The Virgin's Lover Page 32

  “You will recall the fleet,” she commanded, white to her ruff.

  Cecil spread his hands. “They have sailed,” he said. “With orders to attack.”

  “Bring back my army!”

  He shook his head. “They are marching north, recruiting as they go. We are on a war footing; we cannot reverse the decision.”

  “We cannot go to war with the French!” she almost screamed at him.

  The Privy Councillors bowed their heads to the table. Cecil alone faced her. “The die is already cast,” he said. “Your Grace, we are at war. England is at war with France. God help us.”

  Spring 1560

  ROBERT DUDLEY came to Stanfield Hall in March, a bad month for traveling on ill-maintained roads, and arrived chilled and bad-tempered.

  No one was waiting for him; he had sent no warning that he would be coming, and Amy, a reluctant listener to the constant rumors that said that he and the queen were once more inseparable, hardly expected ever to see him again.

  As soon as the horses clattered into the yard Lady Robsart came to find her.

  “He’s here!” she said coldly.

  Amy leapt to her feet. “He” could only ever mean one man at Stanfield Hall. “My lord Robert?”

  “His men are unsaddling in the yard.”

  Amy trembled as she stood. If he had come back to her, after their last parting when she had insisted that she would always be his wife, it could mean only one thing: that he had finished with Elizabeth and wanted to reconcile with his wife. “He is here?” she said again, as if she could not believe it.

  Lady Robsart smiled wryly at her stepdaughter in the shared triumph of women over men. “It looks as if you have won,” she said. “He is here and looking very cold and sorry for himself.”

  “Then he must come in!” Amy exclaimed and dashed toward the stairs. “Tell Cook he’s here, and send word to the village that he will need a couple of hens and someone must slaughter a cow.”

  “A fatted calf, why not?” Lady Robsart said under her breath; but she went to do her stepdaughter’s bidding.

  Amy dashed down the stairs and flung open the front door. Robert, travel-stained and weary, walked up the short flight of steps, and Amy stepped into his arms.

  From old habit he held her close to him, and Amy, feeling his arms come around her, and that familiar touch of his hand on her waist and the other on her shoulder blade, leaned her head against his warm, sweat-smelling neck and knew that he had come home to her at last, and that despite it all, all of it, she would forgive him as easily as accepting his kiss.

  “Come in, you must be half frozen,” she said, drawing him into the hall. She threw logs on the fire and pressed him into her father’s heavy carved chair. Lady Robsart came in with hot ale and cakes from the kitchen and dipped a curtsy.

  “Good day to you,” she said neutrally. “I have sent your men to find beds in the village. We cannot accommodate such a large company here.”

  To Amy she remarked, “Hughes says he has some well-hung venison that he can let us have.”

  “I don’t wish to put you out,” Robert said politely, as if he had not once cursed her to her face.

  “How could you put us out?” Amy demanded. “This is my home; you are always welcome here. There is always a place for you here.”

  Robert said nothing at the thought of Lady Robsart’s cold house being their home, and her ladyship took herself out of the room to see about beds, and a pudding.

  “My lord, it is so good to see you.” Amy put another log on the fire. “I shall get my maid Mrs. Pirto to lay out your linen; the shirt you left here last time is all mended, you can’t see the darn, I did it so carefully.”

  “Thank you,” he said awkwardly. “Surely Mrs. Pirto does the mending for you?”

  “I like to do your linen myself,” Amy said. “Shall you want to wash?”

  “Later,” he said.

  “Only I will have to warn Cook, to heat the water.”

  “Yes, I know. I lived here long enough.”

  “You were hardly here at all! And anyway, things are much better now.”

  “Well, in any case I remember that you cannot have a jug of hot water without mentioning it first thing in the morning on the third Sunday in the month.”

  “It’s just that we have a small fireplace and…”

  “I know,” he said wearily. “I remember all about the small fireplace.”

  Amy fell silent. She did not dare ask him the one thing that she wanted to know: how long he would stay with her. When he broodingly watched the fire in silence she put on another log and they both watched the sparks fly up the dark chimney.

  “How was your journey?”

  “All right.”

  “Which horse did you bring?”

  “Blithe, my hunter,” he said, surprised.

  “Did you not bring a spare horse?”

  “No,” he said, hardly hearing the question.

  “Shall I unpack your bags?” She rose to her feet. “Did you bring many bags?”

  “Just the one.”

  Robert did not see her face fall. She understood at once that one horse and one bag meant a short visit.

  “And Tamworth will have done it already.”

  “You are not planning on a long stay, then?”

  He looked up at her. “No, no, I am sorry, I should have said. Matters are very grave; I have to get back to court. I just wanted to see you, Amy, about something important.”

  “Yes?”

  “We’ll talk tomorrow,” he decided. “But I need your help, Amy. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

  She blushed at the thought of him coming to her for help. “You know that anything I can do for you, I will do.”

  “I know it,” he said. “I am glad of it.” He rose to his feet and put his hands to the blaze.

  “I like it when you ask things of me,” she said shyly. “It always used to be like that.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You are cold; shall I light a fire in our bedchamber?”

  “No, no,” he said. “I’ll change my shirt and come down at once.”

  Her smile lit up her face like a girl’s. “And we shall have such a good dinner; the family here has been living on mutton and I am heartily sick of it!”

  It was a good dinner, with venison steaks, a mutton pasty, a chicken broth, and some puddings. There were hardly any vegetables in season, but Amy’s father had been an enthusiast for wines and his cellar was still good. Robert, thinking he would need some help in getting through dinner with the two women, and Lady Robsart’s daughter and son-in-law John Appleyard, fetched up four bottles and prevailed upon them all to help him drink them.

  When they went to bed at a little after nine o’clock the women were tipsy and giggling, and Robert stayed downstairs to finish his glass in good-humored solitude. He left plenty of time for Amy to get into bed and did not go up until he thought she would be asleep.

  He shed his clothes as quietly as he could, and put them on the chest at the foot of the bed. She had left a candle burning for him and in the flickering golden light he thought she looked like a sleeping child. He felt filled with tenderness for her as he blew out her candle and slipped into bed beside her, careful not to touch her.

  Half asleep, she turned toward him and slid her naked leg between his thighs. At once he was aroused, but he shifted a little away from her, firmly taking her waist in his hands and holding her from him, but she gave a little sleepy sigh and put her hand on his chest, and then slid it inexorably down his belly to caress him.

  “Amy,” he whispered.

  He could not see her in the darkness, but the even pace of her breathing told him that although she was still asleep, she was moving toward him in sleep, she was stroking him, sliding toward him, and finally rolling on her back so that he could take her in a state of aroused sleepiness that he, knowing that he was a fool, could not resist. Even as he took his pleasure, even as he heard her cr
y, her familiar, breathy little cry of delight as she woke to find him inside her, Robert knew that he was doing the wrong thing, the worst thing that he could do: for himself, for Amy, and for Elizabeth.

  In the morning Amy was glowing, confident, a woman restored to love, a wife restored to her place in the world. He did not have to wake to her timid smile; she was up and in the kitchen as he was getting dressed, stirring the cook to bake breakfast bread just as he liked it. She had fetched the honey from their own hive; she brought fresh butter from the dairy with the Stanfield Hall seal on the pat. From the meat larder she had brought a good cut of ham borrowed from someone in the village, and there were some cold venison cutlets left over from last night.

  Amy, presiding over a good table, poured small ale for her husband and tucked back a curl behind her ear.

  “Shall you ride today?” she asked. “I can send Jeb to the stable to tell them to saddle your horse. We can ride together if you wish.”

  He could not believe that she had forgotten their last ride together, but her pleasure in the night had restored her to the Amy that he had once loved, the confident little mistress of her kingdom, Sir John Robsart’s favorite child.

  “Yes,” he said, delaying the moment when he would have to speak honestly with her. “I should have brought my hawk; I shall soon eat you out of house and home.”

  “Oh no,” she said. “For the Carters have already sent over a newly weaned calf as a compliment to you, and now that everyone knows you are here we shall be half buried in gifts. I thought we might ask them to come over for the day; you always find them good company.”

  “Tomorrow, perhaps,” he said cravenly. “Not today.”

  “All right,” she said agreeably. “But you will be hard put to eat the calf on your own.”

  “Tell them I will ride in an hour,” he said, abruptly rising from the table. “And I should be glad of your company.”

  “Could we ride toward Flitcham Hall?” she asked. “Just to remind you what a fine house it is? I know you said it is too far from London, but they still have not found a buyer.”

  He winced. “Wherever you wish,” he said, avoiding the issue of the house. “In an hour.”

  And so I avoid speaking to her until dinner, Robert berated himself, taking the stairs two at a time. Because I shall never again try and talk sense to a woman while riding with her. But tonight, after dinner, I have to talk to her. I cannot lie with her again. I make a cheat of myself, and a fool of her. He kicked open the door to Sir John’s private room, and threw himself into the old man’s chair. Damn you, he addressed his dead father-in-law. Damn you for saying I would break her heart and damn you for being right.

  Robert waited until after dinner when Lady Robsart left them alone, and Amy was seated opposite him on the other side of the small fireplace.

  “I am sorry we have no company,” Amy remarked. “It must be so dull for you, after court. We could have had the Rushleys to visit, you remember them? They would come tomorrow, if you would like to invite them.”

  “Amy,” he said hesitantly. “I have something to ask you.”

  Her head came up at once, her smile sweet. She thought he was going to ask for her forgiveness.

  “We spoke once of a divorce,” he said quietly.

  A shadow crossed her face. “Yes,” she said. “I have not had a happy moment since that day. Not until last night.”

  Robert grimaced. “I am sorry for that,” he said.

  She interrupted him. “I know,” she said. “I knew you would be. And I thought that I would never be able to forgive you; but I can, Robert, and I do. It is forgiven and forgotten between us and we need never speak of it again.”

  This is something like ten thousand times harder because I was a lustful fool, Robert swore to himself. Aloud he said, “Amy, you will think me wicked, but my mind has not changed.”

  Her honest, open eyes met his. “What do you mean?” she asked simply.

  “I have to ask you something,” he said. “When we last spoke, you saw Elizabeth as your rival, and I understand your feelings. But she is the Queen of England, and she has done me the honor of loving me.”

  Amy frowned; she could not think what he wanted to ask her. “Yes, but you said you had given her up. And then you came to me…” She broke off. “It is like a miracle to me that you came to me, as if we were boy and girl again.”

  “We are at war with Scotland,” Robert plowed on. “We could not be in more peril. I want to help her, I want to save my country. Amy, the French are very likely to invade.”

  Amy nodded. “Of course. But…”

  “Invade,” he repeated. “Destroy us all.”

  She nodded, but she could not care for the French when her own happiness was unfolding before her.

  “And so I want to ask you to release me from my marriage with you, so that I can offer myself to the queen as a free man. The archduke will not propose to her; she needs a husband. I want to marry her.”

  Amy’s eyes widened as if she could not believe what she had just heard. He saw her hand go to her pocket and he saw her fingers clench on something there.

  “What?” she asked disbelievingly.

  “I want you to release me from my marriage with you. I have to marry her.”

  “Are you saying that you want me to divorce you?”

  He nodded. “I do.”

  “But last night…”

  “Last night was a mistake,” he said brutally and saw the color flush to her cheeks and the tears fill her eyes as rapidly as if he had slapped her till her head rang.

  “A mistake?” she repeated.

  “I could not resist you,” he said, trying to soften the blow. “I should have done so. I love you, Amy, I always will. But my destiny has come for me. John Dee once said—”

  She shook her head. “A mistake? To lie with your own wife? Did you not whisper: “I love you”? Was that a mistake too?”

  “I didn’t say that,” he said quickly.

  “I heard you say that.”

  “You may think you heard me, but I didn’t say it.”

  She got up from her little chair and turned away from him to the table that she had prepared for dinner with such joy. It was all spoiled now; the broken meats gone to the servants, the waste gone to the pigs.

  “You told me of Sir Thomas Gresham once,” she said irrelevantly. “That he thought the worst thing about bad coinage is that it brings everything, even good coins, down to its own worthless value.”

  “Yes,” he said, not understanding.

  “That is what she has done,” she said simply. “I am not surprised that a pound is not worth a pound, that we are at war with France, that the archduke will not marry her. She has made everything bad; she is the false coin of the kingdom and she has brought everything, even honorable love, even a good marriage begun in love, down to the value of a counterfeit coin.”

  “Amy…”

  “So that in the night you say ‘I love you’ and everything you do tells me that you love me, and then in the day, the very next day, you ask me to release you.”

  “Amy, please!”

  She stopped at once. “Yes, my lord?”

  “Whatever you think of her, she is the anointed Queen of England; the realm is in danger. The Queen of England needs me and I am asking you to release me.”

  “You can command her armies,” she observed.

  Robert nodded. “Yes, but there are other, more skilled soldiers.”

  “You can advise her as to what she should do; she could appoint you to her Privy Council.”

  “I advise her already.”

  “Then what more can you do? And what more can you honorably ask for?” she burst out.

  He gritted his teeth. “I want to be at her side, day and night. I want to be her husband and be with her all the time. I want to be her companion on the throne of England.”

  He braced himself for tears and rage, but to his surprise she looked at him dry-eyed, and spoke v
ery quietly. “Robert, do you know, if it was in my gift, I would give it to you. I have loved you so much and for so long that I would even give you this. But it is not in my gift. Our marriage is an act of God; we stood together in a church and swore we would not be parted. We cannot be parted now, just because the queen wants you, and you want her.”

  “Other people in the world divorce!” he exclaimed.

  “I don’t know how they will answer for it.”

  “The Pope himself allows it, he says that they will not answer for it, there is no sin.”

  “Oh, shall you go to the Pope?” she inquired with a sudden rush of malice. “Is the Pope to rule that our marriage, our Protestant marriage, is invalid? Is Elizabeth the Protestant princess going to bow her knee to the Pope again?”

  He leapt up from his chair and faced her. “Of course not!”

  “Then who?” she persisted. “The Archbishop of Canterbury? Her creature? Appointed despite his own misgivings, the single turncoat in the church while all her other bishops are thrown into prison or exile because they know she is a false claimant to be head of the church?”

  “I don’t know the details,” he said sulkily. “But with goodwill it could be done.”

  “It would have to be her, wouldn’t it?” Amy challenged him. “A woman of twenty-six years old, blinded by her own lust, wanting another woman’s husband and ruling that her desire is God’s will. That she knows that God wants him to be free.” She drew a breath and let out a wild, ringing laugh. “It is a nonsense, husband. You will make yourselves a laughingstock. It is a sin against God, it is a sin against man, and it is an insult to me.”

  “It is no insult. If your father were alive…”

  It was the worst thing he could have said. Amy’s family pride sprang up. “You dare say his name to me! My father would have horsewhipped you for even thinking of such a thing. He would have killed you for saying such a thing to me.”

  “He would never have laid a finger on me!” Robert swore. “He would not have dared.”

  “He said you were a braggart and I was worth ten of you,” she spat at him. “And he was right. You are a braggart and I am worth ten of you. And you did say you loved me last night; you are a liar.”