The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(107)
They at least allowed the queen to host a banquet for them afterward at Warwick Castle. Elizabeth had rather hoped that Lucette would wear the Tudor rose necklace she had once given her, but the dark-haired bride was adorned instead with another necklace familiar to the queen: pearls and sapphires, with a single filigree star pendant.
When the bride’s mother joined her, Elizabeth said acerbically, “Don’t tell me you have handed over your prized possession, Minuette. Whatever does Dominic say?”
Though nearly forty-five, Minuette Courtenay was recognizably still the young woman who had once captured the King of England’s heart. If there were strands of gray in her honey-gold hair, they did not show and her gown of leaf-green damask fit as neatly as when she was young. There were times, looking at her friend, when Elizabeth could almost believe the last twenty-five years a dream.
Minuette returned her to the subject of the necklace. “It is only lent for now,” she replied with equal tartness. “And Dominic would say that we ourselves are our prized possessions, not any material goods.”
“Do you never tire of your husband’s practical perfection?” Not that there wasn’t a grain of envy in Elizabeth’s soul at her friend’s long-lived and loving marriage.
Minuette turned the conversation with the ease of a woman who had known her queen since childhood—indeed, still knew her rather better than made Elizabeth comfortable. “Anabel tells us you intend to invest her formally as Princess of Wales. She is very proud—and, to your credit, taking the responsibility seriously. Dominic says her spoken Welsh has become quite good.”
Instinctively, Elizabeth darted a look to where her only child sat in merry companionship with Minuette’s twins. Kit and Pippa Courtenay were either side of the princess, their matching honey-gold heads (like their mother’s) bent inward as the three of them talked in no doubt scurrilous terms about the guests. The tableau tugged painfully at long-ago memories. The Holy Quartet, Robert Dudley had called them: Dominic, Minuette, Elizabeth…and her brother, William. She could only hope there was less pain in these young ones’ futures.
“The investiture,” Elizabeth acknowledged. “Of course it is only a formality. A ritual I never had. But it will be useful just now to remind the Welsh of our power. That is why I have chosen Ludlow Castle for the investiture, rather than simply doing it before Parliament. Anabel will make a charming figure to the Welsh.”
“She says the council has invited a representative from the Duc d’Anjou to attend the investiture.”
“As well as an envoy from Scotland. France is prepared to give us a large measure of what we want now that Mary Stuart has wed Philip. I will see what I can get from them, but it is Scotland that is most desperate for an alliance.”
“What has Anabel to say about it?”
Elizabeth huffed in exasperation. “You know better than that, Minuette. With my divorce from Philip and his recent marriage to Mary Stuart, all Europe is on edge. Mary wants Scotland back, make no mistake, and if she can persuade my former husband to give her Spanish troops, then our island is in serious danger. If Anabel were at all prone to romance—and I’m not certain that she is—she would have to give over for hard, cold reality. England and Scotland must stand together or we will fall separately to the Catholics.”
Minuette held her silence almost to the point of discomfort, but finally said, “I wasn’t criticizing, Elizabeth. Not intentionally. It is only that you were my friend before you were my queen, and at times I wish you unencumbered by the burdens of ruling. You and Anabel both.”
It was my choice to rule, Elizabeth thought but would never say. I just didn’t have a clear idea of what it would mean, the years of weariness and care and doubt. And always, the waiting for the next crisis.
She didn’t have long to wait. Before the wedding party had quite broken up, a courier arrived from London with a curt message written in Walsingham’s hand, the message Elizabeth had been fearing since the Scots queen had escaped her English imprisonment last year and then married the King of Spain.
Mary Stuart is four months gone with child.
—
The morning after his sister’s wedding, Stephen Courtenay woke late and for nearly the first time in his life was reluctant to leave his bed. (His empty bed, at least, and at home it was always empty.) But with Lucie’s wedding out of the way, he couldn’t put off what came next. The queen had offered him a command, and would not long await an answer.
Command was one thing—he had been raised to expect it. Command in Ireland was something else entirely. And convincing his parents to accept it when he himself was ambivalent? No wonder he’d rather stay in bed.
But he was twenty-one years old and could hardly hide from trouble. So he flung himself out of bed and dressed in record time in the belief that he might as well get unpleasant things done quickly. If he were Kit, he would dawdle his way through, putting it off as long as he could, but irresponsibility was not a trait an eldest son and heir could afford. That was the province of younger brothers.
On this particular morning, Kit was long gone on a ride with Pippa and Anabel. Lucie and her new husband had spent the night at their new home, Compton Wynyates, and from there meant to spend the next few weeks in Yorkshire, since the French-born Julien thought it sounded exotic. From the way Lucie and Julien had been looking at one another last night, Stephen supposed they would hardly notice their surroundings, as long as they had a bed.