The Black Madonna (Roundheads & Cavaliers Book 1)

by Stella Riley

  Luciano’s skin became, if possible, even more colourless and for the first time, his eyes focused on Richard’s face. Then he said flatly, ‘They didn’t take anything.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They took the house apart – but didn’t steal anything. Not even a piece of gold wire.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. What’s more – since they chose the night the house was at its emptiest – it seems that the thing was planned.’

  ‘You’re suggesting,’ said Richard slowly, ‘that these weren’t ordinary thieves.’

  ‘That is precisely what I’m suggesting.’

  Richard thought about it.

  ‘What happened in Bristol?’

  ‘Ahiram Webb was caught in bed with a ten-year-old boy and a quantity of raw opium – thus becoming the city’s latest scandal. And before you ask, I didn’t arrange the scenario – just the manner of its exposure. But I doubt Mr Webb will get to be mayor after all.’

  ‘Could he have been behind this?’ Richard gestured to the superficially tidied but ruined parlour.

  ‘Possible but unlikely. In essence, his story was the same as that of Ferrars. Someone blackmailed him – presumably about his dubious personal preferences.’

  ‘So where does that leave you?’

  Luciano shrugged to hide the fact that he was shivering.

  ‘Exactly where I was before. In search of Robert Brandon. Who else is there?’

  ‘Samuel Fisher? Oh – I don’t mean he had your house ransacked. But he sold you the trial record for – what? A few hundred?’

  ‘A few hundred … and a particularly fine emerald ring. You may recall it.’

  Richard did and his brows rose.

  ‘All right. So it wasn’t cheap. But what he sold to you, he may equally have sold to someone else.’

  ‘A copy, you mean? Who’d want it? The only ones who care are those who know anyway,’ said Luciano. ‘To my mind, there are only two possibilities. Either Brandon is the man who blackmailed the other three and is now understandably anxious to stop me getting to him; or there’s a fifth man whose identity I can’t even begin to guess at. I doubt it’s the first because it makes no sense to involve three other men yet not stay out of it himself. The second is just bloody depressing. But either way, I have to find Brandon.’

  ‘You don’t,’ suggested Richard, ‘foresee a small snag?’

  ‘I foresee half a dozen,’ came the edgy reply. ‘If Brandon knows what I’m doing, I’m unlikely to learn anything from him – even if I knew where to find him, which I don’t. And if there’s an unknown deus ex machina watching over me, my first move towards Brandon could occasion either his death or mine.’ He stopped and looked at Richard out of cold purposeful eyes. ‘But at least I’m not walking into it blindfold. And what choice do I have? I can’t stop now.’

  * * *

  They buried Gwynneth on a cold wet day when, all over London, bells were ringing to celebrate Lord Essex’s successful relief of Gloucester. To Luciano, the general rejoicing felt like a personal affront. He went straight from the graveside to lock himself in the workshop for four hours, refusing both to open the door and to speak to anyone through it. Then he came out and started setting up lines of enquiry which he hoped would eventually lead to Robert Brandon.

  By the middle of September he had managed to collect most of the previous quarter’s interest payments, terminated a few old bonds and accepted certain new ones from gentlemen willing and able to leave items of value in his keeping by way of security. He had also begun making a small but select collection of intricately crafted pieces which would find a ready market in France and Italy next spring. Toby was overjoyed. Luciano was glad that somebody was.

  The Brandon trails started leading to the usual brick walls. There was a Robert Brandon in Sussex who turned out to be at least ten years too young and a Robin Brandon in Kent who had spent the whole of 1628 fighting in the Low Countries. Luciano stifled his impatience and had Selim follow up every possible clue. He also took every precaution he could think of to guard both himself and his household. And finally, in reluctant desperation, he crossed the river to Lambeth and tried to see Samuel Fisher.

  He was denied entry. Whatever the state of the house inside, the front door was solid – and locked. Eventually, the same slatternly maid who’d admitted him before stuck her head out of an upper casement and delivered the information that the Justice wasn’t receiving visitors.

  ‘Not even,’ said Luciano, ‘ones who bring him gold?’

  The girl’s head vanished and was replaced by that of the Justice himself, swollen and pendulous as ever.

  ‘Oh – it’s you, is it? The hunchback. Well, you can take yourself off. I’ve nothing to say to you.’

  Luciano stood amongst the weeds, looking up. Stuck incongruously half-way down Mr Fisher’s little finger, his own emerald winked mockingly back at him. He said carefully, ‘Five minutes of your time, on a matter of contractual law. And you’ll be well paid.’

  ‘With that piddling little purse you’re holding?’ wheezed the old man. ‘Forget it. You’ve got nothing I want. Now clear off and don’t come back.’

  The window slammed shut. For a moment, Luciano considered the wisdom of attempting to break in and then decided against it. It hadn’t come to that yet … and it wouldn’t help him to be taken up for house-breaking.

  He was half-way home again before it occurred to him that Justice Fisher hadn’t refused his purse purely out of scorn for its size. He’d refused it because he was frightened.

  * * *

  Two days later Richard came to see him and, without any kind of preamble, said, ‘I’ve found a Robert Brandon for you – though I’ve no idea whether or not he’s the one you want. He sat in the 1629 Parliament – which might make him roughly the right sort of age – and he lives in Yorkshire.’

  Too accustomed to false trails, Luciano remained supremely unexcited.

  ‘Where in Yorkshire?’

  ‘Ah. Well, that’s the problem. I can’t find anyone who knew him well enough to say.’

  There was a small, telling silence. Then Luciano said gently, ‘I don’t want to appear ungrateful, Richard … but Yorkshire is one of the largest counties in England.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And one of the most remote.’

  ‘I know that too.’

  ‘Added to which – having freedom from arrest - members of the House don’t usually need to exterminate those they owe money to.’

  ‘Quite.’ A smile lurked somewhere at the back of Richard’s eyes. ‘So, all in all, it’s just as well you can’t travel north just yet.’

  Luciano looked at him. ‘I can’t?’

  ‘No. You have got to go to Thorne Ash.’

  Silence. Then, ‘It doesn’t,’ he remarked at length, ‘sound very likely.’

  ‘It that’s so, I can only assume that Gianetta’s stopped writing to you.’

  ‘Oh – that.’ Luciano subsided into a chair. ‘Hardly. There were two effusions waiting for me when I got back from Bristol and another’s arrived since. They all say basically the same thing. The sun shines out of Liam Aherne’s backside and she’s determined to marry him. I’ve heard it all before. And though I realise I’ll have to meet the fellow sooner or later and either prise them apart or give my blessing, the matter’s hardly urgent, is it? Unless your lady wife is tired of having him underfoot?’

  ‘It’s not that. Dolly writes that his behaviour is impeccable and she never saw two people better suited or more besotted. No. It’s more serious than that. The Earl of Ormonde has made a truce with the rebel Irish.’

  ‘Hell.’ Luciano sat up. ‘So Mr Aherne will want to go home and Gianetta will want to go with him.’

  ‘And you,’ nodded Richard, ‘are going to Thorne Ash. But don’t worry. If Kate threatens you with a meat-cleaver, I promise to stand by you.’

  The dark brows rose.

  ‘You’re absenting yourself
from the House?’

  ‘And giving myself time to decide whether or not to return,’ came the calm and wholly astonishing reply.

  This time the silence reached epic proportions. Then, ‘Why?’ asked Luciano.

  ‘Because I’m not at all sure I’m prepared to take the Covenant,’ said Richard. ‘But perhaps I’d better start at the beginning?’

  ‘Perhaps you had.’ Luciano rose and reached for the wine-jug. ‘I take it the House is proposing an alliance with the Scots?’

  ‘Yes. Small wonder, is it? Our high command is full of bickering and back-biting and, aside from managing to hold on to Gloucester, our armies have had no successes worth mentioning since the end of May. Until yesterday, that is; and yesterday – so we were told this morning – we won our first major field engagement in over three months at Newbury. But by then, of course, Pym was already in negotiation with the Scots.’

  Luciano handed him a cup of wine.

  ‘All’s fair in love and war? If the King can raise Irish troops, Parliament can raise Scottish ones?’

  ‘Partly. There are other factors, too. The fact that the war has already dragged on for a year and could last another; the defeat of Fairfax in the North; the recent calls for peace from the Lords; and the divisive nature of the various factions that are beginning to rear their ugly heads.’ Richard paused and took a pull at his wine. ‘In practical terms, the alliance makes perfect sense. But what troubles me is the price the Scots are putting on it and the direction in which it’s leading us. It’s not that long since the Scots went to war with the King for trying to force Laud’s prayer book on them. Now we – and everyone who holds a command under Parliament – are required to sign a document that is essentially Presbyterian. And I, for one, can’t see where the difference lies.’

  Luciano stirred thoughtfully.

  ‘What does the Covenant actually say?’

  ‘That we shall defend our religion and resist all those contrary errors and corruptions according to our vocation and to the utmost power that God hath put into our hands,’ quoted Richard dryly. ‘But it’s not what it says that matters. It’s the fact that we’re cluttering what ought to be a purely political treaty with religion – and at the same time opening the way for Presbyterianism to be rammed down our throats by allowing a clause that binds us to bringing the churches of the Three Kingdoms into conformity.’

  ‘Ah. Now that could be a mistake.’

  ‘Exactly. So I’m taking a well-earned holiday in order to give the matter some thought. And you are coming with me to pronounce judgement on your sister’s Irishman … and Toby is coming too so I can keep him under my eye.’ Richard rose and drained his cup. ‘I thought – unless you’ve any objections – that we might leave in the morning.’

  * * *

  At Thorne Ash, the first person to hear from sources of her own of the Royalist disaster at Newbury was Celia. She said nothing of it, however, and the rest of the household was left, as usual, to hear the news from Nathan. Dorothy tolerated his sanctimonious gloating over the heavy losses inflicted on the Cavaliers until he happened to mention that one of the lives lost had been that of Viscount Falkland. Then she rounded on him with the suggestion that next time he saw fit to exhort the Almighty he should ask for something he sorely needed; namely, compassion.

  It seemed no time at all since those bright, lazy days at Far Flamstead; yet now the house itself lay under threat of sequestration and, of those gathered there that summer, Suckling was dead and Lord Brooke – and now gentle Lucius Cary whose wife had been so kind to Eden. A small total, perhaps, when set against the national loss. But after a year of bloodshed, Dorothy found that you started to mourn only the people you knew … such as Kit Clifford and the tenants who had gone off to war with Eden but would never come back. And all the time, you wondered how many more; how many more before it ended?

  Fortunately – before depression had time to get hold of her – Richard’s arrival provided precisely the tonic she needed; and that he should have brought Toby with him was almost overwhelming.

  ‘Oh my dears!’ She tried, and nearly succeeded, to hug them both at once. ‘I can’t believe it. Toby – you’ve grown so! Richard – why didn’t you send us word?’

  ‘I knew it,’ said Richard gloomily. ‘Our beds aren’t made and there’s only turnips for supper.’ He looked around him. ‘So much for the welcoming committee. Where is everyone?’

  ‘Celia’s gone to Far Flamstead, Kate is in the garden somewhere and Tabitha is cosseting her beloved hens.’

  ‘Hens?’ said Toby, with interest. ‘Excuse me.’ And vanished.

  ‘Some things,’ said Dorothy with gratitude, watching him go, ‘never change.’ And then, remaining in the circle of her husband’s arm, she looked challengingly at Luciano del Santi and said, ‘As for Gianetta, I’m afraid she’s out riding with Mr Aherne. Chaperoned by a groom, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ he agreed with the glimmer of a smile. ‘I gather you approve of the gentleman?’

  ‘Wholeheartedly, as it happens. But if you really want my opinion, it’s that you’ve left it a bit late to form one of your own. He wants to leave for Ireland on Wednesday.’

  ‘Accompanied, one presumes, by Gianetta.’ The night-dark eyes surveyed her thoughtfully. ‘One wonders what he was going to do if I hadn’t arrived in the nick of time, as it were. Elope?’

  ‘Well you’d only have had yourself to blame if he had,’ said Dorothy. ‘Goodness only knows Gianetta has written to you often enough. Fortunately, however, Liam’s principles won’t permit him to run off with a girl he’s not married to.’

  The last words, for some reason, caused Richard and Luciano to exchange a mutually knowing glance.

  ‘Dolly, my heart,’ said Richard gently. ‘What is it you’re not telling us?’

  She looked up at him with a suspicion of rueful laughter.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s for me to say.’

  ‘Oh I think it is. What have you done?’

  There was a brief pause; then, ‘Agreed to a wedding,’ came the faintly despairing confession. ‘I didn’t seem to have much choice with Gianetta swearing she’d go anyway. Liam’s hot on the heels of an understandably elusive Jesuit – and we sent a messenger to you yesterday,’ she finished, looking at Luciano and perceiving that his expression had become somewhat strained. ‘I’m sorry if you don’t like it – but, as I said, you should have come before. And, quite honestly, I’d like to see you do any better.’

  The amusement which had been threatening to consume Richard finally did so. He gasped, ‘So would I, my love. So would I. And if he tries telling you what a shock it’s all been – don’t believe him. We met your messenger on the road.’

  * * *

  Gardening had become Kate’s latest passion. It was a pleasant change from helping Jacob with the farm and handling the estate’s finances and it gave her the sometimes welcome chance to be alone. Just now she was tying up those flowers dashed by the recent rain and inwardly lamenting the damage done to her precious roses. She hoped they would pick up again before Liam found his priest or Gianetta might have to make do with a posy of Michaelmas daisies.

  A shadow fell across her and she felt a familiar rush of irritation. Without turning her head, she said, ‘Go and bother your friends in Banbury. I don’t want to talk and I doubt if the plants will do any better for being prayed over.’

  ‘God forbid,’ responded a pleasant voice, ‘that I should attempt the first or presume to the last. But I’ll confess I’m disappointed about the middle one.’

  Kate froze and her nerves snarled into a painful tangle. She had known, ever since they sent the messenger, that he would come – but he was at least two days earlier than she had expected. Not that it should matter. She’d had months in which to plan this meeting. On the other hand, she hadn’t bargained for being caught on her knees or mistakenly assuming him to be Nathan.

  Rising slowly, she turned to face him and felt the cord tig
hten. Nothing had changed. The long, curling hair; the midnight eyes; the high, chiselled cheek-bones; the precise line of his jaw … and his mouth. Oh God. His mouth. He was, as he had always been, utterly breath-taking. She wanted to touch him so badly it hurt; but it was vital, now more than ever, not to let him see it.

  Then, before she could speak, he smiled at her, that slow, dazzling smile … and her bones melted.

  ‘Salve, Caterina,’ he said. And waited.

  She knew what he wanted her to say – but it felt like an admission she ought not to make. She also suspected he knew perfectly well what turning her name into those four, caressing syllables did to her insides. Consequently, she raised her brows and said, ‘I believe I asked you not to call me that.’

  ‘So you did.’ If he was disappointed, it did not show.

  ‘However. At least you’re here. Gianetta will be pleased.’

  ‘And Mr Aherne?’

  ‘Is unlikely to be intimidated. But it will be interesting seeing you try.’

  ‘Is that why you think I’ve come?’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’ He paused, eyeing her reflectively. She might be dressed for gardening but her lashes were still artfully darkened and her posture was pure Whitehall. Her mouth was unintentionally inviting, her eyes were fathomless green pools a man might drown in, and, gilded by the sun, the soft copper hair was fastened back in some half-up, half-down fashion that made his fingers itch. It wasn’t, he decided, the best start. Smiling faintly, he decided to test the waters. ‘I’d hoped we might stop quarrelling. Can we not?’

  ‘Yes.’ She knew that was her cue to bring up the bracelet but she set it aside for a moment and said, ‘Did Gianetta tell you about Kit?’

  ‘Yes. What do you want me to say? That it made me feel worse than I already did? All right – I admit it.’ He made a small impatient gesture. ‘My second sight being no better than most other people’s, I did what seemed right to me at the time. If I miscalculated, I can only ask you to remember that it had been a hell of a day.’