The Spymaster's Daughter

by Jeane Westin

  “Those men would have left me for dead in the dust. You saved my life with your courage…my dearest Frances…and I will owe my next years to you, all my years.” For a moment his eyes shone most bright through the pain. “Yet I would not have you do this bloody thing.”

  “Phelippes must answer the Scots queen’s message, Robert, and set the plan in motion. We cannot fail in our prime duty as intelligencers.”

  “Aye,” he said, his mouth relaxing, “you have the right of it. Hire a horse and go on without me.”

  “How could I explain bringing a message from the Scots queen?”

  He sighed, his chest heaving, his mouth abruptly tight from the hurt of his wound. He lifted a dark brow. “I see you are seldom wrong, a troubling skill in a woman.”

  Impulsively, she bent to Robert and kissed his beardy cheek, scratching her lips most pleasantly. “Not for you, dearest.” She pulled back and whispered, “Hush, now.”

  “I find your particular potions very healing, Doctor,” he said, a smile emerging from the grimace of pain as he shifted his shoulder more upright.

  “If you are an obliging patient, you may have another dose later.”

  “I would bear the tortures of Hades for one more…or two,” he said, his gaze never leaving her face. “And next time, dearest doctor, I will help, if that suit.”

  He knew that even in death he would bless her. He would see her lovely face glowing before him as the dark o’erwhelmed him. Many times he had faced deadly danger and thought it unworthy of his life. Not this time. If he must die, he would die content, having given his love and received hers. He was certain at last that she loved him and meant him to know it.

  Frances cut away the shirt from his shoulder and put the leathern wine bottle to his mouth. He drank deeply, and she poured the rest on the wound. She shuddered slightly, knowing how the wine must sting him, and how much more she would hurt him with the probe. “Are you ready?”

  He nodded, teeth clenched.

  Propping Ambroise Paré’s book against the other bolster, she extracted the probe from its sealskin nest, then, with a blurred etching on the well-thumbed page to guide her, bent to the task she could not avoid if Robert was to live. Her hand trembled violently, and she prayed earnestly for God to steady her. How soon her abandoned faith returned when she was troubled. She smiled slightly at the thought that she was faithless to faithlessness, and found the strength to steady the probe.

  With his good arm, Robert reached for her hand and looked into her gray eyes, shining with tears. “We will do this thing together, Frances, as we have done so many things….” In a softer voice, he added, “As I would do all things.”

  She half smiled her gratitude, wondering at his open emotion. Did he think to die? “You will live…and live long, Robert,” she said urgently. With his hand on hers, she guided the probe to the raw, red wound in his shoulder.

  His hand tightened slightly on hers. “Frances”—he breathed her name like a soft spring breeze against her cheek—“whatever comes, you must know that you have all my heart for what you do and who you are…before, after, and forever.”

  She met his gaze. “I think I loved you from that first day,” she murmured, “but it was so impossible.”

  “It is yet impossible, sweet Frances.” He took a deep breath. “Though such an obstacle does not stop love…ever.” He nodded slightly. “Begin, dearest surgeon.”

  Her hand moved the probe, steady now with his hand as blessing. It disappeared inside the wound.

  His hand did not tighten, though his breath caught and quivered in his chest. “Push it through, Frances.”

  The second, deeper probing caught on something, and, holding herself steady, she pulled it out and laid the small piece of once white, now bloody cloth on the flap of the sealskin surgery kit.

  Robert’s hand had gone limp and fallen away as the probe went deep. From all the time spent in her father’s sickroom with his doctors, she remembered one important thing: If you worked with a knife or probe, work fast. Though tears like stones caught in her throat, she was gladdened to see him now insensible to pain.

  Paré’s guide open in front of her, she searched in the surgeon’s kit for the golden vial of unguent, part yellow wax, olive oil, and turpentine, for closing the wound. Thanks be, Paré’s unguent had resolved the need to burn a wound to cauterize and close it. With the greatest care, she applied the salve. It was more difficult to treat the exit wound on his back, but she pulled him forward just enough, despite his groans, and succeeded. Reading again the instruction for bandaging, she looked for linen bandages soaked in colophony and, after cutting the roll into squares, applied them. There was not enough bandage roll remaining to pass around his broad chest and body.

  Drawing in a sharp breath, Robert opened his eyes, trying to focus them on her face. He swallowed hard.

  With some triumph she held up the bloody piece of shirting.

  “Well-done. You have talents…to amaze.”

  She pushed the bed curtains aside and stood, and with only a slight hesitation she stripped off her shirt and tore the sleeves into long pieces.

  He looked at her, naked to the waist, his eyes wide and alert.

  “Aye, my breasts are small. I know it well,” she said, braving the truth to take the sting away before he spoke his mind. Philip had not liked her breasts and had avoided looking at them.

  “They are perfect,” he said, shifting forward with less pain to receive the wrap she had made from her sleeves that would hold the two colophony bandages in place close against his wounds. And as she tightened the strips of her shirt about his chest, he kissed one breast. “I love this one well.” And then his lips reached for the other. “I love this one even better.”

  “Hold yourself still,” she said, after shivering slightly, fighting distraction by sudden pleasure. Breathing deep, her breasts lifting, she knew she would never think of herself again as being a woman whose body could not please a man.

  “Blessings on you, Robert.”

  His dark mustache twitched with his smile. “I have just been twice blessed by your bosom, Frances.”

  She looked deep into his black eyes, hoping to see truth there. Could any woman once betrayed have full faith in a man’s words?

  And yet she did. It was a small miracle. She had thought—nay, determined—never to love again, thought her heart closed to such girlish emotion, yet here it was, love full and strong as if quite the first love she had ever felt.

  “You are delirious, fevered,” she said, making an excuse once again to delay complete belief, not yet ready to accept that which had so long been denied. Would she always love best the love she could not have? Was that her imperfection? Heaven’s great continuing jest!

  He saw her uncertainty. “You must know that you have owned my heart for some time, Frances, and I have hoped for yours.”

  “Yea,” she said, though yet fearful of showing her whole heart. “It is the fever talking; otherwise you would know that one day I must leave you behind, keeping only this memory.”

  “Do you think, sweet Frances, that I do not know there is no hope for this to end well…as I would wish it…with you as my wife, the mother of our children?”

  She kissed him lightly on the lips. The kiss was tentative at first, but she gathered courage from desire and her mouth found his once again, with more certainty. He held her with his good arm close and then closer, until she began to heat. “We cannot, Robert…. We cannot. Your wound.”

  “God’s grace, Frances, can any man lie abed with your beauty and be unmanned?”

  “I doubt such matters concern God.”

  “If He made me in His image…?”

  The question hung between them, forcing a smile from her as the sun, moving across the sky, came full into the room. His sweet wit would follow her forever.

  Yet she needs must force her attention back to the work at hand. She surveyed the bandaged wounds. “Not the best, but not the worst for a first
-time barber-surgeon apprentice. Praise God, the unguent did its work. No fresh bleeding shows through.”

  But he had some pain. She could see it in the set of his mouth and the tight muscle in his cheek. She held the laudanum to his lips and whispered, “Take a sip or two, Robert. No more.”

  He did as she asked. “Let me sleep now and I will be a’right…. Sleep quickly mends.”

  Quietly, Frances backed off the bed, though the lumpy straw pricked her knees through the hosen she wore. As she stood, she felt the chamber spin and knew she must eat. It was late morn and the smell of pottage from the outer kitchen wafted in the window with the breeze. Retrieving her doublet from under the surgeon’s kit, she dressed to go down the stairs to the inn’s main room, hoping no patron noticed that her sleeves did not appear above her hands.

  Will, the stable boy, crouched in the hall outside the door. “Why are you here?” she asked. “For another penny?”

  “Nay, I would help ye, lass.”

  Was her disguise so easily breached? “What say you?”

  He shrugged and stepped closer, his voice low. “I be seein’ the boy players in the inn yard in their lady gowns, but I ne’er saw the turnaround. Though a stable boy, I be no dullard.” He drew himself up with some dignity. “I will not tell my master yer secret, if ye take me from this place into a better…. Please, I beg you.”

  She decided to answer the harsh way. Begging would put her in his power. “You threaten me at your peril, boy. ’Tis a hanging offense to deal so with your betters.”

  “It be a church offense to dress as a man if ye have no prick!”

  She pulled him inside and shut the door. “Hush, boy!” She spoke no more threats, as the boy was near to tearful despair.

  “I beg pardon, mistress, but I must away from this place. My master has me for”—he hung his head, searching for words—“for unnatural acts each night in the stables…which will send me into hellfire. Either hanging on earth for sodomy or burning later in hell!” His hand went to his heart. “Ye must help me! I be seein’ yer kindness to him,” he said, a thumb jerking toward the bed, “and ye give me hope.”

  It was clear the boy was desperate, but so was she. “How can I help you?” She made a gesture toward the bed. “I must give him all my strength.”

  “I be strong. We be helpin’ each other. Yer secret be safe with me.”

  Had she a choice, trapped in this tangle? Removing several pennies from her pocket, she handed them over. “Take these and bring some pottage, bread, and broth…and ale in about one hour of the clock. He will awake then. Hot broth, boy.”

  “I have horses to feed and groom or get a beating. Then I be here with yer wants.” He took the coins and was away, but turned to her after a few steps with a begging face. “My name be not boy. My name be Will.”

  She almost laughed at his impudence, though she admired his courage. She could trust him.

  Frances went to the bed, where Robert slept deeply, and felt his forehead and cheeks for fever. Finding none, she rolled the barber-surgeon’s sealskin kit back into a tied bundle, of a sudden weary in her bones. She curled herself beside Robert, settled a hand to his chest to feel it rise and fall; then, satisfied, she closed her eyes and slept.

  Frances woke to a knock on the door. The sun had moved down the slanting ceiling. It was well into the late afternoon. Going to the door she questioned, “Will?”

  “Aye.”

  The knock had awakened Robert and he struggled up, flinching with pain, yet not crying out.

  Frances opened the door and motioned the boy inside.

  “I be sorry to take so long, but my master told me to sweep the inn yard and bring in water from the well. He suspects nothing but that yer master be havin’ a bad head and sick belly.”

  The aroma of good, brawn broth made her stomach rumble. She took the bowl to Robert and without a spoon held it to his lips. “Take small sips.”

  He accepted small sips, then took the bowl when his stomach called out for more. “Some bread, Frances, please,” he said, balancing the bowl on his chest.

  She tore off a piece, dipped it into the broth, and fed him.

  He opened his mouth obediently, his eyes on her until Will came near and parted the bed curtains. “What is the boy doing here?”

  “He knows I am not who I seem.”

  Robert stared at the stable boy, his eyes hard.

  “Name be Will, sir. I be tellin’ no secret to my master.”

  Her hand tightened on Robert’s arm. “We need him and he has need of us. I will explain later.” She bent close to whisper in his ear, “Do you think to travel tomorrow?”

  “Aye, early, before dawn. I am stronger with the salty broth.”

  She looked skeptical.

  “Truly,” he said, reaching for the ale bottle and taking a long draft, healthy color flooding his pale face.

  Frances stood and went to Will with the barber-surgeon’s kit. “Take this to the village and pay for the loan of it,” she said, handing him a silver shilling.

  He looked at the coin for a moment. No doubt it was more money than he’d had in his pocket at one time in a year. She could see the calculation in his gaze. Then he shrugged, and she knew that he had decided to be true. She did not begrudge him the thought; she blessed him for his choice.

  “I be takin’ the kit to the village this night and then hidin’ until we leave.”

  “Have the team in harness and the dray in back before dawn. Can you put a heavy harness on?”

  “Aye.” He flexed his thin boy arms. “I be strong. Ye be havin’ no regret helpin’ me, lady.”

  She heard him slip down the back way, while behind her Robert’s feet hit the floor. He hung by one arm to the bed curtains as she ran to him. “Back to bed with you,” she ordered.

  “Nay, dear surgeon, I must walk about. A man rapidly loses his strength in bed. Lend me your shoulder,” he said, his good arm reaching for her.

  She drew him up and, bracing herself, steadied him, standing close, body touching body. A great heat rose in her, as if the sun reaching now to the uneven floorboards had slipped under her skin and was trapped. She tried to hide what she felt, but he must sense her warmth, for his arm tightened about her.

  For a moment Robert was alert to her anxiety and silently cursed his weakness. Then, holding her close, careful of his balance, he walked in a halting shuffle about the room, each step surer and firmer than the last.

  He allowed himself to think a moment only of holding her like this for all his days. Too much of her young life had been stolen. He could give it back to her.

  Stopping his wilder thoughts before they became too real to him, he looked to his next step and growing energy. If it would not pain his shoulder, he would have laughed to think that he was alone with her in a bedchamber, and less a man than he needed to be. Indeed, than she needed.

  Though her voice trembled as his body moved next to hers, she had to admit the truth of what he had said. “You were right, Robert. You do seem to gain in strength.”

  He smiled down on her. “Aye, my lady. I am right. Yet you have never said such a pleasing thing to me ere now. I would hear it more often.” His teasing gaze searched her face. “Henceforward, I doubt you will ever mistake me.” He turned slowly toward the bed and, after she pulled back the bed curtains, he sat, looking up at her, seeing her hesitate. He took her arm and lowered himself slowly to the pillow, half sitting.

  “Frances, I want to say so many things.”

  “I want to hear you say them.” His need was clear, as was hers. She felt her heated blood rush to her veins. Now that his body was not pressed against hers, Frances missed the warmth and firmness of him. Slowly she walked around the bed and climbed in on the other side, blood rushing to her woman’s part.

  Robert made no move to touch her.

  “As your surgeon,” she murmured, “I caution you against sudden…movement—”

  “Frances, there is nothing sudden in what I wo
uld have of you.” He stared at her, his dark eyes glowing within the dim light of the curtained bed. “I have wanted to give love to you since that first day in your carriage, when your deep sadness mirrored my own.”

  Her heart pulsing in her ears, she moved closer, the dry straw jabbing her knees. “Robert, I would have truth between us at last.”

  “Truth has always been my dearest wish.”

  Taking a deep breath, she knew nothing now except the certainty so long buried under her cautious, untrusting heart. “Robert Pauley, I have longed for you and called it other names. Now I would be truthful with myself, whatever it costs me.”

  His gaze never left her face, looking up and down, side to side, devouring her beauty. Yet he made no move to her. She must come to him completely, even across so small a space.

  She must ever know that this loving was something she freely gave and was not cruelly taken. Something had happened with Sir Philip to make her think herself less the lovely creature that she was.

  Robert knew that must have changed her from what she could have been. He would give it back to her if he could. But only if she came to him freely. Could she?

  Frances was waiting for him to reach out to her first, but still he did not take hold of any part of her. And he suspected she had always been taken. Would she know how to offer herself as he wanted? As she wanted? Dreaming it was one thing, but to embrace him, forsaking her vows…Could she do such without regret? If not, could she live with her regret? Could he? God’s grace, his mind was awhirl!

  He heard her gasped words. “I cannot live without…at least once knowing what it is to freely give myself to a man who loves me for myself.”

  Robert could not bring himself to do more than wait. Custom, rank, and privilege separated them. Though his manhood spoke its urgency, if the chasm of their separate stations was to be bridged, it must be Frances who came to him, or he would forever heap blame upon himself.