Queen Without a Crown Read Online Free PDF

rocks. The third ship survived to bring the news home. The crew saw the disaster happen, but they couldn’t save anyone, or any of the cargo. This letter is from one of my associates. We have lost our investment. And . . . Ursula . . .’
    ‘Yes, Hugh?’
    ‘I didn’t have enough free capital for my contribution. So much was involved – buying ships and cargo and getting crews together. I borrowed over two thousand pounds. I shall have to repay it somehow. And . . .’
    ‘What did you use for security?’ I asked, alarmed.
    ‘Hawkswood,’ said Hugh.
    ‘Hawkswood!’ I said, a single word, my first after Mark had left us and Hugh had shooed the others out, to give us privacy.
    ‘I know.’ He drew me to the window seat and sat me down. ‘If you could solve Mark Easton’s mystery, then, as you say – Hawkswood . We would save it.’
    ‘Only,’ I said ‘how can I possibly go about it? Where do I start? It was all so long ago. I need to turn time back, and no one can do that!’
    Hugh was standing up, gazing out of the window towards the low, wooded hills to the north, blurred now by rain into outlines of grey shadow. He was slow to reply, and when he did, it was only to agree with me. ‘It’s as hard a challenge as anyone could well imagine,’ he said.
    ‘I think Mark believes what his father wrote,’ I said, thinking it out. ‘But he has such good reasons for wanting his father to be innocent. He could easily be wrong.’
    ‘And also,’ said Hugh, ‘in this castle, we are in a kind of protective imprisonment. If the quest led you away from Windsor, you might not be allowed to go. The queen isn’t likely to be sympathetic to a fool like me who took too big a risk, nor to a young man’s affairs of the heart. She has other things on her mind, and so, I suppose, have we.’
    I, too, turned to look northwards. Somewhere in that direction, armed men were on the move, and in Tutbury Castle on the Staffordshire border, Mary Stuart, who had lost the Scottish crown, was probably dreaming not only of getting it back, but of seizing Elizabeth’s crown as well, to adorn her own carefully groomed head. I imagined her, beautiful and charming, her long white fingers working at her embroidery while she brooded on her plans. I saw the armed men marching.
    Hugh brought me back to the present. ‘But I can think of one or two ways to begin making Easton’s enquiries, if you’re willing to try.’
    ‘Of course I’m willing! I’ll do almost anything to save Hawkswood, and since you refuse to let me sell Withysham . . .’
    ‘I do indeed refuse. And that is final. I can’t do that to you.’ He still kept his head averted as he added: ‘My poor Ursula. I look back and I think: how could I have been so rash? I meant to look after you, and then I bring all this trouble on us.’
    I said: ‘I have had peace with you. Peace from Matthew’s endless plotting, even peace from the fear of childbirth. I nearly died when Meg was born, and again with Matthew’s baby, the one that didn’t live.’
    ‘The physicians told me,’ said Hugh dryly, ‘that I could never be a father because I had the swelling sickness as a young man. Most women don’t think of it as an advantage.’
    ‘To me, it is. Hugh, hunting for this bygone killer will at least be a distraction from worrying about the trouble in the north. Is there really any danger from the rebels, here, so far away, I wonder? After all, according to Mark Easton’s message, Lord Sussex means to get his forces in-between the rebels and Mary Stuart. That means being between the rebels and the south of England as well.’
    ‘We don’t know how much support Sussex will be able to raise, and we don’t know how strong the rebellion is, either. What if they break through?’
    ‘They’ll be hard put to it to get Mary out of Tutbury, from all I’ve heard of Tutbury. And if they did,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘there’s a Regent in Scotland who doesn’t in the least want