Philippa Gregory - The Virgin's Lover

He shed his clothes as quietly as he could, and put them on the chest at the foot of the bed. She had left a candle burning for him and in the flickering golden light he thought she looked like a sleeping child. He felt filled with tenderness for her as he blew out her candle and slipped into bed beside her, careful not to touch her.

Half asleep, she turned toward him and slid her naked leg between his thighs. At once he was aroused, but he shifted a little away from her, firmly taking her waist in his hands and holding her from him, but she gave a little sleepy sigh and put her hand on his chest, and then slid it inexorably down his belly to caress him.

“Amy,” he whispered.

He could not see her in the darkness, but the even pace of her breathing told him that although she was still asleep, she was moving toward him in sleep, she was stroking him, sliding toward him, and finally rolling on her back so that he could take her in a state of aroused sleepiness that he, knowing that he was a fool, could not resist. Even as he took his pleasure, even as he heard her cry, her familiar, breathy little cry of delight as she woke to find him inside her, Robert knew that he was doing the wrong thing, the worst thing that he could do: for himself, for Amy, and for Elizabeth.

In the morning Amy was glowing, confident, a woman restored to love, a wife restored to her place in the world. He did not have to wake to her timid smile; she was up and in the kitchen as he was getting dressed, stirring the cook to bake breakfast bread just as he liked it. She had fetched the honey from their own hive; she brought fresh butter from the dairy with the Stanfield Hall seal on the pat. From the meat larder she had brought a good cut of ham borrowed from someone in the village, and there were some cold venison cutlets left over from last night.

Amy, presiding over a good table, poured small ale for her husband and tucked back a curl behind her ear.

“Shall you ride today?” she asked. “I can send Jeb to the stable to tell them to saddle your horse. We can ride together if you wish.”

He could not believe that she had forgotten their last ride together, but her pleasure in the night had restored her to the Amy that he had once loved, the confident little mistress of her kingdom, Sir John Robsart’s favorite child.

“Yes,” he said, delaying the moment when he would have to speak honestly with her. “I should have brought my hawk; I shall soon eat you out of house and home.”

“Oh no,” she said. “For the Carters have already sent over a newly weaned calf as a compliment to you, and now that everyone knows you are here we shall be half buried in gifts. I thought we might ask them to come over for the day; you always find them good company.”

“Tomorrow, perhaps,” he said cravenly. “Not today.”

“All right,” she said agreeably. “But you will be hard put to eat the calf on your own.”

“Tell them I will ride in an hour,” he said, abruptly rising from the table. “And I should be glad of your company.”

“Could we ride toward Flitcham Hall?” she asked. “Just to remind you what a fine house it is? I know you said it is too far from London, but they still have not found a buyer.”

He winced. “Wherever you wish,” he said, avoiding the issue of the house. “In an hour.”

And so I avoid speaking to her until dinner, Robert berated himself, taking the stairs two at a time. Because I shall never again try and talk sense to a woman while riding with her. But tonight, after dinner, I have to talk to her. I cannot lie with her again. I make a cheat of myself, and a fool of her. He kicked open the door to Sir John’s private room, and threw himself into the old man’s chair. Damn you, he addressed his dead father-in-law. Damn you for saying I would break her heart and damn you for being right.

Robert waited until after dinner when Lady Robsart left them alone, and Amy was seated opposite him on the other side of the small fireplace.

“I am sorry we have no company,” Amy remarked. “It must be so dull for you, after court. We could have had the Rushleys to visit, you remember them? They would come tomorrow, if you would like to invite them.”

“Amy,” he said hesitantly. “I have something to ask you.”

Her head came up at once, her smile sweet. She thought he was going to ask for her forgiveness.

“We spoke once of a divorce,” he said quietly.

A shadow crossed her face. “Yes,” she said. “I have not had a happy moment since that day. Not until last night.”

Robert grimaced. “I am sorry for that,” he said.

She interrupted him. “I know,” she said. “I knew you would be. And I thought that I would never be able to forgive you; but I can, Robert, and I do. It is forgiven and forgotten between us and we need never speak of it again.”

This is something like ten thousand times harder because I was a lustful fool, Robert swore to himself. Aloud he said, “Amy, you will think me wicked, but my mind has not changed.”

Her honest, open eyes met his. “What do you mean?” she asked simply.

“I have to ask you something,” he said. “When we last spoke, you saw Elizabeth as your rival, and I understand your feelings. But she is the Queen of England, and she has done me the honor of loving me.”

Amy frowned; she could not think what he wanted to ask her. “Yes, but you said you had given her up. And then you came to me…” She broke off. “It is like a miracle to me that you came to me, as if we were boy and girl again.”

“We are at war with Scotland,” Robert plowed on. “We could not be in more peril. I want to help her, I want to save my country. Amy, the French are very likely to invade.”

Amy nodded. “Of course. But…”

“Invade,” he repeated. “Destroy us all.”

She nodded, but she could not care for the French when her own happiness was unfolding before her.

“And so I want to ask you to release me from my marriage with you, so that I can offer myself to the queen as a free man. The archduke will not propose to her; she needs a husband. I want to marry her.”

Amy’s eyes widened as if she could not believe what she had just heard. He saw her hand go to her pocket and he saw her fingers clench on something there.

“What?” she asked disbelievingly.

“I want you to release me from my marriage with you. I have to marry her.”

“Are you saying that you want me to divorce you?”

He nodded. “I do.”

“But last night…”

“Last night was a mistake,” he said brutally and saw the color flush to her cheeks and the tears fill her eyes as rapidly as if he had slapped her till her head rang.

“A mistake?” she repeated.

“I could not resist you,” he said, trying to soften the blow. “I should have done so. I love you, Amy, I always will. But my destiny has come for me. John Dee once said—”

She shook her head. “A mistake? To lie with your own wife? Did you not whisper: “I love you”? Was that a mistake too?”

“I didn’t say that,” he said quickly.

“I heard you say that.”

“You may think you heard me, but I didn’t say it.”

She got up from her little chair and turned away from him to the table that she had prepared for dinner with such joy. It was all spoiled now; the broken meats gone to the servants, the waste gone to the pigs.

“You told me of Sir Thomas Gresham once,” she said irrelevantly. “That he thought the worst thing about bad coinage is that it brings everything, even good coins, down to its own worthless value.”

“Yes,” he said, not understanding.

“That is what she has done,” she said simply. “I am not surprised that a pound is not worth a pound, that we are at war with France, that the archduke will not marry her. She has made everything bad; she is the false coin of the kingdom and she has brought everything, even honorable love, even a good marriage begun in love, down to the value of a counterfeit coin.”