Heart of Gold Read online

Ambrose let his eyes slowly, ever so slowly, return to hers. “To answer your questions, all of your questions...” He took a step toward her. Elizabeth stepped back against the window frame. The Highlander swung a chair around and sat, straddling it and facing her.

  She waited for him to speak, but he just sat silently. For the first time in years, Elizabeth felt the vulnerability of men’s clothing. Her painter’s clothing, as comfortable as it had been over years, now felt strangely insufficient. She longed for the layers and layers of dresses that Mary wore.

  A blush crept into her face as she looked away from the handsome nobleman. There were no barriers of modesty between them. But then, perhaps there never had been.

  “You fascinate me, Elizabeth. You always have. No woman has ever called me empty-headed, insensitive, or self-centered. And certainly no man would dare to say such things to me. In fact, contrary to your opinion, most women think me intelligent, gallant, and considerably perceptive of the needs of others. But then again, I am not with most women. I am with you. So, I suppose, that explains that.”

  She bit her tongue in her effort to stay silent.

  “And as far as my disappointment at finding you in Florence, you are once again wrong, of course.” He paused, waiting for her to jump in, but she didn’t rise to his bait. “From the moment I first laid eyes on you, I have been anything but displeased. From that day at the Field of Cloth of Gold, you have had a way of drawing me toward you. And I have advanced with pleasure—and anticipation. I have thought about you quite a bit. To be honest, I have spent four years thinking about this moment. You have surprised me, excited me, and enchanted me. Elizabeth Boleyn, you have driven me to a madness that no other woman ever has. It is time for you to supply the cure.”

  Elizabeth looked down at the weave of the mat under her feet. She could not trust herself to meet his eyes. “What would you like me to do?”

  He stood up and walked to a bowl of water that sat on the trestle table. She watched as he soaked a towel and wrung out the water. Elizabeth held her breath as he walked toward her.

  Halting a step away, he handed her the wet cloth.

  “What I would like you to do is to be yourself. At least while you are with me. I want you to wash away the disguise that covers the truth about you. I want to see you for who you really are, as I’ve seen you in the past. I want to see the passionate woman who exists beneath these clothes.” He took her chin gently in his hand and lifted it until her eyes met his. “You want me, Elizabeth. As much as I want you. And don’t try to deny it. Your eyes have betrayed you from the first moment we met.”

  He spoke the truth. She couldn’t deny his words.

  “I want to make love to you, Elizabeth. I mean with no interruptions, no one running away, no life-threatening storms or anything else to stop us. Those were my conditions, you recall.”

  She nodded

  “That’s the way I want it, as well,” she whispered, still holding the cloth in her hand.

  “Then—” he gestured toward the locked door with a half smile—“don’t you think we are safe at last?”

  Elizabeth raised herself on her toes and pressed a fleeting kiss on his chin before skipping around him. Then, throwing the towel across the room and into the bowl, she turned to face him.

  “You are right about me and about the way I feel about you. I will not deny that.” She whispered the words self-consciously. “But not here. We can’t make love here. When at last we do make love, I would like us to be in a place separate from all these others. I would like to dress as a woman and come to you as myself. I would also like to have the peace of mind that we have more than a few moments that we could share. I am not being greedy. Perhaps a night. A full night to make love—as it should be made. That’s not so much to ask, is it? We’ve waited so long, Ambrose Macpherson. We could withstand a bit more.”

  Ambrose moved closer to her again. “We could have that. All of what you ask for. But wouldn’t it be worth our while to remind ourselves of the delights we have in store? Perhaps just as a token to hold us over for the far greater night to come? For the bliss that awaits us?”

  Elizabeth circled behind a chair as he slowly, ever so slowly, stalked her. “Nay, m’lord. I don’t think that is such a good idea.”

  “But I think it is,” he continued. “And I think it will not take much for me to convince you, as well.”

  Elizabeth pulled a chair back and blocked his advance. “As I think more about this, I’m becoming more and more convinced that it’s a terrible idea. After all, you’re leaving tomorrow without me, and—”

  Ambrose came to a halt. “You are not being left here, Elizabeth. We are all leaving tomorrow.”

  She stared at him momentarily, her eyes widening.

  “Oh, thank you, thank you!” Elizabeth tossed the chair aside and threw her hands around his neck at last. “Thank you!”

  Ambrose stepped back as she attacked him. She had lost her mind. “What are you thanking me for? This is no different than what we planned to do before we left Florence.”

  “Of course it is!” she whispered happily, kissing him squarely on the lips. “You just said we are all leaving tomorrow. That means Mary is coming with us. That means I won’t need to stay behind and finish the journey to Scotland without your assistance. That means you and I will have our moments together. Moments to share—”

  Ambrose grabbed her by the chin and forced her to listen to him. “You are going with me, my sweet. And your sister is staying here where she can be cared for properly. These people shall give her the best care there is. And when she is better, I will even send my men back to accompany her to Scotland. Now, is all that clear?”

  Elizabeth slapped his hand away, her face flaming with anger. “Let me make something clear to you! I am not going to leave my sister all alone in a strange place with anyone—and I don’t care if Avicenna himself is going to doctor her! If she stays, then I stay. Is that clear?”

  Ambrose stared at the young woman momentarily. “Is your skull so thick? Have the beatings you’ve taken in your life so damaged your wits that you can no longer think rationally? You are endangering your sister’s life by taking her on so difficult a journey.”

  “I know my sister better than anyone—and that includes you, these monks, and any other physician you might find between here and Paris.” She took a step back. “Mary’s illness is not of a physical nature that can be cured by medicine, or by sleep. She needs love, care. She needs the knowledge that she is well cared for by people that she knows. The death of Mary will not be taking her with us across France. The death of her will be leaving her alone here among strangers.”

  Ambrose pushed her down in a chair. “You listen to me, young woman...”

  Elizabeth sprang back up. He pushed her down again, keeping his hands securely on her shoulders. She struggled for a moment, then sat, glaring up at him.

  “Your sister is not a bairn. I might be able to understand your feelings if they were directed at your daughter, but Mary is a grown woman. And based on what I’ve witnessed in the short time that I’ve spent with you two, I can see that she is nothing more than a pampered, selfish woman who demands to be at the center of your attention. Elizabeth, she is using you.”

  She’d heard all this so many times before. She simply didn’t need someone else preaching to her what she already knew was—at least in part—the truth. But it wasn’t the whole truth. The baron did not have possession of all the facts. He only knew a small part of their past. Her voice softened. “But she is sick, Ambrose. She truly is.”

  “But you just said it yourself. She is sick in mind and not in body.” He looked down into her troubled eyes. He had to do this as much for her as for himself. “Elizabeth, she is robbing you of your life. Of a time that you could be spending with your daughter, or with others if you choose to. Tell me one thing: Why is she with you? Why is she not fluttering about, enjoying English court life? It is where she belongs. Your father is very much
in favor there.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t.

  “She is unhappy, lass,” he pressed. “That’s obvious even to strangers. Must you pay for her unhappiness? Is she punishing you for the life she is leading? Why can’t you send her back?”

  “Please stop!” she pleaded, pushing him back. Standing, she took both of his hands in hers. She held them tight. She needed his strength. She needed him. “I know, I’ve heard all these things before. And I agree with much of what you say. Mary needs her own life, separate from mine. But leaving her here is not the way. I cannot cut her loose and leave her to drift here. Not here, where she knows no one. I promise you. I give you my word that I will find a place where she can live her own life. But let me take her to where she has friends. Where she won’t be left alone.”

  Ambrose gathered her hands in his. The desperate pleading note in her voice was one he’d never heard before. This was a far different side of the strong and willful Elizabeth Boleyn. She was speaking from her heart. He couldn’t let her down. As much as he believed that leaving the sister behind would probably be best for everyone, he knew he couldn’t do it now.

  “Paris,” he said firmly. “We’ll take her as far as Paris. You have friends, family there. She can get the help and support you say she needs. But no further. That is my condition.”

  “Thank you!” she whispered, throwing herself into his arms.

  Chapter 20

  He knows peace who has forgotten desire.

  Ambrose wanted to place his fingers around her delicate neck. She stood leaning so peacefully against the low railing. A gentle breeze riffled through her black tresses. Her beautiful face—no longer hidden behind the concealing pigments—was now adorned with only the gentle color left by the early summer sun and the softly caressing wind. How could she be so content, he thought, while his own body burned so? Her constant nearness, the daily sight of her over the past fortnight was maddening. Ambrose Macpherson was on fire.

  “The last time I traveled along this river, Mary and I were on foot.”

  Elizabeth gazed out at the rolling farms and vineyards that came right to the edge of the smooth-running Seine River. The midday sun was sparkling off the water, and the long, wide barge was gliding lazily through the countryside of Champagne northward toward the merchant town of Troyes.

  Ambrose had been true to his word. And to make the journey easier for the still weak Mary, the baron had hired a series of boats and barges to take them north along the broad, brown Rhone River to Lyons, and then onward along the Saône River, to Dijon, and finally to the Seine. Elizabeth and Mary had followed the same route, but southward, during their trek from the Field of Cloth of Gold to their new life in Florence. But it had been a long and arduous walk with a pregnant and complaining Mary.

  Elizabeth knew that the Highlander’s decision to travel the waterways had made for a slower journey, but it had been far more comfortable.

  “Do you think your soldiers are already in Paris?”

  “Nay, lass,” Ambrose said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Gavin was nowhere within earshot. He was below with Mary, the Highlander decided. As usual. An odd attraction. “If my men have already reached Paris, we’d see a glow in the sky at night from the sections of the city they’ve set ablaze.”

  Elizabeth cast a look past the massive body of the baron, toward the stern of the boat, where Joseph and Ernesta were sitting comfortably with the tillerman and a number of the boatmen. Jaime was playing on the deck with one of the kittens she’d received from the monks outside Marseilles. The little girl had a piece of line that, to the giggling delight of the child, the kitten was playfully stalking and pouncing on.

  “Tell me.” Ambrose spoke softly as he moved to her side, leaning against the same rail. “Tell me about the time you traveled this route.”

  Elizabeth could feel the brush of his shoulders against hers. It was an intimate act, but one that was noticed only by the two of them. She shivered in spite of the warm sunlight. She wanted his arms around her. The two of them were so close, his arms so inviting.

  “There isn’t much to tell. We set a pace Mary could handle, and we walked.”

  Ambrose studied her long fingers, the delicate hands of the artist that created depictions of life truer than the subjects themselves. He wanted to lift those fingers to his lips. He found himself wanting to trace a line with his lips from her fingertips to her wrist. Up her arm, along her shoulder, down to the round fullness of the breasts he knew lay so tightly bound.

  He still remembered the feel of her beneath him, the taste of her on his lips. Damn that Gavin. If he hadn’t come down to the galley’s cabin after them, they would had made love. Right there among the rolling trunks, in the midst of the storm. She had been ready then. They had come so close, but to no avail.

  And then, at the monastery, he’d wanted her. But she’d asked him to wait, and Ambrose found it difficult to deny her anything.

  So he found himself still waiting. And waiting.

  “I remember swimming at that bow in the river,” Elizabeth said excitedly, pointing to an eddy in the bend just ahead. “It felt so wonderful, the water so clear and clean.”

  Ambrose followed her gaze. “Did you swim with any clothes on?” His voice was huskier than usual.

  Her head turned sharply toward him. She saw the clouds of passion lurking in his eyes. She smiled devilishly.

  “No clothes. Nothing on. I was quite naked.” She took a quick step to the side and gave herself some distance. “It was sunset. I rose out of water and walked to the stony beach. There was nothing to dry my body with, so I let the summer breeze lick my skin dry.”

  She took another step back and stood facing him, somewhat amazed and amused by his reactions to her words. She looked at the clenched jaw, the way his eyes roamed her body as if she wore nothing now.

  “Even then, I wished you there with me,” she whispered.

  “I want you, Elizabeth.”

  “We can’t. Not yet.” She eyed him steadily. “You promised, Baron.”

  Turning back toward the railing, she could feel his eyes still burning into her. Without looking at him, she reached up and slowly undid the top tie of her shirt, spreading the material with her fingers to let the soft breeze caress her skin.

  “It’s quite warm today. Don’t you think so?” She threw a coy glance at him.

  “I’ll kill you, Elizabeth Boleyn. I’ll kill you with my own two hands.”

  Below, Mary sat on the bunk, mesmerized by the tale, her back against the curved hull of the barge. The trencher of food lay untouched on her lap.

  Gavin paused to take a sip from the bowl of wine that sat between them. His face was grim with the remembrance of so much destruction.

  “Go on. Please go on,” Mary prodded impatiently.

  “I lay there, looking up at the sky. Well, at what passed for a sky that day. ‘Tis true. It was more like night than day. The rain was pouring from a sky, thick and gray. Nay! It wasn’t even gray—it was black with fog and with smoke from the German guns the damned English had brought up. They had been firing since morning—round after round. Boom! Boom! Boom! After a while, you don’t know if the pounding of the explosions are coming from your head or from the next hill. It’s a god-awful thing, Mary—that cannon fire.”

  The young woman tried to imagine the fear Gavin must have felt.

  “As I told you, it had been raining for two days, and the hills were slippery—they were thick with muck and with blood. Scottish blood, Mary. The treachery of that filthy Englishman Surrey and his vile henchman Danvers, Satan’s own brother—that was what defeated us. They’d agreed to a truce until the rain stopped. And then the bastards circled around, put their bloody guns in place, and lay waiting for us.

  “It was a terrible thing, Mary, that battle. Flodden field. We, the men of the Borders, fought like wild men. We were faithful to the king and to our oaths to serve him. Each man of us
fought like he possessed the heart of the Bruce and the soul of the Wallace. But some, I’m ashamed to say, hung back when they were called upon. Many of the Highland clans—not the Macphersons, mind you, but many others—the motherless animals showed how long they can remember a slight. Those sheep in men’s clothing watched as the Lowlanders and the men loyal to the king were mowed down like corn before a gale. It was a shameful thing.

  “But a Scotsman fears nothing when his blood is up, and when the king took up the lance himself, we followed him down that muddy hill into the ranks of the English.

  “For three hours, we fought with the valor of the auld heroes down there—knee deep in bodies and in blood. But when King Jaime went down, fighting like the true warrior he was, our hearts were broken.

  “They drove us across the hill. I saw my two brothers die like the gallants they were, and somewhere—not far from the king—some swine bashed my head from behind as I fought with another. I went down with the dying and the dead, and lay there unconscious for I don’t know how long.

  “I awoke, hearing a moaning sound and the noise of battle beyond. I tried to sit up and realized it was I who was moaning. All I could see was the dead and filthy sky. All I could feel was the rain pelting my face and the crack in the back of my head where my brains were trying to seep out. I pushed myself up and felt the ground spinning about me.

  “The dead lay thick on that hillside. Thousands on thousands. It was a sight that defies telling, Mary. It defies telling.

  “And then it struck me. The English guns had stopped. I knew what would come next. They’d be scouring the dead for rings and for gold. The camp followers and the shirkers. They’d be cutting the throats of those still living, and stripping all of their weapons and their armor. I tried to look down the hill through the smoke. I could see them at the bottom. Like vultures. But I couldn’t stand. My legs would not move. I knew I was finished.”

  Gavin stopped.

  Mary was suddenly aware of the tears silently coursing down her face. The warrior was silent, his eyes closed. She moved the tray from her lap. “Please tell me.”