I led Buckingham into the closest patch of woods, walked until I couldn’t see the hunting party anymore, then stopped.
He looked around, then gave me a canny smile. “There’s no matted grass here. There’s no grass at all.”
“Nay, Your Grace. I wanted a private place to talk to you.”
Apparently oblivious to the absence of my French accent, he came toward me, his gaze on my mouth. “What very red lips you have, Henri. They’re as red as your cap.”
He seized me and closed his mouth over mine, plunging his tongue between my lips. Shoving a hand under my tunic, he hastily unbuttoned my pantaloons.
I squirmed; he gripped me tighter. My pantaloons slipped down; I yanked them up with both hands. Wrenching my face away, I said, “Your Grace, please! If we could just talk—”
“Aye, that would be lovely, if there were time.” Spinning me around, he pushed me down onto my hands and knees with seemingly little effort; he was a very strong man. “Humphrey’s right,” he said as he unbuttoned his breeches. “We must be quick about it.”
TRIED TO CLAMBER to my feet, but Buckingham held me down, saying “Come now, I know it’s not your first time. It can’t be, not the way you’ve been looking at me.”
Throwing my tunic up, he spat in his hand and rubbed it on his member. I felt it brushing up against my bare buttocks, and struggled harder, crying “Nay! You don’t under—”
He clamped a hand over my mouth, hard. “For pity’s sake, do you want the others to hear?”
I could feel his cockstand, slippery with spit, between the cheeks of my bottom. I tried to wrest his arm from around my waist, but it was like trying to budge the limb of an oak.
He was shifting around behind me, trying to penetrate me without using his hands. “Hold still, will you?” A sharp jab missed its mark. He swore and thrust again, coming perilously close to his intended target.
He’s going to do this, I thought. He’s going to do this to me, and there’s nothing I can…
Yes there was.
I stopped resisting, went absolutely still.
“There’s a good lad,” he said. “I knew you’d settle down. If I take my hand off your mouth, do you promise to hold your tongue?”
I nodded.
He released me and straightened up, giving his cockstand a few firm strokes as he fondled my bottom. “That’s a fine little arse you’ve got there, boy, as round and soft as a girl’s.”
“There’s a reason for that,” I said as I took his caressing hand and drew it down between my legs.
“Want me to pull you off, eh?” he asked as he groped around. “Greedy little…” He fell silent as he discovered there was nothing there to pull.
“Fuck!” He pushed me away and bolted to his feet. “Bloody hell!”
I refastened my pantaloons as I clambered up off the ground.
Buckingham was backing away from me with an expression of outrage as he fumbled with the buttons of his breeches. “Who the devil are you? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m Hannah Leeds, Your Grace.”
“Who?” he demanded, not taking his irate gaze off of me as he pushed his hair off his face.
“I requested an audience with you in London, but you refused to see me.”
A second passed. “God’s blood, you’re Goodchild’s niece. What the devil are you doing here in France? Dressed like that?”
“I… I passed myself off as one of Signor Vitturi’s novices when I learned you were going to be coming here with him, and I dressed like this so I could come along on the hunt. I desperately need to talk to you about—”
“Does he know about this ploy? Vitturi?”
“N-nay. Nay, he—”
“He shall find out about it as soon as I return to the château. I shouldn’t think he’ll be very pleased to have been played for a fool after everything he’s done for you.”
“Your Grace—” I began, but he was already striding away through the darkening woods.
“He loved you!” I yelled desperately. “My uncle loved you, and look what you’ve done to him!”
Wheeling around, Buckingham stalked toward me, his face dark with fury. “Look what I’ve done to him? The lying dog betrayed me! He betrayed England! The bloody papist gave Spain advance warning of our Cádiz campaign.”
“Why do you think it was my uncle who told them?”
“I know it was your uncle. I have a coded letter that was sent to him from Olivares, which—”
“From whom?”
“Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel, Count of Olivares. He’s the favorite and chief minister of King Philip of Spain, and a powerful and impiteous man. The young king is but a puppet. ’Tis Olivares who pulls the strings. The letter leaves no doubt that Guy was spying for Spain, and had been for some time. ’Twas to that end that he manipulated my affections. He never loved me, but he tricked me into loving—” Buckingham’s voice broke; I saw not just anger but pain in his eyes. “He played me for a fool.”
“How do you know this letter was really from Olivares?” I asked.
“Aside from the fact that I know his handwriting, ’twas written on Spanish-style laid paper with a Spanish watermark, and it bore the royal seal of Spain. ’Twas most assuredly from Olivares.”
“If this letter was sent to my uncle, how did you come by it?” I asked.
“’Twas found amongst his belongings in a trunk he kept in my chamber.”
“Your bedchamber?”
The duke answered that with a withering glare.
“Who found it?” I asked.
“I don’t have to stand here and be interrogated by the likes of you.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “I think I already know.”
“Thank God you’re back,” Elle greeted when I entered la Chambre des Voiles et des Miroirs about an hour later. She wore black satin breeches with matching stays, and had a birch switch in her hand. “I can’t tell you how bored I’ve been. I hardly ever get bored with sex, but he’s just such an insipid little nit.”
On the training bed knelt a naked Jonas Knowles with his whip-striped bum in the air and his head and hands locked into the headboard stocks. His good looks did not extend to his body, which was terribly soft and pale compared to the virile beauty of Elic, Inigo… and, of course, Domenico.
“Who’s there?” asked Knowles, who was facing away from me.
With an expression of weary disdain, Elle raised the birch and slapped it down onto Knowles’s posterior. “Did I give you leave to speak?”
“Nay, mistress. Pray pardon my insolence.”
I said, “’Tis I, Jonas.”
“Mistress Leeds?” he said excitedly. “Two of you! Splendid!”
“I’m afraid not, Jonas.” Extracting a big brass key from her bosom, Elle unlocked the stocks and raised the top half, which slid up through grooves in the bedposts. “Methinks you’ve had enough for one night.” Yawning, she added, “I know I have.”
I thanked Elle for her help in detaining Knowles and bade her good night; she kissed me on the cheeks and left. Knowles, coming down off the bed, gaped at my short dark hair and workingman’s costume. “My God, what have you done to yourself?”
“These must be yours,” I said, lifting a bundle of clothes and a pair of shoes from a chair and handing them to him.
“You aren’t one of those Moll Friths, are you?” he asked as he pulled his shirt down over his head. Moll Frith was a character in the play The Roaring Girl who dressed in men’s clothing.
“I wear disguises when my assignments call for them,” I said as I seated myself in the chair where the clothes had been.
“Assignments?”
I sat back and crossed my legs. “From our mutual master, the Count of Olivares.”
He stilled in the act of tugging on his breeches. After a couple of seconds, he pulled them up and started buttoning them. “Master? Olivares serves the king of Spain, which makes him an enemy of England.”<
br />
“And yet we both spy for him. I do it because of my Catholic sympathies. I suspect your motives are a bit less noble.”
“A spy? Me?”
“You tipped Spain off about England’s plan to attack Cádiz and capture that fleet of galleons. Don’t deny it,” I said when he opened his mouth to do so. “Olivares himself told me ’twas you. And then, so that you could usurp Guy Goodchild’s place in the ducal bed, Olivares wrote that incriminating letter for you to plant in his trunk. In return, you were to exploit your position as the favorite of England’s chief minister to spy for Spain, but Olivares is displeased with your performance in that respect.”
Knowles, pulling on a stocking as he sat on the edge of the bed, looked up sharply.
I said, “He suspects your purpose in foiling the Cádiz expedition and framing Goodchild was merely to advance yourself within King Charles’s court and that you don’t give a fig about Spain. He sent me here in part to coax information out of Buckingham as to England’s intentions toward Spain and in part to find out why you can’t seem to do the job yourself.”
“But I have—” Knowles flushed. “I… I have no idea what you’re talking ab—”
“Jonas, ask yourself how I would know all this if Olivares hadn’t told me.” After all, how could a mere “lusty little lightskirt” have sorted out such intrigue on her own?
Knowles looked around nervously as he donned his doublet, trying to peer through the veiled gaps between the mirrors.
“There’s no one out there,” I assured him. “Would I be talking about this if there were? Believe me, I’ve no more desire to be arrested for treason than you do. You’re a cautious man, though. That’s one point in your favor.”
Rising from my chair, I went over to button his doublet, standing a good deal closer to him than was strictly necessary. “Cautious and clever,” I said, my voice pitched low. “Maneuvering your way into the duke’s bed was brilliant. Did Olivares suggest that, or was it your idea?”
“’Twas mine.” Leaning back against the bed, he closed his hands over my bum and pulled me even closer. “You should have seen Buckingham when I showed him the letter from Olivares to Goodchild. He blubbered like a baby, said except for losing King James, it was the most sorrowful thing that had ever happened to him, that he would never smile again. ’Twas all I could do to keep from bursting out laughing.”
Dear God. “You fancy men and women both then, eh?”
“Nay, of course not,” he said, a note of disgust in his voice. “Buckingham’s the only man I’ve ever shared a bed with. To tell you the truth, it sickens me, the things he makes me do with him.”
“But ’tis the price you pay for your ambition, eh?”
Grinding slowly against me as he kneaded my bottom, he said, “What better way to gain preferment at court than to attach oneself to the most powerful courtier in England? He’s promised to knight me, and if I can continue to stomach… what I must stomach, I expect to be made viscount within the year, or at least baron.”
“And thus shall you serve your interests as you serve those of Spain, eh?”
“Spain—aye, of course! Of course.” Gripping me by the shoulders, he said, “You must tell Olivares that I shall endeavor to be more vigilant in digging up information for him. I’ve no desire to make an enemy of such a ruthless bastard.”
Raising my voice as I backed away from Knowles, I said, “Have you heard enough, Your Grace?”
Knowles stared, aghast, as the Duke of Buckingham stepped into the chamber flanked by two brawny Swiss Guards.
“I’ve heard more than enough,” the duke replied.
The guards wrestled Jonas Knowles into manacles and leg irons. As they half dragged their frantically gibbering prisoner from the room, Buckingham turned to me and said, “My most sincere and humble thanks, Mistress Leeds. Your uncle will, of course, be released from the Tower and exonerated of all charges.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
“I don’t suppose he’ll want to see me, but if you would be so kind as to bring him a letter from me…”
“Of course.”
“I should never have trusted that snake Knowles. ’Twas my gullibility that landed Guy in the Tower. I don’t expect him to forgive me after what he’s been through, but I must make some gesture of appeasement. A title, perhaps. I could give him a barony.”
“I am certain he would be most appreciative.”
“Er…about what happened earlier, when we were alone in the woods… ’Twas shamefully crass on my part. I haven’t been myself since your uncle…”
“Don’t give it another thought, Your Grace.”
Monsieur Pépin, looking uncharacteristically glum, was waiting for me at the bottom of the tower stairs.
“Mademoiselle Leeds,” he said with a bow.
“Monsieur.”
“Signor Vitturi has asked me to have your belongings moved from his bedchamber back into yours.”
“Oh.” Oh, God. So he’d heard. He knew everything.
“And…” He sighed heavily. “I am to tell you that a carriage will be waiting outside the gatehouse at dawn tomorrow to transport you and two attendants to Calais. This,” he said, handing me a heavy kidskin purse, “should provide for your accommodations and your passage across the Channel.”
I looked inside the purse. “There’s…too much here, monsieur, far too much.”
“’Tis what the signore gave me to give you.”
I nodded as I looked down at the bulging purse, my heart like a brick in my chest.
“Je suis désolé, mademoiselle.”
Me, too.
UCH LATER, after the castle’s occupants had retired for the night, I eased open the door to the library, which was dark save for a corona of lamplight in the rear bay. I knew it must be Domenico with his nose in a book. He wasn’t in his bedchamber—I had just come from there—and the library was, after all, his favorite refuge.
After packing my belongings—just the clothes I’d come with, not the courtesan’s wardrobe Domenico had commissioned for me—I had bathed and washed my hair. Just as Elle had promised, most of the dark hair dye rinsed right out. I went to bed, but sleep eluded me entirely. After an hour of tossing and turning, I got up, threw my new ivory silk wrapper on over my matching night rail, and went in search of Domenico.
I crossed to the corner bay, my feet so noiseless on the velvety carpet that I managed to get within ten feet of him without his realizing I was there. He sat facing away from me in a leather armchair, and although I couldn’t see much of him, I could see that he was in his shirtsleeves. In his right hand, resting on the arm of the chair, he held an open book. He wasn’t looking at it, though. From his reflection in the window across from him, I could see that he was gazing bleakly at nothing.
I took a few tentative steps in his direction, stilling when he lifted his head to look at the window. He must have noticed the pale shimmer of my wrapper against the blackness of the night.
He met my reflected gaze for a moment, then shut his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Don’t do this, Hannah,” he said in a quiet, raw voice. “Please go. Go back to England.”
The urge to turn and leave was strong, but I stood my ground, my hands tightly clasped. “I don’t want to. Or rather, I don’t want to stay there. I must return long enough to make sure Buckingham keeps his word and acquits my uncle, but after that, I… I would like to go to Venice.”
He looked up, scowling in puzzlement at my reflection. “You do want to be a courtesan? I thought that was all pretense.”
“’Twas pretense. I don’t want to go to Venice to be a courtesan, Domenico. I want…I want what you were talking about in the Nemeton yesterday. I want to be with you, just you.”
“Hannah…” He looked away grimly. “When I talked about that… ’twas before I knew that you were just using me, deceiving me.”
“I did deceive you,” I conceded, my chin quivering as I struggled to maintain my composure. “I ha
ted it, especially after I grew to know you and care for you, but I was desperate to save my uncle. He’s all I have, he’s like a father to me, and they were going to execute him for a treasonous act he didn’t commit.”
“I can forgive you for that,” he said meeting my eyes in the window. “I do forgive you for that. In your place, I might have done the same. But…” He wrenched his gaze from mine, his jaw set. “To come to me as you did yesterday, in the Nemeton, and seduce me for information while letting me think ’twas something more, that you had the same feelings for me as I… Merda.” Hurling the book across the room, he propped his elbows on his knees and clawed his hands through his hair. “Hannah…Why must we do this? Why can’t you just leave?”
“Not—” My throat closed up; my eyes stung. “Not until I make you understand what really happened yesterday, and then, if you still want me to leave, I will.”
Still leaning on his elbows, he rubbed his eyes.
Striving to steady my voice, I said, “When I came to the Nemeton, I had no intention of… seducing you, or anything like that. None at all, I swear. I will admit that I meant to loosen your tongue with wine. But making love, that was… It just happened. It felt… as if it was bound to happen, as if you were always meant to be not just the first man I ever gave myself to, but the only one.”
Without lifting his head, he opened his eyes and trained them on my reflection.
I said, “You’re accustomed to women who regard their bodies as…well, much as a merchant regards his wares. ’Tisn’t for me to judge what others do, but as for myself, I couldn’t imagine lying with a man for any reason but love.”
He sat very still, his gaze fixed on me.
“I don’t expect you to feel the same way about me, not after …” Tears spilled hotly from my eyes. I scrubbed them away and drew in a shaky breath. “Not after everything that’s happened, but I have to tell you… You need to know… I love you. I love you so much, Domenico. Yesterday, when you asked me to be your mistress, it filled me with such joy—but anguish as well. God, how I dreaded this moment.”
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