The Virgin's Lover Read online

  “And yet?” she asked, uncomprehending.

  “Someone has set the queen against me,” he said simply. “I have had a letter which would make me weep if I did not know that I had done the very best for her that could be done.”

  “A letter from her?”

  “A letter asking me for the stars and the moon as well as peace in Scotland,” he said. “And my guess is that she will not be pleased when I tell her that all I can give her is peace in Scotland.”

  “She is not a fool,” Mildred pointed out. “If you tell her the truth she will hear it. She will know that you have done the best you can, and more than anyone else could have done.”

  “She is in love,” he said shortly. “I doubt she can hear anything but the beating of her heart.”

  “Dudley?”

  “Who else?”

  “It goes on then,” she said. “Even here, we hear such scandal that you would not believe.”

  “I do believe it,” he said. “Most of it is true.”

  “They say that the two are married and that she has his child in hiding.”

  “Now that is a lie,” Cecil said. “But I don’t doubt that she would marry him if he were free.”

  “And is it him who has poisoned her mind against you?”

  He nodded. “I should think so. There can be only one favorite at court. I thought she could enjoy his company and take my advice; but when I have to go away then she has both his company and his advice; and he is a very reckless counselor.”

  Mildred rose from her chair and came to stand beside him and put her hand on his shoulder. “What will you do, William?”

  “I shall go to court,” he said. “I shall make my report. I am hundreds of pounds out of pocket and I expect no recompense or gratitude now. If she will not take my advice then I will have to leave her, as I once threatened to do before. She could not manage without me then; we shall see if she can manage without me now.”

  She was aghast. “William, you cannot leave her to that handsome young traitor. You cannot leave England to be ruled by the two of them. It is to throw our country into the hands of vain children. You cannot leave our church in their hands. They are not to be trusted with it. They are a pair of adulterers. You have to be in her counsel. You have to save her from herself.”

  Cecil, the queen’s most senior and respected advisor, was always advised by his wife. “Mildred, to fight a man like Dudley I would have to use ways and means which are most underhand. I would have to treat him as an enemy of the country. I would have to deal with him as a loyal man turned traitor. I would have to deal with him as I would with…” He broke off to think of an example. “Mary of Guise.”

  “The queen who died so suddenly?” she asked him, her voice carefully neutral.

  “The queen who died so suddenly.”

  She understood him at once but she met his gaze without flinching. “William, you have to do your duty for our country, our church, and our queen. It is God’s work that you do, whatever means you have to use.”

  He looked back into her level gray eyes. “Even if I had to commit a crime, a great sin?”

  “Even so.”

  Cecil returned in the last days of July to find the court on a short progress along the southern shores of the Thames, staying at the best private houses that could be found and enjoying the hunting and the summer weather. He was warned not to expect a hero’s welcome, and he did not receive one.

  “How could you?” Elizabeth greeted him. “How could you throw away our victory? Were you bribed by the French? Have you gone over to their side? Were you sick? Were you too tired to do your task properly? Too old? How could you just forget your duty to me, and your duty to the country? We have spent a fortune in trying to make Scotland safe, and you just let the French go home without binding them to our will?”

  “Your Grace,” he began. He felt himself flush with anger and he looked around to see who was in earshot. Half the court was craning forward to see the confrontation, all of them openly listening. Elizabeth had chosen to meet him in the great hall of her host’s house and there were people standing on the stairs to listen; there were courtiers leaning over the gallery. His scolding was as public as if she had done it at Smithfield market.

  “To have the French at our mercy and to let them go without securing Calais!” she exclaimed. “This is worse than the loss of Calais in the first place. That was an act of war; we fought as hard as we could. This is an act of folly; you have thrown Calais away without making the slightest effort to regain it.”

  “Your Majesty—”

  “And my coat of arms! Has she sworn never to use them again? No? How dare you come back to me with that woman still using my arms?”

  There was nothing Cecil could do under this onslaught. He fell silent and let her rage at him.

  “Elizabeth.” The quiet voice was so filled with confidence that Cecil looked quickly up the grand staircase, to see who dared to address the queen by name. It was Dudley.

  He shot a quick, sympathetic glance at Cecil. “My Lord Secretary has worked hard in your service and brought home the best peace that he could. We may be disappointed in what he has achieved, but I am sure there is no question of his loyalty to our cause and his devotion to our service.”

  Cecil saw how his words, his very tone quietened her temper. He says “our” service? he remarked to himself. Am I serving him now?

  “Let us withdraw with the Lord Secretary,” Dudley suggested. “And he can explain his decisions, and tell us how matters are in Scotland. He has had a long journey and an arduous task.”

  She bridled; Cecil braced himself for more abuse.

  “Come,” Dudley said simply, stretching out his hand to her. “Come, Elizabeth.”

  He commands her by name before the whole court? Cecil demanded of himself in stunned silence.

  But Elizabeth went to him, like a well-trained hound running in to heel, put her hand in his, and let him lead her from the hall. Dudley glanced back to Cecil and allowed himself the smallest smile. Yes, the smile said. Now you see how things are.

  William Hyde summoned his sister to his office, the room where he transacted the business of his estate, a signal to her that the matter was a serious one and not to be confused by emotions or the claims of family ties.

  He was seated behind the great rent table, which was circular and sectioned with drawers, each bearing a letter of the alphabet. The table could turn on its axis toward the landlord and each drawer had the contracts and rent books of the tenant farmers, filed under the initial letter of their name.

  Lizzie Oddingsell remarked idly that the drawer marked “Z” had never been used, and wondered that no one thought to make a table which was missing the “X” and the “Z,” since these must be uncommon initial letters in English. Zebidee, she thought to herself. Xerxes.

  “Sister, it is about Lady Dudley,” William Hyde started without preamble.

  She noticed at once his use of titles for her and for her friend. So they were to conduct this conversation on the most formal footing.

  “Yes, brother?” she replied politely.

  “This is a difficult matter,” he said. “But to be blunt, I think it is time that you took her away.”

  “Away?” she repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “Away to where?”

  “To some other friends.”

  “His lordship has made no arrangements,” she demurred.

  “Have you heard from him at all?”

  “Not since…” She broke off. “Not since he visited her in Norfolk.”

  He raised his eyebrows, and waited.

  “In March,” she added reluctantly.

  “When she refused him a divorce and they parted in anger?”

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “And since then you have had no letter? And neither has she?”

  “Not that I know of…”She met his accusing look. “No, she has not.”

  “Is her allowan