Queenbreaker: Perseverance (The Queenbreaker Trilogy Book 1) (46 page)

Shelton
House, London

Saturday,
September 13
^th
1533

I
watched my family enter Uncle Wiltshire’s barge at the water stairs. Twilight
hovered over the skyline in layers of coral and violet. I watched them row a
distance and join the traffic heading west. Once the leopard pennant grew too
small to see, I left my hiding place in the garden and went inside. The only
servant left in the house was the new housekeeper, Mrs. Morton.

“Lady
Shelton said you’d gone back to court, mistress,” she said, surprised by my
appearance.

“I
am, Mrs. Morton. I left something behind that I must bring back to court. You
may go. I’ll lock the door behind you.”

Mrs.
Morton resisted my gentle command.

“But
who will lock the garden door?”

“The
porter will do it,” I said. “He’s in the gatehouse. Now go enjoy your evening.
I mean to enjoy mine when I return to court.”

My
mention of court swayed her. Who was she to question the Shelton daughter who
lived among the high and mighty?

I’d
already given the porter a bottle of
uisge
to pass the night. He’d uncorked it before I’d left his post. I prayed he
already lay on his cot, sotted.

Twilight
faded, revealing the stars. I watched them wink to life one by one as I waited
on Mariah. She came at moonrise. The half-moon bulged like Anne’s impatient
eyes.

She
scratched at the garden door as we’d arranged. I opened it to two Scots with
their plaids over their heads. Mariah walked by me straight upstairs to the
bedchamber she’d used before.

“Jesu,
its dark in here,” Frances muttered.

“As
it should be,” Mariah murmured. She pulled off her gloves, laid them on the
dressing table. She reached inside her leather jerkin and pulled out my little
bundle of love notes, set them on the table. “If you plan to make a claim on
him, it requires more than these, more than the ring,” she said. “I will put
them in your hand once we cross to Bridewell.”

Our
eyes met in the dark mirror.

“Did
you ever love him?” I asked.

At
first, I did not believe she would answer. Her eyes shifted from mine to the
center of the glass. Her head inclined toward one shoulder as Anne’s did when
she meant to draw out the King’s attention.

“I
have known him my entire life,” she said. “I loved him the way Persephone loves
her jesses. The way my hounds love their kennel. When you are a dumb creature
and know no better, you love what you are given.”

But
the cant of her neck shifted, losing Anne’s self-possessed inflection. A girl
looked back at me, eyes young and yearning.

“I
knew I’d passsed the age of innocence when I fell in love with someone else.
Someone so unlike Lord John de Vere that no one would believe it possible. I
doubted. It was certainly not wise. But it was astonishing. It was revelation.”

She
stared at me, eyes shining. “God chooses who we love. He never chooses
wrongly.”
 
She lowered her eyes. “So
I thought it meant I should speak my mind.
To the Queen.
At Calais.”

Mariah
grinned. “She listened so marvelously—you know the way of it—her
eyes see only you. Her body inclines toward you so that you feel you are the
only person who exists for her. I told her everything. I could not stop myself.
It was like the flooding tide. I spoke ‘til there were no more words only tears
and she listened to those too.” Mariah’s voice sank to a bemused murmur. “She
sat so still, as if caught in amber. The only sound in the chamber came when
the gale outside found its way down the chimney.

When
my tears were spent, she beckoned me close. I knelt, put my hands upon her
knees. She began stroking the top of my ear as she does Urian’s—I thought
how strange it was until she twisted my earlobe so hard I thought it would
tear. She turned my head, brought my ear to her lips and said, “the heart never
heals”. Then she threw me away from her and God help me, I ran.

The
next day she ordered John to Paris with my brother. She assumed, knowing my
history as she does, I spoke of him. But, you see, even knowing that my love is
God’s will, I remembered I was a Howard and kept back his name.”

“So
John went off to France, believing I still wanted to be his wife. And I sent no
message saying otherwise. I sent him no message at all. He wrote me almost
every day. Poems mostly.” She glanced at the letters on the dressing table. “I
believe you’ve seen a sampling…”

The
jibe shattered her spell. The sympathy she’d coaxed from my calloused heart,
evaporated.
 

“And
now, you love this other,” I scoffed. “You must love him better since you’ve
used the secrets of your friends and kin against them to aid your cause.”

Lady
Frances raised her hand, but Mariah grabbed it before she slapped me.

“One
day, Mary Shelton, you may be blessed to feel as I do, and then you will know
yourself capable of doing the same.”

“On
that day, Mary Howard, I should know I am cursed. As you are.”

Mariah’s
face did not change. She merely made a tiny nod as if to say she expected no
better from me. “Cromwell has the body of your letter. A friend at Westminster
has the piece containing your signature. If I do not cross the bridge to
Bridewell tonight, Cromwell will have it by morning Mass.”

Mass!
My brother was due to court by then. What would he do if he found me missing?
He could not go to the Queen without me. And if I lost this chance, I might not
be able to talk him ‘round to trying again.

“Are
there dogs on the property?” Mariah asked.

“What?”
I asked, disoriented by the randomness of the question.

Frances
blew an exasperated sigh. “We didn’t see a kennel.”

“It
is next door—we share with our neighbors. Why do you—?”

Mariah
lowered her hood. “You know why.” Her cobalt eyes pinned me in the mirror. “He
will be here at midnight. Bring him to me.”

______________

It
started raining at midnight. A mist rose off the river, crept up our water
stairs and invaded the garden.

I will give him a 100 count more then I
am done!

I
had already been crouched beside the window nearest the garden doors for thirty
some minutes. That was fifteen more than intended. The bells at Blackfriars had
rung midnight. Mariah had sworn he would he would arrive at midnight—no
later. But just in case, wait another fifteen minutes. If he does not come by
then…

Her
fierce eyes saw no possibility for such a disaster. They told me he would be
here.

The
rain had put out the lanterns hung at the water stairs. It was unlikely the
boatman would be able to find them in the misty darkness. This was madness.

“Sweet
Jesu, he is not coming.”

I
stood too fast and my knees popped. “Christ in Heaven, if I wind up with an
ague I’ll know who to blame.”

I
pulled my cloak tighter against the icy fingers of air probing for bare skin
and turned to go upstairs. I darted one last look over my shoulder and saw the
mist scatter at the edge of the garden.

I
ran back to the window. I waited for another movement.

“It
was the wind.”

Then
I heard it.

I
pulled the door open and ran down the path to the water. The mist hid
everything at ground level, but my feet knew the way. I stopped at the top of
the stairs. The mist swirled so thick I could not see the river.

“Help
me.”

I
jumped, dropped my cloak as a hand materialized out of the mist.

“Please.”

The
voice broke on a fit of coughing.

“Holy
Mother, you’ll wake all of Blackfriars,” I hissed.

I
grabbed his cold, slick hand, put my other hand around his wrist and pulled.
His head came clear of the clinging mist.

“Not
you.” My breath faltered. “It cannot be you.”

________________

I
handed Mariah the last sheet stripped from my bed. She applied it to his dark
hair, the back of his neck.

“Enough,
lady, I’m as dry as I can be for now. Let the fire
do
its work.”

Mariah
tossed the sheet at my feet. Frances poured another draught of uisge.

Smeaton
downed it. “No more, my lady” he said when Frances moved to pour another. “My
gut is already afire.”

“The
boatman will be whipped and thrown in the Clink,” Mariah snarled.

Smeaton
pinched her cheek. “He did right, my love. Why should he lose his livelihood
trying to land in the dark?”

“But
how could you then jump in the river? With no light, no stars to guide
you—you God cursed fool—“

She
leapt up and atop my bed, shutting the curtains behind her.

Frances
sipped the
uisge
she’d already
poured.

“If
you had drowned…” Mariah cried.

Smeaton
stood, the sheets draped around him. “Well, I did not—

“Shhhh,”
Mariah hissed.

He
went to the bed. “I did not,” he began again at a near whisper. “I am here…as I
promised.”

The
curtains twitched.

“I
came through rain and mist—and river water to be with you. And you curse
my efforts.”

“I
curse your recklessness. A rich man may drown just as well as a poor one.”

Smeaton’s
rich?

“Rich
or poor, we must serve love’s demands.”

The
curtains flew apart. Mariah’s tear stained cheeks trembled. “This is not
Pass-the-Time. This is real.”

“Sweetheart,”
he said almost too soft to hear.

Mariah’s
eyes flitted over his shoulder; saw me watching them. She opened the curtain
wider. Smeaton crawled inside. Mariah shut the curtains again.

“You’d
best put this back.”

I
nearly jumped as Frances shoved the bottle of uisge at me.

“That
is the Devil’s work for certain,” she said with a smirk. “It is not a lady’s
drink.”

“The
Queen enjoys it,” I said with a smirk of my own.

Frances
turned her back on me. “That proves it. Wait downstairs. We will leave soon.”

Soft
giggles emerged from behind the bed curtains, belying that timing. I took a
candle from the dressing table and removed myself.

____________

I
softly shut the door on a wisp of Mariah’s coy laughter.

She is a mad girl.

Mad
as her mother the Duchess. The high and mighty Duke of Norfolk’s favorite
daughter, betrothed to the King’s own son, had taken a foreign, low-born singer
to her bed.

When
the Duke learned of it, he would do worse than beat her. He could kill her
outright or lock her up at one of his remote houses in Norfolk (as he’d done
the Duchess), and leave her to starve. She’d betrayed her blood, the natural
order—all common sense.

She
had called me a climber. What did this make her—besides a whore?

My
letters would cease to exist when Cromwell brought her to account.

Where
in God’s name was Cromwell? And John? Had the mist delayed them?

“I
should light more lanterns at the water stairs.” I hurried downstairs, replaced
the uisge in the dining chamber and went toward the garden door. I opened the
left-hand door and a voice sounded behind me.

“Is
Mariah upstairs?”

I
turned too quick and my ankle twisted. My shoulder blades struck the door then
a hand grabbed my throat.

“Just
nod if it is so,” he murmured.

My
lips fluttered. Enowes’s clammy gloves dug for my windpipe.

“Just
nod,” he murmured again.

His
hand loosened barely enough for me to lower my chin.

“Is
she alone?”

I
shook my head slowly, carefully.

“Is
he with her?”

I
dropped my chin again. Enowes’s hand slackened.

“They
are here, my
lord
. Upstairs,” he said over his
shoulder.

Bootheels
struck the floor. A silhouette appeared behind Enowes then the darkness spat
him out. He wore my blackwork shirt, the laces undone at his throat. The thick
river air had weighted his hair around his face. John drew his sword. Moonlight
limned its long, wicked edge.

I
forced the words past Enowes fingers. “W-what do you mean to do?”

John
waved the blade, grinning. “Why, I’ve come to save Mariah’s honor. I’m going to
kill the whoreson who forced himself on Lord Norfolk’s daughter. Sadly, I’ve
come too late to prevent her deflowering. That leaves her unfit to wed
Fitzroy.”