“Not Meredith?” It had seemed to me that, though she had formally been Baron Blackston’s maid, she had spent much of her time abiding with Simon.
He fairly spat on the dance floor. “Harlot. She became with child from, who knows, some stable boy, I suppose. I turned her out in her shift. No, I’ll leave it to the next baroness to choose the women servants from now on.”
I noticed that he hadn’t said he’d leave it to me. The music changed to something softer, slower. He drew me near as a lover and nestled his mouth near my neck. I felt near to suffocation but pressed forward. “Since we speak of serving maids, my own lady maid, Edithe, said you had come to pay her a call.”
He pulled away, angry, I saw, that I had raised the topic afore he could. “Shall we sit and talk, my lady?”
I nodded and he led me to a vacant table. After sipping some small beer he began the conversation. “The future Countess of Blenheim had suggested to me, upon my arrival, that there were some correspondence I may want to be aware of. She has deep-seated feelings of family loyalty but felt compelled by her noble sense of honor to share with me that you and her brother, the priest, William, had been writing to one another. I went to inquire of you and, as you were out, asked your lady maid for her assistance.”
“Edithe indicated to me that you threatened her, not asked for her help,” I responded.
He snorted contemptuously. “You believe a lowborn serving girl over the titled man you hope to marry?”
I did not respond.
“I had my man ride out to Hever and, ah, acquire the letters. I’ve read them. They please me not.”
“Your man must have had to race to Kent and back without stopping. And ’tis not often pleasing to read mail intended for another. Thievery begets bad sentiments all round,” I said.
“’Tis not thievery for a man to investigate whether or not his bride has been compromised. So, here is my thought, my love. There are no dates on the letters. Mayhap they were written when you were a child, a child who had been wayward and mayhap not well disciplined or brought up to know that this kind of discourse between a man and a maid is unseemly. Or mayhap, as the countess has intimated to me, some of these letters are more recent, between a priest and a woman who is intended for another.”
He grew quiet as a servant came to refill his mug and mine. I glanced up and saw Rose’s gaze fixed upon me. Her brother Walter had not come, but their ward, Charlotte, danced in the arms of my brother Edmund. The servant left and Simon picked up the malevolent thought he’d left off with.
“Your brother Thomas, all know, married a whore who makes her way round the realm like a coin. I’ve no intention of doing that, nor risking my son’s bloodline with a woman who has an easy shift. Think on this tonight. I shall visit your apartment tomorrow afore the evening meal and you can tell me if these letters, and the sentiments within them, are from long ago or mayhap are still fresh in hand and heart. I bid you a good evening, my lady.”
He stood up and took his leave, and as he did, I noticed that others remarked of it. ’Twas common knowledge that we were to be married and his rude dismissal would be noted.
I made my apologies and went back to my room. I did not share my concerns with Edithe as it would only vex her further.
After she helped me to bed I blew out the candle and lay there under the grimace of a cold January moon. I would not sleep all night, and that reminded me of Simon and his physic draughts, ones certain to keep the baron from being intimate with me and therefore from producing an heir to undo Simon. Of feeble-minded Meredith, pregnant more likely by Simon or one of his boon companions than by a stable boy. Of Simon’s threat to Roger. Was this a man I could trust with my life or the lives of my future children?
And yet, I had few choices. Edmund would be livid if this did not come to pass. Indeed, he’d like as not been plotting this very outcome with Simon from the beginning. I was not exactly the village old maid but even Anthony, who was older, had been partnered with a much younger and supposedly more fertile bride. My niece was years younger than I and newly wed. And I’d been well trained to understand living with a tyrant.
Anne would not turn me out, this I knew. Perhaps she could help find me a husband.
And strangely, the option I had so long ago dismissed out of hand grew more welcome. Mayhap I could serve You in an abbey, eventually.
I allowed myself to sleep, then, to rest my bones for the winter storm I’d face on the morrow. One thing still troubled me. What benefit did this hold for Rose, and why had she approached Simon?
SEVENTEEN
Year of Our Lord 1533
Greenwich Palace
The Tower of London
Simon appeared early the next afternoon. I met him in the greeting room of my apartments. “You are right,” I said. “My sentiments remain as they are expressed in the letters.”
“I knew it!” he screamed. “You’ve been betraying me, and my uncle, all along. Your family’s contemptible morals are never better displayed than in these debauched letters.”
“Come now. Debauched? Hardly. I do not act upon those feelings. Nor does the man in question, if he even holds them at present.”
Simon’s face was still twisted. “So you say, though I do not believe you, nor am I certain that you had not acted on them afore and may well again in the future. I have no desire to share my wife, neither her affections nor her caresses, with another. I would likely take you to wife only to find that you are not a maid.”
I looked him in the eye and kept my voice low. “Why ever would you expect to find me a maid, Baron? I am a widow, you recall.”
He returned my gaze, malevolently, then blinked like a lizard. “I leave, immediately, to inform your brothers that my offer of betrothal has been withdrawn.”
Within an hour Edmund burst through my door and took me by the hair. “For what means, Sister, do you speak to Lord Blackston of lies? You have had no correspondence with Will Ogilvy. I’d know.”
Mayhap he had spies?
“I have not claimed that,” I choked out, my neck bent backward. “Simon stole old letters and made of it what he would.”
He let go of my hair and shoved me into a chair. “They should have been burned long ago. They should never have been written. I myself would not marry a woman so compromised. So you’ve ruined your life. Fool! Then where will you go?” he taunted. “Because of your imprudence you have set aside years of planning and negotiations. I’ve already paid a dowry for you with the highest titled position you could hope for. I will not allow Father to pay another, bankrupting us for your lack of judgment.”
I knew this was coming, because it always came down to money and position with Edmund, and yet still took chill. There was no honorable way for me to marry any man above a serf without a dowry, and no good family would take on that shame. “I can serve Her Grace forever. Or the king will provide a dowry for me. Or I’ll go to an abbey.”
Edmund laughed. “There will be no abbeys left when the king is done dismantling the Church’s properties. And he will not be willing to pay a dowry for a disobedient wench. Cromwell keeps a good hand on the king’s money, as I know. Even Lady Anne,” he said with contempt, “must pay expenses of her own pocket or beg the king to cover her debts.”
There had been rumors that the king was considering reclaiming the monasteries from the Church in Rome for the Church in England. Anne’s plan was to use them to provide income for the poor, traditionally the responsibility of the Church, which would now become the king’s purview and which she had hoped to administer for the good of the needy. Could Henry really be planning to empty them into his own coffers?