A Court Affair (8 page)

I was
amazed
that he wanted me. Robert Dudley had been raised a veritable prince, sharing nurseries and schoolrooms with King Henry’s children. His father, the mighty Earl of Warwick, was the king in deed, though Edward VI was the king in name. Even at seventeen, though his sword was but newly blooded in his first battle, Robert was already a suave and practised seducer, well versed in the allure and mysteries of women. Elegant court beauties, who painted their faces as white as consumptives with blood red lips and lounged about in a perpetual swoon, never lifting anything heavier than a fan, and rough, hardworking servant girls with strong shoulders and callous hands but no fine manners or learning, had all been pierced by his fleshly sword. He could have had anyone, and yet … he wanted
me, me—Amy Robsart
! I doubted whether I was worthy of him. He was the Earl of Warwick’s son, and I was a squire’s daughter, best suited to be another squire’s wife, a country chatelaine presiding over a hardworking landed estate, not a grand lady like those at court, but he wanted
me
! When I tried to talk to him about it, he just laughed at me. “Are you trying to talk me out of it, little fool?” he asked teasingly, and he hugged me tightly and kissed the tip of my nose.

He said I was like good, wholesome custard, with a touch of pretty garnish, like raisins or saffron or a dash of sprinkled cinnamon, not elaborate marzipan and spun-sugar subtleties, confectionery turned art, like the ladies of the court. I was a pure, country-bred beauty, a
true
English rose, not some exotic, easily wilted, hothouse flower. I was fresh, clean air, blue skies, sunshine, and acres of green grass to their close, over-ripe, and perfumed chambers, tapestried walls, and Turkey carpets. My words were sweet, plainspoken, and true, not barbed and double-edged, honeyed words filled with hidden, sometimes poisonous, meanings, or all done up in flowery parcels with the true meaning concealed inside the poetry. He said he loved my pure, unvarnished charm. I was natural and real; I had no sleek and deceptive veneer of sophistication, no studied, artful airs. “You wear no mask. Your life is no masquerade. When I look at you, I see the
real
you, the
real
Amy, not a pretty painted façade that is false and ugly when it is laid bare and washed clean of paint, and I love what I see. With Amy Robsart seeing
is
believing!”

But I doubted that his father, the high-and-mighty Earl of Warwick, would be swayed by all this talk of love. It was only common sense that he would want a greater, grander match for his son, even a fifth one like Robert. And then I did something that still shames me. I was
desperate
not to lose him; there was no one else in the world like Robert, and I loved him so much, I couldn’t bear to let him go, to think of him with another who loved him less or not at all but whose pedigree and education were better than mine. And so I surrendered. I lay down and let him lift my skirts; it was the only
sure
way to defeat common sense and worldly realities and let true love prevail. Or maybe it was merely that I was too weak to resist the heat of his hands burning through the cloth of my gown, cupping my breasts, and the kisses that made me feel more alive than I ever had before and that made me tilt my head back, like a hungry baby bird ravenous for the nourishment of his kisses. When pleasure met pain, and my maiden’s blood watered the roots of the buttercups, I knew that he was mine. I was Sir John Robsart’s daughter, his only legitimate heir, sole heiress to his lands, estates, flocks, and fortune, not some poor little milkmaid whose father would accept a purse as compensation for his daughter’s lost virtue and be grateful for it, tug his forelock, and say, “Thank you, kind sir.”

Afterwards, still wrapped in Robert’s arms, I trembled and wept, afraid, but not sorry, for what we had just done. What if I conceived a child? But Robert smiled his easy smile and laughed his ready laugh and kissed me from my brow to my belly, teasing my navel with his tongue and doling out great, smacking kisses all over my stomach, making me laugh in spite of myself. He assured me that he wanted me and our baby—if we had indeed just made one—and he wanted all the many babies we would go on to make in our long life together. We made love again, then tenderly tidied each other, washing each other with a kerchief dipped into the river, and smoothing and fastening each other’s clothes; then, hand-in-hand, pausing often to kiss, we walked back to Stanfield Hall and into my father’s study so that Robert could ask him for my hand in marriage.

My father was a
wonderful,
jolly man, stocky and sturdy, with a head of untamable iron grey curls, and cheeks like the famed apples from his orchards. He loved me as no one ever did before or ever would again. From the moment I came into this world until the mind that knew and loved me so well abandoned his body as a snail does a shell and left behind a dazed wanderer, a stranger even unto himself, I was his pride and joy. I was most aptly named
Beloved
.

I was born when he had given up hope of ever having a child of his own to love, nurture, and teach. Arthur, my half brother, was baseborn, the result of a drunken tumble with “a conniving, black-haired witch of a tavern wench”, when he was a young man and too foolish to know how many cups were too many. Father paid generously for Arthur’s care, but his mother would not relinquish him, and Father never saw his son unless a need for money brought him and his mother with their greedy palms outstretched to his door. And Arthur grew up an ignorant wastrel frittering his time away in a tavern, rather than as a squire’s son learning how to manage an estate; he sneered and turned his back on a chance to better himself. Content to be a ne’er-do-well, he never really cared about Father, only his money, and only when he had need of it.

When he married her, my mother, Elizabeth Scott Appleyard, was the proud widow of Sir Roger Appleyard. She had already borne four children—two uppity girls, Anna and Frances, who always treated me like manure sullying their satin shoes, and a pair of pompous boys, John and Philip, who thought the sun rose and set solely for their sake. She thought that that part of her life was well behind her, when I came along, unexpectedly, and, I think, as a most unwelcome surprise. Knowing that every man desires a son, she hoped to bear a boy and be done with birthing once and for all. But I was a girl, and my birthing damaged her inside, dislodging her womb from its proper place, causing her much discomfort until the end of her days and giving her an excuse to permanently abstain from any further marital relations and spend the rest of her life as a pampered invalid in pretty lace-trimmed caps and robes with a comfit box always at her side. Everyone expected Father to be disappointed, to curse and rage as King Henry VIII had done when first Catherine of Aragon and then Anne Boleyn failed to give him a son, but my father took one look at me and breathed the word
“Beloved!”
and thus named me Amy.

That very day he wrote proudly inside his prayer book:
Amy Robsart, beloved daughter of John Robsart, knight, was born on the 7th day of June in the Blessed Year of Our Lord 1532.

He petted, indulged, and spoiled me like no other child, as if I were indeed a princess, and longed for my happiness above all else. So now, when I was of an age and of a mind to marry, he could not bear to deny me, though he had grave qualms about the man I had chosen to be my husband.

“But you barely know each other!” again and again he protested, worry ploughing deep furrows into his brow. He urged us to tarry a year, or two, or even more. Four-and-twenty, he said, was thought by many to be the ideal age for a man to marry, to have sown his wild oats and seasoned his mind so that he was able to govern himself and make the
right
decision when choosing a wife, not a hasty pick led by hot blood and a pointing prick. But neither of us could bear it; we were seventeen, and to wait even a year seemed like an eternity. We were in love and impatient to start living our life together.

My lips trembled, and tears filled my eyes. Robert gave my hand a reassuring squeeze and stepped forward before my tears could overflow onto the accounts ledger lying open on Father’s desk.

“Sir, we love each other truly,” he said. “Getting to know each other will be a joy and an adventure, like unearthing buried treasure each day of our life together. Each new discovery will be a priceless, precious jewel,” he promised my father as he gallantly raised my hand to his lips and kissed it, then pressed it over his heart.

And my father was won over by the sight of tears glimmering in my blue green eyes and Robert’s eloquent and impassioned words, though I know in his heart worry would ever dog him like his faithful hound Rex.

I understand far better now than I did then; Father thought by marrying Robert I was wading in over my head, and he was afraid I was going to drown. The
one
time in my life when I should have listened and been guided by my father’s advice, I turned my back and ignored his wisdom. But I would not realise my mistake until the waters were already closing over my head. My only comfort is that Father, as much as I miss him, did not live to see the bitter fruits our hasty and impetuous union have reaped, the sourness that was left behind after the sweet passion died. It is a dismal harvest, with the fruits of young love all blackened and blotched; diseased and spurned, they tempt no one. I am glad he did not live to see what I have come to. It would have broken his heart to see the child he named “Beloved” unloved, unwanted, and dying, while my husband dallies with the highest lady in the land and dreams of wearing a golden crown, dancing while he waits for me to die; for Robert my cancer will correct the mistake he made when he was a lusty lad of seventeen. My end will be Robert’s new beginning. Sometimes I dream of him and Elizabeth dancing with joyous abandon upon my grave, and I wake up with my whole body aching as if their dancing feet had actually trampled and bruised me, and Pirto has to dose me against the pain that makes every bit of my body feel as if it were screaming.

Even on the very morning of my wedding day the following summer, Father was still trying to save me from myself, to arm Reason with a sword that would vanquish Lust. “First love is rarely evergreen love, my dear,” he warned as he stroked my hair and pressed a kiss onto my brow. “Bide at home a while longer with me, lass,” he cajoled. “Wait, and you’ll see, something’ll come along that is better,
far better,
for you than Robert Dudley.”

But with tears in my eyes I turned to him and said simply, “Father, I love him.” And there was an end to all discussion. Within the hour I was kneeling beside Robert at the altar, my heart swelling nigh to bursting with love, believing all my dreams were coming true, that this was just the first step of the many we would walk together …

Cumnor Place, Berkshire, near Oxford
Sunday, September 8, 1560

“W
hat is it, love?” Pirto, her face all concern, asks, tugging gently at my sleeve as she kneels beside me. “You look so sad! Is it the pain again?”

“I’m all right, Pirto,” I sigh with a wan, halfhearted little smile, “but I shall not go to the fair today. No, no”—I stop the protests forming on her lips—“you and the others go, and have a
good
time today. I insist, I will hear no argument. Take my purse, and bring me back some cakes and cider and hair ribbons—a whole rainbow of hair ribbons. Spend whatever you like, and tell me all about it when you come back tonight. Do this for me as you love me, Pirto. I have a sudden craving for solitude. I can’t really explain it, but I want to be all by myself in a quiet house, where I can truly hear myself think and listen to what my mind is saying.
Please!
” I take both her hands in mine. “There is
so
little anyone can do for me now, but you
can
do
this
.”

“My Lady, I like not to leave you alone …” Pirto frowns, and the lines on her face seem to bite a little deeper.

“It is just for
one
day, Pirto, one peaceful day, and I shall be fine,” I promise her. “
Please,
do this
one
thing for me! And tell the others to go—
make
them go if you must—but just give me this one quiet Sunday all to myself.”

Pirto sighs and gives in, as I know she will. “Very well, My Lady!” Then, with a creak of her aged knees, she stands and begins bustling about, sending down to the kitchen for a platter of food, covered so that the sight and smell of it will not sicken me, just to be there in the event my appetite should awake and stir its sluggish self, and bringing medicines, water, wine, a basin, and ginger suckets to combat the nausea, and putting them all on the table beside my chair so that I will have anything I might need within ready reach. And also, at my request, she brings the pretty red and gold enamelled comfit box filled with sweet and sour cherry suckets Tommy Blount brought me last time he rode out from London. Though I cannot bring myself to eat them—my stomach raises a sword of threatening protest each time I think to try one—I love looking at them, the candied cherries glowing in neat rows like a jeweller’s tray of round, perfect cabochon rubies, waiting for me to make a selection.

Voices raised in argument outside my door suddenly penetrate my reverie, and, even though Pirto hastens out to try to quiet them, I lever myself up and follow her out into the Long Gallery, where watery sun pours in through the gabled windows to pool upon the cold stone floor, trying vainly to warm it, like an ardent lover wooing an icy maid.

“But what nonsense is this?” Mrs Oddingsells demands, fluttering the note I had sent late the night before to be given to her upon arising. Her bosom heaves in such a mighty and zealous show of hypocritical outrage that I fear her breasts will burst like two cannonballs from her too-tightly-laced mulberry silk bodice, and I step back lest I suffer a blackened eye. “Sunday is the Lord’s Day, Lady Dudley, and
all
God-fearing people should be at home and at their prayers and reading their Bibles, not gallivanting at the fair! And certainly it is no day for gentlefolk like us to mingle with the sort of low, common people who are likely to frequent a fair upon a Sunday; no doubt they will be very loud and vulgar and given to drunken and lewd disport and excess!” She wrinkles her nose as if the very thought of such folk conjures up a stink as powerful as a cart heaped high with rotten eggs.