The Virgin's Lover ttc-4 Read online

  “It will be resolved,” Cecil said soothingly. He glanced around the table. They were all thinking as one man: that these council meetings would be so much easier if only she would marry a reasonable man and let him do the business of kingship.

  To his horror, he saw that her dark eyes were filling with tears. “And Philip of Spain.” Her voice was husky. “Now, I hear that he is to marry.”

  Cecil looked at her aghast. The last thing he had imagined was that she had actually felt anything for the man she had tormented during his wife’s lifetime and then had strung along for months after.

  “A marriage to seal the treaty,” he said hesitantly. “I don’t believe there is any courtship, any preference. There is no attraction, no rival attraction involved. He does not prefer her to …to…”

  “You urged me to marry him,” she said, her voice throbbing with emotion, looking along the bowed heads of her Privy Council. “Still you continually persuade me to one man or another, and see? The man of your choice, your preferred suitor, has no fidelity. He swore that he loved me; but see? He will marry another. You would have had me marry a faithless flirt.”

  “None could suit her better,” Norfolk said, so low that nobody could hear but his neighbor, who snorted with suppressed laughter.

  It was pointless even to attempt reason with her, Cecil knew. “Yes,” he said simply. “We were most mistaken in his nature. Thank God that Your Grace is so young and so very beautiful that there will always be suitors for your hand. It is for you to choose, Your Grace. There will always be men who long to marry you. All we can do is advise your own wise preference.”

  A sigh like a passing breeze passed through the beleagured council. Once again, Cecil had hit exactly the right note. Sir Francis Knollys rose to his feet and guided his cousin to her chair at the head of the table. “Now,” he said. “Although they are less important indeed, we do have to talk about the bishops, Your Grace. We cannot go on like this. We have to make a settlement with the church.”

  Amy’s cousin and her husband, a prosperous merchant with an interest in the Antwerp trade, greeted her on the doorstep on their large square-built house in Camberwell.

  “Amy! You’ll never guess! We heard from Sir Robert this very morning!” Frances Scott said breathlessly. “He is coming to dine this very day, and staying at least one night!”

  Amy flushed scarlet. “He is?” She turned to her maid. “Mrs. Pirto, unpack my best gown, and you’ll need to press my ruff.” She turned back to her cousin. “Is your hairdresser coming?”

  “I told him to come an hour early for you!” her cousin laughed. “I knew you would want to look your best. I have had my cook at work ever since I heard the news. And they are making his favorite: march-pane.”

  Amy laughed aloud, catching her cousin’s excitement.

  “He has become a great man again,” Ralph Scott said, coming forward to kiss his cousin-in-law. “We hear nothing but good reports of him. The queen honors him and seeks his company daily.”

  Amy nodded and slid from his embrace to the open front door. “Am I to have my usual room?” she asked impatiently. “And can you ask them to hurry to bring my chest with my gowns up?”

  But after all the rush of preparations, the pressing of the gowns, the sending the maid out in a panic to buy new stockings, Sir Robert sent his apologies and said that he would be delayed. Amy had to wait for two hours, sitting by the window in the Scotts’ elegant modern parlor, watching the road for her husband’s entourage.

  It was nearly five in the afternoon when they came trotting down Camberwell High Street, six men abreast mounted on the most superb matched bay horses, wearing the Dudley livery, scattering chickens and pedestrians and shouting children ahead of them. In the middle of them rode Robert Dudley, one hand on the reins, one hand on his hip, his gaze abstracted, his smile charming: his normal response to public cheers.

  They pulled up before the handsome new house and Dudley’s groom came running to hold the horse while Dudley leapt lightly down.

  Amy, in the bay window, had been on her feet at the first sound of the rattle of hoofs on cobblestones. Her cousin, running in to warn her that Sir Robert was at the door, found her, quite entranced, watching him through the window. Frances Scott dropped back, saying nothing, and stood in the hall beside her husband as their two best menservants flung open the door and Sir Robert strode in.

  “Cousin Scott,” he said pleasantly, gripping the man’s hand. Ralph Scott blushed slightly with pleasure at the recognition.

  “And my cousin Frances,” Sir Robert said, recovering her name from his memory just in time to kiss her on both cheeks and see her color rise under his touch, which was always the case with women, and then her eyes darkened with desire, which was also a frequent occurrence.

  “My dearest cousin Frances,” Dudley said more warmly, watching her more closely.

  “Oh, Sir Robert,” she breathed and rested her hand on his arm.

  Oho, thought Robert. A plum ripe and ready for the picking, but hardly worth the uproar when we were discovered, which we undoubtedly would be.

  The door behind her opened, and Amy stood, framed in the doorway. “My lord,” she said quietly. “I am so glad to see you.”

  Gently, Dudley released Frances Scott and stepped to his wife. He took her hand in his and bent his dark head to kiss her fingers, and then he drew her closer to him and kissed her cheek, first one and then the other, and then her warm ready lips.

  At the sight of him, at his touch, at the scent of him, Amy felt herself melt with desire. “My lord,” she whispered. “My lord, it has been so long. I have waited to see you for so long.”

  “I’m here now,” he said, as quick as any man to deflect reproach. He slid his arm around her waist and turned back to their host. “But I am damnably late, cousins, I hope you will forgive me. I was playing bowls with the queen and I could not get away until Her Grace had won. I had to feint and cheat and dissemble until you would have thought I was half blind and half-witted in order to lose to her.”

  The nonchalance of this was almost too much for Frances Scott but Ralph rose to the occasion. “Of course, of course, the ladies must have their entertainments,” he said. “But did you bring an appetite?”

  “I am as hungry as a hunter,” Dudley assured him.

  “Then come to dinner!” Ralph said and gestured that Sir Robert should walk with him, down the hall to the dining room at the rear of the house.

  “What a pretty place you have here,” Sir Robert said.

  “Very small compared with a country house, of course,” Frances said, deferentially following them with Amy.

  “But new-built,” Dudley remarked with pleasure.

  “I planned much of it myself,” Ralph said smugly. “I knew I had to build a new house for us and I thought—why try to make a great palace on the river and employ an army to keep it warm and clean? Then you have to build a great hall to feed them all, then you have to house them and keep them. So I thought, why not a snugger, tighter house which can be more easily run and still have room for a dozen friends for dinner?”

  “Oh, I agree with you,” Dudley replied insincerely. “What reasonable man would want more?”

  Mr. Scott threw open the double door to the dining hall which, though tiny by the standards of Whitehall or Westminster, could still seat a dozen guests and their followers, and led the way, through the other diners, half a dozen dependents and a dozen upper servants, to the top table. Amy and Frances followed. Mrs. Oddingsell and Frances’s companion came in as well and the Scotts’ oldest children, a girl and a boy of ten and eleven, very stiffly dressed in adult clothes, eyes down, awed into complete silence by the grandeur of the occasion. Dudley greeted them all with pleasure, and sat down at his host’s right hand, with Amy on his other side. Concealed by the table and the great sweep of the banqueting cloth, Amy moved her stool so that she could be close to him. He felt her little slipper press against his riding boot and he leaned to
ward her so that she could feel the warmth and strength of his shoulder.

  Only he heard her little sigh of desire and felt her shiver, and he reached down his hand and touched her waiting fingers.

  “My sweetheart,” he said.

  Dudley and Amy could not be alone together until bedtime, but when the house was quiet they sat either side of their bedroom fire and Robert heated two mugs of ale.

  “I have some news,” he said quietly. “Something I need to tell you. You should hear it first from me, and not from some corner gossip.”

  “What is it?” Amy asked, looking up and smiling at him. “Good news?”

  He thought for a moment what a young smile hers still was: the smile of a girl whose hopes are always ready to rise, the open gaze of a girl who has reason to think that the world is filled with promise for her.

  “Yes, it is good news.” He thought it would be a hard-hearted man who could bear to tell this childish woman that anything had gone wrong, especially when he had already brought her so much grief.

  She clapped her hands together. “You have bought Flitcham Hall! I didn’t dare hope you would! I knew it! I absolutely knew it!”

  He was thrown from his course. “Flitcham? No. I sent Bowes to look at it and to tell the owner that we were not interested.”

  “Not interested? But I told Lady Robsart to tell the owner that we would take it.”

  “It’s impossible, Amy. I thought I told you before I left Chichester, when you first mentioned it?”

  “No, never. I thought you liked it? You always said you liked it. You said to Father…”

  “No. Anyway, it’s not about Flitcham. I want to tell you…”

  “But what did Mr. Bowes tell Mr. Symes? I had promised him we would almost certainly take it.”

  He realized that he had to answer her before she could listen to him. “Bowes told Mr. Symes that we did not want Flitcham after all. He was not upset, he understood.”

  “But I don’t understand!” she said plaintively. “I don’t understand. I thought you wanted to make Flitcham our home. I thought you loved it like I do. And it is so near to Syderstone, and to all my family, and Father always liked it…”

  “No.” He took her hands in his and saw her wounded indignation dissolve at once under his touch. He caressed the palms of her hands with his gentle fingertips. “Now, Amy, you must see, Flitcham Hall is not close enough to London. I would never see you if you buried yourself in Norfolk. And we could never be able to make it a big enough place for the visitors we will have.”

  “I don’t want to be near London,” she insisted stubbornly. “Father always said that nothing came from London but trouble…”

  “Your father loved Norfolk, and he was a great man in his own country,” Robert said, controlling his own irritation with an effort. “But we are not your father. I am not your father, Amy, my love. Norfolk is too small for me. I do not love it as your father did. I want you to find us a bigger house, somewhere more central, near Oxford. Yes? There is more to England than Norfolk you know, my dearest.”

  He saw she was soothed by the endearments, and in her quietness he could broach the rest that he had to tell her. “But this is not what I wanted to tell you. I am to be honored by the queen.”

  “An honor? Oh! She will give you a seat on the Privy Council?”

  “Well, there are other honors,” he said, concealing his frustration that he still had no political power.

  “She would never make you an earl!” she exclaimed.

  “No, not that!” he corrected. “That would be ridiculous.”

  “I don’t see why,” she said at once. “I don’t see why being an earl would be ridiculous. Everyone says that you are her favorite.”

  He checked, wondering exactly what scandal might have come to her ears. “I’m not her favorite,” he said. “Her favorite is Sir William Cecil for counsel and Catherine Knollys for company. I assure you, my sister and I are only two of very many among her court.”

  “But she made you Master of her Horse,” Amy objected reasonably. “You cannot expect me to believe that she does not like you above all others. You always said that she liked you when you were children together.”

  “She likes her horses to be well managed,” he said hastily. “And of course she likes me, we are old friends, but that’s not what I meant …I…”

  “She must like you a great deal,” she pursued. “Everyone says that she goes out with you every day.” She took care not to let a jealous note into her voice. “Someone even told me that she neglects her royal business for riding.”

  “I take her riding, yes …but it is my work, not my preference. There is nothing between us, no especial warmth.”

  “I should hope not,” she said sharply. “She had better remember that you are a married man. Not that such a fact has restrained her in the past. Everyone says that she…”

  “Oh, for saints’ sake, stop!”

  She gave a little gasp. “You may not like it, Robert, but it is no more than everyone says about her.”

  He took a breath. “I beg your pardon, I did not mean to raise my voice.”

  “It is not very pleasant for me, knowing that you are her favorite and that she has no good reputation for being chaste.” Amy finished her complaint in a breathless rush. “It is not very pleasant for me, knowing that your names are linked.”

  He had to take a long deep breath. “Amy, this is ridiculous. I have told you I am not a particular favorite. I ride with her because I am her Master of Horse. I am a favored man at court because of my abilities, thank God for them, and because of my family. We should both be glad that she favors me as she should. As to her reputation, I am surprised you would lower yourself to gossip, Amy. I am indeed. She is your anointed queen. It is not for you to pass comment.”

  She bit her lip. “Everyone knows what she’s like,” she said stubbornly. “And it is not very nice for me when your name is linked with hers.”

  “I do not wish my wife to gossip,” he said flatly.

  “I only repeated what everyone—”

  “Everyone is wrong,” he said. “It is almost certain that she will marry the Earl of Arran and secure his claim to the Scottish throne. I tell you this in the deepest secrecy, Amy. So that you know that there is nothing between her and me.”

  “Do you swear?”

  Robert sighed as if he were weary, to make his lie more persuasive. “Of course, I swear there is nothing.”

  “I trust you,” she said. “Of course I do. But I cannot trust her. Everyone knows that she—”

  “Amy!” He raised his voice even louder, and she fell silent at last. Her sliding glance at the door told him that she was afraid her cousin would have heard his angry tone.

  “Oh, for God’s sake. It doesn’t matter if anyone heard.”

  “What will people think…”

  “It doesn’t matter what they think,” he said with the simple arrogance of a Dudley.

  “It does.”

  “Not to me,” he said grandly.

  “To me, it does.”

  He bit his lip on his argument. “Well, it should not,” he said, trying to keep his temper with her. “You are Lady Dudley, and the opinion of some London merchant and his wife should be nothing to you.”

  “My own mother’s cousin…” He could just hear a few words of her whispered defiance. “Our hosts. And always very civil to you.”

  “Amy… please,” he said.

  “I have to live with them, after all,” she said with a childish stubbornness. “It’s not as if you will be here next week…”

  He rose to his feet and saw her flinch.

  “Wife, I am sorry,” he said. “I have gone all wrong about this.”

  At the first hint of retraction she was quick to meet him. Her head came up, a little smile on her face. “Oh, are you unwell?”

  “No! I…”

  “Are you overtired?”

  “No!”

  “Shall I get
you a hot possett?” Already she was on her feet and wanting to serve him. He caught her hand and had to make himself hold her gently, and not shake her in his anger.

  “Amy, please be still and let me talk to you. I have been trying to tell you one small thing since we came up, and you don’t let me speak.”

  “How ever could I stop you?”

  He answered her with silence, until obediently, she sank to her stool and waited.

  “The queen is to honor me by awarding me the Order of the Garter. I am to have it with three other noblemen and there is to be a great celebration. I am honored indeed.”

  She would have interrupted with congratulations but he pressed on to the more difficult topic. “And she is to give me land, and a house.”

  “A house?”

  “The Dairy House at Kew,” he said.

  “A London house for us?” she asked.

  He could imagine Elizabeth’s response if he tried to install a wife in the pretty little bachelor’s nest in the garden of the royal palace.

  “No, no. It’s just a little place for me. But my idea was that you could stay with the Hydes and find a house for us? A house that we could make our own? A bigger house than Flitcham Hall, a grander place altogether? Somewhere near them in Oxfordshire.”

  “Yes, but who will run your house at Kew?”

  He dismissed it. “It is little more than a few rooms. Bowes will find me servants; it is nothing.”

  “Why does she not want you to live at the palace anymore?”

  “It’s just a gift,” he said. “I may not even use it.”

  “So why give it to you?”

  Robert tried to laugh it off. “It’s just a sign of her favor,” he said. “And my rooms in the palace are not of the best.” Already, he knew, the gossips were speculating that the queen had given him a place where the two of them could go to be alone together, hidden from the eyes of the court. He had to ensure that Amy would dismiss such rumors if they ever came to her ears. “In truth, I think Cecil wanted it, and she is teasing him by giving it to me.”