His Dark Lady
Page 1
About the Book
London, 1583.
When young, aspiring playwright William Shakespeare encounters Lucy Morgan, one of Queen Elizabeth I’s ladies-in-waiting, the two fall passionately in love. He declares Lucy the inspiration for his work, but what secret is Will hiding from his muse?
Meanwhile, Lucy has her own secret – one that could destroy her world if exposed. No longer the chaste maid so valued by the Virgin Queen, she also bore witness to the clandestine wedding of Lettice Knollys and Robert Dudley, a match forbidden by the monarch.
England is in peril. Queen Elizabeth’s health is deteriorating, her throne under siege from Catholic plotters and threats of war with Spain. Faced with deciding the fate of her long-term prisoner, Mary, Queen of Scots, she needs a trusted circle of advisors around her now more than ever. But who can she turn to when those closest to her have proved disloyal?
And how secure is Lucy’s position at court, now that she has learned the dangerous art of keeping secrets?
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Part Two
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifiteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Ninteen
Chapter Twenty
Part Three
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Victoria Lamb
Copyright
For A
‘Presume not that I am the thing I was.’
William Shakespeare,
Henry IV, Part Two, Act 5, Scene v
‘How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.’
William Shakespeare,
Merchant of Venice: Act 5, Scene i
Prologue
Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire, April 1578
HANDS CLASPED IN prayer, Lucy bent her head, watching a stag-horned beetle crawl across the rushes. Her knees hurt on the stone floor, its cold striking into her bones through the thin embroidered cushion on which she knelt. They would not have much longer to wait, she told herself. Her mind drifted to the past and she struggled to drag it back to prayer, to the present moment, to this small draughty room high up in the castle keep. Her back ached as well as her knees; her sleep had been disturbed last night. Too many unhappy memories in this place. Perhaps she should not have agreed to return to Kenilworth.
The widowed Countess of Essex knelt a few feet away, her lips moving in more fervent prayer. Her cushion was larger and plumper, Lucy noticed.
A pack of raucous men passed below their window with torches and bawdy shouts. The countess jerked in shock, her hair hidden demurely beneath an embroidered cap and veil. She stared across at Lucy, her only companion during these difficult hours. Her eyes shone in the candlelight. Were those tears?
The long wait was over. A moment later there was a hammering at the outer door of the countess’s apartments, followed by a hubbub of raised voices. This time Lettice gave a little gasp and crossed herself, shaking her head as though to deny that the moment had finally arrived. Not so calm as she would like to appear, then. Lucy shifted uncomfortably on her cushion. Would she be allowed to rise now?
Lady Mary Herbert, the fair-haired Countess of Pembroke, came to the bedchamber door looking flustered and unsure. ‘My lady?’
‘What is it?’
Behind the girl’s shoulder, Lucy could see as many as a dozen men in livery filling the outer chamber, their faces flushed and intent; she smelt the acrid smoke from their blazing torches.
Lady Mary stammered, ‘Th … the men are here for you, my lady. They say the hour has come. That you must descend with them and make no delay.’
‘Don’t fret, Mary,’ Lettice Knollys replied calmly, having got herself back in hand. ‘You may tell them I am ready and prepared, and must finish my prayers.’
Lady Mary looked nervous, but nodded and withdrew. The thick oak door closed behind her, shutting out the noise and smoking torchlight.
Poor child, over-sensitive and scared of her own shadow. Lady Mary Herbert was only here at the request of her uncle Robert, and was clearly not happy to have been placed in such a dangerous situation. Sometimes the Earl of Leicester failed to appreciate how his plans might affect those around him, thinking only of his own desires. The Queen’s favourite, he had always been wilful and head-strong; yet Lucy had never felt able to dislike him for it, such was the force of Robert’s charm. No doubt he had also charmed his niece into attending tonight.
Lucy watched the Countess of Essex with curiosity. How could she seem so calm? The widow was skilled at hiding her emotions, clearly. She had spent most of her life in high places, after all, and must be accustomed to lying to save her neck. Though tonight would mark an end to her greatest lie of all.
Her prayers finished, still kneeling beside the bed with a Breton lace shawl over her shoulders to keep out the draught, Lettice Knollys rose gracefully to her feet.
‘Well,’ she muttered. ‘It’s time.’
She shrugged off the shawl and shook out the heavy skirts of her gown.
‘How do I look, child?’
Lucy examined her ladyship with an experienced eye. Even in the dull glow of candlelight the Countess of Essex looked magnificent. The finery of the dress, all silver lace and gold satin, was topped by a stiff white ruff sprinkled with diamonds and pearls. Her slippers were embroidered silver, peeping out from beneath the swaying gown. Her reddish hair shone with a gold net of jewels. There was no sign that this transformation had taken five hours and as many women, pushing and coaxing the widowed countess’s too-rounded figure into the costly gown.
‘Beautiful as a queen,’ Lucy told her, and was rewarded by the countess’s smile, her face aglow with triumph.
The Countess of Essex took her hands and kissed Lucy on both cheeks. Her lips felt cool, her kiss somehow perfunctory, yet Lucy was still surprised by the gesture. Lettice had never showed her this courtesy before, much less friendship. But then her ladyship had never stood in such danger before.
‘I have not thanked you for agreeing to attend to me tonight, Lucy. I know how much this loyalty will cost you
if the Queen should ever hear of it.’
Lucy lowered her gaze, saying nothing. Had she been given any true choice in the matter she would not have come at all. But it had been presented to her as a summons, not a request. Two hooded servants had accompanied the note, ready to sweep her secretly from court and on to a covered wagon that had trundled and lurched along the roads to Warwickshire with little care for her comfort. She could have refused, of course. But where was the sense in making an enemy by refusing when she might make a friend by agreeing?
Lettice snapped her fingers and Lucy hurried to open the door. They were not friends yet, and she knew her place.
‘I have my own women to dress me,’ Lettice continued, fiddling distractedly with her silver belt-chain as she stepped outside, ‘and Robert’s niece to sit beside us at the bridal dinner. Mary is a pretty girl, but only recently married, and still a child for all that she bears the title of countess. I need at least one court lady at my side tonight who knows how things must be done. And who can I trust more than you?’
‘You do me great honour, my lady,’ Lucy murmured.
She stooped and lifted the heavy silver train of Lettice’s gown off the rushes where it was already soiling. The jewels prickled under her fingers; the countess’s gown was almost as extravagant and richly made as anything from Elizabeth’s own wardrobe.
‘Strange to think that in another few minutes I will have stolen the Queen’s most prized possession.’ Although Lettice laughed, Lucy detected a hint of fear in her voice. ‘What will my royal cousin say when she discovers she is too late, that I am already Robert’s wife?’
‘Best not to think on it, my lady.’
‘It is all I have thought on for months.’ The countess’s expression grew suddenly defiant. Lettice Knollys was only beautiful when she was calm, Lucy realized, and hurriedly lowered her gaze in case the unkind thought showed in her eyes. ‘Yet what can Elizabeth do? Throw us both in the Tower for marrying without her consent? She’d never do it. Not to her darling Robert. And as for me, she would not dare such an outrage against her own cousin.’
Lucy thought the Queen capable of any outrage when it came to keeping Robert Dudley close to her. Yes, Elizabeth might baulk at locking up her favourite, but Lettice would be foolish to consider herself safe from the Queen’s anger on his account, given how much the two cousins loathed each other. Lucy only hoped the Queen would overlook her part in all this when she did discover what had taken place so secretly here at Kenilworth.
‘Come,’ Lettice ordered her. ‘My bridesmen are impatient for a nuptial, it seems. Let us give them one to remember.’
The countess and her rowdy entourage of bridesmen and women moved in a torchlit procession through Kenilworth Castle, with the rest of her servants following behind. Negotiating the narrow, low-roofed passages and stairways of the keep, they at last reached the grand staircase illuminated by great flaming torches and guarded at intervals by Leicester’s men in their smart blue livery. It was a warm spring evening as they crossed the courtyard under the looming gaze of the banqueting hall windows, the torches of the bridesmen casting vast dancing shadows about them. One of the great state apartments in the new block above, built in honour of Queen Elizabeth’s visit there three years before, had been swept out the previous day, the rushes renewed and the white marbled mantels dressed with flowers newly cut from the earl’s gardens.
One of the castle guards was staring at Lucy, his eyes bloodshot from the smoking torches. He glanced away when their eyes met. No doubt the foolish man thought her a heathen with her black skin, come here like one of the devil’s own to cast a curse on the company. If only she had some bones to rattle at him, she thought, and suppressed the urge to stick her tongue out.
Nobody in the castle was supposed to know why this room had been prepared. But of course there could be no such thing as a secret wedding when so many servants and villagers had been involved in fetching up armfuls of white spring blossom to decorate the mantels, clearing out the state apartments to make way for the company, and preparing a rich array of dishes for the feast that would follow.
The procession paused outside the open door to the magnificent state apartments. One of Lettice’s women fumbled with the countess’s gown, shaking out the heavily jewelled skirts so they would catch the candlelight to better advantage.
The groom stood by the vast marbled fireplace with his back to them, talking earnestly with the lean-faced Anglican priest who had ridden over from Coventry to marry them.
Lord Leicester looked almost regal tonight, Lucy thought. She sensed the countess’s pleasure as she too paused on the threshold to stare at her husband-to-be. Lucy could hardly believe what she had heard about him, that once he had merely been Robert Dudley, Master of the Queen’s Horse; that night he was every inch the wealthy, landowning Earl of Leicester. For his wedding suit, he had chosen a fashionable red doublet and hose of French design, a fine woollen cloak hanging from one shoulder, a gold-hilted sword by his side, his velvet cap feathered and set at an angle on silvering hair.
From within the apartments came the sound of music: a single tabor holding a rhythmic beat against the sweet notes of hautboys and horns. Lucy listened to the slow dignified music of the pavane and let it fill her, suddenly overjoyed for the couple, so very much in love that they would dare the Queen’s fury like this.
‘I’ve won,’ Lettice muttered, feeding on her bridegroom with her eyes. Her knuckles turned white as she clutched a spray of fresh spring flowers. ‘It’s happening at last, Lucy. There’s nothing the Queen can do to stop us now.’
Lettice swept in and Lord Leicester turned eagerly, only to fall silent at the sight of his bride-to-be in her wedding gown.
Holding up the countess’s train, Lucy followed at the same pace, dressed soberly in a gown of russet taffeta. She curtsied to Lord Leicester and the robed cleric from Coventry, then stepped back into place behind Lettice as the couple spoke quietly together for a moment.
The room had been splendidly dressed for the ceremony, the white and yellow blossoms set about with candles, and hanging silks to soften the castle walls. On the sideboard under the window stood the bride cup, dwarfed by two large silver branches of candles. It would be Lucy’s duty after the ceremony to fill the heavily ornate gold chalice with spiced wine, handing it to the newly married couple to drink each other’s health. A dozen tiny bridal cakes had been stacked up delicately beside the cup, sweetly fragrant and oozing honey. A young pageboy had been set to wave away any flies or moths attracted by the candle flames. The boy looked quite awed by the splendour of the occasion, staring back wide-eyed when Lucy winked at him.
Abruptly, the laughter and talk in the crowded chamber became subdued. The music swelled to a finish. A space was cleared before the stone-flanked hearth, where a low fire burned steadily. The countess turned her head and Lucy gathered up the silver train of her gown. She followed the countess slowly forward to where two velvet cushions had been set for the couple to kneel on, then knelt behind them on the wooden floor.
On either side of their small party stood the bridesmen and women in the countess’s colours of scarlet and gold, some smiling with approval, others solemn. Liveried yeomen stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the door as though to guard them from interruption, and against the walls she could see the servants staring, hands clasped in prayer as the priest turned from blessing the wine and took up his book.
Lucy was smiling too, though inwardly she felt uneasy. She tried not to dwell on what might happen if the earl’s niece spilled this news to the Queen and court. Lady Mary would never betray her own blood, she told herself. Besides, it was too late to do anything about it now. More was the pity. The Queen’s temper, always violent and uncertain, had grown ever more unpredictable as she had entered her middle years. Surely she would never harm Robert Dudley, her favourite? But what of the rest of us who dared to witness this wedding and not prevent it?
The priest was looking nervous,
too. His hands shook as he began to read, ‘Dearly beloved friends, we are gathered together here in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation.’
Greenwich Palace, London, late April 1578
Fresh buds on the trees, the love-dance of the peacock shaking the ‘eyes’ on his splendid blue-green tail, a weak April sunshine on the grassy lawns. These were some of her favourite sights in spring. Yet Elizabeth could hardly bear to stop and admire them as she paced the neatly kept paths and gardens at Greenwich Palace. She bit her lip, rubbed and clapped her gloved hands together, now walking briskly, now standing in a daze like a moonstruck calf. Where had Robert gone? What was he doing that was so important it must keep him from court? She had thought they were growing closer again, this past year. Why would he cause her this new grief?
The Earl of Leicester had come back to court from the country on her summons, then kept mysteriously to his own suite of rooms, claiming to be ill. Now he had vanished entirely, and without asking her permission to leave court. It seemed the earl had been ferried back across the river with his servants to sit out a fever at Leicester House, her spies had told her apologetically. But Elizabeth could tell they were unsure of their information. Shuffling feet, downcast eyes. Hurriedly penned notes that spoke of indecision. Might be there, Your Majesty. May lately have been seen in the vicinity.
Idiots! And they dared to call themselves her spies. She should have them all strung up as fools and knaves. Except, as her spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, was fond of reminding her, she would then get no information out of them at all, let alone this embarrassed throat-clearing over Robert’s whereabouts. What were they trying to hide from her?
It had once again become her custom to walk out with her ladies in the early mornings. It had been another bitter winter, ice remaining on the ground long after it should have thawed, and the stiff green tips of spring flowers frozen where they grew. But now it was late April, and at last Elizabeth was able to enjoy the sweet breeze and the birds calling to each other in the spring sunshine. Such a relief, she thought, to leave behind the choking air of chambers where night pots had not yet been emptied nor soiled rushes swept away. They had been in residence several months now, and it was becoming impossible to mask the stench of the privies with burned herbs or sweeten the odour of unwashed flesh with pomanders.