For awhile, then, Lord Robert had prudently held his hand; moreover, the urgency there had been a year ago, when that host of foreign suitors laid siege to Elizabeth of England, had passed, and his lordship could afford to wait. But now of a sudden the urgency was returned. Under the pressure brought to bear upon her to choose a husband, Elizabeth had half-committed herself to marry the Archduke Charles, promising the Spanish ambassador a definite answer within a few days.
Lord Robert had felt the earth to be quaking under him; he had seen the ruin of his high ambitions; he had watched with rage the expanding mockery upon the countenances of Norfolk, Sussex, and those others who hated and despised him; and he had cursed that wife of his who knew not when to die. But for that obstinacy with which she clung to life he had been the Queen’s husband these many months, so making an end to suspense and to the danger that lies in delay.
To-night the wantonness with which the Queen flaunted before the eyes of all her court the predilection in which she held him, came not merely to lull his recent doubts and fears, to feed his egregious vanity, and to assure him that in her heart he need fear no rival; it came also to set his soul Quiver impotent rage. He had but to put forth his hands to possess himself of this splendid prize. Yet those hands of his were bound while that woman lived at Cumnor. Conceive his feelings as they stole away together like any pair of lovers.
Arm in arm they came by a stone gallery, where a stalwart scarlet sentinel, a yeoman of the guard, with a Tudor rose embroidered in gold upon his back, stood under a lamp set in the wall, with grounded pike and body stiffly erect.
The tall young Queen was in crimson satin with cunningly-wrought silver embroideries, trimmed with tufted silver fringe, her stomacher stiff with silver bullion studded with gold rosettes and Roman pearls, her bodice cut low to display her splendid neck, decked by a carcanet of pearls and rubies, and surmounted by a fan-like cuff of guipure, high behind and sloping towards the bust. Thus she appeared to the sentinel as the rays of the single lamp behind him struck fire from her red-gold hair. As if by her very gait to express the wantonness of her mood, she pointed her toes and walked with head thrown back, smiling up into the gipsy face of her companion, who was arrayed from head to foot in shimmering ivory satin, with an elegance no man in England could have matched.
They came by that stone gallery to a little terrace above the Privy Steps. A crescent moon hung low over the Lambeth marshes across the river. From a barge that floated gay with lights in mid-stream came a tinkle of lutes, and the sweet voice of a singing boy. A moment the lovers stood at gaze, entranced by the beauty of the soft, tepid September night, so subtly adapted to their mood. Then she fetched a sigh, and hung more heavily upon his arm, leaned nearer to his tall, vigorous, graceful figure.
“Robin, Robin!” was all she said, but in her voice throbbed a world of passionate longing, an exquisite blend of delight and pain.
Judging the season ripe, his arm flashed round her, and drew her fiercely close. For a moment she was content to yield, her head against his stalwart shoulder, a very woman nestling to the mate of her choice, surrendering to her master. Then the queen in her awoke and strangled nature. Roughly she disengaged herself from his arm, and stood away, her breathing quickened.
“God’s Death, Robin!” There was a harsh note in the voice that lately had cooed so softly. “You are strangely free, I think.”
But he, impudence incarnate, nothing abashed, accustomed to her gusty moods, to her alternations between the two natures she had inherited—from overbearing father and wanton mother—was determined at all costs to take the fullest advantage of the hour, to make an end of suspense.