“Lord Thornleigh, with your leave . . .”
Startled by the voice, Justine turned back. It was Will, just arrived, speaking to Adam. She had been told Will was too weak to attend the funeral, and her heart lurched at the sight of him, his bandaged arm in a sling, his face pale. She had not seen him since leaving him wounded at the Savoy. Lady Thornleigh, in her grief, had left London for Rosethorn House, and Justine had accompanied her to help in any way she could, while Will’s friends had taken him to the Thornleighs’ London house. She had longed to see him but was told he could have no visitors, so severe was his wound. She had lived on scraps of news as he convalesced. Now, as he stepped forward from the rest of the family, his arm in the sling, he limped from his injured ankle, but there was a determined glint in his eyes. He bowed across the grave to Lady Thornleigh, then looked straight at Justine. A piercing look. A shiver touched her scalp. He had loved his uncle. And I killed him.
His eulogy for Lord Thornleigh was eloquent, respectful, heartfelt. But there was a ragged edge in his voice that clipped the comfort his listeners might have taken from his words. Justine was not imagining it; she saw tension in many faces.
“Baron Thornleigh died a victim of a feud,” Will declared, his final word a harsh indictment. “For years the house of Grenville has been the sworn enemy of the house of Thornleigh.” There were agitated murmurs from the mourners. Justine felt a cold needle of dread.
“A feud is a demon,” Will plowed on. “It lusts to feed on flesh. It lays waste to everyone and everything in its path. Blind in its hunger, deaf in its purpose, it is insensible to the sorrow it inflicts. We, though, we feel the sorrow deeply today. The demon took your husband, your ladyship. It took my father. That demon even took my mother.”
He fixed his eyes on Justine. She thought her heart would stop.
“Dear friends,” he went on, “today we will move past our sorrow, for the demon is dead. It is dead because of the extraordinary bravery of one person.” He stretched out his arm to indicate her. “Justine Grenville.”
Every face turned to her. She was so astonished she could not breathe.
“This brave lady saved the life of our Queen. It was she whose warning thwarted the traitor’s plot. All of England owes her an everlasting debt. But this family owes her even more, for with her courage Justine Grenville killed the demon.”
The people’s muttering grew louder. Justine was barely aware of it. All she knew was that Will’s eyes, locked on hers, were shining.
“I have long loved this lady,” he said, “and months ago I asked her to marry me. She accepted and we became betrothed. But we kept our betrothal a secret, for she is of the house of Grenville and I am of the house of Thornleigh. In her wisdom, she did not want to feed the demon. Now, thanks to her, its rancorous power is vanquished.” He looked around, taking in all the people. They were quiet, waiting.
“Lady Thornleigh, my lords, friends. Lord Thornleigh wanted peace, finally, between the two houses. Today, I want to honor his wish.” He looked at Justine with a tentative, hopeful smile. “But I want something far more selfish, too. The woman I love, the woman who has taught me what true loyalty is. I want Justine Grenville to be my wife.”
He started toward her, limping, along the edge of the grave. People stepped back to make way for him in a hush. When he reached Justine he bowed to Lady Thornleigh, who gave him a sad smile and a nod. He held out his hand to Justine.
“Mistress Grenville, you alone have the power to transform this melancholy day into one of joy. Will you stand with me before all these witnesses and have the good vicar, here and now, join us together as man and wife?”
Until that moment she would not have believed that sorrow could flash in an instant into joy. “Oh yes, Will,” she said, smiling, a smile born in the glowing heart of her. “Yes.”
The murmuring around her rose to an excited hum. A wedding? people asked. Now? A wedding! others answered. Yes, now!
Justine looked down at the coffin in the pit. It brought her no pain. Lord Thornleigh now was at peace.
She put her hand in Will’s. He clasped it.
Winter came roaring back with January. Freezing rain lashed the windows, and the men who tramped in all day with reports to Adam shook ice pellets off their hats. He was alone for the moment, standing over the map of England spread out on the desk at his father’s house on Bishopsgate Street. My house, he thought. Hard to get used to that. He didn’t think he would ever get used to the thought of his father lying dead in his grave. The sight of his gored body, when Justine had led him to it, had shaken Adam to his core.
“Begging your pardon, my lord.”
Adam looked up. Another agent, one he had sent to the north coast. “Yes? What word from Scarborough?”
“No sign of her, my lord. The harbormaster swore she did not take ship from his port. Leastways no woman with two children in tow.”
Adam shoved aside the map, galled by the failure. My wife, the traitor. He had agents searching for traces of Frances in every harbor from Newcastle to Norwich to Plymouth, but no one had seen her take ship. There was a possibility, of course, that she had gone to ground in England. If so he would find her. He had sent word to every mayor to declare a general lookout for the fugitive, and orders from Baron Thornleigh were obeyed. Every time he thought of Frances scheming behind his back to murder Elizabeth, lying to him while plotting with her brother, setting enough gunpowder to tear Elizabeth to pieces, rage surged through him. But deeper still ran his fury that she had stolen his children. It made him wild with desperation to think of Kate and Robin being wrenched from their homeland, confused and frightened, or worse, suffering harm. If Frances were brought before him he felt he might strangle her with his bare hands.
First, he had to find her. He called in his steward. “Get some men across to France. An Englishwoman with two children cannot hide long.”
The steward acknowledged the order, then urged him again to see the estate people who oversaw the Thornleigh mines, timber lands, glassworks, and weaving operations. Once his father’s, now Adam’s. “They have been waiting all morning, your lordship. They are eager to acquaint you with the details of your properties.”
Adam groaned inside. He had little interest in such matters. His father had managed all of this so well. Father . . . the thought weighed him down with sadness. He agreed to discuss the timber operation now, the rest later. Supplying oak masts to Elizabeth’s navy was a priority, and he would not let that slide. “And send some men to the Low Countries, too, to look for my wife. Amsterdam, Rotterdam. Antwerp.” He doubted that Frances would seek refuge in the Protestant German lands. She was a Catholic to her bones.
“My lord, news!” It was Curry, his longtime first mate, marching in with a man Adam had not seen before. Barrel-chested, with a lumbering gait and a face like aged oak, the fellow paid no mind to the ice crystals that clumped his beard. Adam knew an old salt when he saw one.
“This man captains a brigantine out of Cardiff,” Curry reported. “He gave passage ten days ago to a woman and two children.”
The seaman bowed. “M’lord.”
“Her name, man,” Adam demanded.
“She gave none, m’lord. Her silver was name enough for me.”
“A girl and boy with her?”
“Aye. And the name of the girl I did hear, from the lady’s own lips. Katherine, it was.”
My Kate. “Where did you take them?”
“Waterford, m’lord.”
Ireland!
Adam rode all day and reached Portsmouth in the dark, his hands raw from the cold as he boarded the Elizabeth. Refitted and rerigged, with fresh caulking, a new bowsprit, new canvas, and eight big demi-cannons in the gun ports, she was in fighting shape. At dawn he set sail for Ireland, Curry at the helm. They were passing Milford Haven, heading into St. George’s Channel, when Adam spotted a pinnace racing toward them from the east. English flags. The pinnace hailed them. Adam ordered Curry to heave to, a
nd they took on a messenger. He had come from the Admiralty, he said as he bowed to Adam. “Your lordship, Admiral Wynter sends his regards and condolences on the death of your father.”
“You haven’t tracked me out here to tell me that.”
“No, my lord. There is word of a fleet of Spanish men-of-war sailing for the Norfolk coast. Her Majesty has ordered Admiral Wynter to send ships to intercept them.” He handed Adam sealed papers. Adam broke the seal and read. He was to take on archers and handgunners immediately at Plymouth and rendezvous with Admiral Wynter off Dover.
He looked astern, eastward across the gray, heaving seas. Spanish ships were carving those frigid waters. On their way to attack England? Attack Elizabeth? He looked westward across the gray, heaving channel he was bound for. Ireland was so near. Frances was there. Kate and Robin were there. Where would his children live? How would they live?
It was the hardest order he had ever given. “Hoist sail, Master Curry,” he said, crushing the admiral’s letter in his hand, “And set a course for Plymouth.”
The Elizabeth reared as she turned as though spoiling for the fight with Spain. Adam did not look back. But he made a silent vow that he would hunt down his wife, and soon. He would retrieve his son and daughter. And he would see that Frances paid the full, terrible penalty for her treason.
Their lovemaking was slow, gentle, careful, for Will’s wound was still painful. It wasn’t pain that Justine saw on his face, though, his eyes on hers as she caressed him, careful not to jostle his arm. She savored every moment of it. The slide of warm skin on skin, the sweetness of touched tongues, the caress of fingertips on cheeks, necks, arms, bellies. The fire inside her as she took him into her. My husband. My love.
After, they lay together, letting their breathing settle, their hearts return to a calm cadence. Rain clattered on the windows. A cold rain, Justine thought with a slight shiver, for winter was not quite done with them yet. A month from now it would be a soft spring rain. Justine imagined it pattering on Lady Thornleigh’s dormant rose garden below this very window. Would a month be long enough to heal the worst of her ladyship’s sorrow? Enough, at least, to draw her out one morning to smell the dew and notice the rosebuds?
“Sir William is looking out for a house for us,” Will said, stroking her hair as it fell across his chest.
“Ah, good,” she sighed. A house in London—their house. It gave her a small thrill. Her home had been with the Thornleighs since she was ten, and Rosethorn House was Will’s home, too, for a while at least. Neither wanted to live in his mother’s house. Justine nestled closer to him. Right now, there was no place she wanted to be except here.
They murmured on in the candlelight. Sir William Cecil wanted Will back at work as soon as possible. Elizabeth had terminated the inquiry at the end of January. What a strange moment that had been. No fanfare. No drama. And no verdict. Justine thought it very shrewd of Elizabeth, for a guilty verdict against Mary might have inflamed those Englishmen who supported her in their desire to restore the Catholic Church; it might even have incited the Catholic kings of France and Spain to move against Her Majesty. Yet the inquiry, in laying before public view the facts of Mary’s unsavory adventures in Scotland, had grievously undermined her reputation. Had that been Elizabeth’s intention all along? Justine wondered. She felt she was only beginning to understand this queen she had risked her life to save. She did know, however, that as Justine Croft of the house of Thornleigh she would now and forever be loyal to Elizabeth.
The one thing no one knew was whether Mary had abetted the assassination attempt. Many of Elizabeth’s people said she did, citing the letter signed by Mary that Justine’s father had brought Justine to arrange the abdication meeting. Mary, under questioning, swore with much weeping that she had no knowledge of the plot and that Justine’s father had forged the letter. Justine herself did not know the truth of it, but it gave her an odd chill to see how quickly Mary distanced herself from the man who had been her secret agent. Elizabeth, in any case, was taking no chances. She had moved Mary from Bolton farther south to Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire, a bleak old bastion of the Earl of Shrewsbury in whose custody she now was held, and her retinue of servants was reduced. The Scottish delegation led by the Earl of Moray had returned to Edinburgh. “The status quo is unchanged,” Will had commented to Justine, pleased with Elizabeth’s wise handling of the matter. “Scotland will remain our bulwark against France.”
Will’s breathing became slower, steadier as he drifted into sleep.
Sleep, nature’s nurse, Justine thought, happy to have Will so nearly restored to full health. She lay close to him and listened to the rain spatter the windows like pebbles flung by an angry god. Will made a sound in his sleep, a faint grunt of pain. His shoulder? A nightmare? In Justine’s mind the two were one: Will’s brush with death was a nightmare that still troubled her sleep. How near she had come to losing him that night. She thought of it as the night she had killed both her fathers. One had caused so much misery, she hoped she would soon forget him. The other she knew she would mourn forever.
They were both asleep when the messenger arrived at the front gates.
“He is waiting in the long gallery, mistress,” the maid with her candle whispered to Justine from the bedchamber doorway. “From Sir William Cecil.”
Justine woke Will. They both threw on robes and met the messenger in the gallery. He was bundled up against the rain and his garments glistened wet in the candlelight. Sir William had sent orders for Will. He was to leave in the morning and ride to Leicester to meet the Earl of Sussex, and from there proceed to Leeds to assist Sussex in investigating rumors of trouble brewing in the north. Rumors of an incipient rebellion.
“I’ll be the earl’s right hand man,” Will said when he and Justine were alone again. Though the message hinted at danger, he was far from displeased. “This could make our fortune, my love.”
She tried to see it that way. Certainly, the advancement for Will was thrilling, and she was proud that he had Sir William’s trust. But all she saw was separation.
He smiled at her. “Come with me.”
“To Leicester?”
“All the way north. It will be weeks. Maybe months. I want you with me.”
She thought of the northern moors. Of Yeavering Hall. Of Alice. It was a place that held no joy for her. But neither did she want to be apart from Will. “I cannot leave her ladyship, not right away. She needs me now.”
“So do I,” he said gently. “But you’re right. She will mend better with you nearby.”
“I’ll come later. As soon as I feel I can leave her.”
“Easter?”
Three weeks. She smiled. How easily she and Will settled things. How perfectly matched they were. “Yes,” she said.
The next morning the wind was a cold blade scything the courtyard, but the rain had stopped and the sun was struggling to shine through the clouds, and Justine took heart from Will’s cheerful face as she saw him to horse with his servant. He leaned down from the saddle to kiss her one last time, and she went up on her toes, and their lips met. “Easter,” he whispered.
“Easter,” she whispered in return.
She watched him trot away, her eyes on him until he and his servant were small figures taking the bend in the road northward. She tugged her shawl around her in the wind and turned and looked up at Rosethorn House, casting her mind to the gardening book that she would read to Lady Thornleigh. Roses. Spring was not so far away.
AUTHOR’S NOTES
Fact and fiction are intertwined in Blood Between Queens. The characters in the two feuding families—the Thornleighs and the Grenvilles—are purely my creation, but their lives weave through actual historical events and around real historical personalities. Among the latter are Elizabeth I of England and Mary Queen of Scots, the cousins whose dramatic rivalry has enthralled the world for over four hundred years, generating plays, an opera, biographies, novels, and films.
Here are some
of the real historical events, with notes on how I have sometimes shaped them for the dramatic purposes of my novel.
First is the inquiry that Elizabeth convened to examine the Scottish confederate lords’ charges that Mary was complicit in her husband’s murder. My general depiction of the inquiry is accurate: the composition of its commissioners on both sides; the fact that Mary refused to attend; the venues, first at York, then at Westminster; the introduction of the famous “casket letters”; and the withdrawal of Mary’s commissioners in protest. However, I have altered a detail about the ambassadors of Spain and France. Both were replaced in the middle of the inquiry. The Spanish Ambassador was Guzman da Silva for most of 1568, but he left on September 12 and was replaced by Guerau de Spes, while France’s ambassador Bodutel de la Forest was replaced by Bertrand de la Mothe Fenelon. For the sake of simplicity I have used the replacements’ names throughout.
Elizabeth adjourned the inquiry without delivering a verdict. She didn’t need to; the damage to Mary’s reputation was done, thanks to the casket letters. These letters, eight in all, have fueled passionate discussion for centuries and still do. The Earl of Moray, Mary’s half brother, delivered them in private to the inquiry panel led by the Duke of Norfolk, as is depicted in Blood Between Queens, though I have invented the details of the scene in which he did so. The letters showed that Mary had conspired in her husband’s murder with her alleged lover, the Earl of Bothwell, and this damning evidence shattered her reputation at the time and for posterity. Mary insisted to her dying day that the letters were forged by her enemies. Did she write them or not? Sadly, they were destroyed by her son, James VI of England, and with them was lost the chance to study their authenticity. Any reader interested in delving more deeply into the complexities of these events will enjoy Alison Weir’s splendid book Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley.
Adam Thornleigh’s adventure in pirating King Philip’s gold and delivering it to Elizabeth is my invention, but is based on a fascinating true event. In November 1568 French Huguenot rovers chased four small Spanish ships into port in southern England, where customs officers found that the ships carried treasure to pay the troops in the Spanish-occupied Low Countries—a staggering 85,000 pounds in gold (about 30 million dollars today). The Italian merchant banker Benedict Spinola, living in London, advised Elizabeth that the gold was his loan to the Spanish king, but assured her that he would consider a loan to the Queen of England just as advantageous as one to Philip of Spain. So Elizabeth worked out good terms with Spinola and borrowed the money, making herself richer and leaving her cold-war enemy, Spain, unable to pay its army. The Spanish were furious and ordered all English property in the Low Countries confiscated. Elizabeth retaliated by impounding Spanish assets in England, which were worth far more. It worked out well for Elizabeth.
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