“I have had good cause,” he said sharply.

“Indeed. In what way?”

“I think Your Majesty knows full well. Arundel and Pickering…My God, you could not so demean yourself.”

“Pray do not take the Lord's name in vain in my presence, Lord Dudley.”

“Madam, I will state my case.” He took both my hands and drew me toward him. I was too astonished—and delighted—to protest. Gone was the deferential Master of Horse; here was the passionate lover determined not to be denied.

I said: “State your case then, sir.”

“I love you, as you know I do. I have put myself at your service and you spurn me.”

“Spurn you! Have I not made you my Master of Horse?”

“It is not good enough.”

“You forget to whom you speak.”

“I speak to my beautiful Elizabeth whom I love. Whether she be Queen or not is no matter to me.”

“Show more respect for my crown, I beg you, Lord Robert.”

“I cannot think of your crown, but only of my love for you.”

Then he kissed me in a practiced manner which reminded me of Sir Thomas Seymour. There was a similarity between those two men. Perhaps that was why I was almost ready to submit to both of them. Almost. But I was stronger in my determination to resist now than I had been in my younger days. Robert was the most fascinating man I had ever known but I would not allow him to become my lover. The sexual act was a symbol of domination on the part of the male, I had always thought, and I had no intention of being dominated for one moment even by the most attractive man I had ever known.

I said: “Robert… dear Robin… you know my regard for you.”

“I know it and I will kill Pickering or Arundel if they dare take liberties.”

“Do you think I would allow any to take liberties with me… save one?”

“Elizabeth…my love… whom I have loved all my life… from the time when we were children and danced together. Do you remember? You noticed me then.”

“I must always notice you, Robin. You are a very noticeable gentleman.”

“You love me, I know. Do you think I am not aware of it? Even when we were in the Tower we thought of each other, did we not?”

“Yes, Robert, we did.”

“And was I not prepared to lay whatever I had at your feet?”

“So you said.”

“And you take up this coquettish stance with Arundel and Pickering.”

“I am the Queen, Robert. I may do as I wish.”

“It is more than I can endure.”

“Why so? It is only if I agreed to marry either of them that you should feel these emotions.”

“So you will not marry one of them!”

I reached up to touch his hair. It was a long way and I had to stand on tiptoe, for although I was not small in stature he was very tall.

“You know full well that I will not marry either of them.”

“They are urging you.”

“I am being urged all the time.”

“Philip has become affianced to France. You have refused Eric of Sweden and the Archduke Charles.”

“Indeed I have.”

“Is it because you love someone else?”

“And if I do?”

“I must know.”

“Are you by any chance referring to Lord Robert Dudley? And if you are how could he be a suitor for my hand? Have you forgotten that he has a wife tucked away somewhere in the country?”

“Life has been very cruel to me,” he said. “Rather has life been good to you. Just think if you had not made that marriage when you did, you would be a headless corpse, for almost certainly you would have been the one your ambitious father married to Lady Jane Grey.”

He looked at me helplessly.

I said: “There is only one course open to you, my lord. You must be a good husband to Mistress Amy.”

“Elizabeth!” He caught my hands and drew me toward him. “She is sick. I do not think she will live long.”

My heart was beating very fast. “Is that true?” I said quietly.

“True. I swear it. It could well be that within a few months I could be… free.”

I was shaken. When he kissed me I wanted him to go on doing so. I wanted him to talk of his devotion, his unrestrained passion. Always between us had been the figure of his wife—Amy, the girl in the country who made it safe for me to dally with Robert Dudley. But if she were no longer there…

It was a dazzling possibility. The frivolous side of my nature wanted him free. The serious side was not so sure.

He looked at me eagerly and I was enchanted to see his devotion to me and I smiled at him when he said: “If …” And I knew he believed that if he were a free man I would marry him.

WHEN ROBERT SAID that his wife was ill he had shaken me more than I would admit to myself. I had to know more about her and his matrimonial situation. I couldn't ask him, so I set Kat to discover. She already knew a good deal. Since he had become such a favorite of mine, there was a great deal of gossip about him.

His grandfather had been that Edmund Dudley, statesman and lawyer, who had found favor with my grandfather King Henry VII because of his clever ways with finance, and who had been beheaded by my father Henry VIII when he came to the throne as a sop to the people who blamed Edmund Dudley, with Empson, for the heavy taxes they had had to pay. Robert's father was, of course, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who had tried to set Lady Jane Grey on the throne after she had married his son Guildford, and had died on the scaffold. What did Robert feel about having lost his grandfather, his father and his brother to the headsman? That grisly fact must have made him anxious at times, though he never showed it. Robert had an enduring faith in himself and he was determined to marry me. I saw that in his eyes and my desire wavered considerably. There were times when I thought of being married to Robert, and then I said to myself: If he were free, I believe I would. But that other side of me was always there warning me: You would never be completely Queen, if you set up a man beside you. He would become the King. He would oppose your wishes, enforce his will on you, try to subdue you to his desires with soft caresses and with blandishments. No, I must not marry… not even Robert. Yet if he were free… But he was not free.

Kat was indefatigable in her search for information. I picked it up from others, too. Robert Dudley was the most talked-of man in England at that time—far more so than Arundel or Pickering had ever been, although courtiers were still taking bets on those two. I had been unable to hide my feelings for Robert and of course they were much discussed throughout the Court.

What I learned was that Robert's father, the Earl of Warwick, as he had been then, had gone as General of the King's army to Norfolk to suppress a rebellion of the peasants there. This he had done very successfully, much to the joy of the landowners in that part of the country because the rising had concerned the enclosures of land. It was while he was there that John Dudley had been entertained by one of those landowners, Sir John Robsart who had a daughter, Amy; and although he had several stepchildren, for he had married a widow, Amy was the only child Robsart had fathered and was his sole heiress.

Heiress though she might be, she would not be considered a suitable match for a Dudley. John Dudley, although not at that time Duke of Northumberland and Protector of England, was a man of considerable importance. Robert was not much more than sixteen and he fell in love with Amy and she, naturally enough, with him.

Why John Dudley agreed to the marriage I cannot imagine, but he had several sons and Robert was the fifth; so he probably thought that the Robsarts were rich enough. Whatever the case, Robert was married. Amy was a quiet little country girl and I can imagine how quickly his infatuation for her began to fade, and when his father's power began to increase rapidly, he must have realized how hasty he had been.

With Edward Seymour beheaded, John Dudley assumed the title of Duke of Northumberland. His ambition was boundless. A crown for one of his sons. Poor Guildford! He was the only unmarried one left. Oh, how easily it could have been Robert! Often I thought of that and I have no doubt he did also.