Robert had no such qualms; he was in truth happy. The wretched divorce was over; he was truly married to the woman he loved, and James was behaving like a benign father who could not honor a beloved son enough.
It was true he had enemies, but that was inevitable. Many of these people gathered here tonight who had brought costly wedding presents would be ready and eager to turn against him tomorrow if he were to lose the King’s favor. That was human nature and something every man must be prepared for.
Northampton was his friend. He was sure of that. There was a family bond between them now, and it was good to have such a strong man for a friend. The presents he had given showed the world how much he approved of the wedding. The gold plate alone must have cost some fifteen hundred pounds; and the sword he had presented to Robert had a hilt and scabbard of pure gold. James’s gifts of course had excelled all others; the earldom was not universally recognized as a wedding present, so there had been ten thousand pounds’ worth of jewels from the King.
They were rich; they were powerful; they were in love. What could they lack?
There were some men though who made Robert uneasy. One of these was Sir Thomas Lake, an ambitious man who had been at Court in the time of Queen Elizabeth and had acted as secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham. Lake had assiduously courted the new Earl of Somerset, and had given six beautiful candle sticks as a wedding present; but he was eagerly watching for advancement and Robert did not entirely trust his friendship.
There was Sir Ralph Winwood who had shown great deference but there he was in his plain garments, refusing to put on silks and brocades or fine jewels. He was a stern Puritan and wished all to know it; and his speech was as plain as his garments. For all that, he was an ambitious man; and on returning to England from service abroad had quickly seen that if a man would advance in England he must be a friend of the King’s favorite.
There was another who caused Robert to feel uneasy. This was Count Gondomar, the new Spanish ambassador, a very handsome gentleman, with attractive manners, always fastidiously attired, gallant in the extreme, but with a pair of alert black eyes which missed little.
Robert suspected that Gondomar had those eyes trained on him; and among the presents which arrived was a casket of jewels which he suspected to be worth at least three hundred pounds. The Count of Gondomar dearly wished, said the accompanying note, that his little gift would give pleasure to the bridegroom.
The sight of those jewels had startled Robert because he had heard it whispered that some ministers actually received bribes from Spain. That was something he would never do; and the more he looked at those jewels, the more uneasy he became, for it seemed to him that there might be more in the little casket than a wedding gift.
He had written at once to the Count to tell him that it was good of him to send such a handsome gift, but that he never accepted anything without first having obtained the King’s permission to do so.
Such a comment must have been very unusual to the Spanish ambassador who had so many good friends at the English Court. It meant that this Earl of Somerset was a most extraordinary man because he was not to be won by bribes.
When Robert told James of the incident the King had smiled tenderly.
“Take the jewels, Robbie,” he said. “I know you to be beyond bribing. So you wrote to the Spaniard, eh? Well, well, it’ll be good for him to know there’s one honest man at Whitehall.”
So Robert accepted the jewels, but seeing the Count at the wedding festivities he remembered the incident.
He would have to go very carefully now that he no longer had Overbury to help him.
Frances was watching his perplexed looks and she whispered: “Does aught ail you, sweetheart?”
He smiled quickly. “Nay, I was thinking of poor Tom Overbury and it made me sad to remember how we parted and that I shall never see him again.”
A shiver ran through her.
This is our wedding day, she wanted to cry. We have won. We are together. Are we never to forget?
“No longer now,” he said, “need we fear that we are being spied upon. We are legally married. This is how I always longed for it to be.”
“And I, my love,” she told him.
If he but knew how she had worked for this; how she had schemed and planned, first against Essex, then against Overbury!
She longed to tell him that he might understand something of the measure of her love for him. She wanted to cry: “This I have done for you.”
But she dared not tell him. He would be shocked beyond expression. Perhaps his feelings would change toward her if he knew.
No, she must enjoy this perfect night—for perfect it must be.
Yet when he made love to her she could not shut out of her mind those waxen figures—the naked woman with the hair that looked like real hair, lying on the minute couch with the naked model. She could almost smell the overpowering incense which had burned in Dr. Forman’s room.
And it was as though a mocking ghost was in that room. The ghost of Sir Thomas Overbury who, not so long before, had been murdered in the Tower of London.
