Mistress to the Crown. Isolde Martyn

could see the tendrils of blond hair that must span his chest. To hell with his age! The lusty creature inside me was wide awake. I no longer needed to ratchet up my determination, but I was as nervous as a fieldmouse in short grass.

      ‘Was Master Catesby able to help you?’

      ‘Thank you, my lord, he has given me the name of a worthy cleric at the Court of Arches. I am very grateful.’ I was prepared to show him how much.

      ‘Hell, be done with thanks. Can’t blame you for being wary of lawyers. Escrew you soon as look at you.’ He removed the mazer lid and took a mouthful, grinning at me across the rim. ‘Pretty headdress.’

      I smiled, sipped and looked around. Wild strawberries and periwinkles lapped the flagstones where we sat and a chequer-board of well-scythed turves and beds of seedlings was spread before us. ‘This … this is a very fine garden, my lord.’

      ‘Not of my making, sorry to say. All rented.’

      ‘Have you lived here for very long?’ Oh, this was not easy.

      ‘Only since I returned with the King from Burgundy. Before the rebellion, I had rooms at the palace. Still have. This is an extravagance, really. I spend more time at Westminster or Eltham than I do here.’ He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. ‘What was yesterday really about, Elizabeth?’

      Elizabeth – my given name – the way he said it was a caress.

      ‘Are you sure you want to know, my lord?’

      He leaned back languidly. His eyes, narrowed against the sunlight, searched my face. ‘Maybe I can assist you.’

      I looked down at my lap. ‘I believe you can, my lord, but not in any way you can imagine.’

      ‘Oh, I can imagine.’ The garland of words was strung out evenly. I glanced up, took breath, trying to ascertain his meaning. Ambiguity might be a delight for diplomats and barons, but for the likes of me? Was this just courtly teasing? If I swept away all artifice and asked him outright, what then?

      His blue gaze gleamed as though he guessed my dilemma and swept on past me. A she-blackbird, a creature of carnality so the bestiaries say, was waiting hopefully for a crumb. Like me.

      Do it! cried the other creature inside of me, her fists hammering against my ribs.

      The hour bells made his mouth tighten. I was but a swift meeting in today’s agendum.

       Do it!

      ‘If it would please you, my lord, I should be willing to lie with you.’ I drew a ragged breath and plunged in even further. ‘Indeed, I should count it as an honour.’

      His eyebrows arched like chevrons. ‘My dear, I’ve been solicited by the rich and the ragged but …’ I was studied anew as though he had picked up a magnifying glass to inspect every lesion in my soul. ‘Devil take it,’ he muttered, frowning, ‘you are in earnest.’

      I cursed at having cheapened myself in his estimation. This precious friendship would be over now. Desire, spoken, could not be scraped away like errata on vellum.

      ‘Does Shore’s cockerel not crow enough for you, Elizabeth?’ I must have shaken as though the very air was bruising, because the cynical lines in his expression softened. ‘Hell! Forgive me, that was stable talk.’

      Well, I deserved stable talk if I was begging to be treated like a milkmaid, and I could speak it, too.

      ‘Shore’s cockerel sits on the perch all day and all night, my lord, and so it has been for most of the marriage. We are ill-matched.’ I shook my head in sadness, and then clasped my hands to my lips in contrition. ‘I ask your pardon, my lord. It was presumptuous, pathetic of me to have asked you.’

      A gentle finger lifted my chin. Compassionate eyes searched my face. ‘You, the most beautiful woman in London? Oh, Elizabeth.’

      His voice held the kindness of a friend once again, but my self-worth was as fragile as a jenny wren’s egg. I did not believe his flattery, of course, but if only he knew the depth, the desperation, of my longing to be held in his arms, valued not judged, and loved, loved for the fledgling lonely girl within me and not my shell. The hope in my eyes must have appalled him. It was probably my imagination but there was certainly a quickening of interest in his.

      ‘But you could take a lover so easily,’ he said, sitting back and shaking his head in wry amazement as he looked at me. ‘Damn it, any merchant in England worth his salt would fall before you on his knees and beg.’

      ‘I don’t know about that, my lord. They certainly hang around my doorway like flies in search of fresh meat. See, I, too, disdain ragged manners and gutter purposes.’

      It was too painful to tell him that, after one of my husband’s married friends had tried to assault me, Shore had blamed me and then monstrously suggested I lie with the man. ‘What in fucking hell does it matter if he tups you?’ Shore had said. ‘He’s a worthy fellow. At least that way you might provide me with an heir. You like playing with his children well enough.’

      I looked across at Lord Hastings with a wry smile, trying to reclothe my vulnerability.

      ‘Then I must count myself most favoured,’ he was saying, ‘however …’ He stood up and paced to the edge of the arbor. I watched in dismay as he thrust his hands on his waist and cast his gaze upwards, letting out his breath with a sigh of amused wonder before he swung round to face me. ‘And you consider me as manna from Heaven?’

      I bowed my head in respect. ‘I know you would be kind with my ignorance and gentle in teaching me.’

      ‘Teaching!’ He dragged his fingers across his jaw. ‘Oh, sweetheart, was ever man so tempted?’

      ‘Then you agree?’ Excitement eddied through me. Would this divine man initiate me into Paradise? Oh, when, when? This moment even? Except his fingers were plucking at his golden troth ring. O Jesu, no!

      ‘Do not take this wrongly.’ A refusal? Please God, make him say yes. ‘This is not a simple matter, Mistress Elizabeth.’ He leaned a raised elbow against the weathered lathes. ‘I was just thinking – remembering a Christian woman I once knew who fell in love with a Jew, loved him so much that she converted to his religion and became more devout than he.

      ‘Now, from what you have told me and from what I have observed, it seems you have behaved with propriety all these years and suddenly you want to change your coat. Dangerous waters, Elizabeth. If you throw your values overboard, what chart shall you steer by?’ His expression was telling me of an even deeper concern.

      ‘I thank you for the warning, my lord,’ I murmured with my head bowed like a daughter and then I looked up with a wicked grin. ‘So your concern is I shall become an apostle of the creed of lust, and end up raddled with the crabs?’ And before he could answer, I added soberly, ‘Or are you afeared I shall fall in love with you?’

      Relief swept into his face. ‘By the Saints, you never hide your meaning, do you?’

      I smiled, my heart aching. ‘You have been a light in the darkness of my world, my lord. Surely friends can be honest with each other?’

      He nodded, not guessing me a liar. ‘Then, to be honest and speak plainly, I have a wife and family I love dearly. Kate and I do not spend much time together. I have my court duties. She has the children. Since her brother Warwick’s death, she rarely steps foot in Westminster for reasons I am sure you can understand. Yes, I admit I am not faithful to her in body.’ He grimaced in self-judgment. ‘But where my heart is not engaged, making love does not seem like such a betrayal.’

      ‘Then make love to me.’ I tried not to sound like a desperate beggar.

      ‘I’m grown fond of you, Elizabeth. You’ve been a temptation since I first saw you. Ah, a plague on it!’

      I watched him drive his bejewelled fingers through his fine, fair hair. Must I go down on my knees?

      ‘I