Queen's Pleasure Read online

  Once we were settled, with him propped high against a mound of pillows, and my head was on his shoulder, Robert drew the three-branched candelabrum closer and took a book from the bedside table. I saw from the gilt letters on its spine that it was The Canterbury Tales.

  “I chose this story just for you, Amy; I have wanted to read it to you for a long time, but I have been waiting, saving it, for just the right moment. And now that my life has changed with my new appointment at court, that moment has finally come.”

  I pressed a kiss onto the side of my husband’s neck and nestled closer. “Begin at once then, my love. For you to have wanted and waited so long, it must be a very special tale indeed.”

  Robert opened the book to a page he had marked with a red satin ribbon.

  My heart sank like a stone, plummeting from a great height, as if it had been dropped from a clifftop into the sea, when I realized it was “The Clerk’s Tale” of Patient Griselda that my husband was reading to me.

  Slowly, as if he wanted each word to sink in, he read me the tale of that stout-hearted and eternally obedient and devoted peasant woman raised to royal estate when the monarch chose her to be his bride, who patiently endured and passed each one of the cruel tests her husband set for her, even when she thought her own children taken away and slain upon his orders, and herself being turned out clad only in her shift and bare feet to make way for a new royal bride. Sometimes he would pause, indicate with his finger a certain passage, and pass the book to me and say, “Now you read to me.” And I heard myself saying things like: “Never in word or thought shall I ever disobey you,” and “I would gladly die that it might please you,” as Robert nodded and favored me with an encouraging smile.

  When the tale was finished, and Robert had set the book aside, he asked me what I thought of the story.

  “Men like this Walter are unkind,” I said, for how could a man with even a glimmer of kindness in his heart treat his wife thus? It was such a cruel game he played, a game where her head, heart, body, and even the children she bore him were tokens, pawns, made even crueler because only Walter himself knew that it was a game they were playing, while loving, trusting, and loyal Griselda took it all as truth. She paid the price for believing in her husband. “I don’t believe she could have been happy despite what the storyteller says; for every public smile she must have wept a whole ocean of tears in private,” I said. “She must have felt as if she lived her life walking always on ground that might at any moment start to move and shake violently beneath her feet, fighting to always keep her balance and keep smiling and not let anyone see her fear.”

  Robert sighed and shook his head and said I had missed the point entirely, but we would work to remedy my ignorance later, but now he was too tired and wished only to sleep. But first there was something else he must tell me: I was to go and stay with Mr. William Hyde and his family at their fine new mansion house—built in the new style rather than an old moated manor made of blocks of stone with arched or arrow-slit windows—in Throcking, a peaceful little hamlet in Hertfordshire.

  “But why can I not stay with you?” I demanded.

  “You’re a country girl born and bred, Amy. You’ll not be happy in the city or at court—it’s a whole other world, Buttercup! And my Buttercup Bride cannot thrive without sunshine, blue skies, fresh air, and green grass; she would wither and die shut up within the walls of a crowded palace. All the etiquette and ceremony would chafe you raw. It is a world where a single mistake can ruin you forever; people have long memories, and the walls have eyes and ears. There is always someone ready to smile to your face, then turn around and talk about you behind your back or stab you in it. You’ll be happier in the country, and I will come to visit you as often as I can. In fact, it will be easier for me to visit you at the Hydes’; you’ll be nearer there than you would have been at Syderstone or any of the other manors your father left you.”

  “But, Robert, I want to be with you, not just nearer!” I cried. “I can learn to be the lady you want me to be—I know I can! I want us to be together—that is what matters most to me! I don’t want us to drift apart until we are like two strangers and there’s nothing left holding us together; as it is, every year it feels like the knot that binds us together grows looser.”

  “Come now, Buttercup, be sensible.” Robert took me in his arms and kissed my cheek. “You don’t want to ruin my chances, do you?”

  “Ruin your chances?” I repeated. “But how should I do that?”

  “Wives are not welcome at Elizabeth’s court,” Robert explained. “Elizabeth is a vain and selfish woman who demands to be worshipped and adored like a goddess; she needs to command a man’s full attention, and those who make her think she must share them with a wife or a mistress do not prosper.”

  “You mean you wish to pretend that you are not married,” I said. “I think, Robert, the truth is that you are ashamed of me, and that you are bored and tired of me.”

  “Now you’re speaking nonsense again, and fluently too!” Robert reproved me. “I am merely telling you how things are, educating you in the ways of the court. It is Elizabeth who wants to pretend, not I! And I am not the only man who must be parted from his wife to please her!”

  “Then be brave enough to be different, Robert,” I insisted. “Make a stand and show her and the world that you love your wife and want her at your side where she belongs!”

  “And wave farewell to everything I have worked so hard for? Do you know what you are asking me to give up, Amy, and what it will mean to you? Do you really want an angry and embittered husband who sits all day by the fire nursing his regrets and blaming you for ruining his chances, while his love for you withers and dies until it is turned to solid, hard black hate? Do you really want that?”

  “No, but ...” I began.

  “No buts, Amy.” Robert smacked a kiss onto my lips. “You’re for the country, I’m for the court, and Elizabeth’s for England! That’s the way it has to be if we are all to prosper. Elizabeth holds my future in the palm of her hand, and she knows it, and with her favor I can rise high and become the greatest man in the land. Don’t hold me back, Buttercup, unless, of course, you want to sink into poverty and a bitter, loveless marriage; it’s entirely up to you, my love.” He took my hands in his, kissed each one, then held them together, forming a cup of my two palms. “My fate is in these two little hands!”

  “Very well!” I sighed and gave in. “But must I go to the Hydes’? I don’t even know them! Why can I not go back to Syderstone instead? Even if it is farther away, it is still my home, and I know it and the people well, so I will not be as lonely as I would be plunked down amongst strangers. Surely I am worth riding a little farther to visit me?”

  “Oh, Amy, do be practical!” Robert snapped. “You cannot go to Syderstone because it’s falling down, and it is not a fit place for my wife to reside. If I let you continue in such a decrepit and ramshackle abode, people will talk; they will think I don’t care about you. Do you want people to gossip and think ill of me? They will say that while I lodge beneath a gilded ceiling, my wife is left to shiver under one that lets the rain in and where the wind whistles the walls down. Besides”—he hesitated, but only for a moment—“it has been sold, so you cannot stay there anymore; it is no longer your home. Doubtlessly it will be demolished and used for pasture-lands or to build a new house if the new owner has sufficient means.”

  “Sold! Sold?” I leapt out of bed and spun ’round to face him. “Syderstone has been sold? But it can’t be! It’s my home! I grew up there! You said that we would restore it, make it as fine a manor as it ever was, or even grander, and our children would grow up there! You promised, Robert, you promised!”

  “Oh, Amy, will you not let it rest? Why do you keep on and on? Once you get something into your head, you never let go! You just don’t know when to stop, do you? Even when it’s for your own good, still you keep on dredging up the past! When I spoke those words, I was young and foolish; I was bein
g passionate, not practical, and I got carried away,” Robert excused himself, shrugging it off as if it were nothing at all. “I was just dreaming aloud! Can you not understand that? You were young then too, and surely that foolish head of yours has harbored its share of outlandish dreams that you knew, even as you dreamed them, would never really come true. Restoring Syderstone simply is not practical. It would break us. The expense would be enormous. Even if we had the money—which we don’t—it would bankrupt us. And it is not conveniently located to suit my needs; it is too far from the court.”

  “But it was my home, Robert—I grew up there!” I sobbed. “You had no right!”

  “I am your husband, so I have every right to dispose of my property as I please—your inheritance became my inheritance when we married—and it pleased me to sell a house that was nothing but a burden to me and for which I had no use. It was nothing but an encumbrance! But cry all you want.” Robert shrugged. “Only do so where I can’t hear you. I need my sleep.” He rolled over onto his side and pulled the covers up higher. “But there’s really no point in weeping; it won’t change anything.” He yawned. “Syderstone is gone, and you must accept it.”

  “I didn’t even have the chance to say good-bye,” I said softly.

  “Oh, come now!” Robert snorted. “Saying good-bye to a house? Really, Amy, at times you are the very meaning of absurd—you make that word come to life and breathe!”

  “But the furniture, and my things ...” I persisted.

  “There’s nothing there of any value!” Robert exclaimed. “As for your personal things, I assure you, anything worth saving will be awaiting you at Throcking. And I’ve arranged to have your cats sent there too—that fat, fluffy one and the silly black one with the crooked tail—so you shan’t lack for company with them to baby and croon over.”

  “Thank you, Robert. I don’t know what I would do without Onyx and Custard—they are indeed like babies to me—but I should have been the one to decide. I should have been the one to ... to ...” I buried my face in my hands and broke down in tears.

  “There wasn’t time for that!” Robert peevishly exclaimed. “Besides, the men I assigned to do it are most capable and not the sort to be swayed by sentimentality, like you are; they think with their heads, not with their hearts! If I had left the matter to you, it would not have been concluded by Doomsday, and the new owner would have had me in the law courts because of your dallying; then what would I do? I can’t give his money back; I’ve already spent it! I am sorry to say it of my own wife, Amy, but you asked, and so I have to answer, and, though it saddens me to say it, you are just not competent and efficient enough to be entrusted with such a task. If I let you do it, you would be weeping over every spoon, cup, and candlestick and clinging like a lover to every stick of furniture.”

  “That is not true!” I sobbed. “I know Syderstone better than anyone, so none would be more suited to the task than I! And I have been managing large households since I was but a girl!”

  “That is hardly the same thing!” Robert retorted. “Managing a house and dismantling a house are two very different things!”

  “Well, if I cannot go to Syderstone, my father left me three other manors—Bircham Newton and Greater Bircham in Norfolk, and Bulkham Manor in Suffolk,” I reminded him. “Could I not go to one of them instead? I know they are much smaller, but I would much prefer that to living amongst strangers. I want my own home, Robert, to be surrounded by my own things, and people I know, not to be a guest in someone else’s house, partaking of their bed and board, having to sit and be gracious with no work to do except embroidery. I want my own home and work to do to keep me busy so the loneliness of missing you doesn’t drive me mad!”

  “I have told you before, and I tell you again now, you must accept that you are the wife of a great man and conduct yourself as such; no more churning butter in the dairy, picking fruit, and working alongside the servants as if you were one of them. We shall have a fine country house later, when my position at court is more established; then I will find a country house worthy of me, or else I shall build one when I know I can afford to, but it will have to wait until then, for I shall have nothing but the best. I shall accept nothing less, and if that means waiting until there is more gold in our coffers, then you must be content to wait. And, for now, you will have to go to Mr. Hyde’s, and I don’t want to hear another word about it! I’ve already arranged it; your things are doubtlessly being packed and sent to Throcking as we speak. And you don’t want to appear ungracious or ungrateful, do you? That would reflect very badly upon me, and I will not have such things said of my wife; Lady Dudley must always comport herself as a perfect lady, like an etiquette book sprung to life in female form. I will tolerate nothing less, and I warn you now, it shall not go well for you if I hear differently. Besides, you cannot go to Bircham Newton, Greater Bircham, or Bulkham; they have been sold as well, and you know you are not wanted at Stanfield Hall now that your stepbrother and his family have set up house there. Oh, and the sheep are all gone as well, so you needn’t start talking any wild nonsense about becoming a shepherdess and going to live with the flock, taking shelter in a cave upon cold nights and when it rains. Nor can you make your home in an apple tree like a bird in a nest; the orchards have been sold as well. Now, no more tears and absurdity, Amy. Come to bed. We both need our rest. And you’ve really nothing to fear. You will have a whole wing—the best one, of course—and you will like the Hydes, and they will like you if they wish to continue to enjoy my favor; one word from me in the right ear, and they are ruined, and they know it.”

  “I never thought I would come to this,” I said in quiet defeat as I climbed back into bed, “that people would like me only because they were obliged or paid to, and not for myself.”

  Robert sighed deeply and rolled over in bed, turning his back to me. “You really are the most ridiculous creature! You know nothing of the ways of the world! Now draw the bed-curtains, then lie down, and think about the story we just read until you fall asleep! I had hoped it would prove instructive, but you’re so dull and dense, I see I shall have to think of another way to make its lessons sink in. Your mother taught you nothing, obviously!”

  Those were the last words my husband said to me, spoken as if he were issuing orders to an army of foot soldiers, as he snuffed out the candles and laid his head back down. And, obedient as Griselda, I obeyed. What good would it do to fight him? My childhood home and inheritance were already gone, sold, before I even knew it; I never even had a chance to say good-bye. I had taken it for granted that I would be coming back. I thought of the servants, the common folk who lived ’round about, who worked our land and tended our orchards and sheep, and always had a smile and a kind word for me. They would think I didn’t care! To think that I would never see them again, that I had left them without a good-bye. And I would never again walk amongst the flocks of woolly sheep and hear them baa-ing or sink my teeth into a Syderstone apple—it broke my heart.

  Tears trickled down my cheeks, and in my mind I disobeyed my husband. I spared not a thought for Patient Griselda and fell asleep thinking only of Syderstone, the only real home I had ever known. Stanfield Hall had always been my mother’s—it was always understood that it would go to her son, my stepbrother, John Appleyard—but Syderstone had always been Father’s and mine. Even as it crumbled, our love for it never died.

  I always dreamed of teaching my children—sons and daughters—everything I knew about managing a landed estate, of teaching my girls to be the perfect chatelaines, and my sons never to be wastrels who cared little and left all in the hands of their steward, and of sharing our traditions with them. I used to dream of taking my children out, wrapped up warmly against the cold, singing carols as we trudged through the snow to serenade the apple trees and drink a toast to their good health when the clock struck midnight to welcome the New Year; and of presiding proudly, with my children at my side, over our wonderful harvest celebrations, watching them taste, for th
e first time, each delicious dish made from our very own apples, and seeing them clapping their hands and bouncing on their toes, eager to join in the high-spirited country dances, and taking their part in the Candlestick Branles we danced on All Hallow’s Eve; and of watching them wading through the golden fields of barley, growing taller each year, and having them beside me at the shearing celebrations after the sheep were shorn nude and the wool sacks packed, and we all drank apple cider and feasted on crisp golden wafers and rich, sweet cream as a special, and most luxurious, treat for our workers. Now it was all just a dream that would never come true, and one that I needed to stop dreaming, for I knew each time I did would break my heart all over again.

  With the late-afternoon light blocked out by the blue velvet bed curtains, my tear-filled eyes turned resentfully, burning and accusing, to Robert’s naked shoulder as he slept soundly beside me, apparently at peace with himself and what he had done. No worries disturbed his rest! How could he do this to me? How could he take my dreams away? Make my past a bittersweet memory that would bring tears to my eyes and an ache to my heart every time I looked back, and deprive me, and the children I yearned to bear, of the future I had envisioned—a good and wholesome life in which we preserved our traditions, and even though we lived in a grand manor, it was also a home, a real home, not just a house where we ate our meals, entertained guests, and laid our heads at night. I wanted that life for myself and my family so badly, I could taste it, just like that first crisp, delicious, juicy bite of a Syderstone apple, but now, because of Robert, it could never be. How could he do it? How could he take it all away from me? All my hopes and dreams gone, banished and vanished without a qualm or a care! And without even consulting me! He only told me afterward, when it was already done and too late to change anything.