The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(4)
“Your parents walked in the direction of the old church,” Carrie said, dismissing him and returning to her sewing.
Stephen met them coming back toward the house, halfway between Wynfield Mote and the Norman church that had stood empty since Henry VIII’s reformation. Dominic and Minuette Courtenay had been married in that empty chapel—married in a Catholic ceremony, surprisingly. Every now and then Stephen remembered that his parents had not only had a life before their children, but a rather complicated and dangerous life. They were so very…stable. But today, remembering that his father had once been enough of a rebel to land in the Tower gave Stephen courage to speak the whole of his conflicted mind.
As ever, his mother went right to the heart of the matter. “The queen is demanding an answer to Ireland, is she not? I could feel the weight of her attention on you yesterday.”
“I’ve put her off as long as possible. If I’m taking a force to Ireland, it must be before summer’s end.”
“Are you seeking counsel, or approval?” his father asked.
“I’m always seeking both.” Stephen smiled briefly. “Partly I feel I don’t want anything to do with the mess in Ireland—and partly I feel that very reluctance means I should go.”
His mother laughed. “So like your father, making everything ten times more difficult than it need be. Go to Ireland or don’t, Stephen, but stop flaying yourself alive over the decision.”
But Dominic Courtenay knew his son as he knew himself, and so he added what the young man craved—an opinion. “If it were myself, I would go. I was your age when I commanded men along the March of Wales, and it was a critical experience in my life. You are a good leader with good men from your Somerset lands who will follow you. Let them. What they learn of you in Ireland will shape their lives and yours. Besides,” and here he cast a rueful glance at his wife, “military service is the least demanding request a monarch can make. Be glad if that is all the queen wants of you, son.”
Stephen laughed as he was meant to, and he did feel lighter when he wrote to the queen later that day to accept her offer of command in Ireland.
But beneath the lightness of a decision made was a brittle unease. Because military service was not the only thing wanted of him. His second letter was addressed to Francis Walsingham. Though officially the queen’s principal secretary, Walsingham had never given over his role as her chief intelligencer. Last year, Stephen had served him from within the imprisoned household of the exiled Scots queen, Mary Stuart. Walsingham was a man to exploit what advantages he could, and having a spy he trusted in Ireland would be a definite advantage.
I will be in Ireland by mid-August, Stephen wrote.
He expected Walsingham would have requests of his own to add to the queen’s orders.
—
Anne Isabella, Princess of Wales, had learned from her earliest years that she could nearly always get her way. Not many people had the power to say no to the daughter of two reigning monarchs, and so nineteen-year-old Anabel, when she was being particularly honest with herself, admitted that she was a bit spoiled.
The trouble was, one only tended to realize that when one didn’t get one’s way. As now, with Kit Courtenay staring her down in refusal.
“What do you mean, ‘No’?” she demanded. “I have appointed you my Master of Horse. It wasn’t a request.”
“Unless you mean me to operate in chains, then I am telling you that I very kindly decline the appointment.”
“What is wrong with you, Kit? You’ve been irritable and difficult for months.”
“Because I have a mind of my own and a wish to do more with my life than follow you around and offer you compliments? ‘How lovely you are today, Your Highness,’?” he said in deadly mimicry of court sycophants. “?‘The very image of your royal mother, but is that a touch of Spanish flair in your dress?’?”
Anabel’s temper went from raging to white-hot in a moment. In a chilly tone reminiscent of her father’s Spanish hauteur, she said, “Long acquaintance does not give you the right to insult me to my face.”
Most unusually, Kit did not immediately respond. Anabel was used to his ready tongue and quick wit, which could spin any conversation a dozen dizzying directions without warning. But in the last months, his irritability had been accompanied by these bouts of reflection before speech.
Kit did not apologize; she had not expected him to. But he offered something of an explanation. “I am growing older, just as you are. I do not have a throne waiting for me, nor even a title. Stephen inherits my father’s riches. I must make my own path. And I would prefer to do it without undue favouritism.”
“And what of due favouritism? Do you expect me to appoint strangers to serve in my household?”
“I am not insensible of the great honour, Your Highness. But I have made other plans. The Earl of Leicester is bound for Dublin and has appointed me his secretary. I leave for Ireland in two weeks.”
“You’re going to Ireland with Brandon Dudley? To be a secretary?” Anabel laughed in disbelief. “Why not at least go as part of Stephen’s forces?”
“If I’m not going to accept your favours, Anabel, I’m hardly likely to go begging to my brother.”
That at least sounded like the Kit she had always known—irreverent and occasionally insolent. Although Anabel was as close to the Courtenay children as anyone, the princess occasionally studied their relationships as an outsider and wondered if the pleasures of siblings outweighed the resentments.