The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(108)
Twice in the last eighteen months Pippa had attempted to explain to him the wisdom of her decision, and persuade him to look for his future happiness elsewhere. It had not gone according to plan.
Which seemed to be the theme of the Courtenay family these last two years. Her older brother Stephen had spent five months confined to the Tower of London. He’d subsequently lost his title and estates as Earl of Somerset, then been unofficially banished from England. Now he and Kit, Pippa’s twin, were training in France and serving with the men of their father’s old friend, Renaud LeClerc. And Lucie, the oldest sibling, though gloriously happy in her marriage to Renaud’s son, Julien, had suffered three miscarriages in the last two years.
Hands came to rest on Pippa’s shoulders and the Princess of Wales said teasingly, “Run out of things for which to scold Kit? I can provide you a list if you need it.”
“But then what will you write to him?”
Anabel took a seat next to Pippa and gave a small, secret smile. “Don’t worry about me. I have no shortage of things to write to Kit.”
Pippa put aside her unfinished letter and decided to change the subject from emotional entanglements to something less fraught. Like politics. “How is the news from Dublin?”
Anabel pulled a face. “It continues disastrous. With the fall of Waterford, only Dublin and Cork are open to reinforcements, and that’s presupposing we have any to send. No one thought the Spanish troops would remain this long, but success breeds willingness, and King Philip has had little difficulty rotating men in and out without losing the advantage.”
King Philip being also Anabel’s father. She had not referred to him as such, not even to Pippa, since the Spanish fleet had landed ten thousand soldiers to oppose English possession of Ireland. He was the enemy now, or at least well on his way to becoming such.
“I suppose Mary Stuart continues to crow about it in her correspondence all over Europe.”
“Certainly in her correspondence with her oldest son. James’s letters to me are three-quarters rants about his mother and one-quarter demands that England do something about it. Not that he’s offering any material help.”
The courtship of King James VI of Scotland and England’s Princess of Wales had thus far been conducted entirely at one remove. Pippa couldn’t help teasing, “Leaving no space for a single word in any of those letters about his most cherished bride-to-be?”
“I am quite happy to escape fulsome and insincere compliments, I assure you. I am less happy when he presumes to criticize my mother and Parliament for not sending more aid to Ireland. I pointed out in my last letter that Scotland is also a Protestant nation and perhaps they would be interested in lending us money or men for the fight in Ireland. I imagine that will shut him up for a bit.”
Pippa laughed. “This is quite the most amusing courtship I’ve ever witnessed.”
Anabel sobered. “Just as long as James remains content to be betrothed rather than pressing for a consummation of the treaty.”
She didn’t have to add the obvious, that she continued to hope the marriage might never take place. Anabel was stubborn and passionate and hardheaded and romantic all in one. As long as she remained unwed, there existed the smallest hope that she might be allowed to marry the man she loved: Kit Courtenay.
The course of true love never did run smooth, Pippa thought mordantly. But this is beginning to be ridiculous. For all of us.
—
“The Queen of England will not be kept waiting by a rebel Irish countess!” Elizabeth Tudor snapped. It really wasn’t fair to snap at Burghley, who did no more than deliver the message that Eleanor Fitzgerald was running late. But he’d had thirty years of serving royals and knew fairness was not something to be expected.
That didn’t mean he wouldn’t make his own retorts from time to time. “I could hardly burst into her bedchamber and drag her out half clothed.”
“Oh, she’s fully clothed, mark my words. This is a tactical move.” Elizabeth, who knew all about tactical moves, let her ruffled temper smooth into glass. “She thinks she is announcing Ireland’s independence. Truly independent rulers do not have to make such petty shows.”
It was a further five minutes before the pages proclaimed the arrival of Her Ladyship, the Countess of Desmond. Arrived in England as emissary for the rebel earl, her husband, the only reason Elizabeth had agreed to meet with Eleanor Fitzgerald at all was to impress upon the woman the might and power of the English court. Elizabeth had never been to Ireland, but she had read plenty of accounts and knew that the Irish nobility—saving perhaps those such as her cousin, the Earl of Ormond—often lived in worse conditions than even her own middle-class merchants. Just because she was finding it difficult to fund a sufficient force of soldiers to beat back the Spanish didn’t mean the Irish had any chance at all in the end. Indeed, without Spain, the war would have long since been over.
A point Elizabeth did not hesitate to make when the tardy countess arrived and made a barely adequate curtsey. “I thought the entire point of Desmond’s rebellion was resistance to foreign interference. We English have been part of Ireland for more than four hundred years, and yet we are accounted more foreign than the Spanish, who share no heritage with you at all?”
Eleanor was not easily frightened. “They share our faith. And we have less quarrel with foreign soldiers than we do with men who take our lands for their own and pretend they belong.”