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      Amy Robsart Dudley

       Stanfield Hall, near Wymondham, in Norfolk August 1549–April 1550

      I remember the first time I saw Robert Dudley. Sometimes one look, one glance, is enough. Though many, perhaps even I now, would scoff at my youth—I was only new-turned seventeen—that August day I knew I had met my destiny.

      I sat beside the river, lazy and languid in a bed of nodding yellow buttercups, almost one of them myself in my yellow gown, with my golden curls tumbling down, wiggling my bare toes, with an apron full of apples in my lap. I was daydreaming, building castles in the blue sky and white clouds, pretending that I was a princess, dreaming of the day my prince would come. Suddenly the whinny of a horse startled me and blew all the dreams right out of my head. I leapt up and spun round, the apples falling from my lap, tumbling and rolling every which way. That was when I saw him—Robert, Lord Robert Dudley, my prince in a shining silver breastplate, mounted on a night black steed.

      A playful smile twitched and tugged at his lips, and his dark eyes danced as they took my measure, eyeing me up and down as I stood there spellbound at the sight of him. His silver breastplate flashed in the sun, dazzling my eyes, nearly blinding me when he reached up to doff his purple velvet cap, adorned with a sprightly peacock feather. He tethered his horse to a nearby tree and came to me, this dumbstruck, barefoot, country lass gawking and gaping at him, and gallantly knelt to retrieve the fallen fruit around my feet. I had never seen anyone quite like him before, and my knees gave way, and I sank down, back into the buttercups, with him.

      Smiling broadly, he asked my name.

      “Amy,” I said, and to this day I don’t know how I managed to utter it, he left me so dazed and breathless.

      “Beloved!” He breathed the meaning of my name in a way that was like a caress to me, savouring each syllable upon his lips as if they were the most delicious morsels he had ever tasted.

      With a boyish grin, he took from his belt a dagger with its hilt studded with sapphire and emerald cabochons, like blue and green bubbles, and from my lap where he had laid them, he selected an apple, his fingers gently, lingeringly brushing my thigh through my skirts and making my cheeks burn as if the blood beneath my skin had suddenly burst into flames. It was love, I would later tell myself, burning like a fever that would in time consume me.

      As the peeling fell away in one long, curling ribbon, he smiled and asked of me:

      “Do you country girls still play at that old game of tossing the apple peelings over your shoulder to see how they fall and discern in their shape the initial of your bridegroom-to-be?”

      “At times we do, My Lord.” I blushed to admit it. It seemed now, when this elegant young man spoke of it, such a childish and silly game.

      “Go on, then.” He passed the apple peeling to me and jerked his head back over his shoulder to indicate that I should toss it over mine. “Let’s see how it falls.”

      With a merry little laugh bubbling up from my breast, I did as he asked and tossed it over my shoulder.

      “Hmm …” The handsome stranger tilted his head and tapped his chin thoughtfully as we both turned and scrutinised the peeling. “It could be a D, yet … that little flourish there at the bottom … it just might be an R instead, but …” His face brightened as he turned to flash the full brilliance of his pearl-bright smile at me. “Either way, whether it’s R, or whether it’s D, it’s me.” He swept me a half bow. “Robert Dudley, that’s my name!”

      And before I knew what was happening, he had pulled me into his arms and was kissing me, rolling me onto my back, pressing the weight of his body onto mine as his hand reached down and gathered up my skirts to rove beneath.

      With a startled cry, I pushed him away and leapt to my feet and bolted away, my heart pounding so hard and fast as I ran, I could hear it in my ears. It was as if it had split into two pieces, two separate hearts, and both had floated up out of my chest to become lodged, to beat hard and fast like little drums, inside my ears. I ran all the way back to Stanfield Hall.

      The servants looked up, startled, as I burst through the kitchen door. But I didn’t tarry. I didn’t stop running until I was safe behind my bedroom door, where I collapsed in a fit of giggling upon my bed. He must have thought me some light-skirted milkmaid whom any man could tumble; imagine his surprise were he ever to discover that I was Sir John Robsart’s daughter, and one of the richest heiresses in Norfolk! I convulsed in gales of gleeful laughter at the thought of it. If not a milkmaid, maybe he thought me a humble shepherdess, never guessing that I was sole heiress to a flock of 3,000 fine sheep. Oh, how it made me laugh! I knew I should be, but I wasn’t offended, though I was not the sort of girl to allow a man to take liberties; I had only been kissed once before, a chaste and hasty peck on the lips, light as a feather, from young Ned Flowerdew when we bumped into each other while dancing round the Maypole at the fair, each of us clinging to one of the long, gaily coloured streamers. Red-faced and sheepish, we laughed together and hastily rejoined the other dancers weaving round and round the Maypole in the intricate series of steps, and no more was ever said about it.

      I never dreamed I would see him again, this Robert Dudley. Why should he linger hereabouts? It was obvious he was one of the men, the thousands of soldiers, who had been sent to put down Kett’s Rebellion, the outburst of furious protest that had erupted over the enclosure of common grazing land and had fast gotten out of hand, boiling over to the extent that the frail boy-king, Edward VI, had to send out troops to quell it.

      I was drowsing on my bed, dreaming of Robert Dudley’s playful smile and dancing dark eyes, and the warm weight of his body on top of mine, with my new kitten, Custard, a fat, cream-coloured ball of fluff, curled up beside me, when my mother burst in. It was one of the rare times she was up and out of bed, so I knew something momentous must have occurred. She came in all aflutter, gesturing with her hands as if they were a pair of anxious butterflies, to tell me that the Earl of Warwick and two of his sons—“two fine, handsome sons, Amy, and neither of them yet married!”—were doing us the very great honour of lodging with us tonight, then breathlessly went on to say that I must look my best when I came downstairs to dine. Thereupon she turned away from me and fell to arguing with Pirto about what I should wear.

      Mother was set upon the new silver-trimmed milk-and-water gown. White with the barest hint of blue, it was the colour of the moment in London, but Pirto thought it much too pallid and was adamant that I needed something bolder and brighter to show off my golden curls and blue green eyes to best advantage.

      While they bickered back and forth, Mother never once wavering in her support of milk-and-water, as Pirto suggested one robust, jewel-bright hue after another, I took from a chest an apple green satin gown embroidered all over with white

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