The Spymaster's Daughter (22 page)

With relief, she took her letters and would return to her chamber to read them after seeing her father once more.

She had pleaded with him to show mercy to Jennet several times, without success. She must try again, now that he was almost recovered from his latest attack of the flux, the same that had troubled him for years.

Mr. Secretary was resting in his chambers, letters and documents spread before him on the counterpane, alone except for a doctor preparing an enema. He lectured as he mixed. “If a man have a flux then obviously his black bile humor is at fault and must be completely cleared from his body, even if it weakens him further.”

Frances had heard this opinion many times, but still wondered at its sense, since purging always weakened and never strengthened. “Father, may we be alone?”

The doctor scowled. “Mr. Secretary, I have here a heavy decoction of privet, which is sovereign for all fluxes.”

“Give it.” Impatient, Mr. Secretary took the flask and, with his other hand, waved the doctor into an outer chamber. He turned to Frances, nodding at her packet of letters. “What news of Philip, daughter?”

“I have not read my letters as yet.” She spread her shawl and covered the packet in her lap. His eyes narrowed into the black look that she had seen before and knew as a warning sign. “Father, I will give you all the news of Philip's comings and goings as soon as I read them, but I must—”

Censure was plain on his rigid mouth. “You should be reading
your husband's letters now, as any good and loving wife would. If you have come to plead for your aunt, do not trouble me again with that unhappy matter.”

Frances tried not to wring her hands, but she could project no calm. “Jennet was very wrong, Father, I agree most heartily, but she did no more than half the court and half of England.”

His face became set into even harder lines. “Then we must build more and larger jails and hire new and better torturers, daughter. Rome shall never rule England or assassinate her queen while I live.”

Frances thought, not for the first time, that her father might be a little at a loss for wits. Yet he was not finished and stared at her.

“The recusants are traitors all, many wishing to enthrone the Scots queen and give England up to Spain and the Inquisition. Frances, would you see an auto-da-fé in St. Paul's churchyard?” His face was set in a way that was meant to cease all her womanly chatter and concern. She knew she should leave off pleading, but she could not.

“Why, Father? Could you not send her to Barn—”

“Never again to my manor!” He closed his eyes and drank the privet draft, which soured his face further. “I am the queen's high servant and spymaster, and I cannot be seen to harbor a traitor…even if I desired to, which I do
not
. Jennet has forfeited my goodwill and her place in my household. If I am not seen to stand fast for the true Protestant faith and the saving of this realm, even in my own family, how can I do my work for God and queen?”

“But, Father—”

“Leave me at once, Frances, and speak no more on this matter. Jennet must be dead to you, as she is to me. Put her from your thoughts and trouble me no more. My work is pressing and such needless distraction—and from you, daughter, while I am ailing—I
would not have believed….” His head fell back on the bolster and he closed his eyes. The doctor approached with his tubing, stopping any further censure.

Yet another question preyed upon Frances's mind. She leaned in to kiss her father's cheek. “Pauley, Father. Why is he gone from court more than he is here?” She had not meant to ask about Robert, but the words were out before she could stop them.

Mr. Secretary's chest heaved, expelling the last of his patience. “He asks for every difficult task and quite suddenly wants to be away from court.”

She kept her face free of any emotion. Was Robert wearied of court life? Or of her?

“The man works like a fiend from hell. He does not displease me and has returned with most valuable information.” Her father paused, smiling suddenly, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Mary Stuart has been foolish enough to send her complete and new cipher to a recusant, and Pauley has intercepted and copied it, then sent it on. We will be able to read every treasonous word the woman writes. Yea, Robert Pauley is my most valuable intelligencer. Why do you ask, Frances?”

“No reason, Father.” Though his words were like hammer blows to her ambition, she kissed him again and left, her head dutifully bowed. Yet her mind was full of sorrow. Phelippes would not need her now. Was her brief career as an intelligencer over? She determined to find a way to continue what she had started.

Her heart was full of reproof for Robert. For a moment, or perhaps more, she had wondered whether he had left court to escape any feelings he might have for her, but that was too much like one of Philip's sonnets. More likely he found being her servant too burdensome for him. Was she so demanding a mistress that he would run from her and make every opportunity to do so?

In the crowded corridor, she stumbled on an uneven stone,
drawing unwanted attention and concern from passersby. The court was always wary of sudden weakness, which could signal illness. Although the weather was still not warm enough for the plague or sweat, one could never be too cautious when living with two thousand people, though the fresh air sweeping from the channel was sweeter here in Greenwich than in London. And the fiery torches in every corridor kept disease at bay.

Frances waited until she was in her chambers before she allowed tears to form and fall. Had she failed in every way? Jennet was lost to her, and Robert had left and taken his friendship with him. Her father was immovable when he saw his duty so clearly. Frances doubted that even she, his only child, would escape his sense of justice if she should be tempted by the idols and saints of the popish Church.

As for Robert, she was at a loss to understand his behavior, or her own anger and distress, which were equal to or greater than the anguish she felt for Jennet.

Was she ready for Bedlam?

Frances sat near the hearth to read Philip's letters, though they would require writing to him when she had less and less to say. She broke the wax seal on the first one and read as the firelight flickered over the page. He asked about the Twelfth Night masque in several casual ways. She had written to him just the bare outlines of the play and that it had been well received. If he expected news of Stella, he would not receive such word from her. That would extend a good wife's duties beyond her limit.

But was she a good wife? Didn't a good wife need a good husband? She had tried to be what Philip and her father wanted her to be, but she felt less and less like a married woman now. And—she caught her breath at such a thought—she felt more and more like the young girl at Barn Elms who had yearned for her next meeting with a handsome poet, expecting so much from a man's love. Still,
what she'd felt then was nothing compared to the ache she felt now, the one she dared not name.

Frances shook her head to rid it of such thoughts before they led to a place in her heart where she did not wish to go, to a door she could not open without releasing danger. If Robert could stay away, then she would have a similar strength.

From a green glass decanter, she poured a cup of Madeira and allowed the sweet, heavy liquid to fill her with warmth that the fire before her could not reach no matter how hot it burned.

Calmly, she suspected that Philip had heard from Lady Rich and wrote to her many times for each letter he received. He needed no further word on the lady from his wife, and she would dispatch none. She thought such things without rancor. She simply had no desire to play the stylish games that courtiers enjoyed, or ever again to play the naive wife.

Surprised, Frances heard Robert at the outer door and her new maid's greeting, the former one having taken ill and been sent to Barn Elms with the groom. The air in her chamber, no matter how befouled by the odor of sea coal, now carried the persistent scent of woods and earth and fresh air, Robert's scent. “Attend me when you will,” she called softly, hoping he would hear her.

He appeared immediately, wearing a fresh shirt and doublet with the ties not completely done up. His hosen remained spattered from riding roads sodden from spring rains.

“Yes, my lady.”

She half turned from him, hiding her eyes, fearful that he might see the joy no mistress should show. “Pleasant trip?”

“Your father was pleased.”

“That's all that ever matters….” The bitter words quavered and caught in her throat and she could not push out better ones, being now without breath or strength. Shaking, she leaned forward, and, to her shame, tears began to flow and her body to tremble.

R
obert feared she would slip to the stone floor. He knelt to her before he could think better of it. His arms went about her, holding her up against his chest, her head buried in his shoulder.

The warmth of her slender body beset him with the hunger he had tried to escape, creating a stir in his trunk hose, and he did not dare to move his head for fear his lips would reach her cheek. The combined scent of Castilian olive oil soap and rosewater rinse in her hair tantalized his nose and was near to undoing him. “Do not weep, my lady. Your tears will break my heart.”

“Ro-bert…” She sobbed now.

He held her limp body tighter. “What can I do? Tell me and it is done.”

“Jennet. Can you help her? Help me? Take me to her, as you regard me.”

“To the Tower? No, Frances. No, I cannot. But ask of me any other thing and—”

She took a deep, shuddering breath, and cried out, “You…you could not leave me alone…quite so often.”

“Alone? But…” He could not go on pretending he did not understand her meaning. “I promise I will leave you…your service…no more than your father absolutely demands.” His face was in her hair and he smelled the deep, infused rose fragrance in her long curls.

Do not leave me.
These were words he had waited to hear from her sweet mouth, had dreamed of hearing. But still he forced himself to draw back. His heart was overbeating and he feared losing control, the tight curb that he had worked so hard to maintain all these months. When he felt himself losing the battle, he left the court for a stiff ride on deep-rutted roads, preferring the discomfort of a horse's back in mud and rain to the constant dull pain and cold, sleepless nights with Frances Sidney in the next chamber…far
above him in rank and another man's wife…forever beyond his reach, though not his thoughts and never his dreams.

Gently, he released her to sit back in her chair. Caution had begun to make its way to her face and into her great, gray eyes. She swallowed hard, pressing her lips together.

Robert stood. “My lady, forgive me. My concern overcame…” He could not go on trying to explain with words he could never make believable.

F
rances smoothed her gown and searched for some escape from the danger of Robert's closeness. She found the safest subject of all. “Has the weather warmed?”

He coughed. “I was about to suggest a walk in the gardens. Freshened air and exercise will improve your—” He broke off what sounded like a physician's prescription and went on in a lighter, more companionable tone. “My lady, on my return to London today, I saw plows in the fields, though it be long past January plow day, and early lambs on unsteady legs. It is warming and green buds are sprouting at the ends of branches, tiny, green leaves emerging on rose stems. A warm cloak and pattens to protect your slippers will—”

“Yes,” she said, too quickly. “The very thing to lift my spirit.”

“I will follow you at the usual distance, my lady,” he said, bowing.

Frances nodded without looking at him. He would see far too much and know too much. His gentleness had calmed her, but frightened her as well. She was drawn to the warmth of his tenderness like a newborn lamb to its mother.

He held the door open, then fell behind her as any good servant would when she set foot on the gravel garden path, teetering some in her high pattens. With a groan of impatience, she soon slipped out of them and set them beside the path to gather up on her return. “Better ruined slippers than a fall,” she said, not looking
back to where he had stopped well behind her. She walked on to the walled garden, breathing deep of air and earth freshened by a recent rain, sensing the heat of the pale sun, which warmed her anew as each cloud moved on.

Essex appeared from behind the wall, startling her. She shuddered a little inside at sight of the too-handsome face that was uncomfortably close to hers. How could one man create two such unlike feelings at once? He'd had this effect on her before: delight at his handsome face and dismay at what she saw there, repulsion and attraction. Yet despite his face and form and his undeniable appeal, she did not admire or trust him.