Read Online The Queen's Secret by Victoria Lamb - Free Book Online

beard tickling her throat. ‘For I would make a most stern and cruel parent, and keep you locked up night and day.’
    ‘Then I give thanks that you’re my good friend and
not
my father.’
    She stiffened, frowning at the sight of Tom Black leading a skittish and sidling piebald into the stables. Tom was stroking the horse’s muzzle and whispering in its ear, no doubt seeking to soothe the animal’s fears amid all the noise and chaos of the outer court. She stared at him, admiring his broad chest in the plain white shirt and leather jerkin, the muscular turn of his thighs. It was a rare thing to see a man with skin black as her own, and to find one so far from London was strange and wonderful.
    ‘It’s bad enough to be under the eye of Mistress Hibbert,’ she added, trying not to blush and give her thoughts away. ‘Her smiles are sour as lemons. If she could get away with chaining us to the wall, I promise you she would.’
    Goodluck had followed her gaze, and his eyes narrowed as Tom disappeared into the huge double-storeyed stable block. ‘Mistress Hibbert sounds like a woman after my own heart. Yet where is she, this great scourge of the entertainers? For here you are, a young girl dashing about a strange castle and falling into bad company, and no stout matron in sight to scold you and send you to bed.’
    ‘Oh,’ she replied airily, ‘we left old Hibbert sick in London. And Mistress Longley lets us younger girls run wild.’
    ‘Not too wild, I hope.’
    ‘Are you jealous?’
    ‘I wish I had time to be jealous. My head’s too full of other matters to worry about the comings and goings of pretty young things like yourself.’
    She twisted around and looked up into his bearded, weather-beaten face, curious and more than a little concerned. She had known for years that Master Goodluck had a reputation in certain circles as a spy, and it worried her to think of her comfortable old guardian engaged in such a dangerous business, especially when she could not be entirely certain whether he was spying for or against the Queen. She had seen the bloody remains of too many spiked and staring heads on London Bridge to shrug off the possibility that Goodluck might get himself arrested.
    ‘What do you mean by that?’ she asked. ‘Do you carry news from abroad to the Queen’s advisers?’
    ‘Oh, so those dark eyes of yours see more than just goodly young men.’ Goodluck shook his head at her questioning look, and took another swig from his flask. ‘My work is no great matter for discussion, trust me. My only advice would be to beware of Italians. And that must suffice for now.’
    There was a grim look to his eyes that Lucy had never seen before, a heaviness that made her wish to smooth those lines away. But she knew he would resent such a sisterly gesture, so she pretended not to have noticed. Instead she allowed him to pull her back into his arms.
    ‘For tonight,’ Goodluck said, kissing her cheek with a fierce scratch of his beard, ‘the Queen is safely tucked up here in Kenilworth, and I am very thankful to see my not so little Lucy again.’

Eight

    LETTICE CARRIED THE Queen’s heavy, thickly jewelled foreskirt to one of the open travelling chests. With aching arms, she laid it gently alongside the matching sleeves and stiff ivory busk that had kept Elizabeth’s torso fashionably flat during the long hot day. She examined the fabric critically, but all the jewels were still attached; there would be no need to note down any lost gems in the wardrobe book. The fragile material of the foreskirt, however, had snagged in several places and would need to be mended before the gown could be worn again, a painstaking task requiring several hours of close, eye-burning needlework. With any luck though, one of Elizabeth’s seamstresses would have arrived by now, and she herself would not need to give up an entire evening to the job.
    Lady Mary Sidney and Lady Helena Snakenborg were wrestling with the knotted laces