The Winter Queen (17 page)

But surely now, at Christmas, anything was possible.

‘I am sorry, Celia,' she said gently. ‘Yet surely there is time for matters to come aright?'

‘Only if the Queen grants me my estate,' Celia answered. ‘You will tell me if she mentions the matter?'

‘Yes, though I doubt she will to me.'

‘Because she keeps her ladies free of serious matters—or because you think my cousin so
charming
?'

Before Rosamund could answer, Celia turned and hurried away down the corridor, her dark garments blending into the late-afternoon shadows. But she left that palpable air of sadness behind her. A sadness that infected everything, and reminded Rosamund of the true danger of her life at Court, her feelings for Anton.

It was only when Rosamund was changing her clothes for the evening's pageant that she remembered something. When they'd met in that corridor, Celia had been emerging from the Scottish delegation's rooms. What business could she have there?

Holy Innocents' Day, December 28

T
he leather tennis-ball smacked against the black-painted walls of the Queen's court, rebounding like a clap of thunder as Anton and Lord Langley raced to defeat each other in their game. Langley was ahead at the moment, but Anton was intent on gaining the winning point by hitting the ball through the opening in the dedans penthouse high above their heads. It was hot work, and neither of them ever seemed to get far enough ahead.

But Anton relished the burn of his muscles, the sweat that dampened his brow. It gave him something to focus on besides Rosamund, something to take the knife-edge from his hunger for her. He gave a fierce swing of his racket, smacking the leather ball back to Lord Langley. Langley dove for it, but missed, falling onto the court floor with a curse. Anton finally hit the ball through the opening, gaining his winning point.

Anton swiped his damp shirt-sleeve over his face, calling out, ‘Do you concede then, Lord Langley?'

Langley rolled to his feet, laughing. ‘I concede—for now! But this can't go on, Gustavson. First skating, now tennis. I shall have to best you at
something
soon.'

‘Such as? It is too cold for a tourney, and everyone is told to stay at the palace for the rest of Christmas.'

‘Thus no horse races, fortunately for you,' Langley said. They went to the end of the tennis court, where pages waited with linen towels and warm, velvet jackets to keep away the cold chill from damp skin. ‘I am sure I could best you there. For don't you Swedes just skate everywhere?'

Anton laughed, roughly running the towel over his hair. ‘Skates are of little use in battle, I fear, so we are sometimes forced to the primitive transport of horseback.'

‘Not so very primitive as all that, I hope. Equestrian feats do seem to impress the ladies.'

‘As much as they are impressed by a lofty title?'

Langley grinned wryly. ‘Alas, that is only too true. I could have a hunchback and a squint, and there would still be ladies to flatter and fawn.' He accepted a goblet of ale from one of the pages, drinking deeply before he added, ‘And then there are ladies who are impressed by nothing at all.'

‘Sadly, that only makes us want them more, does it not?'

‘I see you learn the ways of courtly romance, Master Gustavson.'

‘Your English ways, you mean?' Anton drank his own ale, but there was no forgetfulness in its heady, spiced blend. He still saw Rosamund's blue eyes in his mind, felt the touch of her hand on his skin. Her sweetness—the innocent, heedless force of her passion—they were addictive, and he feared he came to need
them more and more as the days went on. He could not stay away from her.

The more he saw her, the greater her charms. The more he wanted to know. And that craving was dangerous. It distracted him from his work here, from the careful plans he had held so long. It made him dare to think things he never could have before. If he gained possession of Briony Manor, if he was able to settle in England, his mother's homeland, if he could take an English wife…

It was too many ‘if's, and Anton preferred to work in certainties. In what
was,
and how he had to work to achieve his goals. Rosamund did not seem like a logical goal. There were too many dreams of her own that she harboured in her heart; he could see that when he looked in her eyes.

His cousin Celia accused him of seeking an English wife to aid his petition for Briony Manor. But she was wrong. Rosamund was one of the Queen's ladies, and the Queen did not easily relinquish those in her household to marriage. Such a wife could only harm him in his errand.

And it would not do her any good, either, even if Rosamund would have him, which he did not think she would. He could never do anything to harm her, his beautiful winter-fairy, even as he fantasised about making love to her. Of seeing her pale, perfect body in his bed, her hair spread over his pillows as she held out her arms to him, smiled at him in welcome.

‘Svordom,'
he muttered, and tossed back the rest of his ale.

‘Our English ways of romance can be labyrinthine indeed,' Lord Langley said. ‘English ladies insist on being properly wooed, but each of them seems to have
a different notion of what that means. What works for one repels another.'

Anton thought of Langley's efforts to impress Anne Percy, and laughed. ‘I thought the ladies claimed to be impressed by pearls and silks.'

‘Ah, that is another thing you must learn about our English females,' Langley said. ‘What they desire changes day by day. And, also, they sometimes lie, just to confound us. Are the Swedish ladies so contrary? Or is it merely here, because we are ruled by a queen?'

‘Nay, the Swedish ladies are every bit as demanding,' Anton answered. ‘Perhaps they are affected by what they hear of the English, and insist on poetry and gifts. But matters of marriage are much simpler—it is arranged willy-nilly, and everyone does as they must, poetry or no.'

‘So it often is here as well,' Langley muttered.

‘Have you a betrothed, then? Someone chosen by your family?'

Langley shook his head. ‘Not as yet, though my mother has taken to writing insistent letters every fortnight, suggesting this lady or that. She and her friends have played matchmaker for years, ever since I attained my majority. But I have not yet found the one who meets my family's requirements
and
my own inclination.'

Anton knew how he felt. His duty and his inclinations were decidedly at odds. ‘The two are seldom reconciled.'

‘How is it that you are not married, Gustavson?' Langley asked. ‘You seem to have collected enough female attention here in London. Surely there is some lady in Sweden?'

‘I have been too occupied of late with my own family
matters to think of marrying. Perhaps once I have settled into a proper home, a place that needs a chatelaine…' And could that chatelaine be Rosamund? She would grace any house. But the Queen, and her family, would have to let her go first, and he feared they never would. He would not put her in danger by spiriting her away from them.

‘Fortunately for us, we don't have to marry every lady who catches our eye,' Langley said, laughing.

‘True. But there are some who would insist on it!'

Langley sighed. ‘You are correct. But come, enough of this solemn talk! I fear we will never solve the mysteries of women today. Let us go out and see how the frost-fair preparations progress.'

Anton nodded, glad of the distraction. But even then his thoughts were of how much Rosamund would surely enjoy the delights of the frost fair…

 

‘Tidings I bring for you to tell, what in wild forest me befell, when I in with a wild beast fell, with a boar so fierce…'

Rosamund smiled as she passed by the chamber where the chapel choir rehearsed, pausing for a moment to listen to the old tune of the boar's head.

Since tonight's traditional Feast of Fools had been changed to a mere banquet, with the mummer's antics cancelled, everyone had to work just a bit harder to make things festive. Everyone looked forward to the feast of Bringing in the Boar two night's hence.

She did not linger long, though. She had been sent across the palace to fetch some books for the Queen, and still had a distance to go. She didn't mind the errand. It was difficult to sit still in the Queen's chamber, to concentrate on her sewing and the other maids' chatter, when all she could think about was Anton.

She wondered what he was doing today, as Queen Elizabeth had not been receiving any official business and they hadn't seen anyone all morning. Was he off skating again? Walking in the garden, where so many flirtatious ladies waited to besiege him? Or perhaps he was closeted away on his own business, that disputed estate.

Rosamund remembered Celia emerging from the Scottish apartments. It seemed she looked for her allies, no matter how unlikely. Who would stand with Anton? She could, if he would let her. If they could forget the danger of it for only an hour.

She hurried on to find the books where the Queen had left them, and turned back towards the Waterside Gallery. Anne said they were setting up the frost fair on the frozen river, and Rosamund hoped for a glimpse to distract herself, to take a moment to think how she herself could broach the estate matter to Queen Elizabeth.

She leaned against a window sill, staring out at the river scene. It was indeed crawling with activity; from this distance it looked something like a chilly anthill with every ant set to some vital task.

They were building booths for the frost fair, places to sell hot cider and candied almonds, ribbons and lace. Icy avenues were laid out between the sledding and skating. Bright streamers were being tied to the booths, loops of greenery that added to the holiday excitement.

The prospect of the fair was a merry one in the midst of a tense Court. Everyone seemed to walk on a dagger's edge, afraid of what might happen next, even as they tried to hide it beneath Christmas cheer.

Rosamund too felt on edge, but Anton was the largest part of that—not knowing his feelings for her, or even the true nature of hers for him, was difficult. And, too,
the fact that she was always daydreaming about him. Surely her distraction would soon earn her a slap from the Queen? Or more, if the Queen ever discovered what was between her and Anton!

But she could not be late with the books. Rosamund took one more peek at the frozen river and hurried away back towards the Queen's chamber.

As she turned through a narrow corridor leading from the gallery to the wing connecting the Privy apartments, she saw a small group headed her way. They were led by Lady Lennox, the Queen's cousin, her stout figure swathed in her usual black satin. She looked even more pinched and unhappy than usual. Probably her petition to the Queen to let her son Darnley go to Scotland, ostensibly to visit his father, was still not progressing well.

Rosamund shrank back into a curtained alcove, having no desire to be the focus of one of the countess's gimlet stares. Or, worse, to be urged to speak to the Queen on her behalf! She was trying to avoid notice and trouble, not court it.

She peeked past the edge of the velvet drape as they drew nearer, their voices a low murmur. With Lady Lennox was the Scotsman Melville—and also Celia. She walked at the countess's side, listening closely as the countess whispered furiously to Melville.

Rosamund could make out none of their words, and they quickly passed onwards, moving out of the corridor. She waited until they were certainly gone before slipping out of her hiding place and away in the opposite direction.

She thought of what Anne's uncle had said, about how the Queen's Court was filled with dangerous foreigners and their intrigues. Yet it seemed even the Queen's own family was not averse to intrigues of their own.

She was so intent on her path that she swung swiftly around a corner, not seeing the man standing there until she collided with him. Strong hands shot out to steady her as she reeled backwards, the books tumbling to the floor.

‘Rosamund!' Anton said. ‘Where are you off to in such a great hurry?'

Of course it would be him, she thought with a strange mixture of delight and chagrin. He always did seem to see her at her most awkward, her most unguarded! She held onto his arms to keep herself upright, smiling at him.

He looked as if he just came from some exercise, his hair smoothed back damply from his face and his dark eyes shining like polished onyx. He wore a simple black-velvet jacket over his shirt, which was loosely laced to reveal a smooth vee of glistening skin.

Rosamund could not stop staring at that skin, she feared to her great embarrassment. Staring at it—and longing to touch it, to discover exactly what it felt like. To trace a light pattern just there with her fingertips…

‘Rosamund?' he said, bemused.

She shook her head, stepping back until her hands fell away from his arms. ‘I—I was just fetching some books for Her Grace,' she said, staring over his shoulder at a patch of panelled wall. ‘She does hate to be kept waiting.'

‘I have certainly been here at Court long enough to know the truth of
that,
' he answered. ‘I will not keep you. But should we have a dance lesson tonight?'

‘A dance lesson?' she said, her head still whirling.

‘Aye. Our time grows short until Twelfth Night. I was playing tennis with Lord Langley this morning, he told me of a chamber near the chapel we could use. It is assigned to his cousin, who is in the country, and thus it is empty. No one would be there to see me make a fool of myself.'

They would be alone? In a chamber, after the banquet? Rosamund was quite sure that under those too-tempting circumstances,
he
would not be the one acting foolish! But she felt as if she had already leaped down into a precipice, tumbling into a dark world she didn't recognise at all and could not stop. Falling, falling, down into peril.

‘Very well,' she answered. ‘Your dancing could certainly use a great deal of polishing before Twelfth Night.'