B009RYSCAU EBOK (27 page)

“The wretch should stay in place now, I think. But I beg you to let me know if you need further protection from wayward shutters or anything else.”

He was smiling, but there was not a trace of mockery in his words, and Bess smiled back at him.

“Do I know you, sir?”

“William St. Loe, at your service,” he said, bowing. “My father was a good friend of Harry Grey’s and I recall you from Bradgate Park.”

The mention of Bradgate brought a vivid picture of Jane Grey to Bess’s mind and she felt the familiar tug of grief that came whenever she thought of Jane.

“A terrible loss that was,” St. Loe said. “Both poor Lady Jane and her father.”

Was it safe to openly mourn Jane, Bess wondered, now that Mary was almost gone?

“Yes,” she said. “We lost much when we lost them. I miss Jane every day.”

The man’s blue eyes seemed lit from within as he looked down at her, and she felt at ease with him. Safe, as she had felt with William Cavendish when first she knew him. But there was something more she felt with this man. A flame leapt to life somewhere deep within her and she swallowed.

“I was Elizabeth Barlow when I was at Bradgate. Now I am Elizabeth Cavendish. Though I lost my dear husband near a year ago.”

“I knew him a bit as well. A good man. And fortunate to have such a lady as you.”

“I have seen you at court, also, have I not?” Bess asked.

He nodded. “I have had the honor to be responsible for the safety of the Princess Elizabeth since I returned from service in Ireland five years ago, and when she was at court, so was I.”

Bess was suddenly very conscious that she was standing with a man alone in her bedchamber, and felt herself blushing.

“I thank you for your kindness, William. I am most grateful to have a protector.”

She had used the word somewhat lightly, but he did not laugh, and she realized that she did feel grateful, and knew that here was someone who would come to her aid if needed.

“Lady Cavendish.” He bowed again. “I hope I will have the pleasure of further conversation before you depart.”

* * *

“
W
HAT DO YOU KNOW OF
W
ILLIAM
S
T.
L
OE?”
B
ESS ASKED
L
IZZIE THE
next day.

Lizzie gave her a catlike smile.

“He’s a handsome one, isn’t he?”

Bess was annoyed that she found herself blushing.

“Sir William,” Lizzie said, emphasizing the first word, “comes of a good family that’s been closely tied to the crown for centuries. He served Henry Courtenay when a young man.”

The Courtenays, like the Greys, were near-royalty, as Henry Courtenay had been a first cousin to King Henry. So St. Loe must be well-placed and well-respected, Bess thought.

“His father supported Jane Grey, and Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion,” Lizzie continued, “but managed to survive. Sir William’s daughter Mary is one of Princess Elizabeth’s maids of honor.”

Bess felt her heart contract and scolded herself for it. Of course such a handsome, personable, and successful man must have a wife.

“He’s been a widower for almost ten years,” Lizzie said, as though reading her mind. “Though how he has escaped capture until now is a great mystery to me.”

“Perhaps he’s too busy to marry,” Bess said.

“Perhaps. And perhaps he has just not met the right woman. Until now.” She raised an eyebrow and smiled.

Bess had not thought of being on the hunt for a husband. “I’m only recently a widow,” she faltered, though Lizzie’s words echoed what was in her own heart.

“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

B
ESS REREAD
S
IR
W
ILLIAM
C
ECIL’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.”

* * *

I
F
H
ATFIELD
H
OUSE HAD HAD THE APPEARANCE OF A COURT IN
S
EPTEMBER
, 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.’”

* * *

T
HAT 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.