The Virgin's Lover ttc-4 Page 26

  “There was nothing in writing, but you have given your word, he has given his, and I have given mine,” Cecil reminded her. “You are promised to marry if he wins Scotland from the French.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, opening her dark eyes very wide. “Yes, indeed.”

  She was about to turn away from him but he stood his ground. “There is something else, Your Grace.”

  She hesitated. “Yes?”

  “I have intelligence of a possible attempt on your life.”

  At once she was alert. He saw her face quiver with fear. “A new plot? Another one?”

  “I am afraid so.”

  “The Pope’s men?”

  “Not this time.”

  She drew a shaky breath. “How many more men will come against me? This is worse than it was for Mary and she was hated by everyone.”

  There was nothing he could say; it was true. Mary had been hated; but no monarch had ever been more threatened than this one. Elizabeth’s power was all in her person, and too many men thought that if she were dead then the country would be restored.

  She turned back to him. “At any rate, you have captured the men who planned it?”

  “I have only an informant. I hope he will lead me onward. But I draw it to your attention at this stage because it was not only you who was threatened by this plot.”

  She turned, curious. “Who else?”

  “Sir Robert Dudley.”

  Her face drained pale. “Spirit, no!”

  Good God, does she love him so much? Cecil exclaimed to himself. She takes a threat to herself as a matter of concern; but when I name him as a victim you would think she was in mortal terror.

  “Indeed, yes. I am sorry.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes were dilated. “Spirit, who would hurt him?”

  Cecil could almost feel his thoughts clicking into place as a strategy formed in his mind. “A word with you?”

  “Walk with me,” she said quickly, and put her hand on his arm. “Walk me away from them all.”

  Through the velvet of his slashed sleeve he could feel the heat of her palm. She is sweating with fear for him, he thought. This has gone further than I had thought; this has gone to the very madness of forbidden love.

  He patted her hand, trying to steady himself and hide the thoughts that whirled in his head. The courtiers parted before Cecil and the queen; he saw a glimpse of Francis Knollys with his wife, his daughter demurely talking to young Walter Devereux, Mary Sidney, the Bacon brothers in conversation with the queen’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, a few men from the Spanish ambassador’s train, half a dozen hangerson, a couple of City merchants with their sponsors, nothing out of the ordinary, no strange face, no danger here.

  They reached the relative privacy of the gallery and walked away from the others, so that no one could see the bleak agony on her face.

  “Cecil, who could dream of hurting him?”

  “Your Grace, there are so many,” he said gently to her. “Has he never told you that he has enemies?”

  “Once,” she said. “Once, he said to me that he was surrounded with enemies. I thought …I thought he meant rivals.”

  “He does not know the half of them,” Cecil said grimly. “The Catholics blame him for the changes in the church. The Spanish think that you love him, and if he was dead you would take their candidate in marriage. The French hate him since he fought for Philip at St. Quentin, the Commons of England blame him for taking you from your duties of queenship, and every lord of the land, from Arundel to Norfolk, would pay to see him dead because they envy him for your love, or they blame him for the terrible scandal that he has generated about you.”

  “It cannot be that bad.”

  “He is the most hated man in England, and the more that you are seen under his influence the greater the danger to you. I spend days and nights on tracking down plots against you; but he…” Cecil broke off and shook his head regretfully. “I don’t know how to keep him safe.”

  Elizabeth was white as her ruff; her fingers plucked at his sleeve. “We must have him guarded, Spirit. We must put guards about him, you must find out who would hurt him and arrest them, rack them, find out who they are leagued with. You must stop at nothing; you must take these plotters to the Tower and torture them till they tell us…”

  “Your own uncle!” he exclaimed. “Half the lords of England! Dud ley is widely despised, Your Grace. Only you and half a dozen people tolerate him.”

  “He is beloved,” she whispered.

  “Only by his kinsmen, and those he pays,” he said loftily.

  “Not you?” she said, turning her dark gaze on him. “You don’t hate him, Spirit? You must stand his friend, if only for my sake. You know what he is to me, what joy he brings to my life. He must have your friendship. If you love me, you must love him.”

  “Oh, I stand his friend,” he said carefully. For I am not such a fool as to let you or him think otherwise.

  She took a shuddering sigh. “Oh, God, we must keep him safe. I could not live if… Spirit, you must guard him. How can we make him safe?”

  “Only by letting him decline in your favor,” Cecil replied. Careful, he warned himself. Care and steadiness here. “You cannot marry him, Princess; he is a married man and his wife is a virtuous, pleasant woman, pretty and sweet-tempered. He can never be more than a friend to you. If you want to save his life you have to let him go. He has to be your dear courtier, and your Master of Horse; but no more.”

  She looked quite haggard. “Let him go?”

  “Send him home to his wife; it will still the gossips. Set your mind on Scotland and the work we have to do for the country. Dance with other men, set yourself free of him.”

  “Free of him?” she repeated like a child.

  Despite himself, Cecil was moved by the pain in her face. “Princess, this can go nowhere,” he said quietly to her. “He is a married man; he cannot put his wife aside for no reason. You cannot sanction a divorce to serve your own lust. He can never marry you. You may love him, but it will always be a dishonorable love. You cannot be husband and wife, you cannot be lovers, you cannot even be seen to desire him. If there is any more scandal spoken against you, it could cost you your throne; it could even cost you your life.”

  “My life has been on a thread since I was born!” She reared up.

  “It could cost his life,” Cecil switched quickly. “Your favoring of him, as openly as generously as you do, will be his death warrant.”

  “You will protect him,” she said stubbornly.

  “I cannot protect him from your friends and family,” Cecil replied steadily. “Only you can do that. Now I have told you how. You know what you have to do.”

  Elizabeth gripped his arm. “I cannot let him go,” she said to him in a low moan. “He is the only one… he is my only love… I cannot send him home to his wife. You must have a heart of stone to suggest it. I cannot let him go.”

  “Then you will sign his death warrant,” he said harshly.

  He felt a deep shudder run through her.

  “I am unwell,” she said quietly. “Get Kat.”

  He walked her to the end of the gallery and sent a page flying to the queen’s rooms for Kat Ashley. She came and took one look at Elizabeth’s pallor, and one look at Cecil’s grave face. “What’s the matter?”

  “Oh, Kat,” Elizabeth whispered. “The worst thing, the worst thing.”

  Kat Ashley stepped forward to shield her from the eyes of the court and took her quickly away to her rooms. The court, fascinated, looked at Cecil, who blandly smiled back at them all.

  It was raining, the gray drops pouring like a stream down the leaded window panes of Windsor Castle, pattering like tears. Elizabeth had sent for Robert and told her ladies to seat themselves round the fire while he and she talked in the window seat. When Robert came into the room in a swirl of dark red velvet the queen was alone in the window seat, like a solitary girl without friends.

  He came up at once and bowed
and whispered: “My love?”

  Her face was white and her eyelids red and sore from crying. “Oh, Robert.”

  He took a rapid step toward her and then checked himself, remembering that he must not snatch her to him in public. “What is the matter?” he demanded. “The court thinks you have been taken ill; I have been desperate to see you. What is the matter? What did Cecil say to you this morning?”

  She turned her head to the window and put a fingertip to the cold green glass. “He warned me,” she said quietly.

  “Of what?”

  “A new plot, against my life.”

  Robert’s hand instinctively went to where his sword should be, but no man carried arms in the queen’s apartments. “My love, don’t be afraid. However wicked the plot I should always protect you.”

  “It was not just against me,” she broke in. “I would not be sick with fear like this, just for a plot against me.”

  “So?” His dark eyebrows were drawn together.

  “They want to kill you too,” she said quietly. “Cecil says that I have to let you go, for our safety.”

  That damned cunning sly old fox, Robert cursed inwardly. What a brilliant move: to use her love against me.

  “We are in danger,” he acknowledged quietly to her. “Elizabeth, I beg of you, let me put my wife aside and let me marry you. Once you are my wife and you have my child then all these dangers are gone.”

  She shook her head. “They will destroy you, as you warned me. Robert, I am going to give you up.”

  “No!” He spoke too loud in his shock, and the conversation at the fireplace was silenced and all the women looked toward him. He drew closer to the queen. “No, Elizabeth. This cannot be. You cannot just give me up, not when you love me, and I love you. Not when we are happy now. Not after so many years of waiting and waiting for happiness!”

  She had herself under the tightest control, he saw her bite her lip to stop the tears coming to her eyes. “I have to. Don’t make it harder for me, my love, I think my heart is breaking.”

  “But to tell me here! In the full glare of the court!”

  “Oh, d’you think I could have told you anywhere else? I am not very strong with you, Robert. I have to tell you here, where you cannot touch me, and I have to have your word that you will not try to change my mind. You have to give me up, and give up your dream of our marriage. And I have to let you go, and I have to marry Arran if he is victorious, and the archduke if he is not.”

  Robert raised his head and would have argued.

  “It is the only way to stop the French,” she said simply. “Arran or the archduke. We have to have an ally against the French in Scotland.”

  “You would give me up for a kingdom,” he said bitterly.

  “For nothing less,” she replied steadily. “And I ask something more of you.”

  “Oh, Elizabeth, you have my heart. What can I give you more?”

  Her dark eyes were filled with tears; she put out a shaking hand to him. “Will you still be my friend, Robert? Though we can never be lovers again, even though I will have to marry another man?”

  Slowly, oblivious now of the ladies’ stares, he took her cold hand in his own, and bent his head and kissed it. Then he knelt to her and held up his hands in the age-old gesture of fealty. She leaned forward and took his praying hands in her own.

  “I am yours,” he said. “Heart and soul. I always have been since you are my queen, but more than that: you are the only woman I have ever loved and you are the only woman I ever will love. If you want me to dance at your wedding, I will do it as well as I can. If you will recall me from this misery, I will return to joy with you in a second. I am your friend for life, I am your lover forever, I am your husband in the sight of God. You have only to command me, Elizabeth, now and ever, I am yours till death.”

  They were both trembling, gazing into each other’s eyes as if they could never tear themselves away. It was Kat Ashley who had the courage to interrupt them, after long minutes when they had been handclasped and silent.

  “Your Grace,” she said gently. “People will talk.”

  Elizabeth stirred and released Robert, and he rose to his feet.

  “You should rest, my lady,” Kat said quietly. She glanced at Robert’s white, shocked face. “She’s not well,” she said. “This is too much for her. Let her go now, Sir Robert.”

  “May God bring you to good health and happiness,” he said passionately, and at her nod he bowed and took himself out of the room before she could see the despair in his own face.

  Mr. Hayes’s father had been born a tenant of the Dudleys but had risen through the wool trade to the position of mayor at Chislehurst. He had sent his son to school and then to train as a lawyer and when he died, he left the young man a small fortune. John Hayes continued the family connection with the Dudleys, advising Robert’s mother on her appeal to reclaim the title and estates, and as Robert rose in power and wealth, running the various wings of Robert’s steadily increasing businesses in the City and countrywide.

  Amy had often stayed with him at Hayes Court, Chislehurst, and sometimes Robert joined her there to talk business with John Hayes, to gamble with him, to hunt his land, and to plan their investments.

  The Dudley train reached the house at about midday, and Amy was glad to be out of the September sun, which was still hot and bright.

  “Lady Dudley.” John Hayes kissed her hand. “How good to see you again. Mrs. Minchin will show you to your usual room; we thought you preferred the garden room?”

  “I do,” Amy said. “Have you heard from my lord?”

  “Only that he promises himself the pleasure of seeing you within the week,” John Hayes said. “He did not say which day—but we don’t expect that, do we?” He smiled at her.

  Amy smiled back. No, for he will not know which day the queen will release him, said the jealous voice in her head. Amy touched the rosary in her pocket with her finger. “Whenever he is free to come to me, I shall be glad to see him,” she said, and turned and went up the stairs behind the housekeeper.

  Mrs. Oddingsell came into the house, pushing back her hood and shaking the dust from her skirt. She shook hands with John Hayes; they were old friends.

  “She looks well,” he said, surprised, nodding his head in the direction of Amy’s bedroom. “I heard she was very sick.”

  “Oh, did you?” said Lizzie levelly. “And where did you hear that from?”

  He thought for a moment. “Two places, I think. Someone told me in church the other day, and my clerk mentioned it to me in the City.”

  “Did they say what ailed her?”

  “A malady of the breast, my clerk said. A stone, or a growth, too great for cutting, they said. They said that Dudley might put her aside, that she would agree to go to a convent and annul the marriage because she could never have his child.”

  Lizzie folded her mouth in a hard line. “It is a lie,” she said softly. “Now who do you think would have an interest in spreading such a lie? That Dudley’s wife is sick and cannot be cured?”

  For a moment he looked at her quite aghast.

  “These are deep waters, Mrs. Oddingsell. I had heard that it had gone very far…”

  “You had heard that they are lovers?”

  He glanced around his own empty hall as if nowhere was safe to speak of the queen and Dudley, even if their names were not mentioned.

  “I heard that he plans to put his wife aside, and marry the lady of whom we speak, and that she has the power and desire that he should do so.”

  She nodded. “It seems everyone thinks so. But there are no grounds, and never could be.”

  He thought for a moment. “If she were known to be too sick to bear children she might step aside,” he whispered.

  “Or if everyone thought she was ill, then no one would be surprised if she died,” Lizzie said, even lower.

  John Hayes exclaimed in shock and crossed himself. “Jesu! Mrs. Oddingsell, you must be mad to suggest such
a thing. You don’t really think that? He would never do such a thing, not Sir Robert!”

  “I don’t know what to think. But I do know that everywhere we rode from Abingdon to here, there was gossip about his lordship and the queen, and a belief that my lady is sick to death. At one inn the landlady asked me if we needed a doctor before we had even dismounted. Everyone is talking of my lady’s illness, and my lord’s love affair. So I don’t know what to think except that someone is being very busy.”

  “Not his lordship,” he said staunchly. “He would never hurt her.”

  “I don’t know anymore,” she repeated.

  “Then, if it is not him, who would spread such a rumor, and to what end?”

  She looked blankly at him. “Who would prepare the country for his divorce and remarriage? Only the woman who wanted to marry him, I suppose.”

  Mary Sidney was seated before the fireplace in her brother’s apartments at Windsor, one of his new hound puppies on the floor at her feet, gnawing at the toe of her riding boot. Idly, she prodded his fat little belly with the other foot.

  “Leave him alone, you will spoil him,” Robert commanded.

  “He will not leave me alone,” she returned. “Get off me, you monster!” She gave him another prod and the puppy squirmed with delight at the attention.

  “You would hardly think he was true bred,” Robert remarked, as he signed his name on a letter and put it to one side, and then came to the fireplace and drew up a stool on the other side. “He has such low tastes.”

  “I have had highly bred puppies slavering at my feet before now,” his sister said with a smile. “It is no mark of bad breeding to adore me.”

  “And rightly so,” he replied. “But would you call Sir Henry your husband a low-bred puppy?”

  “Never to his face.” She smiled.

  “How is the queen today?” he asked more seriously.

  “Still very shaken. She could not eat last night and she only drank warmed ale this morning and ate nothing. She walked in the garden on her own for an hour and came in looking quite distracted. Kat is in and out of her bedroom with possets, and when Elizabeth dressed and came out she would not talk or smile. She is doing no business; she will see nobody. Cecil is striding about with a sheaf of letters and nothing can be decided. And some people say we will lose the war in Scotland because she has despaired already.”