He dropped to one knee, and bowed his head. It seemed the right thing to do. The silence which followed was one of the longest in Henry Gresham's memory.
'You may leave my presence,' the Queen said finally, in a tone of impenetrable neutrality.
It seemed somehow inappropriate to thank her. He left her presence.
He was silent as they rode home, having given Mannion the briefest summary of what had taken place. Mannion had sucked on the hollow tooth he claimed had been there all his life but which he had never had seen to, and said nothing.
Scotland was renowned for killing its monarchs, and about as welcoming to its own kind as a steel-quilled porcupine, never mind a spy from the English Court. Things could get very unpleasant in Scotland, thought Gresham. As if the trip did not present problems enough, there was the added complication of the girl. Or two added complications, as it happened — coping with her on the trip, and not least getting her to go in the first place. She was his agreed cover, even more essential now the Queen had validated her as the reason for his going, but short of tying her up and stuffing a gag in her mouth he was damned if he knew how to get her up north, and the last thing he wanted was to have to try to do so with her kicking and screaming. Still, it was not in his nature to postpone a problem. As soon as they rode into the yard of The House and handed the reins of the grey over to a groom, he asked to see her. Asked. It was not as if he had rescued her, paid for the clothes on her back and the food in her belly, was it? No, he had to ask to see her, not command it.
She came in to the Library demurely enough, her eyes downcast, her hands folded neatly in front of her. He could see why she drove men mad. Yet his deliberately casual questioning of others had suggested she still had her virginity. Why had he chosen to meet her in the Library? Of all the rooms in The House, it was the one he most identified her with, except for the uncharted territory of the kitchens and servants' quarters. Yet it was, ironically, the room in which he felt most at home. So be it.
She was late, of course. She always was. She did it to show him who was in charge and to infuriate him. He stood by one of the huge windows overlooking the Thames, determined to remain ice-cold and not let her lateness affect him.
A more astute man would have realised that his summons had put her in a panic. Desperate to appear her best before him, she had thrown out every one of the pathetically few dresses she owned onto her bed, the clucking maid who was with her if anything more nervous and thrown than she was. At least her hair was washed, and the last of the infuriating spots had vanished from her face. What dress? What dress? The dark-green offering was her newest and, verging on the formal, hardly suitable for a young woman whose day would be spent helping to run one of the largest households in London outside of the Palace or Essex House. It would have to do. And she would only anger him more if she was later than she had already made herself!
He prided himself that none of his true feelings showed as she arrived a full ten minutes after what was reasonable. He turned, and nodded formally to her.
She prided herself that none of her true feelings showed as she arrived, desperately wishing she had had time to put at least the tiniest smidgeon of powder to her face and neck.
Well, the stick insect he had picked up as a child from the side of a muddy pond was no stick insect now, thought Gresham. No wonder she turned heads wherever she went. She was a fine crop to be harvested by some suitable young man, and the sooner he arranged it the better: for her and for him. Though God knew how you organised such things. Bess Raleigh would know, must know. In the meantime, he needed her. Please, God, if you are there, just this once, make her do what I want…
He had written a fine speech in his head, but he looked at her and gave up. His conversations with Cecil and with the Queen had contained very real threats of death and ruin, and he sensed danger in his relationship with Essex. And these were threats he had failed to see coming! A sudden wave of tiredness swept over him, like the water closing over the head of a drowning man. He looked at her.
'I need your help.'
It was as simple as that. For a fleeting moment he appeared vulnerable, rather like a brave little boy who had lost his parents and was standing in the market place determined not to show his fright.
'I need you to do something for me which will undoubtedly be uncomfortable and… and which might even be dangerous, perhaps.'
If he failed in his mission for Cecil or for the Queen he would be ruined and Jane cast back onto the streets at best, and at worst hacked to pieces for the edification of the mob. And he had a growing sense of dissolution, of impending terror. Was England about to be plunged into civil war? Would the four horsemen be unleashed on England? Whatever the answer, it lay in the Queen, in King James, in Cecil and in Essex, all of them interwoven into the fabric of this bizarre journey he was required to make.
And then one of the most surprising moments of Henry Gresham's life happened.
'I will do as you ask,' she said, looking him in the eye. Not sulky. Not reluctant. Matter of fact, no argument.
What had gone wrong?
He started to gabble, 'We must travel to Scotland by sea. In my barque, the Anna. Though it's summer, such a voyage always has risks. And… I need you to pretend.'
He was struck by her extraordinary eyes, wholly dark but with tiny flecks of light in them.
'What is it you wish me to pretend, my Lord?' Again, matter of fact. As if this conversation was the most normal thing in her life.
Gresham sighed. 'The real reason for my journey is difficult to explain. No. I'll be more honest with you: it's better that you don't know. If things go wrong, which of course I'm almost sure they won't, it's vital that people think you know nothing. If they think that, they'll leave you alone. If you know nothing about the real reason, it's far easier to give that impression.' He looked at her, and saw her intelligence. 'I'm not trying to patronise you,' he said simply. 'It really is that ignorance is your best defence. But I need an excuse, and the one I have arrived at is to invent some Scottish ancestry for you, make the reason for the trip a search for your real parents. The Queen's agreed to grant us a passport on that basis.' Unconsciously, he let his humour show. 'It's usually a good thing to agree with the Queen.'
He realised as he said it how insulting his suggestion was. Jane must have cared about who her parents were. And now he was proposing to use what was central to her concept of self as a mere cover for other, more important things which at the same time she was not allowed to know. He waited for the explosion.
'I'll find it difficult to summon a Scottish accent.'
He started to formulate an answer, and then realised just in time that she was making a joke. And in making it, saying yes to the whole thing. He allowed himself to grin.
'You and me both,' he said. 'There are certain sacrifices I wouldn't ask anyone to make.' He paused for a moment. 'Oh… there is one other thing. Before granting the passport, the Queen wants to meet you, tomorrow. If she's seen-' At his words Jane's control vanished. She squeaked, and put a hand to her mouth in shock. Well, it was almost like a squeak. It was a noise that clearly she wished she had not started to make, and which she tried to stifle from somewhere around stomach level, where it appeared to begin. It lost a little momentum as it progressed from stomach to breast, from breast to neck, from neck to throat and from throat to mouth, but there was still enough left of it to burst out in what could only be described as… a squeak.
'My Lord!' she said in desperation. 'I have nothing to wear!'
Oh God! How could he have forgotten? Even a man such as he could not fail to recognise that honour, reputation and life itself for a woman depended on the dress she wore to meet the Queen. It was entirely reciprocal. How could he have forgotten that to present a young girl to the Queen in the wrong dress was as if to present her naked?