Watch the Lady (25 page)

“The Privy Council, madam?” He can feel a fluttering in his chest.

“You must have been expecting it.”

“I never expect anything, madam. I serve you for love alone.”

“Your father is not getting any younger and I need sharp minds to advise me. Sharp young minds and people I trust. There is no one I trust more than your father and I expect you to be his equal.”

Cecil thinks of that drop of water eroding slowly the barriers to his success and imagines telling his father the news—his disappointment ebbing away. No man of fewer years than he, at twenty-eight, has ever achieved the office—Cecil has done his research. “It is and always shall be my life's work to serve you, madam, as it has been my father's. We Cecils pride ourselves on our loyal service to the crown.”

“And you have not been ill rewarded.” She waves an arm to indicate the magnificence of the gardens and the house in the distance, its windows winking in the sun.

“Indeed, madam, your generosity has been bountiful.”

“You will be knighted, of course. Fancy styling yourself Sir Robert Cecil?”

“Madam, I hardly know what to say.” A warmth radiates out from his chest, making him feel, in that moment tall and beautifully formed. She smiles warmly and pats the back of his hand, an affectionate gesture that makes him dare to press his issue once more. “I was wondering, madam, if I may be so bold as to make a suggestion about France?”

“Go on.” Her expression is one of indulgence, as someone might look when they allow a favorite pet to sit on their lap.

“We might put out some feelers to see if the Spaniards are open to some kind of agreement—a treaty.”

“I know you favor diplomacy over warfare, but on this occasion I think you are wrong. What would the Spaniards want with us? They think me a heretic with no right to my own throne. They have sent assassins to my shores since I can remember—you know all this, Cecil—and they suffered a crushing defeat at my hands just three years past. Essex is right; they are vengeful wasps and will sting us rather than parley. It is imperative for our safety that Henri holds France. We
must
make a show of force.”

They walk on in silence, Cecil putting away his thoughts of Essex and imagining once more how his father will receive the news of his appointment to the Privy Council, feeling a bubble of pride swell in his chest.

Penelope is running. Laughter puffs out of her. She stops at the edge of the woods, leaning against a tree to catch her breath, shoulders heaving, picking strands of hay from her clothes. Standing absolutely still, she can hear the gentle scurry of something alive in the undergrowth and the rustle of the breeze worrying at the leaves, nature's own particular music; a woodpecker thrums above, she follows the sound, running her eyes up the trunk, gazing through the canopy at the sky above, the vivid blue of a painted ceiling. The leaves are on the turn, though, and there is already a slight chill in the air. She imagines merging with the tree, her roots burrowing deep to the earth, branches soaring, becoming light-headed with the idea of her own smallness.

This sense of freedom has evaded her since she was a girl at Chartley, before her father died, when everything was turned on its head. But a thought rises to the surface of her mind—freedom is an illusion; even the tree is trapped, its wooden body silent and immobile, its movements dependent on exterior forces, even its music originates with the wind. A russet-and-white hound sidles up to her, panting, pressing its wet muzzle onto the back of her hand. It is Leicester's old dog that still wanders listlessly about the Wanstead grounds seeking its dead master. As she bends to stroke the animal, it turns to her with a mournful expression that pricks her with a moment's sadness, that familiar, acute awareness of time passing, people passing. It is more than three years already since her stepfather died and fifteen since her father went. The thought creeps up on her: she will be thirty in less than two years' time. Picking a dandelion clock, she blows, watching the wisps fly off, whirling up into the air, and fragments of memory float back to her of games with her siblings, Essex reckless to the point of danger, loyal Dorothy and little Wat, always desperate to keep up and too young really to join in their play. All of them looked to her to lead them, to stop them before things went too far.

Her thoughts are interrupted by a clump of hay landing smack on the side of her head. “Got you!” cries Blount, with a burst of laughter.

She scoops it up, bunching it together, and launches it in his direction with the words: “It's war.” And they grapple, shoving itchy fistfuls down each other's clothes until they are so breathless with laughter they lose their footing and collapse to the ground.

“So much for your reputation for quiet contemplation,” she says.

“
You
are a bad influence.”

“So tell me,” she laughs, “does it not bring you happiness to be bad occasionally?”

“ ‘Happiness' seems an inadequate word.”

“If God had wanted us never to be happy, he would not have put us in the way of each other. I do not care if it is wrong.” She has the sense of grasping this love with both hands, no matter what, and wanting to stop time, never to go beyond this perfect moment, but there is something dragging at the depths of her, something she must tell him but can't quite bear to.

“You are wicked to the core, Lady Rich,” he teases.

“Don't call me that. I don't want to be reminded of him.” She feels heavy with the facts of her life and is struck by a sudden fear of what the consequences might be were the Queen to learn of this, trying not to think of it, yet feeling the imaginary walls of the Tower pressing close. “Not now; I want to pretend for a while more that I am free.”

He takes her in his arms. “I know, I know.”

She feels the crunch of paper inside his doublet. “What is this?” Slipping her hand inside, she pulls out a folded sheet dense with text and is glad of something to distract her from her darkening thoughts. “Has someone been sending you love letters?” She is teasing. She has never felt so sure of a man's love; with Sidney it was different, she was only sure of his love when it was too late.

“Some scribblings from that Bacon fellow—interesting stuff.”

“Bacon; he who seems so taken with my brother.” She is remembering Francis Bacon here at Wanstead in the spring when the French ambassador visited. Bacon, fresh-faced, sitting at the dinner table, gesticulating with a pair of elegant hands, as if playing a harp, arguing the finer points of French foreign policy with an astuteness that belied his boyish looks. But all the while he flicked glances towards Essex. Penelope recognized desire in those brief looks and felt sorry for the young man. Knowing Essex, he would find a way to keep the clever Francis Bacon in his thrall, as he did with all who fell for him, including the Queen.

“The very same. I believe he might be a good ally to your brother—to us—but he is Burghley's nephew and I wonder if he is entirely trustworthy.”

“I have heard he sought preferment through Burghley and it wasn't forthcoming,” she says. “He is an interesting type. You're right, he might be useful to us.”

“Yes, I suppose Burghley feared he would be competition for his own son. But Bacon has a far finer mind than Cecil, a greater subtlety of thought.”

“He has an older brother, Anthony,” she says. “I am told he is an expert gatherer of intelligence.”

“Yes, crippled with gout these days, they say. Do you suppose the pair of them come as a single lot?”

“We shall see. Perhaps I will extend an invitation to them both to visit us at Essex House. My brother is in need of good advisors.”

“Even with you to guide him?”

“Don't be silly.” She nudges him. “I am only his sister. So what does Francis Bacon write about in these papers?”

“The Church, primarily. He thinks that of Catholics and Puritans, Puritans are the lesser evil.”

“I am not sure I entirely agree.” Penelope is thinking of the time she spent in the Huntingdon household, how severe life was, so lacking in joy, so divested of pleasure. Her husband likewise. “Puritans have a way of taking all that is good in life and crushing it, in the name of God. There is a cruel streak in that branch of faith.”

“But politically speaking—”

“Ah, but I am not speaking politically,” she says.

“For once,” he replies.

She meets his eyes, allowing herself to be swallowed up into their depths, not wanting to think of her Puritan husband, changing the subject. “I am so very glad the Queen forbade you to go to France.”

His lips brush hers in a kiss as light as a butterfly. “Do you not want me to cover myself in glory?” He smiles.

“Not particularly—or at least not now. I would rather have you here than fighting skirmishes in Normandy.” That thought floods her with an old loss and for a moment she allows herself to imagine that butterfly kiss was Sidney's.

“I'm afraid things do not seem to be going to plan for your brother over there.”

“What have you heard?” She had been so wrapped up in Blount that she had not even thought to ask him if there was news from Normandy.

“Henri rode off and left him stranded at Rouen with the Catholics breathing down his neck and the bloody flux running wild through his men.”

“And the Queen is furious, I suppose.” She sighs, wishing she were in a position to advise her brother.

“And blames him, though it is not his fault.”

“Poor Robin. I would throttle that Henri myself . . .”

They lie in silence for a time, her worries for her brother and his thwarted campaign for glory circling about her head, thinking of how Cecil must be reveling in his adversary's failure. She has seen, etched all over him, the extent to which Cecil loathes her brother. But that other thing presses at her—something closer, more tender, more deeply secret and potentially more dangerous—that she hasn't yet found a way to articulate.

She sits up, looking away into the undergrowth, and takes a deep inhalation, girding herself. “I think I shall soon be confined again.” Still looking away, she waits for his reaction.

“A child?” He sits up too, abruptly. “Of mine?”

“Of course yours.” Her head snaps round to him.

“My darling one.” He touches his palm to her belly. “A baby. Our baby.” His face seems filled with wonder, an expression so far from the matter-of-fact nod Rich had given when she'd announced to him she was first expecting.

“Our bastard,” she says bitterly, finding a memory slipping itself into her head, of Anne Vavasour birthing her baby in the maids' chamber and it never being spoken of again.

“Don't say that. This infant is the product of true love.”

“Then you do not mean to save your favor with the Queen and send me back to Rich's bed in shame?” She cannot help the weight of pessimism in her voice.

“If you think that, then you do not know me.” It is his turn to be prickly now. He stands and begins to walk away, back towards the house.

“You will not leave me, then?” She clambers to her feet, running to catch up.

He stops, turning towards her, taking both her hands. “In my world you are first, above everything.”

“Above God?”

“I said ‘in my world,' and God is not of the world.”

Her elation is punctured with the reality of her situation. “The Queen will want rid of me. Look what happened to Dorothy, Frances, Mother, poor Anne Vavasour . . . there are so many.” She can feel herself falling into a spiral of despond but silently says:
Head over heart, Penelope, head over heart
.

“Anne Vavasour was one of the Queen's maids—Oxford deflowered her. Frances Walsingham was a young widow. Your sister . . . This is quite different—you are a married woman. If we behave with discretion . . . We are not two fools rushing headfirst into an unsanctioned marriage.” He seems to be thinking out loud, sifting through the possible outcomes.

“People will assume it is my husband's baby,” she says. “But Rich will not take kindly to wearing horns.”

Blount seems to tense and opens his mouth to speak, then, changing his mind, looks away into the distance. “Is it . . . Is it possible that Rich will think . . .”

“It is his?” She understands what he is really asking. “No . . . He has kept to his bargain; we are no longer intimate.”

He takes her shoulders firmly, his tension dissolving, replaced now with concern. “What do you think he will do? Will he divorce you?”

“No,” she responds, now fully in control of her feelings once more. “He may not like the idea of being made a cuckold but he is entirely invested in his alliance with my brother. He is no one if he is not part of the Essex tribe, and my brother will make an enemy of him if he slights me in public—he has always known that.” She stops and looks up, taking in a gulp of chilled air, remembering that her hold over her husband can save her from the Queen's wrath, as long as the gossips don't sharpen their tongues. “And he harbors a secret that could destroy his reputation entirely, were it to emerge.”

“What is it?” Blount's curiosity is palpable.

“I cannot say.” She wraps her arms about herself, shivering.

“You are cold. There will be a fire lit in the house.”

She loves him all the more for not pressing the matter.

They walk back hand in hand, silently, until he says, “I will never leave you. My life means nothing if you are not part of it.”

“But one day you will want a wife, children you can acknowledge . . .” The words stick in her throat painfully like something too hot swallowed in haste.

“No. It is only you I want.” There is a graveness in his tone and his expression makes her choose to ignore the fact that all men want an heir. She rests her head on his shoulder without replying, allowing herself a moment to wallow in his love, not thinking about returning to Leighs and confronting her husband.