“Robin, you’re mad! The maid is right, and well you know it.” Ralegh admonished. “The queen does dote upon you, though why I cannot see when she has a far brighter fellow in me. Besides, I have heard the stories of this girl’s mother and father. Either one of them could have you for supper, my lord earl, and not even belch daintily afterwards.”
Velvet gazed at Ralegh with interest. He was older than the handsome earl, yet still a youngish man. Far more stylish than Robert Devereux, he wore a doublet of deep brown velvet richly embroidered with copper threads. It complemented his dark amber eyes and ginger-colored hair and beard. He was sturdier than Essex, but, though not as tall, he was even better proportioned with supremely elegant legs. She had never seen boots that fit so beautifully.
Suddenly mindful that her place was with Deirdre, Velvet boldly gave the earl a shove and hurried past him. Essex looked startled that she had laid hands upon him, but then he laughed.
“God’s foot, the de Mariscos seem quite fierce, Wat! Perhaps ’twould be best if we were just friends with the maid. Besides, virgins are so emotional.” He chuckled, and then, arm in arm, the two courtiers made their way through the crowd entering the priory, in order to regain their places by the queen’s side.
Elizabeth Tudor was already in the Great Hall being offered refreshments by her host while the hostess had found her sister and was angrily reproaching her.
“How could you, Velvet!”
“How could Iwhat, Deirdre?”
Deirdre sighed. “What are we to tell the Earl of BrocCairn when he arrives, Velvet? He is coming to marry you! You knew that!”
“Why is it,” Velvet demanded, “that everyone is so concerned with the earl and his feelings, and no one thinks of me or mine? Mama and Papa made the match for me when I was just a child. I can’t even remember the man! Mama has said I should not marry without love, and, Deirdre, I will not! You certainly refused to do so. I will also not marry without my parents by my side, and it is several months until they will return. Perhaps I shall fall in love with the earl, but then again perhaps I won’t. Whether I do or not, I won’t be hustled willy-nilly down the aisle before I have at least been to court. I shall have my time at court, Deirdre, and this wild man from Scotland will be forced to wait upon me until my parents return, for it is a well-known fact that the queen does not like gentlemen poaching among her maids. I shall be safe with my royal godmother!” She looked archly at her elder sibling.
“I am going to tell the queen, Velvet! You cannot embarrass us like this!”
“If you tell the queen, Deirdre, I shall flee to my grandparents in France and cause a great scandal! The betrothal will then be broken, and it will be allyourfault! If my parents truly desire this match, they will not thank you for your meddling. I am as determined to have my way in this as you were to have yours in the matter of your marriage to John! We are sisters—with different fathers it is true—but the blood of our mother runs fiercely and hotly through both our veins. Why should I be any different in my desires than you were in yours?” Velvet look searchingly at Deirdre. “Wouldn’t you rather I remained in England, safe with the queen?” she wheedled, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“Damn you, you minx!” Deirdre muttered. “Oh, all right! The earl doesn’t have to know that when you learned he was coming you practically begged the queen to become a Maid of Honor. Although you will give Uncle Conn a fit, sister!” Then she giggled. “I should not like to be our poor uncle and have to tell the earl that you are not atQueen’s Malvernbut rather with the queen, and therefore at the moment unavailable to wife. Lord, what a tangle!”
Conn St. Michael was, however, strangely unperturbed when he was told that evening of Velvet’s tactics. “She’ll be safe with Bess,” he noted dryly. “Bless the little vixen for finding a way out of this herself.”
“Why, Uncle, you sound as if you approve of Velvet’s behavior,” Deirdre replied, not a little shocked.
“Frankly, Deirdre lass, I didn’t like the idea of giving our Velvet over to BrocCairn in marriage without Skye and Adam here. Velvet’s actions have solved the problem for me. The queen will only give up her new Maid of Honor to her parents, certainly not to a Scots earl, especially with the maid objecting.” The matter settled in his mind, Lord Bliss escorted his wife and niece down to the Great Hall for the feasting.
Elizabeth Tudor was just arriving as they hurried into the big room, which was lined with arch-shaped windows. The spring sunset turned the hall crimson, a brilliant hue echoed by the bright red flames in the four big fireplaces that took the chill from the room. Stepping forward, Conn knelt and raised the queen’s hand to his lips to kiss it slowly. A warm light sprang into her gray-black eyes.
“Conn, you devil,” she murmured, remembering a romantic evening they had spent several years back before he had married Aiden.
“Bess, you’re as beautiful as ever,” he said softly. “Still breaking hearts, lass?” He stood, relinquished her hand, and glanced at Essex and Ralegh.
Elizabeth Tudor shook her head wonderingly. “God’s foot, Lord Bliss!” she said. “You’re still an Irish rogue with a quicksilver tongue.”
“And a quicker wit,” he parried, to the queen’s delight. “I hear my niece is to become one of your Maids of Honor.”
“Ah, Velvet. A lovely child! I am delighted to have her.”
“She has never been to any court, madame,” he said softly. “She has never even been to London.”
“Nor Paris either?” the queen queried him.
“Nor Paris either, madame. She is, despite her beauty, an innocent maid. She has been most sheltered.”
“Is she betrothed?”
“Aye, to the son of a friend of Lord de Marisco’s, but the wedding is not scheduled until after her sixteenth birthday.”
“I will be most careful with Velvet, my lord,” said the queen, understanding his fears. “I will treat her as I would my own child, and in a sense she is just that, being my goddaughter. Did I not take good care of your wife, Aiden, when she was in my charge?”
“Aye, and thank you, madame,” Conn said quietly. He had now done all he could, and they would simply have to wait for his sister and Adam to come home from their voyage. The responsibility was no longer his, and he sighed almost audibly in his relief.
Across the hall, Velvet had suddenly found herself swept up in the society of the court. Her head whirled from all the outrageous compliments she was bombarded with from the gentlemen of the royal party, who were intrigued by this new Maid of Honor. She did not simper like the other girls, but was rather outspoken in her speech without being forward or suggestive. Add to this the fact that she was extravagantly beautiful and an heiress to boot, and the gentlemen were willing to brave the queen’s wrath—at least as long as Elizabeth was across the room. Just when Velvet thought she could bear no more of the courtiers’ silliness, Sir Walter Ralegh and the young Earl of Essex arrived to take her away from the noisy crowd.
“So sorry, gentlemen,” Essex said, laughing, “but Wat and I have taken it upon ourselves to protect this maiden and her virtue from all of you. Be warned that we think of her as we do our own dear sisters and woe to any of you who should dare to trifle with her. Unless, of course,” he amended to general laughter, “she wishes to be trifled with!” Taking Velvet firmly beneath the elbow, he hustled her off to sit with Ralegh before the fire.
