“I dislike speaking in riddles, my lord,” I answered stiffly.
Robert laughed again. His dark hair was trimmed and neat, his small beard framing a good-humored mouth, his body lithe and well-built. I could not blame females for being captivated by his handsomeness, although his nose, in my opinion, was rather on the bulbous side.
I personally found his charm overblown. I preferred plain speaking and sense to extravagant compliments and clever witticisms.
Elizabeth, however, was no giddy girl. She would not like Robert so much if he hadn’t possessed an intelligence to match her own.
Still, I could not help being happy that Robert could have no husbandly domination over Elizabeth. A man in a flirtation might profess to be a woman’s humble servant, but in marriage, he was master.
The ironic glint in Robert’s eyes made me wonder if he knew in which direction my thoughts went. I realized I’d been assessing him most carefully, and I blinked to ease my scrutiny.
“I have nothing to speak of apart from the weather,” Robert said in an amused tone.
“No message for the princess?” I asked, voice low.
“None at all. Save to greet her, poor fellow prisoner, and to ponder what joyous days we will have when we are past this place.” Robert winked. “That is if we walk out our way, not Mary’s.”
I frowned in impatience. “That is nothing more than you have told me before.” We’d met in a similar way several times over the past weeks.
“What do you expect of me, Mistress Rousell? Would you have me deliver ten written messages that rescue is at hand, naming all those who will be involved? Perhaps a map our lady may follow as she flees before Mary’s army? Nay, my dear Mistress, look not to me for those.”
A lady of my station—a mere gentlewoman—could hardly admonish a duke’s son, but I wanted to scold Robert for his flippancy and perhaps tweak his nose to relieve my pique.
“I am a plain woman,” I said. “With plain understanding.”
“You are hardly that.” Robert dragged an impertinent gaze down my person. “But if you insist, I will speak plainly. She is to do nothing. Sentiment changes, and she is liked. Our mutual friend has more ideas. You are to stay close to her.” Robert grinned once more, his haughty face lightening into the charm other ladies loved so well. “Is that plain enough? Or shall I write it in my blood?”
“Plain enough, my lord. I thank you.”
Robert’s smile faded abruptly, and he glanced behind him as though he’d heard a step. “Excellent. Now go back, Mistress Rousell, before you are missed.”
He turned and walked away, not bothering to say farewell.
Another reason I did not like Lord Robert—he expressed courtesy as it pleased him, only to those he wished to please. He made it clear that as much as he had looked me over with a gaze bordering on lascivious, it was not me he wanted, but her.
It was not until May that Fortune stepped in to aid us, and then in an odd way. One morning a man called Henry Bedingfield came to the Tower to take charge of Elizabeth.
Sir Henry Bedingfield had a large face, a long, wide nose that he tended to peer down, and close-set eyes. His long moustache drooped into his beard, giving him a perpetually woeful look.
Not that Bedingfield smiled much. He regarded Elizabeth in sorrow as he knelt before her, clearly wondering how a young woman could turn against her sister and her queen, and told her she would be his prisoner.
Elizabeth had measure of him before their first interview was finished.
“I noted that the Tower is being fortified,” Elizabeth declared, staring Bedingfield down. We had seen new soldiers marching in this morning. “Am I so dangerous a prisoner? All this for one weak woman?”
Bedingfield took her statement at face value. I had watched Elizabeth fence and win with Tyrwhitt over the Seymour affair, and Tyrwhitt had been a much worthier opponent than Bedingfield. This match would be ugly.
“You are too humble, Your Grace,” Bedingfield answered. “But no, the guards have nothing to do with you.”
His eyes flickered, and I knew he lied. Elizabeth, of course, discerned this as well. From what I’d understood from the cryptic hints Robert gave me whenever I met him at the garden gate, Elizabeth’s prisoner’s status had changed. I could not tell—and Robert seemed not to know—whether that change was for good or ill.
“I have asked Her Majesty my sister whether I might walk in the great hall,” Elizabeth said to Bedingfield. “Have you brought her answer?”
“I have not had word on this.” Bedingfield’s brows came down as though he were reading from a long list in his mind. “But she forbids you to speak with anyone in the gardens who are not your attendants.”
“That is no worry. I do not.”
Again, the eye flicker, as if reading from instructions inside his head. “You speak on occasion to a little girl named Alison, who is the porter’s daughter,” Bedingfield said.
