Witchstruck (33 page)

Feeling a little low, I begged leave of Blanche Parry to be excused from my duties for an hour or two. Blanche did not seem to mind. Her eyes glowed as she watched Elizabeth enjoying herself in company once more, free of taint and wearing a newly refitted court gown with a gold foreskirt and peach satin sleeves.

I slipped away from their laughter and games, ducked under the low arch of the waterside gate and took a walk along the gently rolling river.

Even alone, I could not seem to shake off my mood, which felt like a heavy grey cloud hanging over me. Perhaps, I thought dismally, I should have stayed with Elizabeth and hoped to catch the eye of some young man who would offer me marriage and a good home. That was how I had always imagined I would spend my days at court, after all.

Yet now that I was here, and Elizabeth was out of disgrace, I found myself constantly unhappy and on edge. As though there was something else I should have been doing, but I had forgotten what it was.

Suddenly I shrieked in horror. A vast, long-tailed rat had darted out of a muddy hole in the river bank and was scuttling towards me, its black eyes gleaming. There was something horrible about the way the rat stopped a few feet away from me, standing on its hind legs like a man, and with such an air of purpose . . .

I stared. It was as though the rat knew me, as though it had been waiting for me and was now about to attack, its eyes as mad and determined as those of Marcus Dent.

I began to back away, my heart shuddering with panic, and cried aloud as a pair of strong arms seized me.

Looking up with a shocked reprimand on my lips, I fell silent. It was Alejandro de Castillo.

‘Why did you scream?’ he demanded.

‘There was a rat.’

In vain, I looked round, up and down the stinking, muddy bank of the Thames. The black rat had disappeared. I felt myself flush with embarrassment. Standing on its hind legs, indeed. It had been nothing but my stupid imagination running away with me again.

His brows had risen at my explanation. His tone became sardonic. ‘This is a river, Meg. There are always rats on a river.’

Now my heart was beating hard for quite another reason. Alejandro was quite infuriatingly handsome, I thought, trying not to stare at his chin, his mouth, the broad forehead or sweeping dark hair.

Was I in love with the Spaniard?

It didn’t matter even if I loved him to Hell and back, I told myself fiercely. I turned and fixed my little-girl-in-love gaze on the dirtily flowing river instead of him. This thing bursting in my heart was an impossibility. Alejandro and I could never fit together in this dangerous England that Queen Mary had made. That was something I had to accept, and the sooner the better.

Alejandro set me back on my feet and bowed low, one hand on his sword hilt. I curtseyed in return, unsure why he had come out here after me.

When I looked at him again, his face was as sombre as it had been on the day we parted. I knew then that Alejandro had not forgiven me.

‘I hear that Elizabeth is no longer under guard,’ he said, watching me steadily.

‘Yes, the Queen finally agreed to see her, and after that meeting the guards disappeared.’ I felt my cheeks grow hot under his gaze. ‘I think we may have you to thank for that courtesy, Señor de Castillo. Her Majesty mentioned your letter.’

His brows rose again at that. ‘
Señor de Castillo?
’ he echoed softly.

My flush deepened. ‘Alejandro.’

Alejandro took my hand and raised it to his lips. ‘Meg,’ he said, pronouncing my name with obvious satisfaction, and there was something in his tone that made my toes curl and my body shiver.

‘Anyway, thank you for helping,’ I whispered.

‘It is King Philip you should thank for the Lady Elizabeth’s release,’ he told me quietly. Although he was still not smiling, the taut lines about his mouth seemed to have melted away.

‘So the King
was
there!’ I exclaimed, and he hushed me. I dropped my voice. ‘I knew there was someone else in the chamber with us, hiding behind the bed curtains. The Queen spoke in Spanish. So it was the King?’

At last he smiled, and gave a little nod. ‘But that is not to be told to Elizabeth.’

I searched his face. ‘Very well.’

A stately barge of courtiers on a pleasure trip floated
slowly
past on the Thames. Some of the richly dressed lords and ladies on board stared at us, much to my annoyance. I stared back until they averted their eyes.

Frowning, Alejandro touched my hood with its trailing veil. ‘Is your hair growing back under this?’

Damn my blush!

‘A little every day,’ I agreed. ‘The Lady Elizabeth thinks it best if I keep my hair hidden while it grows, so the courtiers don’t stare.’

Alejandro nodded. ‘Of course,’ he interrupted bluntly. ‘She wants you to marry.’

‘No.’ I laughed at his misunderstanding. ‘Quite the opposite. I do not think Elizabeth wants me to marry at all. Now she is back at court, it suits her better to have other unmarried women about her. This hood is so severe, I think she’s hoping no man will look twice at me.’

‘A court of virgins,’ he mused, ‘to set against an ageing Queen, still undelivered of her child?’

I looked away. I had been wrong. He had understood perfectly.

‘There is a whisper,’ I said cautiously, ‘that the Queen is not pregnant at all. That she was never pregnant.’

Alejandro looked sombre again. ‘Time will tell,’ was all he would say on that score, though he took my hand again. This time I could feel his heart beat through the rapid thud of warm blood. His thumb caressed the inside of my palm. ‘Meg, I am glad to have found you alone at last. There is
something
I wish to ask you. That is, I was wondering . . .’

My mouth was suddenly dry. I stared up at him, terrified of what he was going to say. If I was honest, I had dreamed of this moment a thousand times, staring out of the window or lying in my bed at night. I had imagined Alejandro’s voice, how he would take me in his arms afterwards . . .

For a few precious seconds, I met his beautiful eyes and my heart sang with joy. And then reality flooded back into my heart, cold and cruel as the water they had tried to drown me in. Alejandro was soon to be a priest. I was a witch, or would be one day, if I could find a way to complete my apprenticeship now that my aunt was dead.

Such a marriage would be like hitching a cart to a cat. Fur would fly from the beginning.

‘My family back in Spain is very wealthy,’ he began, as though this would reassure me. His smile was awkward. ‘I have my own large and gracious home in the country, and lands too, with a marvellous vineyard. I even have a title that I will inherit in time, for only a nobleman may become a priest in the Order of Santiago. I would be honoured if you would share those things with me, Meg Lytton.’

The blood had drained from my face. I had heard little of what he had said. I knew only too well though what I must say in return.

I shook my head vehemently. ‘Alejandro, no.’

He frowned at my refusal. ‘But you don’t understand. I am asking you to marry me.’

I felt as though my heart had been torn from my body and tossed into the swiftly flowing River Thames beside us. ‘I know,’ I whispered, and looked down at my hand, the hand he was still holding, his thumb still moving slowly across my skin. ‘Please don’t.’

Alejandro released my hand at once. He stood there in silence, his brows knitted fiercely together, his dark eyes fixed on mine. He looked like a man who had just heard his own death sentence pronounced, and yet could still not take it in.

He shook his head. ‘This answer,’ he said slowly, his voice raw, ‘I cannot accept. I refuse to accept it.’

‘You must, for I will not marry you.’

‘Give me a reason why not!’

I sought for one which would satisfy him. ‘Because I do not love you.’

‘Yes, you do,’ he said tautly, and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a mirthless smile. ‘That is a lie.’

‘I am not noble. We would not suit.’

‘Your father is a landowner. He could afford to buy a coat of arms for his family if he chose. You have served a royal princess at the Queen’s court. That will be enough to satisfy my family.’

I stared at him, fragments of my broken heart falling about us like black relentless rain, burning wherever they fell.

He nodded grimly at my silence. ‘You have no reason to
refuse
me. Now give me your answer, and this time make it “Yes”.’

‘You can’t bully me into marrying you!’ I cried furiously.

‘Can I not?’ Alejandro demanded, and grabbed my arm, dragging me ruthlessly towards him.

His mouth met mine and we kissed, my whole body leaning instinctively into his. Compulsively, my hands touched his dark hair, his strong neck, the flat expanse of his chest. Ah, I truly loved him! Alejandro laughed under his breath and drew me closer. I was giving myself away with every ragged breath I took, and I knew it.

He drew back and looked down at me triumphantly, his eyes glittering. ‘So you do love me. Why pretend not to?’

‘I’m a witch,’ I moaned. ‘And you . . . you still intend to become a priest, don’t you?’

His hands tightened on my shoulders, and he nodded. ‘As soon as we get back to Spain, yes. Priests in my order are permitted to marry, so long as they observe certain strict rules of chastity. But that will not be too hard to do, for I cannot risk your life.’

It was my turn to frown. ‘Risk my life?’

‘The curse,’ Alejandro reminded me grimly. ‘Julia’s dying curse on me for betraying her. She swore that the woman I love will die in childbirth, and my child along with her. I cannot risk your death. So I will not be tempted to break the chastity vows of my order.’

‘I cannot live like that, Alejandro.’

He lowered his gaze to the ground and seemed to consider this for a moment. ‘You think it would be too hard for you to abstain?’ he asked at last. There was a dark colour in his cheeks. ‘For me too. You are very beautiful, Meg. But I will control myself to save your life.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ I tried to explain myself, painstakingly. ‘I can’t live with you if you become a priest, Alejandro, because I will not give up being a witch. It is in my blood. It is what makes me special. But unless I give it up, we cannot marry.’

Alejandro let me go and took a step backwards. ‘I had not realized how much witchcraft meant to you,’ he muttered.

I saw the hurt in his face and longed to comfort him. But it would be cruel to make him think I might change my mind.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘It has always been hard for the Canley women to marry, for that reason. My aunt never married. But my mother did, and she had to give up the craft to do so. She knew it was impossible to live as a mother and a wife, and still be a witch.’

He turned away for a moment, staring with dull eyes at the river water. Then Alejandro raised his head and looked back at me. ‘I need time to think, Meg, and so do you. But I don’t want to lose you. Will you at least agree to a period of betrothal and give me your final answer in a year?’

‘My final answer?’ I was perplexed.

Alejandro nodded and came back, taking my hands in his. There was a new and burning light in his face.

‘Sometimes in my country, a couple will agree to a betrothal for a year and a day. More than a year sometimes, if need be. A young man may have to go off to war, or to make his fortune. So the woman agrees not to give her promise to any other man until the year is up. Then the man returns and asks her again.’

‘In a year’s time?’

His smile was brilliant. ‘Say yes to me now, Meg, and our marriage will not be binding until I ask you again in a year and a day.’

I stared at him. Everything in my body tingled with the excitement of this crazy idea, that all I had to do was say ‘Yes’ now, and in a year and a day, I could take it back and say ‘No’. Meanwhile, we would be as good as betrothed to each other.

‘Well,
mi querida
?’ Alejandro prompted me, his eyes on mine.

I thought of my aunt’s prophecy that a traveller would bring danger. Marcus Dent had just returned from Germany at the time, and Alejandro would have been on his way from Spain. If the prophecy had meant Marcus, the danger was now past. But if it
was
Alejandro my aunt had seen in her vision, that danger might yet lie ahead for me.
Beware a traveller who comes over water, over land
.

I stared at him, torn between love and prophecy. I could not make my mind up which man it had indicated. Meanwhile, I had a more urgent question to answer.

I took a deep breath and gave myself up to the danger.
‘Yes.’

While studying Elizabethan playwrights at university, Victoria Lamb always dreamt of writing a series of novels set in Tudor England. Now a busy mother of five, she has finally achieved that ambition after many years of research. Victoria lives in Warwickshire.

Also by Victoria Lamb:

For adults

The Queen’s Secret

Acknowledgements

I owe my thanks to my marvellous agent Luigi Bonomi and his talented wife Alison for their inspiration and support during the writing of this novel; to my editor Lauren Buckland, whose helpful and perceptive suggestions greatly improved
Witchstruck
; and also to Annie Eaton, Natalie Doherty, Emily Banyard, Lisa Mahoney and all the team at Random House Children’s Books for their infectious enthusiasm and encouragement; to my husband Steve and my children Becki, Dylan, Morris and Indigo, who have had much to put up with by way of crazed moods, lengthy absences and towering stacks of books in every room; and to all my writerly friends on Twitter, Facebook, and at the Romantic Novelists’ Association, without whose ongoing friendship and support I would have struggled not only to start but to finish this novel.

WITCHSTRUCK
AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 448 12021 5

Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK
A Random House Group Company

This ebook edition published 2012