Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (21 page)

“It may be that soon I shall need a surveyor to handle my landed

properties—it would be a minor post with a salary of roughly twenty

pounds a year.” Her voice was now charged with that same strange ring.

“I need someone to watch over my interests, Cecil. Are you prepared to

take on that extra duty?”

At last he raised her hand to his cool lips.

“I believe the position you have in mind would in no way hamper the

discharge of my present offices. I shall be happy to serve your interests,

madam—in whatever direction they may lie.”

Their eyes met and held and in that moment they both knew they

were bound together until death.

t t t

Kat curbed her delighted curiosity until she was alone with her mistress.

“Well,” she said at last, unable to hide the thrill of pleasure in her

voice, “what did you think of him, Your Grace?”

Elizabeth looked up with a start.

“I don’t know who you mean.”

“Such a fine figure of a man, but then I always said he would be—did

Your Grace say whom?—why young Robert Dudley of course.”

“Oh, him!” Elizabeth affected a bored yawn and removed her coif;

Kat’s excitement visibly disappeared, like a pricked bubble.

“He has no more to recommend him than when I saw him last—and

that as I remember was precious little.”

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“Your Grace! How can you say such a thing about so handsome and

charming a young man who—”

“Who is to be married in June.”

“Oh
!” It came on a note of bitter disappointment. Kat picked up a

comb and began to draw it slowly through Elizabeth’s hair.

What a pity, she thought, and was silent.

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Chapter 8

E
lizabeth attended robin’s wedding later that summer, one of

many unwil ing guests obliged to show their faces at a series of Dudley

unions. Only the day before, Robin’s eldest brother, Jack, had married the

Duke of Somerset’s daughter, a shrewd political move which had thrown

many off the scent. Men had begun to remark on the “outward great love

and friendship between the Duke and the Earl”; but the Duke still went

about the court looking haggard; and his daughter wept.

Then it was Robin’s turn, and the congregation sweated through the

vows in the hot sunlight which filled the chapel at Richmond.

“…with this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship…”

The Earl of Warwick, fingering his prayer book with bored indiffer-

ence, let his idle glance fall on the Princess Elizabeth, and surprised a look

on her face that made him smile with fond pride. Robin was a fine young

ram, there was no mistake about that—he had left more than one thin-

lipped young lady watching enviously. But Elizabeth—still mourning the

Admiral? Somehow he did not think so. The extreme pallor spoke of a

more immediate cause and Warwick was faintly amused. A low-born

Dudley, hey? Her tastes were not what they should be, but they were

healthy—by God, he’d say so!

The day was depressing for Elizabeth, the jousting dull, the feasting

repugnant, the increasing round of frivolity meaningless and exhausting.

Amy was insipidly pretty and Robin was attentive. Elizabeth withdrew

to the hearth with her ladies and mentally wandered back down that dark

path which ended in a dead man’s arms.

Legacy

She had not retreated far, when a shadow fell over her and a quiet

voice jerked her back into the uncomfortable present. Looking up

into the thin, strained face of the Duke of Somerset, she froze into

wary immobility.

“I must stand,” he said softly, “unless Your Grace invites me to sit.”

“Stand then,” she retorted with barely controlled venom, “stand until

you rot—my lord.”

A look of distress touched his ravaged face; he looked suddenly ready

to weep.

“There is something I must say to you,” he muttered hoarsely, “some-

thing I must beg you to hear whether you will or not.”

Her hostile stare burnt him, like the touch of black ice, and she was

grimly silent.

He glanced nervously about the crowded room and then his eyes

swivelled back to hers, filled with all the servile appeal of a beaten dog.

“Five minutes of your time, madam, is all I ask to tell you how it

was—how it truly was between myself and my brother.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he gave her no chance. The

broken words flowed out of him like a bloody flux.

“I never desired his death—I swear it. I did what I could—begged him

to account for his activities in private. He refused my help—after that it

was taken out of my hands. Madam, I have suffered torments of guilt

since the deed was done—”

“I pray daily for a speedy end to your suffering on this earth, my lord.”

He smiled tiredly, almost with admiration.

“Yes,” he murmured, “you are your father’s daughter and like him

spare no man in your anger. You could prove very powerful.”

Her eyes widened, shocked out of their hostility.

“Remember me when you are Queen, madam,” he continued quietly.

“Remember how I failed and learn from my mistakes. I was a fool to trust

the men who served me. Trust no one, madam, not even your own

shadow, and beware of this land you covet so badly. England is a fickle

shrew that may break even your stony heart.”

“You would know more about shrews than most, my lord,” she said

unsteadily. “God knows you married one.”

He shook his head slowly, without bitterness.

“Madam, let me make my peace with you.”

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“Make it with God,” she said curtly and turned away to speak to

an attendant.

He bowed low and shuffled away into the milling crowds, a sad and

weary figure, aged beyond his years by guilt, the heaviest of all human

burdens. Elizabeth looked down at her hands and found they were

trembling violently; the music echoed dimly around her and the guests

frolicked before her unseeing eyes. Black thoughts claimed her, fencing

her off from the merriment with a stone wall of hatred.

At the far end of the hall, Warwick was holding court beside the

King’s chair, with Henry Grey toadying to him, bobbing his silver head

in obsequious agreement to every word the great man uttered. Guildford

Dudley was dancing in sulky silence with the Greys’ eldest daughter, Lady

Jane. He looked bored, and at the end of the measure seemed disposed

to return to the wine table. Warwick said nothing, merely fixed a steely

glance on the boy, and Guildford immediately turned back and led Jane

out on to the floor for the galliard.

This curious little side play penetrated Elizabeth’s vacant gaze just

sufficiently to prick her sense of self-preservation; it was a rather more

sturdy plant than it had been the previous year. She had a small stake

in life now—not much, but enough to make her care whether or not

she would celebrate her next birthday, and what she saw now between

Warwick and Grey was sufficient to alarm her. The King was plainly

sick, no matter how many doctors cheerfully said otherwise, and Jane was

third in line to the throne. After today, Guildford Dudley was Warwick’s

only remaining marriageable son. And Guildford had plainly been told to

dance with Jane. So—

Following Guildford’s progress across the hall, Elizabeth saw Robin

bend his head swiftly and steal a kiss from the pretty little nobody he had

married. Tears pricked suddenly and unexpectedly at the back of her eyes;

she smoothed the feathers of her fan and stared into the fire, willing them

not to fall.

Robin, looking over to the yawning hearth, saw her sitting surrounded

by her ladies and thought that she looked more solitary, more isolated,

than if she sat alone. He turned to his wife and said suddenly, inexplicably

sharp, “Come, I shall present you to the Lady Elizabeth.”

If he had offered to introduce her to an adder Amy could hardly have

shown more alarm.

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“Oh no, Robert, don’t! Please don’t do that.”

He stared at her in honest amazement. She fumbled with the ribbons

trailing down from the bodice of her gown and muttered something

about already being presented.

“That was mere court formality,” he insisted. “Two words and a

curtsey are hardly sufficient to make anyone’s acquaintance.”

Against his impelling arm Amy hung back like a reluctant child.

“Don’t make me, Robert. I can’t. She’s so clever and so—” But there

were no words to describe what she felt about Elizabeth, who had chilled

her at first glance. She gave him the look of kittenish appeal which had

never yet failed to move him, but in his present mood it glanced off him

without effect and his hand remained firm beneath her elbow.

“You must learn to be at ease with my friends, my love,” he said

pleasantly enough, but in a tone that brooked no opposition.

Short of making a public scene, there was nothing Amy could do but

accompany him to the hearth with precious little grace. Resentful and

agitated, she sank down in her wedding gown before a remote figure that

raised her to her feet with the cool touch of a long white hand.

Elizabeth’s hand fascinated and intimidated Amy; she had never seen

anything so delicate, so flawless as those beautiful fingers, each capped

with a perfectly formed nail. She could not recall any other hand ever

riveting her attention in this unnatural fashion and was suddenly uncom-

fortably conscious of her own. Well kept, even by court standards, they

now felt as clumsy as a row of sausages on a pair of wooden platters.

Hands like Elizabeth’s, she thought darkly, had no place in this mortal

world; hands like that must surely be reserved for the Devil’s work!

She recalled a few things her father’s chaplain had told her of how evil

disguised itself under beauty’s mantle: and she clung a little harder to

Robin’s arm.

The opening gambits of conversation passed over her head, quick,

clever sallies of court wit which she scarcely heard and would not

have understood even had she done so. She said, “Yes, madam,” “No,

madam,” where it seemed appropriate and was just beginning to be satis-

fied that that was all that was required of her—to stand at his side and

look decorative—when a boy in livery summoned Robin to the King’s

side. He went at once, leaving Amy, alone with Elizabeth, staring after

him in dismay.

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For the space of roughly two minutes Elizabeth exerted an honest

effort to be civil to this overdressed country mouse.

It was wasted breath. Amy’s dislike was instinctive and she was not

sufficiently disciplined to hide it beneath a polite veneer of conversation.

Elizabeth sensed the hostility and took the point off her rapier with a clear

conscience and disarming smile.

“You are nervous,” she remarked silkily. “Is it me or the thought of

the marriage bed that ties your tongue in my presence?”

The indelicate suggestion sent a wave of beetroot colour creeping

up Amy’s neck. Elizabeth sat back on the bench and watched her with

satisfaction. This promised to be amusing.

“Have they told you all men are brutes? Oh yes, I’m sure they have! But

not Robin. I think I have seldom met a man more gentle with animals.”

Amy, not quite as stupid as she had made herself appear, caught that

barb and stiffened.

“They say he is the best horseman in England,” continued Elizabeth

innocently. “Do you also love horses, Amy?”

“No, madam.” She was coldly, pointedly formal. “I am afraid of

horses.”
And of you—you are dangerous
!

“But you do ride, I suppose.”

“Never, madam. I travel by litter.”

Elizabeth’s delicate eyebrows arched in genuine astonishment.

“Is that not inconvenient for a horseman of your husband’s stature?”

“He doesn’t mind,” said Amy, defensive now. “Why should he?”

Elizabeth smiled contemptuously behind her fan.

“When you have been a little longer at court you will understand the

necessity of mastering a horse for the hunt.”

“I have no intention of living at court,” said Amy stiffly. “Father

wouldn’t like it.”

“Father gave you away—remember?”

Amy flushed.

“My estates in Norfolk will keep my husband fully occupied,

Your Grace.”

Suddenly, inexplicably Elizabeth lost her temper. She said very low,

very controlled, very spiteful, “Madam, you’re not married to a simple

country squire with no thought in his head beyond next lambing! If that’s

all you have to offer him you won’t hold him past the first encounter!”

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Amy stared, silent, stunned. She was spoilt and smug and in all her

sheltered life no one had ever said such a terrible thing to her. Her pretty

face went first very red, then deathly white and she swayed a little where

she sat.

Elizabeth knew a moment of shamed panic. She did not want the girl