by Anne Carsley
SWEET, SOFT SURRENDER ...
“Come, lady. Julian. Fair one.” He drew her to him and kissed her so gently that little chills began to slide up and down her arms. One hand rubbed her neck slowly and played with the curls at her ears. “Do you yield the day?” He bent his head and kissed the long curve of her throat where the pulse hammered, then continued the soft, slow kisses until her skin ached and she leaned toward him.
“Aye, I yield.” The words came in a soft moan as she put both hands on the broad shoulders that were so invitingly near. They looked into each other’s eyes before his mouth claimed hers again in a long drugging kiss that seemed to meld them into one fiery unit of passion. . .
Books by Anne Carsley
THE WINGED LION
DEFIANT DESIRE
DEFIANT
DESIRE
* * *
* * *
Anne Carsley
A DELL BOOK
Published by Dell Publishing Co., Inc.
1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza New York, New York 10017
Copyright © 1982 by Anne Carsley
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
Dell ® TM 681510, Dell Publishing Co., Inc.
ISBN: 0-440-12019-5
Printed in the United States of America
First printing—December 1982
To Kay and Don
who knew the reasons long ago
And to Sam
in fondness and pragmatism
Table of Contents
DEFIANTDESIRE AUTHOR’S NOTE
HISTORICAL NOTE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The interpretation of the character and motives of Queen Mary Tudor is generally the one of history except that often too little cognizance is taken of the sufferings she, Tudor princess and queen though she was, endured in her life. The writings of Carolly Erickson, Bloody Mary and Great Harry, along with Prescott’s book, Mary Tudor, and Elizabeth the Great by Jenkins have been most helpful in this regard.
Some liberties have been taken with the medical knowledge and superstition of the period, this supported in part by interpretations of Paracelsus and theories prevalent in Arabian medicine at a slightly later time.
A secret passage and exit were added to the Tower of London in a section which was later demolished. It might have existed.
HISTORICAL NOTE
When Mary Tudor became queen of England in 1553, she was welcomed by the majority of her people. She had been made prisoner, ostracized, tormented for her faith, forced to practice it in secret, denied the rights of her birth, made to repudiate Katherine of Aragon’s marriage to Henry VIII and bastardized, used as a state pawn by father and brother alike. Her accession was regarded as a triumph of justice. But her marriage to Philip of Spain, the likelihood of the Spanish Inquisition being introduced in England, her fierce dedication to Catholicism in a country separated from that faith for twenty and more years, and the policy of fire and sword used to restore it, made her hated and despised by 1557, the year in which Defiant Desire begins.
England was a country of turmoil in that year. It was a time of factions, intrigue, and plots; a time of danger for noble and commoner alike. The queen was aging and ill, Spain was powerful, and France loomed large. The next Catholic heir after the childless Mary was Mary Stuart, soon to wed the dauphin of France. English Catholics would welcome her rule. Spain would try to keep England by whatever means. The majority of people looked to Princess Elizabeth, twenty-four, Protestant reared, often a prisoner, as England’s hope. Many intrigued for her death, however, and Queen Mary at one time consigned her to the Tower of London. She maintained a policy of complete silence, for her danger was great. The queen did not consider her heiress to the throne and believed her truly a bastard as Henry VIII had proclaimed.
Queen Mary’s supporters hoped until the end that she would bear an heir to the English throne. She fancied herself pregnant many times and thought she was in the very year of her death. Many people thought that Philip would try to take England in the event of civil war and rule by fait accompli. Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland, had a legitimate claim as Catholic heir through Henry VIII’s sister, Margaret of Scotland. Princess Elizabeth would be expected, if she came to the throne, to marry quickly, and her husband would rule through her. No woman could rule alone or even contemplate it; everyone adhered to this belief.
In the year 1557 great changes were in the air. Policies and beliefs changed daily, and life often hung in the balance. Civil war was considered a real danger. It is a matter of historical fact that Philip of Spain, called king of England by Mary Tudor alone and not by Parliament, contemplated possible marriage to Elizabeth after his wife’s death and did propose such later.
When Elizabeth did come to the throne, she was given less than six months to rule by speculators on the Continent.
CHAPTER ONE
“Mistress! You must come quickly! There’s a man to speak to you. He says it is urgent. Mistress!” The heavy door slammed back as Elspeth nearly tumbled into the room, carried forward by her own weight.
Julian pulled herself up on the window seat from which she had been watching the pouring rain while her book lay forgotten in her lap. Now cold air streamed in, and she shivered in spite of the old cloak she had wrapped around her shoulders earlier.
“Another beggar? Turn him away as gently as you can. We have little enough for ourselves.” She sighed, knowing how true the words really were.
“He’s a gentleman, mistress, and there are others outside waiting. They might be from London same as those others. You know, king’s men!” Her brown eyes goggled at the memory, and she twisted her stubby fingers in the worsted of her skirt.
Julian felt the familiar lick of fear but kept her voice calm. “Now, that is nonsense, Elspeth, and you know it. Queen Mary rules now in England, and no one has come to question us in over three years.”
“Then why are those men here?” Elspeth grumbled and tried to smile, but her features kept their look of dread.
Julian shook out the folds of her old gray gown and pushed her hair back into a demu
re knot at the back of her neck. “Very well, I will see to this matter, and then we must start the mending if there is to be anything to wear this spring. Doubtless they have taken the wrong road and only want directions.”
“Let me get a headdress for you. And your good shawl, where can it be?” Elspeth began to rummage through a chest in the corner.
“I go as I am.” Julian jumped up and ran into the icy hall. She could not face more fussing and fright; it was better to deal boldly with what she must.
She fancied that she could hear the scuttle of rats in the closed-off rooms, and the musty smell of disuse was all around her as she went down the curving stairs and into what had once been the library. Now it held only several books, a battered chair with a canopy, and several stools. A tall, soberly dressed man in his late thirties was examining the French romance she had left there the day before. He lifted a thin, serious face to her as she entered.
“May I be of assistance to you? I am Julian Redenter.”
“Lady Julian Redenter, daughter to the late Gwendolyn and Lionel Redenter of Redeswan Manor? You are she?” He tried to keep the incredulity out of his voice and covered it with a cough as he drew a small case from his pouch and opened it, looking first at her and then down.
She tried not to shiver in the chill as she held her head high. “That is my name and my house.” The pride of her family rang in the words.
He had inscrutable brown eyes, the same color as his hair, and he watched her carefully as he extended the case for her to see. Julian knew that he expected refreshment, candles, a fire, the very rudiments of courtesy, but the days were long past when guests came to Redeswan Manor.
“Do you recognize this?”
Julian looked down into the pictured face of her mother as Lady Gwendolyn had been in her youth, as she herself might one day look. Gleaming chestnut hair curled around the piquant face with its high cheekbones. The eyes were a deep aquamarine below winged dark brows. The lashes seemed dusted gold, and the small head sat proudly on a long neck. Slightly parted soft lips shone pink and expectant as if of a kiss. An emerald necklace cascaded to the molded bodice of a green gown. The likeness was set in the Tudor rose of red and white, enhanced by pearls and emeralds. The woman overshadowed the jewels, for she seemed to live and draw breath.
“Not Holbein, but one of his better imitators.” She could hear the husky voice of her mother in those early years. Julian had loved the rose and cried when it vanished. Of course it had been sold so that they might live, but the child she had been could not know that. “Your father gave it to me on our marriage day,” Lady Gwendolyn had often said, eyes alight with remembered happiness. It was fortunate that she had not known of the shaking sickness that was to destroy the remnants of her beauty, rend her mind, and finally, fourteen months later, take her life.
“Where did you get this?” Julian heard her voice grate harshly. “Who are you?”
He folded the lovely thing away. “I see that you do. Lady Redenter, I am Sir Guy Edmont, and I bear the queen’s command regarding you. Here is my authority.” He put a square of parchment embossed with the Tudor seal into her suddenly nerveless fingers and stepped back.
The writing marched, small and square, across the page: Fetch the woman, Julian Redenter, to London with all possible speed. Let nothing delay you. It was signed, Mary, the Queen, given at Greenwich this twenty-fifth day of March, 1557.
Julian fought back the fear that threatened to overcome her. Had they not always dreaded something of this sort during the years of the boy king’s reign? Why now, however? She kept her face impassive as she lifted her eyes to Guy Edmont. “I will need time to prepare.”
“There is no time. We must leave within the hour.” He spoke brusquely, then hesitated. “Do not fear, lady.”
She inclined her head. “I hasten to obey. I trust that I may inform my household?”
Red touched his sallow cheeks as the beginning warmth in his eyes died. “Of course, but none of them go with you. You go alone.”
“But surely my maidservant who has been with me all my life . . . ?” She heard the tremble in her voice and stopped abruptly.
He shook his head, his eyes never leaving her face. Julian went to the door, her back stiff and straight as she had been taught.
Minutes later she sat in her room, the old cloak around her shoulders, a horn cup of sour wine in her shaking hand. Elspeth sat on the stool before her mistress, tears and words mingling.
“Promised your sainted mother on her deathbed, I did, that I’d take care of you always. Swore by the Virgin and all the saints. Her the wife of a great lord and living this way, raising you like a peasant, and all those men coming every few months with questions about religion and rights, making people say things they don’t understand! Shameful! Now taking you off to London to face God knows what! Look at you, nineteen and unwed, no chances even. A husband could have protected you!”
She rose to clutch Julian to her shaking bosom. The girl’s own panic subsided a little as she yielded to the warmth of feeling. She patted Elspeth on the back and drew back to look into the round red face still puckered with anguish.
“Well, this may all be a mistake and best settled at the source. I’m sure I will be back before long. You will be in charge here, Elspeth, so listen carefully. And calm down, I would not leave to the sound of weeping.” Julian forced herself to be brisk about household duties and their small store of coins while she gathered up her only other presentable gown and shoes, then wrapped the cloak closer around her shoulders. “I am as ready as I will ever be. Remember, Elspeth, to say nothing to anyone in the village about this; no need to frighten anyone.” She was suddenly anxious to face her fate, to be away from this despair.
Elspeth fumbled in the folds of her black gown and held out what appeared to be two small branches twisted together and fastened with a bit of green ribbon. “Take this with you, dear child, and keep it with you.”
The girl held it on her palm gingerly as she asked, “Is this not a treasure to you? Should you not keep it?”
The dark gaze flickered, and for a moment something strange and alien looked out of the familiar eyes. “It is the hawthorn that I plucked long ago and carried as a blessing. It brought me here, and that was all I ever needed. Now it is yours.”
Julian stowed the talisman in her pouch, suddenly remembering that Elspeth was known to have uttered incantations over kitchen stews and the various plantings. Now she seemed to have invoked the protection of the old gods on her mistress, for the hawthorn was sometimes considered the symbol of the witch.
“Pray for me as I for us all.” The ritual words sprang to her lips, and she used them as a farewell. She shut the door and heard Elspeth give way to a fresh burst of tears that mingled with pleas in a dialect Julian did not know.
Guy Edmont stood at the foot of the stairs, cloak and hood in place, a purse in his hand. “For the household.” When she merely stared at him, he put it down on a convenient table. “It is time to go, Lady Redenter.”
Perhaps he meant well, perhaps he was really only following orders, but Julian felt walled away, so much so that she could not respond to the civility with which he helped her to mount the waiting horse and gave her gloves so that the reins might not bruise her fingers. His men, some ten strong, rode before and behind while he remained at her side. Rain sluiced down, and there was the rumble of thunder in the distance as they moved into what had once been parkland and was now simply ill-cleared woods.
Julian turned her head for one last look at Redeswan Manor as it lifted in a mass of stone, pinnacles and turrets etched against the dark sky. Would she ever see it again, this once proud home of her ancestors, now fallen even as they? The old ballad moved in her mind: “Spins now Fortune’s wheel from me, down, down, away.” Droplets and tears mingled at the corners of her mouth as the cavalcade began to move.
It was still raining a week later when they entered the capital city in the late evening. Julian was consci
ous of evil smells, flaring torches, a rush of people, buildings that seemed to lean over on each other, and more noise than she had ever heard in her life. They had been wet since early morning on leaving the inn where they had briefly rested, and now she could only think in terms of food and rest from the jolting; she had forced herself not to think of what probably waited at the journey’s end.
They were forced to slow their pace now because of the massed crowd that flowed in the narrow streets. The soldiers pressed close around Julian, but she saw beyond them to the open area directly in front. A tall pole stood off in the distance with what appeared to be the remains of a fire around it. A sickening charred odor drifted with the wind, and she felt her stomach churn. She turned her head sharply to try to escape the smell that was all around her, and the wet hood fell back to let her hair stream free.
At that moment Sir Guy lost all patience and called in a deep voice, “Let us pass! We travel on official business! Make way!”
A woman standing a little back in the crowd cried, “Another one to be burned, is it? Will that be the wench’s fate? Her today, the lot of us tomorrow, I say!”
The others began to mutter and push as the soldiers increased their pace. Their anger spat on the wet, chill air. “Spawn of the Spaniards!” “England wants none of you!” “Devil’s get!” A fat bearded man yelled, “Let the pretty one come over here!” Several men near him took up the cry.
Julian felt her cheeks flush with excitement and a different kind of fear from that she had known when the queen’s men confronted her. This was woman-fear of violation. She jerked at the wet hood and urged her mare back into the safety of the soldiers.
“I’m robbed! Thief! Thief!” The angry cry came from a tall man in black who stood apart from the throng around them. He was fumbling in his robes and cursing. Someone scurried from the fringes, and another started in pursuit as the man called again, “My purse, my papers, all gone! Ho, a reward to whoever catches the thief!”
