Isolde Martyn - Mistress to the Crown

REVIEW QUOTES FOR MISTRESS TO THE CROWN

‘Isolde Martyn’s Mistress to the Crown beautifully spins the real history of a fascinating woman into a compelling novel of passion, suspense, and, amazingly, a happy ending for one of England’s most famous royal mistresses. Marvellous!

— Mary Jo Putney, author of No Longer a Gentleman

‘Rich and vivid as a gorgeous medieval tapestry, Isolde Martyn’s Mistress to the Crown enchants from first page to last. Passion, drama, glamour and wit turn this story of a woman who challenges her world into an unforgettable experience.’

— Anna Campbell, international best-selling historical romance author

‘What joy to find a novel that blends sound research with a love story that, on its own, would attract a wealth of romance readers. Isolde Martyn links her skill as an award-winning novelist with her depth of historical knowledge to reveal the life and loves of Elizabeth Lambard (Mistress Shore), and presents her as one of the strongest, most accomplished, lovely and lovable women of the fifteenth century. It’s fact and fiction at its best, a must-have for your bookshelves.’

—Julia Redlich, former fiction editor of Woman’s Day; secretary of the New South Wales branch of the Richard III Society

‘A richly textured historical tale of a fascinating woman with a surprisingly modern determination to live life on her own terms.’

— Anne Gracie, international best-selling Regency Romance author

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISOLDE MARTYNis originally from England and has an Honours degree in History, with a specialisation in the Wars of the Roses.

She ended up in Australia after meeting a rather nice geologist at a bus stop. Since then she has worked as a university tutor, an archivist and for six years as a researcher in historical geography at Macquarie University. She spent a year researching sedition in early colonial Australia and then became heavily involved in the Bicentenary History project and researched all the towns in Australia for the Bicentenary volume Events and Places .

Her more recent career was as a senior book editor with a major international publisher before taking up writing full time.

Isolde enjoys using turbulent historical events as the backdrop of her books. Her debut novel was the first book by an Australian writer to win the prestigious RITA award in the USA and her first two novels have won the ‘Romantic Book of the Year Award’ in Australia.

She is a former chair of the Richard III Society and Vice-Chair of the Plantagenet Society of Australia, which she co-founded with five other enthusiasts twelve years ago.

MISTRESS TO THE CROWN is her fifth novel.

For my cousins, Rita and Yvonne, and for Simone,

who was once my youngest reader and who

overcame illness with such courage

Characters appearing in this novel

Nearly all these persons are historical. Where the given name of a person is unknown and it has been necessary to create one, these are marked with one asterisk. Fictional characters are marked with two asterisks.

At fourteen, we make mistakes. I had been a fool to come to this old man’s chamber on my own, but I was desperate for legal advice on how to annul my marriage. He had told me he was a former proctor, a church lawyer – exactly what I needed – and he had seemed as friendly as a kindly grandfather when I spoke to him after Mass on Sunday. But now he was tonguing his cheek as he eyed my body, and dancing his fingers slowly on the table between us. Behind him, in the corner, I could see his half-made bed.

I would not scream, I decided, slowly rising to my feet. Shrieking for help would mean my name would be all over the city by suppertime. No, I had to deal with this on my own.

‘Thank you, sir, I shall pass your counsel on to my friend, but now I have to go.’ My voice emerged creakily. I had meant to sound brisk.

He smiled, nastily now, no longer bothering to mask his purpose. Both of us had been lying. In truth, I was ‘the friend’ who desired advice, and his legal counsel was not ‘free’; it came with a fee that was still to be exacted.

‘If you are desperate, Mistress Shore,’ he declared, rising heavily to his feet, ‘you’ll be willing to please me.’

Yes, I was desperate for an annulment, but I had rather be hanged than ‘please’ this revolting old goat. My maidenhead was intact and I intended to keep it that way.

‘I made no such bargain,’ I said, fisting my hands within the folds of my skirts, cursing I had not brought a bodkin to defend myself.

‘We won’t go all the way because that would spoil the evidence,’ he wheezed, fumbling at the ties beneath his tunic. ‘Some fondling will do. For now .’

‘Oh, just fondling,’ I said with a pretend smile of relief. ‘I thought you meant—’

I rushed to the door but the latch tongue stuck. He grabbed my left forearm, dragging me back.

This was the moment, or never. I swung my right fist with all the fury I possessed into his face. I heard something crunch. He went staggering back and crashed against the table, the bright blood spurting from his nostrils. That and the toppling inkpots would spoil his clothes, or so I hoped as I ran down the stairs.

It was realising the enormity of my folly that rearranged the contents of my stomach once I reached the street. I did manage to hide my face as I retched, and the moment I could stand upright, I ran past the tenements up to Cheapside, and with a gasp of relief, plunged into the chaos of carts, pigs and people. My mind was still in panic. What if the old man threatened to blab to my husband or to my wealthy father?

My slow progress through the crowd calmed my shakiness. I felt concealed. Outsiders might be afraid of London cutpurses, but this wonderful, raucous hub of noise was my neighbourhood, safer to me than any quieter lane. I pushed further along to where a tight press of people was clogging the thoroughfare and wriggled in amongst them. In their midst, a hosier’s apprentice was standing on a barrow. I had heard his silver-tongued babble before. He was good.

‘The best price in Cheapside,’ the lad was yelling, waving a pair of frothy scarlet garters. ‘Just imagine your wife’s legs in these, sir.’ Laughter rumbled around me. His gaze scanned our faces. ‘And what about the jays and robin redbreasts among you sparrows?’ he challenged, flourishing a pair of men’s hose – one leg pea green, the other violet, and then his cheeky stare sauntered back to my face and slid lower.

Lordy! Squinting downwards at the gap in my cloak, I realised what the proctor had glimpsed as well – a woman’s breasts straining against an outgrown gown. And it was not just on the outside that my body was changing. I knew that. Dear God, that was why I needed the urgent annulment. I was an apple almost ripe for plucking, and my husband, Shore, was watching – waiting – like a hungry orchard thief.

I gave the apprentice a hands-off glare, tugged my cloak tightly across my front and, aware that the proctor’s neighbours might still raise the alarm, I determined to stay where I was with every sense alert.

No hue-and-cry was coming from the direction of Soper’s Lane and I said a silent prayer of thanks for that. Maybe the foul old fellow was as fearful for his reputation as I was for mine. That welcome thought made my shoulders relax. And, apart from learning that men of all ages were not to be trusted, I had at least gleaned one piece of useful advice. The proctor had told me that ‘my friend’ needed to have her case heard by the Court of Arches, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s especial court for hearing divorce petitions. St Mary-le-Bow, the church, which housed the court on weekdays, was just a few moments’ walk back along Cheapside. Perhaps the Almighty was watching over me, after all. If I went to St Mary’s straight away …

‘Pretty mistress? Hey? Anybody home?’ Lapis-blue garters pranced before my eyes. The glib-tongued apprentice had singled me out again. ‘Pet, you’re not listening,’ he declared with feigned dismay, reaching out to tweak my nose. ‘Come, give your husband a surp—’

‘Exactly my thoughts!’ I exclaimed fervently and elbowed my way out.

One of St Anthony’s wretched sows blundered along in front of me, as though she had some similar mission. At least she cleared my path.

St Mary-le-Bow lay almost a stone’s throw from the alley off Bow Lane where I now lived. Richard Lambard, my grandfather, was buried beneath the church’s nave so that was why my family sometimes worshipped there to pray for his soul. My brothers used to tease me that the steeple was haunted, and if you stood in the churchyard for long enough, you were sure to see a chunk of masonry fall from the roof, and that was Grandfather’s ghost making mischief.

To my relief, the doors of St Mary’s stood open. I crossed myself and prayed to Our Lady the Virgin to give me strength. After all, Our Lady’s marriage had been arranged, too, and I doubt she had cared for St Joseph at first, especially when he was so angry about the Angel Gabriel.

I could, would, do this now – go in, swear on the Gospels that I had been wed against my will and that the marriage had not been consummated. They might insist upon a midwife to examine me, but my body’s evidence would prove I was no liar. Of course, I’d need to move back to my parents’ house and I could not be sure Father would take me in; but first things first. With a deep breath I grabbed up my skirts. Freedom was just steps away.

But I was wrong. A pikestaff dropped obliquely across my path. I had not noticed the sergeant on duty.

‘I have business inside, sir,’ I announced, imitating my mother’s tone when she addressed the household. ‘It’s a matter of urgency.’

The soldier jerked a thumb at a parchment nailed on the door. ‘Plaintiff or defendant, mistress? What time is your hearing?’

‘I … ah … er …’

He propped the pikestaff against the wall and shook his head at me. ‘The rule is you cannot go in unless you are on today’s list.’

‘But I need a marriage annulment, sir. By the end of this week. Today, if possible.’

‘Bless me, young woman,’ he clucked. ‘Have you been sleeping in some toadstool ring? Don’t you know it takes months, sometimes years, to get a hearing?’

Months? Years? My first monthly flow might be only days away.

‘They’ll understand the matter is urgent,’ I assured him, wondering if I could duck beneath his arm, but he was no fool.

‘Listen, first you find a proctor to write your petition, then it has to go all the way to Rome, and the Pope himself must be told of it. His Holiness may say you have a case to be heard or he may not.’