Free A Love for All Time by Bertrice Small Page A

and embroidered with heavy gold threads in the pattern of grape vines, the sleeves slashed to show gold tissues beneath, Elizabeth was a regal figure. Upon her head was a red-gold wig for her own hair was thinning, and fading. Still she was a handsome woman. She wore about her slender neck the chain with the pendant Conn had given her, and in her ears were fat round pearls.
    Lord Holden entered the room quickly as if he were being pursued by all the fires of hell. Behind him came his wife, looking rather somber for once, and his pretty twin daughters whose almost identical faces bore signs of recent weeping. All three of the women were garbed in plain black velvet gowns with simple white lace ruffs, a departure, the queen thought, from their usual gaudy garb. Lord Holden, a portly gentleman, was also garbed severely in black. All four made their obeisance to the queen.
    She nodded back, her mouth quirking itself into a small frown. “Say on, my lord! Ye said ye wished to speak to me in the O’Malley matter.”
    “It distresses me, madame, to grieve ye in any way for I know how fond ye are of the Irishman, still I must report this to ye even though in doing so I expose myself and my own honor to shame.” He paused to glower at his wife and his daughters. “When the scandal of Ambassador di Carlo’s wife was made known, my own wife could no longer hide her own dishonor. She confessed to me that Master O’Malley had seduced her. Since it was necessary as an object lesson to our own dear impressionable daughters that she admit her guilt before them, ye can well imagine our surprise and horror to learn that the same Master O’Malley had also debauched our innocent girls as well! I demand that ye punish this deflowerer of virtuous wives and maidens! I would prefer not to make public my humiliation and mortification in this matter, but I shall if ye do not chastise this reprobate. I will hold my own wife up to ridicule, my precious daughters to the fate of spinsterhood, but I will see Conn O’Malley chastened!”
    “God’s foot!” The queen’s face bespoke her outrage, but whether that outrage stemmed from Conn’s behavior, or Lord Holden’s tone, Lord Burghley was not certain. “He shall be banished from court!” Elizabeth pronounced loftily. “I will not have such a man about me! As for you, my lord, it would be best if ye removed yer wife and daughters to Kent for the rest of the winter. They are invited to return at Whitsuntide, but until then it is best they return to the country to meditate upon their many female weaknesses. Prayer and fasting will help them to turn from the path of wickedness. We will help ye to make suitable marriages for the twins, and the sooner, I would think, the better.”
    Lord Holden fell to his knees, and taking the hem of the queen’s gown kissed it reverently. “Madame,” he said, “ye are all that is wise and good! I thank ye most heartily for this fair judgment. We will leave immediately this day for Marston Manor, but I will return as quickly in order to be of aid to ye.”
    Elizabeth smiled. “Stay with yer ladies, my lord, until the month of March begins. I feel they will need yer guidance if they are to be properly repentant. Be sure to beat them well to start them off along the right path, and then return to me.” She held out her hand so he might kiss her ring.
    Lord Holden’s face glowed with his admiration of the queen. Kissing the proffered hand, he scrambled to his feet, and roughly herded his women from the room, the door closing firmly behind him.
    For a moment the room was silent, and then the queen swore. “Damn him! Damn him! Damn him! I shall not be able to ask him back to court for at least a year, William, and it will be unutterably dull without him. How could he? Lady Holden and her daughters? It really is quite unforgivable!”
    “Lady Holden,” said Lord Burghley in an effort to soothe his mistress’ feelings, “has a reputation for taking lovers,