The Dark Lady's Mask (9 page)

The rest of their conversation was lost to Aemilia when Lady Susan began to speak to her. “Tonight when we gather after dinner, perhaps you can sing madrigals for Lady Mary.” Susan glanced from Aemilia who rode on her left, to Lady Mary who rode on her right. “You enjoy madrigals, don't you, Lady Mary?”

As Susan went on speaking to Mary, Aemilia watched Master Wingfield and Perry conferring earnestly in hushed voices. Why would a schoolmaster wish to abandon his books for the battlefield? If he lacked wealth, surely the Willoughbys paid him handsomely enough. Who would teach her if he left? Perhaps Lady Susan, for she was every bit as learned as Master Wingfield.

Bathsheba, likewise, seemed to focus her entire attention on the men, or rather on Perry's stallion. The mare whinnied and attempted to barge forward. It was all Aemilia could do to pull her back and make her walk sedately between Lady Susan's and Lady Mary's horses.

“All this tedious conversation!” Mary cried. “Anyone would think we were sitting at your mother's table.”

Lady Mary spurred her horse into a canter. Riding alongside Perry, she dared him to race her to the stream at the end of the meadow. Master Wingfield had already fallen back to join Lady Susan, but Aemilia found herself surging forward as Bathsheba leapt into a furious gallop.

“Aemilia, no!” Lady Susan shouted after her. “Make her stop!”

The wind whipping Aemilia's face brought tears to her eyes as she yanked on the reins with her entire strength, but Bathsheba had the bit in her teeth and there was no stopping her. Aemilia could only cling on helplessly as Bathsheba, whinnying and squealing, charged between Perry's stallion and Lady Mary's gelding, nearly unseating Mary who shrieked curses Aemilia never thought to hear from an earl's daughter. Screaming her apologies, Aemilia could only witness in horror as her mare tossed her head and threw little bucks as she pranced alongside the stallion.
In season.
So that was what it meant. Bathsheba wanted only to mate.
No, no, no,
Aemilia thought, panic rising in her gorge.

Master Wingfield cantered up and seized Bathsheba's bridle, yanking her to a halt. Sliding from the saddle, Aemilia collapsed in the grass and wept in humiliation.

“Feed that ill-bred creature to the hounds!” Lady Mary roared.

Is she talking about Bathsheba or me?
Aemilia wondered.

Struggling to control his stallion, Perry laughed so hard he nearly came off. “Pray God, our gentle Amy has better morals than her fat little mare.”

Just when Aemilia thought her heart couldn't sink any further, she saw Bathsheba squeal and hold her tail to the side, wantonly exposing her nether regions to the stallion. Perry could only force his horse around and ride for home, laughing all the way.

Lady Susan pulled Aemilia out of the grass and brushed the tears from her face. “It's my fault. I should have listened to the groom and set you on another horse.”

Dazed, Aemilia could only thank her stars that Lady Susan was sweeter tempered than Lady Mary who would probably never speak to her again, no matter how many apologies Aemilia offered or how many madrigals she sang.

“Well ridden,” Susan said to Master Wingfield, touching his arm. “A cavalry officer couldn't have done better.”

Aemilia watched her schoolmaster's face flush to hear Susan's praise.

“Thank you, Master Wingfield,” Aemilia said fervently. She didn't dare think what might have happened if he hadn't been able to bring Bathsheba under control.

Bathsheba nuzzled Aemilia's hair and the crook of her neck, as though wondering what the tears and fuss were about.

A
FTER DELIVERING THE HORSES
to the groom, Lady Susan and Master Wingfield returned to the house. But Aemilia, still reeling from her disgrace, retreated to the Duchess's rose garden, where she hunched on a bench and listened to the gushing fountain. From behind the great yew hedge, she heard voices. Perry and Lady Mary. She was about to creep away when she froze.

“It's not the child's fault she's an ungoverned heathen,” Perry said, his voice placating. “Her father was at court most of the time, leaving her with her mother who had no more brains than a sparrow.”

“It's all very well that your sister concerns herself with an unfortunate orphan, but must she join our every pastime?” Lady Mary no longer sounded angry, but cool and considered, as though choosing her words with care. “The way she preens before you to show off her Latin! Honestly, what good will Latin and Greek do for a girl like her? At least do her the mercy of reminding her of her place now and again. One day she shall have to return to her family.”

“You wouldn't wish that on her,” Perry said. “We receive letters from her mother, who can't even write for herself—her son-in-law writes them for her. All of them shamelessly begging for money. My mother daren't show them to the child. She burns them to spare her. Amy's life is troubled enough. Let her enjoy a few years of innocent reprieve.”

Aemilia thought her heart would stop beating. A few years' reprieve—was that what Lady Susan offered? As soon as her education was finished, or as soon as Master Wingfield found an appointment in the military, would they send her back to Mother and Master Holland? But Lady Susan was so kind! Surely she wouldn't abandon her.

Yet Aemilia knew she couldn't expect to remain at Grimsthorpe Castle forever. She thought back to Master Wingfield's talk with Perry. Was her schoolmaster a fellow humble soul who hoped to use his fleeting time in this great house as a stepping stone to a better future? She, too, would have to make the most of her education, learn as much as she could in order to become a poet, a lady. Then, as a woman grown, she would return to London and drive Master Holland out of Papa's house.

“There you are!” Lady Susan appeared from beneath a bower of white roses. She sat on the stone bench beside Aemilia and touched her hot, tear-stained face. “You're not still crying over that naughty mare, are you? Think no more of it, dear.”

Susan took Aemilia in her arms, a rare gesture, for the lady wasn't given to extravagant displays of affection. Leaning against her, Aemilia let herself be held, Susan's heart beating against her ear as Papa's once had.

F
RESH SNOW MANTLED THE
gardens and hedges in a train of diamonds. Golden shafts of winter sunlight poured into Lady Susan's room where Aemilia lingered, surrounded by her mentor's books and maps. Before the looking glass, she whirled in her new gown of rose-colored silk with brocade sleeves, a gift from Susan. She had pink and scarlet ribbons woven into her hair and a wreath of gilded rosemary crowning her brow.

Today Perry would wed Mary de Vere in the family chapel. Grimsthorpe Castle heaved with guests who had come from as far away as Oxford and Exeter. Aemilia's room had been sacrificed to accommodate such eminent persons, but the greater glory was hers, for Lady Susan had invited her to share her four-poster with the embroidered draperies.

Alone in Susan's chamber, Aemilia practiced her dance steps before the mirror. She would play the lute and sing madrigals in honor of the newlyweds. She would join the sons and daughters of earls in a masque Lady Susan and Master Wingfield had arranged. Such a day of celebration this would be! The aroma of roasting and baking wafted up from the kitchen.

Smiling into the mirror, Aemilia tried to embody the sweetness and grace Lady Susan expected of her. She spoke in dulcet tones, in her most cultivated voice. “My name is Amy.”

But Angela's corpse-cold face intruded on her thoughts. Catherine Willoughby had finally broken the news that Aemilia's sister had died in childbirth. How could her beautiful sister be dead while she lived in such pomp? Did her good fortune make a mockery of all Angela had suffered? If Aemilia gave in to her grief, she feared it would devour her, that she'd start crying and never be able to stop.

She told herself she must be strong and make the most of this precious chance she had been given. Looking once more in the mirror, she said first shyly, then boldly, “Amy Willoughby.”

For a long moment, she allowed herself the comfort of pretending that Susan, not Angela, was her sister. That she had been born to this manor house, titled and rich.

But she didn't look the least bit English. Even in the depths of winter, her skin remained olive in tone, no match for Susan's complexion of cream and roses. Aemilia's eyes were as black as ink with amber flecks swimming inside them. Her hair, even in high summer when exposed to the full flood of sunlight, remained dark with only a few auburn lights.

Still, she curtsied before the mirror and uttered her incantation, her prayer. “Amy Willoughby.”

Then she shrieked when, like a phantom, Mary de Vere's pale face appeared in the glass behind her.

“You can preen all you want, girl,” the Earl of Oxford's daughter, Perry's bride, said. “But you will never be a Willoughby.”

Aemilia burned, her Bassano blood rising to the surface, beating in her ears. Before she could think what to say, Mary vanished in a swish of silk, only her carnation perfume remaining in the air.

 

 

WELVE YEARS OLD
, A
EMILIA
pored over Plutarch's
Life of Alexander,
preparing a written translation from the Greek into English. About to ask a question, she glanced at Master Wingfield, but he appeared utterly absorbed in a map of the Low Countries spread out on his desk.

“Sir, are you trying to find where Perry is now?” Aemilia asked him.

How they all missed Peregrine Bertie, who was either away on some diplomatic mission in Europe or else in Westminster with the House of Lords. Catherine Willoughby had died last year, leaving her son the barony.

Grimsthorpe Castle, Aemilia's beloved refuge, kept changing. Even Anne Locke had married for a third time and moved to Devon. Aemilia suspected she would never see Mistress Locke again.

Lady Mary was now mistress of Grimsthorpe. At this very moment, Aemilia could hear her raised voice down the corridor, berating some unfortunate servant. Marriage hadn't made Mary any milder. If anything, she had grown more brittle and bad tempered, blaming her childless state on Perry's long absences.
If I were Perry, I would sail to the East Indies to escape Mary de Vere.

But it was the change in Lady Susan that troubled Aemilia most. Of late, Susan seemed so distracted and her health seemed likewise afflicted. This morning she had excused herself after chapel and taken to her bed, claiming troubled digestion. Even as Aemilia tried to concentrate on Plutarch's description of the Scythian warrior women, her heart squeezed in worry. What if Susan had some serious malady? Aemilia thought she wouldn't be able to bear the loss of her. Likewise, Master Wingfield seemed to mope in her absence.