The Magnificent Rogue (44 page)

Elizabeth tilted her head. “You’re no beauty, but you’re not without a certain comeliness.” To Robert she said, “You see, I told you the girl would be both meek and presentable.”

“Well, at least she’s presentable,” Robert said as he bowed low. “Your Majesty was right, as usual.”

“And you’re insolent, as usual. Have the courtesy to halt your mockery and bring your wife closer, so I can get a better look at her.”

Kate moved forward and swept the queen a low curtsy. “Your Majesty.”

“Rise, rise,” the queen said impatiently. “How can I see your features with you looking at my shoes?” Kate lifted her gaze, and Elizabeth’s appraisal raked first her face and then the gold-brown hair flowing from beneath the velvet cap. “Good eyes, and your hair has a fine thickness and bright color.”

“Did you expect it to be darker?” Robert asked.

Elizabeth turned to Robert. “Of course not. I received reports from the good vicar on the girl.”

“And Mary’s hair was not dark either,” Robert said. “Tell me, do you think she has the same—”

“It’s not your place to question but to give answers. Why are you not at Craighdhu, where you’re supposed to be?”

“I was at Craighdhu, but circumstances changed, and I was forced to adapt.”

Robert was more insolent and mocking than Kate had ever seen him. How the devil was she to ask a favor from Elizabeth if he persisted in antagonizing her? But
perhaps that was his purpose. Kate had been aware he had been reluctant to come since the moment she had mentioned it.

Robert continued, “But Your Majesty is also very good at adapting to suit your needs. I remember in the Tower you were—”

“God’s blood, Robert, be silent and let me talk to her,” Kate snapped in exasperation.

The queen’s surprised gaze flew back to Kate. “Ah, not meek at all.” She threw back her head and laughed. “It serves you well, MacDarren.”

“Aye.” Robert smiled. “I’ve decided I deserve her.”

Kate gave him a warning look. “Forgive him, Your Majesty. He’s being most discourteous, when we have a favor to ask of you.”

“Favor?” Elizabeth repeated warily.

“Haven.” Kate quickly related the circumstances that had brought them here. “You’ve been kind to me in the past. It’s my hope you will be equally kind to me now.”

“The nurse is dead?” Elizabeth demanded. “What of this confession?”

“We assume James now has it in his hands,” Robert answered.

“Damnation.” A flush of color darkened Elizabeth’s cheeks. “Blunderer. Could you do nothing right, MacDarren?”

“May I remind you that you’re the one who chose Sebastian Landfield?” Robert said. “If you’d told me he was mad enough to go to James, I’d have cut his throat before I took Kate to Craighdhu.”

“Are you saying the fault is mine?”

“Aye.” His smile was a tigerish baring of teeth. “The fault is entirely yours, Your Majesty.”

They were like two animals circling each other, about to pounce, Kate thought in frustration. “It does not matter where the fault lies. Will you help me?”

Elizabeth’s gaze swung back to her. “I don’t know
if I can. If James knows your birth, the risk may be too great. I’m walking a very fine line with him right now.”

“So you intend to hand her over to James?” Robert asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Elizabeth snapped. “It may be possible for me to find her some kind of haven. But not here in England.”

“And you will not extend your protection over her?”

“That’s not possible. On no account must I appear to have a connection with her.”

Robert’s expression hardened. “You’re wrong,” he said. “It’s not possible for you to do anything else.”

“And why not?”

His gaze met the queen’s. “Because we both know what was in that confession signed by Clara Merkert. We know that Mary Stuart was not Kate’s mother.” He paused. “And that you are.”

“Robert!” Kate whispered.

Robert’s gaze was fixed on Elizabeth. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Lies,” Elizabeth said flatly. “Mad, rambling lies. And such arrant insult, I may have your head for it.”

“I don’t believe you’d take the risk. You wouldn’t want to expose my mad rambling to the light of day. The only safe route would be the assassin’s knife, but you’d have grievous problems justifying that to yourself. You do have a conscience.”

“Robert, what are you saying?” Kate asked dazedly. “It’s not true. You know I’m—”

“How do I know? Because Sebastian told you all your life you were Mary’s bastard? Who told him?” He nodded toward Elizabeth. “Her Glorious Majesty. You believed it because he believed it. It was unlikely he would question the queen, whose purity and virginity are legendary, but if he did, she gave him the perfect answer. Wicked Cousin Mary weaving spells in her tower. It was really quite convenient having Mary prisoner
all those years, wasn’t it? You wouldn’t have wanted your child brought up without some deference shown her station. You robbed her of her birthright, but you still gave her the myth of being a queen’s child.”

“Supposition,” Elizabeth said stonily.

“But you once said I was good at supposition,” Robert replied. “You let me put all the pieces together that led me where you wanted me to go. Because I reached those conclusions myself, I never once questioned their truth. Very clever, Your Majesty.”

“And why should you doubt those conclusions now?”

“The confession.”

“Which you did not see.”

“But whose contents guided Malcolm’s every move.”

“Clara Merkert could have told him Kathryn was Mary’s child,” Elizabeth said. “It would have instigated the same actions if this Malcolm was as ambitious as you say.”

“He would have gone after Kate, but not in the same way. He tortured Sebastian Landfield to get him to testify to the fact that she was your daughter, not Mary’s, but Sebastian wouldn’t yield. Yet in the end he came to believe it was true. He said, “Not Lilith … the serpent, writhing, changing.” The serpent in the garden of Eden was said to have changed from devil to serpent. In Sebastian’s eyes Kate had changed from Mary’s daughter to Elizabeth’s.”

“Flimsy,” Elizabeth snorted.

Robert nodded. “So flimsy, I didn’t even see it. But then Kate told me Malcolm was taking her to Warwick and Kenilworth to rouse support.”

Kate saw the slightest change in Elizabeth’s demeanor.

“I thought it strange, but even then I didn’t make the connection. Until Malcolm suddenly changed his
mind and was taking Kate to the Netherlands instead.” He turned to Kate. “What did he tell you?”

“That my greatest support lay in the Netherlands,” Kate said haltingly.

“And it did.” Robert met Elizabeth’s gaze. “Because this month you sent the earl of Leicester to the Netherlands to try to negotiate peace and shore up foreign defenses in preparation for this war with Spain. He was no longer in his castle at Kenilworth or at his brother’s estate in Warwick. It was necessary for Malcolm to follow him to the Netherlands to involve him in the conspiracy.”

“Robert Dudley is my most loyal servant. The earl would never enter into a conspiracy against me,” Elizabeth said.

“Not even to make his daughter the queen of England, with himself the power behind the throne?” Robert asked softly.

But her father was the earl of Shrewsbury, Kate thought in bewilderment. This was all madness. All her life she had known this to be true, and now she was to accept not only Elizabeth as her mother, but the earl of Leicester as her father.

“You’re accusing me of fornication with Robin and then having his child?” Elizabeth asked coldly.

“Who else? There have been rumors about you two ever since you came to the throne. You refused to send him away even when your attachment to your master of horse aroused ridicule among all the nations of Europe. You heaped honor and riches on him, but you wouldn’t give him what he wanted most. To wed the queen and gain the power that the position implied.” Robert paused. “Because Leicester was always a very ambitious man. At one time he promised the Spanish ambassador he would restore the Catholic religion to England if Spain would further his suit with you.”

“He did not mean it,” Elizabeth said quickly. “Robin has always been a staunch Protestant.”

“But the offer would still have made you uneasy. You could not take the risk of marriage, and you could not give him up. So what course was left when you found yourself with child? Leicester must not know. A man so ambitious would have found the knowledge he had fathered the illegitimate heiress to the throne too tempting to resist.”

“I’m surrounded by my ladies of the court at all times. How could I have had a child and escaped notice?”

“It would have been difficult but not impossible. Not for the woman the pope called ‘the rarest creature that was in Europe these five hundred years.’ ”

“You have no proof of this slander,” Elizabeth said.

“Except for the confession held by James.”

“I’d wager James burned that document two minutes after he received it.” Her lips curled. “The young pup would let nothing stand in the way of his pursuit of my throne.”

“Which is why you will extend your protection over Kate,” Robert said. “And why you will acknowledge her publicly.”

“Are you mad? If what you say is true, after striving to keep her from Robin’s view all these years, do you think I’d let him know of her existence now?”

“The only way to keep her safe is to acknowledge her.”

Elizabeth’s gaze narrowed on his face. “So that you may make a move yourself to seize the throne on her behalf. Very clever, but you will not—”

“Stop it!” Kate cut through the queen’s words like a white-hot sword. “I will have no more of this. How
dare
you quarrel over me like two mongrel dogs over a bone? This is my
life
.” She whirled on Elizabeth. “Are you my mother?”

Elizabeth stared at her without speaking.

“Answer me!”

Robert stepped forward. “Kate, it will be—”

“Be silent.” She turned on him. “I’m not pleased with you either. Why didn’t you tell me this before? Why let me come here and find out this way?”

“I believe our dear Black Robert was not entirely sure of his ground and was depending on the tactics of surprise to win the battle,” Elizabeth said dryly.

“Well, it wasn’t kind of him. Neither of you are kind. I will not …” She stopped to steady her voice. “Leave us, Robert, I wish to talk to her alone.”

“I don’t believe that to be a good idea, Kate,” Robert said.

“Leave us!”

Robert still stood frowning at her.

“Oh, for God’s sake, go,” Elizabeth said impatiently. “I will not eat her.”

“That was not my concern,” Robert said. “I’m afraid she will devour you. That would be a most inconvenient course here in your domain.” He smiled ironically as he bowed to Kate. “Be gentle with her, lass. After all, she is your mother.”

Elizabeth scowled as she watched him leave the chamber. “Insolent rogue. I should have listened to Percy.”

“Are you my mother?” Kate asked again.

“I am the queen of this realm, and you are not treating me with the deference due me.”

“I have a right to know,” Kate said fiercely. “I’ve been lied to and used and shuttled to and fro as if I were nothing. If this is true, then you have wronged me, and I
will
have the truth.” She met Elizabeth’s gaze and asked with measured precision. “Are—you—my—mother?”

Elizabeth did not speak for a moment and then said, “I gave you birth.”

Kate felt as if she were going to faint.

Elizabeth lifted her head. “But I will never acknowledge you. Never. It would be far too dangerous.”

“To you?”

“To England,” Elizabeth said. “If Mary’s daughter could be used as a pawn to tear this country apart, how much more hazardous would my daughter be?”

“So you will abandon me again?”

“I did not abandon you. You were given everything I could safely give you.”

“You could have given me a father. You could have—”

“Do you think I did not want a child? When Mary gave birth to James, it nearly killed me. I wanted an heir.” She shrugged. “It was not possible. I had to make a choice. I do not regret it.”

“Because my father had ambitions?”

“Robin was very hungry. There’s nothing wrong with ambition as long as it’s controlled. I have it in full measure myself.” When she saw Kate’s expression, she said harshly, “You don’t understand. I’ve loved him all my life. He has been my playmate, my lover, and is now my friend. Do you know how lonely I have been? I
deserved
Robin.”

“Then why did you not wed him?”

“You fool, that would have been the fastest way to lose him. I know Robin. The power would have been too heady.… He would have tried to grab too much.” She shuddered. “And then I would have had to punish him for it.”

“By sending him to the block as you did my—” Kate stopped. It was still difficult to realize Mary was not her mother, that it had all been a lie. “Would you have killed him too?”

“You find that hard to believe?” she asked. “Yes, I would have done it. It would have broken my heart, but I would not have been able to do anything else.” She smiled cynically. “What do you know? When I was younger than you, my friend Tom Seymour lost his
head, and I sat in the Tower waiting to know if I was to die myself. Such circumstances tend to give time for thought and teach hard lessons. It taught me what I valued most in the world and gave me the determination to protect it.”

“And the throne is clearly what you value most,” Kate said bitterly.

“England is what I value most, and the throne is how I protect it.” Her tone hardened. “And not you or Robin or any force on earth will be allowed to destroy it.”

“I have no desire to destroy it”

“You can be used to—”

“Stop talking. My head is whirling. I have to think.” She walked over to stare blindly out of the mullioned window. She felt Elizabeth’s hawklike gaze on her back as she desperately tried to absorb the revelations and emotions that had bombarded her in the last few minutes. She was experiencing resentment, anger, shock, and something else that filled her with fear … understanding.

She turned back to face the queen a few minutes later. “You do not have to acknowledge me.”