The Forgotten Sister Read online

  ‘I don’t care,’ Lizzie said. She shook off Kat’s restraining arm and hurried across the concourse. Johnny was being manhandled towards the door and the crowd retreated before him with camera phones still flashing.

  ‘Ms Kingdom—’ Jason interposed his bulk between her and Johnny. ‘Wait—’

  ‘Let go of my brother or I’ll have you up on an assault charge.’

  Lizzie turned to find herself looking into the impossibly dark, impossibly angry eyes of Arthur Robsart. Even though she wasn’t touching Johnny and Arthur’s words weren’t addressed to her, she found herself stepping back at the authority in his tone.

  She hadn’t seen Arthur since Amelia’s wedding ten years before yet for a moment it felt as though no time had elapsed at all. She remembered the way he had bound up the cut on her hand with a dispassionate efficiency that hadn’t hidden the fact he was exasperated with her. The look he was giving her now made his manner then seem positively warm.

  The security guard dropped Johnny as though he’d been scalded. Johnny half stumbled, half fell into Lizzie’s arms, only to be wrenched away from her by a blonde girl who had dashed inside in Arthur’s wake. Lizzie vaguely recognised her as Anna, Amelia’s younger sister. It had been a while since they’d met.

  ‘Darling Johnny,’ Anna was saying. ‘Don’t. Don’t cry. It will all be all right.’ She glared at Lizzie like a tigress as she cradled Johnny close, stroking his hair. ‘Haven’t you done enough harm, monopolising Dudley?’ she demanded. ‘You’re not getting your claws into Johnny as well.’

  Lizzie’s mouth dropped open in shock. She knew it was unlikely that Anna would be her biggest fan, but the naked hostility took her aback.

  ‘I was only trying to help,’ she said.

  ‘Well, don’t.’ Anna had an arm about her brother and was steering him towards the exit now. ‘Arthur—’ She jerked her head towards the door. ‘We’re leaving.’

  Arthur, who had been talking swiftly and quietly to Jason, broke off with a nod and followed his siblings out of the wide plate glass doors of the lobby and down the steps to a waiting taxi. Kat waited a discreet interval and then came steaming across to Lizzie’s side, all outraged indignation now that Anna had gone.

  ‘How dare she speak to you like that?’ Kat fumed. ‘She’s bloody rude!’

  ‘She’s upset,’ Lizzie said mechanically. She was staring after the family and caught one last glance of Johnny’s pinched, unhappy face and those haunted blue eyes before he disappeared into the car. ‘Her sister’s just died,’ she said. ‘Cut her some slack.’

  Kat shrugged, clearly unsympathetic. ‘I don’t see why she’s trying to blame you,’ she said. ‘That was totally uncalled for.’

  ‘Everyone is blaming me,’ Lizzie said tiredly. ‘It helps to have a target at a time like this.’

  ‘Then let them blame Dudley,’ Kat said. ‘It’s his fault not yours.’

  Lizzie pulled a face. The trouble was that she knew there had been some truth in Anna’s words. She could shrug it off – if Dudley had preferred to spend time with her rather than with his wife, was that her fault? – but a small, nagging voice at the back of her mind said she could have behaved differently. She hadn’t cared about Amelia’s feelings. And now Amelia was dead.

  ‘I didn’t know Arthur was in London,’ Kat said, as though her celebrity radar had failed her badly. ‘He’s practically a hermit these days.’ She opened her eyes wide. ‘He’s a farmer, of all things. Can you believe it?’

  ‘Sure,’ Lizzie said. ‘There are a lot of very good-looking farmers around.’

  ‘But he used to present all those nature and wildlife programmes with cute ducklings and baby birds,’ Kat protested. ‘He was on the TV, and he did some modelling, and then he gave it all up to go back to university. Beggars belief, doesn’t it?’ Her expression registered blank incomprehension. ‘One minute he’s a celeb, and coining it in with sponsorship deals, and the next he’s mucking out cows? Please! In what universe does that make any sense?’

  ‘In one you don’t inhabit,’ Lizzie said. She shrugged. ‘Not everyone wants to be a celebrity, Kat.’

  Kat was scrolling through her Facebook feed, talking at the same time as she tapped out messages. ‘Did you see that the press are linking all the recent deaths in Amelia’s family?’ she asked. ‘They’ve raked up the story of Amelia’s mother and Arthur’s fiancée. They’re calling them the cursed celebrity family.’

  ‘That’s not very catchy,’ Lizzie said. Even so, she shuddered. Press stories could be crass and intrusive at the best of times; introducing some sort of horror story element into a tragedy was unpleasantly sensationalist. Kat, however, seemed hooked. ‘Oh. My. God,’ she said. ‘I’d forgotten how terrible Jenna looked by the end.’ She glanced at Lizzie. ‘Did you ever meet her? Jenna Gascoyne? She was in a few high-profile films but her career tanked when she started to suffer from anorexia.’ Kat paused. ‘Poor Jenna, she looks like a ghost in this photo. They say she was living on tissues and laxatives. Arthur did his best but she was beyond help. He—’

  ‘—is coming back inside,’ Lizzie said. ‘So you’d better stop talking about him.’ Her chest tightened with something akin to panic. There was no chance of getting into the car and heading to the studio until the scrum of reporters had eased a little and the last thing she wanted was Arthur coming in and taking up where Anna had left off. He was crossing the foyer towards them now. Kat smoothed her skirt and stood up a little straighter, smiling as he approached. ‘Wow,’ she breathed in Lizzie’s ear. ‘He is so hot.’

  Lizzie didn’t reply. She would have categorised Arthur as very hot indeed were it not for the fact that he was looking at her with absolute disdain which prejudiced her against him quite strongly. The scar on her palm where the crystal had cut her tingled suddenly. She pressed her hands together.

  ‘Hi,’ Kat said, before Arthur could speak.

  Arthur gave her a cool nod. His gaze was fixed on Lizzie and again she felt the depth of his disapproval, all the more powerful for not being articulated.

  ‘Miss Kingdom,’ he said formally. ‘I’m Arthur Robsart, Johnny’s half-brother. We met once before?’ he continued as though indifferent as to whether or not she remembered. ‘I wanted to apologise on Johnny’s behalf. He shouldn’t have accosted you like that.’

  ‘He’s upset,’ Lizzie said. She felt simultaneously relieved that Arthur wasn’t going to have a go at her and protective of Johnny. ‘I understand how he feels,’ she said. ‘He – you – must all be going through a horrible time.’

  Arthur Robsart’s mouth flattened with dislike. Evidently she wasn’t entitled to offer sympathy to Amelia’s family. ‘Nevertheless,’ he said, ‘Johnny won’t trouble you again.’

  ‘He only wanted to talk to me,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’m sorry we didn’t get the chance…’ She waved a vague hand around. Under Arthur’s objective scrutiny she felt embarrassed. The security guards were still standing nearby in a watchful silence, arms crossed. They were paid to protect her and they had been doing their job but it didn’t feel like a good excuse.

  ‘As I said,’ Arthur repeated, ‘he won’t trouble you again.’ His expression was cold. He turned to go.

  ‘Wait.’ Lizzie caught his sleeve.

  She felt a burn of sensation against her fingers immediately. It was exactly like the feeling she had when she touched her mother’s possessions, or read other objects, and yet at the same time it was completely different. She had never experienced any sort of telepathic response when touching people before. Yet now it was as though she had stepped directly into Arthur Robsart’s mind.

  The emotional connection was sharp, immediate and shocking. There was a buzzing in her ears like static and her mind was flooded with Arthur’s feelings. She sensed his fierce love and concern for Johnny and beneath that a welter of other emotions: impatience, anger, determination and dislike, all directed towards her, alongside a strong attraction, all the more disturbing for being twinned
with such animosity.

  Lizzie looked up at him and saw the flare of disbelief in his eyes before he shut all emotion down. The connection between them died abruptly like a slammed door cutting off sound. She knew Arthur had felt it too, though. She would have known even if she hadn’t seen his reaction.

  She felt completely shaken. She hadn’t even realised she could read people’s thoughts. It had never happened before. It wasn’t the same as reading objects; that was crazy enough and she kept it to herself like a guilty secret, half believing, half fearing that it was a phenomenon conjured up by her imagination from a desperate desire to connect to her past. She had always assumed, or tried to tell herself, that it only happened because of her sense of closeness to some members of her family which meant that she associated strong memories or emotions with them. This experience with Arthur Robsart was a whole different thing. She didn’t want to go there. She wasn’t flaky or into spiritual stuff; she’d never wanted to contact her mother’s spirit through a medium or anything like that. The thought made her shudder.

  ‘Lizzie?’ Kat prompted her, and she realised she was still holding Arthur’s sleeve. ‘Are you OK, babes?’

  Lizzie let go. ‘Sorry,’ she said, a little weakly, not daring to look at Arthur again. ‘I… I only wanted to say…’ She risked a quick glance up at him. ‘I mean… Johnny will get help, won’t he? He seemed so upset—’

  ‘We’ll look after him,’ Arthur said. Without another word he turned and walked away.

  ‘Well!’ Kat said, staring after him. ‘That was…’

  ‘Weird,’ Lizzie said, ‘totally weird.’ She realised that she was physically shaking.

  ‘You seemed…’ Kat paused delicately. ‘Smitten?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Lizzie said. ‘I don’t think he likes me much.’

  ‘Well,’ Kat said vaguely, ‘he probably thinks that you spent too much time with Dudley—’

  ‘Whatever,’ Lizzie cut her off. She made a show of checking her watch. She didn’t want to talk about it. ‘We’d better go,’ she said. ‘I’ve wasted enough time.’ She set off across the foyer to the door. Her car was waiting. The press and the crowds of onlookers turned back towards her, pushing phones and microphones close.

  ‘Lizzie, any comment?’

  ‘What is your connection to Johnny Robsart?’

  ‘Have you been interviewed by the police about Amelia’s death?’

  Questions, questions, over and over, a cacophony beating down on her and Lizzie, like the professional she had been from the age of five, with a smile fixed on her lips:

  ‘Excuse me. I’m going to work. I have no comment to make at all.’

  Chapter 8

  Amy: Castle Rising, Norfolk, Summer 1551

  Robert and I were happy that summer of 1551, or at least that is how I remember it now. Perhaps time has sweetened my recollection of those days and nights. To begin with we lodged at Ely Place in Holborn, the old bishop’s palace, where the gardens reminded me a little of the country with their tumbledown walls and secretive orchards and the nightingales singing. On the hot nights of June we would run barefoot over the dew-drenched grass and make love beneath the shadows of the trees. I loved Robert so dearly then. His blatant desire for me was the balm I needed to convince me that his love for the Princess Elizabeth was no more than the courtly devotion of an old friend.

  We journeyed into Norfolk too later that year. Both my father and Lord Warwick were anxious to establish Robert as one of the most influential landowners in the region. He became Constable of Castle Rising, which was no great privilege since the medieval walls were in great decay and overrun with rabbits. We lodged in the new buildings, which were already more than fifty years old and leaked whenever the wind drove the rain in from the east. Robert spoke of repairing the ruins but I knew it would not happen. We had so little money and though Robert was already gathering other estates and offices, I knew that our future lay in London rather than the flat lands of my birth. Arthur came to see us, however, and was his usual easy company. I had not expected him to like Robert but they shared a passion for horses and for riding. Robert recognised Arthur’s skill with animals and respected it. Their friendship made me happy.

  My mother and my sister Anna also visited one day in August when the fields baked in the hot sun, clattering over the stone bridge and through the gatehouse to where I waited in the inner bailey. I was poised to apologise for the meanness of receiving them in such a tumbledown ruin and then I saw Anna’s face as she looked up at the soaring towers and stone buttresses. She was completely overawed and the sensation of triumph I felt was sweet. Her mouth pinched, her brow furrowed and she greeted me with a kiss that was cold as a noblewoman’s charity.

  ‘Sister…’ Anna said coolly. Her awe had already changed into resentment.

  I saw Mother give her a meaningful look and then Anna smiled at me although the smile did not reach her eyes. ‘It is so good to see you again, Amy,’ she said, and I thought: She wants something from me.

  We went into the solar and the servants brought us ale and cold pigeon pie. We spoke of Stansfield and the harvest and our great brood of family. Mother asked after life in London, grasping eagerly for details of the court and the latest gossip. Then I saw her kick Anna under the table; an awkward silence fell, which Anna broke by clearing her throat.

  ‘Amy,’ she said, ‘out of the love you bear me—’

  Which is small, I thought.

  ‘I would beg a small favour from you.’ Anna stopped. Mother was staring at her fixedly. I tried not to appear too impatient.

  ‘As you know, my husband Antony Huddleston is not in favour with the King,’ Anna blurted out. Colour had come into her face now, the red of anger and embarrassment at having to ask for goodwill from the little sister she had once patronised. ‘It is to our eternal grief that he is overlooked, for he could offer great service to the crown.’

  I did not know Antony Huddleston well. He had a manor house at Sawston in Cambridgeshire and before Robert had sued for my hand in marriage he had seemed a good enough catch for Anna, the modestly dowried step-daughter of a knight. I wondered if she ever wished I had wed first so that she could have gone to court and found herself a lord.

  ‘Antony’s Catholic sympathies make that impossible,’ I said coldly. ‘Surely you understand that? The King is not sympathetic towards papists.’

  Anna cast her eyes down. ‘Antony has recanted,’ she said. ‘He realises that the path he chose was the wrong one. I have helped him to see—’

  ‘That Robert’s position could gain him preferment,’ I finished for her, ‘as it has for our brothers.’

  ‘Amy!’ Mother exclaimed. ‘Shame on you for playing out your childhood grudges now. You are not yet too fine a lady to escape my censure.’

  Now it was my turn to blush, with mortification. Mother was right to reprove me. It had been childish of me to take impulsive revenge and I was ashamed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said reluctantly, ‘I’ll speak to Robert but I can promise nothing.’

  Anna looked at me with her pale blue eyes. There was something disturbing in their very blankness. I knew then that she had hated asking me for anything and that having heard my response she hated me all the more. The air in the solar suddenly felt stiflingly humid, as though her dislike was a palpable thing, smothering me. I stood up abruptly.

  ‘Let us walk,’ I said. ‘We have no flower gardens here but the herb beds are pretty at this time of year.’

  Mother was all eagerness, shepherding Anna out ahead of her, chattering about the demands of running a household. There was little I could contribute to the conversation; I had always intended to take up the reins of household management but I had servants to organise everything for me now and whenever I told Robert I felt I should do more, he just laughed indulgently. ‘Why would you wish to dirty your hands in the pantry or make tinctures in the stillroom?’ he would say. ‘You are a fine lady now.’

  I might have
said that I wished it because I was bored, because I wanted to have a purpose and to be more than merely Mistress Dudley but I never did. How could I complain of my lot when so much good fortune was mine? Besides, things would be different when I had a child.

  ‘It is good to have you close by, Amy,’ Mother said, squeezing my hand. She waited for Anna to echo the sentiment but my sister stopped instead to breathe in the scent of a briar rose growing against the barn wall, and pretended not to hear. Mother sighed.

  ‘I hope,’ she continued, ‘that we will see you at Stansfield Manor – and perhaps even at Sawston?’

  I doubted that Robert would ever consent to visit Antony and Anna, and given that she had not invited us – anyway I thought it wise to give a politician’s answer and a polite smile.

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said.

  ‘Anna is expecting a child,’ Mother said, almost desperately. ‘Perhaps you will stand sponsor to it?’

  My eyes met Anna’s in a moment of surprising unity. Both of us deplored Mother’s attempts to make us like each other more than we were able. At a distance it was entirely possible; we wrote politely to one another but had no desire to be more intimate. Thus it was sometimes with siblings. I loved Arthur but I could not love Anna.

  ‘I congratulate you,’ I said to my sister, suppressing a stab of envy. Robert and I had been wed a year now and I had not yet conceived.

  Anna cast down her gaze. ‘It is early days yet. I pray this one will go full term.’

  ‘Amen to that.’ On such a subject we could be in easy agreement, knowing how infinitely dangerous and difficult such matters could be.

  ‘You should not ride back,’ I said impulsively. ‘It cannot be good for you. Take our carriage.’

  Mother looked gratified but Anna shook her head. ‘The roads are too bad,’ she said. ‘I’d rather ride.’

  I was still feeling affronted that night as Robert and I lay in bed together. I told him of the visit and complained how little Anna liked me. ‘Darling Amy,’ Robert said, pulling the neck of my nightgown down, kissing my bare shoulder, ‘how could anyone dislike you? Your sister is but sour and ugly and envious. Pay no heed.’