A Very Tudor Christmas
Autor
Amanda McCabe
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Chapter One
England, 1569
“Hush, Bea! They will hear you. We’ll never be able to hear what’s happening if they find us here,” Margaret Clifford whispered fiercely as she and her cousin squeezed into the tiny closet right above her parents’ great hall at Clifford Manor. Beatrice was her best friend, but she was three years younger than Meg’s eighteen, and inclined to be giggly. It had been that way ever since Bea’s parents, Meg’s mother’s sister and her husband, died and Bea came to live with them as a toddler.
Beatrice clapped her hand over her mouth and huddled closer to Meg as they knelt on the floor. “I won’t say a word, Meg, I vow it.”
“I never should have let you come with me,” Meg murmured. She had tried to slip out of their shared chamber without Bea seeing her, but she hadn’t been quick enough. Beatrice had begged and cried so very much that Meg knew she had to drag her along. Time was short, and she had to discover what her parents were talking about with Lord and Lady Erroll.
Meg drew her velvet skirts close under her and she lowered her knees to the rough plank floor and tried to peer through the tiny knothole to the hall below. Bea clutched at her sleeve, fairly vibrating with excitement, and Meg had to shush her again. She could barely hear as it was. And it was vital that she hear.
God’s truth, but it was so maddening that her parents refused to talk to her! They treated her as if she was the veriest child, younger even than Beatrice. She was not a child at all now. She was more than old enough for...
For marrying.
Was that why the Errolls had come to Clifford Manor now? Meg curled her fists against the wood floor, feeling her heart pounding. Please, let it be true!
Yet it all seemed too, too glorious to ever be true. Ever since she had seen Robert Erroll at the Christmas festivities a few months ago, ever since they’d danced, touched, looked into each other’s eyes, she had not been able to think about anything else at all. Even when she walked in the garden with Bea, or when her mother shouted at her for snarling the embroidery silks, she could only see Robert Erroll’s sky-blue eyes. Could only remember how it had felt when their fingers twined together.
Remember—and wonder when she might see him again.
Until today. Today when she’d been walking along the lane, and glimpsed a horse galloping toward her....
* * *
“‘Or call it winter, which, being full of care, makes summer’s welcome thrice more wish’d, more rare...’” Meg hummed the Christmas song as she swung her basket. Go fetch some eggs from Mistress Brown, Margaret, her mother had snapped, shooing Meg’s little twin brothers out from underfoot. You are of no use to me with your daydreaming today. Beatrice can finish the mending.
The Cliffords were an old family, at Clifford Manor for centuries, but not rich enough to hire people do all their mending for them. Or fetch their eggs.
It was a chilly day, a cold wind snapping at her cloak as smoke curled from Clifford Manor’s old chimneys behind her, but Meg didn’t care. She had a few moments to be alone away from the chaos of her home. Not even Beatrice was with her today to interrupt her thoughts. The farther she walked, the quieter the countryside grew, until she could imagine she was dancing again.
Until she spun around the corner of the lane, humming louder, and saw the great black horse swooping down on her.
Meg screamed and ducked toward the hedgerows, snagging her cloak. She almost fell into the mud, and the panic fell over her like a cold cloud as her hood drooped down in front of her eye.
The horse thundered by, mere inches from her foot. As she struggled to push herself right, she heard the great beast whirl around and a man’s shout.
Meg shoved her hood back and glanced back over her shoulder to see a man leaping down from his saddle. His clothes were fine velvet and leather, cut close to a handsome body and far too fine for the local gentry.
“Are you hurt?” he shouted, and reached up to sweep off his plumed hat as he ran toward her.
The panic was brushed away in a warm rush of joy as she saw it was him. Robert Erroll. Back again at last.
“I—I am quite fine, Master Erroll,” she called, hurrying toward him. “You do seem in a great hurry.”
“Mistress Clifford!” he said, a wide, bright grin breaking across his face. He was so very handsome, with his dark hair ruffled by the wind around his face. “I’m on my way to your own house. My parents are to call on your family, but their new coach is too slow for me. I’m most happy I came on ahead now, if it means I can see you.”
Meg laughed as she tilted her head to look up at him—he was so wondrously tall. And he laughed with her, too, his face even more beautiful in mirth, if that was possible.
“Pretty Mistress Margaret,” he said. “I have thought of you often since our New Year’s dance.”
Meg felt a burst of raw, pure joy that he remembered, as she did. “Have you indeed, Master Erroll?” she answered pertly. A country miss she might be, but surely she knew better than to seem too eager. Especially with a man like this, a handsome, strong court gentleman. “Most extraordinary of you.”
His laugh rang out even louder, sweeter. “Do you mean to say you have not thought of me at all?”
“Life is busy here, you know. Not so busy as at the queen’s court, perhaps, but we have little time for idle thoughts.” Meg turned and slowly strolled along down the lane, wondering wildly all the time if he watched her, if he would follow.
And follow he did. She heard the fall of his booted feet on the dirt, and he quickly caught up to her as they reached a low stone wall. He caught her arm in his gloved hand.
Meg swung around to him, startled and excited and scared all at once.
“Court is full of color and scandal and events of all kinds, assuredly,” he said. “But you would rival any lady there with your beauty and sweetness, Mistress Margaret. I’ve never seen eyes like yours....”
The tips of his fingers trailed over her cheek, the merest featherlight touch, but it made Meg shiver as she stared up at him. Oh, how she wanted to believe him! How she wanted his sweet words to be true. And indeed he looked at her as if she had always dreamed a handsome suitor might, with a solemn wonder writ on the chiseled planes of his face.
But she also knew that her eyes were the plainest of browns. And she knew, too, that what she was doing here with him was not something a proper young lady should do. That if her parents saw her they would be angry, and part of her wanted to run away from these feelings.
The bigger part of her, the part she feared meant she was not entirely proper, made her stay.
“I—I fear you seek to flatter me, sirrah,” she said, trying to laugh.
“No flattery. If you could see the women at court...” He gently traced a strand of her brown hair that had escaped her hood. “There are none like you.”
His hands slid down her arms, his touch light, teasing. Until suddenly his arms were around her waist, tugging her closer to him. She went with him, unresisting. She was overcome with curiosity, with that heady, overpowering emotion he always evoked when he came near her. It made her feel dizzy with it, with his nearness, and she clutched at his shoulders to hold herself up.
How wonderful it was to feel like that, Meg thought giddily. Like too much spiced wine, or lying in warm grass on a summer’s day. He made her senses whirl and spin, just from the feel of him under her hands, hard and warm and alive.
It frightened her, but it was also so very exciting.
As she looked up into his blue eyes, she felt as if she was caught in a dream. Yet everything was so much more immediate, so much brighter and clearer than anything else she had ever known. Then, wonder of wonders, his eyes grew darker. His head bent toward hers and he kissed her.
The touch of his lips was so soft at first, like the brush of warm velvet, sweeping over her mouth teasingly. When she swayed closer, her hands clutching at his shoulders, that kiss deepened.
“Beautiful Meg,” he whispered hoarsely before claiming her mouth again. Hotter, more urgent, rougher.
Something hidden deep in Meg’s heart responded to that urgency, growing and filling her until she feared she would burst with the splendor of it all. Her lips parted on a moan, and she felt his tongue slide shockingly against hers. His hands twined in her hair, sending the pins scattering to the ground as he used the dark strands to hold her with him. She moaned and opened her mouth willingly to his passionate kiss. His touch, the taste of him, made her feel wonderfully as if she was flying.
In his arms she felt free at long last. She felt truly alive, and she wanted that so very much, even if it was only for a moment and then she had to go back to her dull life. Surely a moment couldn’t hurt her?
Or maybe a moment could end everything she had ever known. She didn’t care. She only wanted him.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders to keep from falling to the ground. His hands fell free from her hair to unfasten the ties of her cloak and let it fall from her shoulders. The cold wind brushed over her, making her shiver, but then there was only the heat of his body all around hers.
His open mouth slid from hers to kiss her neck, the soft curve of her shoulder above the neckline of her plain gown. His teeth nipped lightly at her skin, making her gasp and shiver all over again. Her head fell back as she hoped he would kiss her even more, even further, letting the delicious feelings wash over her.
“Beautiful Meg,” he whispered roughly. He caught the hem of her skirt in his fist and dragged it up until she felt the cool wind rush over the bare skin just above her stocking, just as she had hoped he would. He caressed her through the thin knit of her stocking, his fingertip dipping behind the ribbon of her garter.
It was shocking—and wonderful. No one had ever touched her thus, and she wanted yet more and more. His hand slid higher, enticing, teasing, and when she moaned he gave a hoarse laugh.
“Passionate Meg,” he said.
“Passionate for you,” she answered, holding him tighter.
Everything vanished until there was only him and her and that kiss, that touch. Only that one perfect instant she wanted to go on forever and ever.
But it was a forever that was shattered all too quickly.
At first Meg was sure the rumbling sound was her heart, pounding inside her with such joy she knew it would burst. She held even tighter to him, for he was the only thing that could keep her from shaking apart. But he tore his mouth from hers and stumbled back, letting the cold wind rush over her again. Her skirts fell around her in disarray.
Then she heard it, closer with every second. A carriage rolling on the lane, not her heart at all.
“Quickly!” Robert said. “We can hide behind the wall.”
Before Meg’s whirling mind could make sense of what was happening, he wrapped his strong, warm hands around her waist and lifted her over the stone wall. He caught up her fallen cloak and leaped after her, drawing her down with him until they crouched on the chilly ground, their backs to the rough stone.
Meg could hardly breathe. He was still so close to her, the heat of his hard, strong body wrapping all around her, but it felt as if he had gone from her entirely. He turned away from her to peer over the wall as the crash and rumble of the coach came closer.
A cold hollowness crept through her, and she wrapped her arms tightly around herself. She still could not fathom being torn from such pleasure. What had happened?
Had she kissed him all wrong?
She turned to peek over the wall. The coach was almost upon them, a glossy brown-and-gold vehicle splashed with mud and frost and drawn by a team of splendid matching bays. Ordinarily, Meg would have been fascinated to see it; only the queen and her highest nobles had such things for traveling. But now she was all too aware of Robert Erroll next to her, watching the coach with narrowed eyes.
Meg glimpsed a woman’s pale face at the window as it bounced past, the feathers on her velvet hat waving. The hair pinned beneath it was the same shining black as Robert’s.
Then they were gone, as suddenly as they came. Robert slumped down beside her, and Meg suddenly realized something.
“That was your parents,” she said. And he had hid her from them.
“Aye,” he answered. He lifted her up from their hiding place, still seeming so distant. “Come, let me see you home, Mistress Margaret....” And that, aside from pleasantries on the cold weather, was all he said to her on the walk back to Clifford Manor....
His parents. And he had not wanted them to see him with her. The more Meg remembered the scene that afternoon the more sure she was.
“Meg!” Beatrice hissed, tugging at Meg’s sleeve again. Her cousin’s touch pulled Meg back to the present moment, to their hiding place above her parents’ great hall. “What is happening now?”
Meg shook away the memory of Robert’s wondrous kiss, and his terrible distance after. She peered back through the knothole to see her parents with the two elder Errolls next to the blazing fire.
Robert had not appeared at supper, hours after he’d left her at the kitchen door with a bow and a quick kiss to her hand. Only his parents had been there, his portly, bearded father swathed in a velvet and fur doublet, and his beautiful, black-haired, chilly-eyed mother. Meg’s own mother had seemed quite startled they were there, though she had scrambled together a creditable feast and made sure Meg and Beatrice were well-dressed.
The conversation had only been of court news and the weather, naught about their son. And Meg dared not ask. She and Bea were sent away soon after the meal.
“Hush, or I won’t be able to hear a thing,” Meg whispered, peering closer.
Her father was pouring wine into everyone’s goblets. “We are honored by your visit, of course, Lord Erroll,” he said. “We get little enough word of court here.”
It was Lady Erroll who answered. “It is most unfortunate for you, Master Clifford. Everything happens at court, does it not?”
“But we must look in on our estates from time to time,” Lord Erroll said. “We are on our way there now. Knowing we were going there, the queen herself asked us to deliver a message to you.”
The queen? Meg heard Bea gasp, and she grabbed her cousin’s hand to quiet her. It was all far too much excitement for one day in their tiny corner of the world.
“Her Grace?” Meg’s mother cried. “The queen has a message for us?”
“Aye,” Lady Erroll said, seeming quite as doubtful as Meg’s mother. “She has heard you have a pretty, amiable daughter, as indeed you do, as we have seen her ourselves tonight, and we understand our son met your family at a New Year’s banquet. Queen Elizabeth wishes for her to come to court, to see if she might suit as a new maid-of-honor.”
“Meg!” Beatrice whispered, almost crushing Meg’s sleeve with her enthusiasm. “Did you hear that? You could serve the queen.”
Meg had indeed heard it—she just couldn’t quite believe it. Her, go to court? She couldn’t even wrap her thoughts around it. It was true that once her grandmother had served one of old King Henry’s queens, and her father sometimes went to court to present Queen Elizabeth with a New Year’s gift, but there had never been talk of her doing such a thing.
And—and if she was truthful to herself—she had to admit that wasn’t why she had hoped the Errolls had come to Clifford. She’d dared hope they came to propose a betrothal.
Her throat felt thick, but she refused to cry in front of Bea. She should not cry, not over silly dreams.
But the way his kiss had felt....
Meg shushed Beatrice again and twisted her head so she could see her parents’ faces. They looked at each other in that quiet way they always had together, as if they could communicate with their gaze alone. It was always maddening to try and decipher what they thought.
“Our Meg is young yet,” her father said. “And she has little training for a court life. This news is a surprise, and a great honor. We must think about it.”
Lady Erroll shrugged. “As you think best, of course, Master Clifford. But court is truly the best place to secure a family’s fortune. Our own daughter is but sixteen and has been a maid-of-honor for a year now. And our son...” Her languid voice suddenly turned proud. “Our son has a great career ahead of him. Her Grace is sending him as part of a delegation to Paris. He will be gone for at least a year, and when he returns we have hopes of a very great marriage for him with one of the Howard girls.”
“If he can cease to be such a care-for-nothing,” Lord Erroll grumbled into his wine. “Running about London with those young bravos....”
Lady Erroll shot him a scowl. “Robert is young and handsome. Why should he not enjoy himself now? He has a brilliant future ahead of him. The right marriage will surely...”
Meg could hear no more. She broke away from Bea and scrambled out of the closet. Lifting the heavy hem of her skirt, she ran as fast as she could along the corridors and down the stairs.
“Mistress Margaret!” a maidservant called as she dashed past. “Wait! I have...”
But Meg could not stop. She feared her tears would blind her, and worse, people would see them. Her hood tumbled from her head and her hair fell free, but she scarcely noticed.
On the staircase landing, she paused to catch her breath. She stared out the small window there as she gasped for breath past her stays. The night sky was clear, the stars glittering sharply with the cold, and the moon gleamed on the rutted driveway beneath. Everything was perfectly still, as if frozen.
Suddenly there was one spark of movement, just beyond the line of trees that led to the gates. Meg went up on tiptoe, trying to see what it was.
For just an instant, a stray beam of moonlight caught on a figure on horseback. A face, pale in the night, peered up at the house from beneath the plumes of a fashionable cap.
Meg’s heart pounded again, and she felt the spark of excitement, of distant hope, break over her cold disappointment. Robert Erroll—it had to be. Had she not seen that very hat tumble from his head only that afternoon?
She ran down the stairs and through the doors into the cold night. But there was no one there, no horse, no plumes, only the brush of the wind through the bare trees.
“Hello?” she called. “Are you out there?” Nothing. And her hopes plummeted yet again.
“Meg!” Beatrice cried, and Meg spun around to see her cousin running out of the house after her. “Why did you leave like that?”
Beatrice’s golden hair shimmered in the night, and her blue eyes looked big and shocked in her pretty child’s face. Meg suddenly felt ashamed of her wild behavior, her silly hopes that a man like Robert Erroll, a man going to France on a mission for the queen and with a future marriage to a Howard, could have had serious intentions toward her. It had all been a foolish dream. Lady Erroll was right: they all had to look to their own futures.
But, oh! It had been such a sweet dream while it lasted.
Meg walked slowly back to Bea, her feet feeling as heavy and slow as an old woman’s. She took her cousin’s arm and smiled at her, glad of the covering darkness.
“I just needed some fresh air,” Meg said as they turned toward the house. “It was very stuffy in that closet.”
“But isn’t it exciting, Meg?” Beatrice said, bouncing on her toes. “You might go to court, to see the queen herself! You will dance and sing, and have such pretty clothes....”
Meg had to laugh at Bea’s bubbling enthusiasm. She knew she should feel it herself, and perhaps she would soon enough. If she could let go of her silly dream of being Lady Erroll.
“It’s surely not certain I will go yet,” Meg said.
“Oh, you will! And maybe one day, when I’m older, I shall join you there. Wouldn’t that be so merry, Meg?”
“Aye,” Meg answered quietly. Before they went back through the doors, she glanced back one more time. But the garden was still empty. Surely he had never been there at all. “Merry indeed.”
* * *
Robert drew in his horse once he was sure he was hidden by the trees and looked back to the moonlit house. Margaret still stood poised on the doorstep, staring out at the driveway, and for an instant he was sure she saw him there. The wind toyed with the dark satin fall of her brown hair and caught at her skirts. She rubbed at her arms as if she was cold, but she didn’t turn away.
And he had to fight himself with every ounce of strength he possessed not to wheel his horse around and gallop back to her.
“God’s blood,” he muttered as his fists tightened on the reins. He knew it was a bad idea for him to come to Clifford Manor, but he couldn’t help himself. He had to see her again, and he’d been so sure that once he did he would realize that whatever strange enchantment she’d cast over him when they’d danced was just that—an illusion.
How could it be otherwise? The queen’s court was crowded with beautiful women, witty, sophisticated women it was all too easy to laugh with and tease. To lure to his bed.
And Margaret Clifford was so young, so wide-eyed, so free of courtly guile. When his sister had teasingly suggested he dance with the “country mouse,” he’d thought it might be amusing for a few minutes.
Never could he have anticipated how it would all feel. Her trembling hand in his, the dark eyes looking up at him, her smile, her lithe grace. Her laughter, so open and real, unlike the practiced trill of those court ladies. Enchantment indeed.
And when they’d walked around the hall together after their dance, she’d asked him what he did at the court and he found himself telling her things he had hardly dared even think of. Of dreams and ambitions his parents and friends thought him too indolent to pursue.
Yet Margaret had listened, asked him solemn questions—believed him. Robert had never known such a feeling.
And that was why he could not go back to her now, no matter how much he longed to. If he went back now, begged her to be his, presented his suit to her parents, he would know he wasn’t worthy of her. He had to prove himself in order to win her. To give her the life her pure heart and true beauty deserved. His family had a fine name but no fortune now. They thought he should marry an heiress to help them, but he was sure he had the keys to their salvation within himself.
He had to, if he wanted to marry where he chose.
This voyage to France was the first step. He would show the queen, his family, Margaret, that he could do so much more than dance and preen around court. He would make his fortune, then come back for her when they could be truly together.
The note he had given the maidservant to deliver to Meg would surely tell her what he could not say face-to-face. He could only pray now that she would wait for him, would write to him that she felt the same.
“Wait for me, fair Margaret,” he whispered, and spurred his horse into a gallop, leaving Clifford Manor behind.
* * *
“Nay, we mustn’t!” the maidservant said with a giggle. She backed away from the footman until her hips rested at the stone edge of the well in the kitchen garden, hoping he could see her bosom in the moonlight, prettily displayed above the edge of her smock. He had to follow her now!
And he did. He seized her around the waist, dragging her close to him as she giggled even louder. He growled as he buried his face in her bosom, his beard tickling.
As he tossed her apron aside, the contents of her pockets—a bundle of herbs, a handkerchief and a folded note—tumbled unseen into the well....
