Smiling, she took the phone from Kat’s outstretched hand. It would be so good to talk to Dudley. He’d cajole her out of her nervousness. He could always make her feel better.
‘Hi, Duds,’ she said. ‘Have you rung to wish me luck?’
‘Lizzie.’ Dudley didn’t wait for her to finish. ‘Thank God you’re there. She’s dead, Lizzie! I’ve only just heard. I don’t know what to do…’ He sounded dazed, his voice so broken and confused that Lizzie barely recognised it. She felt a lurch of fear. This did not sound like the Dudley she knew, the irreverent, impetuous, fun-loving companion who could tease her out of any bad mood.
‘Dudley?’ she said sharply. ‘What’s happened? What do you mean? Who’s dead?’
‘Shit,’ Dudley said. ‘Haven’t you seen it online? Are you locked in a cellar somewhere, for God’s sake? I told you. It’s Amelia. She’s dead!’
Amelia. Lizzie’s mind locked onto the name. Amelia was Dudley’s soon-to-be-ex-wife, whose existence Lizzie so frequently – and so conveniently – forgot. The churning sickness in her stomach intensified. How could Amelia be dead? She was only twenty-eight years old. Had there been an accident, a car crash, like the one that had taken Lizzie’s mother? For a terrifying second the present slipped away and Lizzie felt as though she was four years old again, watching through the bannisters as the police came to break the news to her father.
Sunlight, dust motes dancing in the air, the smell of whisky pervading the house, the radio chattering in the kitchen, the old battered panda clutched in her hand, her father, shielding his eyes so no one could read his expression, the ring of a lie in his voice as he expressed his grief…
‘Lizzie?’ Dudley’s urgent voice broke through the memory.
Lizzie tried to pull her thoughts together, to focus. ‘What happened?’ she repeated. ‘How… How did she die? Were you there?’
Dudley’s voice was frayed, high pitched. ‘No! It was nothing to do with me! I don’t know anything about it.’ He stopped again. Lizzie waited, aware of the fear building inside her, of a sense of impending doom, of dark shadows gathering. For a moment all she could hear was the rising sound of the crowd in the marquee, all she could feel was the heat trapped beneath the canvas, pressing down on her, making her light-headed. She steadied herself with one hand on the back of Kat’s chair and realised that she was shaking.
‘Amelia’s dead, Lizzie,’ Dudley repeated, and he sounded so lost that Lizzie felt the huge horrible weight of sickness settle hard in her stomach. ‘She fell down the stairs at Oakhangar Hall and broke her neck.’
Chapter 4
Amy: Stansfield Manor, Norfolk, April 1550
Throughout my childhood, whenever I had needed wise counsel, I had sought out my half-brother Arthur. He had always been the one to cajole me out of ill temper or soothe my tears when my mother and I disagreed. She and I were close; she taught me everything from how to run a large household to how to make herbal ointments, but she was brisk and too busy for my tantrums. My sister Anna and I scrapped like cats; John was a studious boy who grew into a distant young man. There was only Arthur who had the patience for me.
That day I found him in the stables. This was no surprise; he was seldom anywhere but on the farm. Our father had tried to educate him as a gentleman for he was his elder son, illegitimate or not, but whilst Arthur had done well enough at Oxford, he had shown no desire to enter either the law or the church. It seemed he had no ambition. Father did not understand that, though when Arthur expressed a wish to run Father’s estates, he did not demur and respected Arthur for his skills, particularly with the animals.
I sat on a bale of straw, inhaling the scent of warm horses, hay and hot oil from the lantern, listening to the chink of the rope in the metal ring as the mare shifted beneath the curry comb. Arthur talked to her as he worked, soft words, affectionate, soothing, moving the comb in efficient circles over her coat. She seemed to like it, nudging him when he stopped for a moment. I knew better than to interrupt him and it was only when he laid the comb aside and picked up the dandy brush that he paused, shaking the hair out of his eyes, and looked at me.
‘You will spoil your gown sitting there,’ he said. ‘The straw is still damp.’
I shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
He raised his brows. ‘I thought there was something wrong. Now I know there must be. When were you so careless of your attire?’
‘I am crossed in love,’ I said. ‘I care nothing for how I look.’
His lips twitched into a smile at either the melodrama or the blatant lie or perhaps both. He and I both knew it would take more than a little heartache to reduce my vanity to ashes. Arthur was five years my senior, the result of a liaison between our father and a woman who had lived in a cottage on another of Father’s estates at Syderstone. She had been widowed when she bore Arthur and died soon after of the flux. Arthur was taken into my father’s household and there he remained. He had an uneasy relationship with my mother; they were always courteous to one another but I knew that his existence gave her pain, which was odd, I thought, since she had come to her marriage with two children of her own from her last husband. Perhaps it was the gossip that caused her grief, since it was still said in Syderstone, Stansfield and around, that Arthur’s mother had been an exceptionally beautiful woman and that our father was utterly besotted with her. Certainly, Arthur had been blessed with good looks just as I had. We quite put John and Anna in the shade.
‘Let me guess,’ Arthur said. He started to groom the mare again, long, firm strokes that brought up the shine of her coat to a rich chestnut gleam. ‘Our father is set on you marrying your fancy lord whilst your mother counsels against it. You must inevitably upset one or the other of them.’
I stared at him. ‘How did you know?’
Arthur glanced up at me over his shoulder. ‘You need to ask? When the house has resounded to your parents’ high words this week past? Everyone knows they are at odds, our father set on this ambitious plan and your mother arguing that his aims are too high.’
‘What shall I do?’ I said plaintively.
Arthur straightened up, the brush still in his hand. ‘Why are you asking me? You will do exactly what you want to do, Amy. You want to marry Robert Dudley so you will have him regardless of any opposition.’
Arthur knew me very well. I admitted, albeit to myself alone, that he was right. There was a whole host of reasons why I wished to marry Robert. Some were noble. We loved each other. Some were personal. He was handsome and charming. Others were less admirable. I wanted to make a match that would have my half-sister gasping with envy. Anna had married a gentleman the previous year and gone to live at a fine manor house, but she would never have dreamed of looking as high as I did for a husband. She would be green with envy. Robert had no money but he had connections, status and plans for greater things. But this, it seemed, was my mother’s objection. Arthur was right, we had all heard the bitter words exchanged between our parents as day after day, night after night they fought over my future.
‘You are blinded by ambition,’ was Mother’s refrain to my father. ‘You overreach yourself in this alliance with the Dudleys. Those who rise so high will surely fall and take us all down with them.’