The Queen's Secret (35 page)

‘No!’ Furious, Tom grabbed at her reins and dragged the mare’s head away. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘The poor thing only wanted some grass!’

‘That’s not just grass.’ He sounded exasperated. ‘Do you want to kill your horse?’

She was stunned, staring down at the slim, yellow-flowered plants waving appealingly in the breeze. They looked innocent enough.

‘
Kill
her?’

‘Ragwort. It’s deadly to livestock.’

He shook his head at her expression, and kicked his horse into a fast trot, still holding both their reins. Her mare was forced to keep up with his sturdy bay gelding, her tossing head and backward-flicked ears an indication of her annoyance at this unfriendly treatment.

Lucy held on to the saddle and jolted about uncomfortably. She looked dubiously at the horse beneath her. ‘Will she die? I mean, she must have taken a good mouthful of the horrid stuff. Would that be enough to kill her?’

His smile was tight, almost contemptuous. ‘No.’

‘Oh look, can we stop?’

She had almost tumbled off as the mare stumbled over a stone.

By way of reply, Tom slowed his gelding with his knees and her mare followed its example. He handed back her reins only when they were walking sedately again, his face still surly.

‘Why are you so angry with me?’ she demanded.

He had the grace to look uncomfortable at least, a slight frown knitting his dark brows together. But he did not admit that he knew what she was talking about. Perhaps he tried to seduce young servants every day of the week, she thought with a sudden burst of fury. In which case, it was as well she had rejected him.

‘We’d better get back,’ he muttered instead, and made a great show of examining the patch of sky just visible above the treetops, as though trying to guess the time. ‘I was told to have a number of horses groomed and saddled, ready for the Queen to ride out after lunch today. But no one came down from the state rooms this morning to let me know how many and which horses. So perhaps they are no longer needed.’

‘Perhaps,’ Lucy said airily, noting that he had not even attempted to answer her question. If Tom could ignore her so easily, she could ignore him.

They rode in awkward silence for a few moments, then Tom spoke again. His voice sounded troubled, quite different from the sharp tone he had used before. ‘Did you hear about the man who drowned? Malcolm Drury, his name was. They’re saying he got drunk and fell into the mere.’

She looked at him, surprised. ‘I did hear something. Was he a friend of yours?’

‘Malcolm?’ He seemed shocked for a moment. ‘Not at all. I don’t think the man ever spoke to me. No – but it’s not true.’

‘What isn’t?’

He steered her mare absent-mindedly round a young tree growing in the middle of the track, then relaxed his hold on her reins, allowing the animal to pick her own way back across the uneven grassy verge.

‘What they’re saying about the way he died. You see, I happened to overhear my master talking to your guardian about it last night.’

‘You mean Master Goodluck?’

He nodded. ‘I should not have been eavesdropping, I know. But it was in the stables and they did not know anyone else was there, so I just kept quiet and listened. Your guardian told Lord Leicester that the man was drowned on purpose. Because of something he knew. But after I’d heard them talking about it, I remembered what you’d seen outside the stables. You said, “
The bear-tamer
!”’

Lucy shivered, despite the growing warmth of the afternoon sun. ‘I know, I saw him in the distance. Or I thought I saw him. It was so dark.’

‘Should we tell the earl, do you think?’

She stared, taken aback by his sudden interest. ‘About me seeing the bear-tamer?’

‘It might be significant.’

‘And then again, I
might
have imagined the whole thing,’ she pointed out, and added spiritedly, ‘considering how rattled my nerves were at the time.’

He frowned and looked away, his back very straight, his mouth stiff. So that blow had hit home, she thought with satisfaction, and could not understand why she felt so tearful.

They were nearing the end of the track; through the trees ahead she caught a glimpse of high towers and the reddish stone teeth of the battlements. Soon they would be back inside the castle, and she would have to return to her duties. Her heart ached at the thought.

She had to be wary where Tom was concerned. He did not see why her virginity needed to be so carefully guarded; he merely desired her, and expected her to feel the same. What Tom did not know was that it had taken a huge effort of will not to give in to him that night – and finally discover why the other servant girls of her age enjoyed cavorting naked with men, shameless as cats in heat. But she had promised the Queen faithfully that she would keep her virginity safe – at least until she was respectably married, if ever that should happen – and Lucy intended to keep her promise.

As they neared the castle entrance, a servant stood waiting for them under the impressive archway of Leicester’s new gatehouse, his pride and joy, just finished in time for the Queen’s visit. He had even had Her Majesty’s initials carved into the stone supports on one side and his own on the columns opposite, an impertinence which some said had left the Queen and her ladies gasping.

The servant ran to grasp Lucy’s bridle. ‘His lordship wants to see you,’ he told her flatly. ‘Now, in the music room.’

‘Lord Leicester wishes to see
me
?’

Her voice was high with surprise, coming out almost as a squeak, and she felt heat in her cheeks as Tom reined in at her side and stared across at her resentfully. What was wrong with him
now?
Did he think she had engineered this excuse to escape her riding lesson early?

‘Now,’ the servant repeated sourly, without further explanation. No doubt he had been kicking his heels at the gatehouse a long while, waiting for them to return from their ride.

‘When should I come back for my next lesson?’ she asked Tom, slipping down out of the saddle as gracefully as she could manage, glad of the servant’s helping hand at her back.

‘You don’t need any more lessons,’ Tom growled.

She looked at him. Managing a lighter tone, Tom asked the servant to walk Lucy’s mount back to the stables, then swung out of the saddle, landing lightly on his toes beside her.

‘That is, you’ll learn best now from just riding. We haven’t had time to go over jumping, but it’s unlikely you’ll need to ride to hunt. And if you do, just remember to sit well back in the saddle and keep a short rein.’ He fiddled with his horse’s bit, seeming distracted, his face unreadable. ‘Some follow the Spanish method and say it’s easier if you lean forward on the jump, but if you follow that advice on an English saddle it won’t be long before you’re unseated.’

‘Well, thank you for teaching me to ride,’ she stammered, and heard the words fall hollow and empty in the echoing archway of the gatehouse.

You don’t need any more lessons …

Her heart hurt as Tom cleared his throat and grimaced, not looking at her, though he inclined his head in acknowledgement. It seemed neither of them wanted to meet the other’s eyes.

‘It was nothing. Now you’d better run along and find out what my master wants.’

‘Where is the … What was it again?’

‘The music room.’

She looked blankly in the direction of his pointing finger, and he sighed, his voice hard and impatient. ‘Through the first archway in the inner court. Now hurry. Every minute you delay, you are keeping the Earl of Leicester waiting.’

As if she wasn’t already aware of that!

Picking up the heavy skirt of her riding gown, she fled through the puddles of the gatehouse, up the crowded slope of tents and
makeshift
camps, and over the bridge into the inner court. A small boy called out her name from the branches of a great oak, and she turned to look, almost tripping over a twisted root in the grass.

‘Will?’ She recognized the sweet, dark-haired boy who had lost his father that day in the tiltyard, and managed a quick smile despite her panic at being late. ‘I’m sorry, I cannot stop and play this time. Is your father here?’

Will pointed across at a broad-shouldered man helping to right a tent which had fallen over, and she saw Master Shakespeare. Satisfied that Will was not alone this time, she waved a cheery farewell as she ran on.

Breathless, her hair trailing loose from under her white cap, Lucy burst through the door into the music room. The astonished lute player, a small man in a black velvet suit with very little hair and a black skullcap, immediately stopped playing.

‘I’m sorry to be so very late, your lordship,’ she gasped, hot-faced, closing the door behind her and forcing herself further into the chamber, ‘but I was out in the woods on a riding lesson and the servant you sent to find me did not know where we had gone and—’

‘Hush now, come and meet Master Oldham, who is going to teach you to sing a song which I have written for the Queen.’ The earl took her by the arm and positioned her next to the lute stand. She had expected him to be angry at the delay, but there was a smile in his dark eyes. ‘Master Oldham, this is Lucy Morgan, the singer I was telling you about.’

‘Yes, my lord.’ The man turned and looked her over with small, bright eyes in a wizened face. ‘Stand straight, girl. Belly in. Chest out. And the head – no, don’t tilt it backwards. You are not looking up at an angel!’ He reached out and adjusted the set of her chin with long, parchment-dry fingers. ‘Just so.’

He began to play and sing, teaching her the song Lord Robert had written, in a thin, reedy voice which still held power. Lucy listened and nodded, accustomed to committing new musical arrangements to memory in a short space of time. Master Oldham seemed pleased that she knew how to read music, and they progressed swiftly to her singing while he accompanied her on the lute.

The earl left them alone to finish the work. He returned to the music room about an hour later, and smiled at the sound of her voice soaring through the higher notes of the song. It was a beautiful little melody, poignant but strong too, a song of love and faith tested and still found good. Lucy thought Lord Robert must possess an excellent ear to have written such an intricate piece for the Queen, and wondered why he did not compose more often.

‘Well done!’ Leicester exclaimed as the song came to a close. He clapped his hands in praise. ‘Will you be ready to perform it on Tuesday?’

‘Tuesday?’ She flushed, seeing both men looking at her expectantly, as though her opinion was somehow important. ‘I … Yes, my lord, I think so.’

Leicester drew her aside as Master Oldham gathered his music sheets together. There was a look on his face she had never seen before, a sort of wild exultancy in his eyes, and his voice, though kept low, was not as discreetly quiet as she had grown to expect from him.

‘I hear the Queen summoned you to her presence recently. Very early in the morning, so the matter must have been urgent. What did Her Majesty want? What did she ask you?’

‘I …’ She stared at him, unsure how to answer without betraying the Queen. ‘My lord, please forgive me, but it is not right for me to repeat what the Queen has said to me in private.’

She expected the earl to be angered by her refusal, which – coming from such a lowly servant of the court – must seem the height of impertinence to a man of his power and influence. But to her astonishment, Leicester threw back his head and laughed.

‘You women and your secrets!’ the earl exclaimed, and the loudness of his voice made Master Oldham turn and stare, his look disapproving.

Leicester seemed oblivious to the impropriety of his behaviour. Instead, he compounded it by kissing her on the cheek, an unexpectedly intimate contact which left Lucy flushed and unsettled.

‘Keep mum, then,’ he said, dismissively. ‘I can guess at Her Majesty’s wishes. She has so few friends at court. Yet she is growing to trust you, Lucy Morgan, for you are so different from
everyone
else here. When she called you to her side, the Queen will have asked if I had spoken of her, if I had confided in you how much I love her.’ He met her wide-eyed gaze. ‘Is that not the case?’

Lucy bit her lip, knowing how very far he was from guessing the truth. Leicester seemed to take her hesitancy as a sign that he was right. He pulled at her white cap with playful fingers and laughed uproariously when she gasped and straightened it, backing into a rack of hautboys and knocking them to the floor with a clatter. His mood today was bright as a flame, warming the room and making it impossible for her not to laugh too as she bent to set the instruments upright again.

Master Oldham bowed low and left the room, his music sheets safely encased in a leather folder under his arm.

With a shy smile, Lucy fixed her cap over her unruly locks and looked wonderingly at the earl. ‘You seem very merry today, my lord.’

‘I am merry, it’s true. But I have good reason to be. The best of reasons.’ He paused, looking at her. ‘Can you keep a secret, Lucy Morgan?’

She blushed at the deep note in his voice, then experienced the full force of the earl’s attractiveness as he leaned closer, his smile so provocative, his dark gaze bent on her face.

She grasped at the lute stand for support, suddenly light-headed as though she had not eaten for days. She heard herself stammer, ‘Of course, my lord.’

‘Though you need not keep it long, for soon everyone will know.’ Leicester came so close their bodies were almost touching. He lowered his face to her neck, his warm breath fanning her skin. ‘The Queen and I are to be married, you see, before the year is out. We are in love and secretly betrothed.’ His whispering voice shook, it was so thick with triumph and excitement. ‘What do you say to that, my little songbird?’

Her heart hammered against her chest at the immensity of his secret, and for a few deathly moments she could not find her voice.

Unbidden, she remembered how Tom had touched her in the stables, the hunger in his eyes that had both frightened and
aroused
her, and could not imagine the pale, stately Queen submitting to such caresses from a man. Not even from this man, as handsome and powerful as he was.