FLAME OF DESIRE (39 page)

“You are pretty! Your hair shines golden in the sun, your eyes are wide and the most beautiful shade of blue I have ever seen….”

“I am too tall and gangly. I tower over all the stable hands, the butcher’s son, and the baker’s brother. Who would ask for me?” They walked up the stairs to the solar and stood before the warmth of the blazing fire. “But I would like to go with you. I have missed you, Miss…Heather.”

They sat before the fire with hot mugs of cider and Heather told Tabitha all about Richard’s homeland, about the broads—those open expanses of water which dotted the mainland.

“And there are the dearest cottages with thatched roofs made of reeds. Oh, Tabitha, you would fall in love with the countryside and the people as I have. I am no more the city girl. London can be cruel at times. Come with me.”

Tabitha leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes as if imagining herself there. “My very own cottage.” Only the sound of banging on the door disturbed her reverie. With a start of fright she bolted up from her chair. “Oh, dear, dear me. What if that is one of those rebels? What if they march in here and kill us all?” A log snapped in the fire and she cried out, thinking it to be gunfire. How she hated the sound of it. It was a rarity. Few men had guns. Most were content with their swords, but this night…..

“It’s Perri, Tabitha. I can tell by the rhythm of the knocking.” Heather fled down the stairs to open the door for the old man. “What is it, Perri…?” she began. The look on his face alerted her to the fact that something was very, very wrong. Tears trickled down the old man’s face. “What is it?”

“How could they? Fools. Bumbling fools.” He struck out at the doorframe with his fists. “Bloody idiots. How could they think such a thing? A terrible, terrible mistake it is.”

Taking him by the shoulders, Heather led him inside. “Who are fools? Who are idiots? What has happened?” she asked gently.

“We have to tell the queen. She has to set him free.” He shook his head in disbelief. “How could it have happened?”

“What, Perri?” Heather was unnerved by the way he was acting. Were the rebels winning then after all? “Whom does Mary have to free? Don’t tell me that you are suddenly growing soft for these followers of Thomas Wyatt’s.” She tried to maneuver him up to the solar, but he shook free of her. Never had she seen him in such a state. “They must pay for what they have done, Perri. I know that Thomas Wyatt thought to save England from Spanish influence by what he tried to do, but he was misguided. Mary is the rightful queen, not Elizabeth, not lady Jane Grey.” She shook him by the shoulders. “What is wrong, Perri? Are the rebels winning?”

“He’s in the Tower. He’s in the bloody tower like some criminal, like some traitor. Richard.”

Heather felt the floor seem to sway beneath her. Reaching out to grab for the doorframe, she clung to it for support. “Richard? What are you saying, Perri? What are you saying?”

His eyes were glazed in shock. “It can’t be true. It isn’t true. I saw with my own eyes the way he fought for Mary. Bloody, bloody fools.”

She nearly screamed at him. “Perri! What are you saying?”

“It’s Richard,” he answered. “He’s been taken to the Tower with those of Wyatt’s ilk. They are calling him a traitor.”

Chapter Fifty-Five

It was cold. Cold and damp. Richard reached up to pull imaginary covers over himself, only to be confused when his fingers came back empty. He tossed and turned upon the rock-hard straw mattress, trying to clear the mists from before his eyes.

“Where am I?” he mumbled. He tried to move, but it only intensified the pain in his head. His nostrils inhaled the room’s stale odor and he tried with difficulty to focus his eyes. “Gray stone walls. What the devil?” He was confused, thinking himself again Seton’s prisoner. But no. He had been freed, freed by that young lad.

Slowly he looked about him, the throbbing in his head growing worse as he tried to sit up. “Bars on the windows. I am in prison.” Had he merely exchanged one cell for another? Moaning, he struggled from the bed, making his way slowly to look at the world through the small opening in the wall. “The Tower! What the…..?”

Slowly the events of the previous night danced before his eyes and he remembered. “No!” He was not alone in this his prison. Two other men sat in their respective corners looking at him with wary eyes. Their expressions seemed to tell him that they thought him “touched in the head.”

“We’ve lost,” said one of the men.

“Aye. It will be our heads or worse.”

Richard paced about, trying desperately to ignore his headache. He had to get out of here, and quickly, before the world tumbled about his shoulders. Clinging to the door, he rattled it back and forth with a clamor that sounded through the stillness of the early morning.

“Pipe down, you blighters!” A guard appeared at the door of the cell to scowl and grumble.

“Let me out of here. This is a mistake!” Richard demanded.

“Yes, your mistake,” came the answer as the guard started to walk away.

“Come back! Please. I should not be here.”

“That’s what they all say.”

Richard clenched his jaw in impotent anger. “I am ever the queen’s man, loyal to her majesty. I fought for her, not against her. This is a mistake. Open this door at once.”

The guard chuckled. “My, my, my, if we aren’t hoity-toity. It is no mistake, my fine lord. We have been told about you.” With that said he disappeared, leaving Richard more confused than before.

Sitting back down on his straw bed, he heard one of his fellow cellmates say, “Did you hear what he said? Do you believe his story?”

“Of course not. What would you have him say? He’s just trying to save his own neck.” The dark-eyed man frowned at Richard and began mumbling to himself.

The words of the guard echoed in Richard’s ears: “We have been told about you.” What did he mean by such a statement? Was it possible that Seton was involved in this? No. It was only ill fate that had put Richard in this position. Somehow he would get a message to the queen and all would be well. Mary would never believe him to be a traitor. He thought of Heather, praying fervently that she had not been harmed in all of this. Somehow he must get word to her.

“You there.” It was the voice of the man who had frowned at him, a wizened old man who reminded him strangely of Perriwincle. “Just who are you?”

“My name is Richard Morgan. I am, or was, one of the queen’s advisers. I was swept along with the tide of rebellion while searching for someone. Attacked from behind by men like myself who were fighting for the queen.” He laughed sarcastically, bitterly. “Tell me, what was the outcome?”

“Wyatt was overcome near Temple Bar. Like you, like us, he is in the Tower.”

“And the queen?”

“She is safe. She will marry her Spanish prince and bring us all under Spain’s thumb.” He cast Richard a glance which told him he did not want to talk more about it. Neither did Richard. It was like some monstrous cruel joke. That he who had constantly been loyal to Mary should be thought a traitor was beyond belief.

Not content just to sit and wait, he again banged and rattled the door to his cell. This time his commotion was answered quickly, the guard accompanying another man.

“Calm down. Calm down. I got a man here to see you,” growled the guard.

Richard looked at the face of his visitor. “Stephen!” Never had he been so glad to see another man in all his life. Stepping out of the way of the door, he stood silently by as the guard issued his friend through the door.

“You can have until I’m finished with my rounds to talk.” The guard stalked off.

Stephen Vickery’s voice was no more than a whisper. “What in the name of heaven is happening? The word at court is that you are one of Wyatt’s rebels.”

“You know me better than that, Stephen.”

“Aye, I know you would never turn against Mary. But there are others, Seton among them, who are crying for your head.”

“Seton? I should have known he was behind this. He abducted me on my way to meet with you in London. I sent you a message and he intercepted it. I spent more than week in his castle dungeon before I managed to escape.” He kicked angrily at the straw on the floor.

“So that’s where you were.” Stephen Vickery pulled at his beard as he always did when pondering a matter. “But how could he have been behind your being captured? I tell you that he could not.”

“Fate. Fate and ill fortune, my friend. I had just learned from Perriwincle that Heather was in the city and I was trying to find her when I got lost in the scuffle and brought down by one of my own. Seton could not have planned it better.” Realizing that the two other prisoners were staring at him, Richard lowered his voice and drew Stephen with him to the far side of the small room. “He is the traitor. Seton. Sitting on both sides of the fence just in case Mary was the winner.”

“Seton is calling for your death. He claims that you are a traitor, and he has brought forth several witnesses to so testify. Even, I regret to say, your old love Catherine Todd.”

“But Mary would never believe….”

“Mary is angered still by the fact that you ran away with one of her ladies-in-waiting. To her mind Heather is no better than Anne Boleyn, and you no more her trusted adviser. Had that not happened, I have no doubt that she would still believe in your loyalty.” He shook his head sadly. “You will, I fear, pay dearly for your love of Heather.”

“And so the joke is on me.” Richard’s laugh was mocking, more of a sob than sound of mirth. His bitterness showed plainly upon his face. To have put his thoughts, his loyalty, his very life into the cause of Mary’s safety and well-being, he felt betrayed that she could now turn her back on him just because he had run off with the woman he loved. She turned her back upon him, who was ever her loyal servant and turned instead to the man who at every turn had sought to bring her down. “Seton is the winner. He has had his revenge upon me.”

“It is not just you, Richard. Nor is Seton the only one crying for blood. Renard is crying out for the Princess Elizabeth’s arrest and Courtenay is languishing in his cell. Lady Jane Grey and her husband are to be executed tomorrow, though the poor child had naught to do with this uprising.” Stephen Vickery toyed nervously with the sleeve of his doublet.

“So it seems that the innocent as well as the guilty will suffer from this Wyatt’s rebellion. What of Heather? Is she safe?”

“I have not heard from her or seen her since we arrived in London, but I believe that she is well. It is you I am worried about now. Many of Mary’s advisers have censured her for being too merciful.”

“’Merciful Mary’, some have called her.”

“I fear that she will be called that no longer. Not if Renard and Seton and the others have their way. Renard is telling her that as long as there are any enemies in this land Philip will be in danger. Bishop Gardiner has argued that mercy to the nation requires that traitors should be put to death.” The footsteps of the guard sounded down the hall and Stephen Vickery stiffened in anticipation of being ordered out of the cell, but the footsteps passed on by.

“And you fear that I will be a casualty?”

“Yes, Richard. Yes. Mary is as besotted by her love for this Spaniard as you are by the love you bear Heather. As you would seek to protect the woman you love from all harm, so would Mary seek to protect Philip from any who might think to cause him harm.”

“I am no traitor!” In anger and frustration, Richard pounded his fists into the hard stone of the wall.

“But if you are perceived as such, if your enemies triumph, you will suffer for it. I have tried to talk with Mary, but she will not listen. She is in a frenzy of religious zeal. She had a Te Deum sung in St. Paul’s and in Westminster Abbey, both to calm the people and to give thanks to God for her victory.”

Again the footsteps sounded but this time they did not walk down the hall. “You. Your time is up.”

“No. Wait. Stephen. I have an idea. My brother. He is a priest now. Perhaps she will listen to him. We must try. I beseech you to bring my brother to London.” It was his only hope, his only prayer. “And Rafael Mendosa as well. If Seton can bring forth his witnesses, false though they be, then so can I.”

Vickery nodded his head as he walked through the doorway, and Richard knew what he was thinking. It would be Richard’s only hope, his only salvation. “God willing, they will arrive in time,” he whispered before the door was shut once again to silence.

Chapter Fifty-Six

“A traitor. A traitor. You align yourself with a traitor.” Thomas Bowen clucked his tongue and rubbed his nose in agitation. “What were you thinking of, girl? To go off with such as him when you could have been married to a fine, upstanding citizen like Hugh Seton.”

“Don’t call him traitor. Don’t you ever call him traitor!” Heather shouted. The weeks of Richard’s confinement, not knowing his fate and being denied access to him, had taken a toll on both her health and spirit.

“He is a traitor. The queen calls him so. Seton calls him so. I call him so.”

Heather looked him straight in the eye. “And yet as I recall, it was you who were of a mind to open the gates of the city to Wyatt and his men, just because you do not favor the queen’s economic policies. Richard is no insurgent, no betrayer. I will go to my death saying that he is as free from guilt as a newborn babe.”

Thomas Bowen looked at Heather with apprehension, fearful of causing her further anger. If it were known outside these walls that he had thought, even for a moment, of taking Wyatt’s side, it would bode him ill.

“Hush, hush, daughter. Do not carry on so. Do you want half of London to hear you? I have my business to think of. If you want to pine away for some man who is as good as dead, then do so.” Turning his back upon her he walked away.

There had been no further mention of what he had told her so many months ago of not being her father, but Heather remembered it well and felt as if the tie which had bound her to him for so many years, the years of longing for him to love her, was finally broken. If she had made excuses for his heartlessness and selfishness before, she did not do so now. There was no love between them, only perhaps a truce, an unspoken bargain that neither would push the other too far. Blythe Bowen deserved at least a little peace in her own house. But upon the matter of Richard’s guilt or innocence Heather would not keep silent.