Philippa Gregory's Tudor Court 6-Book Boxed Set (296 page)

“Stranger things happen to further God’s will,” Catherine said confidently. “And if the regent Mary lives, why should she not be pushed off her throne by a handsome Protestant heir?”

Elizabeth frowned and glanced around the room to see who was listening. “Enough, Catherine, matchmaking doesn’t suit you.”

“It is both matchmaking and the safety of our nation and our faith,” Catherine said, unrepentant. “And you have the chance to secure Scotland for your son, and save it from the Antichrist of Popery by marrying a handsome young man. It sounds to me as if there is no decision to take. Who would not want the Earl of Arran, fighting on the side of the Scottish lords for God’s kingdom on earth, and the kingdom of Scotland as his dowry?”

*  *  *

Catherine Knollys might be certain in her preference for the young Earl of Arran, but at the end of February another suitor appeared at Elizabeth’s court: the Austrian ambassador, Count von Helfenstein, pressing the claims of the Hapsburg archdukes, Charles and Ferdinand.

“You are a flower pestered by butterflies.” Robert Dudley smiled as they walked in the cold gardens of Whitehall Palace, two of Elizabeth’s new guards following them at a discreet distance.

“Indeed, I must be, for I do nothing to attract.”

“Nothing?” he asked her, one dark eyebrow raised.

She paused to peep up at him from under the brim of her hat. “I invite no attention,” she claimed.

“Not the way that you walk?”

“For sure, I go from one place to another.”

“The way you dance?”

“In the Italian manner, as most ladies do.”

“Oh, Elizabeth!”

“You may not call me Elizabeth.”

“Well, you may not lie to me.”

“What rule is this?”

“One for your benefit. Now, to return to the subject. You attract suitors in the way that you speak.”

“I am bound to be polite to visiting diplomats.”

“You are more than polite, you are . . .”

“What?” she asked with a giggle of laughter in her voice.

“Promising.”

“Ah, I promise nothing!” she said at once. “I never promise.”

“Exactly,” he said. “That is the very snare of you. You sound promising, but you promise nothing.”

She laughed aloud in her happiness. “It’s true,” she confessed. “But to be honest, sweet Robin, I have to play this game, it is not just my own pleasure.”

“You would never marry a Frenchman for the safety of England?”

“I would never turn one down,” she said. “Any suitor of mine is an ally for England. It is more like playing chess than a courtship.”

“And does no man make your heart beat a little faster?” he asked, in a sudden swoop to intimacy.

Elizabeth looked up at him, her gaze straight, her expression devoid of coquetry, absolutely honest. “Not a one,” she said simply.

For a moment he was utterly taken aback.

She crowed with laughter. “Got you!” She pointed at him. “You vain dog! And you thought you had caught me!”

He caught the hand and carried it to his mouth. “I think I will never catch you,” he said. “But I should be a happy man to spend my life in trying.”

She tried to laugh, but at his drawing closer, the laugh was caught in her throat. “Ah, Robert . . .”

“Elizabeth?”

She would have pulled her hand away, but he held it close.

“I will have to marry a prince,” she said unsteadily. “It is a game to see where the dice best falls, but I know that I cannot rule alone and I must have a son to come after me.”

“You have to marry a man who can serve your interests, and serve the interests of the country,” he said steadily. “And you would be wise to choose a man that you would like to bed.”

She gave a little gasp of shock. “You’re very free, Sir Robert.”

His confidence was quite unshaken, he still held her hand in his warm grip. “I am very sure,” he said softly. “You are a young woman as well as a queen. You have a heart as well as a crown. And you should choose a man for your desires as well as for your country. You’re not a woman for a cold bed, Elizabeth. You’re not a woman that can marry for policy alone. You want a man you can love and trust. I know this. I know you.”

T
HE LENT LILIES
were out in Cambridgeshire in a sprawl of cream and gold in the fields by the river, and the blackbirds were singing in the hedges. Amy Dudley went out riding with Mrs. Woods every morning and proved to be a charming house guest, admiring their fields of sheep and knowledgeable about the hay crop which was starting to green up through the dry blandness of the winter grass.

“You must long for an estate of your own,” Mrs. Woods remarked as they rode through a spinney of young oaks.

“I hope that we will buy one,” Amy said happily. “Flitcham Hall, near my old home. My stepmother writes to me that squire Symes is ready to sell and I have always liked it. My father said he would give his fortune for it. He hoped to buy it a few years ago for Robert and me but then . . .” She broke off. “Anyway, I hope that we can have it now. It has three good stands of woodland, and two fresh rivers. It has some good wet meadows where the rivers join, and on the higher land the earth can support a good crop, mostly barley. The higher fields are for sheep of course, and I know the flock, I have ridden there since childhood. My lord liked the look of the place and I think he would have bought it, but when our troubles came . . .” She broke off again. “Anyway,” she said more happily, “I have asked Lizzie Oddingsell to write to tell him that it is for sale, and I am waiting for his reply.”

“And have you not seen him since the queen inherited?” Mrs. Woods asked incredulously.

Amy laughed it off. “No! Is it not a scandal? I thought he would come home for Twelfth Night, indeed, he promised that he would; but since he is Master of Horse, he was in charge of all the festivities at court, and he had so much to do. The queen rides or hunts every day, you know. He has to manage her stables and all the entertainments of the court as well, masques and balls and parties and everything.”

“Don’t you want to join him?”

“Oh, no,” Amy said decidedly. “I went to London with him when his father was alive and the whole family was at court and it was dreadful!”

Mrs. Woods laughed at her. “Why, what was so terrible about it?”

“Most of the day there is nothing to do but to stand about and talk of nothing,” Amy said frankly. “For men of course there is the business of the Privy Council and parliament to discuss, and endless seeking of pensions and places and favors. But for women there is only service in the queen’s rooms and nothing more, really. Very few ladies take an interest in the business of the realm, and no man would want my opinion anyway. I had to sit with my mother-in-law for days and days at a time, and she had no interest in anyone but the duke, her husband, and her sons. My husband’s four brothers were all brilliant and very loyal to each other, and he has two sisters, Lady Catherine and Mary . . .”

“That is Lady Sidney now?”

“Yes, her. They all think that Sir Robert is a very god, and so no one would ever have been good enough for him. Least of all me. They all thought I was a fool and by the time I was allowed to leave, I absolutely agreed with them.”

Mrs. Woods laughed with Amy. “What a nightmare! But you must have had opinions; you were in a family at the very heart of power.”

Amy made a little face. “You learned very quickly in that family that if you had opinions that did not agree with the duke, then you had better not voice them,” she said. “Although my husband rode out against her, I always knew that Queen Mary was the true queen, and I always knew that her faith would triumph. But it was better for me, and better for Robert, if I kept my thoughts and my faith to myself.”

“But such a test of fortitude! Never to argue when they were so overbearing!”

Amy giggled. “I cannot begin to tell you,” she said. “And the worst of it is that Sir Robert is not like that. When I first met him at my father’s house he was such a boy, so sweet and loving. We were going to take a little manor house and keep sheep and he was going to breed horses. And here I am, still waiting for him to come home.”

“I always longed to go to court,” Mrs. Woods remarked into the wistful pause. “Mr. Woods took me once to see the old queen at her dinner and it was very grand.”

“It takes forever,” Amy said flatly. “And the food is always cold, and half the time it is so badly cooked that everyone goes back to their own rooms and has their own food cooked for them there, so they can have something good to eat. You aren’t allowed to keep your own hunting dogs, and you cannot have more servants than the Lord Chamberlain allows, and you have to keep court hours . . . up late and to bed late till you are so tired you could die.”

“But that life pleases Sir Robert?” Mrs. Woods observed acutely.

Amy nodded and turned her horse for home. “It does for now. He was born in the palaces with the royal family. He lived like a prince. But in his heart I know that he is still the young man that I fell in love with who wanted nothing more than some good pastureland to breed beautiful horses. I know I must be true to that—whatever it costs me.”

“But what about you?” Mrs. Woods asked gently, bringing her horse alongside the younger woman.

“I keep faith,” Amy said staunchly. “I wait for him, and I trust that he will come home to me. I married him because I loved him just as he is. And he married me because he loved me, just as I am. And when the newness of this queen and the reign has worn off, when all the pensions and the places have been snapped up and the privileges all dispensed, then, when he has the time, he will come home to me, and there I will be, in our lovely house, with his beautiful foals at foot by the mares in the field, and everything just as it should be.”

*  *  *

Elizabeth’s flirtation by private letter with Philip of Spain went far enough to alarm William Cecil, went far enough to alarm Catherine Knollys. But Mary Sidney, in low-voiced consultation with her beloved brother Robert Dudley, was reassuring.

“I am certain she is only securing him as an ally,” she said quietly. “And amusing herself, of course. She has to have constant admiration.”

He nodded. They were riding together, ambling home from hunting on a long rein, both horses sweaty and blowing. Ahead, the queen was riding with Catherine Knollys on one side and a new, sweet-faced young man on the other. Robert Dudley had taken a good look at him and was not concerned. Elizabeth would never fall for a pretty face; she needed a man who would make her catch her breath.

“As an ally against France?” he suggested.

“It’s the pattern,” she said. “Philip stood with us against France when they took Calais; we stood with him when they threatened the Netherlands.”

“Does she want him to stand her friend so that she can go against the Scottish regent?” he asked. “Does she like Cecil’s plan to support the Scottish Protestants? Does she say anything when she is quiet and alone with you women? Is she planning for war, as Cecil says she must?”

Mary shook her head. “She is like a horse with flies. She cannot be at peace. Sometimes she seems to think that she should help them, she shares their faith, and of course the French are the greatest threat to our peace. But other times she is too afraid to make the first move against an anointed monarch. She worries what enemies she might unleash here. And she is in living terror of someone coming against her secretly, with a knife. She dare not do anything to increase the number of her enemies.”

He frowned. “Cecil is very sure that France is our greatest danger and that we must fight them now, while the Scots themselves are turning against their masters. This is our moment while they are calling on us for help.”

“Cecil would have her marry Arran,” Mary guessed. “Not Philip. Cecil hates the Spanish and Popery more than anyone, though he always speaks so calmly and so measured.”

“Have you ever seen Arran?”

“No, but Catherine Knollys speaks very highly of him. She says he is handsome and clever, and of course his claim to the throne of Scotland is second only to Mary, Queen of Scots. If the queen marries him and he defeats the regent and takes the throne, then their son would unite the kingdoms.”

She saw Dudley’s face darken. “He is our greatest danger,” he said, and she knew he was not speaking of the danger to England but the danger to themselves.

“She likes you better than any other man at court,” she said, smiling. “She is always saying how skilled you are and how handsome. She is always remarking on it, and even the youngest maids-in-waiting know that if they want to please her they only have to say how well you ride, or how well the horses are managed, or what wonderful taste you have in clothes. Laetitia Knollys is positively unmaidenly in the way she talks about you, and the queen laughs.”

She had thought he would laugh, but his face was still sullen. “What good is that to me, since I have a wife?” he asked. “And besides, Elizabeth would not marry to disoblige the throne.”

He shocked her into complete silence.

“What?” she asked.

He met her astounded gaze frankly. “Elizabeth would not marry against policy, whatever her desires,” he said flatly. “And I am not free.”