Jeane Westin

by The Virgin's Daughters (v5)

  His laughing scorn was high-pitched, and the strange sound chilled her. “What does it matter?” he asked, untying the top of his shirt. “I will take him to Ireland with me and put him in the front rank.”

  Mary was truly frightened now. This lord would see John killed for righting his mistake and gaining in honor. When she turned to look for another door, Essex stepped very close.

  She could not keep the contempt from her low, withering tone. “What you cannot win by wager, you would take by force. That is unworthy of your rank and the queen’s trust.”

  His face reddened. “You dare to question my right? I have had four of the queen’s ladies, and all of higher rank than you.”

  Four? She had heard only three.

  Essex’s voice grated against her ear. “You have insulted me, mistress, before the court. You must pay for that with the only coin you possess.”

  She opened her mouth to scream, but as she drew breath, he laughed. “Scream if you will. No one will come against me.”

  One long arm snaked around her shoulder; his other hand fumbled at her breast, his fingers trying to rip away her shift. More terrified than she had ever been in her life, she shoved him with all her strength and he crashed back against the outer door.

  He regained his footing, but his face twisted into an angry mask.

  Mary shrank back, certain that she was lost. His next words and actions confirmed her worst dread.

  “You will be quiet and giving to me,” he announced, his softened voice even more alarming. His hand pulled at his breeches and he exposed his upstanding cock. “If you say a word of the prize I am about to take, I will say that I came upon you and John . . . that you had bewitched him. Would you like to burn, Mistress Mary of the closestool?”

  He moved toward her, pushing her toward the bed in short, disdainful thrusts. At his final shove, she caught her heel on a carpet and was thrown on her back into silk sheets that allowed her no easy grip for escape.

  She pleaded, desperate and hoping to engage his mind. “Why, my lord, when so many are willing?”

  He laughed. “You are a stupid little flirt. What true man does not want what he cannot have . . . and takes it?” He was on her, breathing hard, as if in a fight for his life.

  The stale odor of wine enveloped her, and her shaking body no longer obeyed the commands of her head. His weight bore down on her as he fumbled with her skirts. Frantically, she twisted beneath him; clenching her legs together, she beat upon his back, but he was too strong and knelt upon her shoulders, pinning her to silk, his cock dangling over her face. She wanted to weep for frustration, but her hot tears dried before they fell. She wanted to scream, but her throat closed on the strangled sound. She knew that she was ruined; even John would see her as damaged, and she groaned, a desperate sound rising from her very soul.

  Dimly, she heard shouts in the outer chamber. Sounds of sword against sword.

  The door flew open, crashing back against the paneled wall. John ran in, sword drawn. Praise God! He stopped, seeing Essex atop Mary. Doubt replaced anger. “Mistress, are you here of your free will?” His voice was choked with regret.

  “John! Help me!” It was a wail.

  He started forward. “My lord, I suggest you take your exercise upon the tennis court.” He smiled as if it were all a jest.

  Essex had twisted about for a better view. For a moment he hesitated, then spoke, attempting his old casual manner. “Come join in, John. I was always a man to share with my friends.”

  “Please, John!” It was a rising cry, breathless and frantic.

  “Release her, my lord.”

  Essex growled. “Away, sir. I’ll have no interference here.” But as John moved forward, Essex scrambled up, allowing Mary to pull down her gown and roll out of his bed, swaying, stumbling, trembling, but determined not to give in to tears of relief beyond measure.

  Essex laughed. “John, the little whore came to me . . . begged me to take her, I swear.”

  “It’s a monstrous lie.” Mary breathed deeply again and ran to John. “As I know you have regard for your honor, take me from this place.”

  John sheathed his sword. “How came you here, mistress?”

  He was suspicious of her, and that was infuriating. “Unwillingly!” She shrieked the word at him. “His servants dragged me into his chamber when I was returning to the queen’s rooms.”

  Essex pretended to laugh and dismissed her words with a disdainful shrug. “John, you know I can have better fare than this. Whom do you believe . . . the man who bestowed your knighthood upon you, or this upstart?”

  John bowed, but his arm went about Mary’s waist. “Whatever the right of it, my lord earl, the lady is now unwilling.”

  “What difference? Women are easily persuaded every day.” Though Essex tried to continue his casual sham, he soon shrugged and waved them away. “Take her and welcome. She is too changeable and unbiddable for me . . . for any true man.”

  John smiled, refusing to be goaded. “My lord of Essex,” he said very formally, bowing and guiding Mary rapidly to the hall door, which was opened by two servants who did not look at them.

  Once they were in the hall, John led her quickly into an adjacent anteroom. She was shaking now, unable to stop. “Sit down,” he said firmly, but not unkindly, escorting her to a fireside bench. “Straighten your gown and ruff.” His hand gently brushed the hair from her face.

  She forced herself to stop her hands jerking like those of one with ague. John waited while a question nagged at her, and she had to assure herself that John had not known what Essex planned. “How came you to look for me in Essex’s chambers?”

  “You were not with the queen, not in the dining hall where Lady Warwick told me to look for you.” He glanced away, then back and full into her eyes. “Long experience told me where next to look.”

  She believed him, but she had to know one last thing. “You don’t believe that I—”

  “No, I don’t believe Essex. Since his quarrel with Her Majesty, he is unlike himself.”

  “In that you are wrong, John,” she said, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath. “He sees the world as he wishes it to be. He threatened to put you in the forward line in Ireland.”

  “Do you care so much for my life, Mary?”

  She avoided an answer. “How could Her Majesty love such a man as Essex?”

  John’s eyes grew sad. “She never did love the Essex we just left. He is much changed since he lost some of the queen’s favor and with it his chance for even more advancement. He cannot tolerate losing.”

  “It’s the wager, John. He will see you dead. He can never forgive you for besting him in front of all.”

  “He is wrong in that. I did not best him. . . . I bested myself alone. I will make him understand that.” John moved closer, bent and searched her face, his next words much softer. “Though I cannot make you understand.”

  Mary gave him her trust. It settled in her upturned face and stopped her quivering hands. Awaking from her own misery, Mary saw that Lady Margaret and one of the queen’s gentleman ushers were passing by and stopped to stare at them with interest.

  Rising, Mary excused herself. “Sir John, I thank you most heartily for your rescue of me,” she said formally, curtsied, nodded to Lady Margaret and walked swiftly toward the queen’s apartments. Her mind was in great confusion, and she dared not look back at the man who had created the most turmoil. Not until she could think of what more to say. Or not to say.

  Some days later a splendidly dressed Essex, backed by his lieutenants, took leave of the queen and the palace to gather his army of sixteen thousand troops and take ship for Ireland. As he left the presence chamber, he seemed to have eyes only for the queen, and Mary was relieved that he had not glanced her way. He probably thought she was too intimidated by his grandeur, and, since she had kept her silence about his assault, he gave her no more thought. True or not, it was a relief to think so.

  Mary was in a position to watch th
e queen’s face as she wished Essex and his troops well with one admonition: “My lord, too much of our treasure and troops have been wasted in raids about the Irish countryside, where they ambush us at every turn. We bid you march directly to the enemy and crush him in his northern lair. Bring us triumph once and for all time.”

  Essex laid his fist over his heart and bowed low. “Majesty, I will bring you that triumph and more . . . an end to the Irish troubles.”

  Mary stared at his face for any sign of his often arrogant disdain for a woman’s generalship, but saw none. She remembered something that John had said: “Ireland is his last chance.” Mary did not wish the lord Essex ill, nor well; she didn’t want to think of him at all.

  Later that day, word of his triumphant exit from the city reached the queen. Crowds, chanting his name, had lined the road for miles out of London, throwing flowers under his horse’s hooves.

  For a moment Mary thought she saw displeasure flit across Elizabeth’s face. In the ladies’ antechamber she mentioned what she’d observed to Lady Warwick.

  “You see far too much, mistress,” Anne chided, though she smiled to soften the words. “Londoners have always belonged to Her Majesty since her first Accession Day. She dislikes their adoration of a handsome young lord who has so recently challenged her in a way her father would never have allowed. Indeed, Henry would have had his head on a pike above London Bridge within a day and his quartered, treasonous body hanging on the city gates.”

  Mary shuddered. She didn’t wish that fate on her worst enemy, though she realized that Essex was probably just that. He would not forget her rejection. She had denied his manhood, questioned his famous appeal to women and gone from him willingly with another man. And she would do it again.

  As was her duty, Mary inspected the queen’s private jakes early every morning after she broke her fast with bread and a little of the queen’s favorite tart ale. The new water closet adjacent to the old closestool closet was almost finished.

  Torches flared in the bathing chamber, lighting John, his shirt-sleeves rolled high, as he directed a crew of workmen, his plans spread on a tool-laden table.

  Curious, she bent to see the neat drawings. He was an accomplished draftsman. While she was engrossed he walked to her side, reaching with a finger to point as he explained. She was aware that his hands were dirty and also that they looked the stronger for it.

  “See, mistress, here is the cistern of water that releases into the jakes below. This is the scallop shell to cover the pipe from the jakes into the vault when not in use.”

  Mary looked up and smiled at him. “It is a most ingenious plan, John, especially when the queen does so hate terrible odors. With all the herbs in England, I cannot rid the closestool of its foulness.”

  He moved closer until his warm breath reached her. “Always remember to have the grooms empty the vault at noon and night and leave it half a foot deep in freshwater.” His face was very close to hers now. “This being well done, Her Majesty’s water closet will be as sweet as her bedchamber. And you will seem to my godmother the more lovable for it . . . as you seem to me now.”

  Mary looked up at him as his voice became smoother and softer. She was not alarmed and realized at once that she now trusted him above any man. It had been a gradual change, resolved completely by his rescue of her and added to each day since.

  He was too close, his voice too intense. She tried to move away, but her feet did not obey her head. She searched for another subject. “Your water closet is truly a marvelous invention, Sir John,” she said, motioning to the draft plans. “You will surely be famous.” She saw he was pleased.

  “Aye, every manor of consequence will have a John Harington jakes.”

  She smiled slyly. “Much too long a name for a convenience.”

  He joined in the game. “What then? A John?”

  She blushed. “Perhaps.”

  John’s mouth twisted in amusement. “ ’Tis a strange subject, indeed, for a man who wishes to court a maid.”

  She drew her hand away because he had laid his over hers. “There is no path to courtship for us.”

  “There are many paths, Mary, and I will find the right one for us. Believe me.” He sobered. “Come to the privet maze before supper so that we may make our farewells.”

  “Farewell?”

  “I leave tomorrow at first light . . . for Ireland.”

  “But, John—”

  “The maze . . . in the hour before supper,” he repeated, and stepped away to talk with his workmen, who had only pretended not to listen.

  At four of the afternoon, with sunlight slanting in low from the west, Mary, wrapped in her cloak, walked along the garden path toward the tall ancient yew maze . . . to tell John why she couldn’t meet him. The stone benches at the entrance were empty. He was nowhere to be seen.

  As she reached the opening to the green maze topped with quickly melting snow, a long arm reached out and pulled her against a male chest. A man’s mouth under a neat mustache met her lips and kissed her gently.

  It was their first kiss that she’d dreamed of when she’d lost her senses so far as to dream of it. His mouth was warm. As his pressure increased, her mouth opened and she felt what she hadn’t known to feel as a dreamer: heat rushing into her body, a melting weakness in her legs, a longing to come impossibly close.

  John broke free first, though his arms held her fast. “After our first victory against Tyrone, I will write to the queen for her consent; then I will write to your grandfather.”

  Mary shook her head helplessly. “I cannot leave the queen.” She shivered. “Her Majesty has said she will find a husband for me in her good time.”

  He held her closer. “She will offer you to one of her doddering old Howard or Carey cousins.” He withdrew his arms and paced away, then back again, scuffing the withered sod.

  She missed the warmth of his lips and the weight of his arms, leaning in to retrieve them. They were soon returned to her.

  “Do you love me, Mary?”

  “John, this cannot be. I will not taunt a good man.”

  “Too late. I am a better man by your example. . . . Your loyalty and courage . . . And your beauty taunts me every day. There is no other lady—”

  She had to stop him before she was lost in what he said, in his face, in the curve of his mouth. “Sir John, that news will distress so many ladies in this court.”

  He did not smile. “I no longer deserve my former reputation. You may be the last woman in the court to know I am a new man . . . your man.”

  Repentance overwhelmed her. “Forgive me, John; you do not deserve any further censure from me. . . .” She tried to harden her resolve and step away. “I must go. I have forgotten what the queen demands of me. Speak no more of marriage. It cannot be.”

  Footsteps crunched on the path outside the maze.

  He pulled her into his arms again, close against his rough military clothes, covering her completely with his cloak. “But if it could be,” he whispered.

  The footsteps paused at the maze entrance and then receded into the distance.

  “John . . .” She tried not to say more, but the words insisted. “Dearest John, I must return to the queen’s chambers before I am missed or we are discovered.” Yet her feet refused to move away from his warm shelter.

  He laughed softly. “I could tell them that I found you freezing and revived you.”

  “Do I look revived?” she asked, feeling the warmth in her flaming cheeks. Where did her coquetry come from? she wondered. She had thought herself unpracticed, but with John she had words that meant more than they said.

  “You look as I will remember you, Mary, Mary, quite contrary, when I am in Ireland, beautiful and very much alive.” He grinned. “But not quite so vigorous as I am . . . deep in a part.”

  He lifted her against his body and she clutched at his arms, enough heat surging through her to melt snow. Mary was so close to sin she shook with it, and dared not cling to him longer.
And he knew it, his body matching hers for warmth.

  With her last strength, she broke away and ran back through the garden now darkening with early-winter night, then slowed herself to stroll into the palace as if she had been casually taking the air without other intent. She dared not turn around to see if he followed. If he did, there was no earthly way she would not run back to him to tell of her discovery, a secret she must keep for now and perhaps for all time.

  Yes, yes, she thought, her lips moving with the words. I love him, adore him, want him forever. She tried to bring her feet solidly to the marble floor to feel again the reality of a world where Queen Elizabeth ruled, Gloriana, a woman who had long denied love and had forgotten . . . must have forgotten how wounding it was for mortal woman to live without a man like John Harington.

  When she reached the queen’s apartments, Mary was outwardly the same as when she had left and quickly took up her duties, but she was in truth much changed. When she walked into the queen’s bath to check the water closet John had made for Elizabeth, Mary saw him at his workbench, though it was no longer there. She looked away and still she saw him. His image was captured for all time inside her head.

  About midnight, she went to her bed, blew out her candle and slipped beneath the coverlet, her eyes wide. She slept little that night, and as early light crept into the room, she heard the clatter of horses in the courtyard outside. John was leaving. She held her breath and waited, almost hoping to hear him shout that he had changed his mind and could not leave. But all she heard was receding hoofbeats. She covered her ears lest the sound set her to howling.

  Dear God, keep him safe, she prayed again and again until she rose to her duties, the cold days stretching ahead without end.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  AT THE COURT OF GREENWICH FROM HER MAJESTY TO THE EARL OF ESSEX: “. . . if you compare the time that is run on and the excessive charges that are spent with the effects of anything wrought by this voyage . . . (we) can little please ourself with what has been effected.”