Jean Plaidy - The Murder in the Tower - The Story of Frances, Countess of Essex

“I don’t care!” Frances declared blithely to Jennet. “I’m glad. I did not want him pestering me. The silly boy with his ‘I durst not.’ ‘I’d liefer not.’ And ‘This is sin.’”

What a lover! Oh, how different is my Robert.

She frowned a little. “Yet he is cool, deliberate. He is never impetuous. I always have the feeling when he fails to keep an assignation that he has forgotten we made one.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Jennet, “there is need of another potion. Perhaps now that you are on visiting terms you could ask him to sup with you. I feel sure, my lady, that a potion drunk by him would be more effective that one drunk by you.”

Frances clasped her hands together. “I wonder if that would work.”

“My lady saw the first one work.”

“Hush,” said Frances. “Someone is coming.” She took Jennet’s arm and held it so tightly that the maid winced. “Not a word of this to any … understand.”

“Of course, my lady. You know you may trust me.”

“Come in,” called Frances; and one of her women entered.

“My lady, the Earl, your father, asks that you go to him without delay. He has news for you.”

“I will come,” said Frances, dismissing the woman with a wave of her hand. Then she turned to Jennet and her face was a few shades paler as she said: “Do you think they have discovered that Robert and I—”

“They could not command my lord Rochester, my lady. It is for him to command them.”

“The King …”

“My lady, the best way to find out is to go to your father.”

The Earl and Lady Suffolk surveyed their daughter intently. It was clear to her mother that Frances was no longer a child. There had been rumors which had amused her; and although she had never bestirred herself to discover whether they were true or not, she was sure they were.

Frances was her daughter; therefore she would know how to amuse herself, and it was almost certain in what direction.

The Earl said: “My daughter, good news for you.”

“Yes, father?”

“Your position has been a difficult one. A wife yet not a wife. It has been difficult for Robert too.”

“Robert,” she said blankly, for to her there was only one Robert.

“Robert Devereux, your husband, of course, child. I have news of him which will please you. He is on his way back to London, and expects to be with you within the next few weeks. I have a letter here from him for you. He tells me that he is longing to take you home to Chartley, for now that you are both grown up he wants his wife.”

Frances felt bewildered. Horror, frustration and anger swept over her.

Helplessly she looked from her father to her mother; but she knew there was nothing they could do for her.

Now that she had discovered the one man who could satisfy her deep sensual needs, now that he was ready to be hers, this stranger was coming back from the past, to claim her as his wife, to take her away from the exciting Court to the dull country mansion, there to bury her alive.

“No!” she whispered.

But even as she spoke she knew that she was trapped.

DR. FORMAN

R iding from Dover to London the thoughts of Robert Devereux were pleasant. It was good to be home after so long an absence and he was very much looking forward to seeing his wife who was now at Court; but, he promised himself, they would not remain long there. He and Frances would soon be riding northward. He was certain that she would be as delighted with Chartley Castle as he had always been.

He had never craved for the Court life. No doubt this was because he could never really escape from the ghost of his father. The first Earl of Essex—Robert Devereux like himself—had been too famous a man, beloved of the Queen, as great a favorite with her as this man Robert Carr was with her successor; and then, still young, he had lost his head. It was too colorful a life to be forgotten; and to be the son of such a man meant that wherever he went people recalled his father.

No, it would be Chartley for him and his young wife. He would teach her to love the place as he did. She would enjoy being the first lady of the district; and how the people would love her!

He had thought of her steadily during his absence; he remembered how she had smiled at their wedding; how they had danced together; how her eyes had sparkled. Dear little Frances! It was not his proud prejudice which had assured him that she was the loveliest girl at Court.

They were very different, he knew. Perhaps that was why she attracted him so much. He was too serious for his age. Being some ten years old when his father had gone to the scaffold had left a mark on him. He still remembered those years which followed his father’s death when poverty loomed over himself and his family. His two brothers had died when they were young; but he and his little sisters, Frances and Dorothy, had often wondered what would become of them.

Then fortune had changed. The King saw fit to restore his estates; and, more than that, took a special interest in one whose father he believed had been treated badly by Queen Elizabeth. Not only had his estates been restored to him, but he was given a wife—a young lady of rank and outstanding charm.

He could not wait to see her again, and as he drew nearer to London he gave himself up to pleasant imaginings of their reunion.

In an ante-room in the Palace of Whitehall Robert Devereux waited.

He had seen Frances’s father, the Earl of Suffolk, who had sent for her.

“I’ll swear,” said the Earl, “that you would prefer to be alone together.”

Robert admitted that this was so, and at any moment now she would appear.

Then she was there—framed in the doorway—certainly the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, dressed in becoming blue, her golden curls loose about her shoulders.

“Frances!” he cried and went to her so quickly that he had not time to notice the sullen set of her lips.

He took her hands in his; then he dropped them that he might cup her face in his hands; he kissed her lips. Hers were very unresponsive.

Dear pure child, he thought, momentarily exultant, but almost immediately he asked himself whether she was as glad to see him as he was to see her.

“I am home at last.”

“So it seems, my lord.”

“Oh, Frances, how you have grown! Why, when I went away you were only a child. Are you pleased to see me? I have been longing for this day. Do not think that, although I have been away from you, I have not thought of you constantly. Have you thought of me?”

“I have thought of you,” said Frances; and it was true; she had thought of him with growing regret and repugnance; and his presence did nothing to diminish these emotions.

“I see,” he went on, “that you are shy of me. Dear little wife, there is nothing to fear.”

She turned away from him and, with sick disappointment in his heart, he sought to cajole her.

“Why, Frances, you are young as yet and—”

She shook herself free of the arm which he had placed about her.

“Please let me alone,” she said quietly but with determination. “I don’t want you to touch me.”

“Have your parents not talked to you …?”

“I do not want to listen to my parents. I only want to be left alone.”

He stared at her blankly; then he smiled tenderly.