She clapped her hands together. “You have bought Flitcham Hall! I didn’t dare hope you would! I knew it! I absolutely knew it!”

He was thrown from his course. “Flitcham? No. I sent Bowes to look at it and to tell the owner that we were not interested.”

“Not interested? But I told Lady Robsart to tell the owner that we would take it.”

“It’s impossible, Amy. I thought I told you before I left Chichester, when you first mentioned it?”

“No, never. I thought you liked it? You always said you liked it. You said to Father…”

“No. Anyway, it’s not about Flitcham. I want to tell you…”

“But what did Mr. Bowes tell Mr. Symes? I had promised him we would almost certainly take it.”

He realized that he had to answer her before she could listen to him. “Bowes told Mr. Symes that we did not want Flitcham after all. He was not upset, he understood.”

“But I don’t understand!” she said plaintively. “I don’t understand. I thought you wanted to make Flitcham our home. I thought you loved it like I do. And it is so near to Syderstone, and to all my family, and Father always liked it…”

“No.” He took her hands in his and saw her wounded indignation dissolve at once under his touch. He caressed the palms of her hands with his gentle fingertips. “Now, Amy, you must see, Flitcham Hall is not close enough to London. I would never see you if you buried yourself in Norfolk. And we could never be able to make it a big enough place for the visitors we will have.”

“I don’t want to be near London,” she insisted stubbornly. “Father always said that nothing came from London but trouble…”

“Your father loved Norfolk, and he was a great man in his own country,” Robert said, controlling his own irritation with an effort. “But we are not your father. I am not your father, Amy, my love. Norfolk is too small for me. I do not love it as your father did. I want you to find us a bigger house, somewhere more central, near Oxford. Yes? There is more to England than Norfolk you know, my dearest.”

He saw she was soothed by the endearments, and in her quietness he could broach the rest that he had to tell her. “But this is not what I wanted to tell you. I am to be honored by the queen.”

“An honor? Oh! She will give you a seat on the Privy Council?”

“Well, there are other honors,” he said, concealing his frustration that he still had no political power.

“She would never make you an earl!” she exclaimed.

“No, not that!” he corrected. “That would be ridiculous.”

“I don’t see why,” she said at once. “I don’t see why being an earl would be ridiculous. Everyone says that you are her favorite.”

He checked, wondering exactly what scandal might have come to her ears. “I’m not her favorite,” he said. “Her favorite is Sir William Cecil for counsel and Catherine Knollys for company. I assure you, my sister and I are only two of very many among her court.”

“But she made you Master of her Horse,” Amy objected reasonably. “You cannot expect me to believe that she does not like you above all others. You always said that she liked you when you were children together.”

“She likes her horses to be well managed,” he said hastily. “And of course she likes me, we are old friends, but that’s not what I meant …I…”

“She must like you a great deal,” she pursued. “Everyone says that she goes out with you every day.” She took care not to let a jealous note into her voice. “Someone even told me that she neglects her royal business for riding.”

“I take her riding, yes …but it is my work, not my preference. There is nothing between us, no especial warmth.”

“I should hope not,” she said sharply. “She had better remember that you are a married man. Not that such a fact has restrained her in the past. Everyone says that she…”

“Oh, for saints’ sake, stop!”

She gave a little gasp. “You may not like it, Robert, but it is no more than everyone says about her.”

He took a breath. “I beg your pardon, I did not mean to raise my voice.”

“It is not very pleasant for me, knowing that you are her favorite and that she has no good reputation for being chaste.” Amy finished her complaint in a breathless rush. “It is not very pleasant for me, knowing that your names are linked.”

He had to take a long deep breath. “Amy, this is ridiculous. I have told you I am not a particular favorite. I ride with her because I am her Master of Horse. I am a favored man at court because of my abilities, thank God for them, and because of my family. We should both be glad that she favors me as she should. As to her reputation, I am surprised you would lower yourself to gossip, Amy. I am indeed. She is your anointed queen. It is not for you to pass comment.”

She bit her lip. “Everyone knows what she’s like,” she said stubbornly. “And it is not very nice for me when your name is linked with hers.”

“I do not wish my wife to gossip,” he said flatly.

“I only repeated what everyone—”

“Everyone is wrong,” he said. “It is almost certain that she will marry the Earl of Arran and secure his claim to the Scottish throne. I tell you this in the deepest secrecy, Amy. So that you know that there is nothing between her and me.”

“Do you swear?”

Robert sighed as if he were weary, to make his lie more persuasive. “Of course, I swear there is nothing.”

“I trust you,” she said. “Of course I do. But I cannot trust her. Everyone knows that she—”

“Amy!” He raised his voice even louder, and she fell silent at last. Her sliding glance at the door told him that she was afraid her cousin would have heard his angry tone.

“Oh, for God’s sake. It doesn’t matter if anyone heard.”

“What will people think…”

“It doesn’t matter what they think,” he said with the simple arrogance of a Dudley.

“It does.”

“Not to me,” he said grandly.

“To me, it does.”

He bit his lip on his argument. “Well, it should not,” he said, trying to keep his temper with her. “You are Lady Dudley, and the opinion of some London merchant and his wife should be nothing to you.”

“My own mother’s cousin…” He could just hear a few words of her whispered defiance. “Our hosts. And always very civil to you.”

“Amy… please,” he said.

“I have to live with them, after all,” she said with a childish stubbornness. “It’s not as if you will be here next week…”

He rose to his feet and saw her flinch.

“Wife, I am sorry,” he said. “I have gone all wrong about this.”

At the first hint of retraction she was quick to meet him. Her head came up, a little smile on her face. “Oh, are you unwell?”

“No! I…”

“Are you overtired?”

“No!”

“Shall I get you a hot possett?” Already she was on her feet and wanting to serve him. He caught her hand and had to make himself hold her gently, and not shake her in his anger.

“Amy, please be still and let me talk to you. I have been trying to tell you one small thing since we came up, and you don’t let me speak.”

“How ever could I stop you?”

He answered her with silence, until obediently, she sank to her stool and waited.

“The queen is to honor me by awarding me the Order of the Garter. I am to have it with three other noblemen and there is to be a great celebration. I am honored indeed.”

She would have interrupted with congratulations but he pressed on to the more difficult topic. “And she is to give me land, and a house.”

“A house?”

“The Dairy House at Kew,” he said.

“A London house for us?” she asked.

He could imagine Elizabeth’s response if he tried to install a wife in the pretty little bachelor’s nest in the garden of the royal palace.

“No, no. It’s just a little place for me. But my idea was that you could stay with the Hydes and find a house for us? A house that we could make our own? A bigger house than Flitcham Hall, a grander place altogether? Somewhere near them in Oxfordshire.”

“Yes, but who will run your house at Kew?”

He dismissed it. “It is little more than a few rooms. Bowes will find me servants; it is nothing.”

“Why does she not want you to live at the palace anymore?”

“It’s just a gift,” he said. “I may not even use it.”

“So why give it to you?”

Robert tried to laugh it off. “It’s just a sign of her favor,” he said. “And my rooms in the palace are not of the best.” Already, he knew, the gossips were speculating that the queen had given him a place where the two of them could go to be alone together, hidden from the eyes of the court. He had to ensure that Amy would dismiss such rumors if they ever came to her ears. “In truth, I think Cecil wanted it, and she is teasing him by giving it to me.”

She looked disapproving. “And would Cecil have lived there with his wife?”

He was pleased to be on safe ground. “Cecil has not seen his wife since the queen’s accession,” he said. “She is overseeing the building of his new house, Burghley. He is in the same strait as I. He wants to get home but he is kept too busy. And I want you to be like his wife; I want you to build a house for us, that I can come to in summer. Will you do it for me? Will you find us a really lovely house or site, and make a home for us, a proper home at last?”

Her face lightened as he knew it would. “Oh, I would love to,” she said. “And we would live there and be together all the time?”

Gently he took both her hands. “I would have to be at court for much of the time,” he said. “As you know. But I would come home to you, as often as I could, and you would like to have a proper home of your own, wouldn’t you?”