Nigel Tranter - Lord and Master

When Marie came back, she spoke in the same fashion, lowering her voice so that none others should hear. 'She must be displeased with you, Patrick. I tried to bring her to speak of you, but she would not. I wanted to ask her about Queen Mary, but could not I fear, Patrick – I fear the hopes for our lady are in vain, despite all your efforts.'

'Have patience, my dear. There is no reason for despair. It is a great matter, and Elizabeth must have time fully to consider it. That she may wish not to discuss it with me until she has done so, is but natural. I have just been saying the same to Davy -give hear time.'

'You are wonderfully patient, Patrick. In all this you have… surprised me. All who love my aunt will thank you for it.'

'Do you think that I do not love Mary also?'

I do not know whom you love, Patrick. I have sometimes thought, only yourself But now…'

'Have I not told you a thousand times that I love you?'

'Told me, yes. But deeds speak louder than words.'

'What would you have me do, then? Must I force myself upon you, seduce you, to prove my love?

'Even that might be preferable to merely using me for your other purposes, Patrick' she said quietly.

He looked at her thoughtfully, and said nothing.

'At any rate, in what you are seeking to do now, Patrick, even though Elizabeth loves you the less, others do not'

That thought will sustain me in all my disappointments!' he declared. And at the cynical note in his voice, she bit her lip.

With the early October evening almost upon them, they came to Theobalds Park, Lord Burleigh's great red-brick house in Hertfordshire, down a mile-long avenue of cedar trees. They found it all lit up for them with coloured lanterns, fountains playing, and hosts of servants. Though a man of simple habits himself, Burleigh knew his mistress's tastes very well, and created this vast establishment largely for her entertainment

It was a convenient day's journey by the coach from London, and most of her northern progresses started from here. Beside it, even Morton's fine palace at Dalkeith paled to insignificance.

Presumably Burleigh had had a few days' warning of this excursion, for he had an evening of ambitious feasting and amusement arranged. It was to be a 'ladies' night'; while the spectacle of musicians, dancers, tumblers and masquers went on, the Queen dined alone at a table at the top of the huge hall, waited on by her host and four earls – Leicester, Oxford, Essex and Warwick. Tonight she was ablaze with jewels again. Patrick did not get near enough to see whether she wore his locket At a lower table were six countesses, served by lesser lords; at another the Queen's ladies-in-waiting with Raleigh, Sidney: Bacon, Wotton and others in attendance; this table Marie was invited to join. Following the Queen's example, the ladies fed tit-bits and sips from their glasses to the gallant and noble waiters, who made extravagant gestures of gratitude and adoration. Frequently Elizabeth summoned up one or other of the gentlemen to be presented with a sweetmeat or a glass of wine. Orkney was so favoured, and almost all of her intimate courtiers. But not Patrick Gray. Anxiously the Scots party noted, and waited.

Later, when Marie went out through the gardens to the dower-house where their party were quartered with many others, and David would have accompanied her, leaving Patrick to the continuing festivities, his brother shook his head and insisted in going with her himself. England's Queen could well do without him tonight, he observed, apparently entirely carefree. David could squire Marie's sisters back, in the unlikely possibility of their requiring such – their father being already much too drunk.

For a while Patrick and Marie walked wordless between the shadowy clipped yew hedges and the pale-gleaming statuary, the man's hand at the young woman's elbow. At length, it was Marie who spoke.

'You are silent tonight, Patrick. It is a strange experience for you to be the outcast, rejected. Poor Patrick!'

'I am not rejected yet, my dear – save by you this many-a-day! Even so, and if I was, I would be blithe and happy if I could reverse your rejection with the Queen's.'

'I do not think that is the truth. But assuredly, Patrick, I do not reject you.'

'No? Here is joyful news, then.' He held her a little closer.

Do not tell me that this cool, sober heart of yonrs is warming to me, at last?

'My heart has never been cool to you. You are a difficult man to be cool to.'

'Do not say that you have been deceiving me, all this time?

'There are more sorts of heat than one, to be aroused in a woman's heart'

'Aye. I pray that it may be the right sort that I have aroused at last, then. Let me feel, and see.' Sliding his arm around her, he brought his hand to rest on her firm left breast

They were walking very slowly now. She neither paused nor shook him oft

'It beats,' he murmured. 'It beats, undeniably. But what does it say?

Beat, beat, cool heart, and speak me clear,

Your beauty warms my hand so near,

But truer glow than that I crave,

The flame of love my heart to save!

'Save your poetry and, and posing for Queen Elizabeth!' Marie told him, but with a hunt tremor in that level voice. 'Myself, I prefer plain honest words that mean what they say.'

'You do not believe that I love you, Marie? Despite all the times I tell you?

'I do not know – I do not know at all, Patrick.'

Then let me prove it, my sweet' Gently but firmly, he turned her round, to face him, and bent his head to hers.

She did not turn away as their lips met Lingeringly, expertly, he kissed her, and, as her mouth stirred a little under his, strongly, ever more fiercely he bore down upon her. But she parted her lips no further, though he felt her bosom heaving against his own chest At length he loosed her and drew back a little, to peer into her eyes in the gloom

That… proves… nothing,' she said, as even-voiced as she might 'You do as much, and more, for any woman who takes your fancy – or who can serve some purpose of your own.'

Patrick sighed. 'You are hard, Marie – like flint I had hoped…'He stopped.

' I am not like flint, Patrick – I would that I were, I think.'

'So calm, so sober, so sure of yourself.'

'Not inside of me.'

'No? How may I reach that inside, then? My avowals of love do not reach there. Nor my offers of marriage. Nor my poetry, nor yet my kisses. What may I do other than I have done?' Abruptly he laughed in the darkness. 'You said that I would do as much and more, for other women. Come you into this arbour here, my dear, and we shall see how much more I shall do for you – and you alone! And, it may be, I shall gain that inside of you at last!'

She shook her head, but not angrily. That is not the way either, Patrick. Not… yet'

'Not yet! Then in God's good name – when, girl? And how?

I have been wooing you for years. How can I make you love me,

woman? Or must I ask Davy that?' In anyone else but Patrick Gray his voice would have seemed to grate, there.

'No, Patrick, that is not your task. Not to make me love you.'

'You mean…?'

'I mean that I love you already,' she stated simply.

For once the man was silenced. He gazed at her, gripped her arms, and said nothing.

'Are you so surprised, then?'

'You… this is… for how long, Marie?' he got out

'For all the same long years that you have said you wooed me.'

'For years? Can that be true? Me – not Davy? Never Davy?'

'I love Davy, yes – but quite otherwise.'

'You love him? Then… then how do you love met Otherwise from him?'

'I have never dreamed that I might marry Davy,' she said quietly.

'So-o-o! Then, why? Christ God, Marie, why have you held me thus away? Why injure me, and yourself as well, all this time? If you did not doubt your love…!'