Free Watch the Lady by Elizabeth Fremantle Page A

chaperone probably, and couldn’t disguise her sour face on seeing Penelope riding pillion with Sidney, pressed tightly up against him.
    â€œI cannot bear to see those poor animals die,” Penelope had said of the hunt.
    â€œYou are too soft,” Peg retorted. “Do you not think she is too soft, Sidney?”
    â€œWhen I was in Paris, I saw things that gave me an understanding of savagery,” he said. “People slaughtered in their hundreds. If you had seen the look of fervor in the killers’ eyes, you would abhor brutality too.” His eyes met Penelope’s for the briefest moment and she had the overwhelming sense of being understood.
    â€œThe massacre on St. Bartholomew’s?” she asked. He nodded. “A Huguenot grew up in our household.” She was talking of Jeanne. “She lost both her parents on that night. Saw the butchery herself. She was just a child. The sight of blood makes her faint clean away—even now. She told me things . . .”
    â€œThere are many such stories.” Sidney’s voice was grave, as if his experience had left an ineradicable mark of gloom on him.
    â€œBut animals are different. We kill them to survive—they are God’s gift to us,” said Peg. “You like venison, don’t you, Penelope?”
    â€œThat’s as may be, but I still feel a sadness for the creatures when they die.”
    â€œSoft, you see.”
    â€œWhen I shot my first hart, I cried with grief when I saw the despair in its eyes.”
    â€œWhat kind of ninny weeps for a dead animal?” Peg said.
    â€œPerhaps it shows character to feel tenderness for the lower orders of creation. They feel fear, do they not, and pain?” Sidney was defending her but she sensed there was more to it than that. It was a rare shared affinity. “You know what the French King enjoys for sport?” he said, looking directly at Peg. “He takes pleasure in watching live cats tied into a sack with a fox and suspended over a fire. Little fluffy kittens, like the ones I have seen you playing with in the privy chamber. He enjoys their terror, savors the moment the flames bring the bag down, when they screech as they burn.”
    â€œHow could you describe such a scene?” cried Peg. “That is disgusting.”
    â€œIt is disgusting,” said Sidney. “Degrading and disgusting and inhumane. And there is a little of that in the excitement of the hunt. If you cannot see that then you are—”
    â€œThen I am what?” interrupted Peg, bristling with indignation.
    â€œThen you are heartless,” Penelope said. Sidney had squeezed her hand, unseen.
    â€œA penny for your thoughts,” Jeanne said, through a mouthful of pins.
    â€œI dread this wedding,” Penelope confessed.
    â€œWhy did you not refuse?” asked Dorothy, positioning her sister’s necklace and standing back to survey her work.
    â€œYou know how it is.”
    â€œBut Mother—couldn’t she have . . .” She didn’t finish, remembering, Penelope supposed, that their mother had less say than anyone in such matters.
    Penelope had gone to her, begged her to do something, try to influence Leicester, try to dissuade Rich. “But I love another,” she had pleaded.
    Lettice smiled. “Of course you do, that is the way of the world and it will pass. Besides, love and marriage are not always happy bedfellows. I did not think I could care for your father when I married him. I thought I loved another too, but affection developed between us. Children create a common bond. You will grow fond of Rich, I am sure, my sweet.”
    â€œBut you love Leicester.”
    â€œAnd look how low that love has brought me. I am ostracized for it and she keeps my husband in her thrall, offering preferment, his debts paid off, honors bestowed, as long as he remains by her side and not mine.”
    â€œI hate her. I hate the