The Virgin's Lover Read online

  “You will recall the fleet,” she commanded, white to her ruff.

  Cecil spread his hands. “They have sailed,” he said. “With orders to attack.”

  “Bring back my army!”

  He shook his head. “They are marching north, recruiting as they go. We are on a war footing; we cannot reverse the decision.”

  “We cannot go to war with the French!” she almost screamed at him.

  The Privy Councillors bowed their heads to the table. Cecil alone faced her. “The die is already cast,” he said. “Your Grace, we are at war. England is at war with France. God help us.”

  Spring 1560

  ROBERT DUDLEY came to Stanfield Hall in March, a bad month for traveling on ill-maintained roads, and arrived chilled and bad-tempered.

  No one was waiting for him; he had sent no warning that he would be coming, and Amy, a reluctant listener to the constant rumors that said that he and the queen were once more inseparable, hardly expected ever to see him again.

  As soon as the horses clattered into the yard Lady Robsart came to find her.

  “He’s here!” she said coldly.

  Amy leapt to her feet. “He” could only ever mean one man at Stanfield Hall. “My lord Robert?”

  “His men are unsaddling in the yard.”

  Amy trembled as she stood. If he had come back to her, after their last parting when she had insisted that she would always be his wife, it could mean only one thing: that he had finished with Elizabeth and wanted to reconcile with his wife. “He is here?” she said again, as if she could not believe it.

  Lady Robsart smiled wryly at her stepdaughter in the shared triumph of women over men. “It looks as if you have won,” she said. “He is here and looking very cold and sorry for himself.”

  “Then he must come in!” Amy exclaimed and dashed toward the stairs. “Tell Cook he’s here, and send word to the village that he will need a couple of hens and someone must slaughter a cow.”

  “A fatted calf, why not?” Lady Robsart said under her breath; but she went to do her stepdaughter’s bidding.

  Amy dashed down the stairs and flung open the front door. Robert, travel-stained and weary, walked up the short flight of steps, and Amy stepped into his arms.

  From old habit he held her close to him, and Amy, feeling his arms come around her, and that familiar touch of his hand on her waist and the other on her shoulder blade, leaned her head against his warm, sweat-smelling neck and knew that he had come home to her at last, and that despite it all, all of it, she would forgive him as easily as accepting his kiss.

  “Come in, you must be half frozen,” she said, drawing him into the hall. She threw logs on the fire and pressed him into her father’s heavy carved chair. Lady Robsart came in with hot ale and cakes from the kitchen and dipped a curtsy.

  “Good day to you,” she said neutrally. “I have sent your men to find beds in the village. We cannot accommodate such a large company here.”

  To Amy she remarked, “Hughes says he has some well-hung venison that he can let us have.”

  “I don’t wish to put you out,” Robert said politely, as if he had not once cursed her to her face.

  “How could you put us out?” Amy demanded. “This is my home; you are always welcome here. There is always a place for you here.”

  Robert said nothing at the thought of Lady Robsart’s cold house being their home, and her ladyship took herself out of the room to see about beds, and a pudding.

  “My lord, it is so good to see you.” Amy put another log on the fire. “I shall get my maid Mrs. Pirto to lay out your linen; the shirt you left here last time is all mended, you can’t see the darn, I did it so carefully.”

  “Thank you,” he said awkwardly. “Surely Mrs. Pirto does the mending for you?”

  “I like to do your linen myself,” Amy said. “Shall you want to wash?”

  “Later,” he said.

  “Only I will have to warn Cook, to heat the water.”

  “Yes, I know. I lived here long enough.”

  “You were hardly here at all! And anyway, things are much better now.”

  “Well, in any case I remember that you cannot have a jug of hot water without mentioning it first thing in the morning on the third Sunday in the month.”

  “It’s just that we have a small fireplace and…”

  “I know,” he said wearily. “I remember all about the small fireplace.”

  Amy fell silent. She did not dare ask him the one thing that she wanted to know: how long he would stay with her. When he broodingly watched the fire in silence she put on another log and they both watched the sparks fly up the dark chimney.

  “How was your journey?”

  “All right.”

  “Which horse did you bring?”

  “Blithe, my hunter,” he said, surprised.

  “Did you not bring a spare horse?”

  “No,” he said, hardly hearing the question.

  “Shall I unpack your bags?” She rose to her feet. “Did you bring many bags?”

  “Just the one.”

  Robert did not see her face fall. She understood at once that one horse and one bag meant a short visit.

  “And Tamworth will have done it already.”

  “You are not planning on a long stay, then?”

  He looked up at her. “No, no, I am sorry, I should have said. Matters are very grave; I have to get back to court. I just wanted to see you, Amy, about something important.”

  “Yes?”

  “We’ll talk tomorrow,” he decided. “But I need your help, Amy. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

  She blushed at the thought of him coming to her for help. “You know that anything I can do for you, I will do.”

  “I know it,” he said. “I am glad of it.” He rose to his feet and put his hands to the blaze.

  “I like it when you ask things of me,” she said shyly. “It always used to be like that.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You are cold; shall I light a fire in our bedchamber?”

  “No, no,” he said. “I’ll change my shirt and come down at once.”

  Her smile lit up her face like a girl’s. “And we shall have such a good dinner; the family here has been living on mutton and I am heartily sick of it!”

  It was a good dinner, with venison steaks, a mutton pasty, a chicken broth, and some puddings. There were hardly any vegetables in season, but Amy’s father had been an enthusiast for wines and his cellar was still good. Robert, thinking he would need some help in getting through dinner with the two women, and Lady Robsart’s daughter and son-in-law John Appleyard, fetched up four bottles and prevailed upon them all to help him drink them.

  When they went to bed at a little after nine o’clock the women were tipsy and giggling, and Robert stayed downstairs to finish his glass in good-humored solitude. He left plenty of time for Amy to get into bed and did not go up until he thought she would be asleep.

  He shed his clothes as quietly as he could, and put them on the chest at the foot of the bed. She had left a candle burning for him and in the flickering golden light he thought she looked like a sleeping child. He felt filled with tenderness for her as he blew out her candle and slipped into bed beside her, careful not to touch her.

  Half asleep, she turned toward him and slid her naked leg between his thighs. At once he was aroused, but he shifted a little away from her, firmly taking her waist in his hands and holding her from him, but she gave a little sleepy sigh and put her hand on his chest, and then slid it inexorably down his belly to caress him.

  “Amy,” he whispered.

  He could not see her in the darkness, but the even pace of her breathing told him that although she was still asleep, she was moving toward him in sleep, she was stroking him, sliding toward him, and finally rolling on her back so that he could take her in a state of aroused sleepiness that he, knowing that he was a fool, could not resist. Even as he took his pleasure, even as he heard her cr