Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Read online

  She crowed with laughter. ‘Got you!’ She pointed at him. ‘You vain dog! And you thought you had caught me!’

  He caught the hand and carried it to his mouth. ‘I think I will never catch you,’ he said. ‘But I should be a happy man to spend my life in trying.’

  She tried to laugh, but at his drawing closer, the laugh was caught in her throat. ‘Ah, Robert …’

  ‘Elizabeth?’

  She would have pulled her hand away, but he held it close.

  ‘I will have to marry a prince,’ she said unsteadily. ‘It is a game to see where the dice best falls, but I know that I cannot rule alone and I must have a son to come after me.’

  ‘You have to marry a man who can serve your interests, and serve the interests of the country,’ he said steadily. ‘And you would be wise to choose a man that you would like to bed.’

  She gave a little gasp of shock. ‘You’re very free, Sir Robert.’

  His confidence was quite unshaken, he still held her hand in his warm grip. ‘I am very sure,’ he said softly. ‘You are a young woman as well as a queen. You have a heart as well as a crown. And you should choose a man for your desires as well as for your country. You’re not a woman for a cold bed, Elizabeth. You’re not a woman that can marry for policy alone. You want a man you can love and trust. I know this. I know you.’

  Spring 1559

  The lent lilies were out in Cambridgeshire in a sprawl of cream and gold in the fields by the river, and the blackbirds were singing in the hedges. Amy Dudley went out riding with Mrs Woods every morning and proved to be a charming house guest, admiring their fields of sheep and knowledgeable about the hay crop which was starting to green up through the dry blandness of the winter grass.

  ‘You must long for an estate of your own,’ Mrs Woods remarked as they rode through a spinney of young oaks.

  ‘I hope that we will buy one,’ Amy said happily. ‘Flitcham Hall, near my old home. My stepmother writes to me that squire Symes is ready to sell and I have always liked it. My father said he would give his fortune for it. He hoped to buy it a few years ago for Robert and me but then …’ She broke off. ‘Anyway, I hope that we can have it now. It has three good stands of woodland, and two fresh rivers. It has some good wet meadows where the rivers join, and on the higher land the earth can support a good crop, mostly barley. The higher fields are for sheep of course, and I know the flock, I have ridden there since childhood. My lord liked the look of the place and I think he would have bought it, but when our troubles came …’ She broke off again. ‘Anyway,’ she said more happily. ‘I have asked Lizzie Oddingsell to write to tell him that it is for sale, and I am waiting for his reply.’

  ‘And have you not seen him since the queen inherited?’ Mrs Woods asked incredulously.

  Amy laughed it off. ‘No! Is it not a scandal? I thought he would come home for Twelfth Night, indeed, he promised that he would; but since he is Master of Horse, he was in charge of all the festivities at court, and he had so much to do. The queen rides or hunts every day, you know. He has to manage her stables and all the entertainments of the court as well, masques and balls and parties and everything.’

  ‘Don’t you want to join him?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Amy said decidedly. ‘I went to London with him when his father was alive and the whole family was at court and it was dreadful!’

  Mrs Woods laughed at her. ‘Why, what was so terrible about it?’

  ‘Most of the day there is nothing to do but to stand about and talk of nothing,’ Amy said frankly. ‘For men of course there is the business of the Privy Council and parliament to discuss, and endless seeking of pensions and places and favours. But for women there is only service in the queen’s rooms and nothing more, really. Very few ladies take an interest in the business of the realm, and no man would want my opinion anyway. I had to sit with my mother-in-law for days and days at a time, and she had no interest in anyone but the duke, her husband, and her sons. My husband’s four brothers were all brilliant and very loyal to each other, and he has two sisters, Lady Catherine and Mary …’

  ‘That is Lady Sidney now?’

  ‘Yes, her. They all think that Sir Robert is a very god, and so no-one would ever have been good enough for him. Least of all me. They all thought I was a fool and by the time I was allowed to leave, I absolutely agreed with them.’

  Mrs Woods laughed with Amy. ‘What a nightmare! But you must have had opinions, you were in a family at the very heart of power.’

  Amy made a little face. ‘You learned very quickly in that family that if you had opinions that did not agree with the duke, then you had better not voice them,’ she said. ‘Although my husband rode out against her, I always knew that Queen Mary was the true queen, and I always knew that her faith would triumph. But it was better for me, and better for Robert, if I kept my thoughts and my faith to myself.’

  ‘But such a test of fortitude! Never to argue when they were so overbearing!’

  Amy giggled. ‘I cannot begin to tell you,’ she said. ‘And the worst of it is that Sir Robert is not like that. When I first met him at my father’s house he was such a boy, so sweet and loving. We were going to take a little manor house and keep sheep and he was going to breed horses. And here I am, still waiting for him to come home.’

  ‘I always longed to go to court,’ Mrs Woods remarked into the wistful pause. ‘Mr Woods took me once to see the old queen at her dinner and it was very grand.’

  ‘It takes forever,’ Amy said flatly. ‘And the food is always cold, and half the time it is so badly cooked that everyone goes back to their own rooms and has their own food cooked for them there, so they can have something good to eat. You aren’t allowed to keep your own hunting dogs, and you cannot have more servants than the Lord Chamberlain allows, and you have to keep court hours … up late and to bed late till you are so tired you could die.’

  ‘But that life pleases Sir Robert?’ Mrs Woods observed acutely.

  Amy nodded and turned her horse for home. ‘It does for now. He was born in the palaces with the royal family. He lived like a prince. But in his heart I know that he is still the young man that I fell in love with who wanted nothing more than some good pasture land to breed beautiful horses. I know I must be true to that – whatever it costs me.’

  ‘But what about you?’ Mrs Woods asked gently, bringing her horse alongside the younger woman.

  ‘I keep faith,’ Amy said staunchly. ‘I wait for him, and I trust that he will come home to me. I married him because I loved him just as he is. And he married me because he loved me, just as I am. And when the newness of this queen and the reign has worn off, when all the pensions and the places have been snapped up and the privileges all dispensed, then, when he has the time, he will come home to me, and there I will be, in our lovely house, with his beautiful foals at foot by the mares in the field, and everything just as it should be.’

  Elizabeth’s flirtation by private letter with Philip of Spain went far enough to alarm William Cecil, went far enough to alarm Catherine Knollys. But Mary Sidney, in low-voiced consultation with her beloved brother Robert Dudley, was reassuring.

  ‘I am certain she is only securing him as an ally,’ she said quietly. ‘And amusing herself, of course. She has to have constant admiration.’

  He nodded. They were riding together, ambling home from hunting on a long rein, both horses sweaty and blowing. Ahead, the queen was riding with Catherine Knollys on one side and a new, sweet-faced young man on the other. Robert Dudley had taken a good look at him and was not concerned. Elizabeth would never fall for a pretty face, she needed a man who would make her catch her breath.

  ‘As an ally against France?’ he suggested.

  ‘It’s the pattern,’ she said. ‘Philip stood with us against France when they took Calais, we stood with him when they threatened the Netherlands.’

  ‘Does she want him to stand her friend so that she can go against the Scottish regent?’ he asked. ‘Does she like Ce