Read Online Elizabeth by Evelyn Anthony - Free Book Online

speak of it either.”
    â€œAs you desire,” he answered quickly. “Let the dead rest; and let us talk of the living. Do you believe I love you?”
    â€œYes.” Elizabeth looked at him, and smiled almost wistfully. “I believe you love me as much as you know how to love, my Robert.”
    â€œAnd knowing that, you cannot answer me, or give me any hope?”
    â€œHow can I promise anything, when you already have a wife?”
    â€œBut I am going to divorce Amy,” Dudley protested. “You know that, my beloved.”
    â€œWhen you are free,” Elizabeth said, “it will be time to ask and the time for me to decide. And now you must take me back, Robert. We’ve been away too long already.”
    It was nearly dawn and she had woken after three hours of restless sleep. Elizabeth pulled back one corner of the bed curtains; she could hear the snores of her ladies in the antechambers, and the rising birdsong outside her open windows. It was a sound she loved, the gentle twittering that grew into an excited welcome for the rising sun. A peaceful sound, happy and unaware that the day brought the human enemy out to hunt and took the hood off the deadly falcon’s head.
    She never used falcons; the falcon was her mother’s favourite bird, a white falcon was her mother’s crest. “She died a whore’s death.” Those were her words to Robert when they were at Hampton a week ago, and she could not dismiss them from her mind. She had never mentioned Anne Boleyn to anyone before, not since the day she learnt the truth about her death and her alleged offences. She never wished to speak about her or think about her; there was no profit in the past once its initial lessons had been learnt. Learn by the mistakes of others and then forget who made them. Learn not to trust a man’s love.
    For all women were weak, and if she once surrendered her independence, she could never hope to get it back. Robert would try to dominate her—when she imagined that domination her feelings came close to hatred instead of love. She did not want to marry him, but she didn’t want to lose him either, and she lay at Windsor, after yet another wretched night, cursing him and herself and wondering when he would return from seeing his wife, Amy Dudley. She was a foolish, unsophisticated girl who had never said anything but yes to her husband. She could not hinder Robert; he would come back to Court and the whole struggle must be fought again. Elizabeth leant back against her pillows. Her head ached; it always did when she was worried. She loved him in many ways, perhaps more than she would admit. He could give her the warmth, the laughter, the closeness which was essential to true happiness. Indeed he gave it already, as much as their irregular relationship allowed. And he would give her children, heirs to stabilize her throne.
    â€œNo woman is truly happy until she has borne children.”
    She could hear Cecil saying that in his dry voice, urging her to marry the Spanish Archduke, or one of the Protestant German Princes who were suing for her hand. It amused her to hear him; she could never think of Cecil begetting anything with his dull wife except a Latin treatise.… He had not understood her mockery; he thought her unfeminine, because he was devoted to his family while she had as little faith in children as she had in men. Sons and daughters would only grow to envy each other and wish her dead so that they could inherit. She did not want Robert for children. She wanted Robert for her own sake, for her own happiness. But she did not want Robert as joint sovereign of England, and she knew in her heart that he would not be content with less. She did not want any human creature to partake in the power which was hers alone; the man who mounted a throne beside her would cease to be a husband and become a rival. That was another thing she knew Cecil did not understand when he