Free Watch the Lady by Elizabeth Fremantle Page B

Queen.” Her mother gasped and Penelope slapped a hand over her mouth, but the words could not be unsaid.
    â€œIt is not the Queen who makes you wed Rich.”
    â€œNo, but it is she who has tried to destroy you , and she who destroyed Father; you said so yourself: ‘He would still be alive if she had properly funded his campaign in that godforsaken isle.’ That is what you said.” Penelope had never fully understood how her father’s death came about. There were so many stories, the servants stifling their whispers as she entered a room. All she knew was he left to lead the army in Ireland—a great honor, it was called, that would bring him glory—and he never returned. “The Queen is a wicked woman, and if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be marrying a man like Rich either.” Lettice opened her arms and Penelope fell into her embrace, breathing in her scent, closing her eyes tight as she tried to imagine herself back into the safety of childhood, far away from the woman she had become—eighteen, and on the brink of wedlock.
    â€œWhatever thoughts you hold in your heart,” whispered Lettice, “you must never say such things about the Queen, even in private. You never know who may be listening. Mark my words. Think of the family, it will serve us all if you keep your favor with the Queen. Do that and you may well find yourself in a position one day to secure the future of the Devereuxs. Keep your wits about you, Penelope, for the Queen will not always be there and we must pin our hopes onto her successor or we will not survive.”
    â€œBut who will succeed her?”
    â€œAh, that is the question. Stay close and keep your influence; all will become clear at some point.” Penelope felt like an infant thrust into a grown-up world for which she was unprepared—the survival of her family, how could she possibly shoulder that? Lettice added, “Your brother and sister will join you at court before long but you are the oldest. It is your job to pave the way. I don’t doubt you will become a formidable force.” She paused and a spark of something resembling anger lit in her face. “And one day you may find a way to have—”
    Her mother never finished for the nurse arrived with the baby. “Look, your new brother!” Lettice took her son from the woman—“My noble little imp”—holding his round face up to hers and cooing in response to his wet gurgles.
    Penelope was left wondering what her mother had been about to say. One day you may find a way to have what—Peace? Power? Revenge ?
    Lettice then thrust the boy into Penelope’s arms. Penelope wanted to hate him, this child who had stolen the Leicester inheritance from Sidney, but he looked at her with an irresistible gummy smile and she couldn’t stop herself from stroking a smooth fat cheek and lifting the little cotton cap to kiss the milk-scented down on his head.
    â€œYou will have one of these soon,” her mother said. “They will grow up together.” That thought skewered into her, for her children would be Rich’s.
    â€œYou are miles away,” said Dorothy, breaking her reverie.
    â€œI was thinking of babies. I saw our half brother the other day. He is almost good enough to eat.” She smiled, trying to push that unsettling conversation with her mother to the back of her mind.
    â€œTurn around so I can comb your hair,” said Jeanne, smoothing a hand over her head. “Like woven gold.”
    Penelope’s heart started; those were the very words Sidney had used once, in the gardens at Richmond. They had lagged behind a walking party and stopped by the river where the rushes grew high, affording enough privacy for a stolen moment together. They had come upon a pool with a lone narcissus growing beside it, upright and proud, its face the color of egg yolk. It reminded her of that story from Ovid and they talked