Heart of Gold (36 page)

He lifted her chin and looked into the shimmering blackness of her eyes.

“I love you, Elizabeth. Tell me that you won’t leave me. That you—”

She reached up and silenced his words with a kiss.

“I never thought I would ever hear you say those words,” she whispered, kissing him again and again. Her lips could not get enough of him.

Ambrose grabbed a fistful of her hair and drew her face back, forcing her to look into his eyes. His lips lingered a breath away from hers.

“And what about you, Elizabeth? I’ve waited as long as you have.”

Elizabeth gazed longingly into the depths of his eyes.

“I love you, Ambrose. I need you.”

Her simple declaration was all he needed to hear. The grip of his muscular arms tightened, his mouth descended. Their eyes, blazing with intent, never left one another as he drew her onto the bunk.

She needed him. Physically. Spiritually.

He needed her as he needed every part of himself. Deep within, he knew they were to be one, now and forever. Deep within, he knew the change had already occurred.

As the boat rocked in the restless current, Elizabeth moved past her grief, turning to life, to love. Like shipwreck survivors, starved for days, they clung to each other in a gathering storm of love.

Ambrose drew her to him, and her heart grew stronger with each passing moment. Caught up in the act of living, of loving, Elizabeth hardly felt herself shedding the weight of her grief. But she was, and the flames of her passion grew to a raging inferno, supplanting the darkness of death with the brilliance of being.

Together, they loved. The impatient hands, the roaming mouths—feeling, tasting—they were two paramours exulting in the quickening expression of their love. The radiance of their love soon dispelled all lingering shadow of loss.

In the lovers’ frenzied desire, garments flew to the floor. Their clothing removed, Ambrose moved on top of her.

“Marry me, Elizabeth.” His hands moved over the full curves of her breasts, the soft lines of her belly. “Tell me you will marry me.”

She lay back on the bunk, her body quivering to his touch. While his lips teased and suckled the rosy nipples, his fingers gently slipped into her moist folds, finding within the nub of desire, stoking the flames.

Elizabeth groaned. “I think that...I think that I’d be in heaven...”

“A lovely place, no doubt, my love.” Ambrose nipped at her jaw, kissing her neck, tracing a line with the tip of his tongue into the soft contours of the valley between her breasts. “Don’t make me wait any longer, Elizabeth.”

She pulled at his blond hair, pushing him onto his back. With a smile, the Highlander helped pull her on top.

“I am stubborn,” she growled. “Opinionated, too. And headstrong.”

She shifted her weight on him, moving her legs until she straddled him.

“I love that about you.”

“I am emotional and short-tempered. I’ll probably drive you out of your mind.”

“I can live with that.” His fingers played over the lines of her tender flesh. Her body was so perfect. He wanted her now. He wanted to feel himself buried deep within her. “And it will be an improvement over my present condition.”

She gasped as he lifted her onto him.

“Tell me, Elizabeth,” he rumbled, his voice ragged with desire. “Tell me.”

“Aye, my love.” She lowered herself gently as he entered her. She whispered her response. “Aye, Ambrose. I’ll marry you.”

Joined in the love embrace, the perfect fit, they locked out any specter of fear and loss. At this moment all that mattered was the two of them. All that existed was the affinity of two hearts and minds. Two bodies and souls. They would have time—a lifetime together—to face the enemies and intruders that awaited them. But for now, for tonight, each lived only for the other—together basking in the glow of fulfillment.

Gavin remained behind when they left Paris.

Once Elizabeth surfaced from her mournful isolation, the warrior soon recovered from his sorrow over Mary’s death. But he could not quite grasp the truth about his friend Phillipe de Anjou.

With Ambrose standing behind her, glaring at the black-haired giant, Elizabeth had told Gavin the truth—that she was a woman. Dumbfounded, the Lowlander had been unable to utter a word. But when he finally stammered out that he didn’t believe it and required proof, Ambrose had been at his throat, at once.

And Gavin had believed her.

They sailed out of King Francis’s fine new port at La Havre, going west around the tip of Cornwall and north through the Irish Sea to the Scotland. The seas of the Solway Firth tossed their little ship, but soon the travelers found themselves making their way past the red stone walls of Sweetheart Abbey and the round towers of Caerlaverock Castle and into the calmer waters off the tiny village of Gretna. There Elizabeth and Ambrose, together with Jaime, the Baldis, and the baron’s company of soldiers, secured horses and began their trek into the hills east of Gretna and on into the green, rolling valleys of the Borders.

On the second day’s ride, they dropped down into the river valley of the Teviot, and followed its sparkling waters east, toward the ancient border stronghold of Roxburgh Castle. As they rode along, Elizabeth’s eyes continued to survey the lush and fertile farm land, the broad expanses of forest, the rocky upland moors. The place struck her with its beauty, its wildness, its strength. She didn’t know if she had ever seen a sky as blue as the one that covered the open spaces that they crossed.

To Elizabeth, the Borderlands between Scotland and England presented a study in pastoral beauty. Small, neatly thatched cottages stood side by side with rugged stone and sod huts. Flocks of sheep grazed on craggy hills, while cattle roamed the river’s grassy edge. As they rode along, farmers and fishermen doffed their hats to the passing baron, and children and maidens ran alongside the warriors, dispensing fresh bannock cakes and wildflowers.

Once, after riding between two high rocky outcroppings as they continued to follow the river, Elizabeth spotted a large group of buildings as she gazed south into the distance. That was Jedburgh Abbey, she was told, one of four powerful abbeys in the Borders. It was the good monks there, Ambrose told her, who centuries ago had begun to develop the land for agricultural use, raising their sheep and their crops, educating the local farmers, and bringing civilization to a vagrant people long beleaguered by marauders from the north as well as the south.

It had always been a hard place to live and prosper, and Ambrose had been sent there to bring about justice for the industrious and protection for the oppressed. And he had done just that. That was four years earlier, not long after his successes at the Field of Cloth of Gold. It was then that the queen and the Regency council had given the Highlander the title Baron of Roxburgh, Lord Protector of the Borders.

Finally, with the summer sun setting behind them and their own shadows stretching out before them, Ambrose leaned over and pointed at the four square towers rising on a tall hill above the river valley. Roxburgh Castle.

They were to be married in Benmore Castle, the Macpherson clan’s stronghold in the Highlands. That was the tradition. Benmore was the place where Ambrose’s parents had wed. It was the place where his brothers and he had been born. Where his older brother Alec and his wife Fiona wed and now lived with their children...when they were not in the Western Isles or at Fiona’s own ancestral home, Drummond Castle.

Ambrose had sent a messenger to his family from Paris with the news.

Elizabeth had never been to the Highlands. She’d never been surrounded with a lot of family members, but the thought of it all appealed to the young woman. It appealed to her, and it made her a bit nervous. But if that was what Ambrose wanted, then she decided that she wanted it, as well.

However, Ambrose insisted that they stop in the Borders before going anywhere. They had business to attend to first.

So as the travelers neared Roxburgh Castle, the warrior baron thought over their plans and the best course of action. They had so much to do, and Ambrose wanted Elizabeth and Jaime safe while he took care of the immediate problems that only he could look after.

First, he thought with a wry smile, he needed to send a message to Giovanni de’ Medici about the artist he would never get back. But he knew he couldn’t tell the truth, not yet. Perhaps sometime, years from now, Elizabeth and he would make a visit to the Florentine duke. He would truly enjoy seeing the look on his friend’s face.

And then, Ambrose needed to consider the Queen Mother. She represented the most pressing of concerns. Though the Highlander had deliberately overstated to his beloved what Queen Margaret’s response might be upon learning about Elizabeth’s sex, he honestly had no real assurance that the queen might not turn Elizabeth—and Jaime—over to her brother’s ever faithful counselor, Thomas Boleyn.

Margaret Tudor could be quite spiteful and completely capricious, especially if she felt she had been slighted in the least, or in any way duped. She was a woman who Ambrose knew it was a mistake to cross. When she decided she wanted something, she would stop at nothing to get it. And she wanted a painter. A Florentine painter.

The Highlander knew he would need to see her in person. He knew it was the only way.

***

“You don’t know how sorry I am to have to leave you alone here, my love.” He caressed the short waves of her satin-soft hair as they coiled around his fingers. Her hair was getting longer.

“I won’t be alone,” she whispered, smiling as she lay on her stomach beside him. “Aside from the five hundred and twelve sheep I’ve counted from our little window, you are leaving me with several hundred soldiers. I’m certain at least of dozen of them talk, and—”

“The last time I counted, there were only five hundred sheep!”

“Ah, well. You know how it is. Springtime in Scotland, love and...bairns is the word, isn’t it? Well, there isn’t much else to do, is there, my sweet?”

“Hmmm. Aye, lass. I like the sound of that.” Ambrose drew the covers off her back, exposing her smooth ivory skin. He smiled as she moved right into his arms. “But this doesn’t make it any easier for me to be going.”

“It isn’t supposed to,” she whispered, snuggling closer.

Ambrose gathered her tightly to his chest. He still could not get used to the thrill he felt holding her close. The way she had taken possession of his heart, as if it had always belonged to her, filling it up until he felt that it might burst. Sometimes, like some wild coltish lad, he wanted to shout out her name across the valley and listen to the word ringing back to him, echoing off the rocky hills.

It felt so right. He watched her as she moved in, taking possession of his house and all who lived there. Yes, they, too, took her in, accepted her as their own, as if she’d always been there. One of them.

As Ambrose held her, he thought about the journey ahead. Amid all the uncertainties that lay before them, he knew one thing for sure. He would be the one at a loss when he left her tomorrow to go to Stirling to meet with the queen and the other nobles. He would be the one so utterly heartsick about being away. It was an odd, new knowledge for him, for he had always been one who lived on the road. Smoothing her ebony hair, he hugged her fiercely.

Five weeks earlier, when they had arrived at the grim and menacing Roxburgh Castle, Ambrose had sensed that Elizabeth was startled by the hulking mass of rough gray stone. The giant military fortification certainly had nothing in common with Florence, that lively city of art and culture where she’d been living the past few years. Indeed, the dark halls, the nearly empty rooms, and the pervading attitude of constant vigilance were a far cry from his own hunting lodge on the edge of the forest to the east of Troyes. This was the place that had never held any future for him. On the frontier border with England, Roxburgh was simply a fortress designed and fortified to keep the border skirmishes to a minimum, and it was a place from which the Scots might offer a first wave of defense should the English decide to invade.

It was a place of war, a place of men. Aside from the laundresses, no women worked in the castle at all. But Roxburgh offered distance from the court that Ambrose wanted for Elizabeth and Jaime, so here they would stay for a short time. So, rather than departing for the court at once, the baron decided to stay around awhile and help her get acclimated.

She hadn’t needed much help from him, however.

Ambrose already knew. His men adored her. His servants respected and obeyed her wishes. Needless to say, he and Jaime loved her, and he couldn’t imagine life without her. Elizabeth Boleyn had a way with everything and everyone.

“Ambrose.”

He looked down at her soft and sober face. Her black eyes glistened in an ivory face, glowing in the light of the candles that illuminated the room.

“Tomorrow, when you leave...” Her fingers drummed lightly on his chest. “Erne and I talked earlier today. She’ll be going on with you and Joseph to Edinburgh.”

“I thought you enjoyed her company,” he said with surprise. With Ernesta Bardi gone, Elizabeth would be alone here with Jaime. “I thought she was a help to you, lass.”

“I do, Ambrose! She is! But...well, I can’t have her wasting her life playing nursemaid to us.”

“Is this Elizabeth Boleyn, the woman who knows what is best for everyone else but herself, speaking now?”

“Nay! It isn’t!” She slapped him on the chest. “Don’t make fun of me, beast. I am telling you this because I’m certain this is truly the best course for her and for me.”

“How so?” he pressed.

She paused to gather her thoughts. “Ernesta Bardi is a merchant’s wife; she is a smart businesswoman in her own right. A person who has played large part in her husband’s successes. And she had a life—a full life—with Joseph, their business, their travels long before Mary and Jaime and I walked into it.”

“She seems to have enjoyed filling it a bit more with the three of you.”