by Susan Kay
She leaned forward boldly and took his hand in her warm grasp.
“Is that what you believe of me, Philip?”
“I do not know,” he said slowly, staring at her very hard. “I know nothing about you even after all these weeks in your company and I think that is how you mean it to be. You hide your true self behind a mask. You are charming, witty, accomplished—”
She pouted.
“You might try beautiful.”
“I might.” Against his will he was moved to smile. “Oh, I concede you are fair of face—but beneath that pretty shell, I fear—”
“Oh dear—a natural savage at heart?”
“Madam, I would not venture to suggest what you were—at heart.” They were very close, close enough to kiss. “But perhaps one day—I shall find out.”
His pale eyes were locked on hers, urgently trying to suggest what his pride and rigid breeding still forbade him to put into words. She saw with amazement that he was desperate for her to make the first move, so that he could call her whore in his heart and enjoy her without a qualm of conscience. What a prig! What a hypocrite! She wanted to slap his suave face, but if she did that it would be an end of her, for he was not a man who would ever forgive an insult. So it was better to play the modest virgin, to blush and withdraw to a safe distance, while indicating with a subtle glance that he might still pursue his elusive quarry. She dared not risk slighting him with an open rebuff. Too much depended on his friendship and her perilous attempt to hold it without running foul of the Queen’s possessive heart. Already there had been whispers of peevish quarrels between Mary and her husband, and Elizabeth suspected that she was the cause. She must step warily, for once the child was born Philip would return to Spain and she would be at Mary’s mercy once more, shut away perhaps year after year until she was old and withered. At the end of that month she was abruptly given leave to retire from court—leave which she had not requested—and she knew her suspicions of Mary were well grounded.
A fierce tension hung over the country that spring as England waited for the birth of a new heir. And waited. Mary was many weeks over her time; the doctors said there was a miscalculation in their dates; the doctors said it was quite normal. But the days slipped into weeks and the weeks into months, while Mary lay heavy and moribund on her cushions waiting for labour to begin. The country was explosive with unrest. Philip lived in terror that the pregnancy might indeed prove to be a mistake, that his wife was merely ill with a tumour and had never been with child at all. And if that was so then the most disagreeable of his duties would have to begin all over again, to say nothing of the humiliation which would attend the announcement. He knew the epithet which the English would hurl behind his back.
Another impotent ƒoreigner!
It was August before the Queen finally accepted that there would be no child and Philip, making his father’s abdication his excuse to go, prepared to escape from England at the first opportunity. Elizabeth was summoned to Greenwich and in a small panelled room the Prince of Spain stood alone to bid farewell to his sister-in-law.
She sat on a little footstool at his feet, spreading her skirts around her like the petals of a flower; and when he reached for her hand, she raised her eyes slowly to his face with an expression which could only flatter his taunted manhood, a look which promised an exquisite surrender.
“I have things to say to you,” he said quietly, “things that must not be heard outside this room.”
“You can trust me, Philip, surely you know that by now.”
He shook his head slightly. All he knew was that he had to trust her, because he was too deeply lost in her coils to do otherwise.
“Savoy is very close to Spain,” he began haltingly, “and the Duke is my vassal. If you marry him he would not be a possessive husband and I would look to see you often at my court.”
She smiled.
“You disappoint me, Philip. I had hoped for something better than a place in your harem.”
His breath caught in his throat. Was she telling him that in the event of Mary’s death she would be prepared to give herself to him in marriage?
“Dare I hope—” he began and faltered.
She held out her hands to him and he lifted her to her feet; they stood staring into each other’s watchful eyes.
“When I am Queen of England, Philip,” she said softly, “you will not find me ungrateful for your protection.”
The bargain was now quite plain to him. Keep me and my inheritance safe from Mary and you shall have your reward!
His hands moved to her bare shoulders; his mouth was dry with sudden excitement.
“Will you not show me a little of that gratitude before I leave?”
As though on impulse she put her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. Drowning in her embrace, he pressed her close against his codpiece. Suddenly she pulled away, shaken with what he could only interpret as the violence of her desire.
“Not now,” she whispered. “Not here. Anyone could walk in.”
She saw the real horror in his eyes; to be caught in a compromising situation would be worse than death to him. She laid a fragile hand regretfully on his sleeve. “Wait for me, Philip—as I shall wait for you.”
He bowed and went to the door, a stiff, courtly figure in his black suit. There he turned to look back with longing, and in his eyes was the question he could not bring himself to ask.
“Trust me, Philip,” she said steadily, “trust my love for you—as I know I can trust yours.”
He smiled his rare smile and was gone.
When the door had closed behind him, she went to her own apartments and scrubbed his kiss from her lips with a rough cloth.
* * *
Mary knew she must not weep. She must sit quiet and calm and listen with borrowed dignity, while Philip held her limp hand and spoke to her with the forced kindness she had grown to dread.
He was angry beneath that dignified exterior, and she bowed her head before his cool eyes, shutting out the mask of pity which cloaked his contempt. Her failure had exposed his sensitive pride to the worst of insults. She had brought him to England and humiliated him, and now that he was leaving and promising absently to return in a few weeks only, he was speaking not of her, but of Elizabeth.
Always Elizabeth!
“If you wish to please me, madam, you will treat her with kindness when I am gone. And in my absence the Act of Succession must remain unaltered.”
When I am dead she will be Queen. And then he will take her…
But after she was dead, what did it matter? There was that in his face which suggested he would not set foot again in England if she refused him. And so anxious was she to bring him back that she agreed without murmur to his terms.
When Philip had sailed away, pity chained Elizabeth to her sister’s side. The empty cradle still lay forlornly in the empty nursery, mocking its cruel inscription:
The child which through Mary, oh Lord of Might has sent
To England’s joy, in health preserve, keep and defend.
Elizabeth stood in the doorway and watched her sister rock the gilded thing with her foot, and thought that in all her life she had never seen so sad a sight. Impulsive words of sympathy rose to her lips, but she turned away quickly before she could be seen, knowing she would do more harm than good by voicing them.
With Philip gone there was nothing to keep Elizabeth at court.
She went back to Hatfield and lived as quietly as she could, while the Protestants burned.
Chapter 3
A few weeks only” lengthened into nineteen long months before Philip set foot in England once more. He stayed just long enough to muster English forces for his war with France and within a month of achieving this was gone again, leaving his wife behind, once more indulging in a phantom pregnancy which deceived no one but herself.
Among the many young Englishmen who had accompanied Philip to France was Robert Dudley. Released at last from the Tower, but not permitted to show their faces at court, he and the rest of his brothers had been kicking their heels in poverty around London and their country houses until the god-sent chance of employment came. Robin had seen Philip retire inexplicably from the furore of St. Quentin at the very moment when Paris lay open to their troops. He was filled with contempt for that military blunder. But later, when called to Philip’s tent to be commended on his bravery, he was careful not to let that contempt show. One does not tell the master of half of the world that he is a spineless fool—particularly when one is a penniless young lord seeking one’s fortune wherever it may be made.
Philip’s personal request sent Robin back to England with despatches for the Queen and within a few weeks, in recognition of his services at St. Quentin, the Queen restored to the Dudley family lands which had been escheated to the crown. But of the five Dudley boys who had set out on their father’s desperate venture in 1553, only Robin and Ambrose were now left to claim the rank of a duke’s son. Guildford had died on the block; John of his rigorous imprisonment; Henry in the French war. Whenever Robin surveyed the wreck of their once notorious family, he knew it was left to him to restore its fortune.
Accordingly, he spent a short time making himself agreeable at court, and gleaning information as to the nature of the Queen’s illness. When at last he was satisfied that there was no longer any hope of a recovery, he returned to his country estate and began to make plans for the future.
* * *
Amy Dudley stood in the low arch of the doorway and watched her husband sadly. He was sitting at an old writing desk, with his back towards her, poring over deeds and documents with taut interest. A candle burned on either side of him and his favourite hound lay at his feet in the sweet straw.
Misfortune had hardened him. He was no longer the easygoing boy she had fallen in love with at Syderstone; they lived together in this big house like strangers and made love occasionally in cursory silence. Ever since his return from the Tower he had been like this, tense, preoccupied, distant, driven by a burning restlessness which kept him hunting till dusk and prowling through the quiet house at night. Often he went down to the village alone, galloping out of the courtyard on that wild black stallion which frightened her so much. She believed he met women there, but dared not ask. He seemed to be waiting for something, consumed by impatience, and the longer he waited the more moody and irritable he became.
“Robert,” she said diffidently from the doorway, “what are you doing?”
He was silent. She sensed his displeasure at being disturbed.
“I’m selling some land,” he said curtly as she came over to his side. “I need the money.”
“For what? You lack for nothing here, Robert.”
“I intend to make a small investment for the future. That’s all you need to know. Go to bed now, Amy—I’ll be up soon.”
Her eyes were steady on his face, but the hand resting on his shoulder had begun to tremble.
“It’s for her—isn’t it?”
His lips tightened; he flung down his quill.
“It’s for Elizabeth, if that’s what you mean. She will be Queen before the end of the year with any luck and then—”
“And then you will go to her,” said Amy dully.
“Naturally I shall go to her,” he snapped. “She is the only one who can bring me to power and fortune again. For Christ’s sake, Amy, don’t you understand—she will be Queen of England.”
“She’s always been your Queen. Do you think I haven’t known it all these years?”
He began to gather up his papers in angry silence. Amy caught desperately at the fur robe which hung loosely round his broad shoulders.
“Robert, listen to me, I beg you. Listen to me this once even if you never do again. I’m not a fool. I know how attractive she is to you, and to all men. She’s handsome and clever, and amusing—but her eyes are like ice. And you won’t melt them, Robert—no man could. There’s something cruel and twisted deep inside her. Oh, Robert, keep away from her. I know she’s dangerous.”
He unpicked Amy’s hot fingers and put her from him; his face was hard and contemptuous.
“I shall be leaving at the end of the week for Hatfield,” he announced with measured calm. “When you have finished embellishing your absurd fancies, you will find me waiting upstairs.”
“Wait as long as you like,” she sobbed, “I will not lie between the two of you again.”
He shrugged indifferently and blew out the candles on the table.
“As you please, my dear. I shall not lack for comfort if you come no more to my bed.”
He whistled to his dog and went quietly out of the room, leaving her alone in the dark.
* * *
Robin crossed the small ante-room and stared through the narrow window out on to Hatfield’s great park. From the corner of his eye he could just see the bags of gold which he had placed on the table over an hour ago, and the sight made him frown. A whole hour he had been hanging around here like a lackey waiting to be admitted; evidently she was in no hurry to see him again. Discouraged and vaguely ill at ease, he sat down on a stool, remembering the Tower and that secret visit with a rueful smile. It did not rank in his memory as the greatest love scene of all time. Until that moment he would have confidently said that no other man in England had more skill when it came to parting a woman from her clothes. Yet strangely, alone with Elizabeth, he had not even tried; and the memory troubled him. Why had he not tried? God knew, he had been desperate enough for a woman after all those months of monk-like existence. Was it the fear of rebuff, the sneaking, uneasy feeling that she would laugh at him, the suave, the utterly irresistible Robert Dudley? That brief hour, how quickly it had passed in feverish conversation, and in all that hour he had done nothing more significant than hold her hand. Oh God, the shame of it made him squirm. From then until now, he had been haunted by the memory of that candlelit scene in the semi-circular stone room, that golden opportunity lost. He had tried to forget it in the eager arms of a dozen other women, but her image would not be pushed away. It mocked him daily, lay steadily between him and fulfilment, until he knew that for the rest of his life he would know no peace until he had had her.
The door opened and he looked up expectantly.
“Her Grace will see you now, Lord Robert.”
The wide-eyed girl who stood in the doorway smiled coyly and tried to catch his eye. He did not appear to notice and she turned off the smile in disappointment as he walked past her into the room beyond, without a glance, taking the gold with him.
A great fire was burning brightly in the stone hearth and Elizabeth was sitting beside it in a high-backed chair, with a long, ringless hand resting on either tapestried arm. She was regally composed, dressed all in white with her few jewels scattered in the myriad of bright curls which framed her face. She was rather more beautiful than he had remembered.
He bowed very low, much lower than he had first intended; he had not been prepared for such formality.
“Your Grace.” He had been on the point of saying “Elizabeth” and suddenly thought better of it beneath her steady watchful gaze. In the window-seat he noted the ubiquitous Kat Ashley with a prick of annoyance.
“Welcome to
Hatfield, my lord. What is it you want?”
He blinked. He had not expected that. Struggling to regain the offensive, he swept a courtly bow and said smoothly, “I want nothing but the pleasure of speaking with Your Grace and of placing myself and my possessions at your service.”
Her eyebrow rose very slightly with just a hint of irony. She had made that sort of pretty speech herself before now and she thought she knew exactly what it was worth. She said nothing and he grew uncomfortable.
“May we speak alone, madam?” There was a note of desperation in his voice and she looked him up and down with a glance that might mean amusement.
“Leave us, Kat, and wait in the next room.”
Mrs. Ashley went with a sniff and a reproachful look and he breathed a sigh of relief, for surely it would be easier now they were alone.
She leaned forward quickly to pick up one of the bags which lay at her feet and he was reminded of the swift, swooping movement of a falcon.
“So these are your possessions? They seem remarkably portable, my ragged Robin. But you are not so ragged now, are you, and hope to be even less so in the future—my future.”
How shrewd she was, and how cynical, when he had hoped to find her so amenable. He stood in awkward silence as she opened the bag and then he saw the quick glint of pleasure in her dark eyes as she looked at the gold within. She glanced up and smiled at him.
“Does this come with Amy’s blessing?”
“Does that matter?” he countered swiftly.
She shook her head and the jewels in her hair flashed fire.
“Would you take it back if it did?” she asked wickedly.
He looked at her extraordinarily long fingers, delicate hands far stronger than they seemed, hands which he knew to his cost could deliver a blow at astonishing speed and which would never let go of anything that had once fallen into their grasp.