“Yes,” he says. “There can be nothing wrong in you writing a reply to him, since all the lords and Dudley know…”
I nod.
“If William Cecil knew, I would be happier in my own mind,” he says almost to himself.
“Oh, do you have to ask his permission?” I ask as innocently as a child.
He flares up, as I knew he would. “Not I! I am answerable to none but the queen herself. I am Lord High Steward of England. I am a member of the Privy Council. There is no man placed over me. William Cecil has no power over my doings.”
“Then what William Cecil knows and what he approves are alike indifferent to us both.” I give a little shrug. “He is no more than a royal servant, is he not?” I see his eager nod. “Just the queen’s secretary of state?”
Emphatically, he nods again.
“Then how should his opinion affect me, a queen of the blood? Or you, a peer of the realm? And I shall leave my lord Norfolk when he thinks that the time is right to tell the servants of the queen, Cecil among them. His Grace the duke must be the judge of when he makes an announcement to the servants.”
I stroll back to my seat near the fire and take up my sewing. Bess glances up when I take my seat. My hands are trembling with excitement but I smile calmly, as if her husband was talking of the weather and the chance of hunting tomorrow.
Thank God, thank God who has answered my prayers. This is the way to get me quickly and safely back to my throne in Scotland, back to my son, and with a man at my side who can be trusted by his own ambition and by the power of his family to guard my safety in Scotland and ensure my claims in England. The queen’s own cousin! I shall be married to Elizabeth’s cousin and our sons shall be Stuart children and Tudor kin.
He is a handsome man; his sister Lady Scrope promised me as much when I was with her at Bolton Castle. They said then that the Scots lords who were loyal to me would approach him and ask him if he would take up my cause. They said he would be smuggled into the garden of Bolton Castle so that he could see me. They said that if he saw me he would be certain to fall in love with me and determine at once to be my husband and King of Scotland. Such nonsense, surely! I wore my best gown and walked in the garden every day, my eyes down and my smile thoughtful. At least I do know how to be enchanting; it was my earliest lesson.
He must be a fair man—he was judge at the inquiries and he will have heard every bad thing they said against me, but he has not let it stand in his way. He is a Protestant, of course, but that is only to the good when it comes to dealing with the Scots, and with pressing my claims to inherit England. Best of all, he is used to dealing with a woman who is queen. He was raised as kin to Elizabeth, who was a princess and heir to the throne. He will not bully me like Bothwell, nor envy me like Darnley. He will understand that I am queen and that I need him to be a true husband, an ally, a friend. Perhaps for the first time in my life I will find a man who can love me as a woman and obey me as a queen. Perhaps for the first time I will be married to a man I can trust.
Good God, I could dance for joy! Seated demurely on my chair I can feel my toes tapping in my silk slippers for sheer pleasure. I knew that I would rise from this defeat, I knew that in my end would be my beginning. What I did not expect was that it would come so easily and so sweetly and so soon.
1569, SPRING, TUTBURY CASTLE: BESS
To William Cecil,
Dear Sir,
Please find enclosed a copy of a letter sent by the Duke of Norfolk to our guest. The letter was given to her by my husband with the seals unbroken and neither he nor she knows that I have had sight of it and copied it for