The Virgin's Lover Read online

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Mrs. Forster said. “We won’t leave you all on your own.”

  “I insist,” Amy said. “You were looking forward to it, and as Mr. Forster said yesterday, if you want some ribbons or something, the first day is always best.”

  “We can all go tomorrow, when you are better,” Lizzie put in.

  Amy rounded on her. “No!” she said. “Didn’t you hear me? I just said. I want you all to go, as you planned. I shall stay behind. But I want you all to go. Please! My head throbs so, I cannot stand an argument about it! Just go!”

  “But will you dine alone?” Mrs. Forster asked. “If we all go?”

  “I shall dine with Mrs. Owen,” Amy said. “If I feel well enough. And I shall see you all when you come home again. But you must go!”

  “Very well,” Lizzie said, throwing a warning glance at Mrs. Forster. “Don’t get so distressed, Amy dear. We’ll all go and we’ll tell you all about it tonight, when you have had a good sleep and are feeling better.”

  At once the irritability left Amy, and she smiled. “Thank you, Lizzie,” she said. “I shall be able to rest if I know you are all having a good time at the fair. Don’t come back till after dinner.”

  “No,” Lizzie Oddingsell said. “And if I see some nice blue ribbons that would match your riding hat I will buy them for you.”

  The queen went to the Royal Chapel in Windsor Castle and walked in the garden on Sunday morning. Laetitia Knollys walked demurely behind her, carrying her shawl and a book of devotional poems in case the queen chose to sit and read.

  Robert Dudley walked to meet her as she stood, looking toward the river where a few little wherry boats plied up and down to London and back.

  He bowed in greeting. “Good morning,” he said. “Are you not tired after your celebrations yesterday?”

  “No,” Elizabeth said. “I am never tired by dancing.”

  “I thought you might come to me, even though you had said you wouldn’t. I couldn’t sleep without you.”

  She put her hand out to him. “It is still my time,” she said sweetly. “It will only be another day or two.”

  He covered her hand with his own. “Of course,” he said. “You know I would never press you. And when we declare our marriage and we sleep in the same bed every night you shall order it just as you please. Don’t be afraid of that.”

  Elizabeth, who had thought that she would always order everything just as she pleased by right, and not by another’s permission, kept her face perfectly calm. “Thank you, my love,” she said sweetly.

  “Shall we walk?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. “I am going to sit and read.”

  “I will leave you then,” he said. “I have an errand to run but I shall be back by dinner time.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just to look at some horses in Oxfordshire,” he said vaguely. “I doubt they will be worth buying but I promised to go and see them.”

  “On a Sunday?” she said, faintly disapproving.

  “I’ll just look,” he said. “There is no sin in looking at a horse on a Sunday, surely. Or shall you be a very strict Pope?”

  “I shall be a strict supreme governor of the church,” she said with a smile.

  He leaned toward her as if he would kiss her cheek. “Then give me a divorce,” he whispered in her ear.

  Amy, seated in the silent house, waited for Robert’s arrival, as he had promised in his letter. The house was quite empty except for old Mrs. Owen, who had gone to sleep in her room after an early dinner. Amy had walked in the garden, and then, obedient to the instructions in Robert’s letter, gone to wait in her room in the empty house.

  The window overlooked the drive and she sat in the window seat and watched for the Dudley standard and the cavalcade of riders.

  “Perhaps he has quarreled with her,” she whispered to herself. “Perhaps she is tired of him. Or perhaps she has finally agreed to marry the archduke and they know that they have to part.”

  She thought for a moment. Whatever the reason, I have to take him back without reproach. That would be my duty to him as his wife. She paused. She could not stop her heart from lifting. And, in any case, whatever the reason, I would take him back without reproach. He is my husband, he is my love, the only love of my life. If he comes back to me— She broke off from the thought. I can’t even imagine how happy I would be if he were to come back to me.

  She heard the sound of a single horse and she looked out of the window. It was not one of Robert’s high-bred horses, and not Robert, riding high and proud on the horse, one hand on the taut reins, one hand on his hip. It was another man, bowed low over the neck of the horse, his hat pulled down over his face.

  Amy waited for the sound of the peal of the bell, but there was silence. She thought perhaps he had gone to the stable yard and would find it empty since all the lads had gone to the fair. She rose to her feet, thinking that she had better go and greet this stranger herself, since no servants were at home. But as she did so, her bedroom door silently opened, and a tall stranger came in quietly and shut the door behind him.

  Amy gasped. “Who are you?”

  She could not see his face, he still had his hat pulled low over his eyes. His cape was of dark blue wool, without a badge of rank. She did not recognize his height nor his broad build.

  “Who are you?” she asked again, her voice sharp with fear. “Answer me! And how dare you come into my room!”

  “Lady Amy Dudley?” he asked, his voice low and quiet.

  “Yes.”

  “Sir Robert Dudley’s wife?”

  “Yes. And you are?”

  “He said for me to come to you. He wants you to come to him. He loves you once more. Look out of the window, he is waiting for you.”

  With a little cry, Amy turned to the window and at once the man stepped behind her. In one swift motion he took her jaw in his hands and quickly twisted her neck sideways and upward. It broke with a crack, and she slumped in his hands without even a cry.

  He lowered her to the floor, listening intently. There was no sound in the house at all. She had sent everyone away, as she had been told to do. He picked her up, she was as light as a child, her cheeks still flushed pink from the moment that she thought that Robert had come to love her. The man held her in his arms and carried her carefully from the room, down the little winding stone stair, a short flight of half a dozen steps, and laid her at the foot, as if she had fallen.

  He paused and listened again. Still, the house was silent. Amy’s hood was slipping back off her head, and her gown was crumpled, showing her legs. He did not feel he could leave her uncovered. Gently, he pulled down the skirts of the gown and put the hood straight on her head. Her forehead was still warm, her skin soft to his touch. It was like leaving a sleeping child.

  Quietly, he went out through the outer door. His horse was tethered outside. It raised its head when it saw him but it did not whinny. He closed the door behind him, mounted his horse, and turned its head away from Cumnor Place to Windsor.

  Amy’s body was found by two servants who had come home from the fair, a little ahead of the others. They were courting and had hoped to steal an hour alone together. When they came into the house they saw her, lying at the foot of the stairs, her skirts pulled down, her hood set tidily on her head. The girl screamed and fainted, but the young man gently picked up Amy, and laid her on her bed. When Mrs. Forster came home they met her at the gate and told her that Lady Dudley was dead from falling down the stairs.

  “Amy!” Lizzie Oddingsell breathed her name and flung herself from her horse and raced up the stairs to Amy’s bedroom.

  She was laid on her bed, her neck turned horridly so that her face was twisted toward the door, though her shoulders lay flat. Her expression was the blankness of death, her skin was chill as stone.

  “Oh, Amy, what have you done?” Lizzie mourned. “What have you done? We’d have found a way round things, we’d have foun