“And so you shall. I repeat, I would not ask you were it not that your presence near to the Queen of Scots will be thought to be the result of your family circumstances—and for no other reason. Drink your wine, man, and pledge with me confusion to that Queen. I fear that, as long as she lives, our own Queen’s life is not safe.”
That was Walsingham’s coda. Afterwards they joined Lady Walsingham and her daughter and talked of idle and pleasant things.
And so Drew had no other choice than to see again the wife whom he had avoided for ten long years. He was not sure whether he was glad or sorry that meeting her was part of the duty which Walsingham had laid upon him. Each mile that he covered once London was left behind found him still reluctant to commit himself to Atherington House and its lady.
So much so that, when he had come almost to its gates, he and his magnificent train had stopped at an inn instead of journeying on, and he had taken Cicero out into the forest to try to catch a glimpse of the House, as though by doing so he could gauge the nature of either his welcome, or that of the greeting he would give her.
Except that Cicero, usually the most well-behaved of horses, saw fit to take against the whole notion of riding through the forest, and whilst trying to control him, he had lost control himself. As a result he was now sitting, shaken, not far from the House, and looking into the great dark eyes of a beautiful nymph who seemed to have strayed from the Tuscan countryside which he had visited with Philip Sidney and whose glories he had never forgotten.
By her clothing she was the daughter of one of the yeoman farmers who frequented these parts, and he wondered if they knew what a treasure they had in their midst. Well, if boredom overtook him at the House, he would know where to look for entertainment!
Something of this showed on his face. Bess, agitated, turned away from him in order to rise to her feet, so that she might not be too near him. He was altogether so overwhelming that she was fearful that she might lose the perfect control which had characterised her life since the day she had married him. He was not so shaken that he was incapable of putting forward his perfect hand and attempting to stay her.
“Nay, do not leave me, fair nymph, your presence acts as a restorative. You live in these parts?”
Bess, allowing herself to be detained, said, “Indeed. All my life.” She had suddenly determined that she would not tell him her name, and prayed that neither Tib nor Roger, when he returned, would betray her.
“Send your brother away, my fair one, and I will give you a reward which will be sure to please you.” The smile Drew offered her was a dazzling one, full of promise, and he raised his hand to cup her sweet small breast, so delicately rounded.
Tib! He thought Tib her brother, not her servant! Aunt Hamilton had been right for once about the effect her clothing would have on a stranger. For was he not promising to seduce her? He was busy stroking her breast, and had blessed the hollow in her neck with a kiss which was causing her whole body to tremble in response. Oh, shameful! What would he do next? And would she like that, too?
She was about to be seduced by the husband who had once rejected her! Was not this strange encounter as good as a play? Or one of Messer Boccaccio’s naughty stories?
She must end it at once. Now, before she forgot herself. Bess escaped his impudent hands and rose to her feet, putting her finger on her lips to silence Tib who, full of indignation at this slur upon his mistress, was about to tell their unexpected guest exactly who she was.
“Not now,” she murmured, smiling coyly at Drew, her expression full of promise. “Another time—when we are alone.”
“Ah, I see you are a practised nymph, but then all nymphs are practised in Arcadia, are they not?” smiled Drew, enjoying the sight of her now that his senses had cleared. For not only was she a dark beauty of a kind which he had learned to appreciate in Italy, but she had a body to match, of which her rough riding habit hid little, since she was wearing no petticoats under it, nor any form of stiffening designed to conceal the body’s contours. He had not thought Leicestershire harboured such treasures as this.
Bess’s reply to him was a simper, and a toss of the head. She was astonished at herself: she had not believed that she could be capable of such deceptive frivolity.
But I am, after all, a daughter of Eve, she thought with no little amusement, and, faced with a flattering man, Eve’s descendants always know how to behave. Perhaps it might be the thing to flounce her skirt a little as she had seen her cousin Helen do when she visited her and wished to attract one of the gallants whose attentions Bess always avoided, she being a married woman.
Also present was the gleeful thought, How shocked he will be when he learns who I really am, and that he was offering to seduce his own wife!
She watched him stand up with Tib’s help, which he did not really need, although he courteously accepted the proffered arm. By his manner and expression he was about to continue his Arcadian wooing, but, alas for him, even as did so he heard in the distance a troop of horse arriving.
Drew stifled a sigh. It was almost certainly part of his household who had followed him at a discreet distance to ensure his safety, even though he had repeatedly told them not to.
“Yes, it must be another time, I fear, that we dally among the spring flowers,” he said regretfully.
His cousin Charles Breton, his mother’s sister’s son, arrived in the small clearing, at the head of his followers, exclaiming as he did so, “So, there you are, Drew. But where is your horse?”
“He unshipped me most scurvily,” Drew told him, no whit ashamed, Bess noted, at having to confess his failure to control his errant steed. “But I have been rescued by the shepherdess you see before you—and her brother,” and he waved a negligent hand at Tib. “They have not yet had time to offer me a share of their picnic, else my pastoral adventure would be complete. Ah, I see that they have even rescued Cicero for me.”
So they had, for Roger rode up, his face one scowl, with Cicero trotting meekly along beside him, apparently unharmed.
“Here is your horse, young sir,” he growled, “and another time show the forest a little more respect. It is not like the green lanes of the south where a man may gallop at his will!”
“How now, sirrah?” exclaimed Charles. “Do you know to whom you speak? Show a proper humility towards your betters!”
Roger opened his mouth, ready to inform him that he knew who his betters were, and furthermore, that they included Lady Exford who stood before them, and around whom Drew had now placed a familiar arm. In vain, before he could speak, his lady forestalled him.
“Oh, my groom has a free spirit, sir, as all we dwellers in these parts have. And now I must bid you adieu, for my duties await me. The cows must be fed, and the day wears on.”
Adroitly, she wriggled out of Drew’s half-embrace and, without either Tib or Roger’s assistance, swung athletically on to her horse. Seeing Roger about to speak again, she said smartly, “Silence, man. You must not offend these great ones. And you, too, brother.”
Tib’s answer to that was a grin. He possessed to the full the countryman’s desire to make fools of townies and, by God, these were townies indeed, with their fine clothing and their drawling speech. Particularly the one whose horse had thrown him, who had been so busy making sly suggestions to his mistress.
He and Roger mounted their horses, whilst Drew, seeing his nymph ready to abandon him—rather than simply turn herself into a tree, as Daphne had done when pursued by Apollo—seized the bridle of Bess’s horse, and exclaimed, “Not so fast. I am Drew Exford, and I would know who you are.”
Bess looked down into his perfect face, and, giving him a smile so sweet that it wrenched his heart, she said softly, “But I have little mind to tell you, sir. You must discover it for yourself. Now, let me go, Master Drew Exford, for I have no desire to be behindhand with the day.”
He could not be so ungallant as to insist, especially with