The Virgin's Lover Read online

  “Who would finish it for us?” Cecil asked, knowing the most likely answer. “What commander would the Scots follow that would be our friend?”

  One of the Privy Councillors looked up. “Where is the Earl of Arran?” he asked.

  “On his way to England,” Cecil replied, hiding his sense of smugness. “When he gets here, if we can come to an agreement with him, we could send him north with an army. But he is only young…”

  “He is only young, but he has the best claim to the throne after the French queen,” someone said farther down the table. “We can back him with a clear conscience. He is our legitimate claimant to the throne.”

  “There is only one agreement that he would accept and that we could offer,” Norfolk said dourly. “The queen.”

  A few men glanced at the closed door as if to ensure that it did not burst open and Elizabeth storm in, flushed with temper. Then, one by one, they all nodded.

  “What of the Spanish alliance with the archduke?” Francis Bacon, brother to Sir Nicholas, asked Cecil.

  Cecil shrugged. “They are still willing and she says she is willing to have him. But I’d rather we had Arran. He is of our faith, and he brings us Scotland and the chance to unite England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. That would make us a power to reckon with. The archduke keeps the Spanish on our side, but what will they want of us? Whereas Arran’s interests are the same as ours, and if they were to marry,” he took a breath, his hopes were so precious he could hardly bear to say them, “if they were to marry we would unite Scotland and England.”

  “Yes: if,” Norfolk said irritably. “If we could make her seriously look twice at any man who wasn’t a damned adulterous rascal.”

  Most of the men nodded.

  “Certainly we need either Spanish help or Arran to lead the campaign,” Knollys said. “We cannot do it on our own. The French have four times our wealth and manpower.”

  “And they are determined,” another man said uneasily. “I heard from my cousin in Paris. He said that the Guise family will rule every thing, and they are sworn enemies of England. Look at what they did in Calais; they just marched in. They will take one step in Scotland and then they will march on us.”

  “If she married Arran…” someone started.

  “Arran! What chance of her marrying Arran!” Norfolk burst out. “All very well to consider which suitor would be the best for the country, but how is she to marry while she sees no one and thinks of no one but Dudley? He has to be put out of the way. She is like a milkmaid with a swain. Where the devil is she now?”

  Elizabeth was lying under an oak tree on Dudley’s hunting cape, their horses were hitched to a nearby tree, Dudley was leaning against the tree behind her, her head in his lap, twisting her ringlets around his fingers.

  “How long have we been gone?” she asked him.

  “An hour perhaps, no more.”

  “And do you always pull your mistresses off their horses and bed them on the ground?”

  “D’you know,” he said confidingly, “I have never done such a thing in my life before. I have never felt such desire before, I have always been a man who could wait for the right time, plan his time. But with you…” He broke off.

  She twisted round so she could see his face and he kissed her on the mouth: a long, warm kiss.

  “I am full of desire again,” she said wonderingly. “I am becoming a glutton for you.”

  “I too,” he said softly and pulled her up so that she was lying like a sinuous snake along him. “It’s a satisfaction that brings with it only more appetite.”

  A long, low whistle alerted them. “That’s Tamworth’s signal,” Robert said. “Someone must be coming near.”

  At once Elizabeth was up and on her feet, brushing the leaves off her hunting gown, looking around for her hat. Robert snatched up his cloak and shook it out. She turned to him. “How do I look?”

  “Uncannily virtuous,” he said, and was rewarded by the flash of her smile.

  She went to her horse and was standing at its head when Catherine Knollys and her groom rode into the little glade followed by Tamworth, Dudley’s valet.

  “There you are! I thought I had lost you!”

  “Where did you get to?” Elizabeth demanded. “I thought you were behind me.”

  “I pulled him up for a moment and then you were all gone. Where is Sir Peter?”

  “His horse went lame,” Robert said. “He is walking home in the sourest of moods. His boots are pinching. Are you hungry? Shall we dine?”

  “I am starving,” Catherine said. “Where are your ladies?”

  “Gone ahead to the picnic,” Elizabeth said easily. “I wanted to wait for you, and Sir Robert stayed to keep me safe. Sir Robert, your hand if you please.”

  He threw her up into the saddle without meeting her eyes and then he mounted his own hunter. “This way,” he said, and rode ahead of the two women to where the ride crossed a small river. On the far side, a pavilion hung with green and white had been erected and they could smell venison roasting on the fire and see the servants unpacking pastries and sweetmeats.

  “I am so hungry,” Elizabeth exclaimed with pleasure. “I have never had such an appetite before.”

  “You are becoming a glutton,” Robert remarked to Catherine’s surprise. She caught the quick, complicit look that passed between her friend and Sir Robert.

  “A glutton?” she exclaimed. “The queen eats like a bird.”

  “A gluttonous peacock then,” he said, quite unreproved. “Greed and vanity in one,” and Elizabeth giggled.

  On Wednesday evening Denchworth church seemed to be deserted, the door unlocked but shut. Tentatively, Amy turned the big iron handle and felt the door yield under her touch. An old lady in the pew at the back looked up and pointed silently toward the lady chapel at the side of the church. Amy nodded and went toward it.

  The curtains were drawn across the stone tracery separating the chapel from the main body of the church. Amy drew them aside and slipped in. Two or three people were praying at the altar rail. Amy paused for a moment and then slipped into the rear pew near to the priest, who was in close-headed conference with a young man. After a few moments the youth, head bowed, took his place at the altar rail. Amy went beside Father Wilson and knelt on the worn cushion.

  “Heavenly Father, I have sinned,” she said quietly.

  “What is your sin, my daughter?”

  “I have failed in my love of my husband. I have set my judgment above his.” She hesitated. “I thought I knew better than him how we should live. I see now that it was the sin of pride, my pride. Also, I thought I could win him from the court and bring him back to me and that we could live in a small way, a mean way. But he is a great man, born to be a great man. I am afraid that I have been envious of his greatness, and I think even my beloved father…” She strained her voice to speak the disloyal criticism. “Even my father was envious.” She paused. “They were so far above our station… And I fear that in our hearts we both reveled in his fall. I think that secretly we were glad to see him humbled, and I have not been generous about his rise to power ever since. I have not been truly glad for him, as a wife and helpmeet should be.”

  She paused. The priest was silent.

  “I have been envious of his greatness and the excitement of his life and his importance at court,” she said softly. “And worse. I have been jealous of the love that he bears the queen and suspicious of that. I have poisoned my love for him with envy and jealousy. I have poisoned myself. I have made myself sick with sin and I have to be cured of this sickness and forgiven this sin.”

  The priest hesitated. In every alehouse in the land there were men who swore that Robert Dudley was the queen’s lover and they were giving odds on that he would put his wife aside on some excuse, or poison her, or drown her in the river. There was little doubt in the priest’s mind that Amy’s worst fears were near to the truth. “He is your husband, set above you by God,” he said slowly.