To Ruin A Queen: An Ursula Blanchard Mystery at Queen Elizabeth I's Court by Fiona Buckley Read Free Book Online

we knew what had happened then, we might understand better how Mortimer’s mind works—what he is likely to do now?”
    “Something like that, yes. But I don’t think I want to …”
    Cecil cut me short. “We need to find out, quietly, what Mortimer is about. If it involves anything that might injure the queen’s credit, then we can perhaps secretly frighten him into good behavior.”
    “I have never done anything,” said Elizabeth in a cold voice, “which could harm my right to the throne. But lies can be told and much made of little. I have had some experience of that.”
    I knew what she meant. She had suffered much from the scandalous gossip when the wife of Robin Dudley, Master of the Queen’s Horse, had died mysteriously, for most of England believed that the queen was in love with Dudley. Even now, though she had shown no sign of marrying Dudley, and I had heard that she had actually offered him as a husband for Mary Stuart (though that came to nothing), the scandal was not quite dead. But Mortimer could hardly hope to use that against the queen, not after all this time.
    “When we know what Mortimer’s scheme is,” Cecil said, “we will know how best to evade or destroy it. But we need to begin discreetly. With you, Ursula.”
    I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to be a secret agent or a spy again. I wanted to find Meg and take her home to France. Surely, I protested, they could arrest SirPhilip and make him tell them his plans. (I knew perfectly well that they had their methods. A day or two in the bowels of the Tower of London, and most men would tell anybody anything.) “You don’t need me,” I pleaded.
    I might have been talking to myself. “We don’t want to arrest him until we understand what we’re arresting him for. Haven’t I just explained that?” said Cecil.
    “But …”
    “You have our permission,” said Elizabeth graciously, “to collect your daughter, and take her home to your château. But you will have to go to Vetch Castle to get her.”
    “I will do so, ma’am. But I am most unwilling to … to search Sir Philip’s study while I’m there or in any other way pry into his affairs. I never want to be involved in such work again. Surely, surely, you could find somebody else.”
    “Would you be so determined,” inquired Elizabeth kindly, “if I offered you a valuable fee?”
    “Ma’am, my husband is a man of means. I have all I need.” I looked her in the eyes. “When I began to work as a secret agent, I was short of money. I needed it, to clothe and house and educate Meg. All that is changed now.”
    “My dearest Ursula. I know. Nevertheless, would you not like to have, shall we say, a foothold in England? Life is full of unhappy chances. You have been widowed once; what if it happened again? What if—for any reason—you wished to come home? It would be easier for you if you had a home here already. When your husbandleft England as a wanted man,” said the queen, “the house and land he had in Sussex were sequestered. What if I gave them back?”
    I stared at her and the golden-brown eyes smiled into mine. “What if I returned Withysham to you?” she said. “Or you could have some other house, if you think Withysham unsuitable. It hardly matters. The point is that here in England you would have a place to call your own. To obtain it, you need only agree to stay for a certain modest length of time at Vetch Castle—two weeks, perhaps? Surely that isn’t too long?—and do your best while you are there to learn the details of Mortimer’s extraordinary plans to extract a fortune from me?”
    “Do you blame me for this?” Rob asked, when Cecil and the queen had taken their leave and been rowed away up the darkening Thames, leaving me to “think it over,” as they put it. “I’m sorry if so. But you are needed, Ursula. You are valued.”
    After seeing our august visitors depart we had returned to the study. The supper had been cleared away, and the