The Spymaster's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

She”? When had her innocence begun to fade? Within a year? Perhaps less? She had fiercely resisted losing her girlish dreams, though now she was happy they were dead and gone. Love dreams were a burden, and she would have none of them ever again.
    It had been a more mature Lady Sidney who had received Philip’s kiss this morning near the stables. He had not murmured in Frances’s ear, “Eternal love, maintain thy life in me,” as he had written for Stella, lines copied by half the young gentlemen of England. He had leaned down from his saddle and spoken of another life, the son he hoped he had planted in her womb.
    She had managed a blushing smile, as would any goodwife, and she did not say that she hoped with all her heart
not
to be found with child in London. She would be sent back to Barn Elms immediately and eventually be shut into a dark, hot chamber to wait for the birth, kept from her books and her hopes, from any life that she would freely choose.
    Philip had taken her hand gently. “Wife, I will send for you when it is safe in Holland.”
    â€œThat is my dearest wish, husband,” she murmured, not able to say the words with more force, having little more than a sigh in her heart.
    Philip rode away, and she watched him grow smaller before crying out, “Stay safe, husband.”
    She watched, but he didn’t turn for a last wave of farewell. He urged on his horse beyond hearing until his little company rounded a bend in the road and was out of sight, leaving a dusty, echoing space. She took a small pleasure in the thought that her kiss would still be on his lips before another’s could be. It was a small sin of pride that she deliberately allowed herself.
    Servants began to pass her carrying her father’s chests, which contained his many unadorned black suits and hats proclaiming his Puritan leanings to all, even to Queen Elizabeth, who disliked strict religion. She preferred the middle way of her father, Henry VIII’s English church, far from the dangerous shoals of religious extremes that were troublesome to the peace of her realm.
    Frances ducked her head as a laugh escaped her lips. The queen’s spymaster, the same one who urged Frances to follow a daughter’s assigned path, could not travel Her Majesty’s own middle way. Still, she thought it best to keep that thought to herself or forget it altogether. Her father had not the slightest appreciation of drollery.
    His papers and books paraded past her, yet he did not appear.
    She dug in her basket for a book to fill her time. Today she had been careful in the one she had chosen from her father’s library, knowing he would not need to take this particular volume, since Dr. John Dee, a mathematician and one of the queen’s closest councilors, had copied it more than once for the lord secretary. Pushing aside the roses, she opened a handwritten copy of Trithemius’s
Steganographia, Book Three
. She had studied the German abbot’s great cipher work many times, and each time its secrets became clearer to her, though she desired a teacher like Dr. Dee to help her understand even better.
    Frances had not long to read before she heard her father’s cane as he walked rapidly toward her on the packed-earth path. It was amazing that he could move so quickly despite his aching joints, but he had discovered that walking fast helped him to keep a betterbalance. She covered the forbidden book with roses and looked up, smiling.
    â€œGood morrow, daughter,” he greeted her, and sat down heavily beside her, a little out of breath.
    â€œLord father,” she answered softly, looking on his lined, dark face, and seeing that he was ailing again.
    â€œHow grow the gardens?” he asked in a preoccupied tone that told her he was not interested in their symmetry, scent, or beauty, but in their maintenance for the queen’s infrequent visits. For him, they were a symbol of his station as one