Elizabeth by Evelyn Anthony Page B

surrendering her freedom or completely losing her heart. Kate Dacre stared through the soft summer gloom till her eyes ached; they must have wandered far because she could not hear their voices. Well, whatever they did, Jane Warwick and Lady Bedford would hear nothing about it from her .
    They had come to the stretch of lawn beside the river bank, and in the shelter of a cherry tree, Dudley tried to take Elizabeth in his arms. To his surprise she pushed him back; she was much stronger than she looked.
    â€œWe came to talk,” she reminded him.
    â€œWe spend our lives in talking,” Dudley said impatiently. “We spend our time like puppets on a stage, living our lives before an audience. God knows it’s seldom enough we are alone like this——Come to me, give me a few moments of joy, I beg of you!”
    She shook her head and moved swiftly away to the edge of the river parapet so that he had to follow her.
    â€œWhat will you do if Amy agrees to be divorced?” she said. “Tell me, Robert.”
    He stood beside her, leaning against the rough stone, and gently put one arm around her shoulders.
    â€œI’ll set out to win the only woman in the world I want,” he answered. “And you know very well who that is.”
    â€œWould you aspire to marry me, Robert?” She looked at him, her face very pale in the dim light, her eyes as black as the river which ran past their feet.
    â€œI would, and I’ll never rest until I do.”
    â€œI am not to be taken by intrigue or force of arms,” her voice was a whisper. “Do not mistake me for a venture, Robert, and think in terms of power. Who gains me will never gain my throne. I have to tell you that.”
    â€œThere is no need,” Dudley told her quietly. “I told you before, I love the woman, not the Queen.”
    She turned suddenly, and this time she came into his arms, one hand holding his cheek; gazing into the face bent over hers as if to read the same sincerity in the eyes as she heard in his voice.
    â€œDo you really love me, Robert? Just for myself, and not for what I can give you?”
    â€œMore than my life,” he whispered, and in that moment when success seemed within reach, he had an odd suspicion that he meant what he said.
    â€œIf I were free, and I will be, I promise you, would you marry me?”
    â€œI don’t know.” She was staring past him, out over the shining Thames, beyond into the increasing darkness. “I don’t know, Robert. I am afraid to marry. We stand here, you and I, talking of love, and have you ever thought who may have stood in this same spot and kissed and whispered, just as we are doing now?”
    â€œNo,” Dudley shook his head. He had no idea what she meant.
    â€œMy mother and father.”
    The next moment she had stepped back from him, and there was something about her that stopped him from touching her.
    â€œHe was supposed to love her,” she said harshly. “He turned England upside down to marry her and then he cut her head off before I was three years old. That is what marrying for love has meant to me. God knows, perhaps, that’s what marriage means itself, I can’t be sure. I am sure about everything, Robert, everything in life that I want or must do, except this one thing that all men believe to be so easy for a woman. You ask me to marry you and I can’t answer.”
    â€œYes, you can,” Dudley urged. “Banish your ghosts, Madam—banish your fears with them! Pity your mother if you wish, but for Christ’s sake don’t take her as an example.”
    â€œI don’t pity my mother,” Elizabeth interrupted; she was staring across the river, her face as hard and pale as stone in the light of the moon which had just risen. “She died a whore’s death and that’s all I know about her. I should never have spoken of this, even to you. And I never will again. I forbid you to