And then we have to wait, and it is delicious timeless pleasure and pain together. Every morning I hope that perhaps today Elizabeth will say that she is going to Hampton Court, or to Windsor for the hunting, or to New Hall or to Beaulieu or anywhere—I don’t care where her ridiculous fancy takes her if she would just go! But day after day Ned is on one side of the presence chamber and I am the other, and we have to nod politely as if we were friends, and we dare not speak to each other until the evening dancing throws us together, and now, though we have so much more desire, we have more fear, and we dare not go to the corners of the room and whisper.
It is an exquisite joy to see him, to snatch a moment with him. It is agonizingly wonderful to wake in the morning and see that it is a good day for hunting: sharp and bright and cold, and surely Elizabeth will go today? And then, when she says nothing, it is a delightful torment to dance with Ned, and steal away with him for a kiss and dare to do no more. It is a passionate courtship and now I know the joy that his touch brings to me. It is lust deferred, it is love delayed, there is nothing in the world more delightful than being in his arms, unless it is knowing that I will be in his arms later . . . but not now.
William Cecil, the queen’s advisor, comes over to sit beside me before dinner one evening, as we are waiting in the presence chamber for the queen to finish the lengthy process of dressing in her inner rooms.
“You are in your finest beauty,” he tells me. “We shall have the Spanish proposing marriage to you again. I have never seen you look so well.”
I look down. I am no fool. I know that he is my friend, but I also know that he is first for his faith and then for England, and then for the queen, and everyone else comes after that. I have seen him triumph over the French in Edinburgh, and I have seen him triumph over Robert Dudley at court, and I swear I shall never make the mistake of underrating William Cecil. Only God and William Cecil know what he will do to keep a Protestant queen on the throne of England.
“Ah, my lord, you know I have no wish to go to Spain or anywhere,” I say. “My heart is in England.”
“Is it safe in your keeping, though?” he teases me gently, as a favored uncle will joke with a pretty niece.
“Certainly I would never throw it away,” I reply.
“Well, he’s a handsome young man and you’re very well suited,” he says with a knowing smile.
I stifle a gasp. The quiet advisor, who apparently goes around the court ignoring the foolish young people, thinking of nothing but statecraft, has spotted what no one else but Janey and Mary know.
“I may be old but I’m not quite blind,” he says gently. “But as her heir, you must have the queen’s permission to marry, remember.”
Too late for that! I think gleefully. “I know,” I say obediently. “Will you speak up for me, Sir William? Should I ask her now?”
“All in good time,” he says, as if he has forgotten the urgency of young desire. “Now, at last, she understands that she has to marry for the good of the country, now at last she sees that it has to be a marriage and an alliance—not a private matter. When she is betrothed, she will be more tolerant of marriage for you, and for the other ladies of her court.”
“It is hard for us all to wait until she is ready, when she is so slow,” I remark.
He gives me a discreet smile. “It is hard for us all to serve a queen who is slow to do her duty,” he says. “But she will do her duty and marry the right man, and you will do yours.”
“She can never marry Robert Dudley now.”
I can tell nothing of what he is thinking by the gentle smile on his face. “Indeed no,” he says almost regretfully. “And now, thanks be to God, he knows it as well as all the rest of us. And so she will marry a prince of Spain or France or even Sweden or Germany, and you, and I, and all of England will sleep better at nights.”
“Is the court going hunting?” I ask, thinking of the nights.
“Oh, yes, to Eltham Palace, tomorrow.”
“I think I may ask to be excused,” I say. “I have toothache.”
He nods. For all that he sees so much, he has forgotten that a young woman does not give up a day out for a toothache. He is too old to see that I am aching not with my tooth but with lust.
“I shall tell Her Majesty,” he says kindly. “Keep out of cold drafts.”
CANNON ROW, LONDON,
DECEMBER 1560
Janey and I stumble along the riverbank, holding each other up in the slippery mud. We thought the easiest way to Ned’s house in Cannon Row from the palace would be along the foreshore, as the tide is out and we are unobserved. But the path is blocked with rubbish—broken beams and wrecks of boats and some disgusting garbage, and my shoes are muddy and Janey is holding her side and panting by the time we reach the walls of Ned’s garden and the steps to his watergate. We are alone, the two of us. We have never before walked out in London without guards and ladies-in-waiting and maids and companions. I feel thrilled by the adventure and Janey is beside herself with excitement. We did not even bring my maid as a witness. We sent my sister Mary out hunting with the court, not knowing what I am doing. We thought it safer to come quite alone.
Ned is at the watergate, peering through the portcullis, and he cranks it up himself and helps me up the steps, which are green with weed. “My love” is all he says. “My wife!”
Janey comes up after us. “Where’s the minister?” Ned says. “I thought you were bringing him with you?”
“I told him to meet us here. Is he not here?”
“No! I’ve been waiting from dawn. I would have heard if he had come early.”
“I have to be back at the palace by dinner,” I warn them. “I’ll be missed if I am not there.”
“You go in,” Janey says to the two of us. “I’ll go and find a minister.”
“But where will you find someone?” I ask her. Ned’s hand is at my back urging me into the little house.
“I’ll go to a church—or to Saint Paul’s Cross if I have to,” she says with a breathless little laugh. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Ned has prepared his room for a wedding feast. There are dishes and dishes of food on the sideboard waiting to be served, there are flagons of red wine and goblets made of Venetian glass, there is small ale and even water. The servants have all been sent out for the day. His bed is made, and I see the embroidered sheets invitingly turned back. He sees me glance and says, “I suppose we do have to wait for Janey?”
“What if they were to come in?”
He laughs. “Then will you take a glass of wine, Countess?”
I beam at my new title, remembering when I asked my sister Jane to pray for a duke for me. She must have done so, and God must have listened to her, for now I have a man who was the son of a duke and whose title might be restored by Elizabeth’s goodwill, if she ever has any. Then I will be a royal duchess. “Thank you, my lord husband.”
He pours me a glass and one for himself. We sit in the window seat and look out over the muddy riverbank and the tide coming in, the seagulls soaring and bobbing down. He settles me with my back to his chest, leaning against him, his arms around me. I am embraced and held and I have never known such safety and comfort.
“I have never been happier,” he says. “It is as if every moment I spend with you is a gift.”
“I know,” I say. “I have loved you ever since I was a little girl and I thought that Jane my sister was going to marry you.”
“God bless her! I will make it all up to you,” he promises. “You will never be alone and afraid again.”
“I will be your wife,” I say. “I cannot be alone and afraid if we are one.”