Courtly Pleasures Read online

  “I do beg your pardon, Mistress LeSieur. Your mother alerted me as to your arrival. I only just arrived myself—otherwise, I would have sought you out sooner and prepared you for court already.” The older woman continued, “I am Mistress Blanche Parry. I have been in service to Queen Elizabeth since the day Queen Anne of blessed memory laid the baby princess Elizabeth in Her cradle. Then I was simply a nursemaid, a servant in truth. Now I serve out of love in Her entourage with more prestige than any titled courtier, though I hold no rank. I am here at the Queen’s behest, much like you. I promised your mother that I would see to you, and so I shall. But first we must fortify ourselves to greet our Sovereign Monarch.”

  Frances looked out into the hall through the gap between tapestries. Sure enough, the increased clamor signaled something was definitely happening in the outer courtyard. As she turned back to ask a question, Mistress Parry held up a staying hand.

  “First you must promise me that when you return to your rooms tonight you will request a bath. The Queen has set the fashion and the noble ladies are bathing at least once a month, whether they need to or not.” Frances stared with shock. “You will have your hair washed and brushed and set to curl, and tomorrow I will help you begin your transformation. Oh, and never wear that horrid rouge again,” Mistress Parry finished with a grimace.

  Frances, flustered, merely repeated, “A bath?” She’d just bathed at the ewer in her room. Did that not suffice? The thought of requiring such a labor from the servants embarrassed her. She was too low for such a luxury.

  “Aye. It will be a wondrous way to start anew. And I do not mean a hipbath in your chemise, I want you to take a full bath. Do not gripe about it being unnecessary,” she waved away Frances’s look of protest, “or unhealthy. Queen Elizabeth Herself bathes at least once a month.” She nodded as if any argument had been preemptively addressed. “We shall work from the outside in. And your hair could use a good washing. It looks almost as if it’s carved marble on your head. Egg whites?”

  Frances nodded and added, “Whipped with beeswax.”

  “Hmph.” Mistress Parry rose swiftly and made her way to the throne at the opposite end of the room to await the Queen.

  Frances sat in the alcove for the rest of the evening. Too intimidated to venture out and, now, too self-conscious of her appearance to be seen, Frances stifled her excitement at the prospect of seeing the Queen and thanked God that the few courtiers who noticed paid no attention to the spineless woman within the alcove. After a lifetime that was only an hour or so, the Queen retired to her privy chamber and most of the court either accompanied her or dispersed.

  Frances, stealthy as could be, made her way back to her room. She wasn’t surprised to find Jane and Mary there waiting.

  Jane rushed to her, laying a well-meaning hand on her forehead. “Where have you been all evening?”

  “Hiding.”

  When Mary raised a brow in question, Frances shook her head. “I’ll explain later. For now, do you have any idea how I should go about having a bath?”

  Chapter Three

  Rule Fourteen: The value of love is commensurate with its difficulty of attainment.

  What little dust the servants missed began to settle around Hampton Court. The newly returned Queen and Her court acclimated to the palace while all the staff and retainers settled in to their resumed roles. Henry LeSieur’s duties to his constituency brought him back to London earlier than the rest of the court.

  Henry adapted to court life long ago and was a sophisticated courtier in spite of his meager rank and country manor. Though the LeSieurs were not titled nobles, they were wealthy, and Henry dressed as befitted his wealth, if not his status. To succeed in the court of Queen Elizabeth one had to impress on all counts. As he surveyed his choppy reflection in a paned glass window, he wondered what his wife thought of his London appearance. He made a sour face at his image. Would the intimidating stare that worked so well to see through deceit translate well into wooing his wife?

  Probably not.

  That thought alone led to his decision to shave off the beard and mustache. He needed to be approachable, amiable. He should take a page from the Queen’s favorites and strive to be merry and seductive. Or maybe he should just smile more.

  Flashing a smile at his reflection, Henry did his best to look charming. His smile seemed too boyish and usually undermined his goal to intimidate so much that he’d trained himself against it. Time to change that image. His long face and firm jaw finished off with a dimpled chin, which, until this morning, had stayed hidden under his beard. He was not used to his clean-shaven appearance, but it set him apart from most of the other men at court. Perhaps a visual change would be all that it took to make his wife take notice.

  Henry wondered, not for the first time, why he wanted her attention at all. No good answer came to him.

  Still smiling at himself in the glass, he noticed someone standing on the other side. A woman. She preened for him as if he had been flirting. At least she didn’t realize she’d caught him in a self-absorbed moment admiring his own reflection. Smiling sincerely now, he removed his hat and offered the lady a reverance, leaning back on his right leg and extending the left into a point as he lowered himself in a show of courtly respect. She reveranced in turn and then scampered back to join a cluster of giggling girls. Based on her age and style of dress, he guessed she was probably one of the Queen’s maids of honor. She was young and innocent; not likely to assume his perceived attentions implied anything other than a courtly flirtation—not that he wasted time with that nonsense.

  A reflection appeared just over his shoulder. Master Kit Hatton, captain of the Queen’s Guard and one of Her favorites. He nodded at the comely wench giggling to her friends on the other side of the glass. “That explains why you shaved your cheeks. You look like a boy, presumably to attract the young girls surrounding Her Majesty. Now that would be courting the Queen’s ire.”

  “Worry not,” Henry replied, grasping Hatton’s offered hand, “I’ll leave that job to you.”

  “I am sure I will not let you down, though I cannot foresee when and where.” He rubbed his own chin, the waxed hair fair and sparse; it was more a lad’s scruff than a man’s beard. “A clean chin might be a good change for me. Her Majesty may approve of the boyish appeal.” He turned back to watch the young ladies on the other side of the glass and laughed. “You surprise me, Master LeSieur. You usually do not do your hunting at court.”

  “You assume that I hunt at all,” Henry replied, then gestured to the group of girls with a tilt of his head. “My wife has come to court, and I thought I would see how she fares.”

  “You have a wife?” Hatton’s shock reflected back at them both. “I had no idea. How long have you been wed?”

  He nodded. “For the past ten years.”

  “Ten . . . You must have been a child.” When Henry nodded, Hatton continued, “Why have you kept her a secret?”

  “She is not a secret at all. There has never been any cause for her to come to court and no reason to discuss her. At least, not with you,” Henry responded, irked that he had to talk about her even now. Why? It wasn’t that she embarrassed him. No, it was more that he embarrassed himself. At five and twenty he should at least be man enough to face the woman who’d scared him so at fifteen. Surely they had both changed enough to move in the same social circles with civil regard for each other, like other married courtiers. That he wanted more than that astonished him. Perhaps it wasn’t only pride that inspired him to woo her.

  “Well, it must take a very dull woman to be content with you. Then again, if she came to court, she may have some fire.”

  Henry met his eyes in the glass. “Do not think to slur my wife. In fact, do not contemplate my wife at all.”

  “Strike a nerve, did I? My apologies.” The suppressed laughter clear on his face belied his words. “If she has been happy wherever you have been keeping her, why come to court now?”

  “I will not dis
cuss this with you. My wife is off-limits, understood?”

  Hatton clapped him on the shoulder, spinning him about. Now face to face, Hatton blanched and stepped back at whatever he saw in Henry’s eyes.

  “Why is that, I wonder?” Hatton continued, too arrogant to back down despite the fear in his eyes. “Do you not trust your wife to make her own choices? Is she so innocent that she will fall into the arms of any man who plies her with courtly love? Do you not trust her fidelity? I have never known you to dally and assumed you were simply too pious for it.”

  Henry thought the whole thing would end quickly if he just punched the man in the throat. So tempting. He smiled at the thought, but that just made Hatton bristle.

  “Do you mock me, sirrah?”

  “Nay, Master Hatton. You forget that you are the one mocking me. I am merely exercising patience and being above it.”

  “Are you, in truth? Or did I detect some flare of passion when I asked about fidelity? Do you not worry at all, then? Court is different from the country.”

  “I well know it,” he answered, scanning the bustling gardens around them. How many rumor mongers had one ear open on their conversation? “And no, I have no doubts about my wife’s virtue. She has come to court, yes, but I guarantee she will offer no one,” not even her own husband, if she had her way, “sport.” Henry turned out his leg in a reverance. “I give you good den, Master Hatton.”

  “Ten pounds says you will find yourself a cuckold afore Christmastide.”

  “Sirrah, you overstep yourself.” The leather of Henry’s gloves creaked against his tight fists.

  “Nay, Master LeSieur, you set down the challenge.”

  “I merely informed you of her character. You impugn your own in this wager.”

  “Do I? I saw it as more of a direct insult to your,” he paused, his smile anything but friendly, “prowess?”

  To think, until now he’d only thought of Master Kit Hatton as frivolous. As Captain of the Guard, Hatton must know of Henry’s service to Walsingham and his role in uncovering the Catholic conspiracy to assassinate the Queen. Henry might be quiet and respectable, but Hatton knew enough to realize he was playing a dangerous game here. The man must simply be stupid.

  “Why do you bait me?” Henry asked, his tone soft. “Do you wish for me to call you out?”

  “Would you really?” This time Hatton’s smile was genuine, his teeth too white behind the dark gold of his beard.

  What is he about?

  “Make way for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth Glorianna!” a herald announced from across the courtyard, and everyone jumped to attention, then promptly dropped to one knee.

  Henry’s hat over his heart, he held his head high as his Queen approached. A procession of guards and courtiers passed through the topiary arches and into the Queen’s privy chamber beyond.

  When he stood again, Hatton was gone.

  Ten pounds—the price on his wife’s virtue. Sad, really. How soon would half of court believe that he had wagered away the right to woo his wife?

  Little Frances Chatsworth was in for some challenges at court. Henry wasn’t sure if he should be amused or horrified.

  Henry turned and dropped into a reverance as Mistress Parry surged toward him.

  “Rise you up,” she gestured for him to stand and looped her arm through his. “Walk with me.”

  “Is aught amiss, Mistress?” Henry had never seen the older woman so agitated.

  She nodded. “As you know, your wife is here.”

  “I do.”

  “My dear friend Bess, the Countess of Spencer, asked me to watch after her, and I am doing so, but I worry.”

  So do I. “How so?”

  “Her Majesty is just now receiving news from the French ambassador of a massacre of Huguenots in Paris.”

  Henry stopped, stunned. “Impossible.”

  “Nay, it has been confirmed. There are somewhere between hundreds and thousands dead—either way it is a great loss of life. I fear the English reaction will be to turn against those who hold to the Roman Catholic faith.”

  “My affiliation with the Catholic Church has proven a great service to England. My name should offer my wife protection.”

  “It does and does not.”

  He raised an eyebrow in question. How did Blanche Parry know of the highly secret mission? That answer was easy—she knew everything.

  “Very few know of your service so will simply see Frances as a country mouse, a Papist one at that. Those that do know will not speak of it. And then there are those who know too much because they were on the wrong side of the last plot—but to say anything would implicate themselves. Still, there may be a price on your head.”

  The recent Ridolfi plot to marry the Duke of Norfolk to Mary, the Scots’ Queen and overthrow Queen Elizabeth had been thwarted, resulting in extra work for the Tower guards and headsman. Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s spymaster, made use of Henry, a known Roman Catholic. He inserted himself into the conspiracy and proved integral in unmasking the traitors. Families of those executed or imprisoned still held him accountable for their fates. Looking around the courtyard, he spied at least three who may wish him ill will.

  “You think this poses a threat to my wife?”

  “I know I have heard your name spoken in unkind whispers, and I think she needs to be informed about the risks involved in being at court. Those involved may assume she is aware of your antics and support your seeming betrayal of what they consider the “one true church.” Her very presence, especially as naive as she is, may renew attention to you. Some think you a hero, some a heretic. Frances may be burdened with guilt by association, and those driven by faith are capable of more than I could imagine, all in the name of God. And then there are those who hold all Catholics accountable for the behavior of a few. I would not intervene, but speculation about the St. Bartholomew’s day massacre is already whipping up a fervor of anti-Catholic sentiment. She needs to be aware. It is not my place to tell her all.”

  “Devil take it,” he cursed. “If she had stayed at Holme LeSieur, none of this would ever touch her.”

  Mistress Parry laid a hand over his glove. “But she is here now. I can help her integrate into Queen Elizabeth’s ladies, but you owe her an explanation. It’s possible that understanding the reasons for your regular absences will help resolve whatever the conflict is between you two.”

  The clock chimed four and the few remaining courtiers cleared from the courtyard. Devil take it! Mistress Parry knew of his service to the Crown, so why could he not tell his own wife? Would that mend the rift between them? Not that there was ever a sense of connection to begin with. He sighed to himself and looked up to the heavens, finding no answer. He didn’t even know Frances well enough to predict how she would react to the information. Was she a zealous adherent to the Roman Catholic faith? If so, she may find his work to undermine the Catholic plot against Queen Elizabeth abhorrent. That would make her the traitor, and that was something he didn’t wish to know.

  No, better not to tell her. Let her believe he was always away in London playing the courtier and filling his role in Parliament.

  “Time to dress for dinner. I will be meeting with Frances and her ladies anon.” Mistress Parry released his arm, and he gave her a reverance.

  “I thank you for your concerns.”

  “Of course you do,” she responded, raising a sarcastic brow. “Your wife may find herself up to her neck in the muck here. I can only do so much. Your help is not only a courtesy—it is the only honorable thing to do.”

  “As you say.” He nodded, and Mistress Parry turned to leave.

  Dropping down onto a stone bench, Henry crushed his hat in his hands. Character, honor, respect, duty—these were the things that mattered more than anything, and the simple appearance of his wife in London put every single one to the test.

  God help him.

  Chapter Four

  Rule Eleven: A lover should not love anyone who would be an embarra
ssing marriage choice.

  Frances had, naturally, been concerned about the possible ill effects of taking a bath—everyone knew that body oils helped protect a person against disease. But now, as she ran her fingers through her newly cleaned hair, she considered that perhaps that health measure was simply superstition. Her skin still held the rosy glow from aggressive toweling, her hair felt soft as a babe’s, and Frances thought she looked healthier already. Not only did she enjoy the decadence of bathing, she definitely felt better, even if Mary and Jane thought three baths in one week excessive. She didn’t even feel guilty about asking this of the servants, something she never would have done at Holme LeSieur. Then again, the Holme boasted, at most, fifteen full-time servants, and all of them had regular schedules she wouldn’t dream of interrupting. The servants at Hampton Court Palace outnumbered them exponentially, and many of them were dedicated to see to the varied and sometimes ostentatious needs of the courtiers. Providing warm water was nothing compared to the rest.

  Mistress Parry joined Frances in her room and spent the day chattering constantly as Mary saw to Frances’s grooming. Frances listened dutifully to the discourse on courtly manners and expectations, whereas Mary seemed obviously uncomfortable and occupied herself by vigorously brushing out Frances’s long dark-amber locks. Mistress Parry took her leave after instructing the two women to meet her in an hour in the garden outside the Queen’s privy chamber. Frances promised she would and struggled to figure out how to dress for the occasion.

  “It is hard to believe that Queen Catherine of France would instigate such horrors!” began Mary, obviously still very upset about the news of the massacre in Paris. “The Huguenots were French subjects—even though they were heretics.”