The Golden Dove

by Jo Ann Wendt

  PART ONE

  DOVE

  1658

  Chapter One

  England, January, 1658 ...

  Snow fell softly against the casement windows of Blackpool Castle. It fell with slow grace, whirling snowflake drifting down upon whirling snowflake, and slowly gathered in the crevices of the stone window ledges where it grew into mounds of cold radiance that glittered, catching and reflecting the firelight within.

  Inside the castle, in a great hall hung with tapestries, with ancient weapons that gleamed in firelight, and with life-size portraits of silken lords and ladies who seemed to breathe in the glow of a blazing, crackling winter's afternoon fire—there— words fell softly. Words colder than the crystalline snow.

  "Find her and kill her."

  "Ay, Your Grace."

  "I desire it be accomplished at once,"

  "Ay, Your Grace. I understand."

  "I want her obliterated. Leave no trace of her. She never existed. She does not now exist. She shall not exist."

  "Ay, Your Grace. I understand. I'll start tomorrow."

  Alerted by the sudden rasp of silk, and a hiss of rich chair leather, the three wolfhounds who had been sleeping before the fire opened their glassy eyes.

  44 Tomorrow'?"

  His Grace, the duke of Blackpool, shifted his slim elegant body in the sumptuous depths of his Russia-leather chair and contemplated his steward with cold unblinking eyes. " Tomorrow'?" His Grace repeated faintly. "Surely I misheard?"

  On the hearth, the wolfhounds lifted their immense heads and haughtily contemplated the steward too, as if they too had misheard.

  Fox Hazlitt, the steward, squirmed and eased a thumb between his thick neck and his lacy shirt collar. Although the shirt was new, bought only yesterday at Cheapside in London, it suddenly seemed too tight. "Milord, I misspoke," he offered quickly. "Today. Naturally I'll start today. I'll write me agents today."

  "Ah. So I thought."

  A satisfied silence. Fox Hazlitt relaxed. But he continued to watch his master with wary eyes. Cold bastard, he thought. As cold as your castle. Stifling a shiver as a stray draft curled up his spine—the castle was colder in winter than the sheets under a two-shilling whore—he made to inch his chair closer to the fire. He was checked by a low throaty growl. Goddamn dogs. Scared a man half to death. Great ugly beasts. They had jowls that could snap a sheep in two and long skinny bodies that tapered to nothing. He could smell their wolf shag. Fox cleared his throat in the unnatural silence. The snow was falling faster now, hitting the windows like fine shot.

  "Where would Your Grace have me begin the search?"

  The unblinking eyes of man and dogs stared.

  "Surely it's your task to decide 'where,' is it not? Unless, of course, you deem yourself no longer capable of serving in my employ?"

  Fox flushed and the collar tightened still more. He'd grown rich in a decade of the duke's employ. He owned a fine house of timber and plaster in Westminister. He dressed his wife and his children in silk; and when his wife went out, she went in style, riding in her own sedan chair, carried by two catch- farts. He kept his mistress, a Drury Lane actress, in even finer style.

  Quickly, he made haste to dash water on his burning bridges.

  "Your Grace, pray overlook. Milord, I misspoke. 'Tis me own task, to be sure. Depend on it, Your Grace. I'll dispatch me agents today. Today, milord."

  The dark eyes, eyes like burning coals, contemplated him for a long and uncomfortable moment.

  "Better . . . much better." The duke managed a frosty smile. "Excellent."

  With that soft sibilant murmur, the duke leaned forward over a low, lion-footed table on which stood the remains of a casual repast: a cold joint of mutton, bowls of Spanish olives and Jerusalem almonds, pickled onions, bread, wine. Taking a gold-handled dagger from the sheath at his waist, he neatly carved pieces from the cold joint. He tossed them to the dogs piece by piece. Like crocodiles, the hounds snapped them down.

  Fox watched warily. A breed bred to hunt wolves, wolfhounds seldom found such prey in these forward, modern times. But he'd seen them bring down a stag. He knew that at a signal from His Grace, the hounds would attack a man and leave nothing behind but coat buttons and bones.

  When the duke finished cosseting his pets, he wiped the dagger clean on a dainty lace and linen napkin, then leaned back in his chair and crossed one slim leg on the other. He hooked his elbows on the chair arms and toyed with the dagger, turning it over and over in his slender fingers as he spoke. It was an unnerving habit, and, after years of service, Fox still was not used to it. For though the duke spoke with exquisite softness, never raising his voice, he gestured with the dagger as Tie spoke, underscoring a request here, emphasizing a point there.

  Abruptly, the duke looked up. His dark eyes flashed. "Listen and listen well," he ordered softly. "Need I say it would make me unhappy to have to repeat this story? Or . . ." The dagger gestured. "—if the story were to return to my ears, carried back to me by other lips?"

  Fox drew a careful breath. "No, Your Grace. Me lips are sealed."

  "Excellent . . . excellent."

  With that, the duke gazed about, as if in annoyance, as if to delay the telling for a few moments longer. At last, drawing an irritable breath, he plunged in.

  "The brat I wish obliterated . . . was whelped here, here in Blackpool Castle, eleven years ago. In my absence. During my three-year sojourn in France, you understand?'' Fox didn't understand, but nodded anyway. "When a trusted servant sent me word, warning me there would be a secret birth, I dispatched a bag of gold to the castle midwife. I instructed her to drug the mother into unconsciousness during the birthing. I ordered her to break the whelp's neck 'ere it came from the womb. She was to bury the brat and later, when the mother regained consciousness, she was to tell the mother her brat had been stillborn."

  The dagger flashed, catching firelight. "A month ago I learned the old hag had played me false. She took my gold. She obeyed all of my instructions, less one. She did not kill the brat. Instead, she padded her purse by selling the whelp. On the auction block. At St. Katherine's Docks in London."

  Fox's heart began to thud in dismay. "St. Katherine's Docks, Your Grace?"

  The duke shot him an irritated look. "I have just said so, have I not?"

  "But—but, Your Grace! Ships of every nation put in there. If the brat was sold there, she could be anywheres in the world."

  The dagger came around and pointed. "Precisely."

  Fox felt the ground shift under him. Suddenly, this was not a mission he fancied. It smacked of failure^. Failure didn't fill a purse; success did. Shrewdly, he considered how to avoid the assignment. "Your Grace. Pray consider. Few infants survive infancy. Doubtless the brat is dead."

  The duke eyed him coldly. "Then bring me proof of it."

  His heart beat with alarm. "But, Your Grace. Pray consider. If I cannot tell me agents where in the world to search? If I cannot even tell 'em what the brat might look like? Milord, I beg. Milord, I need—"

  The plea died in his throat, for the duke's eyes flashed. With a movement as swift as a cat, the duke leaned forward in his chair and viciously pointed the dagger at a portrait that hung upon the near wall. Fox looked at it, befuddled. A familiar portrait, a familiar lady. Beautiful! Pale skin, delicate bones, hair like a mantle of soft brown velvet. Eyes so sad a man was in danger of weeping if he looked into them too long. Fox blinked in confusion. Across the low table, the duke's gaze burned.

  "You understand, of course, that the brat might look . . . like ... my wife?"

  It was a jolt, a shock. Her ladyship? Why, her ladyship was as loved and respected in the parish as the duke was disliked and feared! Fox felt as if he'd suddenly stepped to the edge of a pr
ecipice.

  "Then again," the duke murmured in his soft way, "you understand, of course, that the brat might also resemble—"

  With a vicious and unexpected movement, the duke turned in his chair, whipped back his ruffled wrist and hurled the dagger. A streak of gold and firelight, it shot across the great hall to pierce home with a powerful thunk, tearing into the painted throat of a handsome, buoyant young lord who had carrot bright hair and merry blue eyes. The blade buried itself in the portrait's backboard, vibrating, humming in a stillness broken only by the crackling fire and the peck of snow at the windows.

  "My beloved cousin," the duke murmuted. "Aubrey de Mont."

  Lord Aubrey? That bold, respected soldier?

  Now Fox was truly scared. For a moment, he was afraid to speak, afraid to move. Afraid even to raise his eyes to the duke. Dry-mouthed, he stared at his own boot tops. He didn't need a tree to fall on him to know he was privy to a dangerous secret. Fail the duke in this mission, and he was a dead man!

  His thoughts galloped wildly in every direction. Find this illegitimate brat? Sniff out a trail eleven years stale? Impossible! Easier to find your own spit in the ocean.

  How then to save his neck, his lucrative post? Outfox the duke? Pretend to find the brat? Pluck any redhaired orphan off the streets of London and kill her? Possible, possible. But great care must be taken. The duke was nobody's fool. Still, the possibility served to steady his nerves.

  The duke was awaiting a response. Fox cleared his throat.

  "Ah, Your Grace. I understand. I b'lieve I see me duty clear."

  "Do you?" The tone was unexpectedly dry, amused. With an elegant graceful movement, the duke slung himself out of his chair and sauntered across the great hall toward Lord Aubrey's portrait, his high-heeled, red-lacquered shoes clicking leisurely on the richly polished parquet flooring, his jeweled shoe-roses gleaming.

  "Allow me to help you see even more 'clear'. My source tells me the brat was born marked. She carries upon her body three red birthmarks, the size and shape of strawberries. The first is on the inside of her right wrist."

  Fox drew a startled breath. Birthmarks, by God! A clinker in the clockworks. Brats with red hair he could find by the dozen. But brats with birthmarks? He thought quickly, his mind coursing to and fro. On the wharves in London he'd seen foreign sailors who tattooed themselves. Surely three simple strawberry birthmarks . . .

  He carefully licked the inside of his lip. "And the second and third birthmarks are located where, milord?"

  The duke smiled thinly. "Come, come. Do not trifle with me, Fox. The location oŁ the second and third are yours to describe, are they not? When you've found the right brat and killed her?"

  Fox breathed unevenly, knowing he'd backed into a snare. In a leisurely manner, His Grace resumed his stroll to Lord Aubrey's portrait. When he stood before it, he reached up and retrieved the dagger. But he did so in a way that slashed Lord Aubrey from throat to testicles.

  Then he turned, eyes widening in feigned surprise. "Dear me. See what has happened. It seems my cousin's portrait has met with an accident. A bungling maidservant, no doubt. Careless with mop or broom. Or perhaps some lout of a lackey, clumsily snagging spider webs." The ingenuous gaze widened. "You did see it happen, did you not?"

  Wits addled, for a moment Fox could only nod and swallow thickly. "Ay, Your Grace. I seen it. 'Twas a lackey done it."

  "Then hadn't you best go and report it?"

  Fox swallowed again, his voice a clot. "Ay, Your Grace. I'll go at once. I'll go to the castle steward."

  He was checked by a thin smile. "Dear me, no. That will not do. Do not report it to the castle steward. Report it directly to . . ." The duke's cold gaze traveled across the hall to the portrait opposite Lord Aubrey's. "Report it directly to the duchess ... to my faithful and beloved wife."

  Fox lost his breath. Such a cat-and-mouse game.

  "Ay, Your Grace," he said thickly.

  The duke's posture changed, signaling the interview was at an end. Glad to go, glad for time to be alone and think of a way out of his quandary, Fox was already bowing himself out of the room when a soft knock came at the door. After a discreet moment, the arched oaken door with its iron bands and fittings of brass yawned slowly inward.

  For a moment it seemed to Fox the portrait on the near wall had sprung to life and stepped down from the wall. For there, standing frail and lovely in the doorway, even more beautiful than her painted likeness, was her ladyship, the duchess of Blackpool. Clutching a shawl of brown wool and framed by tall, arching corridor windows that were curtained with falling snow, she looked like a delicate moth that has lucklessly hatched out of season and is doomed.

  "My lord?"

  "Angelina, my love, come in!"

  "My lord, might I have a word? I would ask a boon."

  "A boon?" His Grace smiled and gestured extravagantly, wrist lace billowing. "My love, ask what you will. I am yours to command. Ask any boon you will. It is yours. Enter, my love, enter."

  She neither returned his smile nor entered. Her eyes skittered to the hearth, to the dogs who now sat on their haunches, alert, watching, eyes a glassy green in the firelight.

  "You know I am afraid of the dogs."

  "My puppies?" His Grace looked about expansively, as if the very idea were absurd, humorous, amusing. "My puppies are harmless."

  "They are not!" she said with a rare show of spirit. "I often fear they will do someone harm. Some innocent child perhaps. Or some peasant gathering windfalls in the orchard. My lord, I have seen them bring down a hare in the gardens.''

  The duke smiled indulgently. "My love, you are not a hare. You are, and have ever been, my . . . beloved and faithful wife."

  Did she falter? Fox thought so, but he hadn't a moment to savor it, for the duke wheeled suddenly. "Fox! The leashes. Leash the dogs and take them to the far end of the room. The dogs are frightening Her Grace."

  Fox jumped to obey, but burned inwardly. Make him a kennel keeper, would he? He found the leashes and gingerly applied them to the powerful, sinewy necks. As he led the dogs away, their nails clicking over the floor, he strained to catch every word.

  "My lord, I pray you will reconsider old Bess's dismissal. She did not mean to drop the vase. Her poor hands are crippled and twisted. Her joints ache and swell painfully in this cold weather. My lord, she is old."

  "And useless."

  With her soft pretty voice, the duchess tried again. "My lord, I pray you. Bess has served Blackpool Castle for nearly thirty years. She served here in your father's time, your grandfather's time. She has always been a faithful and devoted servant. My lord, Blackpool Castle is the only home she has ever known. If she is turned out she will have nowhere to go. My lord! She has no way to earn her bread."

  "Then let her beg for it."

  "My lord. Husband. Show mercy. I implore you!" Forgetful of herself, her ladyship stepped forward, her shawl dropping away as she lifted her palms like pale supplicating lilies. Oh, she was a beauty all right, standing there pleading her case so prettily.

  The duke strolled to his begging wife, retrieved her shawl and with slow sensual movements draped it around her slim shoulders and knotted it at her breast. His hand lingered there, touching her familiarly, the way a man has a right to touch his wife. She didn't like it. That was plain. Even so, she stood her ground. "My lord, Bess?"

  "Your boon is granted, Angelina. Did I not say so?"

  Her ladyship flushed, startled as a bird that has been tossed an unexpected crumb. Then, gracefully, she sank into a curtsy. 'Thank you, my lord, thank you," she murmured quickly. "And Bess thanks you. She thanks you with all her heart." Backing away; she turned to leave, then evidently changed her mind. Throwing a scanty glance at Fox, she said, "My lord, is there any war news from London? Did your servant bring any word of the war?"

  Servant! Fox heated. He wasn't a servant, he was the duke's righthand man. He was the duke's chief steward. He was important! He narrowed his eyes at her
. Oh he could see through her all right. She didn't give a tinker's damn that England lay bloodied and torn asunder by a dozen years of civil war. She didn't give a damn who won, Oliver Cromwell or King Charles. She was worried about only one soldier. Lord Aubrey de Mont.

  The duke saw through her too. For he smiled thinly.' 'War? Is that what you call it, Angelina? I do not. I call it a rabbit hunt. The king's ragtag band of cavaliers in hiding, fleeing like rabbits from burrow to burrow. Cromwell's ,army of Roundheads hunting them down, dragging them out by the ears, hauling them to London and chopping off their luckless heads. And the king himself? Penniless as a pauper, living rabbit-poor in exile. War? Really, my love. How droll. You should thank God I had sense enough to swear allegiance to Cromwell and save Blackpool Castle from this farcical rabbit hunt."

  "Nevertheless," she persisted with quiet dignity. "Is there any word?"

  The duke took his own sweet time answering. "Nothing fit for your gentle ears to hear, my love."

  Instantly, worry pinched her lovely features, but she knew better than to press. She knew her husband. With a soft murmur, "Thank you, my lord, thank you for sparing Bess," she again curtsied, then swept gracefully to the door.

  She hadn't even once looked in the direction of Lord Aubrey's portrait. She had carefully avoided it. A sure sign of guilt, Fox thought shrewdly. But suddenly, as if she couldn't bear to leave without a hasty glance at the man she loved, she cast her eyes there. Aghast, she stood stark still.

  "What happened?"

  The duke shrugged elegantly. "An accident, my love. A careless lackey damaged my cousin's portrait with a broom handle. Fox, there, saw it happen." Fox nodded obediently. "More's the pity. For it's likely the last portrait to be painted of Aubrey. Considering the dire news Fox has just brought ..." Fox glanced at him, curious.

  The blood faded from her ladyship's face. Her skin paled. Her eyes grew large and dark. "What news?"

  "Alas, my love. Cromwell's army has captured Aubrey's band of cavaliers. Aubrey has been caught, tried for treason and beheaded."

  It was not true. Fox had brought no such news, but its effect upon her ladyship was delicious. Fox had never seen the life drain out of a human being. He did now. Her ladyship grew ashen. Lips a stricken blue, she stood as still as death.