Page 87 of Heart of Snow
“If you were so troubled, why stay away? Why send me no word?”
He looked down at my hand on his arm and covered it with his own. “I needed time. To decide what to do. To speak to my father. I toyed with the idea of forgetting you entirely.” He gave an embarrassed chuckle. “But it wasn’t possible.”
“You’ve spoken with your father? You asked if we might marry?” My stomach twisted into anxious knots. “What did he say?”
He rubbed a hand over his jaw and let out a long breath. “Everything I’d predicted and more.”
A wave of relief overtook me, but I chided myself for such self-interest. Samuel fell further into danger every day. “I wonder why the kaiser doesn’t release my brother and send us both home if he’s so keen to keep you and me apart.”
“Father knows me better than that. I won’t give you up so easily, and the harder he works to separate us, the more determined I’ll be to keep you.” Felipe’s voice was taut, but thenit softened. “Though after your censure the other night, I’m not sure you still want me.”
My hesitation lasted a beat too long, but I used a swallow as excuse. “I do.”
He tucked my hand deeper in the crook of his arm, pulling me close, and I was grateful for the warmth as we strolled past the frost-covered statues in the gallery.
“Margaretha, I know my father will never agree to our marriage. He’d sooner have one of his bastard sons on the throne than a Lutheran empress at my side. I fear for you. I fear the harm that may come if you persist on this course, and I beg you”—he stopped to face me, taking both my hands in his—“abandon your schemes of marriage. Admit that constancy of affection is the only true union of two souls. It needs no sanction from pope or emperor.”
So he was pressing forward on that selfish tract, was he? “And I’m to feel this constancy of affection while I share my bed with another woman’s husband?”
“Whip me for a villain, you think me so base! I’ve no love for Mary Tudor. It’s she who steals her way into your husband’s chambers. It’s she you should abhor, not me. I have no part in it.”
“Felipe.” I shook my head over our clasped hands. “If it’s real love you feel for me, don’t ask this of me. Free my brother and...” I hesitated, adding with caution, “and let me go.” When I lifted my face to meet his gaze, his expression was clouded with confusion.
“Let you go? You censure me for fickleness, then tell me to forget you? You call that fitful, irregular, capricious thing love?” He dropped my hands, chuckling without humor. “Margaretha, to be with me would injure no one. You haven’t even your own reputation left to protect. The courtiers all murmur that you are my mistress; your name and honor are sullied and paradedabout without any regard for you. What care you for their condemnation? Care for me,” he pleaded.
I needed to put him off a little longer, to give the kaiser time to change his mind, or give Samuel the time to miraculously recover, or give space for any other unlikely and utterly impossible occurrence to save me from this fate. “I’ll consider it.”
Looping my arm with his once again, I directed us back through the gallery.
“Very well,” he answered. “I only pray you don’t lay blame at my door when your delays cost the youngcomitemhis life.”
Chapter 41
Friedrich
“Hoof.” I tapped the horse’sforeleg, and he lifted his foot for cleaning. I was thorough with the pick, forcing myself to focus on the dirt packed in the sole of the hoof. It helped keep my mind from wandering to Margaretha, wondering why I hadn’t seen anything of her for days.
Finishing with the last hoof, I set the horse’s leg down and straightened, startling at finding Mistress Hatzfeld leaning against the stall door, her jeweled necklace glittering in the sunlight.
“Good dawning, Friedrich. It’s been a while since our last meeting.”
I tossed the pick into the bucket. “Don’t pretend you’ve missed me.”
“Tsk.” She flicked a strand of straw from her skirt, and her rings clinked together. “You know how keen I was to keep you in County Waldeck.”
“To keep me away from Brussels, you mean. Yes, Ulrich said he could hear your fights with the count all the way out in the kennels.” Picking up the curry comb, I brushed in circular sweeps over the horse’s coat.
“Can we be frank with each other?” she asked.
“I’ve been nothing but frank with you, my lady.”
She flashed a tight-lipped smile. “I’ve received reports regarding your behavior since you arrived here. At best, you’re a distraction, and Lady Margaretha doesn’t need distractions.” She ducked under the crosstie. “I just want to ensure you won’t be a problem for her from now on.”
The horse laid back his ears, warning me I was brushing too hard. I softened my strokes but wouldn’t let myself answer.There was too good a chance I’d spout the string of accusations uncoiling in my mind.
Hatzfeld seemed to know it, because her smile was exultant. “‘’Twere an ill bargain to desire’the countess’s love.”
I clenched my jaw and kept brushing until her familiar phrase brought my head up with a snap. Those were Wolkenstein’s words, his poem one of many tucked in love letters sent to Count Samuel. But they also touched a memory of sitting with Margaretha in her father’s library, reciting those same words from a book. Mistress Hatzfeld’s book.
