Bess quietly shut the door and crept from the ante-room. Her face was white with rage; her eyes afire with the force of her fury. “You’ll be sorry for this, George Talbot,” she murmured; and she began to plan her revenge.

JANE KENNEDY and Seton were discussing the hideous rumor they had heard concerning their mistress.

“Do you think we should tell her?” asked Jane.

“I think it would be better for her to hear it from us than through any other source.”

“But it is so . . . ridiculous . . . so monstrous!”

“She has suffered from many lying rumors. I think we should tell her at once. It will come better from us.”

So Seton and Jane Kennedy went to Mary’s apartments and told her what was being said of her at the English Court.

Mary listened, wide-eyed. “But who could have started such a rumor? Shrewsbury and myself . . . . lovers! With Bess to keep him in order. What next will they say of me? And I have borne him two children! How could I have done this in secret?”

“It is horrible,” said Seton with a shudder. “What can we do to prevent this foul rumor spreading further?”

“I will tell the Countess,” answered Mary. “I feel sure that she will be as anxious to stop it as I am, and she has far more power to do so. Ask her to come to me at once, and then leave us together.”

When Bess was alone with her, Mary told her what she had heard and how angry this had made her.

Bess’s reception of the news astonished Mary, who had expected the Countess to be as angry as she herself was. Instead Bess laughed heartily.

“I never heard anything so ridiculous in my life,” she said at last. “Your Majesty should put the matter from your mind, because I am sure no one will believe such a silly rumor.”

“I do not like it,” Mary pointed out.

Bess snapped her fingers. “Your Majesty should laugh at it. Of all the absurd things which were ever said about anyone, this is the most ridiculous. Who of any sense is going to believe it?”

“There are many who are always eager to believe the worst.”

“Even they cannot believe this.” She asked permission then to send for her husband, and Mary readily gave it.

When the Earl appeared it was Bess who told him, amid laughter, what had been said.

The Earl looked grave and said he shared Mary’s view of the matter; but the Countess laughed at them both.

“When slander is carried too far,” she assured them both, “it becomes absurd and no one believes it.”

She was watching her husband closely. How embarrassed he was! Embarrassed to be suspected of carrying on a love affair with a Queen! Yet he was delighted to do so with a serving wench!

Ah, George Talbot, she said to herself, you are going to be very sorry you ever deceived Bess of Hardwick. This is only a beginning.

What would these two say if they knew that the rumors concerning their scandalous conduct had been started by her?

This was the beginning of her revenge. She was going to expose George Talbot as a lecher; but never should it be known that he had so demeaned his wife by preferring a serving girl. His infidelities must be with a Queen already notorious for her fascination and her scandalous life.

When they returned to their apartments she twitted the Earl with references to “his love, the Queen”; and although she knew this increased his embarrassment she continued to plague him.

But of course that was only a beginning.

THE COUNTESS WAS IN DISPUTE with her husband. She had hoped that, in view of the unpleasant rumors concerning him and the Queen, and her lighthearted treatment of them, he would have been disposed to grant her this little request.

All she was insisting on was the passing over of certain properties to her sons, but the Earl was adamant, being weary of the demands of the family she had had by a previous husband.

“Very well,” said Bess, “if you will not show me a little consideration, why should I bother to help you in your difficulties? Why should I pretend not to believe these stories of your lechery?”

“Pretend not to believe them!” cried the Earl aghast. “But you have clearly said that you do not.”

“Of course I said it. What else did you expect? That I wish to tell the world that you are carrying on an adulterous intrigue under our own roof?”

“So . . . you believe that of me . . . and the Queen of Scots!”

Bess faced him and looked unflinchingly into his face. “My lord, I know you to be an adulterer. Pray do not think to deceive me on that point.”

She was glad of his perturbation. He was going to pay for all the stolen pleasures with that serving woman. Eleanor Britton indeed. She wanted to shout at him: If it had in truth been Mary I would have more easily forgiven you, but since it is that slut I never shall!

But no. She would remain calm. She was going to turn this situation to advantage. It was more than revenge on Shrewsbury that she sought. She was going to discredit the Queen of Scots at the same time. A Queen who had borne two or three children to Shrewsbury would not gain the support that a virtuous Queen would receive. There would be few to pity one who could behave so during her imprisonment. And if Elizabeth should die and Mary should have become unpopular, Arabella might have a very good chance of reaching the throne.

Bess had two great desires now: to take revenge on Shrewsbury and, even greater still, to sweep Arabella Stuart to the throne of England.

So she was going to see that the whole country heard of this scandal. It was necessary to soothe her own vanity which had been so outraged by Shrewsbury’s intrigue with a serving girl, and to help Arabella on her way to the throne.

She knew the way to make everyone aware of this matter.

“I shall no longer live under the same roof as you and your paramour,” she said. “I am leaving at once for my own house of Chatsworth.”

With that she left him, and before the day was out had made her preparations and departed.

THE QUARREL between the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury was the main topic of conversation, not only in Sheffield Castle but at Court.

From Chatsworth Bess had started a suit in Chancery against the Earl, and had written to Elizabeth telling her of what she called his lewd and unhusbandly conduct.

Shrewsbury also wrote to Elizabeth. His wife, he feared, was a malicious and wicked woman; the scandals she had uttered concerning him and the Queen of Scots were undoubtedly without foundation; he was sure Her Majesty would understand that in the circumstances he must beg to be relieved of his duties, and he prayed that she would appoint another guardian of the Queen of Scots to take his place.

Elizabeth was annoyed. Shrewsbury had been Mary’s jailor for so long and had proved himself to be a good jailor; she knew full well that the cost to him of such a task had been tremendous, but he was rich enough, she consoled herself. Elizabeth was parsimonious by nature; it was a habit learned in her days of poverty, when she had had to scheme with her governess to procure some trifling garment or a new ribbon for a gown. She was always delighted when she could pass on some responsibility to one of her nobles—letting him shoulder the cost; and this for many years Shrewsbury had been doing very satisfactorily.

She replied firmly that she was not yet ready to relieve Shrewsbury of his task and that if he were going to take every rumor seriously he was indeed a fool.

Nevertheless she sent for Bess.

They eyed each other shrewdly and, for a few fearful seconds, Bess believed that the Queen was seeing through her motives. If it occurred to Elizabeth that the Countess had any thought of promoting young Arabella Stuart, she, Bess, had better tread very warily; it was a very short step from the moment of understanding to the Tower, and an even shorter one to the block.