Heart of Gold Read Online Free PDF Page B

answer, some reason that might halt this madness. “I am not pure. I’ve been raised in the French court. I’ve been with many m—”
    The older woman’s hand closed on Elizabeth’s mouth roughly, smothering the words that were tumbling out. “Don’t lie, Elizabeth. You are forgetting your company. If Mary were sitting here and speaking these words, I would have believed every one of them. But this is you. The pure and innocent Elizabeth. The one who has always hidden away from the glamour and from the temptation. The one who skipped even her own presentation at court.” Madame Exton took Elizabeth’s chin in her scrawny hands and jerked it upward. Her voice was as sharp as a dagger’s edge. “I’ve watched you for many years, my girl. Don’t waste your breath with lies. Just do as you are told. You owe that to your family.”
    “You have no option, girl,” Sir Thomas added. “And just think of it, if you bear him a boy child, it’ll be so much the better for all of us, and for you.”
    Elizabeth slowly raised herself unsteadily to her feet. Her legs were shaking, and she wondered vaguely whether her knees would support her own weight. But then the look of disbelief on her face changed to something else as the terrible reality of her situation set in.
    “But I—” There was anguish in her voice.
    “There’s nothing more to discuss, Elizabeth. Now go and prepare yourself. When the king’s entourage leaves for Calais in the morning, you will leave with us.” Dismissing her, he turned back toward the table.
    The world had gone gray around her, its heavy mists swirling damply within. Her only sensation was the cloudy weight that was settling inexorably on her mind, her body, on her very soul. “But...what of Mary?” she asked in a daze.
    Her father half turned to answer, his voice rough, his words clipped. “She’ll go back to Kent. To the convent near Hever Castle. Don’t you concern yourself about her. Go. Go now !”

Chapter 3
     
     
    “You have the power to make your own future.”
    As Elizabeth hurried along the torchlit alleyways through the camp, Mary’s words kept reverberating in her head. From a small knoll, she glanced across the tented field at the great dinner hall that had been erected out of canvas painted to look like stonework. Its glamour was only a veneer. At the approach of a roving party of men, weaving and lurching their way along, Elizabeth pulled the dark cloak low over her face.
    “Hey, you pretty thing! Hey...there goes a woman!”
    Elizabeth panicked at the sound of the drunk courtier and lengthened her strides. She would not let them know she was afraid. She would not be their prey. But then she thought of what she was about to do.
    “This is insanity,” Elizabeth murmured to herself. She could hear the anguish in her own whisper. “I’ve gone mad! The whole world’s gone mad!”
    The young woman put a hand to her face. The swelling had hardly subsided. She could still feel the ache that had made her eyes tear for so long after she’d returned to her tent. But it wasn’t the physical pain that had torn at her heart; it was a pain that ran far deeper. She’d been sold out by her own father. Traded for...what? For another man’s vile use.
    When Elizabeth had returned, Mary had been there, waiting for her. Offering comfort, guidance. Coming here, at this hour of the night, had been Mary’s idea. Her younger sister had given her the weapon that Elizabeth had desperately needed. Mary had shown her a way to fight their father.
    The Scottish warrior’s shield hung beside the tent’s entryway.
    Elizabeth stepped inside.
     
    Sinking deeper into the warm water, Ambrose closed his eyes to the red glow of the coal brazier that had been used to heat the bathwater.
    She had not come. He had expected her to. But then, he was no longer one to keep a vigil over any woman. Even one as fascinating as this one was turning out to be, he thought, glancing over at the table—at