Three Maids for a Crown: A Novel of the Grey Sisters (41 page)

Wise advice, but who could help me? De Quadra? His mission was to keep diplomatic channels open with the queen. He had claimed that his resources were at my service—if the queen wed Dudley and was in danger of losing her throne. Would William Cecil give me aid? I shrank from exposing my recklessness to him. Besides, he was not in the queen’s favor of late, any more than I was.

“Remember Jane’s tutor, Dr. Aylmer?” Mary asked.

“I cannot think a tutor can aid me.”

“He made the queen quite angry once, demanding that she grant him more preachers. Robert Dudley went to Her Majesty on Dr. Aylmer’s behalf.”

“Why would Robert Dudley help me? He does not even like me overmuch.”

“He likes all the pretty women. Lady Douglas Sheffield and Lettice Knollys. He thinks you are prettier than they are. Even prettier than the queen. I know because he watches you when he thinks no one is looking.”

“Oh, Mary, what does that matter?”

“He likes to play the knight, just as much as you like to play the lady that needs to be rescued. Besides, he is still our brother-in-law, even if Jane is dead.”

“It is partly his fault that she is.” Mary winced and I remembered her incoherent cries in the days after Jane’s beheading. How she had blamed herself.

But after a moment Mary seemed to brace herself. “Kat, I am sure Lord Robert can get the queen to excuse anything if he wants to. Think of Amy Dudley with her broken neck. Whatever problem is plaguing you, it cannot be as bad as a murdered wife.”

It was true. Robert Dudley had gotten the queen to overlook sins that no one should excuse. Of course, the men sent to examine the situation had called him innocent. Even so, suspicion remained. When the queen’s councilors begged her to give him up, she had stood firm, and now she cleaved to Dudley even more tightly than before.

Desperate hope took root in me. I moved toward Mary, wanting to hug her as I might have done when we were small. Mary’s eyes widened as if she read my thoughts, her arms lifting a fraction. But at the last moment I quelled my impulse. She would feel the bulge in my belly. I watched the hope in my sister’s face fade, and I hated myself for it.

“You came here to help me, Mary, and you did. Now, go to bed.”

Mary started back to my desk to put the wax seal down, but I stopped her.

“Why do you not take that seal and store it in your Thief’s Coffer? Do you still squirrel things away?”

Her chin raised a trifle with that old defiance, and I remembered all the times I had teased her. “I only keep special things that matter.”

“Perhaps you can show your treasures to me sometime. Then I will tell you why your coming here tonight mattered very much to me. I will tell you everything someday. When all is settled and the storm is over.”

Mary pressed the hand that held the seal against her heart. I knew the bit of wax had become suddenly precious. “Will you be happy then, Kat?”

“I cannot say,” I hedged as I ushered her out the door. I did not even know if I would be alive.

Chapter Thirty

K
AT
O
N PROGRESS WITH THE QUEEN
I
PSWICH
L
ATE
A
UGUST
1561

had never realized that being pretty could be a hazard. But as I scurried along the walls like a frightened mouse, I knew that my gift for capturing people’s attention could prove my undoing.

I drew my face deeper into the hood of my cloak, the garment turned inside out to hide the trim of ermine that would announce to anyone who saw me that I was a lady of high station. Counting the doorways studding the wall, I prayed I would find the one I sought. When I saw a gentleman usher wearing the Dudley device of the bear and ragged staff on his livery, I nearly wept in relief. I hastened up to the post he was guarding and spoke low. “I must have an interview with Lord Robert at once. In private, I pray you.”

Light from the cresset at the servant’s side cast an orange glow across features that suddenly appeared sly, though his lips did not so much as tick up in a smile. “Mistress, it is very late. His lordship is very likely abed.”

“My business cannot wait.”

“Whom shall I tell Lord Robert calls upon him?”

I almost tried to conceal who I was, but then I realized how futile such subterfuge would be. Whether Robert Dudley helped me or not, the whole court would soon know about this babe. Seeking a late-night audience with Robert Dudley would not be nearly as perilous as that transgression. “I am Lord Robert’s sister-in-law, Lady Katherine Grey.”

The servant leaned forward to peer beneath my hood, as if to be certain. Did he wish to satisfy his own curiosity, or did he fear that some enemy had sent an assassin—either to take Dudley’s life or to destroy his good name. “Lady Katherine. So I see.” A trifle of the tension seemed to drain from the servant’s broad shoulders. “I will inform Lord Robert of your request at once and inquire as to his wishes. You may wait in his privy chamber.”

With a sweep of one arm, he ushered me into Dudley’s quarters, gestured to a seat near the fire. I took it gladly. Yet somehow reaching my destination did not calm me. Rather, my imagination reeled from one disastrous consequence to the next.

What had I been thinking, coming here to enlist Dudley’s aid? It was madness.

Too soon an athletic figure strode into the chamber, Lord Dudley dressed in a night robe of crimson brocade, his usually impeccable handsomeness disheveled, his features betraying a measure of alarm.

“Lady Katherine?” he said, a trifle sharply. “You must know the queen would not be amused at this late-night encounter. What business could not keep until a civilized hour, when we could meet as the queen prefers—in the open before the whole court?”

I remembered what Mary had said about Lord Robert watching comely ladies-in-waiting. “Forgive me for disturbing you, but I had no other choice. I am here to ask you, my lord …” I had written the words to Ned more times than I could count, but when I tried to speak them, I could not. Once I said the words aloud, I could not take them back. Everything would seem more terrifyingly real.

“
What
, in the name of God? Woman, you slipped into my chambers in the dead of night, and I could receive a summons from the queen at any moment to discuss some important matter of policy. She would not be pleased to find you here.”

“The last thing I wish is to incur Her Majesty’s anger. I have come to beg you to use your influence with the queen on my behalf.”

Lord Robert rolled his eyes. “Of course. How many times a day does someone come to me with some paltry wish to bring to the queen’s attention.”

“This is not a paltry matter.” I pressed my hands protectively to the bulge concealed by the pleats of my gown. “I am with child.”

Dudley stepped back, as if fearing he could somehow catch blame for my condition. “You little fool! I have nothing to do with that.”

“I did not claim that you do.”

“Who is the father?”

“My husband.”

“Have you and Henry Herbert still been meeting all this time? Your marriage was legally annulled.”

“No. It is not Lord Herbert I speak of. I wed the true husband to my heart, Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford.”

Dudley gaped. “You wed Hertford? When? How?”

“In secret. Last December we slipped away from the palace when the queen was hunting, and a priest wed us at Hertford’s house on Cannon Row.”

“By God’s blood—who knew about this? Did you have witnesses? God help them!”

“Hertford’s sister, Lady Jane, was our only witness.”

“Lady Jane who is lately dead?”

I nodded. “My lord, I know we have not been close companions since that dreadful time our families suffered in the Tower, but you and I are still brother and sister-in-law. We both lost our fathers and a sister and brother to the ax.”

Lord Robert’s face stiffened. “You think I owe you for the forfeit they paid?”

Yes, I wanted to say, but checked myself at the last moment, knowing it would serve me ill to anger him further. “I am long past fixing blame, as I pray you are, Lord Robert. I only know we still share a blood tie, and it is for the sake of Jane and Guilford that I hope you might intercede with Her Majesty on my behalf. We did not mean Her Majesty any harm by this marriage. Our only crime is that we loved each other too much to live apart. Lord Robert, you of all people must understand how painful such a separation can be. No one can see you and the queen together without knowing you love her greatly. If Her Majesty came to you and begged you to wed her—even in secret—would you not slip your nuptial ring on her finger, no matter who tried to say you nay?”

Dudley turned, paced away from me. I could sense his thoughts racing.

It gave me the courage to press on. “I promise you that this is a love match. That is all. I am not courting the queen’s diplomatic enemies, nor being set up as one who might replace her on the throne.”

“Even by that dour-faced clerk old Cecil? No one will believe it. The Spanish have been courting you for years, and now you marry a descendant of Edward III—the son of the man people still call the Good Duke? Any thinking man will believe this marriage is a clever maneuver to gain power. If you bear a son, your standing in the succession would be increased a thousandfold. Your parents would be so pleased.”

“My parents are dead, as you well know. Their ambitions have followed them to the grave. I have no wish to follow the path they forced my sister Jane to tread. As for men like Cecil and de Quadra, I cannot help what they think about my claim to the crown. All I want is to make a life with my husband and have God grant safe delivery for my child and me.”

“You look so earnest, there are some might even believe you. But the queen?” Dudley emitted scornful laughter. “Ruthless men tried to involve her in far too many plots during her sister Mary’s reign for her to dismiss this entanglement of yours lightly. Not when Her Majesty knows that her own Privy Council has been scheming against her—stirring up discord over my wife’s tragic accident, trying to break the bond between the queen and me. Perhaps Cecil is planning to use you to further that end, or to mount a coup should his plots against me fail.”

I felt sick with fear at Dudley’s reaction. Others would see the marriage the same way. “Secretary Cecil sent Lord Hertford to the continent,” I insisted. “If there were some plot, would he not have kept Lord Hertford near at hand?”

“It is just another of that dour old fool’s tricks to throw me off the scent. He would stoop to anything to get his way. Sometimes I even wonder if he was involved somehow in Amy’s death, hoping it would put the queen beyond my reach. Cecil cannot stomach me because he knows I will be no man’s pawn. I will do anything in my power to serve my dearest love. My interests are what benefit the queen.”

He believed his own words. I pictured Amy Dudley, a lifeless heap lying at the bottom of stone stairs. I feared Dudley would read the thoughts in my eyes, but he was too far gone in his own plotting to see anything but the tool that fate had put in his hands.

“There can be no question that a healthy child with Tudor blood in its veins will complicate things mightily for Her Majesty. If you should bear a son—” Dudley stopped abruptly. He stroked his beard with one rein-toughened hand. I remembered just such a look on his scheming father. “Upon consideration, your situation might work to the queen’s advantage after all. She is up to her neck in doomsayers who stoop to scare tactics to weaken those who truly have her best interests at heart. She must wed and produce an heir of her own. Seeing her apparent successor happily married and bursting with life—certainly that will make her see what is best for her: a husband who has loved her from the time she was a cast-off princess with little hope of a crown.”

Dudley smiled, then. I shivered. “Lord Robert, the queen loves you above anyone living or dead. If anyone can convince her of the truth in my claims, it is you.”

“It is true.” His chest puffed up with arrogance that I knew set other courtiers’ teeth on edge. “Go now. Return to your chambers. Stay there until Her Majesty sends for you. You had best prepare for a tempest. Even if she forgives you in the end, she will first deal you a generous serving of her father’s temper. King Henry demanded the forfeit of people’s heads for less.”

I touched my throat, felt the leap of my pulse. Life. It was so fragile, so precious. I had wagered my life and my babe’s, Ned’s life too, upon the skills of Robert Dudley.

Had I been a fool to listen to Mary? I wanted to go and rouse her from her bed. Wanted to spill out the whole story she had been so eager to hear. Was not confession good for the soul? But what would unburdening myself accomplish except to torture her during these excruciating hours that would decide my fate?

I returned to my chamber, sat in a chair by the fire, and listened with every fiber of my being. My breath caught in panic at every sound. Was this how Jane had felt, waiting for her execution? Feeling time slip away from her, unable to catch it, hold it, make it pause? Nine days Jane had been queen, and Robert Dudley had tried to serve her cause. When she had cast fortune’s dice with this man and lost, the outcome had been hideous.