That afternoon we hung around the presence chamber watching Elizabeth and some ambassadors talk. The only part of this whole scene that I enjoyed was the small band in the corner playing light and airy music with a steady beat. For some reason, this grounded me. Even when the musicians took a break, I found myself humming one of the tunes.
“Why are you not stitching?” snarled Lady Mary.
God, these women were exhausting. I bit back a retort and resumed stitching the hem of a lacy white collar. Snapping at Lady Mary seemed cruel because, when I was home and reading about the Tudors, I learned that when Elizabeth became ill with smallpox, Lady Mary cared for her until she caught the disease herself. Upon recovering, Mary was so disfigured from scars that her husband said, “I left her a full fair lady in my eyes, and when I returned I found her as foul a lady as smallpox could make her.” I’d memorized the horrid words. What an asshole. (Aunt Nicole had no problem with that word; she said it reminded her of her ex-husband.)
Cecil, Elizabeth’s secretary, bustled back and forth between his office and the Queen, presenting long scrolls to sign. When would I be released from this regal hell? I scanned the room for Harriet, but of course she wouldn’t be hanging around the courtiers. Perhaps she was still stuck working in the laundry. Thinking about Harriet helped pass the time. I wondered about her past, and at her feeling as out of place as I did. At one particularly slow point in the afternoon, when the sun shone in on my stool, I grew so sleepy that waking dreams took over. In one, I could no longer travel back to the future. Perhaps the GCA in my system had diluted enough that it no longer electrified me. What would I do if I were stuck here? I would buy a small house for me and Harriet in one of the better London neighborhoods. We would hug each other until we no longer felt like walking deserts. Harriet’s sparkling eyes, warm smile, and trusting love could reduce the pain of being stuck forever in the sixteenth century. Too bad Blanche had absolutely no money.
“Lady Blanche.”
I jumped. One of Cecil’s assistants stood before me. “Lord Cecil wishes a word.”
Grateful to escape the hot, stuffy room, I followed him to Cecil’s lair, a labyrinth of five or six rooms connected by hidden doors. Cecil sat at his desk, scratching at a document with a long goose feather. The smell of warm ink and hot dust tickled my nose.
I began to sit.
“Stand, if you please,” he barked.
I did so. Cecil also stood, his deep red robe swelling over a middle-aged gut. He strolled around his desk, coming to a halt inches from me. I could not step back because of the heavy chair behind me, but the man needed an Altoid. “I know of your scheming,” Cecil said.
“I don’t know what—”
“You are plotting with three men. I do not know their names, nor do I know the goal of that plot. You will tell me all.”
I swallowed. “I have no idea what you are talking about. I plot with no one.” I wondered if Blanche had a poker face. If not, I was screwed.
“My sources tell me you have met several times. Male voices could be heard. You appear all kindness and innocence, then you change into a woman of cunning and wiles…then back to innocence. My sources are most impressed with your ability to change yourself. Her Majesty calls you her Spark, but you would more accurately be called her chameleon.”
I shook my head. “I know nothing of which you speak, Sir Cecil.”
He snorted, amused. “Lady Blanche, you can be a hard woman, but I can be harsh as well. Your plotting must cease. You have one day in which to reconsider. At that time if you tell me everything, I may be lenient with you.”
“And if I don’t give you this information?”
“I will use the Tower to get it,” Cecil snapped.
I shivered, since I’d seen the Tower’s implements of torture—the manacles hanging from the ceiling, the racks, and a nasty set of irons called the Scavenger’s Daughter. Crap. Now what was I supposed to do? The plotting would end tomorrow with Dudley’s murder. Cecil would have been thrilled to know this, since he was Dudley’s greatest enemy. If Dudley were killed, Cecil would know that had been the plot. He wouldn’t follow through with his threat because he’d hardly punish anyone who killed the man he despised and feared as the Queen’s potential king. I closed my eyes. If I let Dudley be murdered, then I’d be safe from the Tower.
I didn’t like any of my choices.
I nodded, curtsied, then backed out of the room. What the hell was I supposed to do?
* * *
I paced the length of my bedroom, stopping to open drawers to touch piles of elaborate collars and sleeves then closing them again. On top of one dresser was the small wooden box that I’d assumed was Lady Mary’s, but when I looked at the underside, I found etched into the dark wood, “To Blanche from Daddy.”
Huh. If this was Blanche’s box, then it was mine now. The hinge protested but opened. The first thing that popped out was a folded piece of paper. Beneath that glittered drop earrings made of paste, along with a likely fake pearl necklace.
I opened the paper and gasped.
Dearest Jamie,
I will continue to leave messages for you until one day it will no longer be necessary. I have come back to my body to find that you have nearly destroyed all that I have built. You have affected my plans in quite an unacceptable manner.
Blanche’s handwriting was narrow but firm.
My gowns fit more loosely, so I am clearly wasting away. My generous body is proof I am prosperous, that I can afford to eat well, so do not change this. Yes, I realize I eat at the Queen’s merciful table, but I earn every morsel. I leave you this note only to tell you that I have nearly figured out a way to remain where you and I both know I prefer to live. When this has happened, you may emaciate the body you inhabit to your heart’s content. I will no longer require it, so you may consider it, and the life that it bears, yours to keep.
Your rival of the most unusual sort,
Blanche
The bitch. She knew she was pregnant. I stalked through the apartments until I found a fireplace burning, wadded up the letter, and tossed it into the fire. As I watched it burn, I realized I had never felt so turned upside down in my entire life. No matter which body I inhabited, I was alone.
That night I managed to find Harriet and suggest a bath in the pond. After sunset, we met at the edge of the park, and Vincent led us down the dark trail.
At the pond, I flung off my dress, no longer self-conscious, and we were soon both floating on our backs. My breasts and toes rose above the water, as did a small swelling of belly. I’d never been pregnant before, and I found myself horrified and excited at the same time. I’d always thought Chris and I might one day have a child together, but she was lukewarm on the topic.
An owl hooted nearby, but otherwise the forest was silent except for the occasional rattling of leaves. I inhaled the smells of moist earth, feeling relaxed and safe in my forest cocoon. Because I ached for someone to know me as me, not as Blanche, it was time to tell Harriet the truth.
“This is nice,” Harriet said.
Tell her, my brain screamed. Tell her! “Harriet, is it wrong to be content?”
She frowned as she dipped her head back in the water. “I do not understand.”
“Everyone is to be driven by ambition. As a maiden, I am supposed to marry the wealthiest man I can find. I am supposed to be the best dancer, aside from Her Majesty. I am supposed to have the straightest stitches, the most graceful walk, the whitest skin, all aside from Her Majesty. Yet I often don’t feel driven in this way.”
“I understand what you are asking. It is a question I have struggled with all my life. In my village, women are expected to be as busy and successful as men, not like it is here, in the palace, where you are expected to do as little as possible.”
“That seems to be my greatest skill,” I said, drawing a warm smile from Harriet.
“In my village we are taught to always desire more than we have, to raise more sheep, bake more bread, to have the cleanest home. While I understand that striving to be better pushes people to move beyond their skills, I also understand that it sets us up to be forever discontent.” She squeezed my hand. “I cannot imagine a world in which you deserve to be discontent, my dear Blanche.”
“You would not think less of me should I choose to be content, rather than the best or the fastest or the richest?”
Harriet’s brown eyes shone with a brightness more often seen in lighter-colored eyes. If I could only capture that sparkle in a painting. “I would think less of you only if you walked down someone else’s path instead of your own.”
My eyes stung. Why couldn’t Chris say this to me? It was exactly what I needed to hear.
Because of that, doubt crept back into my heart. Maybe Chris was right, and all this around me was entirely the product of my imagination. Perhaps Jamie, the real me, had retreated to some corner of my brain to indulge in this fantasy while “Blanche,” my other half, controlled my body and my behavior. Chris would insist I’d created Harriet to say what I needed to hear.
Tell her. “Harriet, there is something I must tell you.”
Harriet’s face was open, receptive to anything I might wish to share. But what if she, like Chris, would think me mentally whacked out of shape? My throat tightened at the thought.
“I’m pregnant,” I said.
Harriet drew back, eyes wide and her skin flushed from her swim. “What?”
“I am with child.”
“But…but how?”
“Do you not know of the act that brings a child into the world?”
Now her face went blotchy with embarrassment. “Bloody hell. Of course I do.”
Her flash of irritation suggested Harriet had more fire in her than I’d thought. “Well, apparently, I engaged in that act.”
“Apparently?”
“I’m not certain what I should do.”
Harriet pursed her lips, then straightened. “You are not alone. We will puzzle this out until we have a solution and a plan. Every problem needs a plan.”
We talked so long that Vincent gave up and snored beside the pond, and my fingers and toes turned into prunes.
Despite putting our two heads together, we didn’t come up with a plan.