The Dark Lady's Mask

by Mary Sharratt

  “You and Francis must come live with us now,” Mother said to Angela. “There’s plenty of room and you’ve a baby on the way. I’ll sleep with Aemilia, and you and Francis shall have the marriage bed.”

  Mother was inviting that devil into their home, into Papa’s bed, and Papa was not an hour in his grave. Even Mistress Locke frowned at Mother and pursed her lips as if swallowing some rebuke.

  “Come, poppet,” Mother said in a too-bright voice, holding her arm out to Aemilia. “Let’s go home.”

  Aemilia only stared at her mother. How could she ever forgive her? It was Mother who insisted that Angela wed Master Holland with all speed. Mother had invited him into their home, offered him their best wine, and would have handed over Papa’s savings had she been able to find them. She was that hoodwinked. With Papa gone, there was nothing more to stop her. Master Holland would take Papa’s place as master of the house. He would destroy them as he had destroyed Angela.

  You will never be driven from this house, Papa had promised her, her father who had been banished from his own home at the age of nine, his beloved villa in Bassano with the fresco of apes and goats. But Aemilia knew she must flee or be ruined.

  When, for the second time, Mother reached out to her, Aemilia cleaved to Mistress Locke. But she met her mother’s gaze without flinching. She let her anger shine like a torch.

  ASTRIDE A FAT LITTLE chestnut mare, Aemilia gazed down the long highway.

  “Child, don’t let your heart be broken.” Anne Locke’s voice was as gentle as a feather caressing Aemilia’s cheek as they rode toward Lincolnshire. “Your father is with God now.” The lady’s voice swelled in conviction. “He is truly part of the Elect.”

  Papa’s mask fooled even Mistress Locke, Aemilia marveled even as she splintered in grief.

  The way to Grimsthorpe seemed to stretch on forever. So much open countryside with so few buildings—Aemilia felt impossibly exposed. Nowhere left to hide. She had never been so far from home. Still, she exulted to think how she had escaped living under the same roof as Master Holland.

  Thomas Vaughan rode with them, as did Mistress Locke’s grown son, Henry. Both men were armed with swords and rapiers in case they should meet villains on the Queen’s Highway. The mere thought of that made Aemilia want to curl into a tiny ball. This was her fifth day in the saddle and every inch of her was sore.

  Refined ladies rode aside, Anne Locke had explained, to look elegant while showing off their elegant gowns, which was all very well for solemn, slow processions, such as when the Queen rode in progress. But only a vain idiot, she swore, would ride long distances perched sideways in a saddle with both feet resting on a planchet and no way to properly grip the horse with the legs. Aemilia wrapped her aching calves around Bathsheba, the little mare.

  “You will adore Lady Susan,” Mistress Locke told her. “She has no children, poor soul, but she’ll love you as though you were her own. You’ll be a balm to her loneliness, just as she’ll be a balm to yours. She’ll teach you Latin, Greek, and French.”

  For the first time since Papa’s death, an ember of hope flickered inside Aemilia.

  “Then I can truly be a poet,” she said, lifting her face to Anne Locke’s. “Just like you. Madam,” she added, remembering her manners.

  The lady beamed like the sun. “Make your father proud, love. He’s watching you from heaven.”

  Her words warmed Aemilia even as they made her shiver. From that moment, Papa’s lingering spirit became her invisible guardian angel. She took comfort in telling herself that Papa would never truly abandon her.

  Though Mistress Locke was stout and no longer young, she was nimble in the saddle. Ichabod, her tall gray gelding, seemed to worship her as fervently as Aemilia did. Mistress Locke only had to twitch her little finger down the reins to bring him down from a gallop to a halt.

  As Bathsheba and Ichabod walked shoulder to shoulder, Mistress Locke smiled at Aemilia in a way that made tears of devotion prick the back of her eyes. You are my savior! But if she dared say that, Mistress Locke would accuse her of blasphemy.

  “Mark my words,” Anne Locke said. “Your sister’s a fool. A pity your poor father couldn’t make her see reason.”

  Thinking of Angela, whom she had left behind, possibly forever, made Aemilia’s throat clench in pain.

  “All women must marry,” the lady continued, “but don’t lose your head the way your sister did. A woman cannot set her sights on a husband alone. Look at me—I’m twice widowed. Yet here I am, riding to Lincolnshire! In the dark days of Queen Mary, I was forced to leave my husband and flee the country.”

  Papa fled his country, too, Aemilia wanted to tell her. But unlike Papa, Anne Locke had been able to return to her home.

  “Though I pleaded and pleaded, my husband would not come with me,” Mistress Locke went on. “He feared that if we left our property and land, the Crown would confiscate it, so he risked his very life, for his convictions were as strong as mine. But I fled with our children and Catherine Willoughby—Lady Susan’s mother, my dearest friend in all the world. Both Catherine and I were with child.”

  A pregnant woman running away without her husband! If only Angela were so bold.

  “Those were desperate times, child. Thank Providence you were not yet born. The Duchess and I both bore our babes on the Continent, and I so far from my husband. Without Catherine, I would have been a lost soul. Remember this, my dear, you must cherish your own sex.”

  Mistress Locke smiled as though she could hardly wait to rejoin her beloved friend, leaving Aemilia to wonder if under Susan Bertie’s patronage she, too, might forge such a deep bond. If only she could befriend a girl her own age to replace the part of her heart that Angela had left so broken and empty.

  “Of course, the whole affair would have been a shameful scandal had I not fled for John Knox’s sake!” Mistress Locke blushed when she said his name. “He was a fiery one. Some say he hates women. Indeed, the Queen despises him because he wrote The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regimen of Women. But he seemed to have a special fondness for me. In fact, it was he who introduced me to the great Jean Calvin and proposed that I translate his sermons.”

  Mistress Locke left England as a refugee and returned as a poet and translator! While Aemilia was lost in her admiration, they reached a long grassy stretch beside the highway.

  “We’re making good progress,” Thomas Vaughan said. “Tomorrow, if the weather holds, we’ll reach Grimsthorpe.”

  Mistress Locke turned to Aemilia. “Are you ready to spread your wings, my dear, and try a gallop? We’ll take it nice and steady.”

  Only yesterday Aemilia would have cringed, but now she nodded, fire in her heart. She took firm hold of the reins and they were off, flying up the grassy track, Bathsheba sticking close to Ichabod’s side. Her ears pricked forward in glee, the mare moved like a wave beneath Aemilia, carrying her so fast that the wind roared in her ears. On and on, Aemilia rode, aching but free.

  TOWARD EVENING THE FOLLOWING day, they reached Grimsthorpe’s gatehouse. The gatekeeper’s son set off at a gallop to inform their hosts of their arrival while Mistress Locke and her retinue made more leisurely progress up the Four Mile Riding that led to the castle. The avenue was shaded on both sides by ancient double-planted oak trees.

  “Soon you shall see one of the greatest houses in the realm,” Mistress Locke said. “Parts of it are more than three centuries old, but rest assured, you shall find every comfort there. Old King Henry once stayed here. It was he who bequeathed the estate to Catherine Willoughby’s father, the Baron Willoughby de Eresby, when he married Katherine of Aragon’s lady-in-waiting, a Spaniard named Maria de Salinas.”

  So their hostess was half foreign, Aemilia thought. Just like me.

  “Catherine was her father’s only surviving child, so she inherited Grimsthorpe. Her first husband, the Duke of Suffolk, was the widower of King Henry’s younger sister, Mary. That meant her children by him were in lin
e for the throne. Alas, both those boys died.”

  Aemilia’s hands slackened on the reins to think how powerful this family was, so intimately connected to the Tudors. What if they didn’t like her? Her heart beat in alarm when she remembered that Mistress Locke would soon ride back to London, leaving her in this household of strangers.

  Bathsheba, pestered by the flies, buried her face in Ichabod’s swishing tail.

  “Catherine married her present husband, Richard Bertie, for love,” Mistress Locke continued. “He joined her when they fled into exile. Lady Susan was only an infant, and her brother Peregrine was born on the Continent.”

  “Peregrine?” Aemilia tried not to laugh.

  “He was born in terra peregrina—in a foreign land.” Mistress Locke smiled. “I was there in the chamber in Wesel, Germany, holding Catherine’s hand whilst she was birthing him. I gave him his first bath.”

  The thought of her hostess’s son and heir as a naked babe in Anne Locke’s arms made Aemilia less afraid.

  “Lady Susan is the Earl of Kent’s widow, but because they had no children, she was not allowed to live on as the mistress of her late husband’s estate. She’s far too young and pretty to spend the rest of her days in her mother’s house, yet she dares not remarry without the Queen’s leave. She also fears Her Majesty might arrange a match not to her liking.”

  WHEN THEY EMERGED FROM the Four Mile Riding, Aemilia cried out to see Grimsthorpe Castle gleaming golden pink in the evening sun while its countless glass windows glittered. With its towers, gables, turrets, and crenulations, it was magnificent.

  The castle was ringed in gardens enclosed in yew hedges. Aemilia glimpsed roses of every hue, their perfume heavenly as they rode past gushing fountains and ornamental pools. The scent of honeysuckle and jasmine wafted toward them. Bathsheba snorted and pinned her ears back at the sight of a topiary bear.

  As they approached the grand entrance of the castle, the little mare nickered and trotted forward in her eagerness. Like Mistress Locke, Bathsheba had made this journey before and she knew they had finally reached their destination. The household stood at attention to greet their guests, but Bathsheba turned her dappled rump on their august company and rushed straight into the arms of the waiting groom who would take her to her thick straw bed and give her a generous measure of oats.

  Before Aemilia could blink, strong hands gripped her waist and lifted her down from the saddle. She gazed up at a grinning face haloed by auburn hair. Without a backward glance, Bathsheba clip-clopped away with the groom, leaving Aemilia gaping at a young gentleman with dazzling gray eyes.

  “So you are my sister’s new charge,” he said, setting her on the ground. He wasn’t much taller than Papa had been, but his dove gray doublet and white ruff were immaculate while her skirt and sleeves were coated in dust.

  Helplessly, she looked to Anne Locke only to see her flinging her stout body into the open arms of a slender lady. The pair of them laughed and wept at once, then they kissed each other while Mistress Locke’s brother and son stood on, as though not knowing what to do with themselves. Never had Aemilia thought to see English ladies behaving in such a manner. Anyone would think they were Italian.

  “Here she is!” the young man sang out, taking Aemilia by the hand. “Your little donna.”

  A young woman in rustling dark taffeta stepped forward and solemnly bent her face to hers. “You must be Aemilia. Mistress Locke says you’re very clever. I hope you shall be happy here.”

  “My Lady Susan!” Aemilia curtsied so low that her forehead grazed the gravel.

  Susan, Dowager Countess of Kent, was twenty-three years old and astonishingly beautiful. Her complexion was pearly, like the inside of a shell, but her eyes were dark hazel and her hair, the color of polished mahogany.

  “I believe you’ve already met my brother,” she said with a smile.

  “My Lord Willoughby,” Aemilia murmured, for that was the title by which Mistress Locke said she must address him.

  Before she could launch herself into another groveling curtsy, Susan took her hand and held her upright. “We call him Perry. No need to bow and scrape and call him lord. His head is quite big enough already.”

  “Aemilia is far too long a name for a child,” said Perry. “I’ll call you Amy.”

  Amy. In one stroke, he made her English.

  “So this is the child.” Catherine Willoughby approached, her arms still entwined with Anne Locke’s.

  “My Lady Suffolk.” Aemilia curtsied before her as though she were the Queen.

  When she looked up again, she saw a kindly face etched with fine wrinkles.

  “My husband sends his apologies,” Catherine said. “He’s abroad, buying broodmares.”

  “Come,” Susan said. “We must show you to your room.”

  AEMILIA PEERED OUT THE diamond-paned window of her new bedchamber, which overlooked the ornamental herb gardens. The windows had been left open to allow the scents to waft in—aromas that brought back memories of sitting with Papa in his garden sanctuary. But before she could dissolve into tears, Anne Locke bustled into the room.

  “Let’s get you washed, child.”

  Aemilia put on a quick smile for Mistress Locke, who scrubbed her until she thought her skin would come off. Then the lady opened the saddlebag that contained Aemilia’s few garments. Only her best Sunday gown, nearly outgrown, was anywhere near presentable, never mind that it was dark blue wool, far too warm and heavy for this sultry summer evening. But it would have to do.

  “Susan will see to it that you get some decent clothes,” Mistress Locke said. “She’ll pass her older garments on and alter them to fit you. And she’ll give that thing you’re wearing now to the servants’ children.”

  Aemilia smarted. This, her Sunday dress, was the best garment she’d ever owned, that Papa had worked so hard to provide, and Mistress Locke said it was just a rag, only fit for underlings to wear. Though she was no aristocrat like Catherine Willoughby, Anne Locke’s father, brother, and late husband had been prosperous merchants. Born to wealth and plenty, she’d a fine gown of blue-gray lawn and slippers made of kid.

  Mistress Locke whisked her down a grand flight of marble stairs. Craning her neck to gape at the paintings on the wall, Aemilia nearly lost her footing and tumbled headfirst.

  “Deport yourself, my dear,” Mistress Locke said. “You must act like a young lady. You’re very lucky that they are inviting you to share their table. In most households, children your age are left to eat with the servants.”

  AEMILIA HAD EXPECTED TO dine in a stuffy room, seated at a long linen-draped table, but instead, owing to the weather, the Willoughby clan supped in the rose garden, their feast illumined by lanterns, torches, and the rising moon.

  Servants, as silent and swift as the bats darting overhead, delivered trays of the delicacies Catherine Willoughby deemed appropriate for a late supper. Roasted pheasant and salads; a pie made of larks; crayfish and carp; breast of veal; custard tarts; strawberries and green figs; apricots and almonds. They sipped Rhenish wine as pale as the moonlight.

  Mindful of Mistress Locke’s admonition to act like a young lady, Aemilia struggled to ignore her ravenous hunger and follow the example of her table companions who only sampled each dish, leaving most of the food on their plates. The leftovers, she learned, would be eaten by the servants while any remaining food would be given to the poor.

  Lanterns bathed the Willoughbys’ faces in gold, making her hosts seem like magical beings, their laughter mingling with the night sounds of barking foxes and the wind in the oaks.

  Catherine Willoughby practiced her French with Anne Locke, telling stories in that language that sent them both into spasms of laughter. While Thomas Vaughan and Henry Locke conversed with Lady Susan, Perry insisted on speaking Italian with Aemilia. Her heart exploded in joy, for she never thought to hear Papa’s tongue in her new home.

  She pointed to the porcelain dish of love apples set as decoration on the table. “
Papa grew pomodori in his garden. He even ate them. I ate one once. It was delicious!”

  “Don’t do that here, or you’ll shock my mother,” said Perry, though he did not seem shocked at all. “I was your age when I first set foot on English soil. That makes me a foreigner. I feel as much at home in Europe as I do here.”

  “My brother speaks fluent French, Dutch, German, and Italian,” Susan said, drawing the conversation back into English. “He’s bound for a career in diplomacy.”

  “That is if I don’t marry a rich heiress and live off her money while frittering away my days hunting and hawking,” Perry said.

  His words made Aemilia think of Francis Holland. It was as though a dead, rotting pigeon had been hurled in the middle of the lovely feast table, spoiling everything with its stench. What if Perry was no better than the brother-in-law she had fled?

  “Don’t look so miserable, Amy,” he said, touching her wrist. “I was only joking. Do you think the great Catherine Willoughby would suffer an idle son?”

  “Perry’s betrothed to Mary de Vere,” Susan said, “who has a tongue sharp enough to break your arm. I doubt she’ll suffer any nonsense from him either.”

  Perry turned to Aemilia, stretching out his palms in entreaty. “Pity me, gentle Amy, for I am held captive by a tribe of Amazons!”

  Ignoring her brother’s jibe, Susan reached for Aemilia’s hand. “Child, you mustn’t take my brother too seriously.”

  Perry nodded. “Indeed, Susan is the serious one. Not me. The sternest and most serious school mistress you’ll ever meet. You’ll go blind from all the Latin and Greek she’ll make you read.”

  Aemilia could not keep herself from gazing at Susan as though she were a goddess. She would worship her forever! Brother and sister smiled at her, their kindness warming her as tangibly as the heat from the torches that ringed the table.