The Doublet Affair (Ursula Blanchard Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF

Mistress Blanchard.”
    “Not exactly, Your Majesty. I am sorry to leave you, but . . . I want to be with my husband.”
    Elizabeth said bluntly, “Although he is an enemy of our person, and this realm?”
    Matthew didn’t think of himself that way, since tohim, bringing Mary Stuart and the old religion to England was the friendliest thing he could possibly do for the land where his mother was born. I did not of course agree with him, nor did I attempt to explain him to Elizabeth. To Elizabeth, I discovered, I could not even speak of love. In her presence it felt for some reason like a confession of weakness. It was hard to know what to say, so in the end I fell back on a simple declaration.
    “Ma’am, he is my husband. I took vows.”
    Elizabeth seemed tired. She had changed out of her formal white and silver; the shawl was draped over a loose gown of ash-grey silk. She had taken off her jewellery, too. The mischief was all gone. Her pointed white face was older than its years, grave and withdrawn.
    “And what,” she asked me, “if I say no?”
    I didn’t answer at once, and the Queen’s eyes, golden brown under faint, arched brows, grew sharp. Elizabeth could be formidable. One remembered then whose daughter she was. This morning I had thought of her as a playful cat, but that was to underestimate her. She was no house-cat, but a lioness, cub of that Tudor lion King Henry.
    “I asked you a question, Ursula,” she said presently. “What is your answer?”
    “Your Majesty, I have no wish to displease you in any way, but . . . I beg you to release me from your employment and allow me to take my daughter to the Loire valley to join my husband there.”
    Rain blew against the windows again, harder. The wind was getting up. I had looked at maps of Franceand knew that the valley of the Loire lay much further south than anywhere in England. The weather might be warmer there, the winters less harsh.
    “Your first husband, Gerald Blanchard,” said the Queen thoughtfully, “was engaged in—shall we say, secret work?—in the Netherlands, assisting my financier Sir Thomas Gresham. You were there with him and I fancy it was from Gerald that you learned the skills which have proved so valuable to us. Am I right?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “I said valuable and I meant it. Your services have been very useful indeed, Ursula, and I am loth to dispense with them.”
    “Ma’am . . . I plead with you.”
    Elizabeth turned away from me, lost in thought. The silence deepened. I waited, hoping desperately, until she sat back in her ornate chair, and gave me her judgement.
    “The time of year is bad for sea travel. I would not have you risk yourself on board ship just now. Tomorrow, you are to see Sir William Cecil and receive from him instructions in a task which he and I wish you to perform. You have been having lessons from Master Bone, I believe, to prepare you for this duty.”
    “Yes, ma’am, but surely I am not the only person . . . ?”
    “We need a woman,” Elizabeth said, “and you are the only one on Cecil’s payroll, as far as this type of work is concerned. Spying isn’t popular as a livelihood for young ladies. It doesn’t appeal to them and still less does it appeal to their parents.”
    The golden-brown eyes lit briefly with laughter, but she was sober again almost at once. “I said just now that I would not have you risk yourself on board ship but . . . well, Ursula, Cecil and I do not wish you to take risks, of any kind, but there may be unavoidable danger in what you will, tomorrow, be asked to do. We—Cecil and I, that is—hope that you will still undertake it. Much may depend on it and you will be well paid if you consent. If not . . .”
    “Ma’am?” My hands were clasped in front of me, my fingers hidden in the folds of my cream and tawny gown, gripping each other fiercely.
    “You may as well undertake it,” said Elizabeth. “We give you permission to join your husband and take your