The Virgin's Lover Read online

  “Now he was a gambler indeed,” Dudley concurred amiably. “Who shall we have for a fourth?”

  “Sir Nicholas.” The queen looked around and smiled at her councillor. “Will you join us for a game of cards?”

  Sir Nicholas Bacon, Cecil’s corpulent brother-in-law, swelled like a mainsail at the compliment from the queen, and he stepped up to the table. The pageboy brought a fresh pack, Elizabeth dealt the stiff cards with their threatening faces, cut the deal to Robert Dudley, and they started to play.

  There was a flurry in the hall outside the presence chamber, and then Catherine and Francis Knollys were in the doorway, a handsome couple: Catherine a woman in her mid-thirties, plainly dressed and smiling in anticipation, her husband an elegant man in his mid-forties. Elizabeth sprang to her feet, scattering her cards, and ran across the presence chamber to her cousin.

  Catherine dropped into a curtsy but Elizabeth plunged into her arms and the two women hugged each other, both of them in tears. Sir Francis, standing back, smiled benignly at the welcome given to his wife.

  Aye, well might you smile, Robert Dudley remarked to himself, remembering that he had always disliked the smug radiance of the man. You think you will have the high road to power and influence with this friendship; but you will find you are wrong. This young queen is no fool, she won’t put her purse where her heart is, unless it serves her interest. She will love you but not advance you unless it is for her own good.

  As if he sensed Robert’s eyes on him, Sir Francis looked up, and swept him a bow.

  “You are heartily welcome back to England,” Dudley said pleasantly.

  Sir Francis glanced around, took in the court of old allies, conspirators, reformed enemies, and a very few new faces, and came back to Robert Dudley.

  “Well, here we are at last,” he said. “A Protestant queen on the throne, me back from Germany and you out of the Tower. Who’d ever have thought it?”

  “A long and dangerous journey for all us pilgrims,” Robert said, keeping his smile.

  “Some danger still in the air for some of us, I think,” Sir Francis said cheerfully. “I’d not been in England five minutes before someone asked me if I thought you had too much influence and should be curbed.”

  “Indeed,” Robert said. “And you replied?”

  “That I had not been in England five minutes and I had yet to form an opinion. But you should be warned, Sir Robert. You have enemies.”

  Robert Dudley smiled. “They come with success,” he said easily. “And so I am glad of them.”

  Elizabeth reached out her hand to Sir Francis, still holding Catherine tight by the waist.

  Sir Francis stepped forward and dropped to his knee and kissed her hand. “Your Grace,” he said.

  Robert, a connoisseur in these matters, admired the sweep down to his knee and then the style with which he rose. Aye, but it will do you little good, he said to himself. This is a court full of dancing-master-tutored puppies. A graceful bow will get you nothing.

  “Sir Francis, I have been waiting and waiting for your arrival,” Elizabeth said, glowing with happiness. “Will you accept a post on my Privy Council? I am in great need of your sound advice.”

  Privy Council! Good God! Robert exclaimed to himself, shaken with envy.

  “I shall be honored,” Sir Francis said, with a bow.

  “And I should like you to serve as Vice Chamberlain of my household, and Captain of the Guard,” Elizabeth continued, naming two plum jobs that would bring with them a small fortune in bribes from people wanting access to the queen.

  Robert Dudley’s smile never wavered; he seemed delighted at the shower of good fortune on the new arrival. Sir Francis bowed his obedience, and Dudley and Cecil made their way over to him.

  “Welcome home!” Cecil said warmly. “And welcome to the queen’s service.”

  “Indeed!” Robert Dudley agreed. “A warm welcome for you indeed! You too will be making your own enemies, I see.”

  Catherine, who had been in rapid conversation with her cousin, wanted to introduce her daughter who was to be Elizabeth’s maid of honor. “And may I present my daughter Laetitia?” she asked. She beckoned toward the doorway; and the girl, who had been standing back, half hidden by the arras, came forward.

  William Cecil, not a man to be overwhelmed by female charms, took a sharp breath at the beauty of the seventeen-year-old girl and shot an astounded look at Sir Francis. The older man was smiling, a quirky corner upturned at his mouth as if he knew exactly what Cecil was thinking.

  “By God, this is a girl in the very image of the queen,” Cecil whispered to him. “Except…” He broke off before he made the mistake of saying “finer,” or “prettier.” “You might as well declare your wife to be Henry VIII’s bastard, and have done with it.”

  “She has never claimed it, I have never claimed it, and we don’t do so now,” Sir Francis said limpidly, as if the whole court were not nudging each other and whispering, as the young girl’s color steadily rose but the dark eyes fixed on the queen never wavered. “Indeed, I find her very like my side of the family.”

  “Your side!” Cecil choked on a laugh. “She is a Tudor through and through, except she has all the allure of the Howard women.”

  “I do not claim it,” Sir Francis repeated. “And I imagine, in this court and at these times, it would be better for her if no one remarked on it.”

  Dudley, who had seen the likeness at once, was watching Elizabeth intently. Firstly she held out her hand for the girl to kiss, with her usual pleasant manners, hardly seeing her as the girl’s head was bent in her curtsy, her bright copper hair hidden by her hood. But then, as the girl rose up and Elizabeth took her in, Robert saw the queen’s smile slowly die away. Laetitia was like a younger, more delicate copy of the queen, as if a piece of Chinese porcelain had been refined from an earthenware mold. Beside her, Elizabeth’s face was too broad, her nose, the horsy Boleyn nose, too long, her eyes too protruding, her mouth narrow. Laetitia, seven years her junior, was rounded like a child, her nose a perfect tilt, her hair a darker copper to the queen’s bronze.

  Robert Dudley, looking at the girl, thought that a younger man, a more foolish man than himself, might have thought that the odd sensation he was feeling in his chest was his heart turning over.

  “You are welcome to my court, Cousin Laetitia,” the queen said coolly. She threw a quick, irritated glance at Catherine as if she should somehow be blamed for raising such a piece of perfection.

  “She is very glad to be in your service,” Catherine interposed smoothly. “And you will find she is a good girl. A little rough and ready as yet, Your Grace, but she will learn your elegance very quickly. She reminds me very much of the portraits of my father, William Carey. There is a striking similarity.”

  William Cecil, who knew that William Carey was as dark as Henry VIII and this girl were matching copper, concealed another indrawn breath by clearing his throat.

  “And now you shall sit, and you can take a glass of wine and tell me all about your travels.” Elizabeth turned from the young beauty before her. Catherine took a stool beside her cousin’s throne, and gestured that her daughter should retire. The first difficult step had been achieved; Elizabeth had faced a younger, far prettier version of her own striking looks, and managed to smile pleasantly enough. Catherine set about telling her traveler’s tales and thought that her family had managed their return to England rather well, considering all the circumstances.

  Amy was waiting for a reply from Robert, telling her what she should do. Every midday she walked from the house half a mile down the drive to the road to Norwich, where a messenger would ride, if he was coming at all that day. She waited for a few minutes, looking over the cold landscape, her cloak gathered around her against the achingly cold February wind.

  “It is too bad of him,” Lady Robsart complained at dinner. “He sent me some money for your keep with a note from his clerk, not even a word from himself. A fine way to treat your st