Elizabeth was appalled to hear it. The mother was that trollop Douglass Sheffield, whom she had rightly guessed was no better than she should be. The child had been christened with little fuss, but sufficient to warrant word of the event being bruited around the court, and the Queen had overheard Frances Howard prattling about it. They even had the effrontery to name the brat after Robert, proclaiming his paternity to the world. How could he have betrayed her so—and with such a one? She spent many a sleepless night weeping into her pillow, devising numerous ways of exacting revenge on them both. The torturers in the Tower had nothing in their repertoire compared to what she was planning to do to Robert and his dirty little whore. She was mortified to realize that their affair had probably been going on last year, on her birthday even, when Robert had come to her, all smiles and adoration, and presented her with a gorgeous fan of white feathers with a handle of gold engraved with his emblem—the bear—and hers, the lion of England—entwined, if you please!
