B009RYSCAU EBOK

by Gillian Bagwell

  “Not so recent. Almost a year now, isn’t it? You cannot stay alone forever. I’d not waste a moment, were I you, but ensnare good Sir William with that sweet smile of yours. And wherever Elizabeth is, he is not far away. So you may visit her and kill two birds with one stone.”

  Twenty-fifth of October, 1558—Chatsworth, Derbyshire

  Bess woke from a dream of William so vivid that she turned, expecting to find him in bed next to her. But it was a year ago this day that he had died, and the pillow beside her own was blank and cold. She said a prayer for the repose and salvation of his soul, as she did each morning. How had she managed to get through three hundred and sixty-five days without the comfort of his love and company? Day by day, his voice whispered in her mind. Day by day, and the pain grows less little by little.

  She went to the window. The pink of dawn was fading. The day would be clear and beautiful. The trees in the orchard were nearly bare now, their branches like skeletal fingers against the sky. Heaps of golden leaves drifted around their roots, covering the barren earth like a winding sheet.

  She thought of the last time that she and William had walked in the orchard, the previous spring just before he had left for London. Then the trees had been in bud, with here and there a delicate white blossom unfurling its petals. William had plucked a flower and, pulling Bess’s coif from her head, tucked it into her curls.

  “My queen of the May,” he had said, and kissed her. He had seemed sad that day, and Bess had put it down to his impending departure and his reluctance to be gone from her and the children. But he had surprised her when he had taken her hands and kissed them before speaking quite seriously.

  “When I am gone, dear Bess, don’t keep yourself lonely.”

  “My love, I’ll join you in London soon, and the days will not be long, knowing that you are there waiting for me.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” he had said. “I mean when I leave you a widow, as surely I must someday.”

  “Oh.” She had not known what to say. It was true that he was near twenty years older than she, but somehow she had always feared that she would die giving birth, leaving him once more bereft of a wife and with the care of their children on his shoulders. “But why do you speak of this, my heart? I’m sure we have many happy years left to us. And it may be that I am gone before you.”

  “No,” he had said, and she had been shaken by his sureness. “I know that it will not be so. And you will ease my soul if you promise me that when your heart is ready, you will open it to another’s love. Promise me, Bess.”

  “Very well,” she had said, her hand caressing his cheek. “I promise, then. But let it not be for a great many years.”

  And now it had been a year since she had lost him. Many left widowed married sooner than that span of time, but she had always thought to do so seemed callous. Her soul had needed the time to heal from William’s loss. But now?

  The face of Will St. Loe came into her mind. She had not been long gone from Hatfield, but she had thought of him often, and missed those laughing eyes and the deep growl of his voice with its Somerset burr. And she thought she could hear William’s whisper.

  It is time. I will always be here waiting for you. But cast the shadows from your heart and let yourself smile again.

  “I will,” she murmured. “I will. But you will always have your place in my heart, my love.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Ninth of November, 1558—Chatsworth, Derbyshire

  BESS REREAD SIR WILLIAM CECIL’S LETTER, HER HEART BEATING faster at every line.

  The queen cannot last the week. She has at last named Princess Elizabeth as her successor, and I do not have to tell you that no one will stand in the way of the joyous occasion of that lady’s accession to the throne. Parliament has been recalled in anticipation of the change that will come any day. Hasten you back to London. And a stop at Hatfield House would not be amiss.

  “Jenny!” Bess called, and swept her sister into her arms when she appeared, looking anxious. “See to the packing! We are off to London!”

  “The children and all?”

  “No, no need to uproot them now. They’ll be happier here.” The images of Princess Elizabeth, soon to be queen, and Sir William St. Loe rose side by side in Bess’s mind. “And I have business to attend to.”

  * * *

  IF HATFIELD HOUSE HAD HAD THE APPEARANCE OF A COURT IN SEPTEMBER, there was now no doubt that that was what it was, Bess thought. She had arrived three days earlier to find the house full, and had been fortunate that Lizzie’s friend Frances Newton had invited her to share her lodgings, else she would have had to seek a bed in the nearest inn, as more well-wishers were arriving to greet Princess Elizabeth than Hatfield could accommodate.

  There was little pretense at sadness over the death of Queen Mary, which must come any day. William Cecil was busy drafting proclamations announcing Elizabeth’s accession to the throne and the road from London was choked with courtiers hoping for places in the new queen’s household. William St. Loe had obviously been very pleased to see Bess when she arrived, and had been as attentive to her as his duties allowed.

  The morning was cool but not cold, and Bess was taking advantage of the sunshine to take a stroll with Lizzie and Frances Newton.

  “Look at Her Highness, reading beneath a tree as though she had not a care in the world,” Frances commented.

  Elizabeth sat with her back against an oak, her russet skirts spread out around her and a book in her lap, but though her eyes were on the page, Bess thought that surely her mind must be awhirl. Bess’s attention was caught by the furious pounding of horses’ hooves and she turned to see a small party of riders thundering along the road toward the house.

  “From London, surely,” Frances said, and excitement surged in Bess’s stomach.

  “Come, let us go and hear the news,” she cried.

  The horsemen were riding pell-mell across the grass toward Elizabeth, and Bess broke into a run. Others were streaming toward the princess from all directions.

  Bess, Lizzie, and Frances arrived near Elizabeth just as the riders were dismounting. Bess recognized the two gray-bearded men hastening toward Elizabeth as the earls of Pembroke and Arundel.

  Elizabeth jumped to her feet. Her face had gone deathly pale but for two spots of red flaming in her cheeks, and her fingers clenched the little book in her hand, which Bess saw was the New Testament, as though it was all that kept her standing.

  The earls swept their hats from their heads and knelt before Elizabeth.

  “Your Majesty,” the Earl of Pembroke began, his voice breaking.

  “Queen Mary departed this life just before dawn this morning,” Arundel said. “You are queen, Your Majesty.”

  Bess found that she was gripping Lizzie’s hand and that tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  Elizabeth stood silent, as though struck dumb, and gasped for breath. Then she, too, fell to her knees in the grass and clasped the New Testament to her breast before she spoke at last.

  “A Domine factum est illud, et est mirabile in oculis nostris!”

  “What did she say?” Bess pleaded under her breath.

  “‘This is the Lord’s doing,’” Lizzie translated, “‘and it is marvelous in our eyes.’”

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT THE FEASTING AND CELEBRATIONS LASTED LATE INTO the night. As she looked around the great hall at Hatfield, Bess thought that of all the royal events she had attended, this was the happiest. There was no sense of the danger of the monarch’s sudden switch into calculated cruelty, as there had been with King Henry. No barely veiled partisan jostling to see who would control the king, as there had been with young Edward. No gnawing reminder that scores of people were going to fiery deaths, as there had been with Queen Mary.

  There was only Elizabeth, smiling, joyful, and radiant.

  “Now the golden days are with us,” Will St. Loe said to Bess. He sat next to her at the table, with their friends around
them, and Bess felt as though she were in a haze of brilliant light. “I can scarcely bear the thought of being parted from you, Bess,” Will murmured, touching a gentle hand to her cheek.

  “I won’t be absent for much time,” she promised. “Only as long as is needed to get the children and my household ready to make the move to Brentford. And you’ll have much to do before then.”

  Elizabeth had that afternoon named Will as captain of her Yeoman Guard, and he would never be far from her side in the coming weeks as she went to London to take the throne.

  “Every day that I lack you will seem like a year,” Will said.

  “And I will feel the same.” Bess smiled. “We sound like a pair of young lovers.”

  He took her hand and kissed it. “I feel like a young man when I look on you. But I am a better man and more fit to be with a woman than I was as a boy.”

  Bess thought of poor Robbie Barlow, her sweet first husband, who had died before he knew what it was to be a man.

  “I would not have you other than as you are,” she said.

  Later, they stood in a shadowed corner of the hall, the light of a hundred candles dancing around them, and Will drew Bess to him and kissed her. She felt as though she were melting at his touch, his lips soft on hers, his whiskers tickling gently, the taste of him sweet in her mouth. Her belly contracted with a pang of longing, a fierce desire such as she had never known. What marvels the world held, she thought, feeling his arm tight around her waist, his hand cradling the back of her neck as he kissed her more deeply.

  “I had not known until now,” she murmured when he finally released her, “that it was possible to be this happy.”

  Fifteenth of January, 1559—London

  The bells of London’s churches had been pealing since dawn, their joyful clanging reverberating in the biting cold air. Bess’s breath blew out in silvery clouds, and her nose felt as if it would freeze. But the rest of her was swathed in velvet and fur, and she was kept warm by walking. Because of Will St. Loe’s place in the queen’s favor, Bess was among the hundreds in the procession following Queen Elizabeth from Westminster Palace to the abbey for her coronation, the tramp of their feet turning the snow into rivers of slush and mud. But the mud didn’t matter; nothing mattered on this glorious day.

  Ahead, she could see the horse litter on which Elizabeth rode, the canopy held over her bobbing as its bearers went. She knew that Will was only feet from the queen, as he had been almost constantly since she had left Hatfield. Elizabeth had bestowed upon him for his lifetime the offices of Chief Butler of England and Chief Butler of Wales, which carried an annual salary of fifty marks for overseeing the payment of duty on imported wine and ensuring that the queen’s pantry was well stocked with good vintages.

  “And,” Will had told Bess, laughing in delight, “it is my duty to present Her Majesty with the first cup of wine at the banquet following her coronation.”

  She had felt so proud of him, and touched at how pleased he was by the queen’s doing him such honor.

  “She loves you well. Almost as well as I do.”

  Bess’s mind came back to the present as the procession stopped before the abbey. The litter and canopy disappeared from sight and she knew that Elizabeth must be alighting. The cheers of the crowds that lined the streets grew louder and louder.

  “God save the queen! God save Queen Elizabeth!” the people roared.

  And then there was movement again, and Bess mounted the steps into the abbey to see the dawn of a new reign.

  Part Four

  LADY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Eleventh of July, 1559—Greenwich

  HURRAHS WENT UP FROM THE CROWDS PACKING THE TOURNAMENT stands in the palace yard as Robert Dudley’s lance thrust home into the breastplate of Lord Darcy, splintering with a thunderous crack and nearly unseating Darcy.

  “Bravely done, sir!” the queen called out. “It is not for nothing that I made you my master of horse, I find!”

  “And Knight of the Garter,” Lizzie whispered to Bess. The queen had bestowed that honor on Dudley and the Duke of Norfolk on St. George’s Day in April, and some said it was a prelude to further elevation. Dudley had organized the day of tilting and a tourney to entertain the queen, as well as the attendant festivities, which included outdoor feasting in flower-decked pavilions and the masques that would take place that evening.

  Dudley circled back to the stands and came to a stop before the queen, his horse dancing as he removed his helm and kissed Elizabeth’s hand. Bess thought that she certainly understood what the queen saw in Dudley. She had known him since he was a boy, but there was nothing boyish about him now; everything about him seemed primal, pagan, sexual. His dark hair, damp with sweat, curled around his swarthy brow, making her think of a satyr. The eyes that met the queen’s were bright with passion. And not only for the exhilaration of the sport, Bess thought. Dudley was married, but his wife Amy Robsart was far from court at Denchworth and said to be ill, and there were whispered rumors that the queen would marry Dudley when his wife died. Yes, a man with powers to bewitch. Dangerous.

  Dudley took the flagon of wine that the queen handed him and drank, wiping ruby drops from his mustache with the back of his hand. Bess suddenly recalled Lady Zouche’s tale so many years ago of King Henry, his shirt clinging to him after a bout of tennis, coming to the side of the court to pass time with Anne Boleyn, when she had ruled his heart and soul. Surely to be the object of a queen’s love could not be so perilous. Or could it?

  But in the next moment Bess had no more thoughts for Robert Dudley, for the herald cried out, “Sir William St. Loe!”

  Will rode into the arena, straight and powerful on a huge bay stallion caparisoned in crimson, his tilting armor glinting in the sun. Bess’s heart surged with love and pride, for it was her own glove that was affixed to his arm as a favor, and the mate was tucked into the jeweled belt at her waist. Anyone with an eye to see would know that she held his heart.

  Will bowed to the queen, then touched his gauntleted hand to his lips and raised it in salute to Bess. She felt heads turning to see where his attention lay and flushed at the scrutiny as she inclined her head to him.

  “Ah,” Elizabeth said, arching an eyebrow. “So, the captain of my guard is captain of your heart, Lady Cavendish. Well chosen. There is not a better man in England.”

  “I thank you, Your Majesty,” Bess murmured, conscious of the many eyes on her.

  Frances squeezed Bess’s hand and gave her an approving nod at the significance of the queen’s praise.

  Will’s opponent Ambrose Dudley, Robert’s older brother, galloped his horse past the stand and saluted the queen, and then rode to the opposite end of the tiltyard from Will.

  Bess’s stomach was surging with excitement and nervousness. Will was a skilled horseman and combatant, but accidents did happen. Only a few days earlier King Henri of France had been horribly injured in the lists, when the tip of a lance had shattered and pierced his eye. He lay near death, it was said. And the leg injury that had plagued King Henry and turned him into a cripple as he aged had been the result of a fall while jousting.

  The two mounted men faced each other down the long length of the tilt. The visors of their helms were down and Bess wished she could see Will’s face. He lifted his lance into position, its impossible length balanced before him. Bess thought about the force with which two such combatants rode toward each other. A horse weighing half a ton, the man himself in a hundred pounds of armor, the heavy wooden lances, pounding toward each other at an unstoppable pace.

  The herald dropped his arm, the gold scarf in his hand bellying out in the breeze, and the knights spurred their mounts forward. Bess found that she was clutching Frances’s hand as the horses thundered toward each other, the plumes of their helms streaming out behind them. She was not breathing, could not breathe, until it was over.

  The tip of Will’s lance rose. Surely he was off his mark, and leaving himself open to Ambro
se Dudley’s weapon, moving arrowlike toward his broad chest. And then Will’s lance connected with Dudley’s helm, carrying him off his horse and onto the sawdust-covered ground with a sickening crash as Will clattered past in a blur of russet and scarlet.

  It seemed an eternity before Ambrose Dudley stirred, and then the crowd roared as Will, helm under his arm now, rode back along the stands, bowing to the queen and being pelted with roses as Dudley was helped to his feet and stumbled from the field.

  “Spectacular!” Queen Elizabeth exulted. “By heaven, I’ve never seen better play!”

  Bess was trembling with the pent-up anxiety, and laughed aloud in her relief. It had been spectacular, and she marveled to think that this paragon of manhood loved her as deeply as she loved him. Then she saw that he had come to a halt and his eyes met hers. He pulled her glove from its ribbon on his arm and touched it to his breast, and she was seized with an overpowering need to feel his arms around her, to touch his face, to know that he was real and he was safe and he was hers, and she was on her feet and murmuring an apology to the queen before she knew what she was about.

  Behind the viewing stands, stable boys looked up in surprise as Bess darted past them, but she didn’t care what they thought, what anyone thought. Where was he? She couldn’t find him amid the crowd of men and horses. Her heart leapt as she caught sight of him, two servants removing his armor. He turned as if he felt her gaze, and then he was striding toward her, his eyes alight with passion, and he encircled her waist with his hands and lifted her to him and kissed her.

  “Oh, Bess, my Bess,” he murmured. “I can never feel happy or whole until I know you are mine. Will you be my wife?”

  “Yes, yes, oh, yes,” she cried, her hands tangled in the damp locks of his hair, kissing his lips, his cheeks, his forehead. “I will be yours until the end of time, Will St. Loe.”