A Court Affair (7 page)

As my hand caresses the bright flowers embroidered on the well-padded green arm of my chair, I gaze down upon my betrothal ring, and in that amber acorn, caught like little flecks and flotsam in the golden sap, I can see the happy, joyful days when I was strong, happy, and beloved by the man I can never forget, the one who made me believe all my dreams would come true, and that there
really
was a happily ever after …

Stanfield Hall, near Wymondham, in Norfolk
August 1549–April 1550

I
remember the first time I saw Robert Dudley. Sometimes one look, one glance, is enough. Though many, perhaps even I now, would scoff at my youth—I was only new-turned seventeen—that August day I
knew
I had met my destiny.

I sat beside the river, lazy and languid in a bed of nodding yellow buttercups, almost one of them myself in my yellow gown, with my golden curls tumbling down, wiggling my bare toes, with an apron full of apples in my lap. I was daydreaming, building castles in the blue sky and white clouds, pretending that I was a princess, dreaming of the day my prince would come. Suddenly the whinny of a horse startled me and blew all the dreams right out of my head. I leapt up and spun round, the apples falling from my lap, tumbling and rolling every which way. That was when I saw him—Robert, Lord Robert Dudley, my prince in a shining silver breastplate, mounted on a night black steed.

A playful smile twitched and tugged at his lips, and his dark eyes danced as they took my measure, eyeing me up and down as I stood there spellbound at the sight of him. His silver breastplate flashed in the sun, dazzling my eyes, nearly blinding me when he reached up to doff his purple velvet cap, adorned with a sprightly peacock feather. He tethered his horse to a nearby tree and came to me, this dumbstruck, barefoot, country lass gawking and gaping at him, and gallantly knelt to retrieve the fallen fruit around my feet. I had never seen anyone quite like him before, and my knees gave way, and I sank down, back into the buttercups, with him.

Smiling broadly, he asked my name.

“Amy,” I said, and to this day I don’t know how I managed to utter it, he left me so dazed and breathless.

“Beloved!”
He breathed the meaning of my name in a way that was like a caress to me, savouring each syllable upon his lips as if they were the most delicious morsels he had ever tasted.

With a boyish grin, he took from his belt a dagger with its hilt studded with sapphire and emerald cabochons, like blue and green bubbles, and from my lap where he had laid them, he selected an apple, his fingers gently, lingeringly brushing my thigh through my skirts and making my cheeks burn as if the blood beneath my skin had suddenly burst into flames. It was love, I would later tell myself, burning like a fever that would in time consume me.

As the peeling fell away in one long, curling ribbon, he smiled and asked of me:

“Do you country girls still play at that old game of tossing the apple peelings over your shoulder to see how they fall and discern in their shape the initial of your bridegroom-to-be?”

“At times we do, My Lord.” I blushed to admit it. It seemed now, when this elegant young man spoke of it, such a childish and silly game.

“Go on, then.” He passed the apple peeling to me and jerked his head back over his shoulder to indicate that I should toss it over mine. “Let’s see how it falls.”

With a merry little laugh bubbling up from my breast, I did as he asked and tossed it over my shoulder.

“Hmm …” The handsome stranger tilted his head and tapped his chin thoughtfully as we both turned and scrutinised the peeling. “It
could
be a
D,
yet … that little flourish there at the bottom … it just
might
be an
R
instead, but …” His face brightened as he turned to flash the full brilliance of his pearl-bright smile at me. “Either way, whether it’s
R,
or whether it’s
D,
it’s me.” He swept me a half bow. “Robert Dudley, that’s my name!”

And before I knew what was happening, he had pulled me into his arms and was kissing me, rolling me onto my back, pressing the weight of his body onto mine as his hand reached down and gathered up my skirts to rove beneath.

With a startled cry, I pushed him away and leapt to my feet and bolted away, my heart pounding so hard and fast as I ran, I could hear it in my ears. It was as if it had split into two pieces, two separate hearts, and both had floated up out of my chest to become lodged, to beat hard and fast like little drums, inside my ears. I ran all the way back to Stanfield Hall.

The servants looked up, startled, as I burst through the kitchen door. But I didn’t tarry. I didn’t stop running until I was safe behind my bedroom door, where I collapsed in a fit of giggling upon my bed. He must have thought me some light-skirted milkmaid whom any man could tumble; imagine his surprise were he ever to discover that I was Sir John Robsart’s daughter, and one of the richest heiresses in Norfolk! I convulsed in gales of gleeful laughter at the thought of it. If not a milkmaid, maybe he thought me a humble shepherdess, never guessing that I was sole heiress to a flock of 3,000 fine sheep. Oh, how it made me laugh! I knew I should be, but I wasn’t offended, though I was not the sort of girl to allow a man to take liberties; I had only been kissed once before, a chaste and hasty peck on the lips, light as a feather, from young Ned Flowerdew when we bumped into each other while dancing round the Maypole at the fair, each of us clinging to one of the long, gaily coloured streamers. Red-faced and sheepish, we laughed together and hastily rejoined the other dancers weaving round and round the Maypole in the intricate series of steps, and no more was ever said about it.

I
never
dreamed I would see him again, this Robert Dudley. Why should he linger hereabouts? It was obvious he was one of the men, the thousands of soldiers, who had been sent to put down Kett’s Rebellion, the outburst of furious protest that had erupted over the enclosure of common grazing land and had fast gotten out of hand, boiling over to the extent that the frail boy-king, Edward VI, had to send out troops to quell it.

I was drowsing on my bed, dreaming of Robert Dudley’s playful smile and dancing dark eyes, and the warm weight of his body on top of mine, with my new kitten, Custard, a fat, cream-coloured ball of fluff, curled up beside me, when my mother burst in. It was one of the rare times she was up and out of bed, so I knew something momentous must have occurred. She came in all aflutter, gesturing with her hands as if they were a pair of anxious butterflies, to tell me that the Earl of Warwick and two of his sons—“two fine, handsome sons, Amy, and neither of them yet married!”—were doing us the
very
great honour of lodging with us tonight, then breathlessly went on to say that I must look my best when I came downstairs to dine. Thereupon she turned away from me and fell to arguing with Pirto about what I should wear.

Mother was set upon the new silver-trimmed milk-and-water gown. White with the barest hint of blue, it was the colour of the moment in London, but Pirto thought it much too pallid and was adamant that I needed something bolder and brighter to show off my golden curls and blue green eyes to best advantage.

While they bickered back and forth, Mother never once wavering in her support of milk-and-water, as Pirto suggested one robust, jewel-bright hue after another, I took from a chest an apple green satin gown embroidered all over with white meadow daisies, their centres like little yellow suns, and brazen red ribbons that playfully crisscrossed the bodice and came together in a flirtatious bow when they reached the top—a pert little flirt of red satin that
begged
to be toyed with and untied. Next I found a bright cherry red taffeta petticoat and under-sleeves dotted with seed pearls and dainty gold beads, and a pair of cheerful and bold red stockings, and went to stand before my looking glass, humming as I held the ensemble up against me.

I
never
worried about such things then; I
always
knew my own mind with complete and utter certainty. I
never
worried or prevaricated, doubted or second-guessed myself. I was as far from nervous as we were from the Emperor of China’s palace. I was just me—Amy Robsart—and I did whatever felt right for me to do. I never worried about what other people might think of me. “You wear your confidence like a queen wears her crown, Amy, my lass,” Father used to always say of me with a broad, beaming smile and a hearty nod of approval.

I smiled as, behind me, my mother wagged an emphatic finger in Pirto’s face and insisted, “No, no, Pirto, I tell you the milk-and-water gown is much more refined!”

“Aye, My Lady,” Pirto nodded, wagging her finger right back in Mother’s face, “that may well be, but
I
tell
you
it’s too subdued; Mistress Amy’s beauty needs a bolder colour to set it off best! Now a nice, robust red …”

I laughed and, hugging my gown, pale and bold hues perfectly married, against me, I pranced and spun, dancing around them, then kissed them each upon the cheek, making them both smile at me.
That
was the Amy I used to be!

When I saw him again, I nearly fell straight into his arms. I was at the top of the stairs, with my head in the clouds, about to come down with not a thought in my head about what my feet were doing, as he was bounding up them, as easy, confident, and graceful as a young tomcat strutting on the prowl. I gasped in surprise and stumbled, my foot missing the next step and losing its slipper. He caught me before I fell, and from the safety of his arms, I watched my little black shoe tumble down to the bottom of the stairs. Closing my eyes, I murmured a quick prayer of thanks. That could
so
easily have been
me
falling downstairs, my bones and head banging and jarring against every step.

He clutched me close. Without the metal breastplate, I could feel how muscular and firm his chest was, and he could feel the soft fullness of my breasts.

“Safe in my arms …
beloved
!” he whispered, his breath hot against my face as his lips grazed my blush-scorched cheek and slid down to my neck. “You should be more careful, Buttercup”—that was the first time he ever called me that dear, special name—“this is far too beautiful a neck to break.”

Then, with a smile, he put me from him, holding me at arm’s length, gazing at me in a sort of dazed wonderment; then he blinked, gave his head a little shake as if to clear it, and pressed a kiss onto my brow before he turned and bounded down to retrieve my slipper. He was back in a trice, kneeling on the stairs before me to lift the hem of my gown, and, encircling my ankle in a caressing hand, he boldly bent to press a kiss onto my foot, before he put my shoe back where it belonged.

“I like a lass who is as bold as brass and dares to wear red stockings!” He grinned up at me, then stood and folded my arm through his.

“You thought me a light-skirt today, the kind of maid any man may tumble,” I said, frowning a little in mock rebuke as, arm-in-arm, we continued down to the Great Hall to dine.

“Such a woman as any man may tumble can hardly be called a
maid
in the
true
sense of the word.” He smiled at me. “All I know is that you struck me like the first sunbeam does a man coming out of a dark cave, and I wanted to be close to you, to bask in your golden beauty and be warmed by you. And when you ran away from me, your little naked feet were like a pair of white doves flying away from me, and I wished with all my heart that I were a hawk so I could soar and pounce and bring you back to me”—he paused, turned me in his arms, and pressed me close to his chest again—“back into my arms again, Amy …
beloved
!” And, again, he kissed me in a way that lit such a burning, raging fever in my blood, I thought it would scald me senseless.

Such was the way that Robert courted me; he left me breathless and burning and too dazzled and dumb to speak. He must have at times thought me a pretty mute or a starry-eyed simpleton with nary a brain in my skull. It seems to me now, upon reflection, that only after we were married did I really learn to speak; it was as if wedlock untied the knots in my tongue.

The bed of buttercups by the river became our trysting place. We used to lie there and kiss, caress, hold each other, and dream of the life we would make together, the golden future that awaited us as husband and wife. I imagined the future unfurling before us like a road paved with gold, glowing brilliantly in the sun, which we would walk down together hand-in-hand, confident, brave, and sure in our love, to face whatever lay before us, come what may. And one day he fastened round my neck an amber heart, the rich golden colour of honey, suspended from a cord of braided black silk. “Here is my heart, beloved,” he said, “so that even when we are apart, you will know my heart is always with you. And as these flecks and leaves and tiny creatures, these little bits of nature’s flotsam, are caught, captured, frozen in time forevermore inside it, so shall my love for you remain always as true and ardent as it is at this very moment; let this token stand as surety for my eternal, undying love.”

Lying back in our bed of buttery yellow blossoms, watching the clouds drift by, Robert told me of his dream to breed and train his beloved horses, vowing that he would become famous throughout the world for the perfection in both appearance and disposition of his mounts. “Someday,” he boasted, as if he could see the future unfolding in the clouds above us, “all the crowned heads of the world will vie to have my horses in their stables; every king, queen, prince, and princess, even the Emperor of China and the Sultan of Turkey, will want
my
horses!”

He came to me whenever he could, galloping back to Norfolk, thundering down the road to sweep me up in his arms and hold and caress me again, forsaking London and the court just for me. And I would come running out to meet him, pink-cheeked and breathless, scampering through the wildflowers, my hair streaming out wild behind me. “Ah, here comes my wild harvest-gold filly!” Robert would laughingly declare as he watched me race towards him to throw myself into his arms. And together we would loll back in our bed of buttercups by the riverside, and he would hold me in his arms, and we would watch the clouds drift, and dream of the wonderful life we would make together.