Courtly Pleasures

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  Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Guide

  Cover

  Contents

  Start of content

  Courtly Pleasures

  Courtly Pleasures

  Book 1

  Erin Kane Spock

  Avon, Massachusetts

  This book is dedicated to my sister, Mary McKinley, without whom this book would have never been written. This book is also dedicated to my long-suffering critique partner, Raquel Byrnes, without whom this book would have never become publishable. Thank you both for your encouragement and faith in me.

  Chapter One

  Rule Six: It is necessary for a male to reach the age of maturity in order to love.

  —Paraphrased from “The Rules of Courtly Love” as translated in The Book of the Courtier by Castiglione, 1561

  Commons apartment at Parliament, London, 1572

  “Pray pardon, madam, but are you requesting a divorce?” The shock stamped so beautifully on Henry LeSieur’s face probably should have worried Frances. He never reacted, never felt anything. Instead, the brief evidence of actual emotion made her smile.

  When had she smiled last? Really smiled? Not merely lifted the corners of her lips to appear polite? She closed her eyes, unable to remember.

  Schooling her features into the proper vacant, pleasant expression Frances wore so often she no longer thought of it as a mask, she shook her head slowly. “No, my lord husband, I would not wish for something so dishonorable. I was clear, I think, in my words. I would like,” she looked down at the smooth parchment before her, “a separation based on the mutual agreement that both our duties have been fulfilled in regard to our marriage contract wherein you and I both acknowledge that no further conjugal relations would be required.” She looked up again. “Divorce would make our children bastards and, I should think, you would find that abhorrent.”

  Frances waited, her gloved fingers absently tracing the beads of the rosary at her belt. It was up to him now. Yes, legally he could divorce her for denying him marital rights, but he wouldn’t. Would he? In their ten years of marriage he had sired five children, three living. Given his obsession with duty, he should recognize the validity of her argument. His duty, and hers, was done. Both their parents had seen the match as advantageous. He came with property, and she came with connections of consequence. She had never expected anything different and made no argument. Neither had he. They were practically strangers then, and, thanks to his constant business in London, still were.

  Why would he possibly want to continue the relationship any more than he had to? He’d never professed any affection, never spoken to her about anything other than household accounts and the like. There was no way she had broken his heart. Why the hesitation?

  Looking at the fierce blaze in his deep brown eyes, she had her answer.

  Pride.

  Frances, not for the first time in her life, knew she had a battle before her to get what she wanted. It might be more fulfilling if she really wanted it, if she actually wanted anything. That wasn’t true—she wanted many things. She wanted to have five living children. She wanted to forget each small coffin. She wanted to want to wake every morning. She was lucky Mother had arrived at her home when she did. Frances had allowed herself to fall into a deep melancholy, so far gone that it had no longer been a matter of choice. She’d lost the will to wake up, to eat, to be a mother. The guilt of the memories threatened to sink her down into that darkness again.

  She sat up straight, refusing to go back to that place where no longer existing seemed like a good option.

  Thank God for her mother, if not for her own sake, for her children. Her living children. And the choice to leave the countryside, it had to be only for good. At home she was part of the furniture. She no longer had any identity other than approving the menu and the linens when, in truth, the household full of servants would function, had functioned, fine without her.

  And as a mother, well, she had failed. She hadn’t been able to keep her baby alive, and you couldn’t fail any worse than that. Her living children had grown to depend on their nurses during her . . . illness. They didn’t need her, and she needed to be away from the constant reminder of how close she’d come to giving up.

  Henry sat there, the pulse at his jaw thrumming, and Frances straightened the thumb of her worn glove. She would wait until he had something to say. It wasn’t as if she had anything to lose.

  Hours or seconds passed before he looked away. He stood and crossed the small room that served as his lodging when Parliament was in session. He threw open the shutters and harsh sunlight blasted through the room. Frances winced, closing her eyes to the assault, and continued to exercise patience. If this was where he chose to spend almost all his year, his aversion to home must be strong indeed. Parliament wasn’t in session year round, yet he only returned home at the end of each quarter and for special events. She felt honored the birth of the twins a few months ago had warranted his attention.

  Finally, finally, Henry walked back toward her and, laying both fists down on the polished desk surface asked, “What else is on your list?”

  She covered the paper with her hands. “I would rather we come to a conclusion on the first point before I address the rest.”

  “By all means, then, let us stick to your schedule.” He paced the length of the desk, dragging his fingertips over the spines of books scattered in the far corner. They looked like legal tomes, and Frances couldn’t help but be impressed. She hadn’t known he could read well at all. So much she didn’t know—then again, he was rarely home.

  He toed the hem of her dark skirts out of his way as he stood before her, the flare of his breeches almost touching the parchment on her lap.

  “Before I tell you my answer, I wish to know why.”

  “Why?”

  “Why you seek a separation.” He leaned closer, the point of his waxed beard too close for her comfort. “Have I mistreated you in some way? What would make a woman dishonor her vows?”

  “Nay, my lord husband. You have always done your duty,” the word tasted sour on her tongue, “by me. As I have by you. We have been wed for ten years . . . ”

  “Yes, ten years during which I have met all my familial obligations. You and the children are kept in comfort and
with all the prestige due our station. What makes you ill content with your lot?”

  “I do not complain of your treatment,” she began, mentally slapping herself when she began to chew her cheek. Yet again she schooled her face to a proper calm and straightened her shoulders.

  A lady always treats her husband with all due respect.

  A lady bears her responsibility with grace and dignity.

  A lady does not panic at the mere thought of her husband touching her. Using her body. And a lady definitely does not tell him, face to face, that she wishes for separation. Again, she questioned herself. Why not just go on as it had been? He was hardly at home anyway. But then, when he was home . . . She shivered. No, he would not touch her again, and she wanted his promise. And she wanted the freedom to set up her own household if she saw fit. Maybe there she would feel needed.

  “I have to wonder, my lady wife, why now you chose to make me privy to your disgust. Mayhap you have found another man you desire more. Tell me, Frances.” When had he last used her Christian name? “Tell me, wife, am I a cuckold?”

  “Nay!” She stood, unable to wipe the outrage from her face. “I would not dishonor you so.”

  He reached out, cupping her jaw in his hands. For an eternity his eyes locked with hers, the scent of spiced wine on his breath fanning her lips as he studied her face. When had he grown so tall? The boy she’d married had been barely a knuckle taller than she. This man seemed so different from the man she brought to mind when she thought of her husband.

  The chill of the morning seeped into her skin as soon has he released her but did nothing to slow the frantic pace of her heart.

  “If it is not for another man, why do this? Why not continue as we have been? What does a separation give you that you do not already have?”

  She reached for the mask of calm and found it missing. With a sigh, she squeezed her eyes shut against the world. For a moment all she could feel was the darkness waiting for her, the darkness that she’d welcomed over these past months.

  “I will not, I cannot,” she stumbled over her words, still striving for the pleasant façade, “suffer your touch again. I do not think I can smile and do my duty as you use my body to fulfill your obligation to our marriage. I know I cannot wait out another pregnancy always in fear that this babe may not survive.” She stopped to draw a shuddering breath. “I need this separation, if I wish . . . ” She pursed her lips, well aware that her words would be thought melodramatic, if not straight out choleric. “If I wish to survive. It is all I can do to choose life now for the sake of my children. Do not make me mourn another child.”

  Could he feel the silence hammering around them both? Did the sunlight burn his eyes like it did hers? Did he see the depth of her desperation? Or did he only feel the slap to his pride because his needs outranked hers by privilege of being a man?

  Frances LeSieur straightened to her full five foot five and met his stare. Divorcing her would only hurt the children and she dared him to be that cruel.

  He let out a haggard breath and slumped against the front of his desk. “This last birth was hard on you.”

  “The obvious is always so profound,” she blurted before she could stop herself. By the saints, what would my mother say?

  His mustache quirked at one corner, the hint of a surprised smile more visible in his eyes than on his mouth.

  “What I meant, my lord husband, is yes, birthing twins was difficult. And though I know that it is the will of God, I cannot help but grieve that only one survived.” There, that was more appropriate.

  “I, too, am sad at the loss of the babe.”

  “Her name was Maria.” She held out a folded parchment.

  He started, perhaps, at the harshness of her voice, and took the paper from her. Unfolding it he blinked at the image; a single inked footprint, hardly larger than the pad of her thumb. “Maria,” he repeated and ran his fingers over the page. “It is hard to suffer the loss of a child, even for the father.”

  “And yet you did not return to Holme LeSieur to attend the burial. You have not come home to bless and greet the twin that survived, your daughter, Grace. She has now reached four months of age.” It was a blessing the babe had thrived despite Frances’s inability to mother in any way. Even if she had been able to nurse, she’d been too lost in melancholy to give the sweet babe the attention she needed. Thank God for her mother’s good sense.

  “My duties here have kept me . . . ”

  “Duty!” she spat. “The word makes me sick. I knew I should not have come, that it would be no good.” This time she didn’t even try for ladylike poise. She no longer cared. “I have been proud to be your duty, to bear your children, but I am the one who has had to bury them. Each time you touch me I will myself to accept you, to do my duty in turn, but no more. I wish your consent for a separation. You lose nothing in this arrangement. You cannot pretend love for me or your family.”

  “Do not presume to know me, madam.”

  “I do not make any such presumption, husband. What objections do you have to my request other than damage to your pride?”

  “In truth?” he asked, for a moment looking more like the boy she married ten years ago than the man of twenty-five standing before her. His dark eyes, so brown they were almost black, bore into hers for a moment before glancing away. She still made him uncomfortable. That would be a sad fact if he hadn’t made her feel obsolete. She wondered, if she could see his lips clearly past his shaped mustache, if he would be worrying them as he had during their vows. He was still comely, although the pretty boyishness that had given her such hope at their betrothal was gone. The hard lines of his face, the breadth of his jaw beneath the dark beard broad and firm, made her question if she had the strength to go up against him. She wondered if his hair was clipped short beneath his hat or unruly and thick. She sighed to herself, reminded by his renewed stare, no longer awkward or boyish, that none of it mattered. The look in his eyes now made her uncomfortable as he finally answered, “In truth, I cannot say why.”

  Silence hung thinner this time, less oppressive.

  “I can promise that I will not cuckold you.” She handed the parchment to him. “My only wish is to remain unmolested, as you see.”

  “And you require credit in London?” he asked, looking up from her list, brows raised.

  “Aye. Mother has assured me of Her Majesty’s welcome at the palace and the honor of serving as a lady of the bedchamber.”

  He blinked in surprise. “But you have never been at court before and will not know the way of it. It would have been an honor to the consequence of our family name for you to simply to be accepted as a guest of the Queen, allowed to be present in Her privy chamber, witness to Her entertainments. But a lady of the bedchamber, that is a position of trust; you will be one of the few closest to the Queen’s person, welcome on the level of a dear friend. I know your mother is a long time friend and confidant . . . ”

  “And I have been invited upon my lady mother’s recommendation,” Frances interrupted, wondering at his hesitation over this. Surely he should be, if anything, proud.

  He nodded. “That says much for her own standing. Bearing the title of countess is all but irrelevant when it comes to the favor of the Queen.”

  “Aye, and is a responsibility for me to be beyond reproach.”

  “That is what I am trying to explain. The behavior at court is all about diversion and entertainment. To many that involves . . . ” He paused. That awkward look was back and, yes, he worried his lip.

  “What is it that I should know before going to court?” she asked, intrigued now.

  He sighed and ran a hand over his face. “The morals at court are not what you would expect.”

  “But the Queen expects her ladies to be above reproach . . . ”

  “Yes, and they all pretend they are. But, married or maid, there is a game at court that goes far beyond courtly flirtation. That is part of the entertainment some find as guests of the Queen. They just
have to be slightly less than obvious about it.”

  She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, intrigued by this new challenge. “I promised I will not cuckold you and I will maintain that, but that is not my purpose for coming to London and I refuse to let it deter me.” Besides, how much did it matter? The men could flirt all they wanted. Her consent was never going to happen. “Being accepted to the Queen’s entourage is an honor.”

  “Aye, and many women in your place would fight for it. I want you to be cautious.”

  “Of course,” she confirmed and then cleared her throat. “Given what you have said about court, should I expect to meet any of your,” she waved her hand, uncertain what word to choose and why she would care, “entertainments?”

  He shook his head sharply and blinked. “What? My . . . ” He took off his hat and smoothed his hair, thick and long enough to be secured at the back of his neck. “I do not seek my pleasure at court, if that is what you are asking. I am rarely there.”

  Then where are you? She couldn’t bring herself to ask. She’d already decided she no longer cared.

  She clasped her hands before her once more, serene. “I intend to make the most of my time at court to . . . ” To heal, to find meaning, to stop grieving. “Broaden my scope.” She wasn’t sure what would happen, just that she wouldn’t be surrounded by the same brick walls that had been her constant scenery for that past ten years. “I need change. I need something to look forward to. A reason to wake up.” She raised her gaze to his, surprised to find her eyes brimming. She thought she’d run out of tears months ago.

  “And despite the favorite pastime of bored courtiers, you say you do not wish to take a lover while in London.” Whatever the thought did to her face made Henry laugh and ask, “Is the thought so disgusting to you?”

  She shrugged as much as her corset would allow. “I have always known that the sexual act is one of my obligations as wife. Why would I pursue it for myself? It is something that I have never enjoyed.”