The Dark Lady's Mask

by Mary Sharratt

  Aemilia burned, her Bassano blood rising to the surface, beating in her ears. Before she could think what to say, Mary vanished in a swish of silk, only her carnation perfume remaining in the air.

  II

  Warrior Women

  7

  WELVE YEARS OLD, AEMILIA pored over Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, preparing a written translation from the Greek into English. About to ask a question, she glanced at Master Wingfield, but he appeared utterly absorbed in a map of the Low Countries spread out on his desk.

  “Sir, are you trying to find where Perry is now?” Aemilia asked him.

  How they all missed Peregrine Bertie, who was either away on some diplomatic mission in Europe or else in Westminster with the House of Lords. Catherine Willoughby had died last year, leaving her son the barony.

  Grimsthorpe Castle, Aemilia’s beloved refuge, kept changing. Even Anne Locke had married for a third time and moved to Devon. Aemilia suspected she would never see Mistress Locke again.

  Lady Mary was now mistress of Grimsthorpe. At this very moment, Aemilia could hear her raised voice down the corridor, berating some unfortunate servant. Marriage hadn’t made Mary any milder. If anything, she had grown more brittle and bad tempered, blaming her childless state on Perry’s long absences. If I were Perry, I would sail to the East Indies to escape Mary de Vere.

  But it was the change in Lady Susan that troubled Aemilia most. Of late, Susan seemed so distracted and her health seemed likewise afflicted. This morning she had excused herself after chapel and taken to her bed, claiming troubled digestion. Even as Aemilia tried to concentrate on Plutarch’s description of the Scythian warrior women, her heart squeezed in worry. What if Susan had some serious malady? Aemilia thought she wouldn’t be able to bear the loss of her. Likewise, Master Wingfield seemed to mope in her absence.

  “You’ve done enough for one day, Amy,” he told her, though the clock had yet to ring three bells. “It’s a fine afternoon for a ride.”

  “Will you ride with me, sir?” she asked.

  “Not today, Amy,” he said. “But I trust the groom will ride with you.”

  AFTER LEAVING THE SCHOOLROOM, Aemilia headed directly to Susan’s door.

  Her mentor lay in bed, her lustrous auburn hair fanning around her wan face.

  “How were your lessons?” Susan reached to take Aemilia’s hand.

  “Not the same without you, my lady. May I bring you anything? Shall I ask Lady Mary to send for a physician?”

  “Heavens no,” Susan said, her voice uncharacteristically sharp. Then she smiled. “Don’t worry yourself over me, my dear. Go out and ride. It’s such a glorious day.”

  TWELVE YEARS OLD. Aemilia studied herself in her steel mirror. Almost a woman. The servants were continually letting out her seams to accommodate the way her body kept changing. To her deep embarrassment, she already had breasts. She’d begun to bleed each month. Will I soon be too old for the schoolroom? she wondered. Lady Mary certainly seemed to think Aemilia had stayed at Grimsthorpe long enough. But Lady Susan won’t let her banish me. She wouldn’t hear of it.

  Aemilia knew she owed Lady Susan everything. Yet when she looked inside her heart, she found a restlessness, a simmering rebellion. An aching for something she couldn’t even name. How she missed her cousin Jasper, missed having a friend her own age; yet more than anything, she dreaded returning to her mother’s house where Master Holland still lived. Her unknown future gaped before her like a chasm, and when her fear touched her loneliness, it tempted her to do the most reckless things that would cause even Susan to despair of her.

  From the box beneath her bed she took out a white linen shirt, a doublet, a cap, and old moleskin riding breeches—Perry’s old clothes that he would never miss. After checking the bolt on her door, she donned her disguise. The cap, artfully worn, hid her long hair, just as the doublet made her breasts disappear. Garments alone could make her another person.

  Though Perry was short and compact for a man, his clothes were too big for her—she had to cinch the breeches to her waist with a length of cord. Still, she decided she looked no odder than her young Bassano cousins in their older brothers’ handed-down clothes. She imagined Jasper daring her to wear this when she rode out today, just as he’d once dared her to dress as a boy when they’d stolen away to the Shoreditch theater five years ago. Her body shivered with the allure of it, the audacity. The look on Mary de Vere’s face! But then Aemilia considered Susan, pale and weak in her bed, and how such an act would upset her. Half sick with shame, Aemilia stripped off the forbidden clothes and crammed them back inside their box.

  “IS MASTER WINGFIELD RIDING out with you today?” the groom asked when he led out Bathsheba.

  The groom was an older man who limped from a nasty fall he had taken years ago. If Aemilia rode with him, they would go slowly and carefully, and yet she knew she couldn’t refuse his company, for he surely wouldn’t allow her to ride out on her own.

  Before she could stop herself, the lie sprang to her lips. “Master Wingfield shall be a little late. He said I could ride on ahead and practice my equitation exercises in the meadow until he can join me.”

  Not giving the groom a chance to object, she sprang into the saddle and trotted off.

  On horseback, she was unfettered, and it no longer mattered that she was a minstrel’s bastard daughter with nothing but a one-hundred-pound dowry to her name that would probably be spent paying off Mother’s debts.

  As soon as Aemilia was out of the groom’s view, she spurred Bathsheba into a headlong gallop, letting the mare be as strong as she liked, the bit in her teeth as she bolted over hedges and ditches. The higher and more dangerous the jump, the greater the thrill that flooded Aemilia’s entire body, vibrating into her fingers and toes. In truth, she was afraid of falling, but not of falling off a horse.

  THE LOOK THE OLD groom gave Aemilia when she and Bathsheba returned alone was enough to make her want to shrink inside herself. In the course of her wild ride, she’d lost her hat and her hair was a disheveled mess. Slithering down from the saddle, she stroked Bathsheba’s neck then slunk away.

  Hoping to creep to her room without attracting attention, she slipped into the murkiest part of the gardens, the shaded walks between the yew hedges. As she rushed along, brimming with self-reproach, she found Lady Susan. Lady Susan embracing Master Wingfield, offering her flower face to his kisses.

  AEMILIA WASHED AND PUT on fresh clothing. She sat on her bed, her hands folded in her lap, and waited for Susan to tell her that her school days were over. Aemilia was too frightened and confused to even cry.

  Had these four years of her humanist education been a ruse for Susan’s dalliance with the schoolmaster? Looking back, Aemilia recalled the smiles they had exchanged and how Master Wingfield had flushed whenever Susan praised him or touched his hand. She also remembered Anne Locke’s words about Lady Susan on the journey to Grimsthorpe: She dares not remarry without the Queen’s leave. She also fears Her Majesty might arrange a match not to her liking. Did that explain the secrecy surrounding their love affair?

  When Susan finally knocked on her door and stepped inside, she looked both happy and sad.

  “Sweet Amy,” she said, sitting beside her on the bed. “I was waiting for the right moment to tell you. Master Wingfield and I shall be married. Perry, bless him, has found him an appointment with Her Majesty’s forces in the Netherlands.”

  So Perry knew from the start. Aemilia remembered how Perry and Master Wingfield used to ride alongside each other discussing Master Wingfield’s military ambitions.

  “But, Lady Susan, won’t you miss him if he goes abroad?” Aemilia almost believed that if she used the rhetorical skills Master Wingfield had taught her and came up with a sound and logical argument, she could stop time. Keep Master Wingfield in the schoolroom educating her.

  Susan’s smile trembled. “My darling girl, I’m going with him.”

  Aemilia thought her bones would no longer hold her
upright. She felt herself crumbling apart.

  Susan stroked her hair. “Please don’t look so forlorn. Perry promised you could stay here for as long as you like.”

  But you’re leaving me alone with Lady Mary, who hates me, Aemilia wanted to shout. One look at Susan’s face silenced her.

  “Be happy for me, Amy.” Susan kissed her brow.

  “HOW COULD YOU?” LADY Mary’s voice shook the walls.

  Alone in her room, Aemilia listened to the tirade taking place in the parlor below.

  “Pregnant by a schoolmaster! If your mother had lived to see this, she would have died of shame. The Queen will be furious. It’s just as well you and that pauper are running away to the Netherlands. You’ll never be able to show your face in court again. I hope you intend to take that odious child with you.”

  Aemilia flung herself on the floor, her ear pressed to the boards to hear Susan’s reply. What was to stop Lady Mary from turning her out? Only Susan’s goodwill had kept her here this long.

  “You made a solemn promise to my brother,” Susan said. “Amy can stay on until an honorable marriage is arranged for her.”

  Marriage? Aemilia was too mortified to breathe. Then she remembered that Susan had wed the Earl of Kent at fifteen, only three years older than Aemilia was now.

  “Besides,” Susan continued, speaking as if she were her brother’s equal as a diplomat, “she is an accomplished musician and even you have said how much you enjoy her playing and singing. Without her, there would be no more music in this house to entertain your guests.”

  8

  OUR YEARS ON, SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD Aemilia feverishly practiced on the virginals, rehearsing her repertoire, happier than she had been in many months. Perry was finally coming home to visit. Over her music, she could hear Lady Mary directing the servants in their frantic preparations.

  Even Mary seemed filled with joyful anticipation. She had invited dignitaries from across the realm. There would be feasting, toasting, and merriment—and the music Aemilia would sing and play. Would Perry even recognize her? When he’d last seen her, she had been an ungainly girl of fourteen, but now she was a young woman.

  Nothing had come of Lady Mary’s halfhearted attempts to find a husband for her. Aemilia’s paltry dowry was of no interest to the eligible men in the Willoughbys’ circle, not to mention the taint of her bastard birth. Not that this stopped male guests from trying to grope her in the corridors. She had learned to carry a bodkin up her sleeve and lock her chamber door. But Perry’s homecoming would set everything right. Perhaps he might even find her a husband, a kind schoolmaster who would read Latin and Greek with her.

  Aemilia envisioned Perry arriving like the god Apollo in his chariot, shining his light and mirth upon this lonely house. She lived for his and Susan’s letters. Susan and her husband lived in Bergen op Zoom with their two little sons.

  A battalion of maids now burst into the parlor, coming to polish every inch of it for their master’s homecoming. Chased out of the room, Aemilia retreated upstairs, stopping by the nursery to visit little Robert, Mary and Perry’s only child.

  “You’re growing into a big boy,” she cooed, taking the two-year-old from Nell, his nurse.

  Aemilia kissed his chubby cheeks until he giggled. At least the little lad was something she and his mother could hold on to while his father traveled in foreign lands. In terra peregrina. Perry was so seldom home, it astonished Aemilia that he had succeeded in fathering a child.

  She understood Lady Mary’s secret pain that she tried to conceal beneath her haughty veneer. How could any wife not feel wounded if her husband was perpetually elsewhere? It was as though he had married Mary de Vere for her fortune and pedigree, begat a son on her, and then abandoned her to pursue his pleasures elsewhere. Aemilia had even heard it whispered among Lady Mary’s own guests that Perry kept a Flemish mistress.

  IN THE STABLES, AEMILIA left the aged groom and his stable boys to clean and polish tack while she saddled and bridled Bathsheba herself. She had disobeyed the groom so many times that he had at last given up insisting she be chaperoned.

  While still within view of the house, she trotted along sedately, carrying herself like a lady. But once the July greenery enveloped her and she knew herself to be unobserved, she leapt from the saddle and led Bathsheba into the shelter of a thicket. Reaching into her saddlebag, she shed her skirts and donned Perry’s old moleskin breeches, his shirt, and his doublet. Freedom coursed through her veins. If Lady Mary decided she could no longer suffer her, Aemilia had this. No longer a helpless young girl but a daring adventurer. Her other self. She had even given this persona a name—Emilio.

  Mounting up again, she galloped away, a reckless and daring young rake, letting Bathsheba take every stone wall and thorn hedge in their path. They raced on, her heart pounding in time with her mare’s hooves, until the worries that plagued her and kept her awake every night were finally beaten down—what will become of me?

  When Bathsheba had finally had enough and stopped to drink from a stream, Aemilia gazed round, utterly disoriented. She no longer knew where she was or even if she was still on the Willoughbys’ land. The long summer day was waning. Judging from the sun’s position in the sky, she guessed there was only an hour of daylight remaining. Could she trust Bathsheba to find her own way back?

  Aemilia rode on, reaching a place where two dirt tracks crossed. As she tried to find her bearings, another rider approached. A gentleman on a black stallion. Bathsheba raised her head and snorted.

  “Young man, you look lost,” the rider said.

  Aemilia was elated that her disguise had actually fooled him. Something about this stranger looked so familiar—that long slender line of his jaw—though surely they had never met. He was an older gentleman, but handsome, his gaze compelling and direct. He wore a sword and rapier, she noted. Aemilia supposed that if she was to play the part of a young man, she, too, would require arms.

  “I’m riding to Grimsthorpe Castle,” the man said. “Where do you ride?”

  Behind him, a group of other riders appeared—Lady Mary’s guests arriving days too early. Mary would be completely out of sorts, for the household had been turned upside down with all the cleaning and airing.

  “Sir, please don’t trouble yourself over me,” she blurted out, gathering her reins. “I was just heading home.”

  The man gave her an incredulous smile, his green eyes piercing hers. “God’s blood, you’re a maid!”

  Her skin burned. She cursed the girlish timbre of her voice for betraying her. Wheeling Bathsheba around, she cantered off and cleared a tall hedge, leaving the man behind.

  LOCKED INSIDE HER ROOM, Aemilia was scrubbing away grime and the scent of horseflesh when Lady Mary’s maid banged on her door, calling her down to play the virginals in the candlelit parlor.

  Aemilia’s empty stomach groaned from missing supper, and the many unfamiliar faces swam before her eyes. She wore her best gown of dull blue taffeta, an old garment of Lady Mary’s. The color didn’t suit her and made her look jaundiced, but she molded her face into a mask of gratitude and docility.

  “I hope we didn’t trouble your ladyship too much with our untimely arrival,” one of the guests said, his voice sending a ripple up Aemilia’s spine. It was the same gentleman who had seen her in her breeches.

  Keeping her back to him, she sat at the virginals.

  “I must have misunderstood the date of my Lord Willoughby’s homecoming,” he went on. “How good of you, Lady Mary, to receive us so graciously.”

  Aemilia played a galliard, her music the backdrop for the guests’ conversations. She willed herself to remain invisible.

  “She’s Italian,” she heard Lady Mary say. “An orphan my sister-in-law took in. I haven’t the heart to turn her out.”

  “How fascinating,” the man said. “I’ve just finished reading Dante. Does this virtuosa have a name?”

  Aemilia wanted to crawl behind the tapestries, but she made herself play o
n until Lady Mary commanded her to stand and face the tall gentleman with the green eyes.

  “Her name is Amy Bassano,” Lady Mary said.

  “Bassano,” he echoed, taking Aemilia’s hand before she could sweep down in an obsequious curtsy and so hide her face. “Your people are royal musicians, are they not?”

  He knew her family—did that explain why he looked so familiar? A subtle smile played on his lips as he seemed to connect her face to the rider he’d encountered a few hours earlier.

  “Amy non è un nome Italiano, signorina,” he said, the first Italian she had heard since Perry’s last visit.

  “Il mio nome è Aemilia, signore,” she said, aware of Lady Mary’s eyes on them both and how it irked Mary when her guests conversed in foreign tongues that she couldn’t understand.

  “Aemilia,” he said, bending to kiss her hand. “A name as lovely as your music.”

  Would he be one of the visitors to corner her in some dim hallway? But he did not have the air of a disgusting lecher. For a man of his years, he was lean and elegant, his pale red-gold hair untouched by gray. And he was cultured. But he knew her secret and could use that to his advantage.

  “Amy plays the lute and sings if it’s singing you prefer,” Lady Mary said in a display of breathless deference, before rounding on Aemilia with narrowed eyes. “Could you at least remember to curtsy? This is Lord Hunsdon, if you please. The Lord Chamberlain.”

  Aemilia felt as though she had been blasted by lightning. So that was why he seemed so familiar. Once the Master of Hawks who had tried to make Angela his mistress, he was now Lord Chamberlain. Her spine remained unbowed as she stared straight into his eyes.

  “My Lord Hunsdon, do you remember my sister, Angela?” She could not keep the sting from her voice.

  She expected him to bridle with arrogant denial. Instead, he gave her a long, measured look.