by Susan Wiggs
Diary of a Lady
There is a masque tonight at Durham House, but we have declined the invitation. Richard will go, for Richard is too young to be burdened with my pain. Ah, how hard we labor to protect our children. Richard has never known of our loss; since it occurred before he was born, we saw no point in telling him.
Only my dear husband understands the private ritual I perform each year on this day, the anniversary of the tragedy. At sunset, I shall take a bit of wood and a candle down the watersteps, just there, at the spot where I kissed my tiny daughter goodbye so long ago. I shall remember looking into her wide, trusting eyes and pressing an extra kiss “for later” into the palm of her chubby hand.
Then I’ll set the little boat adrift with the candle burning, and I’ll stand on the bank and watch it while the tears come, and I shall pray for the strength to bear the unbearable.
—Lark de Lacey,
Countess of Wimberleigh
Six
“I’ll not be carried in a box like a corpse,” Pippa declared.
Annoyed by her mutiny, Aidan took a deep breath. Donal Og and Iago exchanged looks of pure exasperation. Summoning an excess of patience, Aidan said, “Coaches seem strange to me as well. But Lord Lumley assured me that people of fashion ride in them.”
Like a wispy blue fairy with a sour disposition, she peered suspiciously into the dark interior of the boxy wooden Mecklenburg coach. “Dead people of fashion,” she groused. “This is a hearse.”
“It is like a pageant-wagon,” Iago said.
Aidan scowled at him. “What’s a pageant-wagon?”
“They park them on street corners and act out plays on them.” Iago folded his arms across his chest. “Right, pequeña?”
“This is nothing like a pageant-wagon. It’s all enclosed and dark within,” she said. “It must be for people who have something to hide.”
Which makes me the perfect passenger, thought Aidan.
“Or people who do not care where they are going.” She glared up at the driver, who perched on a narrow railed bench in front of the box. He glared back.
“I’ll look after you,” Aidan promised. With both large hands fitted snugly around her waist, he lifted her up and in. Then he took a seat on the lumpy horsehair bench opposite her. The interior of the coach was dim and close, smelling of leather and horse. The intimacy seized him, and his breath caught with an excruciating feeling of warmth for the recalcitrant woman scowling at him.
“You still haven’t bedded the wench,” Donal Og remarked in Irish as he and Iago clambered into the coach. “That much I can tell from your pained expression.”
“Donal Og,” Aidan said with surprising calm, “you are my blood kin, the closest thing I have to a brother. But if you make one more remark like that, I will cheerfully change your religion.”
The driver cracked his whip and whistled. The coach surged forward. Pippa swore, nearly lurching out of her seat.
Donal Og slapped his hands on his knees. “What, the ice-eyed O Donoghue Mór is falling in love with a common doxy?”
“I won’t hear her insulted, even in Gaelic.”
“It is love,” said Iago, nodding and rubbing his chin.
Setting his jaw, Aidan stole a surreptitious glance at Pippa. The glow of the sunset gilded her as she sat across from him, her cheek against the side of the unglazed window and her daintily gloved hands clenched in her lap. Moist-lipped, wide-eyed, her curls a halo, she had never looked more enchanting.
“I can’t love her,” Aidan muttered, stung by a feeling of futility.
“What makes you think you have a choice?” asked Donal Og.
“Speak English,” Pippa said, “else I’ll think you’re talking about me. But of course you are.” She shook an accusing finger. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Iago admitted before Aidan could stop him. “We are explaining to the O Donoghue Mór that he has fallen in love with you.”
“I am blessed by the most loyal of friends,” said Aidan, his ears burning.
And after all, it was Pippa who rescued him, laughing. “Don’t be ridiculous, Iago. Are such romantic illusions peculiar to the Irish, or to men in general? Now, cease your gossip and pay attention. I shall tell you about this part of London.”
“As you wish.” Iago put out a strong arm to steady her as the coach swayed around a corner and started down Ivy Bridge Lane.
As she chattered on about famous houses and shops, Aidan wished he could feel for Pippa a simple, healthy, red-blooded lust. Instead, he looked at her and was seized by an emotion so piercing he felt actual pain.
She touched people. Affected them. Iago was her devoted slave. Even Donal Og, as hard and rugged as the Cliffs of Moher, admired her. And when he thought no one noticed, he was patient and kind. She brought out a man’s urge to protect, perhaps because she insisted on not being protected at all.
As if she felt him looking at her, she met his gaze. A fleeting, almost shy smile curved her lips. “This is not so bad after all, Your Abundance,” she said. “I rather like riding in a coach.”
He answered her with a smile, taking pleasure in her enjoyment. Who are you? he wondered. The sad truth was, she had probably been born to a trull who could not afford to keep her, didn’t want her. The words she had spoken came back to haunt him: Was I meant to be found, or to lie there and die?
He wanted to hold her close, to stroke her hair and reassure her, to promise her she had not been abandoned but was simply lost. What sort of creature would leave a child like Pippa? He could almost believe she had no mother at all, but was made by the sidhe.
After passing under the gatehouse archway and into an inner courtyard, the coach lumbered and creaked to a halt. Liveried footmen swarmed forth to help the passengers out. Durham House was lofty and stately, with marble pillars and two great turrets. The grace-and-favor residence embodied the very essence of English wealth and privilege. Yet rather than holding it in awe, Aidan felt contempt. The Sassenach labored hard to set himself above his people. Not so Aidan, and his blood was the blood of kings. He held his banquets and councils in broad, open fields, welcoming all rather than walling himself off from the common folk.
He glanced at Pippa and saw that she was impressed indeed, pausing at the main door to finger a silk tassel hanging from a bellpull. But when she began to untie the prize, he realized her intent and chuckled. “I think it would be bad form to be caught nicking the furnishings.”
In the anteroom of the gallery, servants gaped in open admiration at Pippa, and Aidan felt a swell of pride. Not so long ago, these awestruck retainers would not have found her good enough to spit upon; now they bowed and stooped, convinced she was a highborn lady.
Bug-eyed stares greeted Iago; there was the usual amount of surreptitious brushing against him to see if his coloring was real or just painted on. He bore it all with his usual charm and aplomb.
At the arched entranceway to the gallery, they could see a whirling sea of merrymakers. Pippa hesitated, her color fading to a chalky pallor. To Aidan’s surprise, she looked terrified. But then, before he could reassure her, she threw back her shoulders, lifted her chin and swept forward proudly, trailed by Iago and a dozen slack-jawed stares.
Donal Og nudged Aidan hard in the ribs. “We have not even been announced yet. What will happen when the guests see them?”
People were staring. Pippa noticed that right away as she walked between Iago and Donal Og, all three of them preceding Aidan, the ranking lord. The first person they encountered was a man in a red silk doublet. His splendid mustache flew outward as he greeted them. Pippa pointed her toe, about to launch into a curtsy.
Donal Og put his hand discreetly on her arm. “That’s the majordomo, lass. He’ll announce us.”
The very idea of being announced was as heady as a cup of fine wine.
The majordomo shouted out their names to the other guests in the crowded room. A mass of people, easily as many as she had seen gathered at St. Paul’s, t
urned inquisitive looks on the Irish party.
Iago, of course, was the most striking, with his dark skin and bright cloak, his ready smile. Like a seasoned performer, he played to the curiosity seekers, flaring his nostrils and pressing his palms together as if performing some exotic, foreign greeting.
Pippa earned her living by making a spectacle of herself, so she found the attention gratifying. Introduced as the mistress of revels of the O Donoghue Mór, she beamed at the watching throng, singling out a few for a special nod or wave—a fat man encased like sausage in an overstuffed doublet and scarlet hose, a lady holding a spangled half mask to her face, a pageboy who nearly choked on a grape when she winked at him.
“So this is our Irish chieftain,” a man exclaimed, smiling with ill-concealed fury at Aidan. “You look quite as savage as your father.” The smile hardened. “He murdered my own father, you know. I am Arthur, Lord Grey de Wilton.”
Pippa stared in astonishment as hatred crackled between the two—the slim, elegant Englishman and the magnificent, black-haired Irish chieftain.
“I am sorry for your loss,” Aidan said, his voice toneless, almost bland. “It is a pity your father attempted to drive off a herd of my father’s cattle without paying for them.” He walked away.
Pippa started after him, but Iago held her back. “Give him time to simmer down. He is not fond of defending his father.”
Donal Og joined his cousin, bent his fair head to Aidan’s dark one and whispered something in Gaelic. Aidan gave him a curt reply, then turned and took Pippa’s hand, leading her down three steps into the crowd.
A blur of London’s elite followed on a whirlwind of introductions: the Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor, a Swedish princess, three knights from Saxony, an admiral and a bishop, and dozens of grande dames and ladies of rank. Lady Helmsley dropped her feathered mask, raised a pair of spectacles to her eyes and peered at Pippa.
Pippa, who had never seen spectacles before, leaned forward and peered back.
“Is it customary for an Irish lord to go about with his mummer?” the lady asked. “And a bodyguard of one hundred savages?”
Pippa sent her a dazzling smile. “Madam, do you have a point to make or are you simply trying to convince me you are a horse’s backside?”
“Well!” The lady fanned herself in agitation. “In sooth you must be his lightskirt.”
“Only in my dreams, Your Ladyship. Only in my dreams.”
Iago led her off before she did damage to the woman. The next people she encountered were far more pleasant—a merry poet named Sharpe, a pair of identical twins called Lucy and Letty, a fat woman with a goiter, and the queen’s dwarf, Ann. The tiny, stocky lady fascinated Pippa, and they chatted happily for a few moments.
“Get yourself to court,” Ann advised her. “It’s the only place for the likes of us.”
“You are likely correct,” Pippa admitted.
High in a railed gallery above the throng, musicians played a dance tune. After an hour of smiling and nodding, Pippa wanted desperately to dance. But Aidan’s grim expression and stormy eyes warned her that now was not the time to ask him. Instead, she looked for a way to extract him from the press of admirers and curiosity seekers.
She gripped his arm. “Here comes that foul Lady Helmsley again. Shall I tell her she has a spider crawling up her back?”
The haughty grande dame glared at them and swept past. Pippa looked down into her hand at the diamond bracelet she held.
“Where did you get that?” Aidan asked in an undertone. “Ah, faith, mind your manners.” He snatched the pilfered bracelet from her and dropped it on the floor. “My lady,” he called after her, “you dropped this.” With an exaggerated courtly flourish, he restored it to her.
If Pippa had not known better, she would have believed the sincerity of his glittering smile and gallant pose. In the blink of an eye, Lady Helmsley’s disdain thawed. She thanked him with a disgusting simper before moving off.
“I genuflect to your Irish charm,” Pippa whispered.
“No more thievery,” Aidan muttered. “I mean it.”
She lifted her hand to her heart. “Word of honor.”
He glanced down at her, and his expression softened. “Are you hungry?”
“Always.”
And then he laughed. It was the most beautiful sound she knew. He led her through the crowd, and she could not help but notice how different he was from the English nobles.
The men in the room wore silken hose and kid slippers. The blousy canion trousers bulged obscenely, as if the wearer had done something disgraceful in them. The formfitting peascod doublets, all crusted with baubles, added a haughty puffiness to chests too skinny to impress on their own. Just as Iago had said, the English gentlemen had lovelocks bobbing beneath their velvet toques.
In contrast, Aidan wore leather leggings and boots cuffed at the knee, a tunic cinched at the waist by a wide belt decked with polished stones, and the dramatic blue mantle that swirled around him like a king’s raiments.
“Colleen.” His soft voice near her ear startled her.
“What!”
“You’re staring at me rather than feasting your eyes on the cream of English nobility.” Bemused, he placed a silver cup in her hand and coaxed her to drink.
She tasted the musky sweet wine and smiled. “In sooth, my lord, you are much more agreeable to look upon than the others.”
He muttered something Celtic and dark.
“What?” she demanded.
“Sometimes you are too frank for your own good.” He held her by the shoulders and turned her around to face the crowd.
“Now, pay attention,” he said sternly. “Look at those I point out. There are those who hold sway over the queen’s favor, and their friendship would not come amiss.”
Flagrantly disobeying him, she shut her eyes and leaned back against his endless hard length. How good it felt to be held, to have his warmth so close to her, to inhale his scent of leather and man.
“Pippa!” His fingers pressed into her shoulders.
Her eyes drifted open. “I’m listening.”
“All right. See that man standing in front of the tapestry?”
Her gaze swept a floral hanging and came to rest upon a man all in black. His thin mustache twitched like tiny whiplashes.
“Yes?”
“Watch him closely. I assure you, his spies are watching us.”
“Spies?” she hissed, fascinated.
“That’s Francis Walsingham. Hates Catholics with a vengeance and would cheerfully see me roasted alive if he could get away with it. He is the queen’s spymaster. Everyone despises him, the queen included, but they have a healthy respect for his abilities. With him are Lords Norfolk and Arundel, both pleasant, neither particularly dangerous.”
His hand found the nape of her neck and cradled it gently. She felt giddy from the caress, but he seemed determined to educate her at the moment. He turned her toward a white-haired little man and a tall, fair-haired lady.
“That is the Venetian ambassador. He is shrewd, fair and knows everyone’s business. The woman with him is his widowed daughter Rosaria, the Contessa Cerniglia. She is even more shrewd than her father, but I have heard she does not play fair.”
“How do you know all this?” she asked, her head swimming with titles.
“The queen has her spies and I have mine. I cannot afford to ignore Sassenach matters of state,” he said. “Well? What think you of this esteemed company?”
She sighed. The splendid revelers shimmered in the setting of gilded halls and endless glass-windowed galleries, the torchlit rambling gardens and fountains outside, the priceless art treasures and tapestries. She studied faces—shining eyes behind masks, smiling mouths—and wondered if one of these ladies had lost a child long ago, and if she had, would she have put it out of her mind, or did she think of it constantly?
“I don’t know,” she said at last. “In my dreams, I grew up in a place like this, surrounded by c
heerful, wealthy people. Yet I don’t feel as if I belong here.”
“In most of these people, the cheerfulness and sometimes even the wealth are an illusion.”
“What about my parents?” she wondered, feeling an anxious tightening of her stomach. The very idea that she could belong to such company seemed ludicrous. “Shall I just go and tap someone on the shoulder and say, ‘Pardon me, but did you happen to misplace a daughter once upon a time?’”
He rubbed the nape of her neck. “Don’t be hasty, else you go against the wrong person. We should find William Cecil and begin our inquiries with him, for he is one of the few ministers I trust. I’d surely hate to see you accused of being a fraud.”
She turned in his arms so fast that for a moment he truly was embracing her. He dropped his hands. She muttered, “I would die if they accused me of being a fraud.”
His blue eyes scanned the crowd, lingering on the balding head of Cecil, Lord Burghley. “No one had a particular reaction to hearing your name spoken. Of course, we don’t know for certain what your name is.”
She sighed again. “Do you know what I would really like?”
“What?”
“For you to dance with me.”
She braced herself for ridicule or a rejection. Instead he smiled and bowed from the waist.
“In sooth the Sassenach way of dancing is rather sedate compared to the Irish way. But I’ll try to please you,” he said.
She could not feel the floor beneath her feet as she followed him to the dancing quadrangle. Couples moved in a circle, their slow, measured steps reminiscent of the pace of a funeral cortege.
Aidan and Pippa fell in, hands clasped and raised, his arm circling her waist.
“Who died?” she asked from the corner of her mouth.
He gave a stifled laugh. “The musicians?”
As they passed Donal Og and Iago, Aidan mouthed a few silent words, then jerked his head toward the railed gallery.
“What are they doing?” she asked.
