“Not at all. You delight my eye.”

“Have I troubled you?”

Robert winked at her. He was very certain he was not going to tell this young woman that he sometimes found it hard to look away from her when she was dancing, that once when he had danced with her and the movement of the dance had put her into his arms he had felt an instantaneous, irresistible thud of desire, stronger than he had ever felt for so slight a touch in his life before.

“How could a little ninny such as you trouble a man such as me?” he asked.

She raised her eyebrows. “I can think of a dozen ways. Can’t you? But the question is not how I would; but whether I do?”

“Not at all, Miss Shameless.”

“Chastity, if you please. And what do I wear?” she asked.

“Something fearfully immodest,” he promised her. “You will be delighted. But you must show it to your mother, to make sure that she approves. The queen’s wardrobe has it for you. It is quite indecent.”

“Should I not come and show it to you?” she asked him provocatively. “I could come to your rooms before dinner.”

Robert glanced around. The queen had come in from the garden and was standing in a window bay, withdrawn from the rest, in close conversation with Sir William Cecil. The young man picked out to be Laetitia’s husband was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, looking thoroughly surly. Robert judged he should bring this tantalizing conversation to a close.

“Most certainly, you will not come to my rooms,” he said. “You will attempt to behave like a lady. You could be polite to poor young Dev ereux, your unhappy betrothed, while I go and talk with your mistress.”

“Your mistress,” she said impertinently.

Robert hesitated and looked gravely at her. “Do not overreach yourself, Mistress Knollys,” he said quietly. “You are enchanting, of course, and your father is a powerful man, and your mother beloved of the queen, but not even they can save you if you are found to be spreading scandal.”

She hesitated, a pert reply ready on her tongue; but then at the steadiness of his gaze, and the firmness of his expression, her dark eyes fell to the toes of his boots. “I am sorry, Sir Robert, I was only speaking in jest.”

“Well and good,” he said, and turned away from her, feeling absurdly that although she had been in the wrong, and had apologized, he had been a pompous bore.

Elizabeth, in the window bay, talking low-voiced with Cecil, was so absorbed that she was not scanning the room for Robert.

“And he has gone safely?”

“Gone, and your agreement with him.”

“But nothing in writing.”

“Your Grace, you cannot think of denying your word. You said if he attempted the Scottish throne and was successful then you would marry him.”

“I know I did,” she said coolly. “But if he were to die in his attempt I would not want such a letter found on him.”

Well, thought Cecil, my dream that she would be so taken with him, pretty boy that he is, can be forgotten, if she can imagine him dying in her cause, and all she cares is if he is carrying incriminating papers.

“There was nothing in writing, but you have given your word, he has given his, and I have given mine,” Cecil reminded her. “You are promised to marry if he wins Scotland from the French.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, opening her dark eyes very wide. “Yes, indeed.”

She was about to turn away from him but he stood his ground. “There is something else, Your Grace.”

She hesitated. “Yes?”

“I have intelligence of a possible attempt on your life.”

At once she was alert. He saw her face quiver with fear. “A new plot? Another one?”

“I am afraid so.”

“The Pope’s men?”

“Not this time.”

She drew a shaky breath. “How many more men will come against me? This is worse than it was for Mary and she was hated by everyone.”

There was nothing he could say; it was true. Mary had been hated; but no monarch had ever been more threatened than this one. Elizabeth’s power was all in her person, and too many men thought that if she were dead then the country would be restored.

She turned back to him. “At any rate, you have captured the men who planned it?”

“I have only an informant. I hope he will lead me onward. But I draw it to your attention at this stage because it was not only you who was threatened by this plot.”

She turned, curious. “Who else?”

“Sir Robert Dudley.”

Her face drained pale. “Spirit, no!”

Good God, does she love him so much? Cecil exclaimed to himself. She takes a threat to herself as a matter of concern; but when I name him as a victim you would think she was in mortal terror.

“Indeed, yes. I am sorry.”

Elizabeth’s eyes were dilated. “Spirit, who would hurt him?”

Cecil could almost feel his thoughts clicking into place as a strategy formed in his mind. “A word with you?”

“Walk with me,” she said quickly, and put her hand on his arm. “Walk me away from them all.”

Through the velvet of his slashed sleeve he could feel the heat of her palm. She is sweating with fear for him, he thought. This has gone further than I had thought; this has gone to the very madness of forbidden love.

He patted her hand, trying to steady himself and hide the thoughts that whirled in his head. The courtiers parted before Cecil and the queen; he saw a glimpse of Francis Knollys with his wife, his daughter demurely talking to young Walter Devereux, Mary Sidney, the Bacon brothers in conversation with the queen’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, a few men from the Spanish ambassador’s train, half a dozen hangerson, a couple of City merchants with their sponsors, nothing out of the ordinary, no strange face, no danger here.

They reached the relative privacy of the gallery and walked away from the others, so that no one could see the bleak agony on her face.

“Cecil, who could dream of hurting him?”

“Your Grace, there are so many,” he said gently to her. “Has he never told you that he has enemies?”

“Once,” she said. “Once, he said to me that he was surrounded with enemies. I thought …I thought he meant rivals.”

“He does not know the half of them,” Cecil said grimly. “The Catholics blame him for the changes in the church. The Spanish think that you love him, and if he was dead you would take their candidate in marriage. The French hate him since he fought for Philip at St. Quentin, the Commons of England blame him for taking you from your duties of queenship, and every lord of the land, from Arundel to Norfolk, would pay to see him dead because they envy him for your love, or they blame him for the terrible scandal that he has generated about you.”

“It cannot be that bad.”

“He is the most hated man in England, and the more that you are seen under his influence the greater the danger to you. I spend days and nights on tracking down plots against you; but he…” Cecil broke off and shook his head regretfully. “I don’t know how to keep him safe.”

Elizabeth was white as her ruff; her fingers plucked at his sleeve. “We must have him guarded, Spirit. We must put guards about him, you must find out who would hurt him and arrest them, rack them, find out who they are leagued with. You must stop at nothing; you must take these plotters to the Tower and torture them till they tell us…”

“Your own uncle!” he exclaimed. “Half the lords of England! Dud ley is widely despised, Your Grace. Only you and half a dozen people tolerate him.”

“He is beloved,” she whispered.

“Only by his kinsmen, and those he pays,” he said loftily.

“Not you?” she said, turning her dark gaze on him. “You don’t hate him, Spirit? You must stand his friend, if only for my sake. You know what he is to me, what joy he brings to my life. He must have your friendship. If you love me, you must love him.”

“Oh, I stand his friend,” he said carefully. For I am not such a fool as to let you or him think otherwise.

She took a shuddering sigh. “Oh, God, we must keep him safe. I could not live if… Spirit, you must guard him. How can we make him safe?”

“Only by letting him decline in your favor,” Cecil replied. Careful, he warned himself. Care and steadiness here. “You cannot marry him, Princess; he is a married man and his wife is a virtuous, pleasant woman, pretty and sweet-tempered. He can never be more than a friend to you. If you want to save his life you have to let him go. He has to be your dear courtier, and your Master of Horse; but no more.”

She looked quite haggard. “Let him go?”

“Send him home to his wife; it will still the gossips. Set your mind on Scotland and the work we have to do for the country. Dance with other men, set yourself free of him.”

“Free of him?” she repeated like a child.

Despite himself, Cecil was moved by the pain in her face. “Princess, this can go nowhere,” he said quietly to her. “He is a married man; he cannot put his wife aside for no reason. You cannot sanction a divorce to serve your own lust. He can never marry you. You may love him, but it will always be a dishonorable love. You cannot be husband and wife, you cannot be lovers, you cannot even be seen to desire him. If there is any more scandal spoken against you, it could cost you your throne; it could even cost you your life.”

“My life has been on a thread since I was born!” She reared up.

“It could cost his life,” Cecil switched quickly. “Your favoring of him, as openly as generously as you do, will be his death warrant.”

“You will protect him,” she said stubbornly.