“We shall have much to discuss,” I said.

“The French are causing a great deal of trouble,” Gomez told me.

“There are always some to cause trouble, and often it is the French.”

“The King needs all the assistance he can get.”

He did not actually say that Philip was coming to ask me to give assistance, but he implied it. Though, of course, I knew that already.

“The Council and the country would not be in favor of our being involved in war at this time,” I told him.

He gave me the most flattering of smiles. “You are the Queen,” he said.

“It would be necessary for the Council to agree.”

“The French are no friends of England.”

“It seems to me that no country is a friend of another.”

He looked at me reproachfully. “But our countries, Your Majesty, are united by the marriage of yourself and the King.”

“That is so,” I agreed.

“And it is because the King relies on your love and loyalty that he will tear himself away from his duties to come to you.”

“It is long since I have seen him.”

“His duties have kept him, most reluctantly, from your side.”

I thought: Fêting the beautiful women of Brussels? Enjoying a liaison with the Duchess of Lorraine?

“And now he will come,” I said, “because he needs help.”

“He has yearned to be with Your Majesty. As I stress, it is only duty which has kept him away from you.”

“And now duty bids him come to me.”

“It is his love for Your Majesty which will bring him.”

His eyes were shrewd. I knew what he was telling me in his subtle way. He was sounding me. Would I and my Council be prepared to declare war on France? If so, Philip would come to England and we would work together on that project. If not, he would be wasting his time in coming.

I tried to stifle the wretchedness I was feeling. It was better to be ignorant when knowledge brought so much pain.

He was watching me closely. He would have to report to Philip. Was it worth his while to come? If there was no hope, he would find some excuse to stay away. If there was hope, he would come and persuade me.

That was not true, I admonished myself. He was my husband. He wanted to be with me. Of course, his duties were extensive; he had a kingdom to govern. I had allowed people to poison my mind against him. When he came, he would assure me that he loved me and that it was only his overwhelming duties which kept us apart.

For a moment I looked steadily at Ruy Gomez da Silva. I could not face the truth. I had to see Philip.

I said, “The French are as great a menace under Henri as they were under François.”

He nodded. That was good enough. Philip would come.

I WAS AT GREENWICH. The news had come that evening. Philip had landed at Dover.

It was wonderful to see him again. I embraced him warmly, and he smiled at me affectionately. I was a little concerned, because he had aged considerably. Yet in a way that made me feel better, for I knew that my looks had not improved since his departure. There had been too many sleepless nights, too much bitterness.

As soon as I saw him, my heart softened toward him. I told myself romantically, foolishly, We shall start again.

I ordered that the bells of London should ring out and the Tower guns fire their salutes. And we rode together into the capital. There was a noticeable lack of rejoicing in the streets. I fancied I could smell the smoke from the Smithfield fires. There were a few faint cheers and a great deal of silence.

The citizens no longer loved me, and they distrusted my husband. Reginald would say he had been right. There should never have been a Spanish marriage.

I had prepared banquets and masques to welcome Philip but he displayed little interest in them. He had never had any great enjoyment in that kind of activity.

When we were alone together, he was subdued. He told me he had been concerned in affairs of the Continent, and the election of Paul IV had been a shock to him.

I said that a man such as he was, a firm upholder of the true faith, should be beloved by the Pope.

“This Pope is an ambitious man,” he said. “He should never have been elected.”

“I wish that Reginald had become the Holy Father,” I said.

He did not answer.

And so we retired. It was not quite as it had been before. I felt I was outside the scene, looking on at myself and my husband. There was no spontaneous love. Did I imagine it or was he as one performing an onerous duty? In the past it had been necessary in the hope of getting an heir. That reason was there no longer. He regarded it as an impossibility, though hope lingered with me. But now he must perform his duty for the sake of getting England to declare war on France.

It was not for such purposes that love was meant.

I half deluded myself. I suppose, when one has been so deprived of love as I have, one snatches at even a pretense of it.

The next day, when I was introduced to the ladies and gentlemen of his entourage, I received a shock.

A tall and beautiful woman was presented to me, and I was immediately struck by her radiant good looks.

“The Duchess of Lorraine…”

I felt sick. He had brought her with him! Oh, how dared he! How could he be so blatant?

She was kissing my hand, lifting her dark-fringed eyes to my face, studying me, no doubt seeing me as the plain, unwanted wife. I looked at her coldly, nodded and passed on to the next who was being presented to me.

I was wondering what he had said of me. People talked indiscreetly during intimate moments. I was angry, but most of all very sad.

SUSAN AND JANE DORMER understood. They were indignant.

“It is nothing,” I said to them. “Kings have mistresses. They are not serious entanglements.”

“Do they bring them in their trains?” demanded Susan.

“Often, I suppose. It just happens that we have heard her name mentioned. He does not know that.”

I turned over in my mind what I should do. Should I confront him with the fact that I knew who she was? Should I demand how he dared bring his mistress to my Court? Or should I feign ignorance?

But how should I receive the woman? I could not endure it. I would have her sent back. On the other hand, if I did, there would be more whispering, more titters. Pretend I did not know? I had been living a life of pretense for so long, shutting my eyes to the truth.

I could not bring myself to be civil to the woman. Yet I did not see how I could order her to go.

Sometimes I was on the verge of telling Philip that I would not have his mistress here, but I did not.

When we were together, when he showed affection for me, I was still able to deceive myself. It was because I so earnestly wanted there to be love between us.

He talked a good deal about the iniquity of the French. They must be defeated. They were the enemies of England as well as of Spain. I must see that the sooner England declared war on them the better.

This was why he had come. Not to be with me. I knew it and still I wavered. There were moments when I completely deluded myself. I wanted him with me. I wanted to please him.

He was getting exasperated because I was shelving the question. It was urgent, he said. The French were laughing at us. They were working against us as they always had.

I said I would speak to the Council.

The verdict was noncommittal. We were not in a position to go to war. The Exchequer was alarmingly low. The people were not in a mood to suffer taxation.

It seemed as though Philip had come in vain.

My attitude toward the Duchess of Lorraine was becoming very strained. I wondered whether people noticed. No one mentioned it to me. But at several banquets I cut her when she approached me, and I always insisted that she be seated as far from Philip as possible.

Susan came to me in distress one day. She had friends who were always ready to pass on news, and she thought it her duty to garner it and sometimes tell me.