The Virgin's Lover

by Philippa Gregory

  “I should like to,” Elizabeth said. “You must have ridden your horses into the ground. You went backward and forward from Edinburgh to Newcastle, didn’t you?”

  Cecil nodded. “I wanted to confer with your uncle, and I needed to keep an eye on Monsieur Randan. It was a hard ride and a poorly kept road, especially in Scotland.”

  She nodded.

  “And what of you?” Cecil lowered his voice. The ladies walking behind them were out of earshot; Sir Nicholas was walking with Catherine Knollys. “How have things been with you these last two months, Princess?”

  For a moment he thought she would turn the question aside with a laugh, but she checked herself. “I was very afraid,” she said honestly. “Kat thought that my health would break under the strain.”

  “That was my fear,” he said. “You bore up wonderfully.”

  “I couldn’t have done it without Sir Robert,” she said. “He can always calm me, Spirit. He has such a wonderful voice, and his hands …I think he has magic in his hands …it’s why he can do anything with his horses. As soon as he lays his hand on my forehead I feel at peace.”

  “You are in love with him,” he said gently.

  Elizabeth looked quickly up at him to see if he was accusing her; but he met her eyes with steady sympathy.

  “Yes,” she said frankly, and it was a relief to her to be able to tell her counselor the truth at last. “Yes, I am.”

  “And he with you?”

  She smiled. “Yes, oh yes. Think of the misery if he was not!”

  He paused, then he asked her: “Princess, what will come of this? He is a married man.”

  “His wife is ill, and could die,” Elizabeth said. “And anyway, they have been unhappy for years. He says that his marriage is no more. She will release him. I can grant them a divorce. Then he will marry me.”

  How to deal with this? She will not want wise counsel; she will want to be confirmed in this folly. But if I do not speak, who will? Cecil drew a breath. “My queen, Amy Dudley, Amy Robsart that was, is a young woman; there is no reason to think that she will die. You cannot delay your marriage waiting for a young woman to die. And you cannot possibly grant him a divorce; there are no grounds for a divorce. You danced at his wedding feast yourself, when they married for love with the blessing of their parents. And you cannot marry a commoner, a man whose family has been under the shadow of treason, a man with a living wife.”

  Elizabeth turned to him. “Cecil, I can, and I will. I have promised him.”

  Good God! What does she mean by that? What does she mean by that? What does she mean by that?

  None of Cecil’s horror showed in his face. “A private promise? Love talk? Whispered between the two of you?”

  “A binding promise of marriage. “A de futuro betrothal before witnesses.”

  “Who witnessed?” he gasped out. “What witnesses?” Perhaps they could be bribed into silence, or murdered. Perhaps they could be discredited, or exiled.

  “Catherine and Francis Knollys.”

  He was shocked into silence.

  They walked, not saying a word. He found that his legs were weak beneath him at the horror of what she had told him. He had failed to guard her. She was entrapped, and the country with her.

  “You are angry with me,” she said in a small voice. “You think I have made a terrible mistake when you were not here to prevent me.”

  “I am horrified.”

  “Spirit, I could not help myself. You were not here, I thought that at any moment the French would invade. I thought I had lost my throne already. I had nothing left to lose. I wanted to know that at least I had him.”

  “Princess, this is a disaster worse than a French invasion,” he said. “If the French had invaded, every man in the country would have laid down his life for you. But if they knew you were betrothed to marry Sir Robert, they would put Katherine Grey on the throne in your place.”

  They were approaching the stables. “Walk on,” she said quickly. “I dare not meet him now. He will see I have told you.”

  “He told you not to confide in me?”

  “He didn’t have to! We all know you would advise me against him.”

  Cecil led her by another path into the garden. He could feel her trembling.

  “The people of England would never turn against me just for falling in love.”

  “Princess, they will not accept him as your husband and your consort. I am sorry; but the best you can do now is to choose your successor. You will have to abdicate; you will have to give up your throne.”

  He felt her stagger as her knees gave way.

  “Do you want to sit down?”

  “No, let’s walk, let’s walk,” Elizabeth said feverishly. “You don’t mean it, Spirit, do you? You’re just trying to frighten me.”

  He shook his head. “I tell you nothing but the truth.”

  “He is not so hated in the country? There are just a few who wish him ill at court—my uncle, of course, and the Duke of Arundel, those who are jealous of him and envy him his looks, those who want the favor that I show him, those who want his wealth, his position…”

  “It’s not that,” Cecil said wearily. “Listen to me, Elizabeth, I am telling you the truth. It is not a little jealousy at court, it is an opinion which runs very deep in the country. It’s his family and his position and his past. His father was executed for treason against your sister; his grandfather was executed for treason against your father. He has bad blood. Princess, his family has always been a traitor to yours. Everyone remembers that if the Dudleys rise high they abuse their power. No one would ever trust a Dudley with great position. And everyone knows that he is a married man, and no one has heard anything against his wife. He cannot just cast her aside; it would be an unbearable scandal. Already the courts of Europe laugh at you, and say that you are shamed by your adulterous love for your horse master.”

  He saw her flush at the thought of it.

  “You should marry a king, Princess. Or an archduke at the very least, someone of good blood whose alliance will help the country. You cannot marry a common man with nothing more to recommend him than his good looks and his handling of his horse. The country will never accept him as your consort. I know it.”

  “You hate him too,” she said fiercely. “You are as unkind to him as the rest of them.”

  Inveterately, he acknowledged to himself. But he smiled his gentle smile at her. “It would not matter how I felt about him, if he was the right man for you,” he said gently. “I hope I would have the sense to advise you as to your best course, whatever my preferences. And, as it happens, I do not hate him; I rather like him. But I have long feared your particular favor to him. I have been afraid that it would come to a point. I never dreamed he would take it to this.”

  Elizabeth turned her head away; he saw her picking at her nails.

  “It went further than I meant it to,” she said, very low. “I was not thinking straight and I went further…”

  “If you can escape from your promise of betrothal now, your reputation will have been stained, but you will recover, if you give him up and go on to marry someone else. But if you go through with it the people will throw you from your throne rather than bow the knee to him.”

  “Mary had Philip even though they hated him!” she burst out.

  “He was an anointed king!” Cecil exclaimed. “They might hate him but they could not object to his breeding. And Philip had an army to support him; he was heir to the empire of Spain. What does Dudley have? Half a dozen retainers and the huntsmen! How will they serve him in the first riot that breaks out?”

  “I have given my word,” she whispered. “Before God and honorable witnesses.”

  “You will have to withdraw it,” he said flatly. “Or this peace will be as nothing, for you will have won peace for England and Queen Katherine Grey.”

  “Queen Katherine?” she repeated, aghast. “Never!”

  “Princess, there are at least two plots
to put her on the throne instead of you. She is a Protestant like her sister Jane, she is well liked, she is of Tudor stock.”

  “She knows of this? She is plotting against me?”

  He shook his head. “I would have had her arrested already if I thought there was the least question of her loyalty. I only mention her now so that you know there are people who would push you from your throne now—when they hear of this promise they will recruit many others.”

  “I will keep it secret,” she said.

  “It will have to be more than secret; it will have to be broken and hidden. You will have to withdraw it. You can never marry him and he knows it. You have to tell him that you have come to your senses and now you know it too. He has to release you.”

  “Shall I write to Mr. Forster?” Lizzie Oddingsell suggested to Amy, trying to keep her tone light and impersonal. “We could go and stay at Cumnor Place for a few weeks.”

  “Cumnor Place?” Amy looked surprised. She was seated in the window seat for the last of the light, sewing a little shirt for Tom Hyde.

  “Yes,” Lizzie said steadily. “We went to them this time last year, toward the end of the summer, before we went on to Chislehurst.”

  Amy’s head came up very slowly. “You have not heard from my lord?” she asked, quite certain that the reply would be negative. “Mr. Hyde has not had a letter from my lord about me?”

  “No,” Lizzie said awkwardly. “I am sorry, Amy.”

  Amy bent her head back to her work. “Has your brother spoken to you? Does he want us to leave?”

  “No, no,” Lizzie said hastily. “I just thought that your other friends will be jealous if they do not see you. And then perhaps we could go on to the Scotts at Camberwell? You will want to shop in London, I suppose?”

  “I thought he had been a little cool toward me,” Amy said. “I was afraid that he wanted me to leave.”

  “Not at all!” Lizzie cried out, hearing her voice as overemphatic. “This is all my idea. I thought you might be tired of here and want to move on. That’s all.”

  “Oh, no,” Amy said with vacant little smile. “I’m not tired of being here, and I like it here, Lizzie. Let’s stay for a while longer.”

  “What have you been doing all afternoon?” Sir Robert asked Elizabeth intimately as they dined in the privacy of her chamber. “I came to the council room as soon as I had seen the horses but you had not waited for me. They said you were walking with Cecil in the garden. But when I got to the garden you were nowhere to be found, and when I came back to your rooms they said you were not to be disturbed.”

  “I was tired,” she said shortly. “I rested.”

  He scrutinized her pale face, taking in the shadows under her eyes, the pink eyelids. “He said something to upset you?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Were you angry with him about his failure in Scotland?”

  “No. That’s finished with. We can get nothing more than he has got.”

  “A great advantage thrown away,” he prompted her.

  “Yes,” she said shortly. “Perhaps.”

  His smile was quite inscrutable. He has persuaded her back under his influence, he thought. She really is quite hopelessly malleable. Aloud he said, “I can tell that something is wrong, Elizabeth. What is it?”

  She turned her dark eyes on him. “I can’t talk now. She did not have to gesture to the small circle of courtiers who were dining with them and, as ever, constantly alert to everything they said and did. “I’ll talk to you later, when we are alone.”

  “Of course,” he said, smiling kindly at her. “Then let us set ourselves to amuse you. Shall we play cards? Or play a game? Or shall we dance?”

  “Cards,” she said. At least a game of cards would prevent a conversation, she thought.

  Robert waited in his room for Elizabeth, Tamworth his valet on guard outside, the wine poured, the fire freshly heaped with sweet-scented apple wood. The door from her room opened and she came in, not with her usual eager stride, not with desire illuminating her face. Tonight she was a little hesitant, almost as if she wished herself elsewhere.

  So, she has reconciled with Cecil, he thought. And he has warned her off me. As I knew he would, once they were on good terms again. But we are as good as married. She is mine. Aloud he said: “My dearest. This day has gone on forever,” and took her into his arms.

  Robert felt the slightest check before she moved close to him, and he stroked her back and murmured kisses into her hair. “My love,” he said. “My one and only love.”

  He released her before she withdrew, and handed her into a chair at the fireside. “And here we are,” he said. “Alone at last. Will you have a glass of wine, dearest?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He poured her the wine and touched her fingers as she took the wineglass from him. He saw how she looked at the fire, and not at him.

  “I am sure that there is something the matter,” he said. “Is it something between us? Something that I have done to offend you?”

  Elizabeth looked up at once. “No! Never! You are always…”

  “Then what is it, my love? Tell me, and let us face whatever difficulty there is together.”

  She shook her head. “There is nothing. It is just that I love you so much; I have been thinking of how I could not bear to lose you.”

  Robert put down his glass and knelt at her feet. “You won’t lose me,” he said simply. “I am yours, heart and soul. I am promised to you.”

  “If we could not marry for a long time, you would still love me,” she said. “You would wait for me?”

  “Why should we not publish our betrothal at once?” he asked, going to the heart of it.

  “Oh.” She fluttered her hand. “You know, a thousand reasons. Perhaps none of them matter. But if we could not, would you wait for me? Would you be true to me? Would we always be like this?”

  “I would wait for you. I would be true to you,” he promised her. “But we could not always be like this. Someone would find out; someone would talk. And I couldn’t go on always loving you and being at your side and yet never being able to help you when you are afraid or alone. I have to be able to take your hand before all the court and say that you are mine and I am yours, that your enemies are my enemies and that I will defeat them.”

  “But if we had to wait, we could,” she pressed him.

  “Why would we have to wait? Have we not earned our happiness? Both of us in the Tower, both of us thinking that we might face the block the next day? Have we not earned a little joy now?”

  “Yes,” she agreed hastily. “But Cecil says that there are many who speak against you, and plot against me, even now. We have to get the country to accept you. It may take a little time, that is all.”

  “Oh, what does Cecil know?” Robert demanded carelessly. “He’s only just come back from Edinburgh. My intelligencers tell me that the people love you, and they will come to accept me in time.”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said. “In time. We will have to wait a little while.”

  He thought it was too dangerous to argue. “Forever, if you wish,” he said, smiling. “For centuries if it is what you wish. You will tell me when you want to declare our betrothal, and it shall be our secret until then.”

  “I don’t want to withdraw from it,” she said hastily. “I don’t want to break it.”

  “You cannot break it,” he said simply. “And neither can I. It is indissoluble. It is a legally binding, sacred promise before God and witnesses. In the eyes of God we are man and wife and no one can part us.”

  A letter came for Amy from Robert’s friend and client, Mr. Forster at Cumnor Place, inviting her to stay with him for the month of September. Lizzie Oddingsell read it aloud to Amy, who would not make the effort to puzzle it out herself.

  “You had better reply and tell them that I shall be very pleased to stay with them,” Amy said coldly. “Shall you come with me? Or stay here?”

  “Why would I n
ot come with you?” Lizzie demanded, shocked.

  “If you wanted to leave my service,” Amy said, looking away from her friend. “If you think, as your brother clearly does, that I am under a cloud, and that you would be better not associated with me.”

  “My brother has said no such thing,” Lizzie lied firmly. “And I would never leave you.”

  “I am not what I was,” Amy said, and the coldness went out of her voice in a rush and left only a thin thread of sound. “I do not enjoy my husband’s favor anymore. Your brother is not improved by my visit, Cumnor Place will not be honored by having me. I see I shall have to find people who will have me, despite my lord’s disfavor. I am no longer an asset.”

  Lizzie said nothing. This letter from Anthony Forster was a begrudging reply to her request that Amy might stay with them for the whole of the autumn. The Scotts of Camberwell, Amy’s own cousins, had replied that they would unfortunately be away for all of November. It was clear that Amy’s hosts, even Amy’s own family, no longer wanted her in their houses.

  “Anthony Forster has always admired you,” Lizzie said. “And my brother and Alice were saying only the other day what a pleasure it was to see you playing with Tom. You are like one of the family here.”

  Amy wanted to believe her friend too much for skepticism. “Did they really?”

  “Yes,” Lizzie said. “They said that he had taken to you like no one else.”

  “Then can’t I stay here?” she asked simply. “I would rather stay here than go on. I would rather stay here than go home to Stanfield at Christmas. I could pay for our keep, you know, if your brother would let us stay here.”

  Lizzie was silenced. “Surely, now that Mr. Forster has been so kind as to invite us we should go there,” she said feebly. “You would not want to offend him.”

  “Oh, let’s just go for a week or so then,” Amy said. “And then come back here.”

  “Surely not,” Lizzie hedged. “You would not want to seem ungracious. Let’s go for the full month to Cumnor Place.”

  She thought for a moment that she had got away with the lie, but Amy paused, as if the whole conversation had been held in a foreign language, and she had suddenly understood it. “Oh. Your brother wants me to leave, doesn’t he?” she said slowly. “They won’t want me back here in October. They won’t want me back here for a while, indeed, perhaps never. It is as I thought at first, and all this has been a lie. Your brother does not want me to stay. Nobody will want me to stay.”