A Pawn for a Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's (Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court)

by Buckley, Fiona

  “I advised marriage, madam,” Brockley said, “but this . . . I can’t feel that this is ideal. Not after Master de la Roche.”

  “No, indeed. We were thinking of a proper love match, ma’am, an affair of the heart,” Dale said sentimentally.

  I told them to mind their own business.

  At the end of the two weeks, I sent a courier to Withysham to announce that I was on my way home and traveled to Thamesbank by hired barge. Rob Henderson offered to escort me, but I said that I would prefer it if he did not. I was civil. Once again, I chose to keep my dignity. But my feelings had not changed. With my head, I could understand why he had had my cousin killed but my heart, my viscera, would not listen. This man had had a blood relation of mine slaughtered and I could not forgive him. I could not bear to be close to him for long, or to exchange more than the most conventional remarks with him.

  At Thamesbank, Mattie met me, holding Meg by the hand, and we went into the house together for a goblet of wine before I traveled on. Dale and Brockley were with me and our horses, of course, had been left at Thamesbank. We could, and would, ride on the same day. I still could not bring myself to stay a night under Rob’s roof, even in his absence. I would take wine there only for Mattie’s sake.

  With Meg out of hearing, because she had gone with Dale to the nursery to see Mattie’s infant daughter, Elizabeth, I looked at my friend across the goblets and said: “Mattie, you told me that you know what happened in Scotland. What Rob did.”

  “Yes, Ursula. I know more or less all of it—that’s quite true.”

  “I can’t . . .” I stopped, and then began again. “Nothing will ever make me less than fond of you, Mattie. Nothing. And you’re right to be loyal to Rob. But for me . . .” I stopped again. Mattie looked at me sadly and I saw the glitter of tears in her eyes.

  “You mean that nothing will ever be the same again. I know. Believe me, you and Meg will always, always, be welcome here, but if you don’t choose to come . . . well . . .”

  “I’ll write to you now and then, Mattie, and tell you how Meg does. If when she is older, she chooses to visit you, I won’t stop her. Will that do?”

  “It will have to, won’t it?” Mattie looked at me wryly and sipped her wine. “What plans have you made now, Ursula?”

  I told her of my future intentions and she wished me happiness. We embraced before we parted, but it was a deeper and more final parting than any we had had before and would probably last longer. Then I rode away.

  Before going to my own home, I went to Faldene to see my uncle and aunt and Helene. I was careful in what I said. I did not harrow them with a full description of Edward’s deathbed, and I told them that he had been murdered by one of Mary Stuart’s Protestant nobles.

  It was almost true, as far as it went. They didn’t ask many questions. For the most part, they listened and cried. Helene wept so much that I found myself embracing her with a real desire to give comfort and then doing the same to Aunt Tabitha, for the years were telling on her seriously now. Her hands had become stringy and marked with liver spots, and the fine dry skin of her face was showing wrinkles and looked as though it had worn thin with time.

  I had always been so afraid of her but now she was a sad figure, a woman past her best years, trying to grapple with the knowledge that a son she had loved and been proud of would never come home again. It was much the same with Uncle Herbert, though he would not let me embrace him. I would never love them, and they would never love me, but they respected me now, and I could pity them.

  I once more collected Meg, who had stayed in the kitchen with Brockley and Dale, and at last, we went home to Withysham.

  Never in my life had I been so glad to see it. It was so dear, so familiar, and yet it felt as though I had been away from it for a hundred years. At the front door, Brockley helped me out of the saddle, and Malton came down the steps to welcome us. My ancient hanger-on Gladys, a shawl over her head and her terrible fanged grin joyously splitting her nutcracker of a face, came hobbling after him, and it was Gladys, no respecter of anyone’s status, who got in before him and informed me that I had visitors awaiting me.

  “That was for me to say, Gladys,” said Malton reproachfully, and was then forestalled again because before he had time to tell me who the visitors were, one of them came hurrying out to join us. At the sight of her, I uttered a cry of joy.

  “Sybil!”

  It was indeed Sybil Jester, the friend I had made in Cambridge the previous year. Sybil’s features always made me think that when she was small, someone had put her chin on a table and a heavy weight on the top of her head and then pressed. Her nose was too broad, her lips a little too thick, and her dark eyes were deep-set behind heavy cheekbones. But they were eyes full of serenity and good temper and her welcoming embrace was full of genuine liking.

  “You wrote to me from Scotland,” said Sybil. “And hinted that if things were difficult in Cambridge, there might be a place for me here. Your letter was so kind, so affectionate, that I thought . . . I hoped . . .”

  “So did I. I’m so glad to see you. What of your daughter, though?”

  “She had a son,” said Sybil. “The child has been adopted by his father’s family and they found a match for Ambrosia. He is a schoolmaster in Norwich and runs a school for merchants’ sons. I think they are well suited. The wedding was last month. As for me, I tried to settle down in Cambridge and go on with the business my husband left but . . .”

  “It was difficult?”

  “Impossible!” said Sybil. “I felt like a freak in a traveling fair. People would come into the pie shop just to stare at me. I tried to ignore it, to live it down, but . . . well, I’ve farmed it out to a manager. And then, I decided, because your letter was so kind, that I would come to you. I am not empty-handed, of course. I still have the income from the shop.”

  “Mistress Jester arrived a week ago,” said Malton, “and has been helping to prepare for your return.”

  “I haven’t interfered,” said Sybil anxiously. “But I have made myself useful.”

  “She has brushed tapestries and aired bedding and polished candlesticks,” said Malton, beaming. “You’ll find everything in the best of order, madam.”

  “My dear Sybil,” I said. “You’re more than welcome and there is much you can do in Withysham. With you to look after her, I need never send Meg away from home again. Consider yourself part of my household from now on.”

  “But there’s someone else here, madam,” said Malton. “He arrived yesterday—I believe as a result of correspondence which he has had—he says—with Sir William Cecil on your behalf.”

  Behind me, I felt both Brockley and Dale stiffen. But I couldn’t afford to worry about that now. I had suggested the match myself and there was much to be said for it. If it lacked passion . . . well, I had had my fill of passion, and more than my fill. Now, I wanted security and I also wanted safety from the perils of childbirth. Here was a chance to combine the two. With a gesture, I invited Malton to precede me inside and announce me. My second guest was in the main parlor, playing chess against himself. He rose at once as I entered.

  “I thought it best not to rush impetuously out to greet you. I hope I did right. I feel quite shy, which is remarkable, at my age. I have come,” said Hugh Stannard, rose grower, chess player, cynic, and elderly uncle to Mistress Euphemia Thursby, “to tell you in person that after receiving Sir William Cecil’s unexpected but most welcome letter, I could not stay away. Since meeting you at St. Margaret’s, I have scarcely been able to get you out of my mind. But what made you ask Sir William to write to me?”

  I love Euphemia. She is a dear, sweet, innocent woman. She has never harmed a soul . . . if necessary, I will fight for Euphemia.

  “You were ready to fight for Euphemia. I thought perhaps I could trust you. I thought that if you meant what you said at our last meeting, you might—make me a good husband.”

  “My dear Ursula, I can with the greatest pleasure offer you
every kindness and a position in society and all manner of worldly goods. I am also as sure as I can be that our marriage will not result in children, and in this respect I would not deceive you, but Sir William assured me that since you have a daughter already, this is not a drawback in your eyes. If you hold by what you apparently told Sir William and the queen, and are truly of a mind to grant me your hand, it would please me very well.”

  SCRIBNER HARDCOVER

  PROUDLY PRESENTS

  THE FUGITIVE QUEEN

  FIONA BUCKLEY

  Now available in hardcover from Scribner

  Turn the page for a preview of

  The Fugitive Queen. . . .

  1

  A DOWRY FOR A WAYWARD MAID

  I married Hugh Stannard in 1565, the seventh year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. I was thirty-one, a little younger than the queen herself, and Hugh was more than twenty years my senior, but this suited me very well. I had had enough of passion. I had felt passion for both of my previous husbands, and it had brought me more suffering than joy.

  Well, it was true that my dear first husband, Gerald Blanchard, had given me my daughter, Meg, who was a blessing to me. But I had nearly lost my life in bearing her, and I had lost Gerald himself to smallpox while Meg was still small. Now my second husband, Matthew de la Roche, was dead of the plague, and although I had been deeply in love with him, we had never had any peace or lasting happiness together. I bore him a stillborn son, whose birth brought me even nearer to the grave than Meg had, so that I learned to fear childbearing. And also, I was loyal to Queen Elizabeth of England while he had continually plotted against her on behalf of Mary Stuart, who was queen of Scotland and in the eyes of ardent Catholics such as Matthew should have been queen of England, too.

  If I were tired of passion, I was even more tired of conspiracy. For many years I had served Elizabeth as a Lady of the Presence Chamber, but I had been more than that. I had also worked for her as a spy, seeking out plots against her. For a while, I found the excitement exhilarating. It had called to me in a voice like the cry of the wild geese, winging across the sky. When I heard the geese, something in me always longed to bound up into the air and follow them. In the same way, I had responded to the summons of adventure.

  But my work divided me from Matthew, and willy nilly, it caused me to send men to their deaths. It put me in mortal danger, too, once or twice. I continually worried and frightened my two good servants, Fran Dale, my tirewoman, and Roger Brockley, my steward; I more than once risked leaving Meg alone without either mother or father; and when my adventuring finally brought me perilously close to being forced into a disastrous third marriage, I knew I had had enough.

  In Hugh Stannard, I found a refuge from conflict combined with freedom from the perils of childbirth. He was a widower and hadn’t spent his widowhood like a monk, which meant that he had had every chance of siring children yet he had never succeeded in doing so. With him, I could be fairly sure that I would not have to face pregnancy again. He was also a decent, honest man, interested in chess and gardens, an uncomplicated Protestant and a trustworthy subject of the queen. Life as Hugh’s wife might be dull, I thought, but it would be quiet. I was glad to settle for that. I could do without excitement. I could even do without happiness, as long as I could have some peace.

  I hoped that we would make a good partnership. I would retire from court and conspiracy alike. Hugh and I would live together in amity, dividing our time between our two homes, my Withysham in Sussex and his Hawkswood in Surrey. I would educate my daughter; cultivate my herb garden; enjoy the society of my recently acquired woman companion, Sybil Jester; let Fran and Roger enjoy each other’s society, too. They were married, though Fran was still usually known as Dale, out of habit.

  And so, in businesslike fashion, I ceased to be Ursula Blanchard and became instead Mistress Hugh Stannard, and if for a while I secretly grieved for Matthew, and cried in private because I had not been with him to comfort him at the end as once I had comforted Gerald, I did so only when I was alone.

  And time erodes sorrow. Presently, my private fits of weeping ceased. Then I found that I had entered into more happiness than I would ever have believed possible. Hugh’s lovemaking, if not frequent, was perfectly satisfactory, and his temperament was a pleasing mixture of the competent and the generous. He took a kindly interest in Meg, and it was Hugh who achieved what I had not, and found a tutor, Dr. Lambert, who could teach her Greek as well as Latin. Then, in the third year of our marriage, he was perfectly ready to welcome Penelope Mason, the daughter of my former acquaintance Ann Mason, into our home.

  I was pleased. Years ago, I had uncovered a conspiracy that was brewing in the Mason household, although the Masons themselves were not involved. It was an unpleasant business, though, and keeping up any kind of friendship with the family seemed impossible afterward. Ann Mason’s letter delighted me.

  I was less delighted, however, when, after Pen had been with us for a month and I was exchanging messages with the court prior to taking her there, Hugh observed that, romantically speaking, she was susceptible. “You should urge the matter of her court appointment on,” he said to me, “and get her away from here. I think she’s falling for the tutor.”

  “For Lambert?” I said in astonishment. Dr. Henry Lambert was about Hugh’s own age, and his hair was already completely silver. “He’s too old to interest a young girl, surely!” I said.

  “Don’t you believe it,” said Hugh. “He’s a fine-looking man, and since Pen is studying Greek with Meg, she sees him every day. It won’t do. Even if he were younger, it wouldn’t do. He has no property beyond a cottage in the town of Guildford. And he’s Protestant. Her mother wouldn’t like that.” Hugh had Catholic relatives and was tolerant of their creed. “Get her to court and under the eye of the queen, fast.”

  I did as he said. My happiness with Hugh was based as much as anything on his reliability. He was a clearheaded man and I trusted his judgment. It wasn’t Hugh’s fault that Pen’s sojourn at court was less than successful. I certainly didn’t blame him for that.

  In all our life together, Hugh and I quarrelled only once, and that was for the most improbable of reasons.

  • • •

  Pen had been at court for only two months, when the letter came from Sir William Cecil to tell us that, having been removed from Dr. Lambert the tutor, she had now fallen in love with Master Rowan the interpreter and was causing embarrassment and would we come to court to deal with her.

  “Oh, really!” grumbled Hugh. “And riding makes all my joints ache. I don’t want to travel to Richmond. It’s all of twenty-five miles. Why can’t this Master Rowan fend her off without our help?”

  I wondered, too. Between them, Master Rowan, Queen Elizabeth, Sir William Cecil, and the mistress in charge of the Maids of Honor really should have been able to call Pen to order. However, a summons from Cecil could not be ignored. Dutifully, we set out for Richmond Palace.

  I had always liked Richmond. Of all Elizabeth’s homes, it seemed to me the most charming, with its gardens and wind-chimes, its delicately designed towers and its gracious rooms, so many of which looked out on the Thames. On days like this, when the sun was out and the gardens were full of scent and color, and the Thames sparkled under a mild breeze, it was at its most beguiling. I would have enjoyed this visit, my first in years, if only we hadn’t had to cope with Pen.

  Cecil had arranged lodgings in the palace for us, and Pen was sent to us there. She stood miserably in front of us, and Hugh and I, enthroned side by side on a broad window seat, probably looked and sounded like a pair of judges as we took her to task over her behavior.

  Penelope obviously felt both frightened and embarrassed. First of all she turned very red and indignantly denied the charge. Confronted by the evidence in the form of Cecil’s letter to me and also the sonnet in her handwriting (it was technically rather good, as a matter of fact; Pen was a clever girl), she did the only thing left for her to do and bur
st into tears. Hugh, without speaking and with a most unsympathetic expression on his face, took a napkin from his sleeve and handed it to her.

  Gazing at her as she snuffled into the napkin, I sighed. It is no light responsibility, taking charge of someone else’s daughter.

  As her mother had said, Pen was not a beauty. To be truthful, she was almost plain. Her forehead bulged too much and her chin was too square. Her hair, demurely folded into waves under a white cap with silver embroidery, was no more than mousey. Her best features were her dark gray eyes, which were beautifully set, and her complexion, which, when not swollen with tears, was clear and pale. She held herself well, too, had good taste in dress, and she was intelligent, as that confounded sonnet demonstrated. I was sorry for her now but I hardened my heart. Pen was not going to spoil her reputation through girlish inexperience or waste herself on the wrong man if I could save her, and I meant to do that for her sake as well as to please her mother.

  “Dry your eyes,” I said firmly. “And listen. You have fallen in love—well, it happens. Few of us, though, marry our first loves, and most of us realize later what a good thing that is . . .”

  “You married your first love,” said Pen mutinously.

  “And what would you know about that?” Hugh enquired. Soberly clad in a dark formal gown, his blue eyes icy with annoyance, my husband looked particularly judgmental. He also looked tired, I thought. We had taken two days over the ride from Hawkswood, and his mare was an ambler, thus providing a very smooth and easy pace, but the rheumatic pains in his joints had troubled him badly. It gave me an extra reason to be angry with Pen.

  “I heard about it when I was with you at Hawkswood,” she said in a resentful voice. “Dale told me. You ran off with your cousin Mary’s betrothed. You pleased yourself. Why can’t I?”