This Heart of Mine (23 page)

“In that case,” Robin said with a slow grin as he poured them out generous goblets of golden wine, “I think we should drink a toast to your wedding, Alex. When do you think I can anticipate the festivities?”

“I imagine I can bring your sister to heel by midautumn,” came his confident reply. “Although I forced my sister and her weak-kneed spouse from
Dun Broc
, I want to get back before Bella takes it into her head to move back again.”

Neither Alex nor Robin, of course, took into account that if Alex Gordon was stubborn, Velvet de Marisco was even more stubborn. Returning to court and her duties as a Maid of Honor, she threw herself into the social life that surrounded the queen with surprising vigor. The hitherto shy maiden that Velvet had been disappeared, and in her place emerged an amusing and beautiful young woman with a distinct penchant for fun. It was she who suddenly became the instigator of the games and the practical jokes that the youth of the court delighted in so much. If the women at court were no friendlier than they had originally been, the gentlemen were most assuredly delighted.

At first Alex and Robin watched Velvet with tolerant amusement, but as the weeks went by they became less enchanted with her behavior. It was not that there was any real gossip about Velvet, for she was no fool, and if she was flirtatious, she was still careful of her reputation. Her coterie of gentlemen, however, did not include either her brother or her betrothed, which made it difficult for either of them to know exactly what she was doing. Everything they learned was by
hearsay, and both were becoming increasingly nervous. Robin and Angel paid a hurried visit to Devon, then returned to find Velvet becoming more unbridled as each day passed.

“I thought you had a plan to control my sister,” Robin complained to Alex one evening after they had spent a good hour watching Velvet and her friends play a particularly wild game of hide-and-seek. There had been much shrieking, open tickling, and even a quick kiss observed as the Earl of Essex cornered Velvet, who quickly escaped him, throwing her brother and his friend an arch look as she did so.

“I do,” Alex said somewhat smugly, “but I wanted to give her time to amuse herself first. Now, however,
I
shall make
her
jealous.”

“Jealous?”
Robin was incredulous.

“Aye, Rob. Jealous! I am going to suddenly find myself enamored of a lovely lady of this court. One, of course, of experience who cannot possibly accept any serious addresses on my part, but one who will flirt with verve.”

“Oh, Alex,” Angel cautioned, “I do not think that very wise. In the short time I have known Velvet, I have learned one thing. She never does the obvious. You will only make her angrier, I fear.”

“Now, sweetheart,” Robin soothed his lovely wife, “Alex is right, I am certain. Velvet may be angry at us now, but she is basically an innocent. Let her believe that her betrothed husband, whom I know she must care for, is interested in another woman, and she’ll come around quickly enough.”

Angel shook her head worriedly. Men were sometimes very dense when it came to understanding women, and yet they were supposed to be the superior sex. She sighed deeply. Velvet was not going to come running like a chastised puppy if Alex annoyed her further. She would instead seek to retaliate. If, however, Velvet knew what Alex was planning … Angel brightened. That was it! She would tell her sister-in-law and, thus warned, Velvet would not react so violently.

Velvet, however, to Angel’s dismay, chuckled wickedly when she learned what her betrothed was planning. “So he seeks to make me jealous? Ha! Until now, all I have done is amuse myself.
Now
I shall endeavor to make him jealous instead while ignoring his little amour. Do you know whom he has singled out, Angel?”

Angel hesitated, then said, “Lady de Boult.”

Velvet whooped with glee. “
That drab!”

“She’s very beautiful,” ventured Angel.

“ ’Tis also said she’s entertained every cock at court at one time or another,” was Velvet’s quick reply.

Angel laughed. “Shame on you, Velvet de Marisco! A maiden should not know such things even if they are true!”

“You did!” Velvet countered. “Besides, I’ll have far better taste, I assure you, in
my
choice of a lover.”

Angel’s eyes widened, and her voice was shocked. “You don’t really mean to take a lover, Velvet, do you?”

“Nay!” Velvet quickly reassured her best friend. “Alex, however, shall never be certain of it until after our marriage! ’Tis payment enough for his perfidy, I think.”

“You love him!” Angel accused.

“Perhaps, though he’s scarce given me the chance.”

“Nor you he,” Angel reminded Velvet.

“Nay,” Velvet agreed. “In the beginning it was my fault, but I was so fearful of being forced into a marriage without my parents. Alex, however, must shoulder part of the blame now, for he and Robin should have told me from the start who he was, and then quickly reassured me that he would be willing to wait. We are both, it appears, quite stubborn.”

“If you are wise enough to know that, then stop this foolishness before it goes any further, Velvet. Say to Alex what you have said to me and let us end the enmity now,” begged Angel.

“Not yet, Angel. If Alex thinks he has bested me in this, then he will always try to keep the upper hand, and our married life will be one battle after another. No. Let him win me, and he shall then appreciate me much more than if he simply married me because I was his betrothed wife. Remember that for ten years he has ignored me in his arrogance! Let him fight a little to regain my affections. It will be a great lesson for him since I shall never allow any man, even my husband, to take my love for granted.”

There was a great deal of wisdom in what Velvet said, and Angel was greatly reassured that her sister-in-law would do nothing foolish.

To be wise is one thing, however, but to be jealous is another. Knowing that Alex meant to enrage her by his attentions to Lady de Boult, Velvet did not expect to find herself plagued by what the ladies surrounding the queen referred to as “the green-eyed monster.” She could not, however, avoid the gossip that was gleefully reported by the other maids of honor, and Lady de Boult did nothing to discourage the talk surrounding her affair. Indeed she added to it by openly discussing
her liaison with her cousin, Audrey, who was one of the queen’s ladies.

On the afternoon of the queen’s fifty-fifth birthday, Velvet had been listening for over an hour to increasingly idle talk until she thought she would shriek with annoyance. She could not leave because the embroidery threads in the queen’s basket were in an incredible tangle. It had taken her most of the afternoon to separate the reds, pinks, roses, and light blues. The greens, darker blues, yellows, and purples were still hopelessly enmeshed, and the queen liked to do busy work in the early evening. Head lowered, she worked to separate the bright colors and ignore the silly chatter, but Audrey Carrington’s irritating voice suddenly cried out, “Oh, Mary, how lovely you look! Where did you get those marvelous earbobs? They’re new, aren’t they?”

Lady de Boult glided into the Maiden’s Chamber, a small, feline smile upon her pretty face. She was a tiny, full-figured woman with a delicate, brunette beauty about her. She had milky white skin and large dark eyes that seemed to take up most of her face. She wore a garnet red silk gown, and her hair was contained in an exquisite gold net, a new extravagance from France that allowed her new earbobs to show to their greatest advantage.

Tossing her head, Lady de Boult asked, “Do you like them, Audrey? Lord Gordon gave them to me.”

“Are they rubies?” Audrey was quite impressed.

“Aye. Beautiful, aren’t they? He said their color reminded him of my lips.”

“Oh, how romantic!”

“Aye, he’s the most romantic man I’ve ever met,” purred Lady de Boult, looking smugly about her.

“He’s a crude Highlander,” murmured Velvet, “and more than likely the stones in your ears are either glass or garnets of poor quality.”

“How would you know?” Mary de Boult sneered, tossing her head so that the red stones glittered.

“He’s my brother’s friend and is staying at Lynmouth House,” replied Velvet sweetly. “I suspect he’s a fortune hunter, m’lady, for earlier this summer he tried to sweep me off my feet, and I’m a betrothed lass. Robin says he has very little but an old stone castle in the mountains west of Aberdeen. More than likely he’s come south for a rich wife to rebuild his tumbling-down manse.”

“Well! I should certainly not qualify to be his wife,” said Lady de Boult huffily, “after all, I have a husband.”

“Then why do you accept gifts from another man? I doubt very much the queen would approve such conduct,” Velvet retorted primly.

“You know very little about the world, Mistress de Marisco,” Lady de Boult replied scathingly.

“True, madame, but is yours an example I should follow? I may be young, but I am not so young that I misunderstand either your shameless behavior or Lord Gordon’s base motives.”

“How dare you!”
Mary de Boult’s fair complexion became mottled with outrage, and she raised her hand to slap Velvet, but at that moment the door to the Maiden’s Chamber flew open violently.

“Where is the queen?” Robert Devereux entered, an urgent and distressed look about him.

“I’ll tell her you’re here,” said Bess Throckmorton, and, catching Velvet by the hand, she drew her away from Lady de Boult. Together the two young women entered the queen’s bedchamber where Elizabeth lay sleeping, for she had had the ague recently. “Majesty, please awaken,” Bess said gently, touching the queen lightly.

Instantly Elizabeth woke. “Yes, Bess, what is it?”

“The Earl of Essex with an urgent message, madame.”

The queen sat up. “Velvet, hand me my wig and help me with it. Bess, give me but a moment and then tell the earl I shall be with him.”

Quickly Velvet aided the queen in setting the beautiful red wig upon her head. The queen’s hair had grown thin and gray with age, and she did not feel it suited her at all. The wig was a vanity she readily admitted to, but she cared not who knew as long as no one she considered important saw her own naturally steely locks. Once the hairpiece was affixed atop her head, she stood up, and Velvet helped her sovereign into a beautiful white velvet chamber robe embroidered with gold threads and pearls.

“Thank you, child,” murmured Elizabeth kindly to Velvet. “I am so very glad to have you with me.”

Bess held the door open as the queen passed through into the Maiden’s Chamber. Robert Devereux knelt and, taking the queen’s hand, kissed it.

“Madame,” he said, his voice low and choked. “Madame, I do not know how to tell you this without hurting you, and hurting you is the one thing I would not do.”

Elizabeth Tudor stiffened. “Say on, my lord, for your procrastinating will make it no easier.”

“I have come to you from my mother at Cornbury. She wishes you to know that her husband, my stepfather, Lord Dudley, departed this life on September fourth. She said I was to tell you it was a peaceful death, and that Lord Dudley’s last thoughts were of Your Majesty.” Essex caught at the hem of the queen’s gown and kissed it fervently. “God forgive me for having to be the one to bring you this news, for I shall never forgive myself.”

For a long moment Elizabeth Tudor stood very still and remained very quiet. She was whiter than her gown, and Velvet was almost afraid that the queen would die right where she stood, seemingly rooted to the floor.

Then Elizabeth Tudor took a deep breath and said in a tight, controlled voice, “Get up, Essex.” When he had risen, she continued, “I forgive you, for someone had to tell me, and I had as lief it was you. Now leave me, all of you!” Then, turning, she moved swiftly back into her private closet.

“Come along.” Bess Throckmorton hurried them all from the Maiden’s Chamber, but not swiftly enough, for they all heard the sound of Elizabeth Tudor’s bitter weeping. Shock coursed through them for never in the memory of anyone present had the queen been heard to cry.

It was said that though Elizabeth was sorry about the Earl of Leicester’s death, no one else was. The court was too worried over their sovereign’s grief, however, to stop and mourn even had they had the desire to do so. The queen locked herself in her rooms for some days, weeping until her eyes were virtually swollen shut and vastly irritated by the salt from her tears. Food was brought in upon trays only to be taken out barely touched as the ladies-in-waiting and the Maids of Honor huddled, whispering worriedly, with the queen’s councillors in the palace corridors.

Finally, when several days had passed, and the queen was still prostrate with her grief, Lord Burghley’s concern for Elizabeth Tudor overcame his respect for the privacy of the woman he had served for more than thirty years. Pounding on her bedchamber door, he shouted, “Madame, you must cease your grieving now! I understand your sorrow, but it will not bring my lord of Leicester back to life again, and it would pain him to know that you neglect your duties in this way!”

“He would love every minute of her grief,” muttered Ralegh irreverently.

Lord Burghley sent Sir Walter a fierce look, effectively silencing him. “Madame, I beg you,” William Cecil continued.

“You must give up your sorrow now. We need you. England needs you!”

There was no sound from within the queen’s closet now, and after a few moments Lord Burghley took it upon himself to order the door broken down. It was the smashing of the wood that finally brought the queen to her senses. Rising from her bed, she admitted her ladies into the room. She was queen of England, and there was no further time for sorrow. She would have to face the rest of her days without her
sweet Robin.

Her grief was stirred afresh however, several weeks later when the Earl of Leicester’s will was read. In it he wrote:

First of all, and above all persons, it is my duty to remember my most dear and gracious Princess, whose creature under God I have been and who hath been a most bountiful and princely mistress to me.