“My lady.” The much sought after and very courtly Earl of Leicester was addressing her. She had to remember her surrounds, if not her place. “It has been a pleasure.” He gave a reverance and Mary remembered her role and, instead, gave him leave to rise. Leicester handed her over to Sir Charles, who placed her hand on his arm.
When had he left Baroness Sheffield? She looked back to where he had been and then to him once more . . . and became dizzy.
“I thank you, my lord, for returning her safely.”
Leicester leaned closer to Sir Charles. “I think she may be in need of escort to her rooms.”
Charles looked at her critically. “I think you may be right. What happened?”
Leicester retrieved his flask and offered it to him. He sniffed it before taking a sip of its contents. “That is a fine Irish whiskey.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Leicester took his flask back and put it in his pocket. “This young lady should not have whiskey again.”
“I will remember.” Charles laughed.
Leicester laughed.
Mary laughed. Why am I laughing?
Charles led her from the room.
• • •
Mistress Parry met them in the gallery leading to her sizable apartments. “Well? How was it?”
Mary beamed a smile and stopped to do a series of short ordinarii. “It was amazing. I met the Queen! She spoke with me in private with the Earl of Leicester. Just the three of us, cozy as you please.”
Charles met Mistress Parry’s surprised expression and clarified, “Leicester shared some of his personal reserve of Irish whiskey with our Mary.”
“Oh!” She clucked her tongue, either in humor or disapproval, Charles wasn’t sure which.
Mary was still dancing in the corridor, singing to herself. She looked almost childish in her abandon—such a difference from the haughty sophistication she had managed to pull off during the feast and dancing. Here, alone with him and Mistress Parry, her smile was genuine. If she remembered any of this in the morning, she would be grateful she had saved this particular series of random steps for a deserted corridor.
“Get her inside before she hurts herself.” Mistress Parry held the heavy door open, and Charles guided Mary, still skipping slightly, into the room.
Mary’s song got louder and then abruptly stopped. “Did you see the swan? I have never before had swan or thought I would.” Mary sat as directed. “Of course I could hardly eat.”
“Was the corset too tight, then?”
“I could still breathe, but I would choose it to be looser under normal circumstances.” Mary looked down at her cleavage, causing Mistress Parry to curse as she fiddled with the pins in the wig. “It did do wondrous things for my bosom though.”
Sir Charles laughed at Mary’s happy chatter. “It did indeed.”
Mary was no longer merry. “Did it? Are you certain? Because I seem to recall your nose being mere inches away from Baroness Sheffield’s bosom.”
Mistress Parry placed both hands on the sides of Mary’s head and forced her to look forward. “Have a care, girl. This is Queen Elizabeth’s wig.”
“And I know it. I have known it all night. I felt like I had a loan of the crown.” She giggled. “People were respectful to a point of fear. ’Twas a major difference from the derision the same courtiers would have shown the real me. The me without the wig.”
Mistress Parry removed the last pin and delicately lifted the mass of red curls from Mary’s head.
Mary wasted no time and immediately started unplaiting her coiled mass of braids. “God’s teeth, does my head itch.”
Mistress Parry peered into the soft kid lining of the wig. “I see no vermin.”
“Vermin?” With a yelp of panicked disgust, she stopped unraveling her braids and ran her fingers along the parted hair against her scalp in a frantic search.
“Nay, Mary. ’Tis just the sweat. Wearing a wig is hot business.”
“Ladies do not sweat, Sir Charles.” Mistress Parry finished inspecting the wig and retrieved a sachet from a drawer.
He bowed in response. “Of course not. But I would not blame you if you wanted to stick your head in the snow.”
Mistress Parry looked up in alarm. “She will catch the ague for certain. Do not make such ridiculous suggestions to someone when she is clearly . . . impressionable.”
“I am not impressionable.” Mary slurred just a bit. “I just seem to be in my cups. I never have been before. It is not half bad so long as I do not close my eyes.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again with a panicked look on her face.
Mistress Parry began shaking some powder from the sachet into the wig’s leather skull cap. “I will call for a bath and some pottage if you would rather she stay here until she is well enough to see to herself.”
Charles nodded. “Thank you very much, Mistress Parry. I would not wish to send her back to the Oxford apartments in her current state.”
“I should say not. From what I could tell, Lady Oxford has moved in the earl’s whole herd of young lordlings and artists. I would not trust her safety with them even if she were stone cold sober and armed.”
Charles turned at Mary’s yell. “I did not stab the earl!” She was sprawled across Mistress Parry’s bed, flat on her back except for the odd arch caused by her bumroll. Her hoops were splayed about randomly, unable to hold their shape against the weight of the dress.
“Mary-my-love, of course you did not stab him.” He sat down beside her on the coverlet and laid his hand over her fist. “Everyone in this room knows you are innocent.”
“It’s a good thing, too. Remember? What you both said? Had I stabbed him, I would have gotten the job done right. I am a force to be reckoned with.”
Sir Charles straightened her skirts and kissed her on the forehead. “Yes, you are.”
She was going to be miserable in the morning.
Chapter Eleven:
On the Sixth Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me Six Geese A-Laying . . .
Mary was miserable.
Bonnie had come in over an hour ago. Or two. She had stoked the fire, placed the pitcher of washing water to heat on the hearth, and brought in a tray of food stuffs. Mary hadn’t moved or spoken once. She couldn’t.
Her mouth tasted like ash. Her eyes felt puffy. And heavy. And crunchy. She hated everything.
She winced as her door was thrown open and ricocheted against the wall.
“You are being a lazy wench this morn, Mary.” Anne’s voice was cheerful and horribly piercing. “The household is all abuzz as my husband is in a fine fetter this day. He is upset to have missed the swan at last night’s banquet. I have heard tale it was quite a feast.” She rose and crossed to Mary’s shuttered windows.
Slam! The carved wood shutters hit the wood paneling of the wall as a blinding beam of white sunlight slapped Mary’s swollen eyes.
She groaned and pulled a pillow over her face. She tried to say something, but her jumbled thoughts could not seem to form themselves into coherent sentences.
“And where were you last night? You were not here when I retired for the evening.”
Mary tried to sit up and fell back down with a thud. She hoped she wouldn’t throw up. Or maybe she would feel better if she did . . .
Anne’s appearance of genuine sympathy startled Mary from her musings. It was short lived. “You are not well, Mary.” The concerned, tender glance turned to surprise. Fear. Anne stepped back toward the door and put her hand protectively over her abdomen. “Did you catch a chill? Should I call the physician?”
Mary groaned again. “I am not ill. This will pass, or so I have heard.” If she didn’t die first.
Anne moved in closer. “You are not with child, are you?”
Anne’s voice pounded against her head. With child? She could barely croak, “God’s teeth, no.”
“Are you certain?” Anne moved in closer. “It would be funny if we were pregnant together, you and I. An
d Ned would have two children at once. As long as one of them is a boy, he will have no cause for complaint and no real way of knowing who the mother was.”
Mary sat up fully in spite of the throbbing in her brain. “Anne, are you mad?”
Anne ignored Mary, probably caught up in the scheme.
Mary let the silence stretch on, hoping for some sort of response. Finally, she burst out in frustration, “Anne, listen to me. I am not with child. I have not lain with any man since Thomas. I am not sleeping with Oxford.”
“He keeps talking about you, you know.” Anne’s voice was calm. Accepting.
Mary sighed and lay back against her pillow, closing her eyes against nausea. “I did not know.”
“How can you say you are not his mistress? Even in his sick bed, when I am there waiting on him, it is clear he desires you. You are all he talks about.”
“He only wants what he cannot have, Anne. And he will never have me. It would take my consent, you know, for me to become his mistress. That will never happen.”
“Yes, yes. I am sure it is as you say.” Anne seemed less than sincere.
Mary closed her eyes again and willed Anne to leave. All was silent for a moment that seemed to last forever. Then Mary heard the tap of Anne’s heels against the stone threshold at the door followed by a soft thud as the wood door fit back into its frame.
Mary kept her eyes closed and let her body sink in her mattress as she let go her anger on a sigh. Her last feeling as she drifted back into sleep was relief that she would not feel guilty about leaving Anne after Twelfth Night.
• • •
It was so familiar. The wind loosening her coiffure and prickling her skin smelled of wet earth. Her legs felt heavy as she took step after laborious step. Was the mud on the lane so thick? No. Not at all, yet she could barely move. She had to move. There was something, some reason—she had to keep going forward. Why couldn’t she remember?
Oh yes, she had written directions on a scrap of paper she had in her pocket. It was in her hand and open now. There were words. She stared at the words, sure they had made sense before. Letters, nondescript and none that she could name, but they were letters that made up words that she should understand.
She had to continue. Her life depended on it. But why?
She heard the rush of water. Louder. A driving sound. She needed to move forward but she could not lift her feet.
The sound of water was closer, yet she had not moved toward the river at all. She could see the bridge ahead. Yes, that was where she needed to be. To get across.
The river was so loud. Deafening. She dropped the useless directions—she knew where she needed to go, she just had to get there.
Shaking her hair in the growing wind, she hoped that whoever she was going to see would not care about her appearance. Perhaps they would. She should do something. Two pins were in her fingers and she jabbed them into her thick, rapidly uncoiling coronet of hair. They did not want to stay in place. Two more pins were in her hand. It wouldn’t matter so much if only she had thought to wear something more sophisticated. She wanted to cry when she looked down at her dirty, mismatched kirtle and underdress. She looked like a peasant. Looking again, she noticed the colors seemed even more vibrant and crass—she looked like a whore. Was she a whore? Had it come to that?
The sound of water was getting louder. Somehow she knew it wasn’t the river. It was something worse. Something coming for her.
Turning to the side, she saw a looming darkness on the horizon. Getting closer. Transfixed, she watched the dark wall rush toward her. Water? A wave? She lifted one foot, then the other, stepping forward. The bridge would be a safe haven. She did not know why; she just knew it.
One foot in front of the other, but the sound continued to grow. The water was coming fast. A solid wall of rushing death. It wasn’t just to her left—it was behind her and to the right. Surrounded. All she had to do was get to the bridge.
She knew she never would.
With that certain knowledge, she felt the impact as freezing water hit her to the ground and then carried her away. She hurt everywhere, the pounding of the pressure and the sting of the ice. She was surrounded. There was no up or down as she tumbled, unable to even scream.
She opened her mouth and it filled with freezing water, gagging her. Opening her eyes, she felt the pain from the cold pierce into her brain. Her body felt limp, she had no control as the water tossed her this way and that. It hurt so much. She was falling. Falling.
With a jolt, she gasped and sat up in her bed. Mary scrambled out of the tangle of linens and stood shivering in the center of her chamber, her sweat-soaked nightdress plastered to her.
She should have known better. This time was a little different from the last. This time she had had to find safety for herself—it had not been about the baby.
Still, the memory of the rushing wall of water made her chest tighten.
A soft knock startled her out of her thoughts. The door opened, and Bonnie stepped in carrying a covered tray.
“Mistress Parry asked Lady Oxford after your health today. My lady said you were not well, so Mistress Parry said she would check on you herself and found you sleeping soundly.”
Did she? Mary almost wished she had woken her when she found her. Not that the dream would not have caught up with her eventually. “That was kind of her.”
“Aye. And she ordered this tray sent up for you.” Bonnie set it on the small dressing table next to the door and took the linen cover off the top. “Cold meats and cheeses. Some honeyed sultanas and mince pie. She ordered the butter beer here special for you. It’s best when it’s still warm.”
Mary became conscious of the cold in her chamber, and her disheveled state. Three steps across the room brought her to her dressing gown. She fastened the heavy woolen robe at her waist and lifted her hair out from the back as Bonnie stoked the fire.
“I haven’t had butter beer in an age.”
“Not something they usually make up in the Queen’s kitchen.” Bonnie added a little sniff at the end of her statement, making it clear just what she thought about butter beer. It was usually something served at a tavern.
“Drink up, girl.” Mistress Parry swept into the room, her full farthingale making the space seem much too small for both Mary and Bonnie.
Bonnie did not wait to be dismissed. With a quick reverance to Mistress Parry, she backed out of the room, drawing the door shut behind her.
Mary sat on the bench at her dressing table and took a sip. The warm sweet brew coated her tongue. In the aftermath of the drowning dream, something warm and substantial was well appreciated. Butter beer, with its thick whipped egg white and honeyed creaminess, was definitely substantial.
For a few minutes, neither lady spoke. Mistress Parry straightened the bed covers so she could sit on the bed. Mary let the warmth from her drink work through her body.
“So, tell me,” Mistress Parry finally spoke. “What happened with Sir Charles when he returned you to your chamber?”
Sir Charles. Mary had not thought about him since she’d woken, but from the mischievous glint in Mistress Parry’s eye, she wondered if she should have been thinking about him. Had something happened last night?
“What do you mean?” Nothing had happened, had it? Mary could not really remember. Snippets of memory, but nothing that made sense.
“Come now. You had a bath in my room last night, and it was all I could do to keep you in the water.”
She remembered standing up, naked in the tub. Water sloshing around her knees as she told him she wanted a kiss. Charles had been in the room, but on the other side of the partition. He had promised a kiss to her when she was herself again. “What was I doing in the tub?”
“Besides bathing? Propositioning the poor man.”
God’s teeth, she had propositioned him! Repeatedly. Something about her breasts.
Mistress Parry laughed as Mary groaned and took another sip. The drink was not sitting wel
l in her stomach.
“Do you remember? I called up a bath because you complained that your scalp was unbearably itchy from wearing the wig all night.”
The wig. She did remember that clearly. What an amazing evening. It was a shame they hadn’t discovered anything significant.
“Did the Queen receive her wig back in a goodly condition?”
“Yes. After all was said and done, it turned out that She did not like Her court thinking someone else might be the Queen, as much as She likes to escape from time to time.”
“I do remember that. I don’t think the Earl of Leicester liked it either.”
“Who knows and who cares? In all probability, he simply did not like not being in control of the situation.” Mistress Parry rose and selected a small slice of capon from the tray. “But I digress. Last night, Sir Charles returned you to your room once we were both satisfied that you were recovered from your drunken stupor enough not to harm yourself.”
Mary snorted in disdain. Drunken stupor indeed.
“By then, ’twas about four in the morning and the Oxford household was quiet.” Mistress Parry continued to prod at Mary’s memory.
“Oh!” Mary remembered him in her room. “He did put me to bed!”
Mistress Parry merely raised an eyebrow.
Hell’s bells. Mary sighed. “Not what you think.”
Again, the eyebrow.
Mary groaned and busied herself with putting some meat, cheese, and bread together in a tightly squished bite. Mistress Parry sat there, a little smirk on her face, the whole time Mary chewed. She took another bite. Chewed. Swallowed. Still Mistress Parry waited.
“Naught happened.” Nothing had happened, in spite of her best efforts. Charles was too much of a gentleman for anything to happen. Mary had never felt like such a fool and was not about to talk about any of last night’s attempts to Mistress Parry. She did not want to remember them.
Courtly Scandals Page 13
