Constant Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

her.
    Her Majesty leaned back slightly and eyed us, behind the woman’s back. Then she sat forward once more and gestured to the woman.
    That lady returned and bid us approach the throne. I felt my belly tighten.
    The earl bowed.
    The Queen extended her hand toward him.
    He took it and kissed it. Then he extended his other hand to me and introduced me to our sovereign as his wife.
    As the Queen turned her attentions toward me, the smile she had bestowed upon the earl slid from her face. She raked my form with her eyes and then fastened them upon my face.

    “What have you brought us, Lytham? A Moor with darkened skin? A gypsy child?”
    My smile died as I comprehended Her Majesty’s words. She did not like the girl! What had gone wrong? I threw a glance toward the girl at my side, but everything seemed as it should. She was already bent in a curtsey; she had not uttered one word.
    But I needed words. And quickly! “Your Majesty . . . compared to your alabaster beauty . . . the very moon would be suspect as a gypsy.”
    There was no response from the throne.
    I chanced a glance at the girl. God, help me, she was going to cry! She could not cry. She would make me a laughingstock.
    Thank heaven, in the next moment my prayers were heard, for there came the suggestion of laughter from the Queen. All was well. And then, she spoke. “I shall take note: I must banish the moon from the kingdom. And, Lytham?”
    “Your Majesty?”
    “Have a care. Warn your wife. It is not wise to gaze too long at the moon.”
    To gaze too long at the moon was to risk the loss of one’s sanity. Warn my wife? It was a warning meant for me. Parliament had granted me one annulment. It would not grant me another. And should another wife of mine take leave of her senses, then my career as a courtier would be over.

    The court gasped.
    In my surprise, I did not think to gasp. I did not even think to breathe. Had she just warned me from . . . from madness?
    The earl’s hand, suddenly moist, squeezed mine, forcing it toward the ground.
    I bent still further, feeling the stiff busk in my corset press into my belly. I trapped my breath inside my chest.
    “You may go.”
    Beside me, Lytham dipped even further, pulling me with him, urging me to do the same. But I could do no more.
    Taunted by laughter, we backed away from the Queen and left the Presence Chamber. In laughing, she had made a royal joke of us.
    I will not cry. I will not cry.
    What good would my marriage do my father or husband if I sniveled in front of the Queen like a child? But still the tears would not stop gathering. I was soon in danger of spotting my gown with them. I felt them gather behind my eyes, felt a drip form just inside the tip of my nose.
    Her Majesty’s dark, glittering eyes had sent a message, if I could only decipher it. Had I glimpsed mistrust? Suspicion? Hate?
    How could she hate me? She did not know me.
    But her smile had ceased the moment the earl had made my introduction. The moment her eyes had come to rest upon me.
    The ride back to Lytham House was made in great haste and complete silence.
    Once inside the courtyard, the earl dismounted quickly. I tried to follow him, but my feet became tangled in my skirts. Nicholas helped me loose myself and held my hand as I dismounted. I nearly forgot to thank him in my rush toward the house. But my hurry was justified; the earl was waiting for me inside the front hall.
    “Does Her Majesty have any reason to despise your family?” His tone was not accusatory. But neither was it kind.
    “None, my lord.”
    “Does Her Majesty have any reason to despise you?”
    Do not cry . Behind the skirts of my gown, I fisted my hands into balls, driving my fingernails straight into my palms. “None, my lord.”
    He frowned, then turned and strode toward a door. He shut it firmly behind him after he had walked through, leaving me standing in the middle of the hall, alone, still wearing my marriage gown.

5
    I had fifty men to ride with