“If you were dead, and it was between your sisters…of course Elizabeth would take the throne.”
William let out his breath in a furious hiss. “Doubtless with his own son, Robert, beside her.”
“Quite possibly that is his thought.”
“Which means Robert is as guilty as his father.”
“Possibly.” Dominic was always cautious, and he knew that Robert was less prone to wild overreactions than his father. But he held in his mind the image of Robert distracting Minuette during the very hour someone smeared a lethal solution of monkshood on her star pendant.
William flung the damning pages to the floor of his oratory. His face was implacable. “Tomorrow Guildford will be tried and sentenced. He will be executed the day after. As soon as you have seen him die, take a contingent of soldiers. March to Dudley Castle to arrest the Duke of Northumberland and Lord Robert Dudley. I’ll have my uncle see to Eleanor’s arrest as well. This time, she’s not coming out of the Tower until I’m satisfied that she will never again be a threat to Minuette.”
Better and better, Dominic thought with satisfaction. And hated himself for relishing Eleanor’s downfall.
“I’m just glad the women are well out of it at Hatfield,” William mused. “I can only imagine the fireworks that will erupt when Elizabeth learns of Robert’s perfidy.”
Elizabeth did not sleep at all for fury. She counted it to her credit that she had managed to eke out a few meaningless words to Amy Dudley last night before Robert had escorted his wife out of the hall, more or less commanding her that “you must be weary after your journey—you should not have troubled yourself.”
Oh, it was no trouble, Elizabeth knew, watching the way Amy slipped her hand through Robert’s stiff arm. Amy had been awaiting her opportunity for a good many years.
Elizabeth had excused herself almost immediately afterward and spoken to no one, not even Minuette. Her friend was wise enough not to murmur more than, “Well, that was awkward,” in a manifestly dry-toned understatement.
It wasn’t as though Amy came as any surprise. Elizabeth was well aware of Robert’s marriage. In fact, William had attended it five years ago as a fourteen-year-old regented king. Elizabeth herself had been invited, but had been staying with her mother at Blickling Hall at the time. Robert had been only eighteen at his marriage, Amy not even quite that. Elizabeth, no matter how hard she’d tried since, had never been able to forget Lord Burghley’s cynical statement that theirs was “a carnal marriage.” True, Amy was the only child of a wealthy gentleman. True, she would inherit a fortune and lands when both her parents died. But considering how ambitious Northumberland was for all of his multitude of children, Robert must have pressed hard to marry Amy for nothing more than love alone. Or at least lust. Elizabeth didn’t know which of the two motives she preferred.
Not that Robert seemed particularly attached to Amy any longer. In the last three years he had hardly been away from court, and Elizabeth had heard that Amy often resided with her parents rather than at the rented manor she had once shared with her husband. And in five years of marriage, there had not been even a hint of a pregnancy. Whether because Amy was barren or because Robert could not be bothered to try (Elizabeth rather hoped it was that) or, most likely, because he had learned greater ambitions and knew that annulling or divorcing a wife who had given him children would complicate matters.
None of that matters,Elizabeth told herself.Not any longer.It was one thing to know about Amy Dudley in abstract—it was quite another to meet her in the flesh. She was not as elegant as Elizabeth, not as clever or learned, not as wealthy, not as privileged, nowhere near as desirable as herself in any way…but she was real from the top of her blond head to the tips of her squared-off fingers and little feet. And in the eyes of God, this very real woman was Robert’swife.
If Elizabeth could have stormed out of Dudley Castle, she would have. But she would not be driven from any house by a mere gentlewoman married to a fifth son. She was the royal guest here. It was for Amy Dudley to leave.
Which point she made clear when she found Robert leaning against the wall across from her chamber door. He looked as though he’d been there for some time.
“Don’t,” Elizabeth snapped. “I have a meeting with your father. You are not welcome.”
“I didn’t tell her you would be here. I swear it.”
“Clearly she has learned the Dudley gift for scavenging information.”
“Elizabeth—”
“If she’s here to meet me, she has done so. I will not see her again. If that is her aim, she may as well be on her way at once.”
“I’ve told her to be ready to depart at noon.”
“You go with her.”
She turned to walk away but Robert gripped her arm and swung her around.
“How dare you?” She slapped his hand away.
“Don’t do this, Elizabeth.” More gently, he let his fingers rest on her cheek. “Please.”
“How can you think to touch me with your wife in the same house?”
“Because I have no wife in any sense that matters. I was a fool to marry Amy—I was young and hot-blooded and a damned idiot, and every hour since then I have regretted it. I touch you because you are the only woman in the world who matters to me. You know that.”
“How long since you’ve been in her bed?” How she hated herself for needing to know.
“More than two years. And I will not go back, not ever. Not while I live and love you, Elizabeth.”
