Rival to the Queen by Carolly Erickson

Author:Carolly Erickson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781429945301
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

TWENTY-SIX

The queen’s tiring chamber was abuzz with the news that Douglass Sheffield’s husband was dead.

“Poisoned,” Cecelia said to the other ladies of the bedchamber gathered there, her voice toneless and hard with certainty. “And by your lover,” she added, addressing me.

I had never admitted to Cecelia that Robert and I were lovers, but she was shrewd, she guessed. I did not deny it, to her or anyone else—but I did not admit it either.

“There is too much gossip at this court,” I remarked. “Most of it is inaccurate.”

“Your Lord Robert Dudley murdered his wife so that he could marry the queen. She won’t have him—so now he has poisoned Douglass Sheffield’s husband so that he can marry her! Everyone knows Douglass has had his child, though the poor little mite barely lived a few days—or was it a few hours?”

Douglass’s baby by Robert, the one I thought of as representing “mischief and woe,” had indeed been shortlived. No one knew just how long she had lived, as both Douglass and the newborn had been spirited away into the country and not until weeks later did word reach us that indeed the little girl had died.

Lord Sheffield had been furious with his wife, so the story went, whose many adulteries had been crowned by this illegitimate birth. He had been consulting lawyers and intended to divorce her, bringing scandal on both Douglass and the presumed father of the child, Robert—until gripped by a sudden terrible pain which soon led to his death.

“They say it was a gruesome end,” put in the old equerry Whaffer. “I’ve heard he was in agony. He turned red and couldn’t breathe. His insides felt as though a white-hot poker had been shoved up his—”

“That’s enough!” one of the other bedchamber women snapped. “We don’t want to hear any more. We will pray for the poor man’s soul.”

“And for the soul of him that did the deed,” Whaffer continued. “Him that made poor Lord Sheffield suffer all the torments of hell and choke and fall over senseless.”

“It’s that poisoner of Lord Robert’s,” Mistress Clinkerte said. “That Dr. Julio. He must have put something into Lord Sheffield’s food.”

Robert’s Italian physician was blamed for many a suspicious death at court, though no one had ever been able to prove that he was a sinister character. Italians always came under suspicion, to be sure; to be Italian was to be presumed a rogue, all too familiar with skullduggery and especially poisoning. But in truth it was Dr. Julio’s association with Lord Robert that put him in a dark light. For it was said the queen had set her spies on him, as she had on Robert himself. And the death of Lord Sheffield was seen as confirmation that the royal spying was justified.

Try as he might, Robert had never been able to redeem his reputation after his wife Amy’s death. Amy’s brother John Appleyard had only made things worse for Robert by spreading the story that Robert had indeed been responsible for Amy’s murder and then had paid Appleyard to conceal the truth.

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