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

candles were burning down. I was very tired. I gazed at Rob with weary defiance. “I know how I am valued,” I said. “Have you forgotten the way I was once used to bait a trap for my own husband?”
    “It was for Elizabeth’s safety, and that means the safety of England. You know that.” He looked at me steadily, dispassionately. Rob was an attractive man but there was never any magnetism between us. He always talked to me as though I were another man, and I found this natural. “Cecil said that he brought Lady Mortimerhere because he had heard that Dale and Brockley were visiting me. It was I who told Cecil about that. When you settled in France, Cecil asked me to let him know whenever you communicated with me, and what the latest news of you was. I do as Cecil says, as well you know. Well, when Brockley and Dale arrived, inquiring after Meg’s welfare, I naturally informed him. He and Lady Thomasine arrived almost at once. Were Brockley and Dale intending, at the end of their visit, to take her back to France, by the way?”
    “Yes.”
    “I thought so. So did Mattie. I let Cecil know as much.”
    “And when Cecil heard that I was pining for my daughter,” I said, “he rubbed his hands together, thinking how convenient; getting Ursula back to England will be easy. All I would need was just a little push—or little pull.” I knew I sounded bitter. “So he arranged for Meg to disappear. And now I’m here and I am to follow her to Vetch Castle. As a hawk follows the lure, or a donkey follows a carrot.”
    “Yes. But you are bound to follow the carrot, are you not? You want to fetch Meg. Well, Ursula, what will you do when you find her? Will you leave at once—or stay two weeks as you’ve been asked, and look about you—and win a home in England?” He scanned my face. “Or will you refuse both the task and the payment, because Matthew might object?”
    I sighed, rubbing my forehead, hoping that my head was not going to start aching again. “I shall accept,” I said. “I shall write to Matthew and tell him what I’ve been asked to do and what the reward will be,and say that I intend to stay at Vetch for the two weeks that will earn it. I shall also say that I will, if he so wishes, ask for a different estate, not Withysham. Withysham was taken from him because he had plotted against Elizabeth. I would be getting it back as a reward for services rendered to Elizabeth. He might well find that—well …”
    “Tasteless,” Rob agreed. “Yes. That crossed my mind, too. But you are willing in principle to accept property in England?”
    “Yes,” I said. To forgo Withysham was one thing. To forgo the reward altogether was quite another and from the moment Elizabeth mentioned it, I knew I could not bear to do that. “After all,” I pointed out, “why should I refuse payment for services honestly rendered? I shall say to Matthew that I look on it as an increase in our wealth.”
    “And trust that he will see it in that light?”
    “Yes. The queen spoke the truth. I do need somewhere in England to come back to—just in case. I know how fragile life can be.” Gerald had gone from full health to a hideously disfigured death in a matter of days.
    I also knew now, though it troubled me to realize it, how homesick I had been at Blanchepierre; how much and how deeply I had missed England. It would ease my heart to know that I could come here at will, and find a place to call my own.
    “I feel sure you’ll manage Matthew,” Rob said with a smile. “You’ll go to Vetch and earn your pay. You’ll do it for pay. But not for Elizabeth?”
    “Would you expect that—now?”
    “She is not just a woman called Elizabeth Tudor. She is England too,” said Rob.
    Again, I remembered my homesickness in France and how glad I had been to hear the English tongue when I disembarked at Southampton. I remembered the green of the woods and the sound of the birdsong, so familiar and beloved, so subtly different from