The Hawk and the Dove (28 page)

Sabre attended the funeral with Kate Ashford and her uncle Lord Ashford, who was returned from the fighting in Holland. Sabre could never bear to follow the fashion and be exactly like everyone around her, so she wore pristine white with a low, square-cut neckline and set it off with an unusual black ruff. The effect was startling, especially with her red hair, which she wore upswept so that its length could not be discerned. Once again Sabre’s choice of the unique black ruff caught the queen’s attention.
Sabre cringed as she heard the beautiful voice single her out in the wardrobe room in front of all the queen’s ladies.

“Mistress Wilde, you have a knack for that which catches the eye. If I may be so bold as to ask, where did you acquire that fetching little ruff?”

Sabre curtsied to the floor. “If it please Your Majesty, I simply dyed one of my white ruffs.”

“It would please me more if you
simply
dyed some of my white ruffs!” As Sabre raised her eyes, she saw the queen inspecting her copper curls with narrowed eyes. “Your last gift pleased me somewhat, so keep your sovereign in mind, mistress, when you come up with these innovative fashions.”

The next day at court every lady wore a black ruff. Every lady that is, except Sabre. She had chosen pale mauve, a perfectly acceptable alternative color for mourning.

Each year the festive holiday season began with the feast of All Hallows on October thirty-first when the queen appointed a lord of misrule to be in charge of the fun and games, forfeits and penalties, that carried on through St. Martin’s Day and the feasts of St. Catherine, St. Nicholas, St. Lucy, and St. Thomas. Then came Christmas, St. Stephen’s, the feast of the Holy Innocents, New Year’s, and Twelfth Night. The season ended at Candlemas on February second. This year, however, there were no festivities at court, no masques or mummeries, where kisses and tickling led to whispered assignations or blatant licentiousness.

The queen was entertained in private homes because the court was in mourning and anyone with ambitions vied for invitations to these private affairs. Bribes were
used liberally and her ladies-in-waiting were forever passing to the queen letters and petitions along with costly gifts. The queen read the petitions, grimaced, and said, “Pugh!” accepted the costly gifts, then said a flat “No!” Essex’s two sisters, Dorothy Devereux and Penelope Rich, were constantly trying to bribe the queen with expensive jewels. The queen would agree to attend a ball they were giving, then of course she would never show up.

Sabre was happy that the court was quiet and that Shane was less occupied with his intrigues, for they were able to spend lots of days and nights at Thames View. Shane was in seventh heaven when they were able to spend Christmas together, alone and uninterrupted. The baron, fashionably attired as Fitzclare, had taken it into his head to visit Georgiana and most of the servants had gone home for the Christmas holiday.

Shane hitched up a horse and sleigh, tucked Sabre up warmly in a fur rug, and off they went into the countryside of Kent. He took her to see Hever, where Anne Boleyn had lived. It was a beautiful little moated castle which totally enchanted Sabre. When Shane saw that her face was pinched with the cold, he pulled up the sleigh at an inn called the Fighting Cocks, where they enjoyed Christmas dinner in a private dining parlor. After they had eaten he sat down before the blazing fire and pulled her into his lap. His hand caressed her stomach. “Your belly’s full of claret and plum pudding. I believe you are a little tipsy, my darling.”

“I’m drunk with love,” she said, smiling drowsily into the fire.

He nuzzled her neck. “Lying little wench, if that were true I’d be the happiest man on earth.”

“After the cold air, the hot fire has made me sleepy,” she said, leaning her head against his big, comfortable shoulder.

He kissed her ear. “Let’s go home,” he whispered, “and I’ll put you to bed.”

The brisk cold air soon revived her, and when they reached Thames View she hid behind the tall hedges until he had seen to the horses. Then she pelted him with snowballs and shrieked wildly as he took after her to bring her down and wash her face in a deep snowdrift.

They waited until they had retired to their bedchamber for the night before they exchanged gifts. Sabre gave him a narrow sword in a gold-chased sheath and a wicked, heavy dagger to match. The handles were decorated with golden, ruby-eyed dragons and Shane was delighted at the obvious time and care she had taken to choose such a thoughtful, personalized gift for him. He was also deeply gratified at her gasp of pure pleasure as he wrapped her in the present he had had especially designed for her. It was a reversible cloak with furs imported from Muscovy. One side was made from rich, black sable, the incomparable skins deep-piled with a glossy sheen. The other side was fashioned from white ermine, and it could be worn with either fur against her skin. She caressed the fur lovingly and blew on it to see how luxuriously deep the sable was.

Clearly, she was enchanted with his gift. Her eyes were lit with green fire as she looked at him and beckoned, “Make love to me on it.” She tossed the fur onto the carpet before the fire, slipped off her silken nightgown, and sank down upon the sable invitingly. How could any man resist the lure, the siren song, of her enticement? They both felt wickedly decadent as they rolled about on
the black Russian sable, wrapped in the splendor of fur and flesh.

She was thrilled to discover Shane had had a small sabre tattooed on his left breast over his heart. “That’s a coincidence—I am getting a tattoo next week,” she teased. “At first I thought I would get a tiny version of the dragon on my shoulder blade, then I thought, ah no, that would show when I wore a low gown. I decided upon my bottom cheek so that none but you will see it.”

“Sabre, please, I beg you are only playing with me.”

She laughed and kissed him. “Do you forbid me?”

He crushed her mouth beneath his to show his mastery over her and whispered hoarsely, “I know better. If I forbid you I know with certainty the next time I pull down your drawers there will be a dragon or a wildcat staring me in the face!”

“Perhaps a phrase would be better than a picture,” she teased unmercifully.

He groaned. “What phrase have you in mind, witch?”

She hesitated, wondering if she dared, then said,
“Mistress to the Black Shadow.”

He stiffened and stopped his lovemaking. The silence was deadly. Finally he broke the silence with a crisp demand. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t. It was a wild guess, but now I know.”

He shot up from the bed, looming menacingly above her. “You will tell me this moment exactly how you found out!” He was deadly serious, and she could see the violence surging in him, barely under control. She shrank back, half afraid, then said boldly, “You have so many secrets, I’m bound to learn some of them.”

“Did you have me followed … who else knows of this?” he demanded.

She laughed her challenge. “Only I know. Do you fear me?” she taunted. “Does the queen’s mighty sea god, the infamous Black Shadow, fear a woman?”

His hard body slammed her back onto the furs.

He plunged into her savagely as if he would impale her with his weapon and silence her forever. She saw his challenge and vowed to match it. She would not allow him to bring her to climax; she was determined that he would reach orgasm before her. She tightened her walls upon him and he redoubled his deep thrusts. It was as if her body were made to receive him. She received wave after wave of sensual pleasure that brought low moans and cries to her lips. She made no effort to stifle them, for she knew how her cries of enjoyment affected him, and brought him to fulfillment. Three times he almost lost control as she whispered erotic love words and tightened upon him to draw his love juice. His teeth closed over her probing tongue so that she retreated a little and withdrew it, then with his own thrusting tongue he raped her mouth as savagely as he ravished her body. Never had he felt a desire like this. It overpowered him until his breathing became harsh and shallow as he was now moving hard, driving hard. She thrashed her head from side to side into the soft sable, but the floor beneath them was so firm a bed, he was able to go deeper than he had ever gone before. He caressed her with his hands, bruising her soft mouth, but she welcomed the pleasure-pain, reaching peaks of desire she had never known existed. She arched against him, crying, “Shane, Shane,” as each brutal plunge brought her to the edge of ecstasy. She held on, forcing back the inevitable submission to his magnificent hard body’s domination, then her mind and body experienced a cataclysmic explosion that burst inside her, leaving
her clinging to him, shuddering and crying and finally fainting. He revived her by raining kisses upon her lips and eyelids. He rolled her from the sable cloak, flipped it over, and said, “Now I will take you upon the white ermine.”

Walsingham worked feverishly to obtain a pact with France and another with Scotland’s new king to ensure peace with England on these two fronts because he knew without doubt that war with Spain was inevitable and imminent. He finally convinced the queen that Philip of Spain’s Invincible Armada was ready to attack England. She ordered that all coastal fortifications be strengthened and her ships readied. Lord Howard of Effingham was her lord high admiral of the Navy, and he begged her for more ships and supplies. Elizabeth refused money to victual the ships and refused pay for the seamen.

Spain now had the finest ships in the world, with the best ammunition and equipment. The names of these magnificent vessels were on everyone’s lips. There was the
Andalucian,
the
Biscay an,
the
San Felipe,
and the
San Juan.

Essex, Drake, and Devonport pressed the queen continually on a day-to-day basis for war. It became almost impossible for Shane and Sabre to spend time together. The Hawkhurst ships were bringing cargoes to London from Morocco and Algiers, he was gunrunning to Ireland, and making secret plans with Drake to sail for Spain. At the same time Sabre was kept close with the other ladies of the court, for Leicester and the other nobles were returned from Holland and a frantic pace of entertainments had set in as if London and the queen’s court would have one last, extravagant fling before war broke out.

The spur to Elizabeth was the return of her archrival, Lettice. In Holland, as Leicester’s wife, she had set up
her own royal court. Even here in London she openly exulted in her status. She had a love of display that did not sit well with the queen. She always traveled in great style with a horde of outriders and attendants. When Lady Chandos planned a dinner and entertainment for the queen, she backed out at the last minute because Lettice would be there. The robing ceremonies these mornings were particularly harrowing, with the queen changing her mind a dozen times and then throughout the day exchanging her clothes, each time for a more opulent effect.

Now that his stepfather, Leicester, and his mother, Lettice, were at court, Essex doubled his efforts to get the queen to accept his sisters, Dorothy Devereux and Penelope Rich. She listened sweetly to his entreaties, accepted their costly gifts, and behind their backs said, “Pugh! The mother is an impudent, prostituted strumpet and the daughters are worse. I shall never let them so much as set their pretty feet even inside the courtyard of Whitehall.”

Charles Blount was returned from Holland with Leicester, and Penelope picked up their affair immediately, which had been going on for eight years. It would have made things much simpler for her if she were only allowed to come to court. Sabre invited them to Thames View for their liaison and Essex opened the doors of Essex House for his friend Blount and his sister Penelope.

Finally, after many secret sessions with Her Majesty the queen, Drake and Devonport extracted her reluctant permission to take thirty ships to Spain to try to hinder the assembling of the Spanish fleet. After much discussion in high places it was decided the vice-admiral of the
Navy, William Borough, sailing the
Golden Lion,
would accompany Drake and Devonport.

Drake and Devonport, however, had their own ideas about successful, covert raids. They were both born leaders, unused to the restraints of the government and the navy, and they agreed that when the time came they would do whatever they had to do to get the job done, and to hell with officialdom!

Sabre was at Herriot’s, the goldsmith’s, withdrawing a generous amount. She had decided to turn two rooms adjacent to the master bedchamber at Thames View into her own private sitting room and dressing room. Her clothes were spilling from the closets and she clearly needed the extra space. Of course she could have had the bills sent to Lord Devonport, but somehow she enjoyed actually handing the gold to the various tradesmen. An inner door opened from an office into the shop and she was surprised to encounter Walsingham’s daughter. “Frances! How lovely to see you. But I suspect you’re here to sell your jewelry,” Sabre guessed sadly.

“Oh, Sabre, my jewelry went long ago,” she said candidly. “I’m here to sell the last of my mother’s.”

Sabre was outraged. She marched Frances back into the office and demanded the jewelry. “I shall pay her twice whatever you have allowed her.” The goldsmith acceded to her wishes instantly. This was the mistress of the queen’s wealthy Sea God and her wish was his command. It was late afternoon and Sabre insisted they return to Thames View for a warm meal, since she could not take her back to court.

Over the meal Sabre drew her out about how things were with her. Frances looked down ruefully at the ink stains on her fingers. “I’m acting as my father’s full-time
secretary now. He is so ill, he cannot bear anyone else near him. I’ve been going over my father’s account books, and the queen owes us thousands of pounds. I’ve written to Her Majesty and to Lord Burghley enclosing the figures, but, alas, my letters go unanswered.” She sighed.

Sabre soothed, “With England on the brink of war and all the preparation and expense of staving off the Spanish Armada, your letters are probably set aside because of more pressing matters.”