Heart of Gold (8 page)

A young pageboy eyed Elizabeth curiously as he passed. The sky to the east was just taking on the deep, purplish blue that preceded dawn, and the air had the sharp tang of an early summer morn. Elizabeth looked up and down the path. A few late revelers were wandering along, and she stood a moment, undecided as to which way to go. Finally she made up her mind and started hurriedly down the path, looking over her shoulder at the graying canopies of the morning camp.

But she’d only taken a few steps when she slammed into the human wall that blocked her way.

Peter Garnesche stood before her.

Elizabeth recoiled in shock. Her breath caught in her chest.

Peter Garnesche silently watched the battered woman before him. He reached out and took a hold of her chin. Despite her flinching response, he turned it to the light of the nearby torch. Elizabeth Boleyn’s face was covered with blood. From the gash on her cheek that still oozed, he was certain her injury was recent. Looking down at her garment, a menacing sneer crept over the man’s face.

“I’ll have to remember to congratulate the Scot.” Garnesche let his hand drop. “He is a better man than I thought.”

Elizabeth tried not to look back at him or at his attire. In her mind’s eye she could still see the Lord Constable’s blood spilling darkly on the ground. She was sure the man’s doublet must be spattered with it. She wondered if the hand that a moment ago held her chin was stained red as well. The smell of death suddenly permeated the air.

“I like this,” the man continued. “Humility at last from the biggest prude in Europe. I never imagined that you liked it rough.”

Elizabeth took a small, hesitant step back. Another group of drunken soldiers was approaching them, working their way back to their camp. Suddenly it occurred to her that the English knight had not connected her with the crime he’d committed moments earlier. She took another half step back, but Garnesche’s hand shot out and grabbed her by the tartan, checking her retreat.

Elizabeth’s blood ran cold in her veins, and the young woman glanced quickly and cautiously at the man’s face. His eyes were not on her. Even though it looked as though he were conversing with her, his gaze was searching the faces of those passing by. But the men passing hardly gave them a second glance, and Garnesche looked back down at her, a foul gleam in his eye. Her blood ran colder yet.

“This is getting better and better.” He smirked, pulling Elizabeth roughly to his chest. “Who would have thought that I could take a lesson from the Scot?”

Elizabeth turned her face at once as the man’s foul mouth tried to close on hers. Instead of a taste of her lips, Garneshe’s mouth roughly descended on her open cut. She cried out in pain. “Let me go,” she whispered through clenched teeth.

“Where, my pretty?” His hands roughly grabbed at her breast through the baggy shirt. “We’re just getting started.”

Elizabeth struggled to get out of the man’s grasp. “I’m...I’m his leftover, damn it. You don’t want me.”

Garnesche pushed her roughly against a nearby tree and moved after her. “Oh, I do want you, you arrogant bitch. In fact, I’ve always wanted to feel you writhe beneath me. I just can’t see why I’ve waited so long.”

“He’ll kill you.” Elizabeth moved swiftly to the side and escaped the madman’s clutching grip. Turning quickly, she now had the path to her back. But she knew her speed was nothing compared to the English knight’s. “I belong to Ambrose Macpherson. I slept with him. I’m his. Do you hear me?” She retreated as she spoke, but the man continued to follow. “He’ll kill you if you touch me.”

“That is, if he is alive after I’m done with him,” the French voice growled.

The sound of the man behind her jerked Elizabeth around. The Duc de Bourbon stood a step away, his eyes blazing with anger.

Elizabeth stopped dead in her tracks. She’d never been happier seeing anyone in her whole life than at this moment. But the young nobleman’s grim expression stopped her from showing any sign of it.

“How interesting.” Peter Garnesche moved in behind her. “So much chivalry over a fallen maid.”

Elizabeth stepped aside as the Englishman put a hand on his great sword. She was relieved to see five of Bourbon’s men appear suddenly behind the young man. For one thing, the duc de Bourbon never traveled alone, Elizabeth knew that from the past encounters. She remembered someone once telling her that a number of husbands had hired a band of fighters and put a prize on the handsome nobleman’s head. It was about that time that the duc had started traveling with an entourage.

“She left the Scot’s bed. I’m next in line.” Garnesche leered in Elizabeth’s direction. “When I’m finished with her, I’ll send her to you. But I can promise you that it won’t be for quite some time.”

Elizabeth started to back away in small steps from the group and in the direction of the French quarter.

Bourbon ignored the Englishman altogether.

“You look a bloody mess, Elizabeth,” he said. Pain showed in the Frenchman’s handsome face. “Was I too gentle? Is this what you were after? A brute? Someone who would abuse you?”

Elizabeth shook with anger, pain, fear. How could she explain? She was alone. No one believed her, nor trusted her. She could tell Bourbon of what the Englishman had done, about the Lord Constable’s body, but even the six of them might prove no match for this giant and whatever soldiers he could call for. If they failed to take the knight, he would know it was she who had witnessed the crime and heard the discussion of his treachery. But it was not only her own life that she feared for now. It was Mary’s and young Anne’s. Both would be prey for this vindictive madman.

“So you have nothing to say?” Bourbon’s accusing voice cut in on Elizabeth’s thoughts. “Will you just stand there and admit that you’ve been nothing more than a common whore?”

Elizabeth looked from one hardened face to the next. The Englishman stood a step away from the duc. The same distance he’d stood from the Lord Constable before cutting him down.

She took one last look at the duc. Her throat was tight as she straightened before his angry glare. “You are nothing to me. Do you understand? I don’t have to explain a thing to you. Just leave me be.” Elizabeth turned and ran. Ran as fast and as far as her tired legs could take her.

The Franciscan friar Father Matthew shook out the straw from his gray habit and rubbed his face to make sure he was awake. This is unbelievable, he thought, as Elizabeth ceased speaking. He must still be dreaming.

Beneath the loft where he sat, the horses crowded into the shed were shuffling hungrily. Unfolding his long, lanky frame, the friar tried to ignore the rumbling in his own empty stomach and concentrate on the story he’d just been told. This poor child needed his help, and he knew he’d be needing all his faculties to help her. He looked tenderly at Elizabeth’s troubled and battered face. Washing the dried blood had not improved the looks of things. He cringed to think that she might need a needle to close the gash on her cheek. She would be scarred for life. Friar Matthew had known this generous young woman for a long time. Why, he still had the leftover gold from the ring she’d given him in the pouch bumping gently against his thigh.

Beatings, a father prostituting his own daughters, treason, murder. It was too unbelievable. He’d helped his flock in the area outside Paris with many problems in his many years as a priest—the hungry farmer who poached the king’s deer to feed his family; the apprentice boy who got the landlord’s willing daughter with child; the girl caught learning to read against her father’s wishes; and, a thousand other matters—but never had he been called on to deal with issues of this enormity, of this magnitude. Silently sending a prayer heavenward, he took a deep breath and let out a sigh.

“First, my child, we must decide if you are in any immediate danger.” He sat down again on the straw. “Is there anything that you left behind that could lead the Englishman to you?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so, Friar.” Gravely, Elizabeth thought for a moment. “Nothing that has to do with the murder.”

“Thank God for that much, anyway.”

“We have to let someone know about the Lord Constable,” Elizabeth whispered as she stood and moved to the shuttered loft window. An odd breeze had picked up outside, rattling the wooden shutter. “We must expose Sir Peter as the murderer.”

“I don’t see how we can. At least not right now. That would certainly be the end of your life.” Father Matthew paused and then blurted out his concerns. “It is not just Garnesche that you will need to watch out for. Think of all his friends and allies in the English court. They will readily believe him when he says you are accusing him falsely. And then you’ll be their target. You—and your family—will be the enemy. We must consider the risk to your sisters.”

Surprised, Elizabeth turned toward the friar. Looking at the man’s somber expression, she had to agree. Who was she, after all? She was more a member of the French court than the English. Born of an unwed French mother, raised so far from London. Everything Friar Matthew had said was true. Who would listen to her? Who would protect them? She couldn’t trust even her own father. “I could send a message about the murder. No one ever need know whom it came from.”

The priest shook his head in disagreement. “You don’t know much about the king’s justice, my child. The Lord Constable’s death will undoubtedly be blamed on some passing beggar. Anything you say will be ignored right now because King Francis does not want war with England. So no Frenchman would dare accuse an Englishman of the murder of the Lord Constable without absolute proof.”

Elizabeth returned to where the friar sat. “How can we let an innocent man’s death go unavenged?”

Friar Matthew moved quietly, taking hold of her hand and nodding toward the Golden Vale.

“Out that window ten thousand wealthy men and women are sleeping comfortably in tents made of cloth of gold. But look beyond the vale, as I know you have, and you can see a million peasants and villagers living in the squalor of poverty. You’re safe here, right now because no one even imagines that any noblewoman would dirty her shoes in the muck of this stable.”

Friar Matthew lowered his eyes and continued. “Elizabeth, the Lord Constable was no innocent. He was haughty and brutal and indifferent to the suffering of the poor. He was one of the worst. Everything he ever did was for the benefit of his fellow nobles. I believe he cared nothing for the real France, for the poor and hungry that populate every town and hamlet.”

Elizabeth thought back over the few passing encounters she’d had with the Lord Constable. She’d really never known much about him. “Are you telling me his death will cause more celebration than grief?”

“Perhaps, my dear. Though he was no champion of the people, I think the peasants of France would celebrate his death only if they thought one of their own had done the bloody deed.” The friar smiled grimly at her. “But you and I both know that is really beside the point. What the English knight did was treacherous and evil.”

Elizabeth gathered her knees to her chest and rested her pounding forehead against them. At this time yesterday, her problems had been so much simpler. Other than thinking of a way to raise money for Mary’s doctor, Elizabeth had been in control. What a mess things had become, she thought. “What am I to do?”

Father Matthew racked his brain—and his heart—for some inspiration, for some guidance. “First we must get you out of here. There must be someplace in Paris where you can go. Your father’s house, perhaps.”

“I can’t.” She shook her head violently. “I can never go back. He’ll be waiting for me. I’m sure by now Madame Exton has convinced my father that everything I said was nothing but a lie. I just can’t go back and wait to see whom he will try to sell me to next.”

“What about your mother’s family? There are certainly plenty of those left with enough money to feed the whole country.”

Elizabeth shuddered at the thought of putting herself at the mercy of strangers she’d never met in her life. They had thrown her mother on the street with a babe in her arms. She could never ask them for help. “Never. I’ll never ask for their charity. That’s out of question.”

The friar paused. This was becoming difficult.

“The duc de Bourbon! How about him?”

“I think he would probably take in a stray dog before he’d give me shelter.” Elizabeth sighed quietly. “But that’s probably for the best. He’s always wanted something more than friendship from me, but now I’m sure we can’t even be friends.” Though he’d often tried, Bourbon had never become intimate with her. She had never allowed it. The closest they’d ever come was after a banquet last summer, when the young duc had tried to kiss away her defenses under a moonlit sky. She had escaped his attentions then and never allowed him so close again. He was a friend and nothing more. But tonight, during those brief but incredible moments in Ambrose Macpherson’s tent, Elizabeth had for the first time tasted the sweet, dizzying nectar of passion.

“Your choices are becoming more limited, Elizabeth,” the friar pointed out, patting her hand. Then he brightened. “What about Sir Ambrose. He seemed to be interested.”

Elizabeth blushed. She hadn’t told the friar just how interested the Scot was. She also had carefully avoided telling him just how close she’d come to giving her virginity away. Elizabeth shivered unexpectedly at the thought of the man who had awakened feelings in her that she’d never before experienced. How tenderly he had caressed her. She could even now feel his lips upon her skin.

“You never told me how you came to be wearing his clothes.”

“I...I borrowed them.” She had not told Friar Matthew of visiting the Scot before going to her father. “I took them from his tent. It was much easier traveling through the encampment dressed as a man.” Well, that was partly true.

The friar looked directly at the young woman. She was not telling him everything about the Highlander, but that was not what they needed to focus on right now.

“Then why not go to him for help? He’s a generous man with a noble heart. And he has the resources to protect you from your father and Garnesche.”