Down they went, and out to the street where they stood under the tenement’s overhanging second story. A few paces away, at the street’s crooked corner, an old woman with a plump, pinched face like a dried apple crouched over a brazier of coals, roasting chestnuts. She glanced at Justine and then, with weary disinterest, went back to prodding the charred chestnuts. Their earthy aroma tinged the chilly air.
Justine said to Rigaud, “You were in Kirknewton in early June. Why?”
“To see the vicar, Hobson. He was away, off to see the bishop, that’s what his churchwarden told me. But I left him a good offer. Better than good—ten casks of Burgundy, half price. That interfering churchwarden said there was no business to be had from Hobson, but I told the fellow to pass along my offer anyway. Has Hobson sent you?”
“Burgundy? You were there to sell wine?”
He looked eager to please. “If he doesn’t want Burgundy I can get Malmsey. Claret, too. I can get the best, cheap. For Hobson, half price.”
“You are well-connected,” she said, almost scoffing. How did a denizen of this wretched neighborhood have access to fine French wines?
Rigaud bristled and said with some defiance, “You don’t believe me? I ran a profitable trade for years, before I fell on hard times. Supplied northern gentlemen’s cellars from York to Berwick.” He raised his chin and added with a snarl of wounded pride, “Twelve, fourteen years ago, at Wooler, I did business with the lord of Yeavering Hall himself.”
He knew my father. It made her squirm to think that this man had any connection with her own family. The expression on his face was hard to read. There was pride, and bitterness, too, but something else lurked. Fear? Of being found out? She imagined Alice struggling against his hands squeezing her throat, gasping her last breaths, and in a rush of fury she said, “I have not come on the vicar’s business. Not on business at all.”
Rigaud’s eyes narrowed in mistrust. “Are you from the French Church?”
“No. It’s Kirknewton church I want to ask you about. And the murder of Alice Boyer.”
He stiffened. “Never heard of her.”
“Oh, I think you have. You were there the day she was murdered in the church nave. June fifth. A farrier at the stable across the lane saw you running away through the churchyard.”
His scowl was so fierce she was afraid he might strike her. Part of her wanted to run. But she stood her ground, fists bunched at her sides ready to defend herself. “Did you kill Alice?”
“Me? Is that what you think?”
“You were there. Then you fled to London.”
“I was done with my business so I came home. Where’s the crime in that?”
“You were seen running away. Why were you running?”
His face had gone pale but he wasn’t backing down. He said very carefully, “There’s many things can make a man run. I tell you, I didn’t touch the wench.”
She saw again that flicker of fear, and suddenly she believed him. But if he was innocent, what was he afraid of? As a child at the fair she had once seen a jester wearing a two-faced mask, one pair of eyes looking forward, the pair at the back of his head looking backward, and the truth about Rigaud now struck her like that jester turning to flash his other face. It was not guilt that had made him run. “You saw something. That’s it, isn’t it?”
His face went hard, like a door closing. “I saw I had lost a chance to earn a living. So I left.”
“Who did you see? The killer?”
He wiped his nose, red in the cold, and looked back at his door as though ready to go back inside. “I didn’t do it, and now you know. I have nothing more to say.”
“But you know more. You saw the killer, didn’t you. Who is he? Someone you know? Someone you’ve seen before?”
A twitch of his eyes. “You’d best leave this alone, mistress. Get yourself back to your fine house. Around here there are dangers for a lady. Cutpurses and worse. Children, too, some very clever at getting the clothes off a lady’s back.”
She remembered the three children in his room picking the seams out of soiled clothing. Was he threatening her? She was now too hungry for an answer to be afraid. “Tell me, I beg you. Alice was my dearest friend. For pity’s sake, man, tell me who you saw!”
A new light came into Rigaud’s eyes. “It’s worth something to you, then, is it?”
“Anything. Just tell me.”
He studied her as if weighing the risk. He picked a scrap of bread from his teeth, thinking. “Ten pounds.”
“What?”
“You’re right, I saw the man who killed your friend. It’ll cost you ten pounds.”
Ten pounds! “Yes, all right. Who was it? Do you know his name?”
“I do,” he said grimly.
“Tell me!”
He held out his palm. “Pay first.”
It took her aback. “Now? But . . . I don’t walk the streets with so much money.”
“Ten pounds, or no name.”
She was trembling with frustration. How could she get such a huge amount? The Thornleighs were her only source of funds—they paid for everything she’d ever needed or wanted—but she could not possibly go to them now. Who else, then? Wildly, she thought of her father. My flesh and blood. But she had no way to contact him. He was somewhere in Yorkshire, to serve Mary. Then it struck her: She had kin nearby. Her father’s sister, Frances, in Chelsea. “All right,” she told Rigaud. “I’ll get it. I’ll bring it.”
“Good.” He took a step toward his door. “Do it fast. Before the poxy churchmen hustle me onto a ship to France.” He shot a wary look past the woman roasting chestnuts as if he expected to see the parish elders turning the corner, coming for him with manacles and chains. “Come back by Sunday, or it’ll be too late for us both.”
“Don’t you see, Frances? This is our great chance.” Christopher was so infuriated by his sister that he found it hard to keep his voice low. He did not trust her servants and had insisted that she bring him to this children’s playroom at the back of her house where no one would see him. He wasn’t sure he could trust Frances, for that matter, but he had told her too much to turn back now. “When Mary is on the throne, she will restore all that was taken from us. Our lands. Our name. Our religion.”
“Your lands.”
“Your religion.”
She looked agonizingly torn. “If we succeed. But if we fail?” She was fidgeting with a child’s rag doll, pinching its row of buttons. They clicked through her fingernails like rosary beads. Her voice was thin with fear. “All I see is failure and ruin.”
“Because you have not allowed yourself to see victory.” The room was hot. A child’s tower of colored wooden blocks by the hearth seemed to waver in the heat, and the glass eyes of a rocking horse glowed red like a demon’s. Yet there was no fire in the hearth and frost etched the windowpanes and Christopher knew that it was only he who was hot. A fever. Every word he spoke grated his throat like sandpaper. Every muscle ached. He had made a punishing ride north to Bolton to finalize with Mary the next crucial step in the plan, then galloped back here to Chelsea to put it into action. He craved sleep. Yet he could not rest, there was so much to do. Most urgently, he had to talk to Justine. He could not go to the Thornleighs’ house, of course; he would have Frances invite her here. He had told his sister about Justine’s conversion to Mary’s cause, which had astonished her but stiffened her backbone, he hoped. His daughter’s participation now was essential. Without her the whole plan would be stillborn.
Shouts outside made him flinch. He went to the window and parted the curtain a finger’s width to investigate. In the snowy courtyard Frances’s children, a tall girl and a younger boy, were laughing and pelting a burly young footman with snowballs. The grinning footman whipped a snowball back at them and it knocked off the girl’s hat, making her shriek with laughter. Christopher scanned the area for other servants. Across the courtyard, past the snow-shrouded topiary, lay the unfinished three-story wing. Its unglazed wi
ndows were covered with snow-caked canvas. A couple of workers were carrying boards out through its entrance and loading them into a wagon.
Christopher tugged the curtain closed and turned back to Frances. When she had left the Spanish embassy cellar after meeting him and de Spes she had seemed aquiver with the thrill of removing Elizabeth, but after days to fret about it she was now faltering. He bit back his furious impatience and spoke in a tone to calm her. “Your part is so very simple. Once your home is suggested to Elizabeth as the meeting place, you simply agree to host the meeting. That is all. Then you are done.”
“But when she is dead, who will they suspect? Me!”
“Why should they? You and your husband have excellent relations with her. A history of pure loyalty.”
“Except for the connection with my brother, the traitor,” she snapped.
“Who died eight years ago,” he reminded her. “And back then no one suspected you.”
She bit her lip, clutching the doll, looking unconvinced.
He stifled the urge to shake her. “Frances,” he said soothingly, “there is nothing to connect you. Every step Elizabeth takes is whispered by dozens, even about her so-called secrets, so everyone will believe that word of the meeting simply leaked from court. It happens all the time. Then, once the deed is done, her officers will look for culprits who are known to hate her. And her enemies are legion. Every good Catholic in England, and all the Spaniards here whose goods she confiscated in retaliation for Philip freezing English assets. The two countries stand on the brink of war. Whole factions in both realms want Elizabeth’s death. When it happens, no one will even give a thought to you. They are more likely to pity you as an innocent dupe, especially when you bewail the tragedy.”
She stared at him as if wanting to believe him. A back door slammed. Christopher heard children’s laughter and running footsteps. Frances looked at the door, distracted by the sound of the footsteps fading. “Katherine and Robert. I should go—”
“Never mind them. Frances, you must pledge me your help. What say you?”
She looked down at the doll in her hands, twisting one of its buttons, lost in an agony of indecision. Then she shook her head. “No. I cannot do it. The risk is too great.”
He snatched the doll and tossed it across the room. “Then get your husband to do it.”
“What?” she said horror. Cowed, she backed up toward the tower of blocks.
“All he has to do is agree to host the meeting.”
“I would never put him in such jeopardy!”
“What jeopardy? The risk to him is nonexistent. He is known to be Elizabeth’s staunch supporter, according to de Spes. People even say he’s the pirate who captured Philip’s gold and gave it to Elizabeth, that he is her favorite courtier—”
“People are ignorant fools,” she snapped. “What they say is vile slander!”
He had struck a nerve, and it surprised him. So that was why she wanted Elizabeth gone, he suddenly realized. Not religion. Jealousy. It flared in her eyes and stamped angry red splotches high on her cheeks. And it gave him hope. “Where is your husband, by the way?”
“Portsmouth, seeing to his ship.”
“Ah yes, seeing to the naval welfare of the lovely Elizabeth. She must be very grateful.”
“All you need to know,” she said with quiet bitterness as she bent to straighten the red block on top of the tower, “is that he is far away. Safe. Otherwise I would not even be listening to you.”
Christopher kicked the tower and the blocks tumbled. Frances froze. “But you have listened. You are listening. Because you know it’s the right thing to do. Elizabeth is a blight on my life and yours. Do you want your husband to be forever in her thrall?”
She looked as if he had slapped her. She swallowed, then answered with a new steadiness, “No.”
“Then you know your part. Do this, Frances, or everything we want will be lost to us forever.”
A child’s muffled shout from inside the house: “Hooray! Justine’s here!”
Frances’s head jerked up. Christopher stared at his sister in astonishment. “Did you know she was coming?”
She looked so flustered it was clear she was as surprised as he was. “No.”
They heard Justine’s voice and a maid’s coming toward them. Christopher had time only to turn his back to the door as it opened.
“Forgive me for this interruption,” Justine said to her aunt, hurrying in. She sounded slightly out of breath.
“That is all,” Frances tightly told the maid. “Leave us.”
When the maid was gone, Christopher turned. A dart of happiness went through him at the sight of his daughter’s pretty face, cheeks pink from the cold, eyes keen with some pent-up urgency. She stiffened when she saw him.
“Father . . .”
The two children came scrambling in, the girl exclaiming, “Mother, may we play with Justine?”
The boy bounced up and down in excitement, “Justine! Justine!”
“Get them out,” Christopher told Frances, itching to talk to his daughter. The children regarded him with curiosity, having never seen him before, and flicked looks at their mother and Justine as though aware of the tension between all three adults.
“Off with you,” Frances said, shooing them out of the room. “Find Master Rowan and see to your Latin.”
“But Justine said—”
“Later, my pets,” Justine promised. Her eyes were on her father.
“Run along,” said Frances, closing the door on the children.
Christopher gazed at Justine, his heart almost too full to speak. She had come to him! “This is wonderful. I feared I might never see you again.” He came to her, opening his arms, and embraced her. “God has brought us together, we three Grenvilles,” he said. “I praise Him for it.”
“Amen,” Frances whispered in awe.
“Your aunt is amazed to see you, Justine.” His daughter stood so stiffly in his embrace, he pulled away and saw her bewilderment.
“No more than I, sir, to see you in London. Is it not dangerous for you lest you be recognized?”
“But worth the danger, to see you.” He laughed in delight at his luck, a delight sharpened by fever. The laugh made him cough.
“Sir, you are ill,” she said with concern.
Frances said, very agitated, “Justine, does Lord Thornleigh know you’ve come to my house?”
Justine had a guilty look. “No. I have come . . . to ask your help.”
“Of course, Frances is your aunt,” Christopher said eagerly. “We are all Grenvilles here.”
“Surely you will be missed,” Frances said in alarm. “Christopher, she cannot stay.” She turned to Justine. “It is not safe, you being here. Not safe for any of us. You must go.”
“Wait, Frances, wait. Justine, how can we help you?”
She hesitated. “I need money. Ten pounds. Right away.”
Frances stared at her. “What in heaven’s name for?”
Justine said to her father, “It’s about Alice. I told you I was searching for the man who killed her. I found a witness, here in London. He knows who the murderer is, but he won’t tell me until I pay him. He wants ten pounds.”
Christopher coughed. He found it hard to catch his breath. “A witness? Who?”
“I promised him I would not say.” Her glance flicked between him and Frances. “Perhaps I have said too much already.”
“Who is Alice?” Frances asked.
“From Yeavering Hall. Alice Boyer, my childhood friend. Father remembers her, don’t you, sir?”
“Indeed, the gardener’s daughter.” Christopher nudged one of the fallen blocks with his boot. He was so shaken he did not dare look Justine in the eye. If the witness could identify him, if Justine found out that he had killed her friend, she could inform on him. Mary’s words echoed in his mind: “If they capture you, I am dead!” Elizabeth would live . . . the plan to overthrow her would crumble . . . Christopher would be tortured a
nd executed for treason. Everything he had struggled to accomplish—annihilated.
Reeling from the blow, he felt he was burning up from his fever. Frantically, he tried to think. Could he stop Justine, hold her back? Should he? No, no, he needed her. She was essential for getting Elizabeth to come here. The only way to survive this was to convince Justine to do his bidding now, immediately, before she could pay the witness. Mary’s terrible words came back to him, the oath she had made him swear: “If it comes to choosing your daughter or your queen, swear that you will choose your queen.” If he could strike quickly he would never have to make that hideous choice.
He forced himself look at Justine. “You haven’t asked about Mary.”
“I’m sorry . . . yes, how is she?”
“She misses you.”
A sad nod. “She was kind to me.”
“We know you were placed there to spy on her.”
Justine flinched. “Pardon?”
“Thornleigh sent you as a spy for Elizabeth. I know it and Mary knows it.”
“Sir, I only went to—”
“Come, come, child, there is no point in denying it.” He took her hand. It was rigid. Christopher patted it gently. “Don’t worry, we understand. They infected you with Elizabeth’s mistrust for Mary. But Mary cured you by giving you her trust, and you came to love her. I was so proud to hear how you tried to help her. A pity you couldn’t get the letters.”
“I thought it only justice.”
“Of course you did. You proved yourself her true friend. I know it has brought you Thornleigh’s wrath, and I am sorry for that. But Mary thanks you for your brave attempt, and I thank you, too.”
Her hand in his relaxed. A gleam of tears brightened her eyes. He gloried in it. My flesh and blood. And felt a clutch of relief.
“Justine, you asked me why I’m here. It is because of Mary. She needs your help.”
“Me? I can do nothing for her now.”
“You can. I will tell you how.”
“No, it’s impossible.” She tugged her hand free. “My aunt is right, I cannot stay long away from Lord Thornleigh’s house. I only came to ask her for the money.”
Barbara Kyle - [Thornleigh 05] Page 32