Introduction

One of the greatest loves of all time-between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley-comes to life in this vivid novel.

They were playmates as children, impetuous lovers as adults-and for thirty years were the center of each others' lives. Astute to the dangers of choosing any one man, the Virgin Queen could never give her "Sweet Robin" what he wanted most-marriage- yet she insisted he stay close by her side. Possessive and jealous, their love survived quarrels, his two disastrous marriages to other women, her constant flirtations, and political machinations with foreign princes.

His Last Letter tells the story of this great love... and especially of the last three years Elizabeth and Dudley spent together, the most dangerous of her rule, when their passion was tempered by a bittersweet recognition of all that they shared-and all that would remain unfulfilled.

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Excerpt

Elizabeth and her Robin have quarelled. She goes to him secretly:

Eagerly, she stepped into her linen closet to its very end. Within the large cabinet was a hidden latch that opened to a narrow corridor. She hesitated, closing her eyes tight. She had resisted Robin all the day, and for all the years of days and nights before that. Surely, there must be a reward for such restraint. Not for Queen Elizabeth, who would never lift the latch. But for Bess, the woman, who would. The woman, whose fondest memory of childhood was of playing games upon the Greenwich greensward with a boy named Robin. That woman would be rewarded.

The narrow opening revealed a large door leading to a wider hall. The door had to have been large to accommodate her father who kept his current mistress in the apartment next to his own. Henry had shown it to her as a young girl, whether to warn her with his power or brag of his man’s prowess, she did not know. Probably both.

She blessed the generous opening. Although she did not wear a wide Spanish farthingale, her heavily brocaded gown was not narrow and clinging, but had a train that was regal and flowing. She had to walk sidewise, swiping away cobwebs that the palace spiders had been weaving since her father’s time. Were these webs the first set trap of her rule? She shook her head, refusing to admit that her loyal spiders had evil intent.

Giddy in her head, she was like any young servant girl running through the dark of night to the stables to meet a waiting handsome horse groom.

To quiet her breathing, she covered her mouth with a hand and leaned against the dusty wall. It’s not too late to turn back! She stopped and then was pulled forward. It is too late.

She edged on toward a door at the end of the short passage. A key hung on the wall. She touched its hard brass surface, knowing that she touched the key in the same place as Henry VIII, erasing her father’s fingerprints with her own. The key made no sound in the lock and it swung open at her touch after all the years unused. Certainly her pious sister Mary and her even more pious younger brother Edward had never made use of secret lovers. Had Robin oiled the lock for just such a visit? Was he that man-sure of her?

She listened for voices until she heard Tamworth, Robin’s servant, say, “God give you good rest, my lord.” A door closed.

She held her breath as she stepped across the lintel and beyond the covering tapestry, embraced by the warmth of a log fire lighting the high-waxed walls of Robin’s paneled room. He sat in his bed, his bed curtains open, his dark head propped on white bolsters, staring at her with a small smile on his lips. It could be welcoming or assured. She did not care.

“Bess,” he said, his drowsy voice deep and soft, “I’ve waited every night for that door to open…to see you standing there.” He did not move from his bed. The churl expected her to come to him!

“I’m here to warn you, Robin…and for nothing else.”

“Of course, Your Grace. I expect nothing…else.” He threw back a satin coverlet and swung his legs from bed and she saw a long expanse of them from under his night shirt, the finely muscled calves…and thighs of a horseman. He quickly donned a long black velvet robe without seeming to notice her attention and offering her his hand, led her to the best chair of the two placed in front of the fire. “Majesty,” he said after she was seated, “may I call for wine?”

“No,” she said, and then fell silent.

He seated himself across from her and stared, very relaxed, his large, dark eyes glinting in the firelight.

“Robin,” she said, “I am come on a grave matter.” I must keep a distance.

“I can see that.” He cocked his head. “You’ve decided to send me to the Tower. Should I have Tamworth pack a change of clothes and my second-best night shirt?”

“This is no cause for jest,” she said, wanting to scream at him and yet her legs trembled as if she stood in freezing water.

He rose. “I can also see that, too,” he said softly. He took one step and was on his knees, lifting her slippered feet and kissing them, first one, then the other.

Elizabeth’s hands clenched in her lap and she tensed her body to flee, but he raised eyes that held her. His eyes. Her ÕÕ. “Listen to me, Robin.” She bent to his ear as if his door could hear, for far too many doors in her palaces had ears to them. She repeated what Kat had told her, her lips against his ear. A tremor raced through her.

He seemed to be unaffected by her whispering. How many women must have whispered entreaties into those ears?

“Bess, are you saying many in the court are speaking thus of me…that I would kill poor Amy?” He shook his head violently and leapt to his feet. “It is true that my marriage is no love match, not as I have come to know and want love.”

She tried to ignore his meaning, although she stored it away to repeat to herself and savor later. “Robin, you know they would say anything of you, accuse you, kill you. It was always thus in every court for the favorite.”

He returned to the back of her chair and put his hands gently on her shoulders, kneading. “Am I your favorite, my queen?”

She would have twisted to face him, but he held her. “Robin, you know—”

“But, Bess, I do not know…I have every day signs of your favor, in every way it is shown…except for one. You have never said you would marry me if I were as free in law as I am in heart.” His low voice enveloped her as a warm blanket on a chill night.

Her face flamed as his hands moved up to her neck, gentle, barely touching her. Then his touch wasn’t there and she leapt to her feet, fearing that he had gone. But he was there and advancing around her chair. “Robin,” she said, trying to bring authority to her voice, but his name left her mouth as a caress.

He enfolded her in his arms and kissed her as he had before, but never so deeply, never with his whole body as now, not since their youth. She returned his kiss, the second of her day, and two kisses more than she could bear. She took in a deep, shuddering breath. “We must not, my love. I cannot forget who I am.”

“Nor can I…my wonderful girl, my Bess, my beautiful queen.” He lifted her from her feet and carried her to his bed.

She moaned, her body’s heat rising. “No, Robin. No. I cannot…” But she did not want to stop his next kiss, though the all-consuming warmth that spread everywhere in her body warned her that she must stop soon…but not quite yet.

His bed…his bolsters had his scent everywhere. She was drowning in the sweet oil of musk and civet he used for his hair. “Robin, we must remember that you cannot get a child on me…we must...”

He pressed himself to her and she felt him to be fully aroused. “Bess, I will take care. There are many paths to pleasure.”

His hand stole to her breast and he pressed it through her robe. She wanted to command that cloth to be gone. She ached for him to touch her everywhere, to kiss her everywhere. But just as she felt herself lost to all reason and found by deep surrender, he sat up on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. As she reached for him to pull him back, he stood and extended his hand. “I forgot myself---and I forgot who you are. Yet I do see that this is inevitable between us. We are flesh and hot blood and young, Bess…”

“My lord,” she said, gathering her senses, which had betrayed her body as they never had before. “I will remember this night and how you had a great care for me.”

“Will you?”

“I will never forget, my heart.”

He held her hand, smiled and bowed, his dark eyes sad, though his breathing was labored. “To calm your worry, Bess, I will post extra guards about Amy’s house and let it be known that I have done so. Not one of my enemies will try to entrap me with her death, lest his minion be caught and the truth racked out of him.”

He laughed as she stepped toward the secret door.

“What amuses you so?” She was unexpectedly angry, though she realized anger was a substitute for what she had denied herself.

Robin shrugged, though he looked pained. “Amy’s murder would be useless. She is ill unto death, Bess, with a growth in her breast.”

“Oh. I knew she was sickly—”

“I have consulted doctors and they tell me there is nothing they can do but increase the laudanum physick. She has not above a year to live…or less.”

“Oh, Robin. I am…”

“I will not pretend, Bess. It is you I want. When I am free, will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she breathed, hardly believing she had said it as she opened the secret door and stepped through. “I’m sorry for her, Robin.” And for myself, she thought. This is a complication that I cannot will away. She slowly closed the door, her eyes upon him until he was not there.

She turned the key in the lock, vowing never to use it again or to be so forgetful of her own majesty. I must try harder.

Elizabeth stumbled her way toward the faint candlelight coming through from the linen closet. Hastily, she replaced the latch in the cabinet and unlocked her chamber doors. Slipping into her bed, she turned on her side to face the windows sending moonlight in diamond patterns to her bed covers. She pulled the satin coverlet to her chin and drew her knees high against her chest. Her bolster smelled of rosemary a sure defense against the plague.

But plague take it! She had no mastery over her own desires…as she must! Robin had kept her safe this night, when her own virgin will had faltered. He had always had a care for her before himself. Tomorrow, she would make him Constable of Windsor Castle and Keeper of the Great Park. And…why not?...Knight of the Order of the Garter. Then in a year or so, she would grant him an earldom, give him rank enough for a queen. Robin would be appeased and happy.

But would Elizabeth Tudor marry him? She caught her breath before it became a sob, but such bottomless tears will have their way, and they fell onto the embroidered flowers beneath her head. “My heart,” she whispered, “more than this can never be between us.” But she said it again and again to plant it firmly in her mind. Tomorrow, Robin would come and she must deny her promise, swear that he had dreamed it.

Elizabeth lay awake all the long night, her words echoing about her chamber and back again to taunt her, until the starlight ceased. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the Author:

1. In your mind, should Elizabeth and Dudley’s love be called one of the great love affairs of all time? Must all great loves remain unfulfilled, or is that just an idea fostered by male writers and mythmakers?
2. Discuss the dynamics of the relationship between Elizabeth and Dudley in His Last Letter. Were they obsessed and emotionally unstable, or do you think their love matured over the years?
3. What particularly interests you about the Tudor period? Why do you think it’s so popular now?

Weblinks

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