He was startled. He had become the subject once more.
She went on quickly: “If there were any hope of our marrying …”
He interrupted: “There is hope.”
Her sudden happiness could not be hidden; it shone from her eyes and she was the woman again.
“How so?”
“My wife is a sick woman. She cannot live long.”
“You … speak truth, Robert?”
“She suffers from a growth in the breast. It will prove fatal.”
“Robert … how long?”
“A year perhaps. You will wait, my love, my dearest Queen? A year … and you and I … together for the rest of our lives.”
“Why did you not tell me this before?” she demanded sharply.
“I dared not hope.”
“You … dared not! You would dare anything.”
He kissed her. “Only since I knew how you loved me.”
She would not allow the embrace to continue. He was too insistent, too clever, too practiced. He knew exactly how to play upon her feelings. The Queen must command the woman not to act like any village drab—or perhaps any normal woman in the hands of Lord Robert.
“It is true?” she asked.
“I swear she will not live long.”
“The people …”
“The people would be delighted if you married an Englishman.”
“Yes … but one of noble family.”
“You forget. My father was Lord Protector of England when you were called a bastard.”
“He went to Tower Hill as a traitor. I was born a Princess, and a Princess I remained.”
“Let us not bother with such matters. They are unimportant, for you have said you would marry me if I were free.”
“I said I believed I might.”
“My darling, I am no foreign ambassador pleading for his master. I am flesh and blood … warm and loving … here … your lover.”
“Not that … yet.”
“But soon to be!”
She freed herself and walked up and down the room. She said after a pause: “It is not often that we may meet thus, and you waste time, my lord. If, as you say, there may come a time when I might marry you, there should be no scandal concerning us beforehand. The people would not like that. Continue to be my Master of Horse, my loyal subject, until such a time as I may find it possible—and in my heart—to elevate you to a higher rank. But leave me, Robert. Leave me now. If you stay longer it will be known. The gossips will be busy with us.”
She gave him her hand and he took it, but his lips did not stay on her fingers. He clasped her in his arms again.
“Robin,” she said, “my sweet Robin, how I have longed for this!”
But Kat was already at the door with the news that William Cecil was on his way to see the Queen.
But how could she keep this overwhelming love a secret? It obsessed her. She could think of little else. If he were absent, nothing pleased her; but the Master of the Horse only had to put in an appearance and she was all gaiety.
She wanted to show her love and her power at the same time. She gave him the Dairy House at Kew, and that was a lovely old mansion; nor was that all. He must, she decided, be rich beyond all her courtiers; she liked to see him clad in fine clothes and jewels, for who else could show them off as he did? There were some monastery lands which must go to my Lord Dudley; and as many merchants in England had grown rich through the export of wool, he should have a license to export that commodity, and lands and riches with which to develop the industry. As if this was not enough, she must invest him with the Order of the Garter. There was no gainsaying her. Let any man come to her and say that my Lord Dudley was unworthy of such honors and she would make him feel the full force of her displeasure.
She was fiercely in love. Thus had her father, King Henry, been when he had become enamored of her mother. The main topic of conversation throughout the Court was the Queen’s passion for Robert Dudley.
She arranged special pageants at which much time was devoted to jousting, for none could joust like Robert Dudley. She would sit watching him, her eyes soft, then kindling with applause, for he was always the victor, his skill being so much greater than that of any other man.
She talked of him at every opportunity; when she was with her women she would bring the conversation back to him again and again. She liked to have him compared with other men that she might point out how greatly he excelled them all. She even encouraged her courtiers to criticize him so that she might have opportunities of enlarging upon his perfections.
She was in love and she did not seem to care who knew it. On one occasion when he was competing in a shooting match, she disguised herself as a serving girl and entered the enclosure that she might be near him. But when he had beaten his opponent she could not resist calling out: “Look, my lord, who has passed the pikes for your sake.”
The Earl of Sussex remarked that it might be a goodly conclusion to the matter of her marriage, if Lord Robert Dudley were free for her, for he was sure that a woman so full of desire for a man as the Queen was for Dudley, could not fail to get children.
Cecil had the courage to warn her. It might, he told her in his blunt way, be impossible for her to marry elsewhere, if rumors concerning herself and Dudley persisted.
But she did not heed him. Headstrong as her father, she would show her favor where she wished; and if that favor fell upon “the most virtuous and perfect man” she had ever known, it was only right and natural that this should be so.
“Favor!” cried Cecil. “But what favor, Madam? It is said that you would marry this man if it were possible for you to do so.”
“I like a man, Master Cecil,” she said. “And the man I marry will be no sit-in-the-cinders kind of man. He will be a man of many perfections, worthy to marry the Queen.”
Cecil sighed and had to content himself with urging caution.
But the rumors were spreading beyond the Court. “The Queen plays legerdemain with my lord Robert Dudley,” it was said in the hamlets and villages. And from that it was an easy step to: “Have you heard then? The Queen is with child by Lord Robert Dudley. What next, eh? What next?”
Great news was expected. There was tension throughout the country. Even those who did not believe the Queen was pregnant, believed that Robert was her lover.
Cecil inwardly raged while the Court whispered. But for the existence of poor unwanted Amy Dudley, there was no doubt who the Queen’s husband would be.
Kat, as usual, had her ear to the ground. She was worried, for these scandals rivaled those which had been circulated when Seymour had been reputed to be Elizabeth’s lover.
She came to the Queen and said: “Dearest Majesty, I beg of you to take care. Terrible things are said of you.”
“Who dares?” cried Elizabeth.
“The whole country. Mayhap the whole world!”
“They shall suffer for their lewdness.”
“Dearest Majesty, I fear it will be you who suffers. You must consider these rumors. You must remember you are a Queen, and a Queen of England.”
“What rumors are these?”
“They say that you live in dishonor with Lord Dudley … That you are his mistress.”
The Queen laughed shortly. “Yet all those about me know such rumors to be false. Look at me! Look at the people who are always about me. My councillors, my statesmen, my ladies of the bedchamber, my gentlemen of this and that …” She spoke almost regretfully: “What chance have I, Katharine Ashley, to lead a dishonorable life!” Her eyes flashed. “But if ever I had the wish to do so—but God I know will preserve me from this—I know of no one who could forbid me!”
Kat was dismissed; and she went out shaking her head, wondering what would happen next.
Robert did not enjoy the same popularity with his own sex as he did with the other. Envious eyes followed the Queen’s favorite. Robert knew that there was nothing that could produce hatred so surely as success, and that therefore he must have inspired much enmity. His great desire was to marry the Queen but he wished to do this with the full support of her ministers. He and Elizabeth had been foolish to expose their feelings to the public gaze. Robert sought—with the Queen’s consent—to remedy this.