The Widows Guild: A Francis Bacon Mystery (The Francis Bacon Mystery Series Book 3)

by Anna Castle

  “Her husband was only a merchant,” Lady Russell said, “if a successful one. But her mother was the youngest daughter of Baron Yeoford. Your mother and I have examined her antecedents and consider her acceptable.”

  “We’ll introduce you to her next time, when you come to make your report,” Lady Russell said. “A matter of days, I believe you said?”

  “Ah.” Francis grasped at that brittle straw. “I could be wrong. I often am. I have no information whatsoever as yet. Such a complex and mysterious death; it will probably take months to discover what happened.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Francis waited once again for prisoners to be brought to yet another interrogation room in the Tower. This one also had thick stone walls, a small barred window, and a plank floor dusted with broken straw. The furniture consisted of a long table with two backed chairs and two stools, with a smaller table and stool meant for a clerk next to the wall. These rooms rarely housed prisoners, being needed for questioning suspects. The affairs of England ran at such a pitch these days that they were occupied in that work all day long and sometimes well into the night.

  Francis loathed these barren chambers with their echoes of past cruelties. At least this time he wouldn’t have to listen to threats of future torments from Sir Richard Topcliffe. Today’s prisoners were not recusant Catholics.

  The door swung open. Francis rose to make a bow as a guard ushered in Lady Surdeval. She greeted him with a curious smile, then allowed herself to be seated at the table. Another guard brought Tom in, gripping him by the arm. “God’s breath, am I glad to see you, Mr. Bacon!” He sat next to Her Ladyship. The guards stationed themselves beside the door.

  “Wait outside,” Francis told them. “I’ll summon you when we’re finished.”

  The instant the door closed, Tom and Lady Surdeval bounced to their feet and turned toward one another, reaching hands to comfort — or embrace? They shot swift glances at Francis and dropped their hands to their sides.

  “Are you all right?” Tom looked Her Ladyship up and down as if searching for evidence of distress.

  She appeared unharmed, unsurprisingly. No guard would treat a lady harshly. She seemed quite fresh, her green eyes bright, her black hair neatly braided under a clean white coif. Her simple dress of dark red broadcloth was unwrinkled, her ruff and cuffs white and crisp.

  “I’m fine.” She met Tom’s worried gaze with a tender smile. “They’ve lodged me with the Lieutenant of the Tower and his family.” She reached her hand toward him again but snatched it back with another glance at Francis. “How are you? Have they hurt you? What happened to your eye?”

  “It’s nothing.” Tom bore a colorful bruise around his left eye. “The constable who arrested me made a rude remark about — ah — the circumstances in which they found us. We had a bit of a scuffle, but no one’s bothered me since. I have one cellmate who went back to sleep after learning that they hadn’t locked me up for religious reasons. The hospitality has been adequate.” He grinned, but his appearance belied his words. Tom considered himself a man of fashion and took pains with his display. That ostentatious yellow pearl still dangled from one ear, but his ruff was missing, as well as several buttons from his doublet. His hose and stockings were grimy. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in the two nights since he’d been arrested.

  “Do they feed you?” Lady Surdeval’s voice held concern. The two of them wholly ignored Francis. When had Tom come to be on such intimate terms with a noblewoman?

  “Of course they do. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I can’t think of anything else.” Lady Surdeval took a step closer to him, standing almost right under his chin. “This is all my fault.”

  “Please do not say anything of that nature again,” Francis said. “Not even to me; not even if it’s true.”

  That got their attention. They shifted a few feet apart. Tom asked, “We won’t be in here much longer, will we, Mr. Bacon? You know we had no part in Lord Surdeval’s death.”

  “I assume it,” Francis said. “But my word will not suffice. Shall we sit? You must tell me everything you can remember about the events of that evening.”

  They complied. Lady Surdeval cocked her head, wearing that odd little smile again. Some private amusement sparkled in her vivid green eyes.

  Vivid green eyes. Pitch-black hair. Unusual coloring, yet he’d seen it before, composed within an identical heart-shaped face. “Forgive me for staring, my lady,” Francis said. “You resemble your cousin Allen as closely as twins.”

  She giggled, a sound not often heard within the Tower walls. “My cousin and I had many things in common.” Her voice altered, dropping into a slightly lower register. The tone and timbre were strikingly like young Allen’s.

  “In common and in commons.” Tom cocked his head at Francis, grinning broadly. “Don’t you remember, Mr. Bacon? You looked down upon that face in the hall at Gray’s twice a day for the better part of a year.”

  “A similar face, I grant you,” Francis said slowly. He didn’t like jokes, especially ones he didn’t understand.

  Tom turned to Lady Surdeval. “You must tell him.”

  “I suppose I must.” She sighed. “That game is long over, in any event.”

  Francis said, “I can’t help you if you keep secrets from me.”

  “I know,” she said. “I apologize. I fear I must confess that I’ve deceived you. There is no Allen Trumpington; or rather, the boy you knew as Allen was me.” She held two fingers across her upper lip to model a moustache. “Look familiar?”

  Francis gaped open-mouthed, speechless, reappraising her face, the shape of her head, and the set of her shoulders while his understanding of the world regained its balance. “Remarkable.” The shock subsided to be replaced by a sense of injury. “Did Ben know?”

  The two of them grimaced sheepishly. Tom said, “They did share chambers for one term.”

  With extraordinary delicacy and discretion, it would seem. Francis’s estimation of Benjamin Whitt’s capacities rose, even under the hurt feelings. “The three of you conspired against me.”

  “No, no,” Lady Surdeval said. “Never against you. Not against anyone. I wanted to study the law, that’s all. As a woman of property, I must be able to protect myself. I could learn from books at home and engage a tutor, but without the moots and the other evening exercises, you never fully understand it. Practicing cases with real barristers is essential. I wanted all of that.”

  Allen had been a good student, quick to grasp the essence of a complicated statute or case in court. He could be argumentative, but that was not a defect in a barrister. Francis fully understood the desire to learn. He didn’t like to be fooled, but he’d been told by others that he often failed to notice details about the people around him. One took the people one met as they presented themselves. One didn’t peer into their doublets or tug at their moustaches.

  That thought made him laugh, which surprised them. “I suppose your uncle planned it all.” Her uncle, Nathaniel Welbeck, had been a barrister at Gray’s until he’d gone too far with his clever schemes and been obliged to make himself scarce.

  “My uncle helped,” she said. “The plan was mine.”

  “Admirably executed,” Francis conceded. Now he understood part of the intimacy between these two miscreants. They’d been close friends at Gray’s, along with Benjamin Whitt, dining together in commons, studying together, attending the same fencing and dancing lessons. Apparently, the friendship had continued after Her Ladyship’s retransformation.

  The scope of her deception outdid any of her uncle’s extra-legal stunts. She must have nerves of steel. Her courage matched that of her noble ancestors, the Earls of Orford. Francis didn’t blame her so much, nor Tom, who had proven his capacity for recklessness. But Ben should have let him in on the conspiracy instead of leaving him to play the fool for three full terms.

  “This is not the time to belabor the past,” Francis said. “The charges against you are very
grave, and Lord Surdeval’s cousin is determined to press them.”

  “He caught us at the worst possible moment,” Tom said. “We had barely realized that His Lordship had been murdered —”

  Lady Surdeval cut in. “We hadn’t even had time to think about what to do when here came Sir William —”

  “Looming into the doorway, leaping to all kinds of conclusions,” Tom finished.

  “I have his statement,” Francis said. “He claims you were both in a state of undress and that he caught you embracing beside the viscount’s expiring corpus. He further states that Her Ladyship declared her own guilt in unambiguous terms.”

  Tom shook his head. “We weren’t embracing in the sense of embracing.”

  “He was comforting me,” Lady Surdeval said. “Patting me on the back. You know.”

  “And of course Trumpet didn’t mean ‘I did it’ in the literal sense,” Tom said.

  “I only meant that I was the one who left poor Surdeval in such a vulnerable situation. I gave him his sleeping draught and galloped off to my rooms on the other side of the house. I even gave the servants the night off, never thinking he shouldn’t be left unattended.”

  “Tell me about the circumstances in which you found him,” Francis said. “Neither your letter to Mrs. Sprye nor Sir William’s statement has much to say about the manner of death.”

  “What letter?” Tom asked.

  “I wrote to Mrs. Sprye when they took me upstairs to dress.” Lady Surdeval turned toward Tom. “You should know what I wrote so we can both tell the same story.”

  “Truth,” Francis said. “You must both tell the truth, if you’re innocent.”

  “Of course we’re innocent!” Tom said. Then he shot a conspiratorial glance at Lady Surdeval that contradicted his indignant tone.

  Francis set his elbow on the table and pinched the bridge of his nose. He might be able to defend them from the charge of murder, but few things angered the queen more than dalliance with a noble virgin. She might clap them both in the Tower for a year if they didn’t moderate their behavior before she heard the whole sordid tale.

  One crime at a time. “Why did you decide His Lordship had been murdered?”

  Tom said, “Someone cut a cross in his chest.”

  Francis frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “We don’t either,” Tom said. “But he had a small cross, right here.” He made an X in the center of his chest. “The lines were ragged, maybe a coarse knife? With a blackish residue along the edges. Also little beads of blood, bright red. We didn’t think he was dead at first.”

  “He wasn’t,” Lady Surdeval said. “I will swear to it. I put my ear next to his face and thought I heard a faint breath. I’m certain I heard a heartbeat when I pressed my ear against his chest. But he didn’t move, not a twitch, not even when I touched his face.”

  “He was laid out properly too,” Tom said. “Hands at his sides, feet together, with a sheet pulled up to his chin.”

  Lady Surdeval added, “When I pulled it back, Tom noticed impressions in the mattress next to the body, like someone had knelt over him.”

  “To make the cuts, I suppose.” Francis shuddered. “Did you see anything unusual in the room? Signs of entry?”

  They shook their heads. Lady Surdeval said, “The room looked the way it had when I left it the night before. My lord still wore the same shirt and hose. His doublet lay where I had put it; his medicines still stood on the night table. Nothing seemed out of place.”

  “No additional cups or bottles?”

  She shook her head. “Only one thing was missing that I know of. Surdeval kept a rosary under his pillow; at least it was there when I settled him for his nap. Ebony and ivory with a gold cross.”

  “A rosary,” Francis echoed. That formed a piece with the cross carved into his chest — a disturbing piece. “Nothing else missing? Any signs of a struggle or vomiting?”

  They shook their heads again. Tom said, “His stockings were twisted, as if he’d kicked around a little, but otherwise, no.”

  “Hmm.” Francis frowned. “There are poisons that cause paralysis, like wolfsbane, but I don’t think they work so quickly. I would expect more mess.”

  Lady Surdeval said, “My maidservant lived in Italy for many years. She says they use serpent venom to poison knives. She thinks that venom could cause paralysis and a slow death.”

  Francis said, “The fact that your servant knows such things speaks against your innocence.”

  “We know it looks bad,” Tom said. “Especially with me being there. I should have gone home right after —”

  “I explained all that in my letter.” Lady Surdeval smiled at Francis. “It made sense, didn’t it, Mr. Bacon? My story?”

  “Not to me. Even less, now that I know about your year-long masquerade. And please do not refer to it as a ‘story.’” He caught their eyes in turn, striving to impress the need for absolute truthfulness with the seriousness of his demeanor. “Your explanation of Tom’s presence is patchy at best. No one would believe it.”

  Although his aunt and mother, two women of prodigious intelligence, seemed to have done so. Could they have charged him with this indelicate case as an excuse to present him to their rich widow, the young woman with the Tudor air? Or were they so zealous in their defense of widows they would overlook the possibility of a marriage begun in cuckoldry?

  Francis rubbed his temple; his head was beginning to throb. “Why did Tom stay all night? I must know the truth in order to help you. What you say to me will go no further.”

  They both spoke at once, their stories crossing and twining. One contradicted the other, then both backtracked to try a different approach. They were obviously inventing their tale as they went along. Worse, their tones, their postures, every little gesture, betrayed the very intimacy that formed the foundation of the charge against them.

  Francis had hoped . . . he couldn’t remember what he had hoped. He had expected, naively, that Lady Surdeval would be a somber, sober-minded widow of learning and discretion, like his mother and his aunt. The rash, ingenious madcap seated across the table from him now bore less resemblance to his respectable relatives than the erstwhile Allen Trumpington.

  He had vaguely imagined that the lady would supply a fact or easily verified supposition that would clear her name and Tom’s with minimal contributions from him. That hope now crumbled under the weight of their increasingly implausible protestations of innocence. They had most certainly not murdered the viscount, but their night together had been far from innocent. That suspicion alone would harm them both in ways they plainly did not understand.

  Francis would have to start at the beginning and conduct a full inquiry. He’d have to visit Surdeval House to question the servants and poke his nose into the bed chamber. He would probably have to go into the city to consult the coroner and the sheriff. Somehow he’d have to discover the actual means of the murder and expose anyone who might benefit from the viscount’s death.

  He eyed his unwanted charges across the table, no longer bothering to listen to their nonsense. If he could get them released, he could at least make them do some of the work.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Francis brought a book with him to dinner at Gray’s Inn that day to deflect the attentions of his messmates, if any should be offered, but he was left to think in peace. Reading at table was considered unsociable, but since he’d been promoted to the benchers’ table at the top of the hall, no one seemed to care. The other benchers — the governors of the society — liked to rattle on about political intrigues or similar gossip and seldom asked for his opinions.

  He had to shift the book as the servers delivered dishes of eels in jelly and baked eggs. His gaze shifted then as well, to the lower tables set perpendicular to the dais where the students and barristers ate. Ben sat in his accustomed seat at the top of his table, eyes on his plate, eating without interest in the food before him. Two years ago, Ben had had three messmates, all good f
riends: Tom, Allen, and the earl’s son in whose train Tom had first arrived at Gray’s. The young lord had found other games to play, and Tom had gone to Cambridge on his special commission, leaving only Ben and Allen. Then Allen had gone home to turn back into Alice.

  Francis found it difficult to believe he had sat here for so many months watching that deceptive imp participating in the after-supper legal exercises without once suspecting he was anything other than what he seemed. He cautioned himself to be wary in future dealings with Lady Alice and to look twice when next he met a short person with bright green eyes.

  Tom had returned from his Cambridge commission, taking up his old place in Ben’s chambers and his seat across the table in commons, and so they had remained for the whole past year. They made a balanced pair. Scholarly Ben kept Tom’s nose to the grindstone, while lively Tom got Ben out of doors to exercise the physical being.

  Now Tom lay in prison and poor Ben sat alone, worrying, no doubt, about how the Surdeval business would affect his chances of being called to the bar in December. Lady Surdeval was his first important client. He’d been so proud of the work he’d done to negotiate a marriage settlement that satisfied all parties. This scandal threatened to destroy his achievement.

  Further reason to solve the knotty problem as quickly as could be. Francis spooned eggs into his mouth and turned his thoughts in a more productive direction.

  Assuming Tom’s observations were correct, and he had trained the man himself, the murder had been committed by a curious blend of opaque and obvious means. If the murderer possessed a poison subtle enough to kill a man swiftly and silently, why advertise the deed by cutting an inflammatory symbol into his chest? Why not make a small incision in the bottom of the foot, for example, where it might go unnoticed or be attributed to some other cause?

  Who benefited from the death of Lord Surdeval?