B009RYSCAU EBOK (28 page)

Part Four

LADY

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Eleventh of July, 1559—Greenwich

H
URRAHS 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 Ambrose 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.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

I
MUST SPEAK TO YOU IN ALL SERIOUSNESS,”
W
ILL TOLD
B
ESS THE
day after the tourney, as they strolled along in the park above the palace. “You gave me your promise in the heat of passion yesterday, but I must speak to you as I would to your father if he were alive and demanding to know in what fashion I will keep you.”

“Very well,” Bess said. “I am all ears, sir.”

“When my father died in December, Sutton Court in Somerset and Tormarton in Gloucestershire came to me, along with all his wealth but seventy pounds to my brother Clement, a dowry for my sister, and of course the jewelry and plate he left to my mother. I have in addition a lease on a substantial property in Ireland. The income from these, together with what I get from the positions in which I serve the queen, is sufficient that you will never want for anything while I live, and I will ensure that you are provided for when I am gone.”

“I thank you, my love,” Bess said. “And now must I lay my cards on the table, for it is only right that you know how things stand with me.”

She paused, afraid to speak of the worry that weighed on her so heavily. For the debt that she owed on William’s behalf was great. Might it make Will think twice about yoking himself to her?

“I have yet my dower rights in the properties from my young first husband,” she said, “and I hold for my lifetime all the lands, houses, and other wealth of my other William. But his death left me also a burden so heavy that I lie awake at night and think on it—a debt of near on five thousand pounds to the crown from errors in his accounting while he was treasurer of the privy chamber.”

Bess glanced sideways at Will’s face as they walked, trying to read his thoughts. His face was somber. Laughter rose from below where flower-bedecked pavilions dotted the green hill, their bright banners rippling in the breeze.

“If the money is owed to the crown, I may be of help,” Will said at last, and Bess’s hopes rose. “Her Majesty considers herself in my obligation for my standing by her when she had few friends and much to fear, and I doubt not but she may be persuaded to forgive the debt.” He stopped walking, and cupping Bess’s face in his hands, kissed her. “I will speak to her.”

“You would take on my burden as your own?” Bess scarcely dared believe it was true.

“I do, and gladly.”

Her heart flooded with gratitude and hope, and she stood on tiptoe to kiss him.

“I will speak to Her Majesty soon, then. I must also ask her permission to wed, though I have no doubt she will grant it happily.”

Bess breathed deeply of the summer air, perfumed with the meadow grass and the fresh green scent of the river far below, feeling that a shadow that had hovered in her mind for so long might soon be lifted. Will drew her arm into his and pulled her closer as they resumed their walk.

“I must tell you, Bess, that I have a blot of my own that darkens my soul in the long hours of the night.”

What terrible secret could this be?
she wondered, alarmed at his deep sigh.

“My brother Ned,” Will said. “He has ever been a wastrel and a scoundrel, to the despair of my mother and the ire of my father. In the end, my father left him nothing. And now his resentment has hardened into malignancy against me.”

Bess felt a curious sense of relief at Will’s admission, both to know that he had problems of his own and that he would bare himself to her by telling her of them.

“That must be a great grief to you, surely,” she said. “But no more than happens in many families.”

“Yet there is worse to tell, for Ned is the center of a scandal that has greatly discredited my family. Last year one of my father’s tenants, John Scutt, who had been a tailor to King Henry, died suddenly and of no apparent cause. It was known that he beat his wife, and there were rumors that she had poisoned him. Suspicion fell on Ned a fortnight after Scutt’s death when he bought from the widow—Bridget was her name—the leases of some property.”

“Could it not have been that he wanted to help her? Perhaps she needed the ready money more than the leases.”

“It might have been thought so, except that only another fortnight later, he married her, and before long she gave birth to a baby that most strongly resembled my brother. Then, only a few months later, this very lusty young woman suddenly died.”

A chill went up Bess’s spine despite the warmth of the day.

“The whispers that had followed the first death rose to a roar when Ned, six months a widower, then wed Margaret Scutt, the stepdaughter of his dead wife, thereby becoming master of all that Scutt had owned. These troubles were the last straw for my father. He had formerly given Ned the leases of some properties at my mother’s entreaty, only to have Ned sell them and waste the profits on loose living. So when he died, he left Ned nothing at all. My brother has been kicking up trouble since my father’s death, and I fear it will end in the courts.”

“I know such woes all too well,” Bess said. “I had to fight for my dower rights when poor Robbie died, and William Cavendish and I bought Chatsworth as the result of legal broils resulting from a scandal that touched my family.”

“Then you are not so put off that you will not marry me, my love?”

“Not in the least. Bring on all the ill-tempered brothers you may, but I will be your wife.”

Twenty-seventh of August, 1559—Sutton Court, Chew Magna, Somerset

The sun rose bright on the morning of Bess’s third wedding day, and she felt giddy with happiness as she dressed, surrounded by her mother, sisters, Aunt Marcella, Will’s sister Elizabeth, and his grown daughters Mary and Margaret.

She was nearly thirty-two years old, but the years ahead were full of promise. Her first marriage had been to a boy, her second to a man old enough to be her father, and she had nursed both through ill health and at their deathbeds. But Will was only nine years older than she, in the prime of his vigorous manhood, and with God’s blessing, they would have many joyous years together.

“I feel like a thoroughgoing bride today,” she mused. She took her mother’s hand and kissed it. “I’m so grateful to have all my dear ones near me.”

Many of Bess’s and Will’s friends had journeyed to Sutton Court for the nuptials, including their old mutual friends Sir John Thynne and his wife Christian, and Frances Newton and her cousin Anne Poyntz, who were both distantly related to Will. The wedding party set off on foot to St. Andrew’s Church in the village of Chew Magna, led by fiddlers and cheered along the way by Will’s tenants and farm laborers, given a holiday in honor of the marriage.

As the priest spoke, Bess listened carefully to the words of the marriage ceremony, which had come into use after her second marriage. The words had been spoken at other weddings she had attended, surely, but it seemed she had never properly heard them before. Or perhaps it was that only now, at the age of thirty-one, did her soul truly understand and crave a marriage that promised the “mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.”

“Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife,” the priest asked Will, “to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health? And forsaking all others keep thee only to her, so long as you both shall live?”

“I will.”

Will’s eyes were the color of the summer sky, thought Bess, and the feel of his hand holding hers like the home she had always sought. And to promise to obey him, serve him, love, honor, and keep him was all that her heart desired, and she answered, “I will.”

* * *

B
ESS STOOD AT THE OPEN WINDOW OF THE BEDCHAMBER, GAZING
out on the night sky. The moon had been full the previous night and hung bright and heavy like a pearl on the black velvet field of spangled stars. The scent of fruit from the orchard sweetened the air. The quiet of the countryside was broken only by the distant, mellow
whoo
of an owl, and Bess felt at peace and supremely happy.

She turned at the sound of Will’s footsteps.

“All well?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, setting down his candle. “Shutters closed, doors locked, fires banked. And I think all the household is asleep.”

He came to her side and took her into his arms and kissed her gently.

“I do love this place. I’m glad we chose to have the wedding here rather than in London.”

Bess nodded, sliding her hands beneath his doublet and against his chest, marveling as always at the live firmness of his muscles. One of his hands caressed the back of her neck, the other held her body close against him, and she felt herself begin to take fire. He kissed her, his mouth opening hers, his lips and tongue soft and warm and sweet, tasting faintly of ale.

He untied the ribbon at the neck of her shift and caressed one of her breasts, the rough skin of his fingers rousing her nipple to hardness, and Bess moaned with desire. She felt the hardness of him against her belly, and threw her head back as his lips traveled to her throat, then down to kiss her breasts, cupping them so that he could bring his mouth first to one and then the other.

“Oh, my love,” she gasped. “How I have longed for you.”

He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed, and she sank into the softness of the bedding, opening her arms to him. His hand encircled her ankle, then moved up her leg, sliding against the smoothness of her skin until he brushed against the soft nest between her thighs. Bess gasped as his fingers caressed her, spreading her honeyed wetness, his touch rousing her to a pitch of desire. She moved against him, giving herself over to the waves of pleasure that built within her as his hand moved over her, in her, his touch like liquid flame. She cried out as she reached a shattering crest, calling out his name as wave after wave shook her.

He took his hands from her only long enough to pull off his shirt and shed his breeches, and then he knelt between her thighs and entered her, filling her, thrusting himself to her very core, and she arched up to meet him, wrapping her legs around him to hold him deep within her. His strokes built from slow and languorous to rapid and powerful, pinning her to the bed, possessing her.

“Ah, my Bess.” His voice was a low growl in her ear and she sobbed with the pleasure of the feel of him, nuzzling his neck, and then biting softly as he brought her to another crashing peak. She felt as though her edges had blurred, there was no Bess anymore, only undulating waves of sensation.

Later, much later, they lay entangled in each other’s arms, legs entwined, and Bess felt as though all division between them had been driven away by the intensity of their merging, that their skins and souls had melded in the crucible of their passion. She kissed his shoulder, trailed her fingers across the silk of his skin, and drifted off to sleep, conscious that the first pale light of dawn was lightening the sky.