A Court Affair Read Online Free

and kiss, on her own wedding day. A dream sadly fated never to come true.
    At least Robert had not begrudged her her lace. Amy loved lace; she said it was “like wearing snowflakes that don’t melt”. I hadn’t actually heard her say it, only Robert’s cruel parody when he slapped his hand against the tailor, Mr Edney’s, bill, loudly complaining, “Lace, lace, and more lace!” Laughing at and belittling her. Robert left her alone in the country, foisting her off on his friends instead of giving her a home of her own and children, while he danced attendance on the Queen of England, showered her with jewels, lost hundreds of pounds at cards and dice, spent excessively on his own ornate wardrobe and lavishly laden table, and was known to every moneylender in London, yet he begrudged his wife a few lengths of lace. That was one of the times when I did not like the man I loved.
    Sometimes I sent Amy lace and other pretty baubles, trinkets, and tokens in Robert’s name—a bolt of bright blue silk the colour of bluebells; a pretty white silk headdress edged with silver braid and embroidered with violets and pinks; a Venetian looking glass framed in enamelled flowers; and dusky-rose-coloured gloves fringed with gold and embroidered with bright pink rosebuds for her birthday. I
knew
he would not deny the gifts; he would rather be worshipped like a gilded god, basking in her humble, loving gratitude, even if it were for a gift he had not actually given. I know something of this too. I am the living embodiment of chaste Diana, the Virgin Queen, a secular Holy Virgin; I am worshipped and adored, the subject of poetry and songs. It would be all too easy to let this adulation go to my head like strong wine, and though some may think I have done just that, I have not, for I also know that no one sits easily upon a throne; for all its gilded, jewel-encrusted glory, it is as insecure as a high, rickety stool with one leg shorter than the rest, and no crown fits so firmly that it cannot be knocked or tumble off. The higher the pedestal, the farther the fall; no one who rises to power should
ever
forget that.
    Amy’s little notes of love and gratitude were proof Robert could point to that he had always been a good husband. And always I would ponder the perversity that it is often the lot of womankind to give our love to those who are unworthy of it, like my sister, who destroyed herself all for love of Spanish Philip. We do it, I think, because we fear that if we withhold our love, we may never find a truly worthy recipient for it, so with the largesse of a rich philanthropist we give the precious gold of our affection away rather than be miserable misers and hoard it. What good does a fortune do a spinster on her deathbed? Better to have lived well and spent it. And so we do, we spend our love, though very seldom wisely, and many of us die paupers for it.
    Amy’s love of lace—“like wearing snowflakes that don’t melt”—was just one more of those little titbits Robert’s tongue had casually let fall, scornfully, mockingly, or exasperatedly dropped over the years, which my mind had gathered up. As I stood there gazing down at her in her coffin, I staggered under the realisation that perhaps I, Amy’s glittering and much resented diamond-and-pearl-encrusted-alabaster-tower-of-confidence-strength-and-pride rival, the woman, the Queen, who all the world thought had stolen her husband’s love away from her, had known and understood Amy better than her own husband ever had throughout their ten years of marriage, from the first stirrings of the wolf of lust hiding under the sheep’s clothing of love, to the death of that lovely illusion, and the loneliness and hurt, the estrangement, indifference, and callousness that came afterwards.
    Robert wanted something he couldn’t have, something that was not his right—my crown, to rule England. And I was guilty of the same, of wanting something I couldn’t have, that I had no right