Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Read online

  Robert waited until after dinner when Lady Robsart left them alone, and Amy was seated opposite him on the other side of the small fireplace.

  ‘I am sorry we have no company,’ Amy remarked. ‘It must be so dull for you, after court. We could have had the Rushleys to visit, you remember them? They would come tomorrow, if you would like to invite them.’

  ‘Amy,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I have something to ask you.’

  Her head came up at once, her smile sweet. She thought he was going to ask for her forgiveness.

  ‘We spoke once of a divorce,’ he said quietly.

  A shadow crossed her face. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have not had a happy moment since that day. Not until last night.’

  Robert grimaced. ‘I am sorry for that,’ he said.

  She interrupted him. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I knew you would be. And I thought that I would never be able to forgive you; but I can, Robert, and I do. It is forgiven and forgotten between us and we need never speak of it again.’

  — This is something like ten thousand times harder because I was a lustful fool — Robert swore to himself. Aloud he said, ‘Amy, you will think me wicked, but my mind has not changed.’

  Her honest, open eyes met his. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked simply.

  ‘I have to ask you something,’ he said. ‘When we last spoke, you saw Elizabeth as your rival, and I understand your feelings. But she is the Queen of England, and she has done me the honour of loving me.’

  Amy frowned, she could not think what he wanted to ask her. ‘Yes, but you said you had given her up. And then you came to me …’ She broke off. ‘It is like a miracle to me that you came to me, as if we were boy and girl again.’

  ‘We are at war with Scotland,’ Robert ploughed on. ‘We could not be in more peril. I want to help her, I want to save my country. Amy, the French are very likely to invade.’

  Amy nodded. ‘Of course. But …’

  ‘Invade,’ he repeated. ‘Destroy us all.’

  She nodded; but she could not care for the French when her own happiness was unfolding before her.

  ‘And so I want to ask you to release me from my marriage with you, so that I can offer myself to the queen as a free man. The archduke will not propose to her, she needs a husband. I want to marry her.’

  Amy’s eyes widened as if she could not believe what she had just heard. He saw her hand go to her pocket and he saw her fingers clench on something there.

  ‘What?’ she asked disbelievingly.

  ‘I want you to release me from my marriage with you. I have to marry her.’

  ‘Are you saying that you want me to divorce you?’

  He nodded. ‘I do.’

  ‘But last night …’

  ‘Last night was a mistake,’ he said brutally and saw the colour flush to her cheeks and the tears fill her eyes as rapidly as if he had slapped her till her head rang.

  ‘A mistake?’ she repeated.

  ‘I could not resist you,’ he said, trying to soften the blow. ‘I should have done so. I love you, Amy, I always will. But my destiny has come for me. John Dee once said …’

  She shook her head. ‘A mistake? To lie with your own wife? Did you not whisper: “I love you”? Was that a mistake too?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ he said quickly.

  ‘I heard you say that.’

  ‘You may think you heard me, but I didn’t say it.’

  She got up from her little chair and turned away from him to the table that she had prepared for dinner with such joy. It was all spoiled now, the broken meats gone to the servants, the waste gone to the pigs.

  ‘You told me of Sir Thomas Gresham once,’ she said irrelevantly. ‘That he thought the worst thing about bad coinage is that it brings everything, even good coins, down to its own worthless value.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, not understanding.

  ‘That is what she has done,’ she said simply. ‘I am not surprised that a pound is not worth a pound, that we are at war with France, that the archduke will not marry her. She has made everything bad, she is the false coin of the kingdom and she has brought everything, even honourable love, even a good marriage begun in love, down to the value of a counterfeit coin.’

  ‘Amy …’

  ‘So that in the night you say “I love you” and everything you do tells me that you love me, and then in the day, the very next day, you ask me to release you.’

  ‘Amy, please!’

  She stopped at once. ‘Yes, my lord?’

  ‘Whatever you think of her, she is the anointed Queen of England, the realm is in danger. The Queen of England needs me and I am asking you to release me.’

  ‘You can command her armies,’ she observed.

  Robert nodded. ‘Yes, but there are other, more skilled soldiers.’

  ‘You can advise her as to what she should do, she could appoint you to her Privy Council.’

  ‘I advise her already.’

  ‘Then what more can you do? And what more can you honourably ask for?’ she burst out.

  He gritted his teeth. ‘I want to be at her side, day and night. I want to be her husband and be with her all the time. I want to be her companion on the throne of England.’

  He braced himself for tears and rage, but to his surprise she looked at him dry-eyed, and spoke very quietly. ‘Robert, do you know, if it was in my gift, I would give it to you. I have loved you so much and for so long that I would even give you this. But it is not in my gift. Our marriage is an act of God, we stood together in a church and swore we would not be parted. We cannot be parted now, just because the queen wants you, and you want her.’

  ‘Other people in the world divorce!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘I don’t know how they will answer for it.’

  ‘The Pope himself allows it, he says that they will not answer for it, there is no sin.’

  ‘Oh, shall you go to the Pope?’ she inquired with a sudden rush of malice. ‘Is the Pope to rule that our marriage, our Protestant marriage, is invalid? Is Elizabeth the Protestant princess going to bow her knee to the Pope again?’

  He leapt up from his chair and faced her. ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Then who?’ she persisted. ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury? Her creature? Appointed despite his own misgivings, the single turncoat in the church while all her other bishops are thrown into prison or exile because they know she is a false claimant to be head of the church?’

  ‘I don’t know the details,’ he said sulkily. ‘But with good will it could be done.’

  ‘It would have to be her, wouldn’t it?’ Amy challenged him. ‘A woman of twenty-six years old, blinded with her own lust, wanting another woman’s husband and ruling that her desire is God’s will. That she knows that God wants him to be free.’ She drew a breath and let out a wild, ringing laugh. ‘It is a nonsense, husband. You will make yourselves a laughing stock. It is a sin against God, it is a sin against man, and it is an insult to me.’

  ‘It is no insult. If your father were alive …’

  It was the worst thing he could have said. Amy’s family pride sprang up. ‘You dare say his name to me! My father would have horsewhipped you for even thinking of such a thing. He would have killed you for saying such a thing to me.’

  ‘He would never have laid a finger on me!’ Robert swore. ‘He would not have dared.’

  ‘He said you were a braggart and I was worth ten of you,’ she spat at him. ‘And he was right. You are a braggart and I am worth ten of you. And you did say you loved me last night; you are a liar.’

  He could hardly see her for the mist that rose before his eyes with his blinding anger. His tight voice came out short, as if it were wrested from him. ‘Amy, no man in the world would abuse me as you have done and live.’

  ‘Husband, I can promise you that thousands will call you worse. They will call you her boy, her plaything, a common little colt that she rides for lust.’

  ‘They will call me King of England,’ he s