A Queen's Spy - - (free novel 24 .txt) 📗

no doubt, and then she would then be returned to her former status. The Princess also recognised the danger of her position. Mary had no liking for her half sister and saw her as an imminent threat, something that secretly pleased Elizabeth. Furthermore, there was the religious clash. Mary, devoutly Catholic, could not abide Elizabeth’s Protestantism. Elizabeth understood the strength of her position, and gaining the crown was, to her, a real possibility. To achieve it she had only to keep her head. However, that might prove a none-too-easy task.

Kate Ashley, Elizabeth’s confidant and governess, had advised they move to the Buckinghamshire house at Ashridge, and Elizabeth agreed that it would be safer to retreat there and remove herself from court life. This was exactly what Elizabeth intended to do after a decent interval had elapsed between Mary’s coronation and her departure. She did not want her departure to be seen as overly hasty and borne from a desire to be at a safe distance from Mary.

“Not that one, Kate, it makes me look fat,” Elizabeth said, pointing to one of the dresses laid out on the bed.

“It does not,” objected Kate.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I shall wear the green one anyway,” Elizabeth said. “I will better blend into the scenery.”

Elizabeth was preparing to attend Mary at a masque in the palace gardens that evening. Kate left the room, taking the dress to have a hem repaired.

Elizabeth, idle for once, wandered from the bedchamber into her drawing room. The windows were flung wide open and the sun played on the pond in the garden below. Elizabeth stood looking down for a long time, unaware of grey eyes watching her intently from the corner of the room. The room was silent. Suddenly Elizabeth’s back straightened, she’d sensed she was not alone, and a moment later she turned to face the intruder. Elizabeth’s hand went to her chest and she inhaled sharply, but the call she could have made caught in her throat.

Richard, leaning against the panelling, smiled at her.

“So I was wrong.” Elizabeth met his grey eyes and returned his smile, the shock of a moment ago now gone from her face.

“Wrong?” he echoed.

“I had thought you were long dead by now. So you are either a ghostly apparition, a product of my imagination, or,” she paused, “I was wrong.” Elizabeth stared at him for a long moment, then added, “How did you get in here?”

“The same way I intend to leave,” Richard said pushing himself away from the wall and removing a chestnut leaf that was lodged in his sleeve.

Elizabeth turned to look at the opened door leading to the balcony. “You didn’t?” She laughed. “You haven’t changed. You will break your neck. If you ask I shall allow you use of the door.” Elizabeth moved two more steps forwards.

Between them was a small round table, three books sat on it, one of them bookmarked with an embroidered linen ribbon. Richard picked it up and flipped it open to read to the title page. “Erasmus, you do surprise me.”

“Why?” Elizabeth asked.

“Your preference and obsession was always Greek philosophy,” Richard said, replacing the book on the table.

“They have a broad audience, however Erasmus had a particular insight into a future we are now occupying. It is always wise to look before you step forward, don’t you think?” Elizabeth replied, her eyes never leaving his face.

“True, I would have thought Erasmus a little heretical at the moment. His observations were not always ones your sister would wholeheartedly agree upon,” Richard said evenly, rounding the table to move closer to her.

Elizabeth let out a loud breath, “Her faith is blind, and that is not necessarily a good thing.” Then changing the subject she said, “I have not heard your name mentioned for so long. The last I did hear was that you were in France.”

“That was true until recently,” Richard replied.

Elizabeth stepped back and sat down in one of the high backed chairs, her hand patting the cushion of the vacant one next to hers. “Richard, don’t stand there. I pine for good company. Sit down. You look like you’ll leave me at any moment.”

Richard, sighing, complied. “The lady still likes her own way, I see.”

Elizabeth ignored his comment. “So what brought you back to England’s shores?”

“Northumberland’s money in the main,” Richard said. He could still see the girl’s face in the woman’s features.

“No! You opposed Mary? Ah now, that’s funny,” she said laughing.

“I don’t think Northumberland would share your amusement,” Richard said.

“It was a fool’s plan based on greed. He deserved the result,” Elizabeth observed caustically.

“Avarice has never provided a good foundation for stability.”

“Ambition is often avarice when you turn a blind eye to the facts,” Elizabeth pointed out. “So what was your ambition when you were working for Northumberland, or did you honestly believe he could succeed?”

“The lady gets straight to the point still,” Richard responded, shaking his head slightly.

“Don’t prevaricate, answer me,” Elizabeth pressed.

“I did not turn my back on the facts, however I needed an employer, and the simple truth of the matter was that the Earl’s supporters were hiring and Mary’s were not. However, when it became apparent that there was about to be a rapid and crushing defeat, like Achilles, I withdrew my services.”

“Ah, but Achilles did not change sides did he? Did you? Or do you still support his faction against Mary?” Elizabeth’s assessing eyes never left his face.

“In truth, I don’t think there is much of a faction left,” Richard said.

“So where are you placed now?” Elizabeth questioned, her brow slightly creased as she waited for his answer.

“I offered Mary some service, nothing of any real significance, and ostensibly I am working for Derby at the moment.”

Elizabeth’s face hardened as she repeated the name slowly. “Derby.”

Richard, reading her thoughts, added. “I said working for, I did not say loyal to, did I?”

Elizabeth, seeing the mischievous glint in his eyes, reflected his smile with her own. “And where does your loyalty lie?”

“You need to ask?” Richard’s voice bore a serious edge, and for a moment there was cold silence between them.

“Yes, I do need to ask,” Elizabeth said, her words clipped and her eyes holding his.

“As always my loyalty remains yours,” Richard said solemnly.

“Good. Let’s talk of other things. We are still friends, I think?” Elizabeth entreated, the furrow between her brows lessening.

“I would always hope so.” Richard returned her smile and watched a moment of relief flit across her face.

She continued, reassured. “Tell me then how you deserted the Earl and how you leant some insignificant assistance to my sister.”

“I am, like you, adept at self-preservation. I changed sides in the final hour, rendered the lady some service, pledged my loyalty, and here I am,” Richard said. The summary was far too brief, too evasive, and the look on Elizabeth’s face told him as much.

“Why do I have the feeling there is slightly more to this than you are saying?” Elizabeth enquired.

It took an hour, in the end, to answer all her questions. Elizabeth was a political animal with a voracious hunger for news from Mary’s court, and Richard took time to provide her with as much detail as he could. They ended by discussing the Spanish match. Both of them were in agreement that it could be political suicide for Mary, and that she would have a hard time convincing Parliament that the alliance was a good one for England.

Some time later, after Elizabeth had watched his departure through the garden, she was still musing over her visitor when Kate returned with the dress, its hem repaired.

“Elizabeth, come on, you shall be late,” Kate said, laying the dress on the bed and smoothing out the creases. “Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth turned. “Kate, sorry, I was elsewhere,”

“I can see that,” her governess said carefully. “What’s happened?”

Elizabeth smiled mischievously and swept across the floor, her skirts swirling around her. Kate, surprised, followed her. “I’ve had a visitor,” Elizabeth announced suddenly.

“A visitor! Who? I saw no one admitted!” Kate sounded puzzled.

“A most handsome gentleman, Kate. Ah, if only you had been here,” Elizabeth said as she skipped away from Kate’s advance.

“Tell me. Do not play games,” Kate added, more authority to her voice.

Elizabeth contemplated her reply for some moments. “Lord of the forest by all accounts; an elfin form he was, and one I thought long lost to me,” she said still twirling round, skirts spinning.

Kate stood, hands on hips, and observed the other woman with a worried look on her face.

Elizabeth, seeing that Kate was beyond comprehension, said, “Richard! You remember.”

Kate still looked at her nonplussed. “Elizabeth, you are confusing me. No one called this afternoon. Who are you talking about?”

“You are slow, Kate. Richard Fitzwarren.”

Kate looked aghast for a second. “Fitzwarren! Here in this room? No.”

“Yes, indeed,” laughed Elizabeth continuing to dance around the room.

“How did he? He didn’t…” Kate lost for words advanced on Elizabeth.

Elizabeth turned on her governess, a hard light in her eyes. “He was most charming, as he always was. He was nothing less than a gentleman, and do not accuse him of being anything else.”

Kate heeded the warning. “How did he get in?”

Elizabeth didn’t reply but merely pointed to the open window. Kate walked to look out into the garden. They were two floors above the ground; it would have been a perilous climb. Her eyes were caught by a green leaf on the balcony and a snapped twig from the towering chestnut that dominated the back of the house.

“That would be some feat to make it the distance from the tree to the safety of the balcony.” Kate turned back to Elizabeth. “That boy always did like the dramatic.”

“Oh, I think you’ll find he’s no boy, Kate.” Elizabeth grinned.

“Now you be careful. He was not sent from you before without good reason. We all saw what he was like. Mark my words, lady,” Kate chided.

Elizabeth’s face darkened as she descended on her governess from across the room. “Who am I, Kate?”

Kate didn’t answer but bit her lip.

“Exactly. And I shall, for a change, do as I please. Anyway, it is too late, he serves me now. I have little enough at my disposal, Kate, and what poor stuff I do have I must make use of as best I can,” Elizabeth finished.

“What have you done?” Kate said.

“I have done nothing. It is Mary who has raised him up. If only the cow knew what she’d done.” Elizabeth, her eyes bright, stared into Kate’s, forcing the older woman to look away.

Later, when Elizabeth picked up the book from the table, she smiled when she saw that her bookmark had been replaced with a leaf from the chestnut tree.

Elizabeth had consigned his memory to the deepest recesses of her mind, sure he was by now dead. There had been no mention of his name, and she had not seen him for five years when they had both been part of Sir Thomas Seymour’s household in Chelsea.

William Fitzwarren was, at that time, close friends with Thomas Seymour, and his son, Richard, was attached to his household. Seymour married King Henry’s widow, Catherine Parr, and Elizabeth was then taken into his care. Richard and Elizabeth had become close companions; Elizabeth had little