The Queen's Secret

by Victoria Lamb

  He began to play and sing, teaching her the song Lord Robert had written, in a thin, reedy voice which still held power. Lucy listened and nodded, accustomed to committing new musical arrangements to memory in a short space of time. Master Oldham seemed pleased that she knew how to read music, and they progressed swiftly to her singing while he accompanied her on the lute.

  The earl left them alone to finish the work. He returned to the music room about an hour later, and smiled at the sound of her voice soaring through the higher notes of the song. It was a beautiful little melody, poignant but strong too, a song of love and faith tested and still found good. Lucy thought Lord Robert must possess an excellent ear to have written such an intricate piece for the Queen, and wondered why he did not compose more often.

  ‘Well done!’ Leicester exclaimed as the song came to a close. He clapped his hands in praise. ‘Will you be ready to perform it on Tuesday?’

  ‘Tuesday?’ She flushed, seeing both men looking at her expectantly, as though her opinion was somehow important. ‘I … Yes, my lord, I think so.’

  Leicester drew her aside as Master Oldham gathered his music sheets together. There was a look on his face she had never seen before, a sort of wild exultancy in his eyes, and his voice, though kept low, was not as discreetly quiet as she had grown to expect from him.

  ‘I hear the Queen summoned you to her presence recently. Very early in the morning, so the matter must have been urgent. What did Her Majesty want? What did she ask you?’

  ‘I …’ She stared at him, unsure how to answer without betraying the Queen. ‘My lord, please forgive me, but it is not right for me to repeat what the Queen has said to me in private.’

  She expected the earl to be angered by her refusal, which – coming from such a lowly servant of the court – must seem the height of impertinence to a man of his power and influence. But to her astonishment, Leicester threw back his head and laughed.

  ‘You women and your secrets!’ the earl exclaimed, and the loudness of his voice made Master Oldham turn and stare, his look disapproving.

  Leicester seemed oblivious to the impropriety of his behaviour. Instead, he compounded it by kissing her on the cheek, an unexpectedly intimate contact which left Lucy flushed and unsettled.

  ‘Keep mum, then,’ he said, dismissively. ‘I can guess at Her Majesty’s wishes. She has so few friends at court. Yet she is growing to trust you, Lucy Morgan, for you are so different from everyone else here. When she called you to her side, the Queen will have asked if I had spoken of her, if I had confided in you how much I love her.’ He met her wide-eyed gaze. ‘Is that not the case?’

  Lucy bit her lip, knowing how very far he was from guessing the truth. Leicester seemed to take her hesitancy as a sign that he was right. He pulled at her white cap with playful fingers and laughed uproariously when she gasped and straightened it, backing into a rack of hautboys and knocking them to the floor with a clatter. His mood today was bright as a flame, warming the room and making it impossible for her not to laugh too as she bent to set the instruments upright again.

  Master Oldham bowed low and left the room, his music sheets safely encased in a leather folder under his arm.

  With a shy smile, Lucy fixed her cap over her unruly locks and looked wonderingly at the earl. ‘You seem very merry today, my lord.’

  ‘I am merry, it’s true. But I have good reason to be. The best of reasons.’ He paused, looking at her. ‘Can you keep a secret, Lucy Morgan?’

  She blushed at the deep note in his voice, then experienced the full force of the earl’s attractiveness as he leaned closer, his smile so provocative, his dark gaze bent on her face.

  She grasped at the lute stand for support, suddenly light-headed as though she had not eaten for days. She heard herself stammer, ‘Of course, my lord.’

  ‘Though you need not keep it long, for soon everyone will know.’ Leicester came so close their bodies were almost touching. He lowered his face to her neck, his warm breath fanning her skin. ‘The Queen and I are to be married, you see, before the year is out. We are in love and secretly betrothed.’ His whispering voice shook, it was so thick with triumph and excitement. ‘What do you say to that, my little songbird?’

  Her heart hammered against her chest at the immensity of his secret, and for a few deathly moments she could not find her voice.

  Unbidden, she remembered how Tom had touched her in the stables, the hunger in his eyes that had both frightened and aroused her, and could not imagine the pale, stately Queen submitting to such caresses from a man. Not even from this man, as handsome and powerful as he was.

  But his lordship was waiting for an answer, so she smiled and drew a trembling breath.

  ‘I wish both you and the Queen happy, my lord,’ she managed at last, her eyes discreetly downcast so he could not see the doubt in them. ‘Very happy indeed.’

  Thirty-seven

  STARING DOWN FROM the window of the women’s apartments, Lettice shuddered at the Queen’s shouts from above. She had been summoned to the royal presence, and had little choice but to dress herself and make her way upstairs to face Her Majesty, though her blood chilled at the thought of what might await her there. Lady Mary Sidney had sent a note down with a serving girl; brusque and to the point, it demanded that she wait on the Queen within the hour. The serving girl, shy and pretty in her clogs and neat white apron, had waited by the door while Lettice roused herself from bed, threw a light over-gown on top of her shift, and composed herself to answer.

  ‘You may tell her ladyship,’ she said calmly, ‘that I shall attend Her Majesty as soon as I am well enough to rise.’

  Fine words. But they meant nothing. She would be expected to go upstairs to the Privy Chamber and face the Queen whether she was fit to leave her bed or not.

  When the girl had vanished back up the stairs to deliver her brave message and the door closed once more against the bustle of the outside world, Lettice went to the window. Outside the day was pale and rainy, an occasional breeze shaking the treetops. She could hear music through the floorboards. Someone in the royal chambers above was singing to the accompaniment of a lute. The high, ethereal notes drifted down through wood and stone, casting her out of herself for a few moments, letting her forget who she was and how precarious her position at court had become.

  By God, but it had been so hot this July, until these recent rains. Now the weather seemed to be closing in again, making the days unbearable and the nights …

  She ran a trembling hand across her forehead, which was running with perspiration. This room, which held nearly ten women at night, was high-ceilinged and not ungenerous in its proportions. But with so much flesh crammed together in one space, the mattresses lying almost end to end, it was no place for a sick woman. Not a sick woman of her rank, that was for certain.

  Her lips tightened with anger. In her own home at Chartley she would be comfortable, with her own large bed, her sitting rooms and servants, and the extensive grounds where she loved to ride and play with her dogs and children. It was a place where, in her husband’s continuing absence, she gave the orders and was obeyed. She would not be a servant in her own home, as she was at court. While Elizabeth remained on the throne, she would be forever taunting her with her power – and her influence over Robert.

  The door creaked open. She turned to see Robert in the doorway, a strange look on his face.

  ‘I heard you were sick.’

  She perched on the broad stone lip of the window seat, trying to control the pitch and swell of her nausea with shallow breaths. It must be a girl she was carrying, she was always more sick with a girl.

  ‘You know what causes it.’

  His glance lingered on her belly a moment, hidden beneath the loose folds of the over-gown, then it rose to her face. He seemed pale, unsure of himself, and she suddenly realized what he had come to say. ‘Lettice,’ he began, as he came into the women’s bedchamber and half closed the door behind him, clearly keen not to be ov
erheard. ‘I need to speak to you.’

  Lettice folded her hands in her lap, sitting as erect as she could with a sick belly. Her heart ached with a dull, nagging rage as she watched her lover thread his way gingerly between the scattered bags of possessions and the lumpy, straw-filled mattresses draped in white linen for the court ladies. Showing his age for once, Robert heavily went down on one knee to address her. With any other man, she might have thought he was about to propose marriage.

  But his was not the face of a man who intended to honour his promises.

  ‘Yes?’ she prompted him.

  Better to get this betrayal over quickly, she thought, wishing she could be elsewhere. A place where this bad news could not reach her. Her own cheeks must be pale too; they felt as chill to the touch as an alabaster tomb, and her heart had slowed to a distant, muffled thud, as though she were soon to die.

  For a brief moment, Lettice considered the possibility of tears. Then she forced her trembling lips to be still, her gaze to reveal nothing. What use was emotion when it was powerless to turn this man’s mind to her advantage?

  ‘This child,’ he muttered, and again his glance moved across her belly, ‘I cannot acknowledge it. Nor will I challenge Essex for you on his return. To do so would be to risk a divided court.’

  ‘A divided court,’ Lettice repeated, restraining the sudden impulse to laugh at the feebleness of such an excuse.

  ‘We are not yet safe,’ he continued, head bent, speaking under his breath as though to justify his actions to himself. ‘The country is riddled with spies and turncoats. Even at court we are surrounded by traitors to the crown – those who would seize any opportunity to destroy the peace we have built here in England since Elizabeth came to the throne.’

  ‘And for this I am thrown aside?’

  Robert made a helpless gesture. Yet he seemed genuinely torn by the choice he had to make, seizing her hand and carrying it to his lips.

  ‘I love you, Lettice. I have sworn to it. But you are already married, and to a man whose power at court might rival mine in a fight. For us to quarrel openly – and that is what it will come to, if knowledge of this bastard you carry gets out – the court will have to choose sides. And once that happens, with the court split asunder, the country itself will be lost.’

  ‘So my royal cousin has nothing to do with your decision to abandon me?’ she demanded. ‘It is all over politics?’

  She thought he hesitated rather too long before answering. ‘The Queen would not see me. I went to her bedchamber, to lay everything before her and beg her forgiveness, and she refused me admittance.’

  ‘One of the women told me the Queen is sick.’

  ‘A ruse, nothing more. To keep me out of her rooms. What else could it be?’

  Lettice frowned, suddenly wondering if Elizabeth could be confined to her bed for the same reason she was sick this morning. The idea struck her in the belly like a dagger. A child? Had he managed to catch a child on that pale-faced weakling Elizabeth, whose monthly courses were more often absent than not? The past seemed to rush in on her and Lettice knew, with a terrible certainty, that what she had feared when they first came to Kenilworth this summer had occurred: Robert and the Queen had lain together once again, and made their lovers’ vows in the darkness. And she had not had enough of a hold over Robert to prevent it.

  Henceforth she would be out in the cold, a disgraced wife, an adulteress, bearing another man’s child and without even the protection of a roof over her head, for as such her estate would be forfeit. Though without a doubt she would find a new home in the Tower soon enough.

  Lettice stared down at the man before her, hating him suddenly, his bent head, his lame excuses. ‘You get me with child, and then run back to Elizabeth like a schoolboy to his mother.’

  ‘Hush!’ He released her hand angrily, his dark eyes on the half-open door. She had spoken too loudly. ‘This is nonsense, madam. You’re unwell. You don’t know what you’re saying.’

  ‘Does she promise to make you her lawful consort?’ she hissed, lowering her voice again so only he could hear. ‘Are you to be king now and rule over us?’

  The earl rose and stared down from the leaded window at her back. ‘You are a married woman. She is not. She is still available. God grant me strength in this, my love, but what would you have me do? Turn down her offer of marriage?’ His voice broke. ‘Do you know how many years I’ve waited, the prizes and desires I have given up in order to try my luck at her side?’

  ‘She will never go through with it.’

  He looked down at her. ‘Yes, she will,’ he muttered, and Lettice saw with another stab of horror how his glance dropped almost unwillingly to the hidden curves of her belly.

  The Queen must be with child, she thought wildly. Her mind panicked, unable to come to any coherent idea without stumbling over the image of Elizabeth, married to Robert and dandling a newborn infant all wrapped in cloth of gold, a new Tudor prince for England.

  She would never come within an inch of the throne if Elizabeth were to have a child.

  Her despair at this horrific thought was so overwhelming, Lettice clutched her own belly and groaned.

  ‘Should I fetch a servant?’ Robert asked, staring at her in consternation. ‘Or would you prefer the physician? There is a local man, Master Boden, wandering about the castle somewhere. I spoke to him earlier. Let me send him to you.’

  ‘No!’ She gave him her hand, and gestured him to help her stand up. ‘I must see the Queen. She has sent for me, and if I do not attend she will take it amiss.’

  ‘Your gown?’

  ‘There, on the bed.’

  He passed her the demure, dark-ribboned gown and helped her on with it, surprisingly adept at the task.

  ‘Let me at least assist you up the stairs.’

  Lettice straightened her gown and reached for her best slippers.

  ‘No, my lord,’ she told him straitly, making her way to the door. ‘It is not seemly that you should help me. Not if you are soon to be my king. Tell me, has a date been set for the wedding?’

  ‘Lettice, for the love of Christ—’

  But she turned in the doorway, and was pleased with how coolly she spoke. ‘Pray do not follow me, your lordship. The Queen’s Majesty would not thank me for arriving with her own intended on my arm, however secret your betrothal.’

  *

  The curtains about the royal bed had been drawn back, allowing a little light to fall across the red and gold coverlet and white embroidered pillows. The dark wooden headboard, ornately carved by some skilled artisan, featured woodland scenes that matched the elegant mantelpiece surrounding the hearth, with stags and foxes sniffing the air, and tall ivy-clad trees dripping with autumnal fruits. Someone had set a bowl of sweetmeats at the Queen’s elbow and a twisted glass flagon of pale wine stood waiting on a side table, yet both remained untouched. On her way into the Royal Bedchamber, Lettice glanced at them discreetly. Perhaps Elizabeth was sick, after all?

  The Queen was sitting up in bed when she arrived, the red and gold covers turned down, a fine gilt net stretched over her hair, her face in shadow.

  Curtseying low to the floor, Lettice was forced to remain in that ignominious position until she heard Elizabeth say, ‘Rise.’

  Bent over, staring with a suitably humble gaze at the exquisite hand-woven rug by Elizabeth’s bedside, she felt more nauseous than ever. But she hoped this act of submission would emphasize her obedience – even if it had taken nearly an hour for her to respond to the Queen’s summons.

  ‘I have been told that you are unwell, Lady Essex.’

  The Queen snapped her fingers and one of the younger ladies passed her a gold-handled ostrich-feather fan, no doubt one of Robert’s more lavish gifts to her on their arrival at Kenilworth.

  Wafting the fan to and fro, she regarded Lettice from under thin, pale lids. The anger Lettice had heard from below – the shouting and the footstamps of fury – seemed to have passed, but a malicious fi
re still burned in Elizabeth’s eyes. She reminded Lettice of an adder in the long grass, waiting to strike.

  ‘I am very much recovered, Your Majesty,’ Lettice murmured in reply, bending her head again. ‘I fear some of the fish we enjoyed yesterday was unfit to eat.’ Daringly, she raised her gaze to Elizabeth’s face and added, ‘You yourself have been in bed with a touch of sickness, I hear. Perhaps Your Majesty had the misfortune to take a little of the bad fish as well?’

  Elizabeth’s eyelids flickered but she said nothing, still watchful and unmoving in her high bed, though the feathery twitch of her fan was a constant irritation to the nerves.

  ‘I am glad you are recovered,’ the Queen said at last, as though finally reaching a decision, ‘for I have some good news to impart to you.’

  ‘Your Majesty?’

  Whatever she had expected, ‘good news’ had not been on the list. Threats, fury, insults, even the order for her to be arrested and thrown into prison … All these Lettice had anticipated at this meeting. And indeed she would have accepted any punishment but the last as part of the price any lady at court must pay for playing so deep against the Queen herself. But this was something different, something she had not predicted, and Lettice stared up at her royal cousin with open unease and did not care who saw it.

  ‘I have seen how much you miss your beloved husband, and now read from his letters that Lord Essex misses you too, his wife and the mother to his many charming children.’ The Queen’s smile was spiteful. ‘So I have sent for him to return to England this very autumn. No doubt when we visit Chartley House you will wish to give your household orders to prepare for their master’s return from Ireland.’

  Barely able to stand, Lettice heard a rushing in her ears. Numb, she could no longer feel her feet. She swayed. But she must not fall. Not here, in the Queen’s presence.

  ‘Thank you, Your Majesty.’