The Virgin's Lover Read online

  Slowly, he rose from the table. “Lady Robsart,” he said quietly, “I warn you not to push me too far. I am defeated now but you should not seek to humiliate me further.”

  “Oh, why not?” She was enjoying herself. “I hardly fear the mightiness of your revenge.”

  “Because it is petty of you,” he said with dignity. “I am very low, as you say. I am a defeated man and I am grieving for the loss of my brother, of three beloved brothers lost in the last two years by my fault. Think of what that means to a man! You could show a little charity even if you have no kindness. When I was Lord Robert, neither you nor Amy’s father wanted for anything.”

  She did not answer, and he rose to his feet. “Come, Amy.”

  Amy did not obey. “I will come in a minute.”

  Lady Robsart turned her head to hide her smile.

  “Come,” Robert said irritably, and held out his hand.

  “I have to clear the plates, and sweep the board.” Amy excused herself.

  He would not ask her again. He turned on his heel at once and went to the door.

  “You will be in the stable yard at dawn, ready for work,” Lady Robsart called after him.

  He closed the door on her triumphant voice.

  Amy waited till they heard him walk away and then she rounded on her stepmother. “How could you?”

  “Why should I not?”

  “Because you will drive him away from here.”

  “I don’t want him here.”

  “Well, I do! If you drive him away then I will go too.”

  “Ah, Amy,” her stepmother counseled. “See sense. He is a defeated man, he is good for nothing. Let him go. He will go back to Philip of Spain or on some other adventure and in some battle or another he will be killed and you will be free. Your marriage was a mistake from start to finish, and now you can let it finish.”

  “Never!” Amy spat at her. “You are mad to even dream it. If he goes out with the plow then I will go out with the plow. If you make him your enemy then you make me your enemy too. I love him, I am his, and he is mine, and nothing will come between us.”

  Lady Robsart was taken aback. “Amy, this is not like you.”

  “No. This is me. I cannot be quiet and obedient when you abuse him. You try to divide us because you think I love my home so much that I will never leave here. Well, hear this: I will go! There is nothing in the world more important to me than Lord Robert. Not even my love for my home, not even my love for you. And even if you will not respect him for himself, you should respect him for me.”

  “Toll loll,” Lady Robsart said with reluctant admiration. “Here’s a thunderstorm for nothing.”

  “It is not nothing,” Amy said stubbornly.

  “It can be nothing.” Her stepmother offered a truce. “You have saved him from the fields, but you will have to find him some occupation. He has to do something, Amy.”

  “We’ll get him a horse,” she decided. “A cheap young horse, and he can break it and train it and we will sell it on and he can buy another. He is a master of horses, he can almost speak to them.”

  “And what will you use to buy his horse?” Lady Robsart demanded. “You’ll have nothing from me.”

  “I will sell my father’s locket,” Amy said staunchly.

  “You’d never sell that!”

  “For Robert, I would.”

  The older woman hesitated. “I’ll lend you the money,” she said. “Don’t sell the locket.”

  Amy smiled at her victory. “Thank you,” she said.

  She left Robert alone for an hour to cool his temper and then she went upstairs to the cramped back bedroom, expecting to find him in their little rope bed, eager to tell him that she had won their battle, that he would not go to the fields, and that he should have a horse to train, perhaps the first of many. But the plain linen sheets were turned down, the headboards undisturbed, the room was empty. Robert was gone.

  Summer 1558

  ROBERT DUDLEY came to court with a grim determination. He had faced the abuse of his wife’s family, and thought he could not fall much lower. But now, in Richmond, the new-built beautiful palace that he loved as his own home, he discovered what it was to be humbled every day. Now he joined the crowd of petitioners that he had once walked past, wondering idly that they could find nothing better to do than beg for favors. Now he joined the ranks of the men who had to wait for the attention of their betters, in the hopes of being introduced to someone higher up the stair of ambition. Everything at the Tudor court came from the throne as the fountain-head of money, position, and place. Power flowed into the lesser tributaries of the great positions of the court and from there was divided and subdivided. Torrents of wealth cascaded from the badly managed treasury; but you had to be in favor with a man who was already in favor to tap a little of the flow for yourself.

  Robert, who had once been the greatest man at court, second only to his father who ruled the king, knew only too well how the system worked from the top. Now he had to learn how it worked at the very bottom.

  He spent days at court, staying in the household of a friend of his brother-in-law, Henry Sidney, seeking preferment: anything, a place or a pension, or even service in the household of a minor lord. But no one would employ him. Some men would not even be seen speaking with him. He was overeducated for any lowly place; how could you ask a man who could speak three languages to write a list of goods that needed to be fetched from another house? He was despised by the ruling class of Catholic lords, who had seen him and his father drive through the Protestant Reformation in King Edward’s years. He was far too glamorous and bold and colorful for anyone to seat below the salt at their table, or use as a junior equerry. No petty lord gained an advantage with the eye-catching Robert Dudley standing behind his chair. No one would take the risk of being outshone by their own servant. No lady of any reputation could take a man who exuded such powerful sexual charm into her household; no man would employ him near his wife or daughters. No one wanted Robert Dudley, with his dazzling dark looks and his sharp wit, in any personal office, and no one would trust him out of their sight.

  He hung around court like a handsome leper and learned to the last chilly note the voice of rejection. Many men who had been glad to be his friend and his follower when he had been Lord Robert now denied that they had ever known him. He found that memories were extraordinarily short. He was outcast in his own country.

  Philip of Spain’s favor now counted for nothing. He seemed to have abandoned England and her queen. He was living in his glamorous court in the Netherlands and was said to have taken a beautiful mistress. Everyone said he would never come to England again. His deserted wife, Queen Mary, confessed that she had been mistaken for a second time—she had failed to conceive his child, she would never now give England an heir. She shrank inside her clothes, and hid inside her private rooms, more like a widow than a ruling queen.

  Robert, unable to trade in his own dishonored name, sign a legal bond, or join a company of merchants, knew that he would never progress until the slur of treason was lifted from his name, and only Queen Mary could restore him. He borrowed a new hat and a new cape from his brother-in-law Henry Sidney and stood in the queen’s presence chamber one damp, misty morning, waiting for her to come out of her rooms on the way to her chapel. Half a dozen other petitioners waited nearby, and they stirred as the door opened and the queen, head down and dressed in black, came out, accompanied only by a couple of women.

  Robert feared she would go past him without looking up, but she glanced at him, recognized him, and paused. “Robert Dudley?”

  He bowed. “Your Grace.”

  “You wanted something of me?” she asked wearily.

  He thought he would have to be as blunt as her. “I wanted to ask you to lift the attainder for treason against my name,” he said frankly. “I served your husband at St. Quentin and Calais and it cost me what was left of my fortune, and also my young brother’s life, Your Grace. With this mark again