The Virgin's Lover Read online

  “Because I am one of the greatest men at her court!” he exclaimed, slamming his fist down on the saddle and making his horse jump and then sidle nervously. He held it on a hard rein, pulling on its mouth. “The queen herself will come and stay at my house to honor me! To honor you, Amy! I asked you to find us a house to buy. I wanted a place like Hatfield, like Theobalds, like Kenninghall. Cecil goes home to Theobalds Palace, a place as large as a village under one roof; he has a wife who rules it like a queen herself. He is building Burghley to show his wealth and his grandeur; he is shipping in stonemasons from all over Christendom. I am a better man than Cecil, God knows. I come from stock that makes him look like a sheepshearer. I want a house to match his, stone for stone! I want the outward show that matches my achievements.

  “For God’s sake, Amy, you’ve stayed with my sister at Penshurst! You know what I expect! I didn’t want some dirty farmhouse that we could clean up so that at its best, it was fit for a peasant to breed dogs in!”

  She was trembling, hard put to keep her grip on the reins. From a distance, Lizzie Oddingsell watched and wondered if she should intervene.

  Amy found her voice. She raised her drooping head. “Well, all very well, husband, but what you don’t know is that this farm has a yield of—”

  “Damn the yield!” he shouted at her. His horse shied and he jabbed at it with a hard hand. It jibbed and pulled back, frightening Amy’s horse who stepped back, nearly unseating her. “I care nothing for the yield! My tenants can worry about the yield. Amy, I am going to be the richest man in England; the queen will pour the treasury of England upon me. I don’t care how many haystacks we can make from a field. I ask you to be my wife, to be my hostess at a house which is of a scale and of a grandeur—”

  “Grandeur!” she flared up at him. “Are you still running after grandeur? Will you never learn your lesson? There was nothing very grand about you when you came out of the Tower, homeless and hungry; there was nothing very grand about your brother when he died of jail fever like a common criminal. When will you learn that your place is at home, where we might be happy? Why will you insist on running after disaster? You and your father lost the battle for Jane Grey, and it cost him his son and his own life. You lost Calais and came home without your brother and disgraced again! How low do you need to go before you learn your lesson? How base do you have to sink before you Dudleys learn your limits?”

  He wheeled his horse and dug his spurs into its sides, wrenching it back with the reins. The horse stood up on its hind legs in a high rear, pawing the air. Robert sat in the saddle like a statue, reining back his rage and his horse with one hard hand. Amy’s horse shield away, frightened by the flailing hooves, and she had to cling to the saddle not to fall.

  His horse dropped down. “Fling it in my face every day if you please,” he hissed at her, leaning forward, his voice filled with hatred. “But I am no longer Sir John Robsart’s stupid young son-in-law, out of the Tower and still attainted. I am Sir Robert Dudley once more; I wear the Order of the Garter, the highest order of chivalry there is. I am the queen’s Master of Horse, and if you cannot take a pride in being Lady Dudley then you can go back to being Amy Robsart, Sir John Robsart’s stupid daughter, once more. But for me: those days are gone.”

  Fearful of falling from her frightened horse, Amy kicked her feet free and jumped from the saddle. On the safety of the ground she turned and glared up at him as he towered over her, his big horse curvetting to be away. Her temper rose up, flared into her cheeks, burned in her mouth.

  “Don’t you dare to insult my father,” she swore at him. “Don’t you dare! He was a better man than you will ever be, and he won his lands by honest work and not by dancing at some heretic bastard’s bidding. And don’t say yields don’t matter! Who are you to say that yields don’t matter? You would have starved if my father had not kept his land in good heart, to put food on your plate when you had no way of earning it. You were glad enough of the wool crop then! And don’t call me stupid. The only stupid thing I ever did was to believe you and your braggart father when you came riding into Stanfield Hall, and not long after, you were riding into the Tower on a cart as traitors.” She was almost gibbering in her rage. “And don’t you dare threaten me. I shall be Lady Dudley to the day of my death! I have been through the worst with you when my name was a shame to me. But now neither you nor your heretic pretender can take it away from me.”

  “She can take it away,” he said bitingly. “Fool that you are. She can take it away tomorrow, if she wants it. She’s supreme governor of the church of England. She can take away your marriage if she wants it and better women than you have been divorced for less than this… this… shite-house pipe dream.”

  His big horse reared, Amy ducked away, and Sir Robert let the horse go, tearing up the earth with its big hooves, thundering away along the lane, leaving them in a sudden silence.

  When they got home there was a man in the stable yard waiting for Robert Dudley. “Urgent message,” he said to William Hyde. “Can you send a groom to guide me to where I might find him?”

  William Hyde’s square face creased with concern. “I don’t know where he might be,” he said. “He went for a ride. Will you come into the house and take a cup of ale while you’re waiting?”

  “I’ll follow him,” the man said. “His lordship likes his messages delivered at once.”

  “I don’t know which direction he took,” William said tactfully. “You’d better come inside to wait.”

  The man shook his head. “I’d be obliged to you for a drink out here, but I’ll wait here for him.”

  He sat on the mounting block and did not shift until the sun dropped lower in the sky, until finally he heard the clip-clop of hooves and Robert rode up the lane and into the stable yard and tossed the reins of his weary horse to a waiting groom.

  “Blount?”

  “Sir Robert.”

  Robert drew him to one side, his rage with Amy all forgotten. “Must be important?”

  “Sir William Pickering is back in England.”

  “Pickering? The queen’s old flirt?”

  “He was not sure if he would be welcomed, not sure how long her memory would be. There were rumors that he had served her sister. He did not know what she might have heard.”

  “She would have heard everything,” Dudley said dourly. “You can trust to me and Cecil for that. Anyway, did she welcome him?”

  “She saw him alone.”

  “What? A private audience? She saw him in private? Dear God, he’s honored.”

  “No, I mean alone. Completely alone. For all the afternoon, five hours he was locked up with her.”

  “With her women in attendance,” Robert stated.

  The spy shook his head. “Completely alone, sir. Just the two of them. Five hours behind a closed door, before they came out.”

  Robert was staggered at a privilege that he had never had. “Cecil allowed this?” he demanded incredulously.

  Thomas Blount shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. He must have done, for the next day she saw Sir William again.”

  “Alone?”

  “All the afternoon. From noon till dinner time. They are taking bets on him being her husband. He’s the favorite; he’s overtaken the archduke. They are saying that they’ve wedded and bedded in private, all that is lacking is an announcement.”

  Robert exclaimed and whirled away, and then turned back. “And what does he do now? Is he to stay at court?”

  “He is the favorite. She has given him a suite of rooms near to hers in Greenwich Palace.”

  “How near?”

  “They say there is a passageway that he can go to her at any time of the night or day. She has only to unlock the door and he can walk into her bedchamber.”

  Robert suddenly became very still and calm. He glanced at his horse as the groom walked it up and down the yard, noting the sweat on its neck and the foam at its mouth, as if he were contemplating starting his journey at once.
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br />   “No,” he said softly to himself. “Better tomorrow, rested with a clear head. With a rested horse. Any other news?”

  “That the Protestants are rioting against the French regent in Scotland, and she is massing her soldiers, calling for more men from France.”

  “I knew that before I left court,” Robert said. “Does Cecil work on the queen to send support?”

  “Still,” the man said. “But she says nothing either one way or the other.”

  “Too busy with Pickering, I suppose,” Robert said sourly, and turned to go into the house. “You can wait here and ride back with me tomorrow,” he said shortly. “I obviously cannot risk being away for even a moment. We leave for Greenwich at first light. Tell my people that we leave at dawn and that we will ride hard.”

  Amy, sick with tears, was waiting, as humble as any petitioner, outside the door of Robert’s privy chamber. She had seen him ride in on his lathered horse, and had hovered on the stairs hoping to speak to him. He had gone past her with a brief, courteous word of apology. He had washed and changed his clothes; she had heard the clink of jug against bowl. Then he had gone into his privy chamber, closed the door, and was clearly packing his books and his papers. Amy guessed that he was leaving, and she did not dare to knock on his door and beg him to stay.

  Instead she waited outside, perched on the plain wooden window seat, like an apologetic child waiting to see an angry father.

  When he opened the door she leapt to her feet and he saw her in the shadows. For a moment he had quite forgotten the quarrel, then his dark, thick eyebrows snapped together in a scowl. “Amy.”

  “My lord!” she said; the tears flooded into her eyes and she could not speak. She could only stand dumbly before him.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” he said impatiently and kicked open the door of his room with his booted foot. “You had better come in before the whole world thinks that I beat you.”

  She went before him into his room. As she had feared, it was stripped of all the papers and books that he had brought. Clearly, he was packed and ready to leave.

  “You’re not going?” she said, her voice tremulous.

  “I have to,” he said. “I had a message from court; there is some business which demands my attention, at once.”

  “You are going because you are angry with me,” she whispered.

  “No, I am going because I had a message from court. Ask William Hyde, he saw the messenger and told him to wait for me.”

  “But you are angry with me,” she persisted.

  “I was,” he said honestly. “But now I am sorry for my temper. I am not leaving because of the house, nor what I said. There are things at court that I have to attend to.”

  “My lord…”

  “You shall stay here for another month, perhaps two, and when I write to you, you can move to the Hayes’ at Chislehurst. I will come and see you there.”

  “Am I not to find us a house here?”

  “No,” he said shortly. “Clearly, we have very different ideas as to what a house should be like. We will have to have a long conversation about how you wish to live and what I need. But I cannot discuss this now. Right now I have to go to the stables. I will see you at dinner. I shall leave at dawn tomorrow; there is no need for you to rise to see me off. I am in a hurry.”

  “I should not have said what I said. I am most sorry, Robert.”

  His face tightened. “It is forgotten.”

  “I can’t forget it,” she said earnestly, pressing him with her contrition. “I am sorry, Robert. I should not have mentioned your disgrace and your father’s shame.”

  He took a breath, trying to hold back his sense of outrage. “It would be better if we forgot that quarrel, and did not repeat it,” he cautioned her, but she would not be cautioned.

  “Please, Robert, I should not have said what I did about you chasing after grandeur and not knowing your place—”

  “Amy, I do remember what you said!” he broke in. “There is no need for you to remind me. There is no need to repeat the insult. I do remember every word and that you spoke loud enough for William Hyde, his wife, and your companion to hear it too. I don’t doubt that they all heard you abuse me, and my father. I don’t forget you named him as a failed traitor and blamed me for the loss of Calais. You blamed him for the death of my brother Guilford and me for the death of my brother Henry. If you were one of my servants I would have you whipped and turned away for saying half of that. I’d have your tongue slit for scandal. You would do better not to remind me, Amy. I have spent most of this day trying to forget your opinion of me. I have been trying to forget that I live with a wife who despises me as an unsuccessful traitor.”

  “It’s not my opinion,” she gasped. She was on the floor kneeling at his feet in one smooth movement, hammered down by his anger. “I do not despise you. It is not my opinion; I love you, Robert, and I trust you—”

  “You taunted me with the death of my brother,” he said coldly. “Amy, I do not want to quarrel with you. Indeed, I will not. You must excuse me now; I have to see about something in the stables before I go to dinner.”

  He swept her a shallow bow and went from the room. Amy scrambled up from her subservient crouch on the floor and ran to the door. She would have torn it open and gone after him but when she heard the brisk stride of his boots on the wooden floor she did not dare. Instead she pressed her hot forehead to the cool paneling of the door and wrapped her hands around the handle, where his hand had been.

  Dinner was a meal where good manners overlaid discomfort. Amy sat in stunned silence, eating nothing; William Hyde and Robert maintained a pleasant flow of conversation about horses and hunting and the prospect of war with the French. Alice Hyde kept her head down, and Lizzie watched Amy as if she feared she would faint at the table. The ladies withdrew as soon as they could after dinner and Robert, pleading an early start, left soon after. William Hyde took himself into his privy chamber, poured himself a generous tumbler of wine, turned his big wooden chair to the fire, put his feet up on the chimney breast, and fell to considering the day.

  His wife, Alice, put her head round the door and came quietly into the room, followed by her sister-in-law. “Has he gone?” she asked, determined not to meet with Sir Robert again, if she could avoid him.

  “Aye. You can take a chair, Alice, Sister, and pour yourselves your wine if you please.”

  They served themselves and drew up their chairs beside his, in a conspiratorial semicircle around the fire.

  “Is that the end of his plans to build here?” William asked Lizzie Oddingsell.

  “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “All she told me was that he is very angry with her, and that we’re to stay here another month.”

  A quick glance between William and Alice showed that this had been a matter of some discussion. “I think he won’t build,” he said. “I think all she showed him today was how far apart they have become. Poor, silly woman. I think she has dug her own grave.”

  Lizzie quickly crossed herself. “God’s sake, brother! What do you mean? They had a quarrel. You show me a man and wife who have not had cross words.”

  “This is not an ordinary man,” he said emphatically. “You heard him, just as she heard him, but neither of you have the wit to learn. He told her to her face: he is the greatest man in the kingdom. He stands to be the wealthiest man in the kingdom. He has the full attention of the queen; she is always in his company. He is indispensable to the first spinster queen this country has ever known. What d’you think that might mean? Think it out for yourself.”

  “It means he will want a country estate,” Lizzie Oddingsell pursued. “As he rises at court. He will want a great estate for his wife and for his children, when they come, please God.”

  “Not for this wife,” Alice said shrewdly. “What has she ever done but be a burden to him? She does not want what he wants: not the house, not the life. She accuses him of ambition when that is his very nature, his blood and his bone
.”

  Lizzie would have argued to defend Amy, but William hawked and spat into the fire. “It does not matter if she pleases him or fails him,” he said flatly. “He has other plans now.”

  “Do you think he means to put her aside?” Alice asked her husband.

  Lizzie looked from the one grave face to the other. “What?”

  “You heard him,” William said to her patiently. “Like her, you hear him; but you don’t attend. He is a man rising far from her.”

  “But they are married,” she insisted uncomprehendingly. “Married in the sight of God. He cannot put her aside. He has no reason.”

  “The king put two wives aside for no reason,” William Hyde said grimly. “And half the nobility have divorced their wives. Every Roman Catholic priest in England who married during the Protestant years had to put his wife aside when Queen Mary came to the throne, and now perhaps the Protestant clergy will have to do the same. The old laws do not stand. Everything can be remade. Marriage does not mean marriage now.”

  “The church…”

  “The head of the church is the queen. Act of parliament. No denying it. What if the head of the church wants Sir Robert to be a single man once more?”

  Lizzie Oddingsell’s face was bleached with shock. “Why ever would she?” She dared him to name the reason.

  “To marry him herself.” Mr. Hyde’s voice dropped to a low whisper.

  Lizzie put down her wineglass, very slowly, and clasped her hands in her lap to stop them shaking. When she looked up she saw that her brother’s face was not drawn like hers, but bright with suppressed excitement.

  “What if our lord were to be the King of England?” he whispered. “Forget Amy for a moment, she has signed the warrant for her own exile, he will give up on her now, she is no use to him. But think about Sir Robert! Think about us! What if he were to be King of England! What would that mean for us? What of that, Sister?”

  Amy waited in the porch of the church in the early hours of the morning for Father Wilson to come and unlock the great wooden doors. When he came up the churchyard path and saw her, pale in her white dress against the silvery wood door, he said nothing but gave her a slow, sweet smile and opened the door to her in silence.