Girard sat silent a moment longer, watching Mary muddle through her thoughts. “Mary, you are beautiful. Your eyes sparkle. Your smile is contagious even though you always try to hide it because you think you have too many teeth. Your dark hair is silky and thick—”
“Girard, it almost sounds like you are describing yourself,” Mary interrupted with a playful laugh.
“True, in which case I should add stylish and charming. Oh yes—talented.” Mary nodded her agreement, not sure whether or not Girard had included her in that description. “But my point is that you are a very eligible young lady, fortune withstanding. Why do you never engage in courtships? Or even flirtations?”
“If you think I do not flirt, you must be quite dense—I flirt with you all the time,” Mary jested in response, but she knew what he meant. More to the point, he knew she understood his tack.
“You stay in your mistress’s shadow. You cannot live your life content with simply being a noblewoman’s companion. Surely you should do something for yourself. Why not behave badly with a young man?” He sat beside her on the bed, all semblance of joking put aside. “You are six and twenty? Practically an old woman.” He smiled and winked. “What have you got to lose?”
With an exaggerated sigh and a determination to bring the conversation back into the realm of playful jests, Mary began, “Very well. For you, I will behave badly tonight.”
“No! That is just my point. Behave badly or don’t. Either way, do it for yourself—not for someone else’s sake.” Girard took her hands as he looked into her eyes—she could see his genuine concern. Though the conversation was uncomfortable, it was nice to have someone caring for her needs. “Just remember, it is Christmastide and an excellent excuse to do whatever you wish, be it to eat an excess of marchepane, dress up as the ambassador from Sweden, or steal a kiss in the dark with a stranger. Now is the time when no one will notice because they will be doing the exact same thing.” Girard squeezed gently and then let go of Mary’s hands as the serious moment passed and he returned to his playful self. “So, who was the gentleman from last night? And what exactly do you mean when you say did not ‘very’ behave badly? Details, if you please.”
“Very well.” In the time Mary took to consider what she would and would not discuss, Girard had risen and crossed the room. “Since you do not wish to share your story with the dearest friend you have . . . Well, that is in the room right now. And named Girard.” With one long-fingered hand, he gestured grandly to himself, adding to his overall extreme silliness. “You leave me no alternative but to be on my way to a more welcoming lady.”
Girard left the room with a swooping bow.
Not quite sure what to think of everything Girard had said, Mary rose and summoned a girl to help her dress for the day. For now, she would keep her head out of the clouds and attend to Lady Oxford . . . Anne. She would be the friend she was at the palace to be. She would consider her own needs later, though it was yet to be determined whether or not she actually had needs of her own. She wished she could talk this over with Frances and Jane. They would love Girard, and Jane would tease her about the kiss and have some crass things to say about Oxford. Frances would offer some practical wisdom. She missed them and, not for the first time, questioned her decision to stay behind. Even if she wrote them, she wouldn’t have a response until the Christmas festivities were over and, by then, she’d be heading back to them anyway.
With a quick glance to ensure her appearance was immaculate, Mary opened the door leading from her chamber into Lady Oxford’s antechamber and wardrobe.
“Mary!” Lady Oxford sat up with a squeal. “Did you dance? Were the dresses spectacular? Did they serve honeyed almonds? Was the Queen in attendance?” Anne bounded up to her knees and clutched the quilt to her cheek, nuzzling it. “Did you have a dalliance? Please tell me everything.”
Mary sat down on the edge of the bed with a laugh. “I had a wonderful time. I have never seen the court so grand. I did not see any honeyed almonds.” She smiled to herself, considering whether or not she should tell Anne.
Just then, Anne’s face blanched and she covered her mouth. Scrambling from the bed, she kneeled on the ground beside her chamber pot and retched.
“Oh, Anne.” Mary found a damp cloth and moved to kneel on the floor beside her friend. Gently patting the back of Anne’s neck with the cool compress, Mary pulled loose tendrils away from Anne’s face. “What can I do to help?”
Anne had no response as her body heaved again. Both ladies sat in silence for a moment before Anne was ready to get up. A servant came to fetch the basin, and Mary offered Anne the towel to clean her face. “Nothing. You can do nothing to help,” Anne heaved again. “Go away. I do not like to be seen like this. You serve no purpose.”
Mary smiled and laid a hand against Anne’s back, rubbing soothing circles. “No practical purpose, I suppose. I just remember how alone I felt . . . ”
Anne interrupted harshly. “Our situations are entirely different. I am not alone. I have a husband. I have a family. I want this baby . . . ” Anne immediately looked abashed at her words. “Oh Mary! I’m so sorry. I do not mean to be unkind. It’s a wonder you stayed with me.”
Mary forced a smile and stilled her temper before it could flare. She tried not to think of the baby she might have had. She tried not to think of the child, always a daughter in her imagination, who would be just months old. Stifling thoughts of the past and focusing on the future was the only way Mary knew how to cope. How could Anne throw the memories in her face? What did Anne know about what she had gone through? At least Mary had loved the father of her babe, and he had loved her. And she had wanted her baby. Desperately.
“I know you do not mean anything by it. It will take more than a few harsh words to push me away.” Mary tried to keep the edge out of her voice. “I know that pregnancy wreaks havoc on emotions.” Her feelings may have been hurt, but Anne was the one wiping vomit off her chin. What she needed now was kindness, compassion. She had to remember that Anne, though a countess, was still so very young.
Anne collected herself. No trace of the fear or hatred remained on her face. She was calm and serene as ever. “You are right; I am just overly sensitive.” With that, Anne rose and walked over to the ewer to rinse out her mouth. “You may leave me now. Take the day to recoup from last night. We have to be to chapel in less than an hour. Please send for my ladies.”
It was St. Stephen’s Day. There would be three services. If Mary left now, she could get to one of the palace chapels before the rest of court arrived.
Anne had changed so much. What happened to the trusting young girl Mary remembered? Mary blamed herself enough for her actions with Thomas and then her actions when he was gone—she didn’t know if she could stomach Anne’s judgment. She held her head high as she stepped into the dim gallery to head to the chapel. There would be no priest to hear her confession and no candle to light for her baby’s soul, but she could still try to seek some comfort in prayer. In spite of everything, she did not believe God had abandoned her.
• • •
“Surely last night was not so debauched that you need forgiveness already?” Mary opened her eyes to find Mistress Parry on the pew beside her. With a final sign of the cross, she shifted from her kneeling bench and sat back on the polished wood.
“Last night was the most fun I have had in a long time. I thank you for it.” Mary tried to focus on the merriment of the previous evening instead of the sickness in her heart. Anne’s words had been particularly cruel, but she could only blame herself. “I was on the verge of leaving when I was drawn into the dance.”
“I know. I am glad you stayed. I could not bear to think of you spending the first night of Christmas at court in the company of the young, bitter countess.”
“Anne is my friend. And she is not bitter. At least, she never used to be. Quiet, yes. Studious. Creative.” Mary sighed, sadness for her friend overtaking her own sense of guilt. “I think the change is th
at she used to have hope for her future . . . Now she has none.”
“On the contrary; she hoped for the future she found. She wanted Ned de Vere, and she got him. Foolish woman.”
“I do not know what else I can do to help her.”
“Nothing. You can do nothing.” Mistress Parry’s voice was firm. “You have to stop trying. You cannot take any responsibility for other people’s misery. You look miserable enough—you need to see to yourself.” With a matronly pat on Mary’s knee, Mistress Parry started to rise. “Speaking of seeing to yourself, what did you think of handsome Sir Charles?”
Mary smiled, all the guilt and sadness was gone at the thought of Sir Charles and the previous night. “He was . . . ” Mary had no words to describe him and paused searchingly. Mistress Parry raised a questioning eyebrow, prompting Mary to finish. “I had a wonderful time.”
Mistress Parry sat down and straightened her skirts, making herself comfortable. “So . . . where did you two run off to?”
Mary blushed. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. It seemed so silly, but it was too much to put in words. “I can hardly explain it.”
Mistress Parry laughed. “I see.” Mary could tell Mistress Parry was horribly curious, but holding back. “So, would you like to see him again?”
Yes! She cleared her throat and answered calmly, “I would like to see him, of course. But there’s no point in pursuing anything beyond revelry over Christmastide . . . ”
“I was not suggesting anything more.”
“Oh?” Mary was surprised. She had been certain Mistress Parry was engaging in matchmaking activities. She had a reputation, after all, if her meddling with Frances and Henry LeSieur’s marriage counted.
“No. Sir Charles is not in any position to marry. He has nothing to offer a wife. No name, no home, nothing. At least, not easily attained. He would have to fight for it.” Mistress Parry did not pause to allow Mary to consider the new facts before jumping on her. “But what of you? Do you not wish to marry? You are already getting a little long in the tooth, but you are comely enough that I’m sure you could catch a husband.”
The ridiculous euphoria that came from simply thinking of Sir Charles abruptly vanished. “I can never marry. That is that.”
Mistress Parry gave a dismissive snort. “I can understand you may not wish to marry, but that you cannot? Pray explain.”
That was the difficult question—the answer to which was the heart of the matter: why she had no true home. Why Anne treated her like a leper. Why it could not matter whether or not she saw Sir Charles again. It was time to be out with it. Hopefully Mistress Parry would understand.
Mary drew a deep breath to steel her nerves. “I am not a maid . . . ”
Mistress Parry interrupted with a bark of a laugh. “Ha! Not that they would admit it, but if I chose ten unmarried ladies at random, I’d wager not one among them would be a maid.”
Mary continued in a hushed voice. “Years ago when I was betrothed, I got with child.” It felt strange to say any of it out loud. She had never spoken of it to anyone in such a blunt manner. Anne knew some of it and Jane knew most of it, but she’d never said the entirety aloud. Ever. Somehow it was appropriate that this confession happen in a chapel, if not to a priest. “Thomas, my fiancé, died, and there was nothing left for me but to go home to my parents in Derbyshire.”
Mary straightened her shoulders and drew a deep breath, determined to stay strong and state the facts without embellishment or too many explanations. If she was apologizing for her behavior, she should not try to excuse it at the same time. But was she? She had lived with this guilt for the past year . . . and wasn’t that what a confession was? An apology? Repentance?
“When my father found out I was with child, he made it very clear what I needed to do. I talked to my mother; she said girls did it all the time and were none the worse off. She warned me that Father would never accept a bastard in his family. He would cast me out . . . I could see it in his eyes that he would, that he had already washed his hands of me. I had ruined any chance of marrying well, and that is a daughter’s only worth.” Mary stopped. She was rationalizing again. How many times had she gone over this in her head? How many times had she tried to convince herself that she’d had no other choice? “I agreed and left to meet with the midwife.”
Blanche Parry’s usually serene expression was replaced with a look of pain.
“The woman who provided abortifacients lived in the next village, only an hour or so ride. But the spring rain had been heavy and the roads were rutted and muddy and the river was swollen. I do not remember much of what actually happened. One moment I was leading my horse across the bridge, and the next moment, I was engulfed in a torrent.” Mary remembered the panic—not knowing which way was up or down. The shock of the cold. “I thought I would die. That I should die.”
Mary closed her eyes to block out the memories, but she could not help reliving that moment. The surprise. The absolute dread. She couldn’t breathe. She could feel the vise of freezing water once again, the pain of trying to scream and finding only the burning cold filling her lungs.
Blanche laid a comforting hand on Mary’s shoulder, breaking the spell of the memory. Mary opened her eyes again, thankful to be back in the present. She took a steady breath and focused on the beams of light filtering through the stained glass. She was in the chapel at the palace. She was baring her soul. “When I woke up, I was in a stranger’s home. I had lost the baby.”
“You lost the baby in the accident,” Mistress Parry stated in a solemn voice.
“It doesn’t matter how it happened. Either way, the result was the same.”
“Sweeting.” Mistress Parry had tears in her eyes as she laid a comforting hand over Mary’s fidgeting one. “You cannot say you would have gone through with the decision once you got to the woman’s home. Or maybe you would have, we cannot know. All you know is the choice was taken away from you. You cannot blame yourself.”
“It scares me that I don’t know what I would have done,” Mary continued, adding fire to her words. “My parents looked on the pregnancy as a ‘problem’ . . . but my baby was not a problem. She was a part of Thomas.” Thomas—the sweet young man who had promised to love her forever. The man she had given herself to, whom she had made so happy. “I don’t judge them, you know . . . the girls who have made that decision. People do what they feel they have to do. I just hate the idea that I was ready to do it myself. I loved the baby so much—but I was not brave enough to stand behind that love.” Mary leaned her head against Mistress Parry’s shoulder as the tears came. When had Blanche put her arms around her?
“There now, child. Blanche is here,” Mistress Parry crooned softly, stroking Mary’s hair. “It will feel better to get it out.”
Mary continued to sob, feeling the weight lift from her chest. Anne Cecil only knew that Mary had been pregnant when she left but never had the baby. She must have assumed that Mary used some “remedy.” Which had been her plan, after all. She couldn’t fault Anne for that. Was that why she was so disgusted by her? Anne, barely more than a child in her sheltered, affluent world, had never met someone who’d had to make a difficult choice in order to live. She had only met pampered and promiscuous courtiers who used such methods to cover up their bad behavior—and even then, they did not speak of it.
“When did you come to be in Frances LeSieur’s household?”
“When I awoke after my accident, I found myself in the home of the midwife. She lived in one of the hamlets of the Spencer tenant farmers.” Mary checked her face in Mistress Parry’s small mirror, using a handkerchief to dab away the smudged kohl under her eyes. “The midwife sent for the Countess of Spencer . . . ”
“Who found you a place with her daughter, Frances?” Mistress Parry finished Mary’s story for her. “You have suffered so much loss. I am glad you spoke of it to me. Your fiancé, your baby, your family . . . If I may ask, how did your fiancé die? Consumption?”
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br /> “Oh no.” Mary’s anger flared past her sadness, and she masked it with a bitter laugh. Though she could no longer see Thomas’s face in her memory, the moment she entered the kitchen garden to find him dead was seared into her senses. The mingling scent of earth, crushed mint, and blood. The sound of her own heart pounding in her ears and the soundless scream caught in her throat. The vision of his blood-soaked shirt and the shock in his open eyes, would never leave her. “No, he was killed. Murdered,” she finally answered. “Run through with a sword—by the Earl of Oxford, Ned de Vere, at the Cecils’ house. And yes, Anne knows. They ruled it suicide. Said he ran onto Oxford’s sword, but why? Why? No, I’m certain that Ned de Vere killed Thomas because he saw him as expendable. I can think of no reason except that he did it because he wanted to watch someone die. It sounds unthinkable, but if you know him, it rings true.”
It seemed Blanche Parry was, for the first time in her life, dumbfounded.
Chapter Four
The shutters rattled violently as the winter wind did its best to rip them from their rusted hinges. Charles could hear the howling gusts buffeting the guardhouse. The tall, half-timbered structure sat a courtyard away from Whitehall Palace proper, flanked on one side by stables and the other by a tilt yard. The wind’s attack was futile against the solid stone of the palace, but that seemed only to fuel its fury upon the lesser structure. So far, this morning had given every promise of a miserable day. And he had to get up and venture outside to go to chapel—no one skipped services during the twelve days of Christmas.
Charles fought against waking up fully. He didn’t want to think about his duties for the day just yet. There were just too many things to do in the short hours of winter daylight before the nightly revelries began. Smiling to himself, he remembered last night.
Mary.
She was so like him, alone and depending on merit in order to survive. Content with contentment. Even more than her words, her eyes, her laugh, he remembered the taste of spiced wine on her tongue. The scent of lavender in her hair. The soft sighs of pleasure as she responded and returned his kisses. Who knew that kissing alone could be so wonderful? Charles had only ever considered kissing as a precursor to the main event . . . but kissing Mary had been so sweet.
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