The Queen's Secret

by Victoria Lamb

  Afterwards, when Walsingham had stopped questioning her, she could barely recall what they had discussed. Her mind was as exhausted as her body. She slumped in the chair and accepted a glass of wine from him as though he were a servant, quite forgetting his rank.

  He left the room for a while, and Lucy almost slept, jerking awake with a start as he returned. A small man with a wizened face stood behind him, his expression impassive, holding a candle.

  ‘John will show you to a place where you can sleep tonight,’ Walsingham told her, ‘and tomorrow we shall try to find you quarters apart from the other women.’

  Lucy stumbled obediently to her feet, following the servant’s glowing candle along the corridor and down another flight of stairs to a small room, more like a privy than a bedchamber, with a truckle bed hidden by a wooden screen. It was a cramped, narrow space, but she curled up in it gratefully, barely able to nod her thanks before darkness and sleep engulfed her.

  Twenty-four

  LETTICE CRANED HER neck out of the window to see the clock on the high tower. That was when she remembered that it had been stopped, on Robert’s orders, on the evening they arrived. One of his more fanciful ideas, that time should stop for the duration of Elizabeth’s stay. ‘Let us halt the forward motion of time and return instead to the merry England of King Arthur’s reign,’ he had proclaimed.

  Now she had no idea what the time was.

  She squinted at the sky. From the downward slant of the sun and the shadows cast across the inner courtyard, Lettice guessed it to be about six in the evening. Too late to go hunting, but not so late that she needed to be dancing attendance on the Queen yet. Another hour or so and Elizabeth would become restless again, no doubt asking to change her gown or her hair, and wishing to go out somewhere before it was night. She had left the Queen resting in her state rooms, a crowd of overdressed courtiers hovering dutifully about her, listening with apparent fascination as Pip read out some intolerably lengthy tale from Chaucer of honourable knights and weeping ladies imprisoned in towers. Or had it been the other way round?

  Lettice did not much care for poetry and stories, though she had enjoyed them as a girl. Her own life was turbulent enough without indulging in these ancient tales of courtly love.

  She tugged impatiently at the bodice of her gown, loosening the stiff fabric another inch until her breasts swelled out of the top, full and ripe, her dusky pink nipples almost visible. The gown itself was a triumph, such full white skirts, pure as a nun’s wimple, but with a hint of scarlet beneath whenever she raised the hem. Turning, she caught a ghostly, bubbled reflection of herself in the window’s leaded glass. She looked like a whore now, with her breasts hanging out, ready for a long night’s trade, except that her reddish hair was still tucked away under her cap, in deference to the Queen’s spiteful demand that it be kept hidden.

  Laughing, Lettice jerked the wife’s cap from her head and pulled out the pins until her hair tumbled to her shoulders, loose and in wild riot, as though she had been in bed for hours already.

  Let him ignore her now, she thought. Let him turn away, uninterested, and go back to his mewling queen with her pockmarked face and long, skinny thighs that barely knew how to hold a man between them. Robert would not do it. He could not, faced with this invitation to bed.

  ‘Where are you?’ she whispered, staring out of the window again, watching the shadows lengthen across the inner court.

  Next moment, the door was flung open and Robert stood there, resplendent in a red and black doublet, black feathered cap, tight hose to match, and a slim Italian sword by his side. Looking up at him eagerly, Lettice knew she had already forgiven Robert for being late, for trailing about after the Queen like a lovesick puppy, now that he had kept his word and come to her.

  ‘I couldn’t get away,’ he said at once, as though anticipating some burst of temper. He shut the door behind him, drawing the bolt across with a jerk. ‘There’s been some trouble. No doubt you’ve heard.’

  ‘Another failed assassination?’

  He frowned, tossing his cap on to the chair by the bed. ‘Don’t make a joke of it. This country’s safety depends on her staying alive.’

  ‘If she would name an heir—’

  ‘But it’s not as simple as that, is it?’

  Robert looked at her properly at last, and she saw his eyes widen, taking in the loosened bodice, unbound hair, and the shocking red hem of her petticoat as she swirled the white skirts about her ankles, approaching him on light feet. He licked his lips, watching her greedily, one hand on the embossed hilt of his sword, standing with his legs slightly apart.

  ‘By Christ, you look …’

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘Like the perfect woman,’ he finished, though the compliment seemed reluctantly given.

  ‘Is that so?’ Lettice allowed him a tiny smile, secretly delighted by his response. Men were always wary of giving a woman credit for her natural skills. She laid a hand on his chest, choosing her words carefully. ‘I thought my royal cousin was the perfect woman.’

  ‘Who?’

  She gurgled with laughter at his humour, suddenly breathless. Under her fingers, she could feel the rapid jolt of his heart. ‘Are you still on the hunt?’

  ‘Yes, and in sight of my prey now.’

  He grabbed her, kissing her roughly. Lettice pushed him away and pretended to be offended. She twisted in his arms and arched her back until her nipples popped over the top of her loosened bodice, her little cry of despair fooling neither of them. He gave an exultant groan and pulled her close again. His hands dragged at the stiff fabric to free her breasts, ripping the seams, and she hissed then, genuinely annoyed by his carelessness.

  ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

  ‘Let me,’ she insisted, swiftly removing her gown with practised fingers, allowing him to help her where necessary. It might not be very modest for a lady of the court to look so keen, yet why shouldn’t she undress herself? Her need for this coupling was as urgent as his. ‘You like what’s underneath?’

  ‘Scarlet is your colour,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Though I prefer you naked.’

  Dropping the silken shift to the floor and kicking it aside, Lettice stood shameless before him without a stitch to her body. Although she had borne the Earl of Essex several children, she was still trim enough to pass for an unmarried woman in her tightest gowns, her breasts high and pleasingly full. She had often seen Elizabeth undressed and knew herself to be not only a match for her pale, virginal looks but to surpass her in curving hips and breasts, the marks of a woman who knew how to please a man.

  The darkness in Robert’s eyes told her more than he could have expressed in words. If he had lain with Elizabeth last night, his hunger had not been satisfied. Her nipples stiffened with excitement at the thought. Glancing down, she saw his groin swollen with desire.

  ‘How long do we have?’ she asked, licking her lips.

  ‘Less than an hour.’

  ‘Then let us get on,’ she said bluntly, dropping to her knees before him, her hands reaching for the lacings without hesitation.

  He helped her, breathing hard, and stiffened as she freed him, feeding his swollen length into her mouth, her long fingers squeezing and stroking just as her husband had taught her.

  Her husband had learned the trick of fellatio from a whore in Italy, where such outrages were apparently common even between man and wife, and brought it back to England with him. Lettice had always disliked performing this act with him though, finding it beneath her dignity to kneel and suckle on her husband like some soot-smeared serving girl pleasuring the cook. But with Robert, fellatio had taken on symbolic importance, as though by granting him something he would never receive from the Queen, she had somehow triumphed, stolen some of Elizabeth’s power.

  ‘Yes.’ His hand came down, heavy and urgent, pressing her head into his groin.

  She ought to have been angered by such a gesture. Instead, she closed her eyes, imagining him as king and she
his queen, her husband and the hated Elizabeth dead, and the way open for them to rule England together. Once they were married, Robert would never need to stray from her side, not while her mouth offered him such delights, her complete submission to his desire a token of her adoration. It would be a love match such as the English throne had never seen before, and she would bear him heirs, strong sons like her own darling boy.

  He nudged her away, clearly impatient for more. ‘On the bed,’ he muttered, tearing at his doublet and hose, barely able to wait until she had arranged herself on the covers before kneeling between her thighs.

  She stared at him hungrily. Leicester might no longer be a young man but he was still powerfully built. Most of the male courtiers of his age were overfed fools, their bodies soft with inactivity. But Robert had kept himself fit. He spent so much time outdoors, riding and hunting, or down in the training yard with his soldiers, practising swordplay, the muscles in his arms stood out like ridges on an oak tree.

  Robert bent over her, his mouth finding hers in a deep kiss. His chest brushed her breasts, the tingle of his hair causing her to gasp as she instinctively drew up her knees on either side of his buttocks, signalling her willingness to be entered. But she had forgotten that Robert was not like her husband, to take what he wanted and think nothing of a woman’s needs. His fingers still stroked tiny circles between her thighs, teasing her, gently but purposefully, as though intending to wait for her climax before mounting her. Lettice was on fire though, moving beneath him like a cat on heat, undulating and rubbing herself against his nakedness. She did not want to wait, even for her own pleasure.

  Shameless in desire, her voice shaking, Lettice took him in hand, guiding him inside her.

  Robert laughed at her urgency, then closed his eyes. Why did he never look at her? Was he thinking of Elizabeth?

  Lettice cried out angrily, pushing at his chest. He ignored her and kept moving, his head thrown back.

  Outside, the sun had dipped below the buildings, but it was still warm enough in the dark little room for sweat to spring out on their bodies. Lettice wrapped her legs about his back, closing her own eyes and accepting his strength inside her, bitterly aware she could never entirely exorcize Elizabeth from their bed. Robert must have sensed her mood because he began to move carefully and with purpose, trying to satisfy her, but she refused to give way.

  After a while, he groaned and buried his face in her throat, his movements slowing.

  ‘Turn over.’

  Lettice obeyed, wordlessly burying her face in the coverlet. His hands arranged her, no longer gentle; he pushed her thighs apart, and then he was inside her again, his thrusts suddenly urgent, reminding her of her husband on his brief visits home. Enjoying his unexpected roughness, Lettice smiled as she imagined how ‘virginal’ Elizabeth would scream and tear her white-painted face to see her and Robert in such gloriously mortal sin.

  Just before he finished, Robert pulled out and rolled on to his back beside her, groaning with pleasure. Lettice turned, still on her elbows, bottom up in the air, and stared at him a moment in disbelief.

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  He sat up and reached for his undershirt, draped over the arm of the chair, his tone coldly matter-of-fact. ‘We can’t risk another pregnancy, Lettice. Not with your husband still in Ireland. He would not stay there long, that’s for sure, should the news reach him that you’re with child again.’

  Lettice leapt out of bed and began to dress again too, her fingers fumbling angrily with the fastenings. ‘Did you do that with her? Or are you happy to risk a child with the Queen?’

  It was not the first time they had argued over this, for Lettice knew that with every secret child of Robert’s she carried she would bind him closer to her heart. He let her temper burn out a little before replying, then came up behind her and kissed her neck as she pinned her hair back into some semblance of order. His hands stroked her shoulders, light and reassuring.

  ‘I love you,’ he said simply, and turned her to face him.

  ‘And Elizabeth?’

  He shrugged the name off, as though it were of no importance, but she knew he was lying.

  She closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of him, his doublet still unfastened, the warm, animalistic reek of sex. ‘I shall not wait for ever, Robert. Let my husband come back from Ireland. There are ways and means for us to be together. Why shouldn’t we seize a little happiness for ourselves, when so many others take it freely and without deserving?’

  His hands stilled. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘I will not be a party to your husband’s murder,’ Robert muttered under his breath. He took a cautious step back from her, one eye on the door as though afraid someone might be listening.

  ‘Of course not, my lord, how could you even suggest such a terrible thing?’ She laughed, and tidied her hair with exaggerated care, hiding her glinting tresses once more beneath the neat wifely cap. ‘Though while we’re on the subject, you never did tell me how your wife died.’

  His face was pale. ‘You know how she died, Lettice. It was an accident. She fell down the stairs at Cumnor Place, as everyone knows. It was decided by a jury. I was not even there that day, but in London.’

  ‘The right man may do such work for pay,’ she commented idly, wincing as his hands bit into her arm, whirling her round. ‘Let me go!’

  ‘Don’t say that. You must never say such things.’

  ‘Or what?’ Her eyes dared him. ‘Will you have me toppled from the head of the stairs, my lord, or stifled in my bed? But you must forgive my womanly stupidity. I see now your ambition knows no checks or bounds, and our love-play here this evening was nothing but an amusement on the way to greater things. It was wrong of me to mention my husband, for I cannot advance you by marriage. Not like Elizabeth.’

  His eyes had narrowed on her face. ‘You’ve been speaking to someone,’ he declared, releasing her arm. Calm settled back around him. She had given him a problem and he was worrying at it like a dog in the undergrowth. ‘Who?’

  She rubbed at her arm through the sleeve of her gown, and knew she would have to be careful when undressing tonight. There would soon be bruises for sharp eyes to see.

  Robert straightened the feather on his cap, his gaze speculative. ‘I can always call in my spies if you will not tell me yourself.’

  ‘Do you have everyone watched?’

  ‘Only those who can harm me.’

  She sat down in the chair and slipped her shoes back on, not caring if he knew or not. The boy was Robert’s own nephew, after all, and a great favourite of his. There could be no hurt in telling him the truth.

  ‘Very well,’ she shrugged easily. ‘It was Pip.’

  Robert frowned. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Then wait for your spies to tell you,’ she spat irritably, and was a little shocked and even frightened by his expression, though she hid it well. ‘What? Did you think your nephew a saint, never to discuss his uncle’s business?’

  ‘I thought him loyal, yes.’

  ‘Oh, I doubt he would drop such heavy hints to anyone who was not sleeping with you, my lord.’ Lettice smiled at his muttered oath but kept a careful eye on him as he prowled the small room, knowing how quickly a squall could blow up in those dark eyes. ‘Pip was being a friend. He wanted to warn me about you … and what happens to the women who surround you. As if the whole world did not already know you had your wife killed, leaving you free to marry Elizabeth. Though the Queen has been strangely slow in taking you up on that offer. Perhaps she is afraid a similar fate awaits her once you tire of her companionship.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said drily, stopping by her chair. His voice was clipped, unpleasant, but he was back in control. ‘I am surprised that, thinking me a wife-murderer, you should so ardently wish to have me to yourself.’

  ‘My husband is a wife-beater who hates me. Yet I’ve borne him children and kept his bed warm for years. We are not so
very different, you and I, whatever Pip may say. I can understand your desire to be free of your wife,’ she said, looking up into his eyes, ‘if you can understand mine to be free of my husband.’

  His hand dropped from her shoulder. ‘I must go.’

  ‘Of course you must.’

  ‘I am the host and will be missed.’ He pulled on his leather boots. ‘I’ll send word when we can meet privately again. I may have found us a new go-between, by the way. Someone who is not also being paid to report back to Walsingham.’

  Lettice frowned. ‘Who?’

  He seemed amused, but shook his head. ‘If it works out, you’ll see soon enough. Now I really must leave. There will be music tonight, out on the lake, and I have to speak to one Master Goodluck before I go to the Queen.’

  She looked askance. ‘One of your men?’

  ‘Walsingham’s. But Goodluck is a sensible man, thank God. He’ll work wherever the pay is good. I believe he has some plan to catch these conspirators we’ve been looking for.’

  She raised her eyebrows mockingly. ‘So you didn’t engineer that little alarm last night yourself, my lord, in order to get the Queen into bed? Rather a dangerous gamble, I’d say. Imagine if she had fallen from her galloping horse and been killed.’

  A dark red flared in his face and he strode to the door, not looking back. ‘Some days I wonder why I still bother with you, Lettice Knollys,’ he threw over his shoulder.

  Unbolting the door, he flung it wide and left it open behind him, not caring who should look in and see Lady Essex sitting in a torn gown, a clutch of livid bruises on her arm, more like a whore than a countess.

  Twenty-five

  ‘WHERE IS HE?’ Elizabeth screamed, hurling a wooden stool at the vast velvet-curtained painting on the wall. The picture crashed to the floor, the curtain pole rolling away to reveal Leicester in full armour, one fist resting on his hip, at his most regal as he posed for his Italian painter. Elizabeth jerked away from the portrait in fury, knowing every face in the room to be turned towards her in fear and astonishment. ‘Don’t just stand there. Fetch him, you fools. Wherever he is, find Leicester and bring him to me.’