And if so, would it not be wise to let me marry the man of my choice, an English nobleman, close to the throne, loyally reformist? Do Ned and I suddenly represent an irresistible boon to Elizabeth: royal family, Protestant convictions, and surely fertile? If I were to put a legitimate Tudor boy in the royal cradle, does that free Elizabeth to please herself? Will she end all debate by adopting my baby and giving England that rarity: a healthy Tudor boy? Do I dare to ask for Ned as the favor that she has promised me? Do I dare to summon Ned to my new rooms and speak to him in front of everyone?
Elizabeth continues to single me out for her affections. I sit at the head of the ladies’ table at dinner, while Mary is raised on a cushion at the other end. Only I am to carry the queen’s fan in the evening, only I hold her gloves as we walk together to the stables. I have a new horse; when we go hawking, I have a falcon on my fist. I play cards with her, and at chapel I kneel behind her to pray. Undoubtedly, I am being groomed to inherit. The Spanish ambassador steps back from our secret conversations, but his bow is very deferential. Robert Dudley gives me his hidden seductive smile. Ned meets my eyes across the presence chamber and I know that he wants me. Surely, if I can ask my cousin the queen for any favor, I can tell her that I want to marry a loyal English nobleman and we can both serve her for life?
Janey says: “I have a surprise for you. Come to my room.”
It is an hour before dinner and the other ladies of the bedchamber are with the queen, watching the maids lace her gown, each standing with an item: her golden hood, her jewel box, her fan. Each of them is waiting her turn to step forward in the ritual of dressing the goddess so that she can go to her dinner and flirt with any man who has the good luck to catch her volatile fancy tonight. Every third night it is my turn to serve her, every fourth night my little sister, Mary, stands holding the jewels. Now and then Janey is well enough to offer the golden hood, but tonight we are both free.
Like little girls playing truant from a despised stepmother, we slip past the maids’ chamber and Janey opens the door to her bedroom; we go in . . . and there is Ned.
I stop on the threshold; I know I gape at him as if I cannot believe that it is him, waiting for me, as if he has stepped out of my dreams.
“Ned?” I say wonderingly.
He crosses the room in one stride and takes me into his arms. “My love,” he says. “My love, forgive me. I could not be without you for another moment.”
I don’t hesitate, I don’t pause for pride or anger, my arms are around his neck, pulling his head down, his mouth to mine, we fumble and then we kiss. The taste of him, the familiar scent of him, makes me tremble. I want to cry and laugh at once. “Ned,” is all I can say.
The kiss goes on forever. I hear, in the back of my mind, the quiet click of the door as Janey goes out and closes it behind her. It occurs to me that really I should be coldly furious with Ned and make him beg my pardon, but my hold on him tightens. I cannot bear to release him, I don’t think I can ever bear to let him go. I cannot think, I have no thoughts, all I know is desire.
When he slackens his grip just a little, I am dizzy and I let myself go deliciously limp in his arms. I feel I have spent so long trying to be strong and trying to be brave and now I can lean on the man that I love. He helps me to the window seat. I want to lie along it, to feel his weight come down on me and his thigh press against me; but we sit side by side, his arm around my waist as if I am so precious to him that he cannot bear to let me go.
“You came back to me” is all I say. Then: “You have come back to me? This is not just . . . You have come back to me?”
“Of course,” he says. “You are the love of my life, my only love.”
“I couldn’t bear seeing you every day and not touching . . .”
“Nor I! I used to watch you in chapel.”
“I know you did,” I interrupt. “I used to peep at you and see you were looking at me. I hoped so much . . . I prayed . . .”
“Prayed for what?”
“Prayed for this.”
He takes my hand and presses it to his lips. “You have this. You have me. We shall never be parted again.”
“Your mother . . .”
“I shall explain it to her. She shall not stop me.”
“But the queen . . .”
“We shall marry,” he says decisively. I feel my heart leap just to see the firmness of his mouth. I want him to kiss me again.
“I will ask her . . .”
“She favors you, she’s made that clear to everyone. And it’s not just her, it’s not just her whim. Cecil has advised her that she has to keep you close. That’s why she’s being so kindly. She is terrified that you will be married by the Scots or by the Spanish, and taken away.”
“Oh God,” I whisper. “Don’t let them part us.”
“Never. So we won’t ask anyone, for fear that they refuse. We will marry and tell her when it is done. We’ll tell them all when it is done, and then what can she or anyone do?”
“She can be furious,” I point out. The court has grown wary of Tudor rage. Where Queen Mary would sink into despair, Elizabeth will scream and throw things. The only man who can soothe her then is Robert Dudley. The only man who can advise her is William Cecil. She shouts down everyone else.
Ned, my lover, my husband-to-be, shrugs his shoulders as if she does not frighten him. “She will be furious but it will blow over. We have seen her furious with Kat Ashley; we have seen her rage at Cecil until he left court. But he came back, and she did as he advised. It will be the same for us. She will rage, we will leave, she will forgive us and restore us to our places within a month. Besides, it is in her interest that we are married so that you are safe. Cecil will advise her of that. Dudley will tell her to smile on lovers.”
“I want to be safe.” I nestle a little closer. “I want to be safe with you. Oh, Ned, I have dreamed of this.”
“I have dreamed of you, too,” he whispers. “I have written a poem to you.”
“You have?”
He feels in the inside pocket of his jacket. “I carry it with me,” he says. “I wrote it when you were in your mourning black and I used to see you, with your hair so golden and your skin so creamy pale. You were like a portrait, like a marble statue wrapped in velvet, and I thought that I would never touch you again. I thought we were like Troilus and Criseyde, parted like them.”
“Read it!” I whisper. Really, this is as good as a Romance.
“She stood in black said Troilus he,
That with her look hath wounded me.
She stood in black say I also
That with her eye, hath bred my woe.”
I give a shuddering breath of delight. “May I have it?” Nobody has ever written a poem to me before; nobody ever wrote one for Jane for all that she was such a great scholar and a queen. People wrote sermons for Jane but this is a real thing, a poem, a love poem from a man. Better than that: a love poem from a poet, a famous poet. A sermon simply doesn’t compare. He presses it into my hand and I hold it to my heart.
GREENWICH PALACE,