A Ladder of Swords by Gilbert Parker — Read

The next day at noon, as her Majesty had advised the seigneur, De la Foret was ushered into the presence. The Queen's eye quickened as she saw him, and she remarked with secret pleasure the figure and bearing of this young captain of the Huguenots. She loved physical grace and prowess with a full heart. The day had almost passed when she would measure all men against Leicester in his favor; and he, knowing this clearly now, saw with haughty anxiety the gradual passing of his power, and clutched futilely at the vanishing substance. Thus it was that he now spent his strength in getting his way with the Queen in little things. She had been so long used to take his counsel -- in some part wise and skilful that when she at length did without it or followed her own mind, it became a fever with him to let no chance pass for serving his own will by persuading her out of hers.

This was why he had spent an hour the day before in sadly yet vaguely reproaching her for the slight she put upon him in the presence-chamber by her frown, and another in urging her to come to terms with Catherine de Medici in this small affair -- since the Frenchwoman had set her revengeful heart upon it -- that larger matters might be settled to the gain of England. It was not so much that he had reason to destroy De la Foret as that he saw that the Queen was disposed to deal friendly by him and protect him. He did not see the danger of rousing in the Queen the same unreasoning tenaciousness of will upon just such lesser things as might well be left to her advisers.