The Tudor Conspiracy - Gortner Christopher W. (книги онлайн без регистрации полностью .txt) 📗

He swallowed; all of a sudden, I heard a rupture in his voice. “I was a foolish young man then, lustful and proud, enamored of a woman so far above me in station she seemed unattainable. But that night she was so alone, so lost. She dismissed her maid, and I stayed with her as she sat before the fire. I served her mulled wine, tried to comfort her. She spoke of the past, when she’d been sought after as a royal bride. She told me of how Francois of France himself had pursued her and why she could never give up that artichoke jewel, because it was all she had left of a time when she risked everything to marry Brandon, the love of her life. Then she smiled and said, ‘And look at me now, Shelton: I’m a sad old lady. No one remembers the girl I was.’”

Heat prickled behind my eyes. I reached over the space between our horses as if to touch his hand on his reins. He jerked away, disdaining my reassurance.

“No,” he said hoarsely. “Let me finish. Let me get this out. I haven’t spoken of it to anyone. I need to tell you as much as you need to hear it.”

He drew Cerberus to a stop beside a stream. As our horses bowed their heads to drink, he dismounted and moved with heavy steps toward an oak. He stood there, staring at it. I slipped from Cinnabar to go to his side. In the distance Urian rolled in a patch of field.

“It was only a few times.” Shelton’s voice turned impersonal, as though he sought to put distance between himself and the man he had been. “That night was the first. I couldn’t help myself. She must have seen it in my eyes. I’d thought myself so clever, keeping my feelings to myself and acting the loyal squire, but she knew what desire looked like. Perhaps it gave her solace, to know she could still rouse such passion, to be young again … but to me-oh, to me, it was paradise on earth! I had never felt anything like it. I pledged my undying love to her, vowed I’d never have another. She laughed, said all men utter such nonsense in the heat of the moment, but I meant it. In a way, I still do.”

His broken mouth creased in a smile. “It’s why I tried to protect you after I found you in the Dudley household, why I sought to keep you hidden from those who might do you harm. It was my promise to her, though I never had the chance to tell her. I know I was hard on you at times, but I believed it was necessary to keep you safe. She wouldn’t have wanted you to suffer.”

I couldn’t move as he swiveled to me, looking at me with his one eye, which could no longer shed tears, though his entire countenance bore testament to his grief. “I returned to court when the duke came back from France. Mistress Boleyn announced she was with child; her coronation was planned in haste. I left your mother at Westhorpe, not knowing she, too, had conceived. She didn’t tell a soul except her herbalist, Mistress Alice, letting out that she had a swelling sickness. I never saw her again.”

“She died because of me.” I sank to my haunches, my head in my hands.

He knelt beside me. “No. Not because of you. She loved her children; she would have loved you, too.” He cupped my chin, turning my face to him. “You have her eyes, the same pale gray that can turn blue or sea green depending on your mood.”

“How did you find me?” I whispered. “How did you know where I’d been taken?”

“That damn artichoke again,” he said, “the one Anne Boleyn had coveted. Your mother stated in her will that it was to be broken apart, a leaf given to each of the women she named. The duke didn’t care. Anne Boleyn had given birth to a daughter, and Brandon had to contend with the king. Your mother was scarcely in her grave before Brandon wed his ward, a girl of fifteen. He wouldn’t have troubled himself with his late duchess’s request had I not offered to distribute the leaves in her honor.”

“But you didn’t know about me? You did not suspect?”

“Not at first. Then I learned that one of the women named in your mother’s will was the herbalist, and it sparked my suspicion. Alice vanished after your mother’s death; no one knew where she’d gone. I believed the bequeathing of those leaves was a sign, a message meant for me. So I did my duty. I delivered one leaf to Princess Mary and returned to court to serve the duke, to watch and wait. I had the leaf for Lady Dudley as well, but there was something about her I mistrusted; I didn’t approach her yet. By the time the duke died,” he added, “I’d discovered that Mistress Alice lived in the Dudley home in Warwickshire. When I went to Lady Dudley for a post, she hired me as her steward because of my service to the duke. Alice couldn’t believe it when I walked into her kitchen. Neither could I. When I saw you sitting there with her, the spitting image of your mother, I almost wished you didn’t exist. I feared for the life you’d face, a secret son with royal blood in your veins.”

I knew the rest of the story; I had lived it. I’d barely survived it. Even so, the final question had to be asked, though it seemed unnecessary now, almost irrelevant.

“Are you my father?”

He did not answer at once. The wind rustled through the branches above us, a flock of birds scattered overhead. Our mounts stamped their hooves, ears upright to the sounds of awakening nature. Urian trotted back to us, panting and covered in mud.

“Yes,” he finally said. “I suppose I must be.” He rubbed his chin, as though the thought perturbed him. “I should never have kept the truth from you. I suspected you had returned the night you were eavesdropping on the earl and the princess, but I wasn’t sure. Then you appeared in the brothel, and I recognized you immediately. I thought, here he is. Here is my second chance. But I’d never expected to see you again, and you thought I was dead. I’d changed so much; I didn’t want to do what I knew I must.”

“So instead you followed me,” I said. “You still tried to protect me.”

He chuckled. “Didn’t do a very good job of it, did I? I’d seen the earl exchanging missives with couriers; I knew he’d become involved in something dangerous, helping Robert Dudley in the Tower. I figured, whatever had brought you back to court, you’d soon be in over your head. Old habits never die: I wanted to keep you safe.” He reached into his jerkin and extracted a small silk-cloth packet, tied with a frayed ribbon. “This belongs to you.” He put it in my palm. “I’ve kept it all these years.”

I closed my fingers over it. I didn’t need to open it to know what the packet contained: the jeweled leaf meant for Lady Dudley, which he never gave her.

“Thank you,” I said softly. I shifted nearer to him. He stayed immobile as I slowly put my arms around him. I held him close; though I didn’t look up, I heard him choke back a sob.

“Ah, lad,” he murmured, and his hand came up to caress my hair.

I finally had my past.

Now I could look to my future.