The Marriage Game (17 page)

“What future can there be?” Elizabeth burst out, angry now. “How many times have I told you that I have no wish to marry? When will you believe it?”

Robert laid hold of her and crushed her to his chest. “It is your womanly fears that speak, is it not? Think you I cannot help you overcome them?” His voice was urgent.

“Robin,” Elizabeth protested, struggling free, “don’t you think I would overcome them if I could? It is no joy to me, living with such terrors.”

“Methinks you will only conquer them by facing them. Then they will lose their power to frighten you.”

“Ah, Robin, you are become a philosopher. But you think only of one difficulty. I have other objections against marriage, remember, aside from this latest tangle.”

“Excuses, excuses! You are all excuses!” he erupted. “You enjoy playing games, admit it. You want men fawning over you, competing for your hand. It suits your vanity to have it so!”

“How dare you!” Elizabeth snarled.

“I dare because you have permitted me to dare much else!” Robert flung back. “I am a man, Bess, with a man’s needs. How much longer do you think I will be prepared to play your games? I want you, and I will have you!”

“You presume too much!” she spat.

“Like Admiral Seymour?” he countered, and she felt herself flush with anger and—it had to be admitted—shame.

“That was ungallant of you,” she hissed, turning away from him.

Robert took her hand, instantly contrite. “Forgive me, Bess, that was unworthy of me—but it rankles that you gave yourself to him, and will not give yourself to me.”

Elizabeth felt the familiar fears encroaching, threatening to consume her. “I was young and inexperienced. I was not a queen with a reputation to protect. Robin, if I fall from grace, my enemies will pounce. I do not fear pregnancy just because it could kill me; I fear the scandal and ruin it would bring me.”

“Then marry me!”

“Have you not listened?” Elizabeth roared. “God’s blood, am I surrounded by fools? I—do—not—want—to—marry!”

“Then sleep alone in future,” Robert retorted, furious, and turned on his heel to go.

Elizabeth saw red. He had preempted her; in her fit of pique, she had been about to forbid him her bed. But instead he had rejected her! Not to be borne!

“Oh, I intend to!” she shouted. But when the door banged behind him, she fell into a storm of weeping.

Elizabeth sat at the head of the council board. She knew she looked unwell and heavy-eyed. Small wonder, as she had not slept much these past few weeks. The situation was worse than she had feared. All over the kingdom, irate clerics were thundering from their pulpits that the death of Lady Dudley was prejudicial to the honor of the Queen, and that something must be done to bring the culprit to justice. The scandal was the talk of Europe, with the most unfavorable conclusions being drawn and chewed over in every court, tavern, and hovel. It was disturbingly clear that most people thought that Elizabeth had colluded with Lady Dudley’s husband in her murder. Even Kat’s husband, John Astley, had been banished from the court for speaking his mind about Dudley. And of course the Queen of Scots weighed in, cattily announcing that the Queen of England was to marry her horse keeper, who had killed his wife to make room for her. Cecil had blushed when he read Elizabeth
that
report.

Once again he was extraordinarily sympathetic, yet he had not shied from his duty.

“Our Protestant allies abroad are appalled at the rumors,” he told her. “They fear you are hell-bent on self-destruction.” That alarmed her, as had Bishop de Quadra’s icy mien. Clearly the bishop thought her guilty. Well, he would. She was a heretic in his eyes, and therefore capable of anything.

Robert had come begging forgiveness, his expression as appealing as a dog in disgrace, and she graciously granted it, but she was finding
it hard to forget what he had said to her. Even so, she wanted him near her. The sight of him still made her catch her breath. He was the very fabric of life to her, and she knew, as surely as she had faith in God, that she could not live without him. But although she kept him with her as often as she dared by day, at night she insisted on sleeping alone. What it cost her—all those fretful, wakeful hours, the books she tried and failed to read, the times she had barely stopped herself from knocking on his door—he would never know, but she dared not risk any further scandal. She had enough to deal with as it was.

Throckmorton had sent his secretary, Robert Jones, over from Paris to ask the council how he should counter the gossip; it was rife there also. Elizabeth sharply told Jones he’d had no need to come.

“Madam,” he replied, “there is every necessity for my being here. If Your Majesty marries Lord Robert it would be folly.”

“Enough!” she exploded, outraged at such presumption. Clearly the man had more courage than sense. How dare he! She glowered at him. “I have heard this before, and it does not behoove you, a subject, to say it to me.”

Faltering, but undeterred, Jones persisted. “But madam, may I remind you that Lord Robert was involved in the plot to set Lady Jane Gray on the throne? That was treason. If he was capable of that, think what else he might be capable of.”

Elizabeth suddenly burst out laughing, but there was no real mirth in it. Jones was shocked. In his experience, monarchs did not behave with such levity. It must have something to do with the Queen being a woman. Probably the wrong time of the month.

“Madam,” he ventured, more cautiously now, “I hesitate to repeat to you what is being said in France about Your Majesty and Lord Robert.”

“There is no need,” Elizabeth replied, composing herself. “The matter has been tried and found to be contrary to what has been reported. You shall say that to anyone who repeats these vile calumnies. May I remind you that Lord Robert was at court when his wife died? None of his people were present at her house at the time, and things
have fallen out in a way that should touch neither my lord’s honesty nor my honor.”

Jones swooped. “So Your Majesty believes that there
was
an attempt on her life?” he persisted.

“I meant, if attempt there was,” Elizabeth said hastily. If she was honest with herself, she thought, there probably had been. Amy’s death was all too timely. Not for herself—she had never had any intention of marrying Robert—and not for Robert, for the rumors had effectively crushed his hopes. But
someone
had probably thought he was doing them both a service. Notwithstanding, none of the inquiries made by the coroner, Amy’s family, and Robert’s friends had unearthed any clues. If there had been an assassin, he’d left no trace. Maybe Amy’s death had been accidental after all. It was conceivable that she had just tripped and fallen—a simple accident, as the coroner concluded. So why did she have trouble believing that?

“Madam, it is not too late to revive negotiations for a match with the Archduke or the Earl of Arran,” Cecil said hopefully, clearly itching to draw up a marriage treaty. They were alone in the council chamber, the other councillors having dispersed with the obnoxious Jones. “It would be a sure way of giving the lie to rumor.” And it would put paid to Dudley swaggering pridefully around the court, overconfident as ever and seemingly impervious to the gossip.

“I will think on it,” Elizabeth replied, a glint of tetchiness in her eyes.

“I trust that Your Majesty has given up all thought of wedding Lord Robert,” Cecil said gently. He needed her to say it, for his own peace of mind.

“My judgment is not that addled, William,” she retorted. “I am sensible of my duties and obligations.”

“Madam, might I venture to ask that you make that clear to Lord Robert?” Cecil suggested. That would put an end to the man’s posturing.

“I have already done so,” she told him. Cecil looked doubtful, and he had even more cause to be when, only weeks later, Elizabeth announced
that she intended to elevate Robert to the peerage.
The peerage?
What had the man done to deserve that? He was a proven traitor who might have murdered his wife. Was that now a qualification for nobility? Cecil shook his head and kept on shaking it.

Predictably, as Robert was seen to preen and wax ever more conceited in the wake of the Queen’s announcement, there was a fresh wave of rumors. Her Majesty would give him a dukedom. No, it was a barony. Was she paying him off or paving the way for greater things? More likely she did really mean to marry him after all. The two of them thought they had got away with it, did they?

The day set for the ceremony of investiture arrived. As the councillors and courtiers gathered, curiosity getting the better of disdain, Robert entered the presence chamber, resplendent in a dazzling new suit of clothes, and knelt before the throne.

“The coronet today, the crown tomorrow,” Bacon murmured in Cecil’s ear.

Cecil smiled. “I think not.”

Bacon gave him a quizzical look. Did Cecil know something he didn’t?

Elizabeth rose from her throne. A page brought her the Letters Patent of nobility. A second page stood by bearing the scarlet robes of estate furred with ermine; a third carried the coronet on a velvet cushion.

Elizabeth took the patent and studied it for a while. The courtiers grew restive. Robert shifted his weight from knee to knee, for he was becoming numb. Suddenly the Queen drew her small jeweled knife from its sheath on her girdle and, to the astonishment of all present, sliced the parchment across. Slash, slash. The courtiers gaped. Robert stared at her in horror. How in God’s name could she humiliate him thus, in the presence of many of his enemies?

“I have decided,” she said, looking up, but not at Robert, “that I will not have another Dudley in the House of Lords, bearing in mind that this family have been traitors to the crown for three generations. I thank you all for your attendance here today. You have my leave to depart.”

There was an excited explosion of whispering before the company began to file reluctantly away. It was only the Queen’s presence, and her gimlet eyes boring into their backs, that kept the courtiers from breaking out in frenzied chatter. Only Robert stood his ground, glowering, furious.

“Good God, Bess! How could you do this?” he exploded.

“I have to make it clear to the world that I have no intention of advancing and marrying you,” Elizabeth said, her voice steady. Still she would not meet his eyes.

“I beg you not to abuse me thus in front of your courtiers, madam. I do not deserve it. I cannot allow you to do this.”

She did look at him then. In fact, to his utter confusion, she stepped down from the dais and patted him playfully on the cheek.

“No, I should have remembered, the Dudleys are not so easily overthrown. But there is no ‘cannot allow’ about it, Robin. I am the Queen, and people must see that I am in control. This is a sure way of putting an end to the gossip.”

“Then is it worth my hoping that things will change in the future?” His voice was taut with anger, hurt, and frustration.

“Anything is possible,” she said lightly, and swept out of the room, surprising her clustering courtiers, who were huddling and whispering just outside the door. She sailed on, a smile playing on her lips.

Her ploy worked. Within a month the gossip had died down, even though Robert remained at her side, ardent and attentive. She had exactly what she wanted now: his company, his love, the mere heart-melting sight of him, and the promise of his arms around her at night if she so pleased (which she did not, or not yet). He was her consort in all but name. She wondered if she had ever really desired more.

Bishop de Quadra had finally thawed somewhat. She enjoyed baiting him, leading him to believe she was still interested in taking the Archduke, then hinting that she might marry Robert after all.

“It
might
please me to advance him,” she declared, a twinkle in her eye. “I must confess to you, Bishop, that I am no angel, and I do not deny that I have an affection for him, for the many good qualities he
possesses. I do see daily more clearly the necessity for marriage, and to satisfy the English humor it seems I must marry an Englishman. Tell me, what would King Philip think if I married one of my servants?”

Quadra answered stiffly, “My master would be pleased to hear of your marriage, whoever Your Majesty chooses, as it is important for the welfare of your kingdom. His Majesty, I feel sure, would be happy to hear of Lord Robert’s good fortune.” Happy too, no doubt, at the prospect of the heretic Elizabeth’s reign not long surviving her wedding.

The Queen inclined her head graciously.

“But is Your Majesty truly satisfied that Lord Robert’s wife’s death was an accident?” the bishop ventured. There was much more that he could have said, and would have liked to have said, but the rules of diplomacy prevented him.

“There is no question of it,” Elizabeth said, her voice suddenly sharp as steel. “And had the poor lady not fallen, she would have died anyway. She was mortally ill with a malady in her breast.”

“I find it strange,” said the bishop, frowning, “that the Master Secretary told me she was perfectly well only the day before she died.”

“What? Sir William said that?” Elizabeth was stunned. It did not make sense.

“Forgive me, madam, he told me it was not true that she was ill, that she was very well, and taking good care not to be poisoned, for certain parties were plotting to kill her.”

Elizabeth paled. “
That
is not true,” she averred. “She had been ill for months. Lord Robert was very concerned about her. We knew she was dying—and Sir William knew it too. Why should he say that?”

“I have no idea, madam,” Quadra replied, starting to look perplexed. The Queen’s reaction had seemed genuine enough.

But Elizabeth was beginning to have a very good idea. And after she dismissed the bishop, she fell to some hard thinking. Cecil hated Dudley—and always had. That master of political intrigue would have done much to prevent her marrying Robert, and had made no secret of his fears that it might cost her the throne and England its Protestant savior, whom men now called the new Judith or Deborah. She had
known that Cecil was thinking of retiring on account of Robert, for others had told her. She’d known too that she had upset him by her lack of gratitude for the advantageous treaty he negotiated. Yet, with her eyes dazzled by Robin through those long, spacious, enchanted summer days, she had been blind to Cecil’s misery.