Richmond Palace

Langford House

Summer: Year of Our Lord 1588

Whitehall Palace

English Coast

I decided that I had to find out for myself if there was deceit afoot in my home or if I was, in my weariness, threading together unrelated incidents. Thomas had not yet returned from Hurst, but he would that evening; to that end, his secretary was already at Sheen.

“Could you please write a note for me?” I asked him.

“Certainly, Lady Northampton,” he said, wary. I had my own secretary, after all.

“Please just pen, ‘If you want to make plans together, privately, meet me tomorrow evening in the large closet off of the long galley,’ ” I said. “Half nine. And then sign it, ‘Gorges.’ ”

He cocked his head. “Not Northampton?”

“No,” I said brusquely. “I am a Gorges as well, am I not?”

He nodded. “Yes, of course.” He sealed the note and stamped it with Thomas’s seal, as that was all he had at hand.

“Please deliver this to my cousin Sofia,” I said. “But speak nothing else to her, on pain of termination.” I could tell that concerned him; I was easy mannered most of the time.

I checked on my children after they had dined; we had been so often at Richmond that they had thawed to me and clamored for my attention after dinner. It was all the sustenance I needed; besides, I was too worried to eat. Sofia had taken dinner in her chambers. Perhaps she’d sensed my mood, or perhaps she was planning for a rendezvous.

Thomas returned home the next day, weary. I did not meet him or speak to him, even after he sent for me. Once I had my servants ensure that he was abed for the night, well before eight, I took the slipper and Wyatt poem in hand and went to the closet, where I waited, alone, in the dark.

It had not escaped my attention that I was here in a closet confronting a woman, a relative, who desired to tryst with my man. The first time, with Karin and Philip, I had been but a girl who was willing to overlook the ill done her. This time, I was neither a girl nor willing to ignore or excuse treachery.

This time, I would fight.

At exactly half nine the door crept open. I could see her, because of the torches still lit in the hallway, but she could not see me.

“Thomas?” she called into the dark as she moved forward. She had dressed most becomingly, perhaps most unseemly for an unmarried woman, and had brushed her hair to a shine.

As she grew closer she saw that it was me, and not Thomas. She recoiled.

“You were mayhap expecting to see someone else?” I asked. I held up the slipper and the scrap of paper to her. I didn’t need to ask anything else; her face betrayed her.

“I meant no harm,” she said. “I was often alone. Thomas was often alone. We became . . . companions.”

“Companions!” I shouted, not caring who heard me, though the children’s chambers were on another floor, and this wing was far from them.

“I have no one,” she said. “You have left me bereft and alone.”

“You came here on my good graces, at my good pleasure, and my long hours of service have kept you these many years while you plotted against me: to take my home, my husband, and my children.”

“It’s not hard to rob the house that goes untended,” she retorted.

I held my hand at my side so I would not strike her. Was she void of remorse or conscience? It put me in mind of one of Master Lyly’s lines: all is fair in love and war. I would not give her the man she wanted, a nobleman, so she’d determined to take mine.

“I have made arrangements for you to travel to Wales,” I said. “Lord Pembroke is now governor of Wales, and they reside at Ludlow. Young Upjohn is nearby and is still willing to take you to wife, though I cannot understand why.”

“Wales?” she shrieked. “What is in Wales? Nothing. Barbarians!”

I lowered my voice. “The forebears of the Queen’s Majesty come from Wales. Is she, too, a barbarian?”

At that she shrunk. She knew I would not fear to tell Elizabeth of those sentiments.

“You could return to Sweden,” I said, “in shame. Your choice. You have until tomorrow morning to let me know which you choose. You have been an instrument of trouble in my home, and you are no longer welcome here.”

She dipped a saucy bow and left the room. I waited until she left and then I followed behind her and walked into Thomas’s chamber unannounced. I stood near his bed. “I should like to speak with you,” I said, waking him.

He rolled and turned toward me. “Now?”

I picked up a vase that was next to his bed stand and threw it at a wall that was not hung with tapestry. It shattered and water dripped down the wall, leaving the blooms askew on the floor. Truly alarmed, he got out of bed, put on some breeches, but remained bare-chested to delay, I gathered, our conversation no more.

“Have you bedded her?” I asked quietly.

He looked at me bewildered, but sleep-drunk no longer. “I do not know of whom you speak,” he said.

I reached over and took his quill and ink and threw them against a wall. “The pretty miss you recite such fine poetry to,” I said, shaking the scrap of poem at him. “Wyatt?”

He looked confused. “I recite poetry to no one,” he said, “but you.”

“Have you bedded her?” I asked him quietly. I held up the slipper. “I found this under your bed.”

He looked at me without flinching. “No. But she’s asked me to, more than once. She came to me at night and sat on the foot of my bed, whereby, I suppose, she left a slipper. I didn’t bed her. But I considered it.”

I went forward to strike him and he caught my wrist in his hand before I could. I stood there, trapped, and when he was sure I was not going to strike him he let go of my wrist and backed away.

“And what if I had bedded her, eh?” he asked. “Would that be something to run and tell Walsingham? Perhaps he could have me followed and flogged for it.”

I grew cold. “Walsingham . . .”

“Oh, yes,” Thomas said. “You went running to him with the recusant ring instead of asking me, your husband, what it was. He was so proud of you, of your loyalty.”

“Mayhap if you’d told me first, I would not have had to run to anyone!” I shouted. “Where’s the loyalty in that?”

“I trusted you to understand that I would always have your best interests in mind and there was no way I was going to risk you, or our children, until the plot had been defused!” He ran his hand through his hair. “All of this!” he continued. “The missions, the fortress, the envoys, the courts, the errands, the ultimate betrayal of my family and the risk of my life. All of it,” he said, “I do for you. So you would have pride in me, and be not ashamed that you had taken me, untitled, as a husband. And what is my thanks? Bearing tales to Walsingham.”

He sat down on the bed, silent. “All of this, Elin,” he finally said, “I’ve done for you. But you are never here. A man wants a wife who carries his name, who is home to greet him when he returns, who hunts with him and reads with him and plays chess with him. Who warms his bed. Is that so hard to understand?”

I crumpled onto the floor. “No,” I said. “In truth, it’s not.”

“You’re gone more often than not,” he said. “Sofia is here more often than gone.” He looked at me. “But I haven’t bedded her. I swear that to you. I haven’t bedded her.”

I put my head in my hands and began to cry. He came from the bed and sat with me there, on the floor. “Elin,” he said. “Elin. Do not mourn so.”

“How did it come to this?” I asked. “Not so long ago you and I held one another, defying the queen, promising to love one another and let nothing and no one come between us. And here we are, with nothing left to bind us together.”

He held my hand and clasped his finger over my wedding ring and then drew my hand to his lips. And then he put his lips on mine and kissed me softly. I kissed him back and before many more moments had passed he picked me up from the floor and helped me from my gown and moved me to the bed.

I spoke many languages at court, and Thomas did, too, but there was one language that he spoke only with me, and I with him. We used no words to reassure one another in that language that there were yet many unshakable bonds of love between us.

Afterward, I did not sleep, nor did he.

“Where did the Rosary ring come from?” I asked him, touching the wedding band of gold on his finger.

“My cousin,” he said, voice still sorrowing. “I had to win them to confidence, misleading them into believing that I was a Catholic so they would share the plans they had with me, plans not for good, but for evil, for overthrowing the queen and replacing her with Mary. I regret deceiving them, but there was no other way.”

“Is that why you hadn’t gone to church with me?”

He nodded. “I worshipped in private, though.”

I slid nearer to him. “You do not have to explain yourself to me. It was my error.”

“And perhaps mine,” he said. “I could have shared more, but, well, we were grown apart and you are always with the queen and—”

I put my finger to his lips. “I have told Sofia that she can choose between Wales and Sweden.”

“Will Upjohn have her?” he asked.

“I believe so. I’ve been honest with Mary about my concerns all along, and she told me that Upjohn was taken with Sofia, as he preferred a spirited woman.”

“I well understand that,” Thomas said.

I looked at him with surprise and hurt.

“Nay, nay, love, not Sofia, never.” He kissed me. “A spirited woman.”

I sighed and settled back. “And yet, even with her gone, that shan’t solve our problems,” I said.

“There is no solution.” He looked away.