his to command.”
“And who may command you now?”
“The Princess Elizabeth. She may command me, body and soul.”
She was delighted, but she said with asperity: “When was your allegiance severed from the Lady Jane Grey? When she went to the scaffold?”
“I can only say that I served my father.”
“Robert, you are a fool. And so am I to linger here.”
“But … you will walk this way again?”
She stooped as though to flick a piece of grass from her shoe. “Should I step out of my way to listen to you?”
“If you are merciful, yes.”
“Merciful?” She looked round. Those who were watching her were growing suspicious. She dared dally no longer, but she was finding it difficult to tear herself away. Flirtation such as this was a game she enjoyed beyond all others. “Who am I, a poor prisoner, to be merciful?”
“There is none other whose mercy I would ask. I crave the mercy of a smile from your sweet lips. The memory of your beauty will stay with me … lighting my cell. If I die tomorrow I shall die happy … because you came to see me, my dearest Princess.”
“I but passed this way.”
“Then Your Grace is displeased because I wrote to you?”
“It was somewhat impertinent of you.”
“Then if my letters have given you displeasure, I must deny myself the great joy of writing them.”
“As to that you must please yourself.”
“If I pleased myself I should write all day. You will come this way again?”
“My lord, do you think I shall go out of my way to avoid you?” There was a trill of excitement in her voice. She knew she ought to go, but she could not resist lingering there.
“To see you is the most wonderful thing that has happened to me,” he said.
“I must go.”
“I shall live for this hour tomorrow.”
“My guards grow suspicious. I must tarry no longer.”
“Would I could kiss your hand … Elizabeth.”
“I dare stay no longer.”
“I shall wait … and hope.”
“It is a good thing to wait … and hope. It is all that is left to us poor prisoners.”
She had turned her face to the sky so that the light fell upon it; she shook out her hair and touched her throat with one of those white slender hands of which she was so proud. She made a charming picture for him to see and retain in his memory.
“You are so beautiful,” she heard him whisper. “Even more so than I remembered.”
Did they know, those guards and friends of hers, why her morning walks always took her in one direction? Did they know who the prisoner was on the other side of the grille? If they did they feigned ignorance.
She would sit on the grass outside the cell and, leaning back against the walls, look up at the sky while she talked to Robert Dudley.
She scolded him, but there was a warmth of tenderness always beneath the scolding. She was as excited as she had been during that most exciting experience with Thomas Seymour.
“So, Robert Dudley, you are a traitor to our most gracious Queen.”
“Princess, I serve only one Queen.”
“Then that must be Queen Mary.”
“Nay, the Queen of my heart, the Queen I shall always worship to the end of my days. Her name is not Mary.”
“Might it be Amy?”
“Ah, speak not of poor Amy.”
“Speak not of her indeed! Poor soul, I pity her. She happens to be your wife.”
“I spoke of a Queen,” he said. “I spoke of the only one in the world whom I could ever love, but who, I fear, is far beyond my reach.”
“What name has she?”
“Elizabeth.”
“The same as mine!”
“You mock me!”
“Robert, you are a philanderer, as many know to their cost.”
“If that is so, might it not be because, knowing I can never reach my love, I seek desperately to find others who remind me of her?”
“So these others … these country girls … remind you of her?”
“In some small way, mayhap. Perhaps one has blue eyes; another has hair—not the same color, for how could that perfection be matched?—but perhaps when the sun shines in a certain way that hair has a faint resemblance to Elizabeth’s. Perhaps one has white and slender fingers, lacking the perfection, it is true, but they serve to remind.”
“Robert Dudley,” she challenged, “a woman would be a fool to put her trust in you.”
“One would not. But who am I to hope she would dare look my way?”
“You are under sentence of death,” she said quietly.
“I am almost glad of it.