Lady Virginia exchanged glances. They had known Etta would challenge them, but after long and arduous hours in preparation for the three coronation days, their stamina was wearing thin. It was her stepmother who replied, hoping to delay any controversy until later. ‘Etta dear, we’re all busy. We shall continue this conversation when we have more time. Now, you go upstairs.’
‘Etta needs to know,’ said Lord Jon. He used her full name when he was being serious, but the shortened name gave her a clue to his softening tone. ‘Sit down a moment. We were aware of the young man you refer to, even though you never gave us a chance to meet him, but your mother and I thought it had better come to an end. Your Uncle George thought so too when he discovered that Hoby is heavily in debt to his tailors and probably hoped you might be able to help him out of it. A man who visits the moneylenders as often as he does is not the kind of friend a father wants for his daughter. Hoby may not have had marriage in mind, for all we know, but we thought it best not to wait to see what else he was planning. Now you have the truth of it. Go upstairs and we’ll talk some more tomorrow.’
Etta had assumed that their friendship had ended to make way for another woman, but to learn that Hoby had been using her as a lifeline for his debts was, in a way, just as insulting. There was more she would like to have said, but this was not the time, and she knew any argument she could make would not appear at its most lucid. ‘I’m sorry, Father.’ Pecking them both on the cheek, she had gathered her skirts and gone to her room where her maid was still waiting patiently to dress her with not a single word of complaint.
Etta’s step-parents had not found it easy to raise King Henry’s illegitimate daughter, but the precocious and volatile Etta remembered little of those two motherless years before her stepfather’s marriage to Lady Virginia. Yet, even from the start, they had soon identified the Tudor characteristics which, in childhood, had caused as much amusement as anxiety, and her nurses had been kept on the hop from morn till night as her physical and mental energies outran their efforts to keep up. She could behave like an angel, but there was also a wilfulness behind the smile that had more than once evoked such responses as, ‘She’s her mother’s daughter and no mistake.’
‘She’ll have to commit herself to marriage,’ said Lord Jon to his lovely wife, ‘before...well, some time,’ he added, lamely.
‘You were going to say, before she runs into some real trouble?’
‘Perhaps not that kind of trouble, exactly. I hope she has more wit than that. I just wish she’d be more careful who she favours, that’s all.’
Jon was still the handsomest man Virginia knew, even at forty-six, and her eyes caressed him as she deliberated how much she could say to defend Etta’s strong bid for independence. ‘It’s perfectly obvious now what her relationship to the Queen is, Jon. Anyone can see that she and Henrietta share the same looks, and she’ll not be too keen on having Etta appear on the scene, will she? Can you imagine how sparks would fly?’
* * *
It seemed that neither Etta nor her parents could let the matter rest there, for the subject of her future was raised again a few days later when both parents attempted to explain that it was not so much that they wished to prevent her from making friends, but that she should now allow them to say who was suitable and who was not. Why now? ‘Because of your relationship to the new Queen, dear,’ said her mother. ‘We shall have to be extra-vigilant whose company you are seen in. Surely you can understand that? Can you imagine the comments if the Queen’s duplicate were to be seen in any but the very best company? That would hardly endear you to her, would it? Your freedom of choice must come to an end some time, my dear.’
‘In other words,’ said Etta, ‘you’re saying you intend to choose my future husband for me. Would you accept that, if you were me?’
‘Heavens above, Etta,’ said her father, ‘we’ve been more lenient with you over most things than we have with the boys, but a woman’s independence comes at a price, you know. Very few daughters of noble houses are allowed to choose their husbands. London will now be bursting at the seams with a younger generation of men eager to boost their careers and fortunes by marrying well. I’m not going to let you walk straight into the lion’s den, young lady, to be pounced on by some well-dressed young cockerel with big ideas who thinks he can win you simply by making sheep’s eyes at you. From now on, your mother and I will be saying who you are seen with. If you’d told us about young Hoby sooner, we could have saved you some heartache.’
On any other occasion, the menagerie of metaphors would have made her laugh, but when Etta made no immediate reply to that, Lord Jon turned to her. ‘Well?’ he said, aware that her silence didn’t necessarily mean acceptance.
‘This lion’s den you refer to, Father. Would that be the court? As you know, I had hoped that the Queen might have sent for me, since she must know I exist. How could she not? As half-sisters, surely we could meet? Is that not what half-sisters do?’
Etta’s mother tried to soften the edges of what she feared would come as unwelcome news. ‘It’s not as easy as that, darling,’ she said. ‘Our new Queen may not be quite as eager for your presence at her court as you are, you see. At the moment, she is the Queen Bee of the new hive. Now imagine how she would respond to an even more beautiful and younger queen bee in a hive swarming with handsome young men, watching them shower her with compliments in praise of exactly the same features as herself. Do you think she’d allow that? I don’t. She won’t stand for any rivals for her affection, Etta. She’s a Tudor. You’d get the sharp edge of her tongue before you’d been there one day. I was with her when she was a child of five, when she was often with Anna of Cleves, the lady I was with for a time. I know her temper very well, believe me. You would not care for it.’
‘And you really believe she would see me as a rival, Mama? Do you not think you and Father are making too much of this Tudor temperament?’ Even as she spoke, Etta had to admit that her mother knew Elizabeth far better than she did and that she was not likely to be mistaken in this.
‘Well, the truth of the matter is that we’ve had no word of her mind on this. Until she sends for you, there’s little you can do about it.’
‘I’m sure you’re right, m’dear,’ said Lord Jon. ‘If she doesn’t send for her, the only other way Etta could be received at court is by marriage or with someone who’s already accepted there and I’m not going anywhere near the place at the moment. Far too much going on, for my liking.’
Lady Virginia sighed and arranged the fur edge of her gown to cover her knees. ‘Throw another log on, Jon, will you? If you so desperately want to see her personally, Etta, then you must marry a courtier. But you rejected the last two courtiers before you’d even seen them, I recall.’
Lord Jon dusted his hands off and kicked the log into the blaze. Etta stood up and shook out her skirts. ‘But if I were to go to court, Mama, the choice would be so much more interesting, wouldn’t it, than it is at present? I think I could do better than the Lord Mayor of Norwich’s younger son, or Lord Torrington’s middle-aged heir. They were the last two on offer. And I don’t believe a title is an advantage, either. There are plenty of nobly born people at court without them.’
‘Then what would be an advantage, young lady?’ said her father, impatiently.
‘Love, Father. If love was good enough for you and Mother, then it’s good enough for me.’ That, apparently, was to be Etta’s last word on the subject before she walked to the door and closed it quietly behind her.
‘God’s truth,’ said Lord Jon, ‘she’s behaving more and more like Elizabeth every day. We’ve been too soft with her, sweetheart.’
‘But I think that was supposed to be a compliment, Jon dear.’
‘Come here, smooth-tongued woman,’ he said, holding out a hand.
‘What?’
‘This,’ he said, taking her into his arms.
* * *
Etta’s talk with her parents had given her some food