I was offering him all he ever wanted, still he was subject to her whims.
‘You cannot tell her the truth,’ I said sharply. ‘You will have to manage the situation. I will come to visit you.’ I smiled at his expression. He looked as though he had the toothache. ‘It will not be so bad,’ I said, ‘a few weeks only.’
He nodded. I could see he was eager to hear the meat of my suggestion to work out whether it was worth the pain of Elizabeth making his life a misery for a while. ‘When I leave,’ I said, ‘I will go somewhere remote, somewhere even more isolated than Throcking.’ I waited for the barb to bite. ‘It was unkind of you to send me there, Robert, and simply forget about me.’
‘I know.’ He looked ashamed. ‘I was so angry with you, so angry with us.’ He made a gesture of resignation. ‘I hated the situation I found myself in. I wanted so much to be free; I thought it would drive me insane with wanting.’
‘That is why the knot must be cut,’ I said. ‘I too wish to be free.’
He nodded again, so eager now, malleable in my hands. ‘How is it to be done?’
‘Anthony Forster has a house at Cumnor in Oxfordshire, does he not,’ I said. ‘I will go to stay there for a few months. He is the most well-respected of your men. People believe him honest.’ I smiled. ‘That will be important.’
‘Forster is a sound man,’ Robert agreed.
‘He is your paid flunkey like the rest of them,’ I said cuttingly, ‘but he is better at hiding his corruption.’ I had had years and years in which to observe Robert’s retinue and my observation was that men took their lead from their master. Just as Robert could be brutal and none too scrupulous in pursuit of what he wanted, so did they echo him in their different ways.
‘Whilst I am at Cumnor,’ I continued, ‘you will send me money and will arrange safe passage for me to Holland. I want false papers and a place to live.’
I saw Robert’s eyes widen. His Adam’s apple jumped as he swallowed.
‘I know it can be done,’ I said calmly. ‘Anything is possible if you wish it enough and can afford the price.’
‘Yes…’ I could see he was thinking hard, and quickly. ‘It is possible. But…’
‘I don’t want to know the difficulties,’ I said. ‘I want you to arrange it. You owe me that.’ I took a breath. ‘And of course, you will need to procure a body.’
Now he stared at me as though I were indeed insane. ‘Come, Robert,’ I said. ‘Do you think I do not know how your retainers are little better than a band of thugs? How they brawl and maim and even kill, and you spend a fortune to buy them out of gaol and bribe judges and settle their affairs to avoid difficult questions asked? It would not be hard for Richard Varney or John Butler or any number of them to provide you with the body of a woman of the right age, height and colouring to match mine.’
Robert was looking a little sick. I was not sure whether he was repulsed at the thought that I knew all about his sins or that I had the indelicacy to mention them.
‘I do not scruple to talk of it,’ I said cheerfully, ‘since both you and I know they are varlets and murderers.’
He ran an agitated hand through his hair. ‘Even if they were,’ he said, ‘we cannot pass off some pox-ridden trull from the back streets of London as Lady Dudley. You think that if we dress her in your clothes and claim she died of a fever, people will be taken in?’ He shook his head. ‘You are dreaming.’
‘Not so.’ I sat forward, eager to make him see how it could be achieved. ‘I have it all planned,’ I said. ‘Of course, we will need some help, but not much. The fewer people who know the better it will be. We can choose a day when the whole household is away – at a market or a fair, perhaps. I could feign illness but insist they go without me.’ I dismissed the detail with a wave of my hand. ‘Your man brings the body in secret. That is why I think Cumnor Place serves us best. It is remote and lonely. Even better, I have learned that there is an outer stair