Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Read online

  ‘There is always gossip about a man like Sir Robert,’ Lizzie said stoutly. ‘I wish I could have a shilling for every unfounded rumour I have heard about him, I would be a rich woman now. D’you remember what they said about him when he was with King Philip in the Netherlands? And how distressed you were when he came home with that French widow from Calais? But it all meant nothing, and nothing came of it.’

  Amy’s hand went to the cool round beads of the rosary in her pocket. ‘But have you heard a rumour of him and the queen?’ Amy pressed her friend.

  ‘My sister-in-law told me that her cousin in London had said that the queen favours Sir Robert above any other, but there is nothing there that we did not know already,’ Lizzie said. ‘They were friends in childhood, he is her Master of Horse. Of course they are friendly together.’

  ‘She must be amusing herself,’ Amy said bitterly. ‘She knows he is a married man, she knows that she has to marry the archduke, she is just enjoying the summer in his company.’

  ‘Flighty,’ Lizzie said, watching Amy’s face. ‘She is a flighty young woman. There was gossip enough about her in her girlhood. If you want to think of scandal – Elizabeth was it!’

  Hidden by the flap of her pocket, Amy wrapped her rosary around her fingers. ‘It is not for us to judge,’ she reminded herself. ‘It is my duty to stay loyal to my lord and wait for his return home.’

  ‘She would do better to mind the affairs of state,’ Lizzie Oddingsell volunteered. ‘They say there must be a war with the French and we are quite unprepared. She would do better to marry a good man who could run the kingdom safely for us all. Her sister married as soon as she came to the throne and chose a man who brought his own army.’

  ‘It is not for me to judge,’ Amy said, holding her beads. ‘But God guide her back to the path of right.’

  Autumn 1559

  The court, newly arrived in September at one of Elizabeth’s favourite houses, Windsor Castle, started the preparations for her birthday celebrations. Robert planned a day of festivities with the queen awakened by choristers, a choreographed hunt in which huntsmen would pause to sing her praises, woodland nymphs would dance, and a tamed deer with a garland round its neck would lead the queen to a dinner laid out in the greenwood. That night there would be a great banquet, with dancing, singing and a tableau depicting the Graces, with goddesses in attendance and Diana, symbolising Elizabeth the huntress, taking the crown.

  The ladies in waiting were to dance as goddesses and the maids in waiting were to be the Graces. ‘Which Grace am I?’ Laetitia Knollys asked Robert as he allocated parts in a quiet corner of the queen’s presence chamber.

  ‘If there was a Grace called Unpunctuality, you could be her,’ he recommended. ‘Or if there was a Grace called Flirtation, you could be her.’

  She shot him a look that was pure Boleyn: promising, provocative, irresistible. ‘I?’ she said. ‘Do you call me flirtatious? Now that is praise indeed.’

  ‘I meant it to be abuse,’ he said, pinching her chin.

  ‘From such a master at his trade it is a great compliment.’

  He tapped her on the nose, as he would have reproved a kitten. ‘You are to be Chastity,’ he said. ‘I could not resist it.’

  She widened her slanting, dark eyes at him. ‘Sir Robert!’ she pouted. ‘I do not know what I can have done to so offend you. First you call me unpunctual, then you call me flirtatious, and then you say that you could not resist giving me the part of Chastity. Have I annoyed your lordship?’

  ‘Not at all. You delight my eye.’

  ‘Have I troubled you?’

  Robert winked at her. He was very certain he was not going to tell this young woman that he sometimes found it hard to look away from her when she was dancing, that once when he had danced with her and the movement of the dance had put her into his arms he had felt an instantaneous, irresistible thud of desire, stronger than he had ever felt for so slight a touch in his life before.

  ‘How could a little ninny such as you trouble a man such as me?’ he asked.

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘I can think of a dozen ways. Can’t you? But the question is not how I would; but whether I do?’

  ‘Not at all, Miss Shameless.’

  ‘Chastity, if you please. And what do I wear?’ she asked.

  ‘Something fearfully immodest,’ he promised her. ‘You will be delighted. But you must show it to your mother, to make sure that she approves. The queen’s wardrobe has it for you. It is quite indecent.’

  ‘Should I not come and show it to you?’ she asked him provocatively. ‘I could come to your rooms before dinner.’

  Robert glanced around. The queen had come in from the garden and was standing in a window bay, withdrawn from the rest, in close conversation with William Cecil. The young man picked out to be Laetitia’s husband was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, looking thoroughly surly. Robert judged he should bring this tantalising conversation to a close.

  ‘Most certainly, you will not come to my rooms,’ he said. ‘You will attempt to behave like a lady. You could be polite to poor young Devereux, your unhappy betrothed, while I go and talk with your mistress.’

  ‘Your mistress,’ she said impertinently.

  Robert hesitated and looked gravely at her. ‘Do not overreach yourself, Mistress Knollys,’ he said quietly. ‘You are enchanting, of course, and your father is a powerful man, and your mother beloved of the queen, but not even they can save you if you are found to be spreading scandal.’

  She hesitated, a pert reply ready on her tongue; but then at the steadiness of his gaze, and the firmness of his expression, her dark eyes fell to the toes of his boots. ‘I am sorry, Sir Robert, I was only speaking in jest.’

  ‘Well and good,’ he said, and turned away from her, feeling absurdly that although she had been in the wrong, and had apologised, he had been a pompous bore.

  Elizabeth, in the window bay, talking low-voiced with Cecil, was so absorbed that she was not scanning the room for Robert.

  ‘And he has gone safely?’

  ‘Gone, and your agreement with him.’

  ‘But nothing in writing.’

  ‘Your Grace, you cannot think of denying your word. You said if he attempted the Scottish throne and was successful then you would marry him.’

  ‘I know I did,’ she said coolly. ‘But if he were to die in his attempt I would not want such a letter found on him.’

  — Well — thought Cecil — my dream that she would be so taken with him, pretty boy that he is, can be forgotten, if she can imagine him dying in her cause, and all she cares is if he is carrying incriminating papers. —

  ‘There was nothing in writing, but you have given your word, he has given his, and I have given mine,’ Cecil reminded her. ‘You are promised to marry if he wins Scotland from the French.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, opening her dark eyes very wide. ‘Yes, indeed.’

  She was about to turn away from him but he stood his ground. ‘There is something else, Your Grace.’

  She hesitated. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I have intelligence of a possible attempt on your life.’

  At once she was alert. He saw her face quiver with fear. ‘A new plot? Another one?’

  ‘I am afraid so.’

  ‘The Pope’s men?’

  ‘Not this time.’

  She drew a shaky breath. ‘How many more men will come against me? This is worse than it was for Mary and she was hated by everyone.’

  There was nothing he could say; it was true. Mary had been hated; but no monarch had ever been more threatened than this one. Elizabeth’s power was all in her person, and too many men thought that if she were dead then the country would be restored.

  She turned back to him. ‘At any rate, you have captured the men who planned it?’

  ‘I have only an informant. I hope he will lead me onward. But I draw it to your attention at this stage because it was not only you who was threatened by this plot.�