by Barbara Kyle
The room was suddenly alive with the bustle of departure. Men gulped down the dregs of their wine, flung on cloaks, clapped on hats. They left the room in twos and threes, their voices echoing through the great hall, their boots clomping across its floor. When only a handful of men was left, Isabel stood looking at Martin. He had thrown on his cloak but stood still, looking at her, too, his desire to get on with the fight warring with his reluctance to leave her. But Isabel knew he must go now with the others. And she would be playing no more part in this great endeavor!
“Martin, wait a moment,” she said. She hurried over to Wyatt who stood near Isley, giving hurried last-minute instructions as he wrestled into his doublet.
“Sir Thomas,” Isabel interrupted, “you will be down in Kent, but Monsieur de Noailles must remain in London, where I presume he must maintain an appearance of neutrality. You will need a go-between. Let it be me.”
Wyatt barely looked at her as he fastened his doublet. “The Ambassador has plenty of spies on his French staff, mistress.”
“But they will be watched now that the royal council has been alerted.”
He turned from her to grab some papers on the table. “He has English informers, too.”
“Who will probably slip away,” she said, “now that the stakes are life and death. And of the ones who remain, can they be trusted not to mangle the Ambassador’s meaning?”
Wyatt was stuffing the papers into a leather saddlebag.
She grabbed his sleeve to stop him. “Sir Thomas, please let me help.”
He looked at her with cold appraisal. “Mistress, do you know what the French say about the women here?” He removed her hand from his elbow and shrugged his arm like a cock settling its ruffled feathers. “They say English women are comely, but appallingly forward.”
She didn’t flinch. “The really appalling thing, sir, would be to fail because you’d refused a helping hand.”
5
The Visit
“Oh bother, what now?” Honor Thornleigh dumped the armload of shirts and books into the trunk she was packing at the Crane and answered the knock at her door. A well dressed gentleman stood before her. He said nothing. He simply looked at her.
“Yes?” she asked, somewhat testily. She wanted to finish packing. Richard would be back any moment from the wool market and he’d want to start the trip home. She glanced past the gentleman’s shoulder to Isabel’s door across the hall. Poor Bel; returning from the apothecary’s yesterday she’d been distraught at hearing they were sending her to Antwerp next week, and had suffered a sleepless night. Honor had taken one look at her daughter’s bleary eyes this morning and told her to go back to bed for an hour or two. But she must wake her soon.
“Honor?” the man asked hesitantly.
She turned her attention back to him. There was something familiar about him. The smooth red hair, gray at the temples. Her heart missed a beat. “Edward?” she said. It didn’t seem possible. Her hands flew to her cheeks. She hadn’t seen his face in over twenty years.
Edward Sydenham nodded acknowledgment, then suddenly went still as if belatedly struck off-balance just as she had been.
For a long moment they only stared.
“I heard you were in London,” he said finally. “So I took the liberty …” His words trailed.
“Yes, of course,” she said, recovering. “It’s just that … it’s …”
She, too, fell silent, caught up in the wonder of looking.
“I know,” he said. “It’s … odd.”
The nonsense of the stilted exchange seemed to rush over them both at once and they laughed. But Honor thought his laugh sounded uneasy. She knew hers was.
“Well, come in, come in,” she said. He stepped into the room. “Good heavens, Edward,” she said, trying to keep blame from her voice, stifling the impulse to slap him—ridiculous, after all this time. “I really thought—”
“That I was dead, I daresay.”
“Well, I heard nothing from you. I mean … after.”
“No. I thought perhaps you wouldn’t want to. I did hear about you, though. Later. That you were all right. So I just stayed where I was.”
“Amsterdam?”
He nodded, then said wistfully, “Far from home. For too many years.” He gave her a tentative smile. “But I always wondered how you’d got on, how life had treated you. How have you been, Honor?” He glanced around the luxurious hotel room and smiled. “Though I hardly need ask. I’ve heard, and I can see, that you’ve done well. And also,” he added quietly to her, “that you are looking well. Lovely, in fact.”
A facile compliment, Honor thought. With her sleeves rolled up and strands of hair straying from her headband, she knew she must appear like a washerwoman next to Edward’s finery. “It seems you’ve managed quite well yourself,” she said. She was appraising the blue velvet doublet, exquisitely embroidered with gold, under the cloak he had thrown back over one shoulder. The doublet’s sleeves alone—blue satin fashionably slashed to reveal dollops of gold silk lining like rows of golden teardrops—would have cost a year’s salary for a journeyman tailor. Such an elegant transformation from the scruffy young man she had known. She was suddenly, burningly, curious. “Tell me everything, Edward. Where have you been all these years? What have you been doing?”
He laughed. “Everything?”
“Everything repeatable,” she said with a smile, gesturing for him to take a chair at a small round table. But he did not sit. “Shall I call for wine?” she asked. She felt awkward. Why was he here? Why now, after so long? “And … something to eat? The Crane makes a superb custard tart.”
“No, nothing. I only want … to talk to you.” The earnestness, the gentleness, in his voice and face placated Honor in spite of herself. The old urge to shake him had already faded. Edward Sydenham. She had to admit that she was pleased, after all, to see him—if only to satisfy curiosity.
But pleased, as well, that Richard was out. Her husband, she feared, would not be so forgiving.
“I was sorry to hear of your mother’s death,” she said.
He shrugged. “It was years ago,” he said coldly.
“But my affection for that formidable woman has never abated. She helped save my life, you know.”
“I heard.”
“They were both extraordinary people, your parents.”
“They were deluded.”
Honor knew when she was being told to drop a subject.
Edward gave a quick smile, as if willing its brightness to banish the cloud that had passed between them. “However, Honor, we both have made new lives since then. For me, it’s … ah, where shall I begin,” he said with a look of mild exasperation. Clearly ready now to talk, he graciously held the chair for her. Even in that gesture, Honor thought, there was a world of difference from the high-strung, selfish Edward of old. And once she was seated, and he was settling himself in the chair opposite, she marveled at his movements, so polished yet relaxed, like a courtier. What had happened to the frantic youth who had clawed at her to get out of the hold of Richard’s ship?
“You think I’ve changed,” he said, as if reading her thoughts.
She retreated into bland politeness. “We all have, I’m sure.”
“Not you. But then, you did not have to. There was nothing in your character to be ashamed of. The brave and lovely fawn,” he said with a smile, “can only become a brave and lovely doe.”
She laughed, nodding at his gorgeous apparel. “And you have turned into a butterfly.”
His mouth smiled, his eyes did not. “But before the metamorphosis, who can tell what the caterpillar, locked inside its dark chrysalis, must endure?”
Honor remembered how he hated the dark, and small spaces. She did not want to edge too close to that topic. “Well, tell me about the light, Edward. For clearly, it has been shining rather generously on you.”
Finally, he laughed. “Quite true. And I have no right in the world to complain. I am a lawyer, y
ou know, and the law does not treat kindly those who complain without grounds.”
“A lawyer?” She was surprised. “Where did you study?”
“Louvain. I’ve remained in Europe, you see, ever since I saw you last. Germany, for the first few years. Then Brussels. Brussels has been my base. I’ve done rather well there.”
“In the law?”
“Yes. I’ve specialized in finance.”
“How fascinating.”
“It is. The people one meets, you know. I’ve arranged a loan or two for the Emperor through the banking House of Fugger.”
His modest tone belied the importance of the statement. Honor knew from Richard’s business contacts in Antwerp that the Emperor Charles had been taking out vast loans for years to conduct his ruinous, but never-ending, wars; his armies of mercenaries were cripplingly expensive. The transactions had made the family of Fugger the richest banking house in Europe, and any lawyer who arranged business between these two behemoths of power would be well rewarded for his labor. But why was he here? Why had he turned up, all of a sudden, at her door?
“And now?” Honor asked.
“Now, I’ve come home. To England.” His face grew earnest. “Honor, I can’t tell you the longing one feels, after years of exile, to return to the soil of home.”
His candor quite disarmed her. “Yes. I know. I spent twelve years in exile myself.”
“Of course. I’d forgotten. Where did you settle?”
“Antwerp. We tried a year in Seville. There’s a large English community there, doing very well with the trade of English cloth to Spanish America. But there was such appalling persecution in Spain.” She added with a small smile, “I think Richard was afraid I might take on the whole Spanish Inquisition if we stayed. So, back we went to Antwerp. It was a good life. Richard—you never did meet my husband, did you?—he was very successful. Our daughter, Isabel, grew up there. And we still keep a house in Antwerp. But, well, I began to long for the old familiar sights. We came home seven years ago when the Protestant regime here seemed secure. But, of course, in the last few months, all that has changed.” She shook her head. “Dear old England—addlebrained, unstable nation that it is.”
“At the moment, it would seem so … yes.”
Honor heard something in the hesitation in his voice. A testing? A probing?
She felt a flicker of excitement. Could it be …? She decided to probe a little herself. “In fact, there are rumors of great unrest,” she said cautiously.
“There are,” he agreed.
He was looking at her oddly. She decided to edge out a little further. “Some are saying it may lead to rebellion.”
He continued to watch her face. “I have heard as much myself.”
Had he, indeed? Was that what this was all about? Was he involved in plotting a violent change in England’s government? This made-over man with the extraordinary connections? Was that the reason for his unaccountable visit—to sound her out? It would make sense, given the sensibilities they had once shared. Should she say something? No, Richard would call that reckless. He would say she should not show her hand. And he’d be right. After all, even to speak of rebellion was, technically, treason. Yet she had to know! But how could she find out without giving herself away?
The silence between them lengthened.
Suddenly he said, “Honor, do you know if any of our … former friends are still in England?”
Had she guessed right, then? Had he come to her because she would know the people from the old days who could be safely approached? The ones whose loyalty could be trusted? But she knew there was little hope of help from that quarter. The only one left was Leonard Legge, the Crane’s landlord. But Edward had never met him and she was reluctant to name him. She and Richard had helped set him up in business, lending him money to buy the Crane, and he had been an upstanding citizen for years; she felt instinctively that Legge would want no part in rebellion. She shook her head sadly. “There are none left, Edward. Some were caught. Some have recently died. Of the ones who got away back then, most settled in Europe, like us. Amsterdam, Bruges, Antwerp. I’ve lost contact, but I’m quite sure none ever came home.” She paused, knowing she must be careful here. He had not actually said he was looking for supporters. “I’m afraid you’ll find none of the old faces except mine.”
“That may be enough,” he said quietly. He seemed to be struggling with himself about whether to go on. He stood abruptly and took a few steps away from her. His back was to her. “Honor,” he said, “I am going to be married.”
“How wonderful,” she said politely. “Do I know the lady?”
“Yes. I am going to marry Frances Grenville.”
Honor was more shocked than she could say. The Grenvilles were practically her neighbors. Shocked, and something more. She knew that Frances Grenville was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen—the zealously Catholic Queen. A warning whisper shivered through her.
Edward turned to her with a knowing look. “I understand. You’re thinking: Frances’s father, Lord Grenville, is renowned for his rigid Catholic piety, while Edward is … not. But that was the old Edward, Honor. I’ve changed. I’ve discovered what’s important to me.”
Grenville’s titled status? she wanted to impudently ask. But she did not.
“And I further realize,” Edward went on, “that there’s not much love between Frances’s family and you. Certainly, Lord Grenville can be a trifle overbearing. I hope to smooth over some of his rougher edges. I know, for example, that he has made some distressing public statements about you and your husband having no clear title to Bradford Abbey.”
Honor stifled an annoyed retort. Last summer, after seven years of building a successful wool-trade business near Great Yarmouth, she and Richard had bought the old Bradford Abbey near Colchester to house their burgeoning clothworks, and had built a new home beside it. Lord Grenville had harassed this enterprise from the very beginning. “The purchase was perfectly legal,” she said, “but he is obsessive about it.”
“It’s his sister, you see. The poor old lady was once the abbess there and she suffered terribly at the time of the monasteries’ dissolution. She refused to relinquish the abbey to the King’s men, I’m told. They dragged her up to the abbey tower and … they raped her. She hasn’t uttered a word since.”
“So I’ve heard, and I am truly sorry for the lady,” Honor said sincerely. “But—”
“I know,” he broke in. “Lord Grenville seems to believe that every non-Catholic who crosses his path is personally responsible for his sister’s tragedy.”
She shrugged. “Or perhaps he just covets our property for himself.”
For a moment, Edward did not answer. Then he said, “Honor, I’ve come to ask … a favor. You see, if Lord Grenville ever found out about my past …” He hesitated, flustered. “Oh God, I know—who better?—that you have every reason to hate me. But Honor—” He stepped close and caught up her hand. She found his touch strangely cold. “I want to make a new life, here in England, with Frances. I want to come home. I hope that you, of all people, can understand that.”
She did. Home. It was all she wanted, too.
He was pressing her hand, waiting for an answer, his eyes full of gentle entreaty. Honor was ashamed. He had not come with news of rebellion; only her overwrought fancy had made her believe so. Nor had he come to threaten her with his knowledge about her. It seemed, instead, that they must hold each other’s secrets safe. He had come simply to plead for peace. And, she asked herself, why should he not have it? Who was she to stand in the way of his happiness? “Of course, Edward,” she answered. “We’re all civilized creatures, aren’t we?”
Edward appeared extraordinarily relieved. And happy. Even his eyes were smiling now. Honor felt the pleasure of having bestowed a gift. “We really must share a glass of wine to mark this reunion,” she said. “And Richard will be along in a moment. And I’ll wake my daughter, Isabel. You should meet them both.”
�
�No, no, I must go,” he said. “I’m to meet Frances for dinner at Whitehall Palace. The Queen gives her ladies so little time to themselves. But Frances and I have this afternoon together.”
“Ah, then you must not keep her waiting.”
Honor saw him to the door. “I wish you every happiness, truly,” she said. Then she added with a smile that was only a trifle malicious, “And if you find me one day barging into Grenville Hall and beating your future father-in-law about the ears, don’t mind me. I’ll just be smoothing Lord Grenville’s rough edges in my own way.”
Edward looked quite shocked. Honor had to stifle a laugh. “Don’t worry, Edward, I shall be very gentle.”
Across the corridor Isabel was pacing in her room. Her parents’ decree of last night clanged inside her head like the bells of St. Paul’s now reverberating across the rooftops. Antwerp! How infuriating it was—how unfair!—that they who lived so quietly, so annoyingly unstirred by the great events going on around them, should suddenly declare that the rumors of rebellion were too alarming, and that she must run to Antwerp to be taken under her brother’s wing. Did they think she was a child? Did they not understand that she would never desert Martin? Had they been deaf when they’d witnessed her betrothal vows to him? Their blindness to the central oath of her life had made her irate to the point of speechlessness.
But she had quickly realized that keeping her mouth shut was actually the best course; essential, in fact, if she was to leave home unobtrusively. Because Martin was not the only one to whom she had made a commitment. Sir Thomas Wyatt was now relying on her, too.
Before they had parted, Wyatt’s condescension had vanished but he’d remained skeptical to her proposition.
“A woman go-between would be less likely to attract suspicion,” she had argued.
Wyatt looked at her hard. “The roads are rough, the weather foul. The going could be treacherous.”