by Jane Feather
When had it changed?
Robin stopped suddenly in the middle of a gravel pathway as a picture formed in his mind. Lionel Ashton talking with Stuart. On several occasions.
He prodded his memory, trying to clarify the image. Always the two of them, standing apart. Ashton, as usual, apparently detached, his eyes on nothing as he spoke, almost as if he was not acknowledging the man he was talking to. Not so Stuart. Stuart had been intent on whatever was being said. Intent and radiating discomfort.
In fact, Robin thought now, it was more than discomfort. He had seemed to be as embarrassed and wretched as a subordinate being rebuked by his superior. But he only had this manner with Lionel Ashton. With the Spaniards themselves, Stuart was irritatingly placatory, bending over backwards to accommodate their wishes, but it was something more with the English Ashton.
Did Lionel Ashton have anything to do with Stuart's volte-face? Was he indeed some kind of superior? Some kind of handler? Robin was aware that he was thinking like a spy now, but he'd practiced that trade for close to five years, so that was hardly surprising.
Ashton would bear some investigation. And where better to start than with the man's ward on a moonlit summer evening?
Six
Pippa leaned back against the broad trunk of the spreading beech tree. Sunlight filtered through the leaves above, casting dappled light on the group of men and women sitting on rugs and cushions on the mossy ground.
Mary had discovered the delights of alfresco dining and rarely a week passed without some meal enjoyed in the open air. Not everyone found sitting upon the ground particularly comfortable or the presence of flying insects a welcome addition to the fare, but the court, as it must, acquiesced to the queen's pleasure with every appearance of enjoyment.
Pippa held a lavender-soaked handkerchief against the pulse in her throat; it seemed to cool her. She listened with a polite smile to the chatter around her, nodding every now and again, murmuring some agreeable comment at judicious intervals. It was a trick she had perfected in the last weeks. It gave her a pleasant and attentive air while freeing her mind to pursue its own course.
She was to all intents and purposes a prisoner at Mary's court. She could not leave it without the queen's permission and where she went was strictly circumscribed. She would be permitted in her husband's company to visit her family in their house in Holborn, but not to go farther afield. And at present her mother, stepfather, and half sister, Anna, were spending the summer at Mallory Hall in Derbyshire.
Behind her bland exterior she was dreaming now of long-ago summers spent in the soft verdant Dove valley surrounded by the heather-topped peaks of the surrounding mountains. In her memory Mallory Hall was a golden house of warm glowing stone, filled with the scents of dried lavender, roses from the garden, and the lingering tang of woodsmoke. Her reverie was peopled with the household servants of her childhood: her nurse, Tilly; Master Crowder, the steward; Magister Howard, gone to his grave the previous winter; and the huntsman Master Greene. She had lived an idyll during those long childhood summers, until Hugh of Beaucaire had come knocking at their gates and plunged the quiet, orderly pace of their lives into chaos.
She could not regret that disruption since it had brought her mother so much joy in Hugh's love, but she could not help feeling now that all else had stemmed from it. If they had not been compelled to come to London all those years ago, she would not now be wed to Stuart Nielson, carrying his child, a virtual prisoner in the palace of Whitehall.
And Pen would not, after her own trials and tribulations, be deliriously happy with her Owen d'Arcy and their brood.
No, she could not regret that disruption.
A wave of the now familiar nausea crept over her. She fought it down, breathing deeply. God's bones, how she needed her mother's counsel. What would she not give to be in her mother's arms, in the peace of the Derbyshire countryside at this moment?
The nausea grew stronger, refused to be tamed. The smell of roasting meat was suddenly unbearable. She scrambled hastily to her feet, toppling her untouched goblet of wine, accidentally kicking a silver serving platter on the ground as she looked for an escape.
She murmured a word of excuse and tried not to run as she left the circle, plunging deeper into the grove of trees. She was going to be sick. It was unstoppable and she could not possibly get back to her chamber in time.
She fell to her knees among the thick corded roots of an ancient oak tree. The smell of damp moss and fungus rose up, pungent on the air. Why was it that these days every smell was so pronounced? Smells she would not ordinarily even have noticed?
She leaned forward, retching miserably, trying at the same time to hold back her unbound hair as it swung over her face. Then the swatch of hair was lifted and held away from her. The air was wonderfully cool on the back of her neck, and as the paroxysm passed, the relief it always brought filled her with an albeit temporary sense of well-being.
Except that someone was standing over her, holding her hair clear of her face and neck.
“Is it over?” The voice behind her was Lionel Ashton's. A handkerchief appeared in front of her face as she still knelt among the tree roots.
Dear God! How long had he been standing there? Numbly, overwhelmed with embarrassment, Pippa took the handkerchief. It was bad enough that anyone should have seen her vomit like that, but the idea that it was a man, no, this man, filled her with dismay.
She pushed herself off her knees and stood up, the handkerchief pressed to her mouth. Awkwardly she stepped away from the tree roots. He still held her hair and she stumbled against him. Amid the welter of emotions she could distinguish no single sensation. She was aware of mortification, of a shocking sensual thrill at the press of his body, and then of the familiar strange, unfocused dread in his presence.
She tried to move away from him but he held on to her, her hair still twisted around his hand. “Steady,” he said calmly. “Steady. You're still shaking.”
Pippa didn't know why she was shaking. But she did know it wasn't something to be explained as the simple aftermath of her wrenching nausea. But she felt his hold as unbreakable and for a moment remained quietly against him, aware again of the sharpness of her sense of smell. She could detect musk, sweat, leather, dried lavender, and the ethereal scent of sunshine.
Then he released her and the swatch of hair he held. His hands were on her elbows steadying her as she stepped away from him. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, the little grove wavered around her, and for a ghastly moment she thought she was going to be sick again. Then everything settled down. The trees became their usual still and sturdy shapes and her heart slowed.
Pippa shook her hair back, wishing that she had something with which to tie it. Unbound hair had seemed so right for the day's casual entertainment, and it went so well with her simple low-necked gown of primrose yellow silk that she had fancied had a milkmaid look to it with its puffed and banded sleeves and lace ruching. But when she had dressed that morning she had not given a thought to the difficulties of alfresco nausea. What price vanity? she thought with a grim internal smile.
“Can I get you something?” Lionel asked, his gaze searching her face. She was still very pale, and her nose seemed pinched, longer and thinner than it actually was. Her freckles stood out as if they were on stalks, and her eyes looked bruised. Despite the elegant gown and the perfect circlet of pearls at her throat she looked as scrawny and pathetic as a half-starved waif.
Pippa finally looked up at him. His smile was as sweet and his gaze as compassionate as ever it had been. It drew her to him, seemed to enfold her, offering safety, and something else . . . something paradoxically dangerous.
She found that she was no longer embarrassed. “Bread helps,” she said. “Plain bread.”
“I'll bring you some right away. Rest over here.” He took her arm and led her to a fallen tree trunk. “Sit there, I'll be back in a minute.”
Pippa obeyed without a murmur. There was somethin
g about Lionel Ashton that made the idea of withstanding him quite impossible to imagine. But she was feeling a little weak, she told herself, so it was hardly surprising.
She looked down at his handkerchief that she held scrunched in her hand and thought vaguely that she must give it to Martha to launder before she gave it back to him. Her skin felt clammy and she took her own lavender-scented handkerchief from her sleeve and pressed it to her temples.
Lionel returned with a thick slice of barley bread and a leather flagon. He sat beside her on the tree trunk and gave her the bread.
Pippa broke off a piece of crust and ate it slowly. The effect was instant. Her color came back as the hollow residue of nausea disappeared. She ate the rest of the bread slowly, savoring each crumb and not questioning the intimacy of the companionable silence that had settled over them. A ray of sunlight pierced the leaves above and struck the back of her neck, its warmth sending waves of relaxation down her spine.
“Drink some of this.” He held the flagon out to her.
Pippa was startled by the sound of his voice. It seemed an eternity since she had heard anything but the rustle of a squirrel and the twitter of a bird.
She shook her head. “No . . . no, I thank you. I find I don't care for wine at the moment.”
“This is mead. I think you will find it strengthening.” He continued to hold out the flagon.
Pippa took it, wondering at her newfound docility. It was not that she was ordinarily stubborn or unreasonable, but she tended to have a mind of her own. Now she seemed to have become as wobbly and unformed as an unset quince jelly. The comparison brought an involuntary chuckle to her lips.
“That's a delightful sound,” her companion approved. “Take a drink now.”
Pippa put the flagon to her lips and swallowed. He was right. Where wine these days had an acid metallic taste that turned her stomach, the mead was pure honey, soothing her belly, flowing warm to the tips of her fingers.
“I never thought to try mead,” she said, handing him back the flagon.
“I have some experience of pregnant women,” he offered, putting the stopper back into the neck of the flagon.
Pippa stared at him, shocked at the casual statement. “Your wife . . . you have children?”
“No.” It was a flat negative and she realized that it didn't encourage further probing. However, she was unable to help herself.
“No, you have no wife? Or no, you have no children?”
“I have neither wife nor child.”
“But you have had experience of pregnant women?”
“That is what I said.” Why in hell had he invited this catechism? Lionel wondered, furious with himself for such a slip. He never ever revealed personal details. Never ever let down his guard.
Pippa crumbled the last morsel of bread between her fingers and accepted that she had gone as far as she could. She didn't like the cold flatness of his tone. It didn't go with the sweetness of his smile or the warmth and compassion in his eyes.
She said with a casual shrug, “As yet I have barely acknowledged my pregnancy myself, sir. 'Tis hardly a topic for discussion between strangers.”
“Are we strangers, Lady Pippa?” He laughed softly and he was once more himself. “I do not feel that to be the case.”
“No,” she said frankly. “Neither do I, although I don't know why not. However, Mr. Ashton, I am a married woman, and, as you so rightly assume, I appear to be carrying my husband's child.”
“Quite,” he murmured, stretching his long legs in front of him on the grass. “And those facts should keep us strangers?”
Pippa glanced at him. “You don't think so?”
He shook his head. “No, madam, I do not. One may be friends without impropriety, I believe.”
“Yes,” she agreed slowly. “But I do not choose my friends from among Spaniards and those committed to their cause.”
“Ah.” He nodded solemnly. “You are, of course, loyal to the Lady Elizabeth.”
“That is no secret.”
“No, indeed.” He stood up. “But I fail to see why that should impede our friendship, my dear lady. If I do not question your affiliations, then why would you question mine?” He reached down to take her hands and pull her to her feet. “Friends can agree to differ, I believe.”
Pippa again felt she was being swept along on a tide not of her own harnessing. His hands were warm and strong on her own. The mead was powerful honey in her belly.
“Perhaps so,” she said, and firmly removed her hands from his. “I thank you for your kindness, Mr. Ashton, but pray excuse me now.” She turned from him and flitted, a primrose butterfly, through the trees towards the palace.
Lionel remained in the grove for a few more minutes. So Philip's seed was well sown in the womb of a young, fertile, healthy woman. There was every reason to expect the pregnancy to go full term and produce a sound child.
A child that Spain must not claim.
If there was no child of the English/Spanish alliance, then on Mary's death Elizabeth would inherit the throne, and the hell that was the Inquisition would not consume England's heart and soul as it had devoured the Netherlands' and every other territory where the dread hand of Spain had fallen.
He raised his head and gazed unseeing into the green canopy above. He could still smell it, the smoke of the unseasoned wood that fueled her pyre. He would always smell it, as he would always hear the sullen yet terrified silence of the crowd amid the pious recitations of the priests and the staccato orders of the soldiers.
One piercing scream had escaped her, and then not another sound as the flames from the damp wood crept with agonizing reluctance around her broken body.
And he had had to stand and watch, helplessly bearing silent witness to the horror, swearing vengeance as hatred devoured him with the flames that finally consumed Margaret.
There would be burnings here, too, soon enough, if Philip was able to consolidate his position. But Mary was frail, weakened by a lifetime's ill health, years of deprivation, and her desperate struggle for survival. She was nearly forty, she could not live for many more years. England's agony would be short-lived as long as there was no child that Philip could claim as his own.
Lionel's face was a mask as he continued to stare sightlessly up through the leaves. Behind the mask his mind moved rapidly along well-traveled routes.
It was not possible alone to take on the might that was the Holy Roman Empire and its vile confederates, but there were others who shared his loathing, the devouring force of vengeance. Together they could send Philip of Spain, one arm of that empire, slinking home, driven out by a hostile people, his appetite for England unsatisfied, his emperor father's grand design in ruins.
As long as the marriage produced no child.
Even if Mary conceived, no one expected her to carry a child to term. If she did, then there were those in place who knew how to deal with it. His own task lay with the other strand to the royal plot: Lady Nielson and the child she carried. And what better way to overturn a plot than to be intimately involved in its execution?
The acknowledgment brought a bitter derisory smile to his lips. His plans were already in place. He needed only to gain Pippa's confidence, and he believed he was well on the way to doing that.
One woman's peace of mind was a tiny price to pay for the many thousands of lives that would be saved.
And for the satisfaction of vengeance.
Or so he told himself as he left the grove, directing his steps back towards the voices and music under the beech trees.
“Tell me, Martha, is your mistress quite well, do you think?”
The maid turned from the armoire at the sound of Lord Nielson's voice. “Oh, sir, you startled me. I didn't hear you come in.”
“You were busy,” Stuart observed with an engaging smile. “You are most diligent in caring for my wife.”
Martha, with a gratified air, smoothed the folds of the velvet gown she had been about to hang up in the armoir
e. “I do my best, my lord.”
“Yes, indeed you do.” He closed the door behind him with a snap, and stood leaning against it with a deceptively casual air. He had no desire to be surprised by Pippa's sudden return to her bedchamber.
“So, Martha, have you noticed anything amiss with my wife? Does she appear to be in good health?”
Martha hesitated. She was not in her mistress's confidence, a fact that she resented as much as it puzzled her. Lady Pippa could not possibly imagine that her maid, the woman who served her in the most intimate fashion, would not notice the absence of her terms, the morning's greenish pallor, the fluctuations in her appetite, and yet she had said nothing. It had occurred to Martha that perhaps her mistress didn't recognize the signs, but she had dismissed the thought. Lady Pippa was no naive girl.
But why would she keep her pregnancy a secret? It was advanced enough now to be confirmed. Martha pursed her lips in thought.
“Well, girl?” Stuart's prompting was sharp, his eyes narrowed in impatience.
Martha decided she needed to keep in his lordship's good graces. It wasn't as if Lady Pippa had taken her into her confidence and asked her not to disclose the information.
“My lady hasn't said anything to me, sir, but I think it likely that she's with child,” she said, her eyes downcast, her hands demurely clasped against her skirts.
Stuart felt a great wash of relief. It was over then. Never again would he have to deliver her unconscious to the antechamber. He would have no further part to play. His wife would become now the concern, the property, of the Spanish.
Revulsion and the old fear followed close on the heels of relief. What would happen to them all now? Pippa was safe while she carried Philip's child. Her husband was a necessary prop as the proud father-to-be. But once the child was delivered . . .
But perhaps he could use the pregnancy as a bargaining counter. Perhaps he could now negotiate Gabriel's freedom from persecution. It didn't matter for himself, he deserved whatever Fate, or Philip and his cohorts, had in store, but Gabriel was an innocent. He knew nothing of this.