Heart of Gold

by May McGoldrick

  “I can, Robert. And I will,” Elizabeth asserted as she pushed her way around the agitated Highlander. She turned to Robert as she climbed the first step. “Did the baron not specifically order you to see to it that my wishes were followed? Didn’t you hear him say that?”

  “I did, m’lady.”

  “Very well!” Elizabeth turned and started up the steps two at a time toward the top tower room.

  “But wait,” the man called out after a moment’s delay.

  She stopped and took a deep breath. She had to save her full fury for when he reached her. This was the last tower to be looked into. With dozens of workers busily working in the other sections, it was only natural for her to want to extend the effort to this final area of the castle. It was clear to her now, though, how cleverly Robert had contrived to keep her away from this corner of the castle.

  The young warrior had been one of the first loyal friends she’d found at Roxburgh. Having trained years back as the squire for Ambrose’s elder brother, Robert had been with Macpherson family since boyhood. From what Ambrose had told her of the young man, Elizabeth knew Robert to be a prime example of the devotion and the courage that every Highlander aspired to.

  “M’lady. I do need to talk to you about...”

  Elizabeth turned slowly and faced him. Though he stood two steps lower, they were at eye level. “Robert. You haven’t stopped talking since the baron left.”

  “Aye, m’lady. But this is important.” The young man racked his brain for some ideas. “This concerns the time when the baron was on the Isle of Skye with his brother, Lord Alec.”

  “In Skye?”

  “Aye, m’lady. When Lord Ambrose was staying at Dunvegan Castle. It’s a place that the MacLeod clan keep, a wonderful fortress, with—”

  She rolled her eyes and then broke in unceremoniously. “It is amazing to me, Robert, that every time I have tried to come to this tower, you have managed to entertain and distract me with more stories about Ambrose’s past. It’s worked before, young man. But it won’t work now. I am up to your tricks.” She turned on her heel and quickly started running up the steps.

  The young man cursed under his breath. Macpherson women! What was it about them? They were all the same. Headstrong and opinionated. The elder Lady Elizabeth, Lady Fiona, and now this one. Perfectly matched, they were.

  Elizabeth quickened her pace as she heard the warrior once again chasing after her. She reached the landing, but he caught up to her at the last moment, moving in front of her and blocking the door.

  “What is it now?” she asked impatiently. “Let me guess. You just remembered I failed to stop for the noon meal, and if I don’t eat, then Lord Ambrose will have your hide for that transgression, as well.”

  The young man brightened at once. “How did you know, m’lady? You’ve read my mind.”

  “Get out of my way, Robert. Or else.”

  “It’s for your own good, Lady Elizabeth. Please listen to me. You don’t want to be exposed to what is in there.”

  She matched the man’s troubled expression with a sardonic look of her own. “Are there dead bodies laying about? Is it a torture chamber?”

  “Much worse,” Robert replied, shaking his head slowly. “You had just better stay away.”

  She glared at him menacingly. “You know, of course, that by trying—with these ridiculous ploys—to keep me out of there, you’ve only succeeded in thoroughly piquing my curiosity. Robert, it is no longer possible for me to leave that door closed.”

  He nodded. “I know I’ve made it difficult for you, m’lady. But you see, I’m not seasoned in the ways of ladies of such quality as you.”

  “Don’t flatter me. It won’t work.”

  The young warrior dropped his head to his chest. He wasn’t certain to what degree he should go to stop her from seeing what lay beyond the door. True, the baron had instructed him to keep her away until he arrived. But he had a pretty good idea that physical restraint was the only thing left now that might keep her out of the tower room. And Robert was not about to risk laying a hand on Lord Ambrose’s lady.

  “And don’t try to make me feel sorry for you. That won’t work, either.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Now step aside.”

  He took one last look at her. She meant business. There would be no distracting her. He stepped to the side, allowing her approach the door.

  Elizabeth let her gaze wander from the forlorn expression of the warrior to the metal key lock on the door. It was one of only two in the castle. She took a step closer. Her hand reached out and grabbed the door handle. Then she took a deep breath. Robert had done a good job. She paused, her outstretched arms still, her heart pounding. She listened for a noise. For any sign of life. What was it that was hidden inside the chamber? she wondered. Then she pulled hard.

  The door would not budge. Locked. She set herself and pulled again. To no avail.

  She turned slowly, ever so slowly, in the direction of the young man. “Get me the key, Robert. Go and get it now.”

  He nodded at once and headed down the stairs quickly.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you Lord,” he whispered. He couldn’t imagine what had gotten into Evan Kerr, his second in command, to make him lock the door to the tower room. Lord Ambrose never locked that door, nor the door to his bedchamber, but Robert was glad it had been done this time. Robert took three steps at a time and disappeared down the circular stairwell. With any luck, he thought happily, Lady Elizabeth wouldn’t be able to find him until Lord Ambrose returned.

  Elizabeth watched him speedily depart, and then she turned once again to the door. The large keyhole might offer some view, she thought. Looking through the hole, she could hardly see. Dust and a spider web blocked the opening. It occurred to her that it didn’t look like anyone had used a key in there in quite some time. She straightened up and grabbed the handle with two hands this time. The cold of the metal made her shudder. She pulled hard.

  There was a give. A slight give of the door. She yanked harder. The scratch of the heavy door against the frame made a screeching noise.

  She pulled again with all her strength. The loud scraping sound eased as the dark oaken door swung heavily on its hinges toward her. She stepped back, waiting for the door to come fully to a stop.

  Her heart slammed in her chest. She looked straight ahead into the brightness. Light from the room flooded the dark landing where she stood. Hesitantly, she took a step in. And then she stopped.

  It was a workroom. The most beautiful workroom she’d ever seen. Through windows larger than the thin arrow slits found in the lower rooms, sunlight poured over the freshly whitewashed stone walls. In the corner, three long and heavy rolls of canvas sat. There were benches and easels standing at the ready beside a brazier. A thick clean mat of freshly woven rushes scented the room. A dozen small casks of what she knew would be oil and water and pigments lined one wall. Elizabeth turned around, taking in everything at once. She moved to the rolls of canvas. As she ran her fingers over the texture of the cloth, she knew immediately the canvas was of the finest quality. Growing increasingly dazed, the young woman worked her way past the casks of paint to a wall where a heavy sheet covered bundles of artwork. She laid her hand gently on the material and pulled the sheet off the rows of paintings stacked so carefully against the wall. Emotion clouded her eyes.

  The sight of the first one unleashed her tears. The Field of Cloth of Gold. The second version of the one she’d lost in the tent fire at Calais. The one that she’d painted from memory in Florence. The only record that remained of where it had all begun.

  Her fingers played over the depiction of Ambrose in the work.

  “I love you,” she whispered to him.

  Then, carefully, she looked at the other works lying behind the first one.

  They were hers. The paintings she’d thought had been left behind in Florence. They were all here, sitting in this room. He had them brought here for her.

  She heard th
e sound of footsteps and turned at once. It was Robert. His body filled the door.

  “M’lady, I need to speak with you.”

  “This room,” she whispered. “You tried to keep me out.”

  “I’m sorry, m’lady. This is your room,” he said quietly. “A present from Lord Ambrose to you. Your paintings from Florence had not yet come when he left for court. That’s why he didn’t bring you here himself. The casks of materials he sent for just arrived from Edinburgh yesterday.”

  She moved about, tears rolling freely down her cheeks.

  “It’s a lovely room.”

  “Aye, m’lady. This is the castle’s warmest room in winter, with a beautiful view of the valley. He wanted you to feel at home. He wanted you to have a place to work. But m’lady—”

  “I love this place,” she broke in, standing in the middle of the room and looking at the young warrior. “I love him.”

  Robert watched the happiness that glowed in the young woman’s face. He didn’t want to disturb this moment for her, but he had to tell her she was needed downstairs.

  “You can leave me, Robert,” she said gently. “I need some time to pull myself together. No one can handle this much happiness all at once.”

  “I’m sorry, m’lady. But there are people who need to speak with you.”

  “Can’t they wait?”

  He shook his head. “Our men have just escorted them in.”

  “What people?” she asked. “The masons from Edinburgh, the ones Ambrose was sending?”

  “Nay, m’lady. Your father.”

  Chapter 28

  Elizabeth was out of breath when she burst into the hall. At once, her eyes scanned the great room in search of the child. Robert had said that her father, Thomas Boleyn, had been left talking with Jaime when the warrior came after her. The rest of her father’s men had remained in the outer yard of the keep, under the watchful eyes of Ambrose’s soldiers.

  Panic began to sweep through her as she looked about the vacant hall. The room had been alive with artisans and workers an hour ago when she and Robert had left for the south tower. The dust of their efforts still lingered in the air of the hall, diffusing the light of the high windows. But only silence and emptiness greeted her now.

  Then, at last, she saw him at the far end of the great room.

  There he sat, on the baron’s high-backed chair by the side of the vast, open fireplace. A goblet of wine sat on the floor beside him. He was speaking in a low voice with the child. Jaime sat on the hearth at his feet, playing with her kitten D’Or and obviously keeping her eyes averted from the visitor.

  Thomas Boleyn’s head swung around, and he came instantly to his feet.

  With her heart pounding, Elizabeth took a step toward him and the child. She clenched her fists in an attempt to keep her hands from trembling at her sides. She watched as Jaime ran past the old man and skipped happily into her open arms. The sound of the little girl’s footsteps echoed off the high walls.

  Elizabeth crouched before the young girl and hugged her fiercely. “Go to my bedchamber and stay there until I come for you,” she whispered in the child’s ear.

  Jaime nodded silently but continued to hold on to her neck.

  Elizabeth peered into the dark eyes that mirrored her own. They were filled with fear, uncertainty. “I’m frightened,” the little girl whispered. Her voice was as soft as the drop of a leaf on a cool fall day. “He says he is my grandfather.”

  “That he is,” Elizabeth returned softly.

  “He told me that he’s planning to take us away. To England. Just you and me. But we can’t go, can we?”

  “Nay, Jaime. We can’t.”

  The young child nodded and leaned closer, whispering in her ear. “I didn’t answer any of his questions.”

  “You did the right thing, love.” Elizabeth ran her hands down the soft black tresses that fell to the child’s shoulders. “Now, you go.”

  Jaime withdrew her hands from around her neck. “When is the baron coming back? I want him here with us.”

  “I miss him, too, Jaime.”

  “He wouldn’t let anyone take us away.” She cast a quick glance over her shoulder at the man waiting behind her. “I know he wouldn’t.”

  Elizabeth brought the child’s hands together and kissed them both. “That is true, love. And nobody is going to take us away while he’s visiting the queen. We won’t let them. Now be on your way.”

  The young girl raised herself on tiptoe and placed a kiss on Elizabeth’s cheek before running out of the hall with her kitten at her heels.

  Elizabeth didn’t turn, but remained crouched where she was until Jaime’s footsteps faded on the steps outside of the door of the great hall. Then she raised herself to her feet.

  Sir Thomas looked frail and slightly bent with age. Elizabeth let her eyes take in the man whom she had feared and had run away from just four years earlier. The years—and the pressures of his life—had taken a visible toll on the man. He was much thinner than she remembered him. His body seemed to be wasting away, and his shoulders stooped as if he were carrying some enormous weight. Even in this fine summer weather, her father had wrapped himself in fine, thick wool and a fur-lined doublet of cloth of gold, with a heavy cloak that lay draped over the arm of the chair. His black eyes were set in a face etched with deep lines of worry.

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened as he opened his arms. The way she had opened her own to Jaime.

  Surprised, she peered at him, not understanding. He took a step toward her, his hands still outstretched. She felt a pang in her chest. A deep, ancient sorrow sprang from within her, as sharp as the green blade of the narcissus cutting upward through the frozen ground of spring.

  So many times as a child she had wished for this, dreamed of her father’s affection, of his open embrace. But they had been only a dream.

  He took another step toward her. She fought the urge to run to him, to seek that shelter. But shelter from whom? she thought. From whom has she ever needed shelter? From this man. Her eyes narrowed. It was this man—her own father—who had pushed her away, pushed her to the edge, to the place from which there had been no turning back. There was no turning back now either.

  He moved closer.

  As much as she wanted to backtrack, turn and run from him, she forced herself to remain where she was. To hold her ground.

  Elizabeth looked straight into his eyes. She searched for the truth there, for some reminder of the reason for her anger. But there was nothing. No flash of power, no hint of temper, no fire of life. They were just the eyes of a very tired old man.

  Suddenly she didn’t know how to respond.

  Sir Thomas reached her.

  Elizabeth stood in silence as her father placed two hands on her shoulders and lightly placed a kiss on each of her cheeks. She fought her impulse to flinch, to pull back. She also fought the conflicting impulse to return the simple display of affection. She bowed her head, unsure of what it was that she wanted. His greeting had confused her, unnerved her.

  “It does my heart good to see you, Elizabeth,” he said, touching her hair and gauging its length. But his face was impassive, and he made no further comment, at last letting his hands drop from her shoulders. He took her limp and unresponsive hands in his.

  “I cannot say the same,” she whispered. Though her hands and her tone were like ice, she could feel her cheeks burning. Though she put on a face of stone, her insides were quivering. For the first time in a very long while, Elizabeth felt weak and vulnerable. And she didn’t like the feeling.

  He tightened his grip on her hand and drew her gently toward the chair where he’d been sitting when she came into the hall. She went.

  “I didn’t come all the way to Scotland to quarrel with you,” Sir Thomas said.

  “Then why did you come?”

  “I have come seeking peace, daughter.”

  “Peace?” she asked shortly. “Peace between whom?”

  “Between you and me, Eliz
abeth. Perhaps peace for the sake of Jaime.”

  She watched him pull a chair for her next to his. Then he gestured for her to sit. In a show of continuing defiance, she stood beside the chair.

  “Jaime and I were living in peace. Before you came.”

  Sir Thomas gazed at her for a moment and then sat heavily in the large, high-backed chair. His eyes surveyed the empty hall, taking in the chaotic conditions. “He has left you already.”

  She felt her stomach go taut at his words. “We are to be married.”

  “Aye, your mother and I were to be married, too.” His voice wavered unsteadily. “But I left her.”

  “You can make no comparison here,” she replied icily. “You were after power, not her.”

  He looked vaguely into the embers of the small fire smoldering in the hearth.

  “She had nothing to give. No dowry, no position.”

  “She gave you everything she had. Her heart, her love.”

  “Aye, that she did. But those things were not enough for me,” he whispered. He turned his gaze upward to her face. “And they won’t be enough for the Scot.”

  “You have a heart of stone,” Elizabeth returned. “Ambrose has a human heart—flesh and blood, good and true.”

  “I am a man. So is he.”

  “You are a monster!” she replied, her voice on fire. She waved her hand at his garments. “You simply cover yourself with cloth of gold.”

  “Cloth of Gold,” he said after a long pause, speaking almost to himself. “Where this all started.”

  Hundreds of words rushed into her brain all at once. There was so much she could say. These two men were light and darkness, joy and sorrow, heaven and hell. Words alone could not do justice in differentiating these men. But Sir Thomas sat there, hollow, expressionless. She turned her face toward the great fireplace.

  “I thought you came in peace,” she continued, her voice now calm once again. She was not about to expose her soul to him. She determined to control her anger, her hostility. She would learn his business first. “I have not sought your counsel for years. I do not need it now.”