The Lost Duchess (2 page)

‘Ha!’ He slapped his thigh and chucked her under the chin. ‘
Dull?
’

‘I do not mean that disrespectfully,’ she put in hastily. ‘I am grateful for the privilege of serving Her Majesty.’

‘But you would like more liberty; I sense it.’ He put his fingers to her lips before she could object. ‘You would like …’ he gestured vaguely around him, ‘… your own grand house with yeomen in livery to take your orders, and a deer park in which to go hunting whenever you chose, a private barge with trumpeters, your own carriage and ship …’

‘Oh, yes!’ She laughed. ‘I would like a ship.’

‘Would you promise yourself to a man who could give you a ship and so much more?’

‘For certain,’ she said with a laugh, shaking her head and working free the feather from the cushion. She thought of Sir Walter, who had everything Lord Hertford spoke of, but who would never consider a minor baron’s daughter and lavished all his attention on the Queen. ‘I would promise myself to a man who could give me all that – if I loved him,’ she added wistfully, ‘which in sum amounts to nothing because I can never hope for such good fortune.’ At that she pursed her lips and blew the feather away from her hand. Then she pushed herself up and walked to the window.

The Earl’s teasing had unsettled her. Why was he baiting her with fancies? Did she have a secret admirer who was using him as a go-between? Much as she would like to believe it, she could not;
she had received no tokens, no admiring verses or gifts of courtship, and few bachelors knew her beyond passing acquaintance, ensconced as she was behind palace walls, at the beck and call of the Queen at all hours day and night.

A sweet fragrance rose from the herb garden beyond the moat, wafting up to the open window on the balmy air of the summer’s evening: the smell of roses and marjoram, thyme and lovers’ rosemary. She breathed deeply as she sensed the Earl draw near.

He placed his hand on her shoulder in a comforting way.

‘Your father must have high hopes that you will make a noble match.’

His hand moved to the back of her neck and she did not pull away since she was certain in her bones that all he meant was to reassure her.

She let his touch soothe her and bowed her head.

‘He desires nothing more for me than that I marry well. He has worked hard to secure my place in Her Majesty’s service.’

‘It must have helped that you are Lady Fiennes’ goddaughter.’

‘Perhaps, and we are distantly related; maybe that helped too.’

‘You are related to the Greys?’

‘Only in ways so remote and complex I can never remember them!’ She shrugged her shoulders and stepped away from him, then opened the window wider, letting the night air envelop her. An owl hooted, and something splashed in the river out of sight that made her imagine a heron pouncing on an unsuspecting fish. ‘Lady Fiennes was fond of my mother,’ she explained, wanting to show that she recognised her obligation. ‘She was kind to me after her death, and I’m sure she would have spoken up for me if the Queen had asked her …’

Perhaps Lady Fiennes had felt sorry for her as well – sorry for the little girl left pining for her mother in the rattling manor house, with her father’s jealous new wife and that woman’s son by an earlier marriage demanding attention like a monstrous cuckoo. The memory of the fading of her father’s love still pained her. She would not speak of that to the Earl, or talk of how Lady Fiennes had intervened, sending her to Broughton Castle until she reached early womanhood, then summoning her to court a year ago to be presented as a maid who might make an agreeable helpmeet for the Queen. Her father had been puffed up at the prospect, and had given much to secure it.

‘… But I think my father’s
douceurs
– the precious gifts with which he sweetened Her Majesty’s opinion – will have counted for more than any importuning by Lady Fiennes.’

Emme looked down into the Privy Garden where torches burnt amongst gilded lions, and dragons held gleaming pennants like ribbons of flame. The beasts snarled at every gate. Drawing a deep breath, she caught the marsh smell of the Thames.

‘I had supposed, at first, that I might find someone at court who would wed me, but now I doubt I ever will.’

The Earl put his arm around her and gave her a little squeeze.

‘Why do you doubt it when the court is daily full of the finest gentlemen in the realm, and your tender beauty is unsurpassed?’

That was nonsense, though it charmed her. She wriggled free and flicked at his chest.

‘You must know that I am bound to serve the Queen to my utmost ability for as long as she chooses. I am wed to her as effectively as a nun is to the church. I have come to realise that only the greatest ladies of noble birth may hope for her permission to marry,
and even then she expects attendance uninterrupted by childbirth or anything else. I am frequently lectured on the desirability of remaining a virgin my whole life.’

She stopped short of revealing her private belief: that the Queen abhorred the idea of marriage and considered it an evil. She was convinced that the Queen would have preferred all her ladies to stay untouched into dotage like Mistress Blanche Parry.

‘No one can defy her,’ she went on, lowering her voice and hardly daring to say more, mindful of the Earl’s rank and how he had suffered for Lady Catherine. ‘Any lady of the Queen’s who weds without her consent risks being thrown into the Tower – and her husband too.’

‘Oh, you poor sweeting.’ The Earl put his arms around her and swayed with her gently, rocking back and forth. ‘I know.’

She realised he would be remembering his own incarceration in that place, and poor Lady Catherine Grey who had died without ever gaining her freedom, and she felt some sympathy for him.

He stroked her hair and nuzzled her cheek, and while she knew she should not allow any man to kiss her, he was not exactly doing that, so she did no more than try to wriggle away from him discreetly.

‘This palace is no better for you,’ he murmured. ‘It’s a prison, just the same: a gilded cage.’

‘I think of it so sometimes; then I tell myself I am a callow fool. I should be unreservedly thankful to live in the comfort I do, and have the honour of being close to the Queen in her service.’

‘Be thankful, darling mistress, but remember Her Majesty will not live forever and she does not know everything. You may always marry in secret,’ he whispered, ‘and then …’

‘Shush!’ She covered his mouth. ‘Do not speak in that way. Long live the Queen! I cannot think of aught else. Whenever she is defied, she always finds out. You must have heard that when she discovered Lady Mary Scudamore’s marriage she gave her such a beating that she broke the lady’s finger.’

‘I had been told the story. But I say again, she does not know everything. Does she see us now?’ He placed a kiss on her shoulder. ‘Does she know of this?’ He kissed her just below the collar bone, more a peck than a kiss; he did not touch her lips. Did that mean it was all right? In truth she knew it was not, and she wrenched free of him.

‘I must not do anything of which Her Majesty would not approve.’

‘Do not fret, my sweet.’ He took hold of her again. ‘She is below us now and knows nothing at all of what we do in this room. You are safe here.’ He wrapped her in his arms and brushed his hand over her breasts sending a sensation shooting through her that seemed deeply shameful.

‘No!’ She pushed his hand away, feeling her blood rushing to her face. ‘Prithee, no,’ she whispered between gritted teeth.

She made for the door, and tried the latch, but of course it was locked. Looking back over her shoulder she saw him coming towards her, a solicitous smile lightening his wrinkled face.

She stood straight and spoke firmly.

‘Please open the door. We have been here long enough, and Mistress Parry will be looking for me soon.’ She did not know whether that was right, all she knew was that the Earl now frightened her.

As he drew nearer she shrank back against the wall. Then he put his hands to the wall-hangings, trapping her between his arms
either side, and pushed his body closer until she felt him against her: thighs, chest and groin, and most of all his manhood hard against her crotch.

‘Do not worry, my sweet,’ he murmured. ‘I will give you everything you want, for by my troth I love you and I pledge myself to you, to take you for my wife and share all I have …’

‘No!’ she gasped. ‘You cannot mean …’

With a kiss he silenced her, driving his tongue into her mouth along with a bitter taste of sack, while his hands dug for her breasts, pushing down under her chemise, and his hardness rubbed against her inducing a vile sense of heat between her legs.

‘We will be married …’ He panted between kisses, forcing her against the wall while his hips ground faster. ‘As you have promised, so I promise you.’ He dragged up her petticoats and touched the bare skin above her garters. ‘I will honour you with titles. You shall be my Duchess …’ He breathed the words between her breasts as she struggled to break free, but his arms were like banded iron, and when he raised his head his glassy eyes were dark and hooded, the smile gone from them. He did not seem to see her.

‘But we cannot marry!’ she cried out. ‘Not without a priest.’

‘We can.’ He dragged her away and pushed her onto the cushion where she had earlier sat, pinning her down with his weight. ‘Our union can be blessed later. All we need are our promises – I have yours, you have mine – and to be joined as man and wife.’

‘Joined. No!’ She pleaded in terror, struggling to get from under him.

‘Hush! Remember who is below.’ He took hold of her neck, forcing back her head until her shoulders hit the floor. Her buttocks and legs were left arched over the cushion giving her no leverage to
escape. She tried to push him off, tear at his face, punch his throat – anything to stop him. But he dragged up her rope farthingale and pushed the bands over her arms, smothering her fists and face with her petticoats. Then he pulled up her shift and yanked down her drawers, and she felt the cold air touch her where no other man had seen.

She could only hear him.

‘This is what you want; don’t deny it, my love.’

He pushed her legs apart with his knees, and grabbed at her skirts to uncover her eyes. ‘My sweet,’ he murmured, crouching over and kissing her. ‘You do not need to fight to show me your purity.’

She tried to bite him, but he leant back quickly, and for a moment, in horror, she saw what he was about to put in her. She shut her eyes tight.

A scream welled in her throat but she clenched her jaw to hold it back; she must not cry out. If they were discovered
in flagrante
the shame would be hers.

She would be ruined.

His fingers pushed into her, and the pain that came next was like being stabbed with a blade in her most sensitive parts. He was tearing her apart. Only let him finish and it would be over.

The pain went on and on, and each time he almost withdrew it grew even sharper. The more she fought, the worse it became. She tried to tear at him with her nails but he bowed his back and thrust into her even harder.

‘God’s death!’ He shuddered, thrashing against her and pumping frenziedly. ‘Oh, Lord!’

She must endure it. She was contorted in agony, and her shoulders
burnt as they were rubbed against the floor. She turned her head, eyes closed though she wept, and with her ear against the boards she heard sounds from below: the Queen calling in anger and the soft lilt of music.

‘Am I not well guarded today, with no man near me who wears a sword at his side?’

—Queen Elizabeth I in conversation with Sir Christopher Hatton while out walking in Richmond Park in 1586, on seeing the would-be assassin, Robert Barnewell, and meeting his eye after recognising him from a portrait of the ‘six gentlemen’, led by Anthony Babington, who had undertaken to murder her in what later became known as the Babington Plot

‘Mistress Emme, please wake; the Queen calls you!’

The Queen
. Emme’s eyes flicked open in panic to see her maid, Biddy, hovering over her.

Her tongue felt swollen and her mouth almost too dry to speak. A wave of pain flared through her from her belly to her private parts. She curled over and hugged herself, feeling the bulk of the rags between her legs that she had tied in place before climbing into bed, remembering that she had been bleeding the night before. But
she was conscious of much more than spotting from the place that hurt; in the rags was the hot stickiness that had become familiar to her every month.

‘
Thank God
,’ she whispered to herself while Biddy told her the time.

‘It’s five of the morning, mistress.’

Daybreak after the night she had been spoiled, but surely she could not have been got with child; her menses would drown any seed in her womb. She wanted to ask Biddy whether she agreed this must be so, though all she did was look at her maid’s simple face, from her starting eyes to her buck teeth just showing above her full lower lip.

Others were moving about the room: ladies of the royal household and servants. Her young companion, Bess Throckmorton, called out to her shrilly.

‘Emme, I’ll see you outside. Come quickly.’

Biddy held out her gown. ‘Her Majesty is going walking in the garden and you must go with her now, she says.’ Biddy lowered her eyes. ‘You seem to have displeased her, mistress.’

‘What has she said …? Oh, no,’ Emme gasped, hearing a flurry of running footsteps and the thud of a door below. ‘I must get up.’

She dragged the gown over her shoulders and slipped out of the truckle bed, clutching Biddy as she stood, for a moment creased over.

Biddy took hold of her arm. ‘Dear mistress, are you sick? You look ghastly pale …’

Emme straightened and pressed her hand. ‘My flowers have begun; that’s all.’

‘Do you need anything for …?’

‘No, thank you. I have to go.’

She pushed her bare feet into pattens and secured the gown with a silk rope girdle, twisting her hair into a caul net as she left for the stairs. Biddy followed, panting softly, all the way from the canted tower, across the moat, through the herb beds and into the privy orchard. There, behind shrubs and fruit trees still blued with dawn mist, she saw the Queen walking at a pace that left her escort trailing behind her. Dainty Bess Throckmorton was amongst them, and Lady Frances Howard, the Lord High Admiral’s staid sister. The ladies’ maids followed with the Queen’s chief intelligencer, Sir Francis Walsingham, accompanied by his clerk, in their wake.