The Virgin's Lover Read online

  He went to Amy with the letter in his hand. “It seems that you are to leave us.”

  “So soon?” she said. “Did he say nothing about a house here?”

  “The queen has given him a great place in Kent,” he said. “He writes to tell me. Knole Place, do you know it?”

  She shook her head. “So does he not want me to look for a house for him now? Are we not to live in Oxfordshire? Shall we live in Kent?”

  “He does not say,” he said gently, thinking that it was a shame that she should have to ask a friend where her home would be. Her very public quarrel with her husband had obviously wounded her deeply; he had watched her shrink inside herself as if shamed. In recent weeks she had become very devout and it was William Hyde’s view that churchgoing was a comfort to women, especially when they were in the grip of unhappy circumstances over which they had no control. A good priest like Father Wilson could be counted on to preach resignation; and William Hyde believed, as did other men of his age, that resignation was a great virtue in a wife. He saw her hand go to her breast.

  “Are you in pain, Lady Dudley?” he asked. “I often see you put your hand to your heart. Should you see a physician before you go?”

  “No,” she said with a swift, sad smile. “It is nothing. When does my lord say I am to leave?”

  “Within three days,” he said. “You are to go first to Cumnor Place to visit the Forsters, and then to your friend Mr. Hyde at Chislehurst. We shall be sorry to lose you. But I hope you will come back to us soon. You are like one of the family now, Lady Dudley. It is always such a pleasure to have you here.”

  To his discomfort, her eyes filled with tears and he went quickly to the door, fearing a scene.

  But she only smiled at him and said, “You are so kind. I always like coming here; your house feels like a home to me now.”

  “I am sure you will come back to us soon,” he said cheerfully.

  “Perhaps you will come and see me. Perhaps I am to live at Knole,” she said. “Perhaps Robert intends that to be my new home.”

  “Perhaps,” he said.

  Laetitia Knollys stood before William Cecil’s great desk in his handsome rooms at Hampton Court, her hands clasped behind her, her face composed.

  “Blanche Parry told the queen that she was playing with fire and she would burn down the whole house and us inside it,” she reported.

  Cecil looked up. “And the queen said?”

  “She said she had done nothing wrong, and no one could prove anything of her.”

  “And Mistress Parry said?”

  “She said that one only had to look at the two of them to know they were lovers.” A quaver of laughter colored her solemn tone. “She said they were hot as chestnuts on a shovel.”

  Cecil scowled at her.

  “And the queen?”

  “Threw Blanche out of her rooms and told her not to come back until she had rinsed her mouth of gossip or she would find her tongue slit for slander.”

  “Anything else?”

  She shook her head. “No, sir. Blanche cried and said her heart was breaking; but I suppose that’s not important.”

  “The queen sleeps always with a companion, a guard on the door?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So there could be no truth in this vile gossip.”

  “No, sir,” Laetitia repeated like a schoolgirl. “Unless…”

  “Unless?”

  “Unless there is a doorway behind the paneling, so that the queen could slip out of her bed when her companion is asleep and go through a secret door to Sir Robert, as they say her father the king used to do when he wanted to visit a woman.”

  “But no such passage exists,” Cecil said flatly.

  “Unless it is possible that a man can lie with a woman in the hours of daylight, and if they do not need a bed. If they can do it under a tree, or in a secret corner, or up against a wall in a hurry.” Her dark eyes were brimful of mischief.

  “All this may be true, but I doubt that your father would be pleased to know of your thoughts,” Cecil said severely. “And I must remind you to keep such speculation to yourself.”

  Her dark eyes gleamed at him. “Yes, sir, of course, sir,” she said demurely.

  “You can go,” Cecil said. Good God, if that little minx can say that to my face, what can they be saying behind my back?

  Sir Robert was leaning down to whisper to the seated queen, when Cecil walked into the presence chamber, and saw the queen laugh up at him. The desire between the two of them was so powerful that for a moment Cecil thought he could almost see it, then he shook his head against such nonsense and went forward to make his bow.

  “Oh, no bad news, Cecil, please!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

  He tried to smile. “Not one word. But can I walk with you for a moment?”

  She rose from her seat. “Don’t go,” she said quietly to Robert.

  “I might go to the stables,” he said.

  Her hand flew out and touched his sleeve. “Wait for me, I’ll only be a moment.”

  “I might,” he said teasingly.

  “You wait, or I’ll behead you,” she whispered.

  “I’d certainly lie down for you and tell you when I was ready.”

  At her ripple of shocked laughter, the court looked around and saw Cecil, once her greatest friend and only advisor, waiting patiently, while she tore herself away from Sir Robert, her cheeks flushed.

  Cecil offered his arm.

  “What is it?” she asked, not very agreeably.

  He waited until they had walked from the presence chamber into the long room of the gallery. Members of the court lingered here too, and some came strolling out of the presence chamber to watch Cecil and the queen, to wait their turn to catch her attention now that someone, at last, had separated her from Dudley.

  “I hear from Paris that the French are to send reinforcements to Scotland to assist the queen regent.”

  “Well, we knew that they would,” she said indifferently. “But some people think that the Scots will not man the siege for very long anyway. They never carry more than a fortnight’s supplies; they will just give up and go home.”

  So says Sir Robert, does he? Cecil said quietly to himself. “We had better pray that they do not,” he said with some asperity. “For those Scots lords are our first line of defense against the French. And the news I have is that the French are sending men to Scotland.”

  “How many?” she asked, determined not to be frightened.

  “One thousand pikemen and one thousand arquebusiers. Two thousand men in all.”

  He had wanted to shock her but he thought he had gone too far. She went quite white and he put his hand on the small of her back to steady her.

  “Cecil, that is more than they need to defeat the Scots.”

  “I know,” he said. “That is the first wave of an invading force.”

  “They mean to come.” She spoke in little more than a frightened whisper. “They really mean to invade England.”

  “I am certain that they do,” he said.

  “What can we do?” She looked up at him, sure that he would have a plan.

  “We must send Sir Ralph Sadler to Berwick at once to make an agreement with the Scots lords.”

  “Sir Ralph?”

  “Of course. He served your father faithfully in Scotland and he knows half the Scots lords by name. We must send him with a war chest. And he must inspect the border defenses and strengthen them to keep the French out of England.”

  “Yes,” she agreed quickly. “Yes.”

  “I can put that in hand?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Where is Arran?”

  He looked grim. “He’s on his way; my man is bringing him in.”

  “Unless he has gone back to Geneva,” she said bleakly. “Thinking the odds too great against him.”

  “He’s on his way,” said Cecil, knowing that his best man had been sent to Geneva with orders to bring Arran to London, whether he liked it or n