A Court Affair by Emily Purdy Page B

the one.” She nods and brings forth from my jewel coffer a rich and heavy necklace of golden oak leaves and amber acorns that matches the betrothal ring I have worn on my left hand since the day Robert put it on my finger when I was a green girl of seventeen brimming over with hopes and dreams. I could not imagine then a world in which Robert would cease to love me. Even now, I like being clothed and jewelled in Robert’s oak leaves and acorns; like cattle wearing its master’s brand, I am
still
his wife, even if he wishes otherwise;
I
still remember, even when all he wants to do is forget. I
am
Lady Amy Dudley, Lord Robert’s wife, and I will
never
surrender that until Death takes it from me.
With this ring I thee wed. Until death do us part.
My affections are not frivolous and fickle despite the changeable nature often ascribed to my sex; when I stood beside Robert on our wedding day to make our vows, I spoke from my heart and meant
every
word.
    “Will you lie down for a bit, love?” Pirto hovers anxiously beside me.
    “No.” I shake my head. “It will muss my gown. Help me to my chair please, Pirto.”
    It is the most comfortable, beautiful, cheerful chair imaginable, so inviting that it often tempts me from my bed, which is good and exactly as it should be, Dr Biancospino said when I told him. It was the last present my husband sent to me. Such thoughtfulness surely proves that, somewhere, deep in his heart, despite his outward show of indifference, he
must
still
care for me. It is upholstered in the most vibrant, rich emerald green all embroidered with bright, beautiful flowers, their petals, leaves, and stems accented with threads of gold and silver. When I sit in it, it is like sinking down into a bed of wildflowers. It always makes me smile. It is so wonderfully, heavenly soft. Sometimes, when I am so sick that I think I will never leave my bed again, I gaze across the room at it, and I am drawn to it. I want to reach out and touch the pinks and daffodils; their leaves seem to beckon to me, to coax a smile from me, and I cannot resist the urge to rise and sit in it—it is
too
powerful to ignore.
    As Pirto bustles about the room, putting things right after my bath, I sit and watch the dawn break over the park, where the pond catches the sun’s reflection. Mrs Forster’s children will be out looking for frogs in their Sunday best if their mother and nurse don’t keep a sharp eye on them. I smile at the thought, I can so well imagine it; it’s a scene I have seen before and laughed at until it hurt so much, I cried.
    As my hand caresses the bright flowers embroidered on the well-padded green arm of my chair, I gaze down upon my betrothal ring, and in that amber acorn, caught like little flecks and flotsam in the golden sap, I can see the happy, joyful days when I was strong, happy, and beloved by the man I can never forget, the one who made me believe all my dreams would come true, and that there
really
was a happily ever after …

2
Amy Robsart Dudley
    Stanfield Hall, near Wymondham, in Norfolk
August 1549–April 1550
    I remember the first time I saw Robert Dudley. Sometimes one look, one glance, is enough. Though many, perhaps even I now, would scoff at my youth—I was only new-turned seventeen—that August day I
knew
I had met my destiny.
    I sat beside the river, lazy and languid in a bed of nodding yellow buttercups, almost one of them myself in my yellow gown, with my golden curls tumbling down, wiggling my bare toes, with an apron full of apples in my lap. I was daydreaming, building castles in the blue sky and white clouds, pretending that I was a princess, dreaming of the day my prince would come. Suddenly the whinny of a horse startled me and blew all the dreams right out of my head. I leapt up and spun round, the apples falling from my lap, tumbling and rolling every which way. That was when I saw him—Robert, Lord Robert Dudley, my prince in a shining silver breastplate, mounted on a night