The Marriage Game by Alison Weir Page B

reaction of her heart—and, to her surprise, her body—had left her breathless with need. How easy it should be to give in to it. But she had learned long ago to have mastery over herself, and she knew well that lust could overcome all sense of reason. She must conquer it, therefore, and remember why she could never again compromise her honor—especially with a married man.
    She kissed Robert gently on the lips, then drew back in his arms—and now it was his turn to look surprised. Oh, he was aptly nicknamed “Gypsy”: his eyes were so dark and beautiful, like deep pools of desire. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse. “Robin—bonny, sweet Robin—if I meant to wed, and could follow my heart, I would choose you before all others. But it cannot be.”
    Robert let her go. His heavy-lidded eyes were now cold with disappointment. Elizabeth felt a constriction in her chest, like her heart breaking.
    “You have a wife,” she said.
    “She is dying,” he reminded her.
    “But she yet lives, and until you are free, there can be no talk of marriage between us.”
    “But if I were free, then you would consider it?”
    “There would still be difficulties, Robin.”
    “We can overcome them, Bess. What you need is a strong man to support you, a firm Protestant, one who is unfettered by foreign ties, and who is devoted to your interests. One who truly loves you. I am that man. Can you not see it? Which of those foreign princes you dangle like puppets can offer you all those things?”
    “Do you truly love me, Robin?” Elizabeth asked, sidestepping the question.
    “With all my heart,” he replied, holding her gaze. “Did you need to ask?”
    “Nay, but I wanted to hear you say it!” She laughed. “As well as all the other things.”
    He pulled her into his arms again. “I love you, Bess. I am
in
love with you.”
    “With me or my crown?” she teased.
    “Oh, with your crown, most definitely!” he riposted, then his face grew solemn. “Now it is your turn.”
    “Ah, sweet Robin, how could you doubt it? I love you as I have loved no man.”
    “Even there you are ambiguous!” he protested. “For all I know, you have loved no man!”
    A shadow crossed Elizabeth’s face. She disengaged herself and sank down into her chair. He had inveigled her into a corner, and now she had no choice but to tell him the truth. She realized that she owed it to him.
    “There was someone once,” she said. “I was very young. Surely you have heard talk of it. He was my stepfather.”
    “Thomas Seymour, the Lord Admiral,” Robert said. “I too was young when I heard the rumors. I gave them no credence.”
    “For that I thank you,” she replied. “It was a terrible time. He was a turbulent, dangerous man, and I was an innocent girl of fourteen. He took advantage of my naïveté.” She had been utterly infatuated with the handsome charmer, a rogue if ever there was one. She knew that now, but she had not had the wit to know it then. And he, Seymour, the new husband of her stepmother, Katherine Parr, had thought she was her mother’s daughter and ripe for the plucking.
    “What do you mean?” Robert asked, a trifle sharply.
    “He would come to my room before I was up and tickle and slap me as I lay abed. Kat complained of it to Queen Katherine, but she made little of it. She had married the admiral within weeks of my father’s death. She threw propriety to the winds, for she was in love with him and blind to his failings. But her eyes were opened when she cameupon us one day. I was in his arms and we were”—she paused—“kissing. My innocence had been no proof against his determination. And she was so horrified, poor Queen Katherine, that she sent me away, for my own protection, as she told me. Then she died in childbirth. I have felt guilty ever since.” Of the disarray in which Katherine had found the pair of them, and the awareness that, had she burst in only moments later, matters would have advanced to a shameful