Page 62 of Eloise and the Queen
She had begun to write as much in a letter to Wyatt, but before she’d penned more than two words, I stopped her with the extreme caution I’d developed since the Seymour affair.
“Easy to deny a spoken word, Your Grace,” I’d said. “But if anything goes wrong, and a letter by you to Wyatt is found …”
“You have become devious, Eloise.” Elizabeth had immediately risen from her writing desk and burned the sheet. “And cleverer than you ought to be. But I believe you advise well. Say no more of this.”
I assured her of my silence, and she sent one of her ushers to Wyatt with a message so banal that no one but the conspirators would be able to make anything of it.
Now, Elizabeth leaned over the chessboard to me, bitterness in her voice. “The trouble with being the second person in the realm is that there are those constantly plotting to make you the first. So that you will reward them well, of course.”
“Not Colby,” I said quickly. “He understands the damage Mary’s marriage will do to the kingdom. He knows that the best person for England is you.”
“Guard your tongue,” Elizabeth said curtly, but she did not look angry. She serenely set up the chess pieces again, though how we were to play without her pawn or my queen I did not know. “These are things women would not think to discuss.”
“Of course, you are correct, Your Grace,” I responded with a nod. “Forgive me.”
“I would, though, devise a way in which I might speak to these men. Writing, as you say, is too perilous.”
“Colby is trustworthy,” I said with great assurance. I’d come to believe in him.
“Indeed, I believe he is, but he can be in only so many places at once.”
She frowned at the chessboard, and I leaned to her, excited I could at last contribute something practical.
“I have had ideas about that,” I said. “I would be honored to use them to assist you, Your Grace.”
“What ideas?” Elizabeth’s eyes glittered as they did when she was adamant about something.
In a low voice I described what I’d pondered when Aunt Kat had been in the Tower, and I’d longed to communicate with Elizabeth.
No one thought anything of me stitching in corners and showing Elizabeth my work. Sewing messages blatantly into fabric could be found and interpreted, but I’d devised a sort of code using short and long stitches, or knots or edging, each of which could represent certain letters or phrases. In the few years between the first concept and now, I’d developed the code into what I thought would be most useful.
Elizabeth grew as eager as she listened and agreed my scheme would work, though she wanted a hand in perfecting it.
We drew back from the discussion and composed ourselves, resuming the game of chess, but her confidence had returned.
“You speak of Master Colby much,” Elizabeth said as she moved a knight to intercept one of my bishops. “Are you in love with him?”
I started, dragging my mind from the intriguing business of ciphers. “In love? Goodness no, Your Grace. I do like Colby, though. He is sensible.”
Elizabeth very carefully removed her fingers from the knight. “Because I could not do without you, Eloise.”
So she’d said to me at Richmond after she’d seen me dance with Colby. “I have no intention of leaving, Your Grace,” I answered with all sincerity.
“My affection for you is too strong,” Elizabeth continued in a hard monotone. “And I would be broken-hearted to lose you to marriage.”
“No fear of that,” I assured her.
The wrong husband, I had learned from watching Jane Grey and now Mary, could land a woman in a world of trouble.
Chapter 15
Toward the end of January, the worst happened.
Mary’s spies discovered that a French fleet waited across the Channel to sail to England at a moment’s notice. Next, Mary decided to recall to court one Sir Peter Carew, but he, being too busy raising and training troops for the rebellion Thomas Wyatt planned, ignored the summons. Thereupon, Mary dispatched trusted gentlemen to find out what he was up to.
Once all this was known, Edward Courtenay, the weak link in the chain, lost his nerve. Taxed to tell what he knew, he broke down and confessed the entire plot to his mentor, Bishop Gardiner.
Gardiner was horrified. Courtenay was one of his favorites, a young man he’d nurtured when they’d both been sequestered in the Tower. Likely fearing he’d be implicated by association, Gardiner immediately reported the entire tale to the queen.
