What Love E’er Meant: Coffee Pot Book Club Blog Tour.
What Love E’er Meant
Regina, Book #2
by Janet Wertman
A new queen must prove she deserves the throne God gave her, while the path everyone insists will secure it might cost her everything.
Against all odds, Elizabeth Tudor has become Queen of England. Determined to fulfill what she sees as a divine responsibility, she sets out to heal a country ravaged by religious discord, war, and debt – and vindicate the legacy of Anne Boleyn, the mother who did not deserve her fate.
But Elizabeth’s crown is not fully secure: to the Catholic world, her cousin Mary Stuart is the rightful Queen of England and there are rumblings to put her there. Shoring up defenses requires that Elizabeth challenge France’s control of Scotland and Spain’s dominance on the seas, as well as calm internal strife. Above the din of menace, one question dominates all others: who will she marry?
William Cecil, her trusted Secretary of State, urges her to secure an alliance through a strategic match. Robert Dudley, the love of her life, pressures her to choose him. And Mary herself presents a cautionary tale. In the end, Elizabeth chooses not as a woman but as a queen, and learns the sobering truth of sovereignty: to rule is to stand alone.
What Love E’er Meant, the searing second volume in the Regina Trilogy, captures a young queen’s struggle to balance love and power, duty and desire…and the profound cost of choosing crown over heart.
August 2, 1561
Preparations for the upcoming Summer Progress brought an unexpected grumble to Elizabeth’s lips. She would be travelling through Suffolk, staying with nobles instead of in her own properties. It would save a great deal of money to have people host her, and it would better connect her with her subjects. But her mood saw only problems with everything.
A soft knock on the inner door caught Elizabeth’s attention. Robin. She considered moving from the window seat, but she liked the picture she knew she made. She picked up her feet and curled them around herself, to look engrossed in her reading.
Another knock came. This time she gave Mimi permission to open the door. Robin burst in, ignoring his sister, ignoring everything but Elizabeth, and was on his knees before her in an instant. “The sun crowns your head with a halo,” he said. “Like a goddess of old.”
She smiled. She did love compliments. “You should not blaspheme,” she said, with no reproach in her voice.
“Will you have your ladies withdraw? I have news. Important news.”
His smoldering eyes worried her. “Will you behave?” she asked him.
“Only if you want me to.”
“We have discussed this.”
He smiled. “You cannot fault me for testing the bounds of a temporary decision.”
She waved her hand and her ladies scrambled out, leaving the door open as the required nod to propriety. “Well?”
“The jury has returned its verdict. There can be no doubt that Amy’s death was an accident.”
Elizabeth was a little puzzled. “There already was a verdict, one that allowed you to return to court. What is this now?”
He sat back on his heels, no longer so intensely amorous. Indeed, he looked a little annoyed. “That was the coroner’s report, based on an examination of the body and interviews of witnesses. The investigation continued to ensure no detail went unexamined, and the findings were submitted to a panel of unbiased observers. No further doubt remains.”
His words conjured the vision of dead Amy Dudley at the bottom of her eight steps, and all the turmoil that death had caused.
Robin leaned back in and grabbed Elizabeth’s hands. “Now there is nothing stopping us. We can marry without anyone calling us murderers.”
Us? His casual use of the plural was a grim reminder that Elizabeth might be accused with him, by people who would give little weight to the actual findings.
Robin bent over her hands, his kisses slowly moving up her arms. The tickling was intrusive instead of pleasurable. “Stop. This changes nothing.”
He ceased the kisses but kept hold of her hands. “I know you hate to think of her. So do I. It is hard to be reminded how stupid I was.” His face looked as earnest as it had on his wedding day, convinced he would love Amy forever. Only six months later he had tired of her, even faster than Henry VIII had tired of Anne Boleyn.
“How do I know you are smarter now?” Elizabeth could not help but ask.
He pulled at her hands to get her to look at him. “You have always been the love of my life, my sun, my moon, and my stars. If I had ever thought you might consider me, I would have waited forever.”
He looked so sincere, so loving. But she had seen that look and heard those words before, from a man who had almost gotten her killed.
The thought of Thomas Seymour sobered her even further, reminding her of the terrible consequences of men’s affection. And ambition.
As if he sensed her unease, Robin sat back again. His face betrayed struggle before he raised his arms. “Today is not the day to talk about that. Our future deserves a shiny new day of its own.”
“Thank you for yielding to reason.”
“I am no fool. You are as skittish as my finest mare. If pressed, you will shy away even from something you want.”
Laughter bubbled up so hard in Elizabeth as to toss her head back. She kept laughing, and mirth brought the relief she needed.
“Was it so funny?”
“That you compared me to one of your mares was not funny. That you were right is what amused me.” She sighed. “I have to warn you, it will be some time before I could even think of wedding you. This must be a distant memory.”
“I can wait.” He stood to leave. “But tonight, can we dance? May I order the minstrels to do something special?”
“That would be wonderful.”
Watching him go, the gloom returned. Life had been so much easier when marriage was impossible. And yes, he was accommodating now, but would he still be so once he was no longer chasing her? The throne changed a man, especially one not born to the role.
Resolutely, she put away the decision that was far too premature to make.
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