Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Read online

  The other ladies in the chamber leapt to their feet and cleared out of her way, spreading themselves against the wall, eyes down, hoping to be invisible, desperate to avoid Elizabeth’s fiery gaze.

  ‘Because he will be the death of you!’ Kat rose too, facing her young mistress, desperately earnest. ‘You cannot keep your throne and allow people to speak of you as they are doing. They say you are no better than a whore, Your Grace, God forgive me that I should say such a word to you. This is worse than it has ever been. Even with Lord Seymour …’

  ‘Enough!’ Elizabeth snapped. ‘And let me tell you something. I have never had a moment’s safety in my life, you know that, Kat. I have never had a moment’s joy. I have never had a man who loves me, nor a man that I could admire. In Sir Robert I have a great friend, the finest man I have ever known. I am honoured by his love, I will never be shamed by it.

  ‘And there is no shame in it. I know that he is a married man, I danced at his wedding, for God’s sake. I sleep in my bedchamber every night with guards on the door and a companion in my bed. You know that as well as I. If I was a fool and I wanted to take a lover – and I do not – then it would be impossible for me to do so. But if I wanted to, then who should deny me? Not you, Kat, not the Privy Council, and not the Commons of England. If I wanted a lover then why should I, as Queen of England, be denied what any goose-girl can have for the asking?’

  Elizabeth was shouting her justification, quite beyond herself with rage. Kat Ashley, backed against the wood-panelled wall, was sick with shock. ‘Elizabeth, my princess, Your Grace,’ she whispered. ‘I just want you to have a care.’

  Elizabeth whirled around and plumped down on her stool again, thrust her hairbrush at a white-faced Laetitia Knollys. ‘Well, I won’t,’ Elizabeth replied flatly.

  That night she slipped through the secret doorway into Robert’s adjoining chamber. He was waiting for her, a warm fire in the grate, two chairs drawn up before it. His valet, Tamworth, had put out wine and little pastries for them, before leaving the room to stand guard outside the door.

  Elizabeth, in her nightgown, slid into Robert’s arms and felt his warm kisses on her hair.

  ‘I had to wait forever,’ she whispered. ‘I was sleeping with Laetitia and she chattered and chattered and would not sleep.’

  Resolutely he turned his mind from the picture of the exquisite young woman and his mistress in bed together, combing each other’s copper hair, their white nightgowns open at the neck. ‘I was afraid you could not come.’

  ‘I will always come to you. Whatever anyone says.’

  ‘What has anyone said?’

  ‘More scandal.’ She dismissed it with a shake of her head. ‘I can’t repeat it. It’s so vile.’

  He seated her in the chair and gave her a glass of wine. ‘Don’t you long for us to be together openly?’ he asked softly. ‘I want to be able to tell everyone how much I adore you. I want to be able to defend you. I want you to be mine.’

  ‘How could it ever be?’

  ‘If we were to marry,’ he suggested quietly.

  ‘You are a married man,’ she said, so low that not even the little greyhound sitting at her feet could hear. But Robert heard, he saw the shape her lips made, he never took his eyes from her mouth.

  ‘Your father was a married man when he met your mother,’ he said gently. ‘And yet when he met her, the woman that he had to have, the woman that he knew was the great love of his life, he put his first wife aside.’

  ‘His first marriage was not valid,’ she responded instantly.

  ‘And nor is mine. I told you, Elizabeth, my love for Amy Robsart is dead, as is hers for me, and she means nothing to me. She lives apart from me now, and has done for years, of her own choice. I am free to love you. You can set me free, and then you shall see what we shall be for each other.’

  ‘I can set you free?’ she whispered.

  ‘You have the power. You are head of the church. You can grant me a divorce.’

  She gasped. ‘I?’

  Robert smiled at her. ‘Who else?’

  He could see her brain working furiously. ‘You have been planning this?’

  ‘How could I plan such a thing? How could I dream that this would happen to us? Parliament made you supreme governor and gave you the powers of the Pope without a word from me. Now you have the power to annul my marriage, the Commons of England gave you that power, Elizabeth. You can free me, Elizabeth, as your father freed himself. You can free me to be your husband. We can be married.’

  She closed her eyes so that he could not see the whirl of thoughts in her head, her immediate frightened rejection. ‘Kiss me,’ she said dreamily. ‘Oh, kiss me, my love.’

  Thomas Blount was in Robert’s private chambers over the stables the very next morning, leaning against the door, cleaning his fingernails with a sharp knife, when the opposite door opened and Dudley came in from riding, a sheaf of farriers’ bills in his hand.

  ‘Thomas?’

  ‘My lord.’

  ‘News?’

  ‘The Earl of Arran, James Hamilton, has arrived and is in hiding.’

  ‘Arran?’ Dudley was genuinely astonished. ‘Here?’

  ‘Came into London three nights ago. Housed in some private rooms at Deptford.’

  ‘Good God! That was silently done. Who brought him in? Who pays his bills?’

  ‘Cecil, for the queen herself.’

  ‘She knows he is here?’

  ‘She commanded him. He is here at her invitation and request.’

  Dudley swore briefly, and turned to the window overlooking the vegetable gardens where they stretched down to the river. ‘If it’s not one damned opportunity seeker, it is another. To what end? Do you know that?’

  ‘My intelligencer, who knows the maid where the noble gentleman is staying, says that he is to meet the queen privately, to see if they can agree, and then when they have terms, she will publicly announce his arrival, they will be betrothed, and he will march to Scotland to claim his throne. When he is King of Scotland he will return in triumph and marry her, uniting the two kingdoms.’

  For a moment Dudley was so shocked that he could not speak. ‘And you are certain that this is the plan? You could be mistaken? This could be Cecil’s plan and the queen might know nothing of it.’

  ‘Perhaps. But my man is sure of it, and the maid seemed to think she had it right. She’s a whore as well as a maid and he was bragging to her when he was drunk. She is sure that the queen had consented.’

  Dudley tossed him a purse of coins from a drawer in the desk. ‘Watch him, as you would watch your own baby,’ he said shortly. ‘Tell me when he sees the queen. I want to know every detail, I want to know every word, every whisper, every creak of the floorboard.’

  ‘He has seen her already,’ Blount said with a grimace. ‘He came here under cover of darkness last night and she saw him last night, after dinner, after she withdrew for bed.’

  Dudley had a very vivid memory of the previous night. He had knelt at her bare feet and her hair had tumbled over his face as she leaned towards him, enfolding him in her arms. He had rubbed his face against her breasts and belly, warm and sweet-smelling through her linen.

  ‘Last night?’

  ‘So they say.’ Thomas Blount thought that he had never seen his master look so grim.

  ‘And we know nothing of what was said?’

  ‘I didn’t pick up the trail until this morning. I am sorry, my lord. Cecil’s men had him well hidden.’

  ‘Aye,’ Dudley said shortly. ‘He is the master of shadows. Well, watch Arran from now on, and keep me informed.’

  He knew he should mind his temper and bite his tongue but his quick pride and quicker anger got the better of him. He flung open the door, leaving the papers blowing off his desk, and stormed out of his room and down the twisting private stairs to the garden where the court was watching a tennis match. The queen was in her chair at the side of the court, a golden awning over her head, her la