The Noble Assassin
A thrilling account of one of English history’s most daring women, who risked everything in the dark days leading up to the Civil War. The perfect novel for fans of Suzannah Dunn and Phillipa Gregory.Court beauty, Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford, feels frustrated by life with her weak husband. Poverty stricken, they are confined to their country estate and excluded from court life in London after he disastrously allies himself against Elizabeth I.Now, some years later, James I is seated on the English throne. His daughter, Elizabeth Stuart, former confidant of Lucy, has married the King of Bohemia. The precarious political situation in Europe is fraught, setting father against daughter. When Elizabeth and her husband are deposed, exiled and forced on the run, James is in no mood to come to his daughter’s aid.Hearing of Elizabeth’s predicament, Lucy sees an opportunity to re-establish the Bedford name and offers herself as a peace envoy between the two parties. Setting out on a daring mission across the channel, Lucy discovers she is being manipulated by unscrupulous men, not least the calculating and darkly handsome Duke of Buckingham.Can Lucy tread this most dangerous path, or by risking everything, will she pay the ultimate price?
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The Noble Assassin
CHRISTIE DICKASON
For John
Contents
Dedication
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Part Two
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Epilogue
The People In THE NOBLE ASSASSIN
Author’s Notes
By the same author
Some Helpful Books
The Noble Assassin – TIME LINE
About the Author
Copyright
Thank you to:
John Faulkner, my personal Google Stephen Wyatt, my creative SOS, as always Olena Kostovska Lindsay Smith Stephen Siddall Tom French for IT support and rescue Emma Faulkner, for the title Orly, for listening, among much else Leonardo, Giuseppe and Rosa Giannini for my office away from home Sarah Ritherdon and Victoria Hughes-Williams at HarperCollins My agents, Robert Kirby and Charlotte Knee Jon M. Moore, Chief Executive, Moor Park Golf Club The Museum of Richmond, Richmond Surrey The Richmond Reference Library Jeremy Preston and the staff of East Sheen Library for invaluable support in research, readings, and readership involvement
(And, welcome to Matilda, who arrived in this world
just before I hit ‘SEND’.)
LUCY – MOOR PARK, HERTFORDSHIRE, NOVEMBER 1620
The air is so cold that I fear my eyelashes will snap off like the frozen grass. Only my two youngest, most eager hounds have left the fireside to bound at my side.
I do not want to die. But I cannot go on as I am, neither. I ride my horse closer to the edge of the snow cliff. I imagine turning his head out to the void and kicking him on. I imagine the screams behind me.
We would fly, my horse and I, falling in a great arc towards the icy River Chess far below. My hair would loosen and tumble free. His tail and my darned red gown would flutter like flags.
Then we would begin to tumble, slowly, end over end, like a boy’s toy soldier on horseback, my bent knee clamped around the saddle horn, his legs frozen in mid-gallop. The winter sun reflecting off his black polished hoofs. My last unsold jewels scattering through the air like bright rain. For those frozen dreamlike moments, my life would again be glorious.
I feel the alarmed looks being exchanged behind me on the high, snowy ridge, among the moth-eaten furs and puffs of frozen breath. I quiver like a leashed dog, braced for the first voice to cry, ‘Take care!’
I walk my horse still closer to the edge.
It would be so easy.
I look down again at the river. Why not? What is left to lose now?
The in-drawn breath of that vast space pulls at me. The serrated edges of the snow cliff glisten, sharp enough to slice off Time.
Welcome, the space whispers. Below me, I see the smiling faces of my two dead babes. Welcome. I see the face of my poet, my only love, now dead to me.
One kick, then no more fighting. No more debts. No more loss. No more of the scorn and silence already denying that I am alive.
Even my Princess is gone from England.
I listen to the uneasy stirring behind me. Who would break first and call me back?
You can die from lack of a purpose to live.
‘Your Grace . . .’ The waiting gentleman speaks quietly lest he startle me, or my horse, and send us over the edge. Speaking carefully, as if I were poor, maimed, self-indulgent Edward, who suffers so nobly before witnesses then beats his fist against his chair when he thinks himself alone.
The cold air is a knife in my chest. The sun on the snow blinds me. I am made of ice.
I let my small band of attendants hold their breaths by the edge of the snow cliff. They should be grateful to me for this small gift of fear, I think. Salting the bland soup of their day.
I look down at the river again. Edward is wrong to say that I lie to myself. I face the reality in front of me. Listen to its melody. Then I rewrite it, sometimes on paper, sometimes only in my head. I give it more beauty, or terror or meaning. I tell the story better. But I never deceive myself as to which is which.
For instance, I can see that the scene I am now writing in my head is impossible. The fall would be messy, not glorious. Almost certainly, the horse would have to be shot. I would land at the bottom broken but still breathing. And then I would become a captive with my husband in his fretful rage.
I see the pair of us, invalids side-by-side in our fur rugs, dropping malice as the stars drop the dew until we die.
I still brim with unwritten words, unsung music, unplanted gardens. I still keep most of the looks and all of the wit that had made me the darling of the Whitehall poets. I feel like a piece of verse begun but not finished. There is one poet who could have written me but never will.
