Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [27]
So we left Whitehall with the linens, joining the crowds thronging the streets around Charing Cross. A ten-minute walk brought us to Durham House, where a footman said that Sir Walter was not at home. Emme and I walked back to Whitehall in silence. I decided my plan was a feeble, doomed effort.
“He was there, I am sure,” I said. “But he does not want to see me!”
Emme’s brown eyes were warm with sympathy. “He has a new love, and her name is Virginia,” she said.
But the very next day I received a message.
My dear Catherine! I regret missing you. What was it, I wonder, that brought you here after so many months’ absence? I beg the return of your delightful presence soon. Nay, sooner. At once, if you could fly, angel.
W.R.
My heart thumped at my ribs like a bird in a cage. Ralegh wanted to see me! I secreted the message with the others tied in the queen’s handkerchief. Then I waited for an opportunity to go to him. I was careless with my duties, misplacing sleeves and partlets, but only Emme seemed to notice. Elizabeth’s ulcer had improved and she could now hobble around her bedchamber.
“Go today,” Emme urged. “You won’t be needed to dress the queen until she can walk about more easily.” She helped me into my green silk bodice and skirt that brightened my gray eyes. “Don’t forget to fetch the linens from the embroiderers,” she added with a wink.
Not half an hour later I was in the garden of Durham House, alone with Ralegh among the shaded bowers. The narrow paths forced us to walk close to each other, our arms touching from time to time. The scent of him and the clouds of purple lavender went to my head like new wine, and I could not order my thoughts. I found myself prattling to him about the queen’s health.
Sir Walter stopped and put up his hand. “I do not wish to hear about the royal ulcer,” he said with a wry smile. “Tell me about yourself instead. What you have been doing and thinking of late?”
Thinking too much of you. Reading your letters. Wanting to walk with you, just like this. I did not confess these thoughts, but a different truth. “What weighs on me now is the queen’s disfavor,” I admitted, relating the entire episode of Graham and Lady Anne. “So, to be plain, my position is precarious. I desire only to be back in Her Majesty’s good graces.”
“And I desire to be in yours,” he said smoothly.
“What do you mean?” I murmured.
“You did not reply to my letters and poems these past months,” he said in a tone of rebuke.
I looked at him in surprise. “But I have received nothing from you! Not since the handkerchief and … the poem that followed.” I felt a wave of heat wash over my face at the memory of what he had written to me: My America, north and south, I’d explore you with this hand, Claim you with my mouth.
“Nothing? How can that be?” he said, frowning. “Then receive it now.”
He leaned toward me, and I saw his parted lips, his teeth. Though everything in me longed to be kissed, I shook my head.
“No, I must not! The queen will be angry.”
“She will not know.”
Like a sapling in the breeze, I swayed toward Sir Walter until my lips just grazed his.
“That was no true kiss. Let me show you one,” he whispered.
Clasping my shoulders, he lowered me onto a bench and sat beside me, his thigh pressed to mine. His nearness and his breath on my cheek sent a sharp tingling to the base of my spine.
“No, for I may not love without Her Majesty’s permission,” I said, pleading.
“You are here without her permission, are you not?”
“I was foolish to come. I should go now.”
With a sigh, he released my shoulders. “But you may not leave until you have told me why you came.”
“Oh, yes.” I had been about to leave without even touching on my purpose.
“Was it simply to see me?” he prompted, sounding so hopeful I hated to disappoint him with an honest answer.
“I did come to see you yesterday—as a friend in need of your help. I wanted you to write a poem for me to give to the queen, something that might restore me to her favor.” I sighed. “But