz?" Amethyst exclaimed. She was at that age where
curiosity about such matters fairly burst out of her. "I look
forward to my own wedding night."
"So you should, but to me, I have my own reasons for this marriage,
least of which is the bliss of the marriage bed."
"But you love Lord Gilford, do you not?" she asked, shocked.
"Love, sister? No, I do not love him. But it matters not to him,
because he has enough love in him for the both of us. It bothers him
not that my desire for him does not match his for me, or that he
wishes to remain faithful to me forever. He is a lucky man, for very
few people find love within marriage. I am marrying him for reasons
of my own."
"And what reasons may they be?" Amethyst asked, as Emerald had lost
interest in the conversation and was now pawing through Topaz's
wardrobe. "Surely 'tis not for Kenilworth Castle."
Topaz turned to face her younger sister and looked deeply into her
eyes. "A son, Amethyst, that is what I want more than anything. I
want a son more than these empty titles, castles and lands to build
them on."
Amethyst started to relax. "Wanting to be a good mother does you
credit, I am sure."
"I want a son, an heir, to carry my legacy through history. And I'll
be breeding as of tomorrow night, pray God. This is my mission. And
I shall carry it out."
Amethyst understood then what Topaz was saying, as the younger
Emerald could not, and what their mother Sabine dared not. Lord
bless them all, she wasn't marrying Matthew Gilford to be a good,
loving and true wife and put her boundless ambition to good use as a
chatelaine and helpmeet to her husband. She was going into this
marriage in a coldly calculating way, using the poor man. She was
still on this rampage about being the rightful queen. And
unsuspecting Matthew Gilford, as smitten with Topaz as he was, was
no more than the tool to provide the means to power.
Amethyst wondered if she should warn her mother, nay, even warn the
naïve bridegroom herself. But no, it was not her place. Her
mother would not dare try to call off the wedding and she could
never betray her sister no matter how unfair her actions seemed.