The Queen's Secret

by Victoria Lamb

  ‘You there!’

  The boy walking ahead of him stopped and looked round, fear in his thin, pale face.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Goodluck said, giving him a smile. ‘I won’t bite. You were on the boat this morning when the watermen found him, weren’t you?’

  The boy nodded. He looked to be maybe eight or nine years old, barely grown enough to be working on the boats. It was, however, a demanding trade and best learned early.

  ‘Tell me, were there any keys on his belt or about his person when your masters pulled him from the water?’

  Warily, the boy shook his head.

  ‘Perhaps one of the watermen took the keys – not to steal them but fearing lest they fall into the water,’ Goodluck persisted. Still the boy shook his head. He tried another tack. ‘Perhaps the other man took them, then. The one who came down to see the body before me, the chief steward’s assistant. He wouldn’t have allowed the castle keys to just lie there, on a dead man’s belt, so he would have taken them away with him. That must be it, mustn’t it?’

  ‘There weren’t no keys on that one, master. Nor when we pull him out, nor when the other man come down.’

  Goodluck frowned, pretending to be confused. ‘But … But he was working for the steward. He would have been wearing his belt of keys when he fell into the water.’

  ‘There weren’t no keys on his belt,’ the boy repeated stubbornly. ‘We would ha’ heard tha jangle.’

  Flipping the boy a coin, Goodluck smiled grimly to himself in the shadow of his hood and carried on up the damp slope.

  A dead man, a missing set of keys, and a heavy gold ring on the wrong sort of finger: the mystery of how the Italian conspirators intended to enter the castle was becoming clear at last. Yet one thing still bothered him. Even if they had the key to every chamber in the royal apartments, how in God’s name did they plan to get past the guards and into the inner court?

  Thirty-three

  THE MIRROR IN Elizabeth’s hand showed a pale, pockmarked face, stripped now of her whitening paint, the short spiked hair on her head like that of a demented baby. She stared down at herself, her dry lips trembling, her eyes wide – still alert, with the watchful gaze of the young woman she remembered. Without her bright wigs, her potions, her jewelled gowns, the trappings of princedom, what was she but an ageing hag, a foul-breathed creature any man would pass by in the marketplace and shudder to imagine beside him at night?

  Hating what the cruel light revealed, she threw down the gilt mirror so sharply that it cracked. She blew out the candle. Two candles remained lit, one by her curtained bed and another at the high window, flickering against lead-marked glass like a malevolent star. At least that one was far enough away not to be a threat to her beauty.

  ‘Leave me,’ Elizabeth said hoarsely, watching as her women curtseyed and filed out of the room. All except Mary, who was turning down the covers and preparing to rest on the narrow truckle bed that stood at the foot of the Queen’s bed. ‘You too, Lady Mary. Go sleep with your husband. I swear, you will be more comfort to Henry tonight than to me.’

  ‘But it is my turn to watch over you, Your Majesty.’

  ‘In God’s name, I do not need someone to “watch over me” as though I were a child and might hurt myself in my sleep,’ Elizabeth snapped, pointing rigidly at the door. It was important not to appear too excitable, lest one of them suspect. Though of all her ladies-in-waiting, Lady Mary was the least likely to betray her. ‘Now leave me, I pray you, and bid the others not to enter this chamber until morning, under pain of death. I wish to be alone tonight, and wholly undisturbed. Do I make myself plain, madam, or must I go out there and repeat that to every fool in the outer room?’

  Lady Sidney curtseyed low and withdrew at once, though her face was troubled. ‘I understand, Your Majesty,’ she murmured, closing the door behind her. Its loud click seemed deafening in the silence which followed.

  I understand?

  How was that to be taken, pray?

  From the busy Privy Chamber next door, Elizabeth heard urgent whispers that eventually died to nothing, leaving the night quieter and more still than any she had known since her arrival here. She turned away from the door and took a few paces towards the uncurtained window, stopping just short of the glass. She did not wish to be seen from outside.

  My ladies will have gone down to their own sleeping quarters on the floor below, she thought, and Mary to her loving husband Henry. Only the guards would be left now, standing at arms in the dark and empty antechamber. It must be after midnight, she realized.

  Her body ached with tiredness, though her mind was still racing, turning over the day’s events with pleasing alacrity. Her brain at least was still as young and fresh as ever. Her arms trembled though from being stretched out for so long while the women disrobed her, and her legs ached too.

  Elizabeth took up her night wig, the one reserved for when she expected visitors, and placed it carefully on her head, smoothing down the straight red tresses as best she could without the aid of her women.

  She tidied her French lace nightgown, rearranging its white ruffles to be more revealing, climbed into bed, and leaned across to blow out the candle on her bedside cabinet. The one still burning in the window threw a pale light across the chamber. Sitting up in her high curtained bed, with the embroidered drapery pulled back to the far edges of the poles, she set herself to watch the furthest corner of the room where the shadows lay darkest. Then she waited, white hands folded neatly in her lap like the coyest of virgins.

  Time passed slowly. Elizabeth sat upright with a jerk, realizing that she had dozed off. Staring hard at the shadows, she knew that she was no longer alone.

  ‘Robert?’

  A panic possessed her when her visitor did not reply. Her eyelids flickered as a man stepped forward.

  She was ready to cry out, to summon help from those sleeping in the outer chamber and her personal bodyguards in the room beyond.

  But it was him. She saw the outline of his broad shoulders, and knew at once the light, dancerly grace with which he walked, the sense of purpose. Sexual excitement caught at her breath, made her heart thud loudly. It had been nearly three years since he had visited her at night – it was always such a risk; the scandal of the Virgin Queen discovered in flagrante delicto would rock her throne – and the possibility that her favourite had come to make love to her, to make sure of her, left her both flushed and light-headed.

  ‘You know who I am,’ he said softly enough, but with a strange tension in his voice. ‘Unless you did not receive my note?’

  ‘I received a note from one of my more impertinent subjects,’ she replied coldly, keeping control, refusing to rise to his bait, ‘letting me know I could expect the intrusion of his presence in my bedchamber long after a time when such visits could be deemed acceptable.’

  Robert had stopped at the foot of the bed, and was looking down at her. She thought his eyes quite wild, hooded in darkness, with a tiny reflection of the candle flame burning in each of them, hot and staring.

  God’s death, was she in danger from him?

  For one terrifying moment she caught the glint of what looked to be a weapon in his fist. She sat bolt upright against the pillows, groping beneath the coverlet for the little jewelled dagger which Walsingham had advised her to keep always at hand in her chamber. Her heart juddered violently.

  Could her darling Robert be the unknown courtier-assassin Walsingham had warned her of?

  Then he tossed a golden locket on to the bed. ‘Take it back!’ he said sharply, and Elizabeth realized with a shudder of relief that he was merely angry, not there to plunge a knife into her heart.

  She did not reach for the locket, nor even look at it. There was no need. She knew what it contained. Her miniature and his, facing each other like husband and wife in their tiny gold frames. She held herself stiffly, meeting the anger in his face with some of her own.

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that? Have you forgotten
that I am your queen?’

  ‘As queen, how could you stoop to such a petty act? And put the life of one of your own ladies in danger, to boot?’

  She cradled her cold hands together in her lap, hiding the fact they were trembling, and silently thanked God for the darkness of the night.

  ‘I have no idea what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Elizabeth. I know you too well for your politic deceptions to work.’ His bitterness rang out like sparks from flint. ‘You had Essex informed of his wife’s indiscretion, did you not?’

  ‘Oh, that.’

  ‘Yes, that.’ He was suddenly next to her on the bed, grabbing at her thin hands, pressing them into his chest. ‘I never believed you capable of such a terrible deed, Elizabeth. You of all people. You know Essex will kill her for this, don’t you? The man is a sadistic bastard. After what your father did to your mother—’

  ‘Silence!’

  ‘How can I remain silent? You have all but condemned that poor woman to death, and for what? Some paltry act of revenge – because I’ve looked at her sideways a few times, instead of crawling after you on my knees as I ought to have done, scraping up whatever crumbs you deign to throw down for me.’

  ‘Let me go,’ she insisted, trying to pull her hands away, but without any real conviction.

  The heat came and went in her face. She must remain in control, whatever happened. She could not allow this man to bully her over her decision to send a secret envoy to Lord Essex. What was she meant to have done, after all? Allowed the two of them to continue their affair right under her nose, making her the laughing stock of the court? No, by God, not as long as she had breath in her body and the strength to do what was right.

  She tried to sound stern and chaste but the touch of his hands, and the secret isolation in which they finally found themselves, were weakening her resolve.

  ‘Get out of my bedchamber, my lord Leicester, or I shall call my guards and have you arrested!’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ he replied icily, and she knew that he was right.

  With an oath, Robert leaned forward, seized her painfully by the shoulders and ground his mouth against hers.

  She felt the man’s fury and resentment, and responded with an almost instinctive female submission, lips opening to admit his tongue, hands trying to placate him with caresses. He ignored those acts of surrender and continued to kiss her with a ruthless lack of regard for her rank, hurting her and leaving her in no doubt of his anger.

  Elizabeth gasped under his mouth when he jerked her white nightgown down to her waist, tearing the fine laced garment at the seams. He told her brusquely to ‘Be quiet!’ and bent to slide his mouth hotly over her shoulder, then across the swell of her breasts. She realized that Robert intended to take her like a whore, without any attempt to woo her or excite her senses first. That would be a fitting revenge for her cousin’s exposure as an adultress.

  ‘Why?’ he was muttering under his breath. ‘Why do such a thing? What has Lettice ever done to harm you?’

  He thrust her back against the pillows, and for a moment she delighted in his brute force, the wrench of his hands on her bare skin. To be free of the restrictions of princedom at last, to do what other women did in the darkened privacy of their bedchambers … The pleasure of such a freedom was worth twice the pain he would inflict on her.

  ‘Is this how it started with Amy?’ he demanded suddenly, dragging her wrists above her head. He stared down at her naked breasts as they rose with the action, the stretch of her skin over her ribs, then he slowly raised his gaze to hers. ‘Tell me truthfully, will the Countess of Essex be next to meet with an unfortunate accident?’

  Elizabeth gasped, deeply shocked by the insinuation. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘You have denied it and denied it,’ he continued raggedly, ‘but I know you were behind her death. The evidence is irrefutable, Elizabeth. Did you think I wouldn’t pay for a copy of the coroner’s report? Two deep puncture wounds to her head, made by a sharp instrument, and then her cap replaced to hide the marks from her servants. Oh yes, you may well stare. It’s been over ten years and still I think of her, my poor wife, her body broken at the foot of those stairs, her murder unavenged. And Amy’s fault?’ He gasped on the word, his eyes cold and hard as an executioner’s. ‘She loved her faithless husband too much.’

  ‘You truly believe that I would—’

  ‘It was lucky for you that I was not nearer to home at the time, and that a good friend of mine was foreman of the jury, or you might have lost your would-be husband to the axe. I know it all, I have spent years speaking to those who were there, piecing the puzzle together. You arranged for it to be covered up, didn’t you? For Amy’s death to be reported as an accident, and the jury paid off in my favour.’

  She could not deny that part of it. ‘For you,’ she managed in a whisper. ‘I did it for you, Robert. Cecil told me … that is, he believed you had … that you had ordered her murder yourself. I could not bear to see you brought to trial and executed. Not when I knew you must have done it for me. So we could be married.’

  ‘Murder my wife so I could marry the Queen?’

  He threw back his head and laughed, and she was suddenly afraid for her safety again, seeing the ugly look on his face. Not that she could summon her bodyguards, for to draw attention to Leicester’s presence in her chamber at this hour would be tantamount to admitting to the entire court – and the rest of Europe – that they were lovers.

  ‘Even if that were truth,’ Robert continued, ‘her murder won me nothing but another ten years of waiting at your chamber door.’

  ‘I gave no order, Robert. Your wife’s death was none of my doing.’

  ‘Then whose?’

  Elizabeth licked her dry lips, not knowing how to placate him. Perhaps it would be better not to try? Even a headstrong horse might be brought to stand again with a spur and whip.

  ‘I do not know.’

  She wrenched her hands free of his grasp before he understood her intention. She pushed herself to a sitting position, not bothering to cover her nakedness.

  ‘But you must understand, Robert, that you have done nothing to make yourself liked at this court. Lesser men both hate and fear you, and there are still those among your peers who would rejoice to see you fall. Not merely from influence, but under the axe itself. And much of that unpopularity you brought on yourself by hanging too close about me and denying power to other men who offended you in some way.’ She raised a cold, level gaze to his face, hoping he would see the innocence in her expression, hear it in the steadiness of her voice. ‘Yes, I knew your wife had been murdered. But until this moment I suspected you to have had a hand in that terrible business yourself. Now that you swear you are not guilty of Amy’s murder, I can only assume it was one of your enemies who ended her life. Someone who would benefit from seeing you discredited in my eyes.’

  ‘One of our enemies,’ he corrected her, but the fierce light in his eyes had died away. He said softly, almost to himself, ‘Poor Amy.’

  Jealousy bit into her like a whiplash and she leaned back on her pillows again. Her movements were slow and deliberate, and she triumphed to see how his gaze was drawn instinctively to the sway of her naked breasts. Why suffer under the sting of jealousy? His wife Amy Robsart was long dead and buried. Lettice Knollys was an adulterous whore who could offer Robert nothing but her already well-used body. Lettice could not provide him with a throne, nor even the comfort and stability of the marriage bed. These were the things Robert hungered for. Yet she, Elizabeth, was Queen of England, and her chosen consort would be king.

  ‘Poor me,’ she murmured in response, gazing directly at the firm, sensual line of his mouth.

  His attention snagged and held like a fisherman’s line. Robert drew a shuddering breath and placed his hand on her breast. ‘You are so very beautiful.’

  ‘You like what you see?’

  ‘I am dazzled.’

  ‘Still my keen Ma
ster of the Horse, ready to break even the most wayward mare to bit and bridle?’ Her smile tightened as he stroked her nipple with one callused thumb; she could not help the cattiness of her taunt. ‘Unless, that is, you are too exhausted from your travails elsewhere, my lord?’

  He lifted his gaze to her face then. There was a hard flush along his cheekbones. ‘Travails?’

  ‘Lettice Knollys,’ she whispered.

  His eyelids flickered, but Robert said nothing. Instead, he leaned forward and touched the tip of his tongue to her nipple, a tingling shock which ran through her. Then he began to lick and tease her nipples so slowly and delicately, moving from one to the other, that she had to bite her lips to prevent herself moaning aloud with frustration.

  ‘You mean the Countess of Essex?’

  ‘She changes lovers so frequently, I forget which name …’ Elizabeth clutched at his dark head. ‘Oh, Robin!’

  The candle at the window flickered, about to go out. He kissed her slowly, caressing her breasts, her belly, leaving her dizzy and trembling.

  ‘Lettice means nothing to me. She is a distraction, nothing more. A game I play, while I wait for you to say yes. The countess is a married woman, you have said it yourself.’ He seemed to hesitate. ‘I will not miss her if she leaves court.’

  His hand sought the apex of her thighs, too bold, too headstrong, and she slapped him away.

  ‘You think I should dismiss her?’

  ‘I think you should let me make love to you.’

  She laughed into his shoulder at that, and grew bolder herself, stroking down his own body. ‘You forget the etiquette due to your prince, my lord.’

  ‘If you were a prince, my love, I would not be here.’

  ‘Your queen, then.’

  ‘Oh, we are too familiar to stand on such stately ceremony. How many years has it been since first I kissed you?’