The Lady Series

by Domning, Denise

  “Now!” John bellowed, lunging around Anne to catch one of the men. Ned leapt out on the opposite side. Kit saw no more than that as he was racing down the length of the waterfront building. The bailiffs’ shouts echoed after him, loud enough to set shutters to banging against the wooden walls as courtiers and their servants peered down on what went forward in the courtyard.

  These residences were much like London townhouses, being tall and narrow, each with its own sharply peaked roof and doorway. Down the wee lane between two banks of buildings, Kit went. He didn’t slow until he reached the door to the residence allotted to Jamie. Gasping for breath, he pounded on the door. He dared not shout, for fear of drawing attention.

  There was no response. Christ! What if Jamie wasn’t here? He threw himself against the door, only to find it barred. That meant someone was inside.

  From the far end of this stretch of dwellings came the ringing echo of a running man’s gasping breath. One of the bailiffs had escaped his captors. Again, Kit pounded.

  The door flew open. Jamie’s servant, Tom Lowndes, stood in the opening. Dressed in only his shirt, his fair hair sleep knotted, Tom yelped in surprise as Kit shoved past him, slammed the door then dropped the bar.

  “Master Kit,” the man cried, only to have Kit grab him close and cover his mouth to still his tongue.

  “In a moment, Tom,” Kit whispered then listened.

  Whoever followed ran on by without pausing. Releasing Tom, Kit turned his back to the door to survey the residence. The room was so tiny that Tom’s bed, naught but a simple mattress with a blanket, nearly reached from wall to wall. Two more mattresses, occupied by Nick’s staring footmen, filled what space remained. At the far end of the room was a stair, although to call it such was unfair to all fine and true stairways. This was more a ladder leading to the upper chamber.

  Standing at its base, caught in the circle of his candle’s light, was Jamie. Like his servant, Jamie wore naught but his shirt. However where Tom stared, Nick’s steward grinned.

  “Well now, Kit, to what do I owe the honor of your visit? If you’ve come for a bit of a loan, you’re wasting your time. I’ve already tried and been rebuffed.”

  Kit frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Prior to having the title restored Nick wished to see your debts repaid. I fear the lady won’t take your coin, Kit. It’s your hide she’s after.”

  Kit’s heart dropped through the floorboards. If he and Anne hadn’t been doomed before, they were now.

  “Christ, Nick, you don’t know what you’ve done!”

  “I don’t understand any of this,” Bertie cried out in confusion. His voice echoed hollowly in Jamie’s nearly empty bedchamber, to whence they’d retreated upon his arrival. That Jamie hadn’t intended to spend much time at court was obvious by the lack of furniture. There was naught but a single folding stool, upon which Jamie presently sat, in the residence; the steward’s bed was the same simple mattress his servants used.

  While Jamie sat, Kit stood near at the hearth, his elbow braced upon the plain wooden mantelpiece. July nights were too warm for a fire, but two candles stood at the room’s center, their flames flickering as fetid fingers of air pried through the shutters. The meager golden glow encircled Bertie where he stood near the stairs.

  Bertie glanced from one gentleman to the other. “Let me say it this time, to see if I heard you rightly. Lady Montmercy has set the bailiffs on you, Master Kit, because she refused Master James’s attempt to pay your debt to her. She doesn’t want the coin, but your life instead.”

  “Aye,” Kit said with a nod.

  “So, at dawn on the morrow you’ll allow them to arrest you.” Bertie paused to cross his arms, a look of harsh skepticism on his face. “Then, they’ll take you to their prison, where you’ll die.”

  Jamie loosed a small and bitter laugh at this. “Trust me, Bertie. He’ll not be in that cell long enough to even take on a flea. I’ll follow on his heels with coin enough to bribe the gaolers to release him. We must allow the bailiffs to take him so Lady Montmercy will be convinced that he’s safely been incarcerated.”

  “Once I’m released,” Kit continued, “Master James and I, along with Graceton’s men, will come riding back to Greenwich to hide in the garden at Duke Humphrey’s tower.”

  “Where Lord Deyville will later go to attempt the rape of Mistress Blanchemain,” Bertie finished for him, his voice weakening as befuddlement overtook him once again. “Tell me again. Why will Lord Deyville go to the tower to misuse Mistress Anne?”

  “Because Lady Montmercy will send him there,” Kit told him, “knowing the nobleman wishes to have his way with her. Now Bertie, pay close heed to this: There are two things Lady Montmercy must believe if she’s to urge Lord Deyville to make his attack. First, she must think no one knows I’ve been taken by the bailiffs and, second, she must believe that Mistress Anne and I planned a dancing lesson in the garden for the morrow’s afternoon.”

  Bertie blinked in thought. “Ah, this is why you’ll let the bailiffs catch you in the early morn, before there’s anyone about to see them do it and spread the gossip. But how are we to let the lady know about the dancing lessons?”

  Kit knew what he next said would sit poorly upon Bertie’s soul. Crossing the room, he laid his hand upon his servant’s shoulder. “She’ll trust the information because she’ll have it from the same source that has always filled her ear with my doings.”

  Bertie shook his head against this. “And what source is that, Master Kit?”

  “You, Bertie,” Kit said as gently as he could. “You’ll tell Nell, who’ll carry our lie to the lady’s ear, just as she’s done all the summer long.”

  Bertie’s face whitened to a deathly pallor. He staggered back until he made contact with the plastered wall behind him. Crumpling against it, he slid down to sit at its base, tears in his eyes.

  “Foul me,” he cried, his voice broken. “How could I not see how that bitch used me?” He came upright far enough to kneel, his head bowed. “With all my heart I beg your forgiveness, master,” he managed in a trembling voice.

  Kit crouched down beside him and laid his hand atop Bertie’s folded ones. “There’s no need for forgiveness, not when it’s as much my fault as yours. I never told you to beware the traps Lady Montmercy might send your way.”

  His servant looked up at him, shame and self-hatred marring his handsome face. “I’ll not fail you, Master Kit, even if what I do means I lose my Patience.”

  This made Kit smile. “I’m not asking you to bed Nell, only see the information she must give to Lady Montmercy set into her hands.”

  “Simple enough to say I shouldn’t lay with her, but coupling is what she’ll expect from me,” Bertie cried out, then frowned in consideration. “But, it can be done,” he continued with more confidence. “Aye, I can go to her as if all is normal, only to draw back confessing I’m newly wed. Guilt will seem to gnaw at me. I’ll pace as if battling my urge to do sin, spilling the information in the process.”

  His eagerness to play his new role washed all the shame from his face. “Better and better! I can also add I fear Mistress Anne will go to the tower and be disappointed because I cannot find you.”

  Coming to his feet, Kit shrugged. “If you can do that without making it seem contrived.”

  Bertie shot him a narrow-eyed look over such skepticism. “Master, as I now sleep in the servant’s hall while you rest in your quarters, I’ve no way of knowing what you’re about. Should you be gone before I arrive to see you dressed, I can only wonder in whose arms you sleep and where you might next appear. She’ll believe me.”

  “Aye then,” Jamie said, drawing their attention back to him, “all that needs doing is to convince Mistress Blanchemain that she must walk to the tower with naught but her maid and Bertie at her side. Once she’s there and while she’s yet uncertain as to whether rescue comes, she’s to allow Lord Deyville to tear at her clothing.”

  Kit whirled on h
im. “She’ll do no such thing,” he snarled, the very thought of Deyville’s hands on his Nan like a poker in his gut. “She needs only tease him into making plain his intention to use her then we’ll leap from hiding to take him.”

  “Nay Kit,” Jamie said as he rose from his stool and came to stand near Bertie, “it’s not so easily done as that. If the nobleman doesn’t tear at the maid’s garments, this plan of yours will be all for naught.”

  Rage tore through Kit. “You ask too much!” he shouted.

  “Nay, he’s right, master,” Bertie warned. “Threats Lord Deyville can deny. If the nobleman doesn’t touch Mistress Anne, all you’ve accomplished is to warn both him and Lady Montmercy against your plots while giving them another chance at the mistress.”

  Kit looked from Jamie to Bertie, his breath catching in disbelief. They but stared back at him, waiting for him to acknowledge what he already knew. There was no other way. Fate set these events into motion the moment Nick sent Jamie to repay his debt.

  Bertie’s face seemed to soften in the candlelight. “What will you have me tell Mistress Anne to expect once we’ve exposed the nobleman?”

  “You tell him,” Kit ordered Jamie, his voice hoarse and his throat so tight words were almost impossible.

  As Jamie outlined the details of carrying Lord Deyville to Sir William, Kit did his best to banish the image of Deyville trying to force himself on Anne at the Maying. It wouldn’t leave him. How could he twiddle his thumbs whilst Deyville once again hurt his Nan?

  When Jamie was done, Bertie reached out to touch Kit’s arm. “Master, all will be well.”

  Kit tried to smile. “I suddenly find myself not nearly as fond of this plan as I was a few moments ago.”

  Bertie grinned then turned to the stairs. “Until the morrow in the garden, then,” he said by way of a farewell.

  Once he was gone, Jamie eyed his employer’s heir. “Well and truly smitten, that’s what I’d call you,” the man said, laughter staining his voice.

  Jamie’s taunt startled Kit out of his morose thoughts. “Say that before Sir William on the morrow, and you’ll see Mistress Anne ruined.”

  “Our queen is so jealous of her maids?” Jamie asked, a brow lifted.

  Kit sighed. “Our queen is jealous of everything, wanting to be the center of all. If there’s a love match to be arranged, it must be she who makes it.”

  Something odd flickered through Jamie’s pale blue eyes at this. “My thanks for the warning. I’ll take great care in my words, then.”

  Jamie stretched, groaning. “We’ve much to do on the morrow. It’s time to get what rest we can, Kit.”

  “It’s more important to hear you say again that you’ll take care of that paper of mine. You must claim it from Lord Montmercy before you come to the Fleet to retrieve me, witnessing that the seals aren’t broken. I want it next to my heart when we meet Deyville, with no question of forgery when it comes into Sir William’s hands.”

  Kit made his tone urgent. There was no great liking between him and Jamie. If Jamie saw what was scribbled upon that contract he might possibly try to destroy it, thinking he was saving Nick from the queen’s wrath. Not that Kit was looking forward to royal rage, but there was no help for that now. Exposure was the only thing that could now stop Lady Montmercy from extracting her vengeance on either Anne or him.

  “As you will,” Jamie said, his eyes narrowed in concern. He leaned down to snuff out the candles. “Now, we sleep.”

  Kit retreated to the room’s far end where he used one of the footmen’s pallets. He lay down, but sleep was beyond him. Instead, he spent the hours between midnight and dawn contemplating the breadth of his rash and idiotic plan.

  Anne stood before the massive walls of Duke Humphrey’s tower, feeling smaller than a sparrow. Did the caretaker open the gates every day, or had Kit been here to tell him to do so just for this event? The desire to shout out his name was strong. Aye, but what if he didn’t call in reply?

  Her stomach souring, Anne looked down at herself. Beneath the blue of her outer skirt, the cheery little flowers embroidered on her white underskirt stared up at her. An hour ago it had seemed appropriate that she once more wore her Maying attire. Now she knew she’d been a fool to don it. Deyville would see it as a taunt.

  “This is utter madness,” she said, staring into the gaping mouth that was the tower’s gateway.

  “‘Tis,” Patience agreed from beside her, clutching tightly at Anne’s arm. Bertie’s new wife wore her bridal bodice, but her hair was once more caught into its tight bun, as if so severe a style were some sort of armor against attack.

  “I’ve a dagger strapped to my belt,” Bertie offered, his face no less pale than those of the women beside him.

  Anne glanced at him. “Tell me again what Master Christopher would have me do.”

  “You must let Lord Deyville begin to tear at your clothing,” Bertie said, no confidence in his voice. “If he doesn’t, there’ll be no proof of his attack. Once you’re in disarray, Master Christopher and Master James will leap from hiding to rescue you. They’ll bear him to Sir William Cecil to complain against Lord Deyville’s attempt to force you.” Bertie tried to smile.

  “This is good,” Anne said, working to convince herself. Surely to face Lord Deyville with the hope of rescue was better than to come upon him unaware in some darkened corner.

  “And his confession will expose Lady Montmercy, who plots against my master,” Bertie added.

  These words set the seeds of courage into Anne’s soul. She’d do this to keep Kit safe.

  The new sprouts wilted. But, what if Kit wasn’t here? The need to run screaming back to Owls House filled Anne. She turned to peer toward the rooftops of London, visible in the distance. Woolwich Road was empty, save for a single horseman, coming toward Greenwich at a gallop. A single man wouldn’t be Kit, not when Bertie said he was coming to Greenwich in the company of Master Wyatt.

  Patience’s grip tightened on Anne’s arm. “We shouldn’t do this without Sir Amyas to witness,” she said.

  That sent anger shooting through Anne. Amyas was more likely to hold her down while Lord Deyville did his worst. Courage blossomed against anger’s heat. Be damned if she’d turn tail and run like some cowardly dog!

  Anne started for the open gateway, eyes narrowed and heart bolstered. “We enter.”

  Passing through the tower’s gate, they came upon the trees that surrounded the small lawn at the garden’s center. Anne’s heart twisted as she remembered the last time she’d been in this place. Why had Kit planned a rape in the same spot that they’d consummated their love?

  As they passed through the trees, Anne peered around her, seeking hidden men. There was nothing for her to see, nor would there be. If Kit were here he’d be hiding in the tangled bushes at the garden’s far end.

  As she and the servant’s stepped from the trees into the square of grass, Anne’s heart simply stopped beating. Lord Deyville stood at the lawn’s center. There were two men with him, burly sorts dressed in leather jerkins with swords strapped at their sides. If Kit weren’t here, these men guaranteed Deyville would have his way with her, no matter how Patience and Bertie protested.

  Courage and anger both failed her. Anne turned to run. Another man just like the first two now stood between her and escape.

  She glanced at Bertie. His face was tight with fear. Patience was ashen against this unexpected threat.

  Slowly, Anne once more turned to face the nobleman. Deyville was ready for the task he’d set himself. His doublet was off, tossed to the lawn’s far end with his hat. The fine cotton of the lord’s shirt clung to the powerful line of his shoulders, no doubt to remind her of how easily he’d held her at the Maying. The sun gleamed off his bald pate, and glittered in the jewels decorating his sword’s hilt. That was four swords to Bertie’s single dagger.

  “Why, Mistress Anne,” Lord Deyville said, smiling at her. “I cannot imagine how we come to meet like this.”

&n
bsp; There was no point in feigning now. Anne gave free rein to her tongue. “I expect you wouldn’t, being a man of little imagination.”

  Deyville’s gray eyes came to life with pleasure. “Oh-ho, the vixen shows her claws. Let’s be civilized about this, shall we? I realize you came here to tryst with one man, but as he is unavailable”—his smile widened as he referred to Kit’s arrest—“come lay with me instead.”

  Anne drew a sharp breath. Lady Montmercy must have hinted to the nobleman that Anne and Kit were lovers, no doubt to goad Lord Deyville into doing her will.

  The nobleman extended a hand toward her. “I promise I’ll be gentle, that is,” his mouth took a vicious twist, “if you are yet in need of such care. Tell me my sweet, are you the same woman you were when you came to court?”

  Anne almost laughed. She was, indeed, no less a virgin now than when she first arrived. “What right have you to ask me that when the queen has refused your contract for my hand?”

  “What spirit,” Deyville said, still smiling. “If you are yet the virgin you claim I’ll have you first so no other wants you and we can wed. If you’re not, well”—he lifted his shoulders. “Let us say that it’d be better for both you and Master Hollier if you haven’t given to him what is mine. Come then, let’s embark upon our voyage of discovery.”

  Anne fixed her feet into the earth. “I’ll not freely give you what you want, my lord. Nor are you man enough to take me. If you were, you’d not have brought these three to aid you. Nay, you’ll have them hold me while you use me like the foul coward you are.”

  Dangerous lights sparked in Deyville’s cool gray gaze. Two steps brought him to stand before her. “You dare to call me coward?”