Free The Queen's Gamble by Barbara Kyle Page B

“I’m sailing to Antwerp tomorrow on behalf of the royal council, to purchase munitions. The Queen’s border defenses are so meager we need to build them up, and quickly. While I’m away, I want you to promise me something.”
    “If I can.”
    “Take Isabel and your son home. I want them out of England, Carlos, before this disaster hits. I want them safe.”

5
    The Ambassador’s Agenda
    T he Spanish embassy in London was lodged in Durham House, a stone mansion that lorded over prime riverbank property on the Thames. It stood between the sprawling precincts of Whitehall Palace to the west and venerable York House to the east, with the busy, cobbled thoroughfare of the Strand at its back. A gatehouse on the Strand led into the embassy’s spacious courtyard, but like many of the stately homes of the nobility along this sweep of the Thames, Durham House stood closer to the river than the street, and most visitors used its water gate.
    The tilt boat that had brought Carlos and Isabel nudged the water stairs of the landing stage. Other boats bobbed around them, loading and unloading embassy visitors under pillar-fixed torches that flared in the chilly evening gusts. Isabel looked up at the candlelit windows of the private rooms overlooking the river and took a breath to compose herself. The attack on her at St. Paul’s had been just a few hours ago, and she still felt tender. As Carlos helped her out of the boat, she winced at the pain in her bruised hip.
    “Are you sure you’re up to this?” he asked. “If it’s too much, I’ll take you back. I can see the ambassador anytime.”
    “No, I’m fine. We’ve arranged the meeting, and I want to be with you for it.”
    He growled under his breath, “I wish I’d been there.”
    She was glad he hadn’t been. Almost certainly there would have been bloodshed. When she had arrived home late that afternoon after the attack and her unsettling meeting with Adam, she’d had no chance to speak to her parents about what her brother had told her. Her father had left on his munitions-buying mission for the Queen’s council, riding off to Gravesend to sail for Antwerp. Her mother was still at Whitehall Palace. But Carlos had been home, and she had told him about the incident. Just the fact of it, and its flashpoint—her crucifix—not the awful details. That would only have made him more furious at the men who had assaulted her, and what could he do about it? They would never find her assailants. Once she had calmed him down with assurances that she was unhurt, she had explained the far more important situation—the crisis that Adam said threatened Queen Elizabeth. Carlos said that her father had told him the same thing. That hurt Isabel. “Why wouldn’t he tell me? ”
    “He’s concerned about you.”
    “Or doesn’t trust me.”
    “What? Why would you think that?”
    “He and Mother have always championed the Protestant cause. Anti-Catholic feeling is strong here. The city is seething with it.”
    “Not your parents, though. No, your father just doesn’t want to get you involved, for your own safety.”
    There had been no time to discuss it, for their appointment with the Spanish ambassador was in two hours, and Isabel barely had time to dress before they had to set out, she whirling her furlined cloak around her. Carlos had hailed a tilt boat at the Three Cranes Wharf and they’d climbed in under the canopy and settled on the cushions, a little stiff in their fine attire. Low, humped waves slapped the boat, and the city’s torch lights glinted off the choppy water as the two oarsmen toiled upriver against the evening tide.
    “Maybe Adam’s exaggerating,” Isabel said, hoping. “He’s so preoccupied with ships and armaments and Mary Stuart’s claim to the throne. It’s made him see nothing but preparations for war. But that doesn’t make an invasion inevitable.”
    Carlos shook his head. “He’s an expert on naval matters. We know that, and so does the