Free The Fyre Mirror by Karen Harper Page A

that,” Robin said, his face stoic despite its rising color.
    Elizabeth bit her lip harder. Robin was getting red in the face, and she feared he’d burst out with one of his guffaws. Arundel not only did not have a sense of humor, but usually failed to recognize it in others.
    “The wretch charged me a pretty penny for it too,” Arundel plunged on, “and told everyone I adored his work, which I’d never said. That was as good—as bad, I mean—as lying, if you ask me. Not to mention the man paid too much heed to my page boy, of all people, while he was around, and the lad was too young to know better. This was before Kendale turned as corpulent as your fath—” He stopped talking midword.
    “As corpulent as my father,” she finished for him. “I do see the picture you paint, my lord.”
    Robin stifled a snicker, which, fortunately, Arundel did not hear. “Of course, you have every right not to heed what I advise,” Arundel said, tugging his ruffled satin cuffs down over his beringed hands. “God knows, your royal sire did not. When he saw the site for Nonsuch—I was with him, you know, on a boar hunt—I suggested he build the palace at the far end of the meadow and use the little village of Cuddington as a place where courtiers and servants could live. But no, he would have it exactly here on the rise of ground and said leaving Cuddington would ruin the view, so out the village folk and the family of the manor went and down came the buildings.”
    But Elizabeth was only half listening now. She could see through the ornate gate into the outer courtyard, where three riders were dismounting from lathered horses, and she was suddenly certain who had arrived.
    “Well, my lords,” she said, looking back over her shoulder to catch Cecil’s eye, “it seems Queen Mary’s Lord Maitland has arrived from Scotland—via London, if he went there first. I’ll see him forthwith. Despite who his royal mistress is, I have found him a forthright man with only his country’s best interest at heart, and who can ask more of a man than that? Cecil, with me, if you will.”
    Just as the chimes rang four of the afternoon, the queen and her secretary of state walked together to greet Maitland under the tall clock-tower gate. He had been the Scottish secretary of state for years, appointed before Mary was queen. Though Mary had not officially demoted him, she’d used him lately more as an envoy or liaison to the English court, partly because he was a staunch Protestant and frowned on her increasingly reckless behavior. But Mary could not argue with the man’s wily ways or the fact that he and Cecil had lately managed to keep peace between the two countries.
    “My lord Maitland,” Elizabeth called in greeting, and the man swept off his hat and shaded his eyes before a low bow. “You are welcome here at Nonsuch.”
    “I take it the court’s movement was a sudden decision, Your Most Gracious Majesty,” he replied, “for when I crossed the border, I heard you were still in London.”
    Sir William Maitland of Lethington was tall and sturdily built, a jouster in appearance but, like Cecil, a lawyer at heart. Bearded, approaching age forty, he seemed bluffly honest and had the brains not to favor Lord Darnley as his mistress did, so Elizabeth liked the man despite her aversion to his Catholic queen.
    “Who can resist this country air after such a winter, my lord,” she said. “Come inside, and I’ll see you and your men are well cared for. And what is the message from my cousin, dear Queen Mary?” she added as they walked toward the royal apartments.
    Maitland’s clear blue gaze met hers, then Cecil’s. “I regret to inform both of you,” Maitland said, his voice so low and rough that it sounded as if he were grinding out his words, “she is yet besotted with Lord Darnley and, I fear, will have him.”
    Elizabeth tried to convey both surprise and concern. “I feared so too, and in defiance of my counsel.”
    “And