Hunting Memories (28 page)
Authors: Barb Hendee
There was only one problem.
His lord and lady hated each other.
Whereas Robert had barely noticed his lady before, he was now faced with her on a daily basis. Nearing her late twenties, Elizabeth was tall, slender to the point of being spindly, with dark hair and a widow’s peak. She dressed carefully, paying attention to each detail down to her earrings matching her gown, but Lord Thomas somehow always managed to find fault, criticizing her in front of the servants, humiliating her whenever he could.
Robert found his lord’s actions base. . . . Worse, he found them common.
Thomas was fifty-one, with a narrow face and a nose so long it seemed to stretch from above his eyes to the top lip of his mouth. His brown hair was thinning, but he, too, dressed carefully, often wearing his robes of state at home.
He had never spent much time around his wife, Elizabeth, and now one of his main pleasures seemed to be verbally torturing her.
One night, she walked into the dining hall wearing a forest green gown with a matching headpiece, Spanish in design, as was the current fashion. They had six guests for dinner that evening.
“Good God,” Thomas said. “You look like a brown scarecrow. If you’re going to wear that color, the least you could do is cover your face in powder.”
Elizabeth froze in her tracks. Several guests tittered. Several glanced away in embarrassment.
Robert tried not to wince as he stood near the door. He was ashamed of his lord. A man of honor did not humiliate his wife.
Yet as uncomfortable as he found the situation, Robert never imagined it could get worse.
He was wrong.
Although Thomas Howard did not particularly
like
women, he found many of them enticing, and as far as he was concerned, the lower class the better for his appetites. In addition, he was hardly discreet, and Robert began growing more unsettled by his lord’s behavior.
like
women, he found many of them enticing, and as far as he was concerned, the lower class the better for his appetites. In addition, he was hardly discreet, and Robert began growing more unsettled by his lord’s behavior.
One of the household women was of particular concern. Her name was Bess Holland, and she was Lady Elizabeth’s washing woman. She was small and buxom with a mass of reddish curls and green eyes. She had a way of walking, while carrying a basket on her hip, that could cause an uproar among Robert’s own men, and she was well aware of it. Had he been the steward in charge of the household servants, he would have dismissed her.
Unfortunately, he was not the steward.
Soon, it was clear that his lord was sporting with Bess behind closed doors as often as possible. They didn’t even try to be quiet.
Again, Robert winced, but he said nothing. It was not his concern.
On the battlefield, his lord was magnificent. As a husband and father, he was lacking.
Robert chastised himself for such thoughts and vowed to remain loyal.
But when an old friend who served Thomas Boleyn stopped by on an errand one day, Robert almost asked him about possible openings among their house guard.
This got him thinking on travel and battles again, wondering if he should offer his services elsewhere. He was beginning to despise his lord and pity his lady.
The problem with Elizabeth was that she allowed Thomas to hurt her. Robert could see this in her eyes. If only she had ignored his barbs, let them vanish in the air, and pretended he had never spoken, he might have eventually relented. But she kept on trying to improve herself to keep him quiet. She flinched visibly at his cutting words, and yet she kept on trying to please him. That was her mistake. She had no other way to fight back, as he held all the power. Robert longed to tell her that the secret to fighting him was through complete and absolute disregard.
But of course he said nothing.
Then, one night, he was making his house rounds, and he heard screaming upstairs. He flew forward, drawing his sword, taking the steps two at a time. He ran for the nursery.
His lady was still screaming, but he checked himself in the doorway upon hearing his lord’s voice inside.
“Stop squalling, you hag!” Thomas shouted.
“A house?” Elizabeth screamed at him. “You bought her a house, for everyone to see?”
In horror, Robert realized his lord and lady were having a loud argument that many of the servants could probably hear. He stepped up closer to peer inside, and he saw little Henry and Mary up against the wall with their nurse, staring wide-eyed at their parents. Robert felt sick. He wanted to get them out of there.
“At least she does not lie beneath me like a motionless bag of sticks!” Thomas roared back.
“She is a churl’s daughter who was nothing but my washer-woman!”
Robert started slightly as the truth sank in. Lord Thomas had purchased Bess Holland a house of her own and had set her up as a mistress—and he had done so publicly.
“How could you? How could you stain our family name like this?” Elizabeth was sobbing now. “You will give her up. I demand you to give her up!”
“You demand—?”
His sentence was cut off by loud crashing sound, and Robert stepped up to the door, not caring if he was seen. Lady Elizabeth was on the floor with her mouth bleeding. Thomas reached down, jerked her back up to her feet, and struck her again. She fell back against a small table, and he kicked her.
The nurse pulled both of the children closer and covered their eyes.
Thomas hit his wife over and over again until she was unconscious and lying in a bleeding heap on the floor.
Robert just stood there in the doorway. He could not interfere. But something inside of him snapped, and he knew he could not stay in this house.
Though Thomas was panting, his rage finally seemed spent. He glanced at the nurse and his children and then strode out the door, stopping in brief surprise at the sight of Robert just outside in the hallway.
“I heard shouting, my lord,” Robert said instantly. “I feared for your safety.”
Thomas said nothing. He didn’t even order Robert to fetch help for Lady Elizabeth. He just brushed past and headed for the stairs.
Robert ran into the room, kneeling by Elizabeth and calling to the nurse. “Go get help! Run and find young Francis on watch out front. Tell him to break off one of the house doors and bring it up. Then send for a physician.” He paused. “And get the children out of here!”
Relieved at the sight of him taking charge, she shooed the children out, and he knelt there, alone, with Lady Elizabeth. She was still breathing, but she looked so broken that he feared even touching her without some assistance, and he did not want to try carrying her in his arms. After battles, he’d seen wounded men hurt worse if their backs or necks were already injured when someone tried to pick them up.
A commotion sounded downstairs as people burst into action, and all he could do was wait for his guardsman, Francis, to hurry upstairs with the doctor.
Lady Elizabeth recovered slowly, but word of Lord Thomas’ brutal actions—and the reason for the dispute—spread quickly. Striking one’s wife, even beating her, was not uncommon for men of his station. But beating her with his fists and feet into an unconscious state was . . . unseemly at best.
The third Duke of Norfolk decided to go back to court and continue his fight in the political arena. Robert requested to stay behind—and his request was granted. Thomas could barely look at him after the scene in the nursery.
Robert was determined to change his service and yet the prospect filled him with sorrow. He had served this house since he was eighteen. He was trusted here. The thought of starting over with a new lord seemed overwhelming. And as of yet, he could not leave Lady Elizabeth in her current state.
So he stayed.
With the duke gone and Bess Holland gone, the mood of the household improved somewhat. But as Elizabeth recovered physically, she appeared to deteriorate mentally, and she was sometimes seen whispering to herself.
Robert saw this himself one day, when she was out in the gardens with her mouth moving rapidly, but no one stood nearby. Her ribs had healed and she no longer bent over when she walked, but he believed she would keep the small scar on her upper lip.
Against all his training and belief in propriety, he walked up to her. “Are you well, my lady?”
She jumped at his voice and squinted as if not recognizing him for a moment. “Oh, Robert . . . yes, I am well. Even better soon. All will be well soon.”
She walked down the path, her lips quiet and still now.
Better soon? What had she meant?
The trio arrived several nights later—hours after darkness had fallen and long past when respectable guests might come calling.
Robert was in the kitchen, drinking a mug of ale before starting his final rounds, when young Francis stuck his head in the door.
“Sir?” he said.
“What is it?” Robert stood up.
“You’d better come.”
Robert followed to the great dining hall, where he found three figures illuminated by a burning candle: two men and a woman. The men were dressed like ruffians in baggy trousers and loose soiled shirts, their hair lank and greasy. They wore cutlass-styled blades on their belts. But he glanced at the men only briefly before his gaze fell upon the woman . . . perhaps only a girl? And he stopped walking.
The moment he entered, she turned and stared at him with large black eyes—true black like her wild hair. She looked maybe nineteen years old, with the pale, glowing skin of someone who seldom went outdoors. Her nose was small, and her mouth was heart-shaped. She wore a burgundy skirt and white blouse with a thin vestment over the top, laced up tightly. She was slender and her hips were narrow, yet the tops of her breasts swelled above the laced vest. Gold rings dangled from her ears, and bracelets clinked on her wrists.
Robert had seen gypsies before, but not one like her. When she turned to look at him, the top of her blouse slipped slightly, exposing her fine-boned shoulder, and he was hit by a rush of physical desire stronger than anything he’d ever felt before. His mind filled with images of her lying beneath him, clawing at his back.
He drew in a breath, cursing himself, and straightened, pushing the images away.
“What are you doing in here?” he demanded.
“We have business with your lady,” the young woman answered.
“I don’t think so,” he answered.
Such rabble had no business with Lady Elizabeth. How had they gotten this far into the house? He’d have Francis on night watch for a month.
“Are they here?” a breathy voice called from the entryway outside, near the bottom of the stairs.
To his surprise, Lady Elizabeth nearly ran into the dining hall. She wore no headpiece, and strands of her hair fell about her face, sticking to her chin. She was holding her skirt off the floor. Robert had never seen her in such an undignified state.
“Oh . . .” she breathed at the sight of the strangers. Motioning toward a back room where the duke sometimes held intimate conferences with other lords, she said, “Quickly, in there.”
“My lady?” Robert asked in confusion. Had Elizabeth indeed called for these . . . people?
She ignored him and hurried past, moving toward the strangers.
The girl was still staring at Robert, almost as if she knew him. Though shaken by his own reaction to her, he had no intention of allowing Elizabeth to take these three into a back room alone. The men looked like thieves or lowborn assassins—or both.
He walked after his lady, gripping the hilt of sword.
She held up one hand. “Wait out here,” she ordered.
He couldn’t believe what was happening. Elizabeth had never deigned to look at such people, much less speak to them.
“My lady?” he repeated, uncertain what to do.
But she ushered all three strangers into the back room, and he was powerless do anything but obey her orders. The gypsy girl continued to stare at him until the door was closed.
He walked over in near panic and stood directly outside, ready to break through the moment he was called. Then he noticed Francis was still standing across the hall in the archway, equally disturbed.
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