by Jane Feather
“I will sup with Lady Mary’s attendants,” she said, turning back.
“No.” Her brother spoke sharply. “Your work here is done, Sister. From now on you will remain by my side until I can return you to Scadbury. I suggest you tidy yourself for dinner.”
Rosamund said nothing. She returned to her bedchamber, washed, brushed her hair, retied the black velvet ribbon, and went down to the Great Hall.
There was no further opportunity to be alone with Will either before they began the long journey south or during it. But they managed a delightful kind of courtship nevertheless. They would brush up against each other in passing, a contact that had them continuing on their separate ways both wearing a deeply satisfied smile. They would exchange surreptitious glances, and Will in particular would make funny little gestures that reminded Rosamund of something they had done together in their loving, and she would be convulsed with silent laughter even as she struggled to contain a hot surge of remembered sensation.
Neither of them noticed Ingram Frizer’s watchful attention.
They reached London late on the fourth day after leaving Fotheringay. Thomas was irritable. His horse had thrown a shoe earlier that day and it had held them up for two hours. The ladies in the litters were gently complaining about fatigue as they ceaselessly prayed their rosaries in a low, reproachful chant. He wanted to be rid of the whole burdensome charge, including his sister, who, he was obliged to admit, gave him no trouble. But he wanted his own bed, and he wanted Kit in it.
Their first stop was at one of the queen’s houses on the outskirts of London. Here he left Mary’s ladies, handing them over to the Earl of Cumberland, who was to be their guardian and supervise their eventual return to their own families. In much better humor Thomas continued to Seething Lane, where he was to leave his sister.
“We will continue to Scadbury in two days’ time, Rosamund. Sir Francis wishes to talk with you first. I’ll escort you home the day after tomorrow. No doubt you will be glad to return to the peace and quiet of the country.”
“Will you be staying at Scadbury, Brother?” she asked, handing the reins of her mount to a servant. It was a simple enough question, but it carried a burden of implications, and Will listened closely while seeming to examine a crack in the leather of his mount’s harness.
“No, not above a day.”
“Is Master Marlowe at Scadbury?” she asked, all innocence.
Thomas shot her a sharp look. “No, he is in London.”
She smiled. “I see.”
She saw annoyance flash across his face, but he could say nothing. Nothing could be read into the demure statement unless one knew certain things. And once in a while Rosamund felt like pushing her brother close to his limits.
But now she continued as if her statement had never been made. “You are right, Brother. I shall certainly be glad of the peace and quiet of Scadbury. I cannot wait to walk again in the orchard, ’tis quite my favorite spot.” She turned to Will with a bland smile. “I bid you farewell, Master Creighton.”
He bowed from the saddle. “Farewell, Mistress Walsingham.”
With a tiny smile, Rosamund went into the house, Mary’s little terrier curled into her cloak as he had been throughout the journey.
Thomas came for her as promised and Kit rode with him. Rosamund was overjoyed to find Jenny waiting for her in the stables at Seething Lane, and the feeling was mutual. Jenny whickered and nuzzled the crook of her elbow and pranced out of the yard, Rosamund reveling in the familiar feel of her own horse beneath her. Mary’s little dog was left behind. The newly widowed Lady Sidney had been so taken with the animal that Rosamund had readily entrusted the Skye terrier to Frances, privately thankful that she would not have to protect him from the more ferocious variety of hound in residence at Scadbury.
Rosamund noticed immediately that Thomas sported a bruise on his temple and Kit held his right arm awkwardly. But they seemed perfectly in harmony with each other, Kit reciting verses, Thomas complimenting him, and the familiar spark flashed between them, but it no longer made her uncomfortable. She understood it all too well.
“Are you particularly acquainted with the Chevalier de Vaugiras, Thomas?” she asked as they remounted after the ferry ride to the far bank of the river. Nothing in her demeanor showed the tension she felt. She had been longing for the right moment to ask the question, and her hands were clammy in her kidskin gloves.
Thomas, from the back of his piebald gelding, swiveled to look at her, his gaze both startled and forbidding. “And what, pray, do you know of the chevalier, miss?”
She shrugged. “Nothing more than that he is a courtier. I danced with him once or twice. I found him amusing.” She kept her eyes on the road ahead. “I just thought of him. I don’t know why.”
“Well, you’d do well not to think of him again,” Thomas declared. “He offended her majesty in a joust by unhorsing his opponent and has been all but banished from court.”
“Oh? Has he returned to France?”
“I neither know nor care.” Thomas slashed his whip against the gelding’s flanks and the animal leaped forward, passing Rosamund and Jenny. Kit, with one of his wild halloos, kicked his mount and he passed Rosamund in a mad gallop. She held Jenny to a canter, following their careening progress down the lane.
Had Arnaud’s banishment from court been engineered in some way by Sir Francis? Master Secretary had said he would deal with the chevalier in his own way, and Rosamund had no doubt at all that he would be true to his word. It might seem hard to imagine Sir Francis’s hand at work to disrupt a friendly joust, but only a fool would underestimate his power to influence events. Either way, Arnaud was no longer at court. So where did that leave Agathe?
Rosamund shook her head, dismissing the question for the moment. She had her own secrets and was content to follow her brother and his lover at her own pace. Will knew she would be alone at Scadbury. Will knew that the orchard was her favorite place to walk and to draw. He would find her there.
Chapter Thirty
FRANCIS WALSINGHAM KEPT to the rear of the hall at Hampton Court Palace. His queen was not in charity with any of her councilors after her cousin’s execution, which she insisted had not received her blessing. She was sitting in state this afternoon, the train of her erminetrimmed, turquoise velvet robe flowing at her feet. She wore a circlet of turquoise and diamonds in her red wig, its long side locks falling to her shoulders, and a wide cartwheel ruff on which her head seemed to rest like the head of John the Baptist on Salome’s charger.
Francis turned his narrow-eyed gaze to where Lady Leinster stood in a group of courtiers close to the queen. She seemed less assured than usual, he reflected. Her lover’s continued absence from court seemed to take something from her, some of the light that had made her such an attraction for men and women alike. But she too must be brought down, however inadvertent her part. No one interfered with a Walsingham.
The queen, if she had not already done so, would find the incriminating papers among the state papers he had delivered to her privy chamber that afternoon. Rosamund’s sketch would arouse the queen’s interest, and the neatly penned, anonymous accusation of a forbidden liaison between the two parties would as surely fan the fire as bellows to a blacksmith’s forge. Walsingham knew his queen well, and he knew that in her present mood, out of charity with almost everyone surrounding her, looking for someone, anyone except herself, to blame for her cousin’s execution, she would have no tolerance for a clandestine liaison between two of her favorites.
As he watched, he saw one of her gentlemen approach Lady Leinster. Agathe looked startled and then approached the dais, curtsying low before the queen in her chair of state. Elizabeth looked at her in frigid silence for what seemed a very long minute, then she spoke. “I am no longer pleased to have you at my court, Lady Leinster. You will leave by sundown. I suggest you go to your paramour. I’m sure he’ll welcome you. I wish to see neither of you again.” The queen then turned her shoulder to t
he frozen Agathe and began to talk with the Countess of Pembroke and Lord Leicester, who stood beside her chair.
Sir Francis, had he been a different man, could have felt compassion for the woman, so publicly disgraced. Agathe’s countenance took on the gray hue of dead ashes. Her hand went to her throat, adorned with a magnificent pearl collar. For a moment it looked as if she were choking, then she swayed. A compassionate hand went to her elbow, steadying her as she walked down the steps to the main body of the hall. People fell away from her as she crossed the vast expanse of the Great Hall, to the double doors at the far end, and behind her the whispers started.
Walsingham edged his own way out of the hall in her wake. He found her sitting on a bench in the corridor outside, plying her fan, her lovely purple eyes shocked in her deathly pale countenance. “Lady Leinster.” He bowed and, without waiting for permission, took a seat beside her. “You were not expecting such a decree.”
She turned to look at him, a wildness now in her eyes. “How should I have been? How could the queen know . . . ? Who could have . . . ?” She buried her face in her hands.
“You are wondering how the queen could know of your liaison with the Chevalier de Vaugiras,” Walsingham stated matter-of-factly. “I think, madam, that you probably relied too much on the discretion of your companions. It is never wise to believe one’s secrets are honored.”
She looked blankly at him, then rose from the bench and walked away.
Francis nodded to himself and left the palace, walking briskly to the water steps where his barge awaited. Ingram Frizer was sitting on the quay, idly whittling a piece of stick with his dagger. He got up as the secretary emerged from the alley of plane trees. Walsingham gave him his instructions and entered the barge, wrapping his cloak tightly around him against the wind as he settled in the stern and the bargemen began the long pole down the river.
Agathe left the palace by road, her carriage rattling over the rough dirt tracks through tiny villages and then across the uneven cobbles of the city itself. The carriage stopped outside the Golden Cock on the Strand and she hurried inside. It was a cold evening, with a bitter wind. Arnaud would surely be at home.
Arnaud was indeed within, working on a chess puzzle by the blazing fire in a warm and welcoming chamber. He looked up from the board in surprise as she stood in the doorway, white-faced and shivering.
“Agathe, ma chère. Whatever brings you here tonight? The court is at Hampton Court, is it not?”
“Yes, and I am not.” She rubbed her gloved hands together, her face pinched and cold. “We are discovered, Arnaud. We are both banished.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
He stared at her for a moment as if not sure he had heard her aright. “How did this happen?” He uncurled himself from his chair and poured wine into two cups on a table beneath the window. His voice was calm, but his eyes belied his tone. “When were you told this?”
“The queen herself . . . she was sitting in state . . . I was summoned and banished in front of the whole court.” Tears started in Agathe’s eyes and she gulped at the wine, her slender shoulders still shivering. “In front of everyone, Arnaud . . . so dreadful . . . so humiliating.”
“And what of me?” The question was harshly spoken and he seemed unaware of her distress.
Agathe swallowed. “My paramour . . . the queen told me to go to my ‘paramour’ . . . that we would never be welcome at court again. Walsingham said—”
“Walsingham? What has he to do with any of this?” Arnaud’s voice was as harsh as before, his eyes like hot coals.
Agathe looked frightened. “I . . . I do not know, Arnaud. But he sought me out . . . said I should never trust the discretion of those around me. He spoke your name . . . he knew . . .” Her voice trailed away.
The chevalier turned away from her, his expression unreadable.
Rosamund waved farewell to her brother and Kit as they rode away from Scadbury. She felt the emptiness of the house around her as a benediction. The servants were in residence, of course, but there was no one to watch her, to call for her, to ask her what she was doing, where she was going. She was truly her own mistress, mistress of her time. And she had but one question: When would Will come?
She took her cloak and went out into the blustery morning, making her way to the orchard. The weather hardly lent itself to alfresco assignations. If . . . when Will came, she would have to contrive some more comfortable bower than a leafless apple orchard.
She walked beneath the bare trees, the grass damp underfoot, thinking. Will would not venture to Scadbury until he was certain Thomas was back in London, so she had a day or two to come up with a solution. It couldn’t be in the house. She couldn’t risk any of the servants discovering her secret. By the same token, the stables and domestic outbuildings were out of the question. Then she remembered. The charcoal burner’s cottage at the edge of the deer park. The itinerant charcoal burner was an annual visitor in the early autumn when the trees were thinned in the woods around the estate. He stayed usually until after Christmas, then went on to the next estate. His cottage stood empty the rest of the year, but it was snug enough, and sufficient charcoal was always lying around to make a decent fire.
With a gleeful little half skip, Rosamund left the orchard and walked briskly to the clearing in the thick coppice. The little stone cottage, with its slate roof, stood in the middle of the clearing with a small pile of discarded charcoal by the door. Inside it was dusty, a tapestry of spiderwebs lacing the windows. A narrow cot with a pile of rags stood against one wall, and the charcoal brazier was in the center of the single room.
Blankets and pillows for the cot, a flagon of wine, bread and cheese, winter apples, and maybe some sweet delicacy from Mistress Riley’s kitchen. Thus furnished it would be a perfect love nest.
She left the cottage, hurrying back to the house, intent on acquiring what was needed. Ingram Frizer hovered on the edge of the coppice. What was the lass up to? Unfortunately he couldn’t at the moment hang around Scadbury to find out. He had work to do for Master Secretary that must take precedence over his own nosing out of secrets. None of his masters had expressed an interest in Mistress Rosamund, or indeed in Master Creighton, but then none of them had seen what he had.
Will came to the orchard two days later. He left his horse in the village and approached the walled estate on foot. Bare branches of apple trees scraped the top of the wall on the south side, and he looked for a foothold in the brickwork. A toehold offered, about halfway up, and he made a leap for it, grabbing the top of the wall as his boot scrabbled for purchase. He transferred his hold to the branch of the tree and hauled himself up until he was sitting on the wall looking down into the orchard and the neat rows of fruit trees.
Rosamund stood laughing a few feet away, one finger pressed to her lips. He grinned and swung himself down to the soft ground. She came into his arms, face uptilted for his kiss. “I guessed you would come today,” she murmured when he raised his head for a moment. “Did you see Thomas in London?”
“I passed him in Seething Lane. Your cousin is sending him to Ghent, and judging by his expression the prospect was unpleasing.”
“I daresay because he will be separated from Kit Marlowe,” Rosamund mused. “They have not had overmuch time together in recent weeks.”
Will looked at her curiously. “They are good friends then, your brother and the playmaker?”
Rosamund’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Friends and more. I’m surprised you didn’t know it.”
Will looked at her askance. “They have an unnatural relationship? Is that what you’re saying?”
She shrugged, the mischief still sparking in her green eyes. “I don’t know about unnatural. From what I have seen, the passion between them is entirely natural.”
Will was for a moment shocked at this casual statement. “Rosamund, that is heresy. How could such a gently bred maid say such a thing?”
She went into a peal of laughter. “Will . . . Will .
. . there is nothing gently bred about me, my dear. Thomas has never sheltered me from the less acceptable aspects of the world. Oh, admittedly, on occasion his conscience would trouble him and he’d tell me to forget whatever it was I had heard or deduced from some remark, and I would dutifully promise to do so.”
Her laughter died and her suddenly intense gaze was fixed upon him. Her voice was low and seductive. “If I had done so, I would not have created a love nest for us. Come.” She took his hand with an imperative tug.
Will laughed, caught her to him for another fierce kiss, before letting her lead him through the orchard. In the charcoal burner’s clearing he looked at the cottage, then looked at Rosamund, eyebrows lifted. “What is this?”
“A love nest. I told you.” She pulled him with her to the door. “We will light the brazier, everything is ready. If you wish to eat or drink, we can do that, or . . . ?” She let her sentence trail suggestively away. She unlatched the door and pushed it open.
Will stood on the threshold looking around the small, square room while Rosamund with flint and tinder lit an oil lamp and then the charcoal already set in the brazier. Both ignited with a flare and the charcoal roared into a full burn.
“Will you drink?” she asked, lifting a flagon from the rickety table.
“Later,” he said, his voice husky. He threw off his hat and his cloak, heedless where they fell, and lifted Rosamund off the floor, holding her high for a moment, looking up into her face. “Oh, you are so lovely.”
She smiled with pure pleasure, warmed to her core by the oft-repeated words that never failed to delight her, to fill her with an engulfing desire. She wrapped her legs around his hips and kissed him, biting his lip with a savage need, tasting blood on her tongue. Will moaned softly and carried her to the cot, tossing her down, his own eyes filled with ferocious need. He bent over her, throwing up her skirts, baring her to her waist, and knelt over her, stroking her white belly, her flanks, the soft thighs, before he bent and kissed her, his mouth moving down between her thighs, finding her essence, the little nub of aroused flesh, in a caress that made her hips dance.