Murder at Hatfield House: An Elizabethan Mystery

by Carmack, Amanda

  And it made Kate ache with sorrow. With anger at the waste and cruelty of it all.

  “I would gladly have let you kill me there on the road if it meant Princess Elizabeth lived,” Kate said quietly. “She is the only hope any of us have.”

  A hard smile curved Penelope’s lips. “Very noble of you, Kate. And foolish. You will learn, as I have had to do. You will do what you must to survive.”

  “And so I will. But I won’t let you kill anyone else.”

  “You won’t have to. Oh, Kate. Perhaps you will never believe me, but I am sorry. You have always been kind to everyone around you, even me. And I do not deserve it.”

  Penelope suddenly spun around, her right palm sliding up her left sleeve and emerging with a brightly polished dagger. Her eyes widened, and Kate knew that Penelope was about to kill her. Kate feinted to the right and then took a running step the other way, evading the flash of the blade as it slashed down. Sheer panic took over her mind, and all she knew was she had to escape.

  Kate knocked a chest into Penelope’s path, making the other woman stumble. But Penelope leaped up again and scrambled after her. Kate screamed and screamed, the sound echoing through her own head. Penelope grabbed her arm, almost wrenching it out of its socket, and Kate scratched her down the side of the face. She heard Penelope shout, but she also heard something else—footsteps running up the stairs outside the chamber.

  Penelope looked up, a frantic light in her eyes. Before Kate could fathom what Penelope was doing, Penelope spun around and clambered over the window ledge. In a flurry of silken skirts, she vanished into the night. In a mere second, there was a hideous thud—and complete silence.

  Kate screamed in shock and ran to the window. She peered down to the cobblestone courtyard below and saw Penelope crumpled there, like a broken doll. Blood, darker than the night around them, seeped across the stones.

  “Penelope, nay,” Kate whispered. She couldn’t breathe. It felt as if a great hand squeezed at her heart, twisting it, extinguishing it until she was no longer the girl she had been only moments before. The darkness of the blood enclosed her just as it had Penelope.

  CHAPTER 25

  “After all the stormy, tempestuous and blustering windy weather of Queen Mary was overblown, the darksome clouds of discomfort dispersed, the palpable fogs and mists of most intolerable misery consumed, and the dashing showers of persecution overpast; it pleased God to send England a calm and quiet season, a clear and lovely sunshine . . . and a world of blessings by Good Queen Elizabeth.”

  —Holinshed’s Chronicles

  November 17, 1558

  “Are you warm enough, Father? Here, you need another robe.”

  As Kate took a fur-trimmed blanket from the clothes chest, her father laughed and shook his head. “You must cease fussing, my Kate. I am well. I’m home now—am I not?—and not much worse for wear. I have a fine fire, and work to do. You needn’t worry about me so much.”

  But Kate tucked the warm wrap around him anyway. It was true that in the days since her father had returned to Hatfield and the queen’s officers had left, Matthew had been doing well. Cora’s good food had taken away his gaol thinness, and the princess’s doctor had prescribed cordials to cure his cough. Yet his gout seemed to pain him more than ever, and she feared his eyes appeared more faded, more distant. He talked very little, losing himself even more in his music.

  She wished she could lose herself thus as well. The notes and melodies that once carried her away from everything else were elusive now, jangling in her mind like mere noise. Dreams plagued her at night, visions of death and blood she couldn’t be rid of.

  “I like fussing over you, Father,” she said. She went to stir at the embers of the fire. “It is so good to have you home again. Our rooms were much too lonely.”

  “And it is good to be home, for certes,” he answered. “I fear I should have been here for you when—well, when everything happened. You should not have been alone and in such danger.”

  “I wasn’t alone,” Kate said. And indeed she had not been. From the moment Penelope died and Kate’s screams woke the house, she had been surrounded by concerned people. Princess Elizabeth, Rob, Peg, all the household at Hatfield tucking her into bed, pressing possets on her. Yet in her heart she could only feel cold and hollow. “And I am assuredly not alone now that you have returned.”

  “I won’t be here forever, Kate.”

  “Father!” she cried, appalled. “Nay . . .”

  “You know it is true, my dear. I won’t be here forever, and you are a lady now. You need a household of your own.”

  A household of her own? That seemed as distant as the stars. And Kate wasn’t sure she wanted such a thing anyway. “Things are too uncertain right now to think of anything like that.”

  “But you have your mother’s lovely face, and her talent too. You need to get out in the world, meet more people. What about your young lawyer friend?”

  “Anthony? I have heard little of him lately. Master Hardy summoned him to London.” And Anthony had only sent her a short note telling her of his journey, and of his happiness that she was not hurt. Nothing else since that strange, intimate moment between them at their last parting.

  She told herself she didn’t care about that, that he had his own career, his own life to lead. But she knew that wasn’t entirely true.

  “Well, there are plenty of young men out there. Once we are in London—”

  “I think we have enough to consider right now, Father, without trying to marry me off,” Kate said, mustering a laugh. “We have much work to do, with the Christmas season almost upon us. We all need a little cheer now.”

  “Aye, and hopefully we will have more company by then. You need more to do than play nursemaid to me.”

  Kate gave a rueful smile. She sat back on her heels and watched the fire catch and roar higher and higher. “I think I have seen quite enough of the wider world for the time being, Father. I’m not sure I’m made of a courtier’s cloth.”

  “My dear girl. You have seen too little of the world to be bitter about it now. There are many ways to serve a queen, you know. And I daresay fire building is not your best skill. It is so warm out today, we’ll be roasted if you keep that up.”

  Suddenly there was a commotion in the corridor outside their sitting room, the sound of swift, light footsteps and the rustle of skirts.

  Kate barely had time to rise to her feet before the door swung open and Elizabeth stood there. She was dressed in somber dark green, her red hair bound up in a gold knit caul. Kat Ashley, long the princess’s governess and Mistress of Robes, separated from Elizabeth since Wyatt’s Rebellion and her incarceration in the Tower, but now returned to Hatfield, hurried after her to wrap a shawl around her shoulders.

  “Indeed it is a warm day, Kate,” Elizabeth said. “We must not waste such a treasure after all the cold rain. Come walk with us in the garden.”

  “I thank you, Your Grace, but I really should stay with my father,” Kate said.

  “Nonsense,” Matthew said heartily. “You need exercise, my dear, and I need to get on with my work. I shall do very well here for a few hours.”

  Kate studied him uncertainly, but he did seem well settled in for the afternoon. And she would have to face Elizabeth sometime soon.

  “Very well,” she said. “But send Peg for me at once if you have any need of me.”

  “We will not go far,” Elizabeth said.

  Kate took up her cloak, her old dark brown one this time, as the fine red velvet one had been ruined with blood, and followed Elizabeth out to the gardens. In the foyer, just at the base of the grand staircase, Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth’s surveyor and most trusted secretary, sat at a hastily arranged desk, busily writing out lists and documents. He had arrived just as Queen Mary’s officers left, the greatest sign yet of vast changes to come.

  Elizabeth led them briskly along the pathways, Kat Ashley and a few other ladies following, but the princess was much lighter
of foot than they. She took Kate’s hand and drew her along, and soon they were far ahead of the others, beyond the formal pathways and near a grove of old oak trees on the slope of a hill.

  From there the red bricks of the house gleamed in the amber sunlight, warm and welcoming. A maid shook a rug out of an open window, and a dog barked. Everything looked so calm, so peaceful, as if nothing terrible had ever happened in such a beautiful place.

  “Has your arm healed, Kate?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Very well, Your Grace. Peg’s poultices worked wonders. I think there will only be a small scar.”

  “Aye. ’Tis better to hide the scars inside, where others can’t see them.”

  Elizabeth paused to lean back against a tree, narrowing her eyes as she stared off over the empty fields. She twisted her pearl-and-ruby ring around her finger. “Your father is right, you know. You cannot blame yourself for what happened.”

  Kate closed her eyes against the rush of pain. She had gone over and over those words in her own head and still she had no solution, no solace. “I should have seen it was Penelope all along. I let my feelings of friendship blind me.”

  “You did not. Mistress Bassett served me for many months, and she served my cousins before that. I never saw her true intentions, never even guessed them, and I am older than you and have a great deal more experience in courtly deceit. I have been playing this dangerous game since I was three. I didn’t suspect her intentions. But I am only one person, Kate, as are you. A great change is coming very soon. I know that because Mistress Dormer was sent to me by my sister and brought me some of the royal jewels. And when this change does come, I will need many people around me to be my eyes and ears. People I can trust.”

  Kate shivered. She wanted so much to be one of those so trusted, but how could she? She wasn’t sure she could even trust herself. “People such as Cecil and Mistress Ashley?”

  “Aye, of course them. They have been loyal to me since I was a child. But also you. I shall need you to come with me as well.”

  “But I failed you, Your Grace! I did not stop Penelope when I should have.”

  “You never failed me. In fact, you proved your worth. It is your great kindness I need now, Kate. Your sweetness and your steadfastness. Real kindness is rare in this world. You care about people, truly care about them, and that draws them close to you. It persuades them to confide in you, as no one ever would with a queen. And you can go places where I cannot, like kitchens and playhouses. Aye, I shall assuredly need you close to me.”

  Kate turned Elizabeth’s words over in her mind, along with everything that had happened since Lord Braceton stormed into Hatfield. She remembered what Penelope had said, that Kate could never match the cruelty of those who sought to play games of crowns. But her heart was harder now, and her trust was cracked. She would surely never be so easily deceived again.

  Though maybe Elizabeth was also right, and kindness could be an asset and a weapon in itself. Perhaps, with time, she could learn to use it to protect the people she loved.

  Like in music, it took many disparate strands to make a coherent whole, to make a beautiful madrigal.

  “I only know one thing now, Your Grace,” she said. “I will serve you however you require, for as long as you need me.”

  Elizabeth gave a strangely sad smile. “My sweet Kate. I hope you shall never regret those words, for I shall certainly hold you to them.”

  One of the other ladies came dashing up the slope of the hill, the breeze threatening to sweep her cap from her head. “My lady! My lady, riders are approaching.”

  Elizabeth turned and shielded her eyes with her hand. Kate peered over her shoulder to see a large party of riders indeed, thundering through the gates, throwing up clouds of dirt. As they came closer, Kate could see that the leaders were men she recognized from court, the powerful earls of Pembroke and Arundel.

  Elizabeth’s face turned white and her hand trembled, but she stood very still as they galloped nearer. At the foot of the hill, Lord Arundel drew in his horse and slid to his feet. Out of breath, he climbed the hill to kneel before the unmoving Elizabeth.

  “Your Majesty,” he gasped. “I bring tidings from London.”

  He held up his hand, and on his gloved palm gleamed the coronation ring. The large ruby stone that never left a monarch’s hand until he or she was dead. He did not need to say anything else.

  “This is the Lord’s doing,” Elizabeth said, quietly but strongly. “And it is marvelous in our eyes.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I have been fascinated by the Tudors ever since I watched Anne of the Thousand Days on TV when I was about ten! Though I have to admit the gorgeous clothes were a big part of the attraction (and I still love the history of fashion), the big emotions and larger-than-life characters drew me in. I wanted to know more about them, so I ran to the library the day after I saw the movie and asked a very helpful librarian for anything they had about Tudor England. She gave me a large stack of books—and I haven’t stopped reading about this extraordinary time ever since.

  The one image that has always stuck with me most from Anne is that at the very end, of the little red-haired girl in a satin gown, looking up startled at the sound of the cannon announcing her mother’s death. I was amazed to find out that little girl grew up to be Elizabeth I, a figure I had thought of up until then as being almost unreal and impossibly remote, wrapped in the dense symbolism of old, stiff portraits. Queen Elizabeth, and her vibrant, colorful, bawdy, dangerous times, sometimes seem more real to me than my own everyday life of grocery shopping, dog feeding, and yoga classes—and I’m hoping for the next time I get to travel to England!

  With Kate Haywood, I get to immerse myself in Tudor times like I never have before, and I’m so excited about it. Kate, of course, is fictional, though she is somewhat based on the historical figure of Amelia (or Emilia) Lanier, who was a member of the famous musical Bassano family (and is one of the candidates to be Shakespeare’s Dark Lady). Kate is the daughter of a court musician and loves music herself. It’s her whole life—until Princess Elizabeth asks for her help in solving mysteries! Musicians, and performing artists of all sorts, were often in a perfect position to act as spies and mediators. They were generally well educated, mobile both physically and socially, and when they played at banquets and state occasions often overheard useful conversations. An intelligent, talented, and pretty (but not too pretty!) young lady like Kate would have much more freedom than most women in her strata.

  And while Kate and her father (as well as her friends—the lawyer Anthony, the actor Rob Cartman, and the lady-in-waiting Penelope) are fictional, I had fun weaving real historical figures into my plot as well. Among the true characters are: Elizabeth’s keeper-gaoler, Sir Thomas Pope (who actually was not very restrictive); the family of Nicholas Bacon at Gorhambury (who was later Elizabeth’s Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal); the Count (later Duke) de Feria, Philip II of Spain’s emissary (the dinner at Brocket Hall with Lady Clinton, Elizabeth’s old friend “the fair Geraldine”—another true figure!—actually happened much the way I’ve written it, though I have had to fiddle with the timing a bit); and the count’s English fiancée and Queen Mary’s lady-in-waiting Jane Dormer (who lived a fascinating and very long life in her own right, though she makes only a quick appearance in this tale). I loved getting to spend more time with all these people.

  I’ve also loved spending time in their homes and spaces! When I visited Hatfield many years ago, this story wasn’t even in my mind, but since I always take lots of notes and photos at every historical site I visit (and am addicted to buying guidebooks!), I had lots of memories and materials to use for this book. Most of the house Elizabeth knew is gone now, except for Hatfield Old Palace, which gives a taste of what life must have been like for the young princess and her household.

  (Also, if you happen to visit Hatfield, it’s worth a look at the nearby churchyard, where Lady Caroline Lamb and her husband, Lord Melbourne, are buried! Alon
g with the Tudors, I also love the Regency period.)

  I also have to say that, though Queen Mary has to be a villain of sorts in this story, I’ve always felt sorry for her! She is one of the saddest, most misunderstood figures in English history, and I apologize to her for giving her such a vile servant as Lord Braceton.

  I had so much fun visiting Elizabeth’s world for Murder at Hatfield House, and can’t wait to dip into it again for the next story (centered around the queen’s glittering coronation—stalked by a serial killer!). I hope you enjoyed reading it. For more behind-the-book info, Tudor history sources, and lots of fun stuff, visit my Web site at amandacarmack.com!

  Read on for a sneak peek at the next Elizabethan mystery from Amanda Carmack,

  MURDER AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY

  Available from Obsidian in April 2014.

  Whitehall Palace

  “Hurry, Kate! We mustn’t be late.”

  “I am coming!” Kate Haywood called after her friend Lady Mary Everley as she dashed down the palace corridor outside Kate’s chamber. It would be a terrible thing indeed to be tardy taking their places in Queen Elizabeth’s procession to the Tower, where all new monarchs spent the nights before their coronations. Kate was meant to play with the queen’s musicians on the royal barge.

  The queen. How very new and strange those words seemed, and how very wonderful. Queen Elizabeth. It seemed only a moment ago that she was mere Princess Elizabeth, and they were living quietly in the countryside. Now they were in the midst of London itself, stepping into the color and whirl of a real royal court. Into life itself.

  Kate’s head was spinning with the excitement and urgency of it all. Part of her, most of her, wanted to run out and embrace it all. And part of her . . .

  Part of her felt like she was standing tiptoe at the edge of a precipice, about to leap into something dark and unknown. Something that would catch her up like a whirlwind and toss her around until she didn’t know herself any longer.