Philippa Gregory - The Virgin's Lover

“I don’t think she’s enjoying anything,” she said acidly.

“I daresay not,” he said with brief sympathy. “But she cannot stay here for longer than the appointed time, sick or not.”

“Has his lordship forbidden you to offer hospitality to her?”

Mr. Forster shook his head. “He doesn’t have to,” he said. “You don’t have to get wet to learn it’s raining. I know which way the wind is blowing, and it’s not me that will catch cold.”

“I’ll send for the doctor,” his wife said. “Perhaps he will say it was just riding in the heat that made her sick.”

The Cumnor stable lad made good time and reached Oxford as Dr. Bayly, the queen’s Professor of Physic at Oxford, was sitting down to his dinner. “I can come at once,” he said, rising to his feet and reaching for his hat and his cape. “Who is ill at Cumnor Place? Not Mr. Forster, I trust?”

“No,” the lad said, proffering his letter. “A visitor, just arrived from Abingdon. Lady Dudley.”

The doctor froze, hat halfway to his head, his cape, arrested in midswing, flapping to fall at one shoulder like a broken wing. “Lady Dudley,” he repeated. “Wife of Sir Robert Dudley?”

“The same,” said the lad.

“Sir Robert that is the queen’s Master of Horse?”

“The queen’s Master of Horse is what they call him,” repeated the lad with a broad wink, since he had heard the rumors as well as everyone else.

Dr. Bayly slowly put his hat back down on the wooden settle. “I think I cannot come,” he said. He swung his cape from his shoulder and draped it on the high back of the bench. “I think I dare not come, indeed.”

“It’s not said to be the plague, nor the sweat, sir,” the boy said. “She’s the only one sick in the house, and there’s no plague in Abingdon that I’ve heard of.”

“No, lad, no,” the doctor said thoughtfully. “There are things more dangerous than the plague. I don’t think I should be engaged.”

“She’s said to be in pain,” the lad went on. “One of the housemaids said she was crying, heard her through the door. Said she heard her ask God to release her.”

“I dare not,” the doctor told him frankly. “I dare not see her. I could not prescribe physic for her, even if I knew what was wrong with her.”

“Why not? If the lady is ill?”

“Because if she dies they will think she has been poisoned and they will accuse me of doing it,” the physician said flatly. “And if, in her despair, she has taken a poison already and it is working its way through her body, then they will blame the physic that I give her. If she dies I will get the blame and perhaps have to face trial for her murder. And if someone has poisoned her already, or someone is glad to know that she is sick, then they will not thank me for saving her.”

The lad gaped. “I was sent to fetch you to help her. What am I to tell Mrs. Forster?”

The doctor dropped his hand on the lad’s shoulder. “Tell them that it was more than my license is worth to meddle in such a case,” he said. “It may be that she is taking physic already and that it has been prescribed to her by a greater man than I.”

The lad scowled, trying to comprehend the physician’s meaning. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“I mean that if her husband is trying to poison her then I don’t dare to meddle,” the doctor said bluntly. “And if she is sick unto death then I doubt that he would thank me for saving her.”

Elizabeth was in Robert’s arms; he was covering her face, her shoulders with kisses, licking her neck, overwhelming her as she laughed and pushed him away and pulled him back all at the same time.

“Hush, hush, someone will hear,” she said.

“It is you making all the noise with your screaming.”

“I’m as quiet as a mouse. I’m not screaming,” she protested.

“Not yet, but you will be,” he promised, making her laugh again and clap a hand over her mouth.

“You are mad!”

“I am mad with love,” he agreed. “And I like winning. D’you know how much I took off de Quadra?”

“You were betting with the Spanish ambassador?”

“Only on a certainty.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred crowns,” he exulted. “And d’you know what I said?”

“What?”

“I said he could pay me in Spanish gold.”

She tried to laugh but he saw at once the snap of anxiety in her eyes. “Ah, Elizabeth, don’t spoil this; the Spanish ambassador is easy enough to manage. I understand him, he understands me. It was a jest only. He laughed and so did I. I can manage affairs of state; God knows, I was born and bred to them.”

“I was born to be queen,” she flashed at him.

“No one denies it,” he said. “Least of all me. Because I was born to be your lover and your husband and your king.”

She hesitated. “Robert, even if we declare our betrothal you would not take the title of king.”

“Even if?”

She flushed. “I mean: when.”

“When we declare our betrothal I shall be your husband and King of England,” he said simply. “What else would you call me?”

Elizabeth was stunned into silence, but at once she tried to manage him. “Now Robert,” she said mildly. “You’ll hardly want to be king. Philip of Spain was only ever known as king-consort. Not king.”

“Philip of Spain had other titles,” he said. “He was emperor in his lands. It didn’t matter to him what he was in England; he was hardly ever here. Would you have me seated at a lower place, and eating off silver when you eat off gold, as Philip did with Mary? Would you want to so humble me before others? Every day of my life?”

“No,” she said hastily. “Never.”

“D’you think me not worthy of the crown? Good enough for your bed but not good enough for the throne?”

“No,” she said. “No, of course not. Robert, my love, don’t twist and turn my words. You know I love you; you know I love no one but you, and I need you.”

“Then we have to complete what we have started,” he said. “Grant me a divorce from Amy, and publish our betrothal. Then I can be your partner and helpmeet in everything. And I will be called king.”

She was about to object but he drew her toward him again and started to kiss her neck. Helplessly, Elizabeth melted into his embrace. “Robert…”

“My love,” he said. “You taste so good that I could eat you.”

“Robert,” she sighed, “My love, my only love.”

Gently he scooped her up into his arms and took her to the bed. She lay on her back as he slipped off his gown and came naked toward her. She smiled, waiting for him to put on the sheath that he always used in their lovemaking. When he did not have the ribboned skin in his hand, nor reach to the table by the bed, she was surprised.

“Robert? Have you not a guardian?”

His smile was very dark and seductive. He crawled up the bed toward her, pressing his naked body against every inch of her, overwhelming her with the faint musky smell of him, the warmth of his skin, the soft, prickly mat of hair at his chest, and the rising column of his flesh.

“We have no need of it,” he said. “The sooner we make a son for England’s cradle the better.”

“No!” she said, shocked, and started to pull away. “Not until we are known to be married.”

“Yes,” he whispered in her ear. “Feel it, Elizabeth, you have never felt it properly. You have never felt it like my wife has felt it. Amy loves me naked and you don’t even know what it is like. You’ve never had half of the pleasure I have given her.”

She gave a little moan of jealousy and at once reached down, took hold of him, and guided him into her wetness. As their bodies came together and she felt his naked flesh with her own, her eyes fluttered shut with pleasure. Robert Dudley smiled.