soon as that marriage had taken place.
Elizabeth remembered young Guildford well. He was a weakling. She, being strong, had an unerring instinct for smelling out weaklings. Now, had it been Robert …! She wanted to laugh aloud when she thought of Robert, who had married a simpering country girl. How could he have been such a fool! Yet was he such a fool? If he had not married his rustic bride he would have been married to the Lady Jane Grey. But was that such an enviable position? Only time would show. In any case Robert had no right to have married a country girl.
She laughed into her pillow, forgetting her danger, for this short moment, in her memories. What a pity Kat Ashley was not with her. What fun they would have had with the cards … telling fortunes … seeing if anything came to light concerning Robert Dudley (a tall dark man) as they used to look for Tom Seymour.
How stupid to think of Tom now. She could never think of him and that dreadful time, without a tremor. Tom was beautiful with his great booming laugh, his mighty oaths and his strong arms. Tom Seymour … nothing but a headless corpse! And he had almost taken her with him to the grave, as in life he had wished to take her with him to the throne … to the marriage bed.
Never again must she be so weak as she had been with Tom. What an escape! She might have been tempted to marriage … to love. Tom was such a tempter. No one should tempt her in that way again. A Princess who is only a step or two from the throne must learn her lessons and learn them quickly, for there is often no second chance of doing so.
Now in this moment which she felt to be full of unknown dangers she must brood on that earlier danger still so clear to her.
She could picture him distinctly. She believed she would never forget him, the jaunty Admiral in his gorgeous garments who had come to her after the death of his wife, Katharine Parr, feigning great grief. But was it real grief, when all the time his eyes were pleading with her, telling her that he was now free?
Intuitively she had felt the inclination to hold back; it had ever seemed to her that the trimmings of courtship were more enticing than any climax could be. Elizabeth, almost seduced but never quite, was a much more attractive picture to her than Elizabeth conquered. It was an Admiral to woo her whom she had wanted—not a husband to command her. Men were amusing, yet intent on one thing. Elizabeth wished to be amused, titillated, enjoying in imagination that which she had the good sense to know could never in reality compare with such dreams.
Yet there had been times when she had been on the point of surrender to that fascinating man; there had been times when his cajoling ways had almost got the better of her good sense.
She was older now; she was wiser. When he had come to woo her she had been reluctant, aloof, in no way the same girl who had romped with him during his wife’s lifetime. He had been clever in his way, but not quite clever enough. There had been so many ugly rumors connected with his name, and how could the Princess Elizabeth consent to marry a man who, it was said, had poisoned his wife that he might marry her?
No, the death of Katharine had been the first object lesson; the heartbreaking death of Thomas the second, and his had struck her so hard that it would never be forgotten.
How clear, in her memory, he was to her, as though he stood at the side of the bed now, laughing at her with passion in his eyes, trying to pull off the bedclothes as he had in Chelsea, to tickle, to slap, to kiss.
He had won Kat Ashley to his side. What had he said to Kat? Had he made light love to her with his eyes as he knew well how to do? Had he promised her rewards on the day the Princess Elizabeth became his wife? Kat was quickly his slave, as were so many of the women about their Princess. Kat began to find him a good influence in the cards … dear silly Kat! Elizabeth could hear her voice now with the trill of excitement