Constant Heart by Siri Mitchell Read Free Book Online

disappeared. It was closed. “You have to go.”
    “There must be something good about being a countess. Why cannot my wish be also my command?”
    “Because you would be making a grave mistake in not attending.”
    “In not giving them more reasons to laugh at me?”
    “If you do not go, whatever they imagined they could laugh at will only become proven in their eyes. If you do not go, they will laugh at you forever. Was there no one there who was kind to you?”
    “Not one.”
    “Then you must make them be kind to you. You are a countess.
    If they will not like you, they must at least respect you.”
    They did not have to be kind to me, neither were they required to respect me. But Joan had not been present at my introduction, and she had no way of knowing what it had been like to be chewed up and spit out by those glittering nobles. Before I left I bid Joan find the betrothal ring and the bracelets the earl had given me. Though he was the least of my friends, it was he who provided my title, the reason for my being there. And tonight, it seemed, I had need to belong to someone.
    When I appeared as requested and joined the earl in the hall, he made no comment on my change in garment. Indeed, he made no comment at all.
    As we rode back to Whitehall, I gathered my courage for the evening ahead. Joan was right. To have absented myself from court would have been to admit defeat, to have sacrificed everything my father had worked to gain. To have forgone my duty would have made an admission that the earl had made a grave mistake in taking me to wife. It would have announced to all present that he would have done better with no wife at all.
    Though the earl sat beside me at the table, I was isolated from those around me by a barricade of silence. To him, at least, our tablemates were polite. After sliding surreptitious glances toward the Queen, they leaned toward him in conversations of quickly whispered words. It only succeeded in confirming my suspicions: the trouble with our coupling was me.
    But the indifference of others leant me invisibility. With no partner to talk to, my thoughts floated back to my introduction to the Queen. Before she had looked into my eyes, she had looked at my gown. Was it for that she had despised me?
    It had been styled in the latest fashion so that I would not cause the earl shame. Indeed, it had proclaimed his wealth and his royal favor with its decorations of the finest pearls. Its colors and materials were well within my right, as a countess, to wear. I had not tried to climb above my station, to be batted at like a common fly.
    My French hood? The veil that covered the back of my head?
    Glancing down the table, I saw other women wearing the same.
    Both those seated above me and those seated below me.
    My glance passed the table once more, and I found one thing of note: of all the august woman at the table, only my face lacked white ceruse paint. Only my hairs were not orange. Surely they could not all be related to the Queen? Surely they did not all come by the Tudor hairs naturally. Was mine the only skin unmarred by disease? Mine the only hairs not hidden beneath a wig?
    I turned my attentions to my plate and ate of stewed oysters. I lifted my eyes again, reluctant to confine my gaze to food when around me nobles wore a veritable treasure chest of gems and jewels. I had never before seen such a vast exhibit of wealth.
    As I glanced down the table, the earl’s eyes trapped my gaze. His dark eyes were devoid of warmth, his thoughts unreadable.
    Breaking from his look, I lifted a nutmeat to my lips. But as I ate, realization dawned that to a person, every noblewoman was eating only custard or jelly. So I left the remainder on my plate.
    In the following days, I vowed I would be more careful to match my actions to those among whom I moved. I had no need to paint myself, nor did I wish to wear a wig, but my best hope was for Her Majesty to forget that she had known me. To blot the memory of