Scandal's Mistress (A Novel of Lord Hawkesbury's Players)

by C. J. Archer

  Outside, they waited in the fading light of dusk until the maid brought the horse. Warhurst helped Alice to mount then he took the reins and walked alongside the plodding animal. The poor mare seemed weary or perhaps just old, and it trudged along Bishopsgate Street Without toward the city gate as if it had made the journey a thousand times before.

  “I’m not sure how I’ll explain this at home,” Alice said, more to herself than Warhurst. He’d been silent ever since they left Marlowe’s rooms. Not that she minded. The silence helped her to think.

  The fight, the cut, the new information…there was so much to take in. It had all happened so fast. It hadn’t helped that her mind had become further scrambled by Warhurst’s display of tenderness. She no longer knew what to think.

  On top of that, there was the rather alarming realization that she actually liked him.

  “Then you can’t go home,” he finally said. His voice was low and gravelly, seeming to resonate from the depths of him.

  “Then where am I to go?”

  “Home with me.”

  CHAPTER 10

  When they arrived at Warhurst’s house, Alice understood why he’d avoided Dowgate Street after they alighted from the wherry. He lived on it. His avoidance of the street must have sprung from not wanting to see anyone he knew. And not wanting them to see Alice.

  It was a sensible decision considering their business arrangement and the delicate nature of their investigation. But it still hurt.

  Not quite as much as her arm. The stinging had subsided, replaced by a dull throb. He directed the horse to the stables at the rear of the residence, which stood almost opposite the Skinners Guild’s Hall. Even in the semidarkness she could make out the house’s grand brick and timber facade, twin gables, and at least six chimneys soaring into the sky. Even more amazingly, it was detached from its neighbor on the south side so that, positioned as it was on the hill, anyone looking out of the oriel windows jutting from the upper levels could see over the rooftops down to the river.

  Warhurst led her inside from the courtyard. He now seemed not to care who saw her. A tall, serious servant met them and silently took Warhurst’s hat and sword. He did not glance at Alice although he must have been curious about the plainly dressed woman his master had brought home.

  “Who is here, Greeves?” Warhurst asked.

  “Lady Warhurst and Mistress Blakewell are supping together in Mistress Blakewell’s withdrawing room,” Greeves said. “Master Blakewell is supping at Mistress Peabody’s tonight. Shall I send someone to inform Lady Warhurst of your return?”

  “God no.” He inclined his head at Alice. “This is Mistress Croft. She has injured her arm and the wound requires attention. Send for the wise woman Mother uses. We’ll be in…”

  “The Rose Parlor?” Greeves suggested.

  “I think the kitchen. It’s out of the way.”

  “Very good, my lord.” Greeves hesitated, his gaze flicking to Alice’s. She lifted her chin.

  “Yes?” Warhurst prompted the servant.

  “May I ask how long Mistress Croft will be staying? Do I need to direct one of the maids to prepare a guest room?”

  One of the maids? Just how many were there? Alice swallowed. Of course in a house this size there must be several. There would be too much work for just one.

  “Do so,” Warhurst said. “She’s staying overnight.”

  Alice’s pulse jumped. She’d suspected that was his plan but had not really believed it until now. The thought of staying in this grand house, under the same roof as nobility, sent a prickle of excitement along her spine. Not to mention the close proximity to Warhurst himself.

  “We’ll need to send a message to my father,” she said.

  “I know.” He sounded grim. “We don’t want to alarm your parents. If we assure them that you are well chaperoned here then perhaps they will not be concerned, but…what excuse can we offer?”

  Alice had a thought. “Tell them I’m staying at Mistress Peabody’s tonight, not here. They will think she and I were sewing her gown and it simply grew too late to wander home in the dark. They know she lives alone with her elderly father so they might not question that.”

  Warhurst frowned and looked like he wouldn’t agree so Alice simply gave Greeves directions to her house.

  “You’d better wait until it has grown darker,” she said. “To make it more believable. And don’t send anyone in livery.”

  Greeves left and Alice turned to Warhurst. “Why are you not informing your mother?” Wouldn’t it be wiser to tell her before one of the servants did?

  “I need time,” he said.

  “What for?”

  “To think up a story to explain this.” He waved a hand at her arm.

  “Why not tell her the truth?”

  “Because…” He huffed out a breath. “Because sometimes the truth makes simple things more complicated.”

  She had no idea what that meant but didn’t feel like pressing him. Her arm really hurt. “I suppose you’d better tell me where the kitchen is. Or have your manservant take me.”

  “I’ll take you.” He put a hand to her back and gently shepherded her down a corridor. “And Greeves is my half brother’s steward, not mine. He’s the most important servant in the house, so if you require anything during your stay, he’s the one to ask.”

  “Your brother’s steward? Is this not your house?”

  His hand dropped away. “It’s Blake’s,” he said flatly.

  “But you are the older brother. Did your father leave this house to him and another to you?” These were impertinent questions but she’d earned the right to ask him. In addition to which, she was simply curious. It was one small way to find out more about this enigmatic man.

  “This was my stepfather’s house, not my father’s,” he said. “Blake was his heir.”

  “Oh.” She knew they were half siblings of course, but she’d assumed the house belonged to Warhurst and they’d decided as a family to live together for the time being. A happy thought. But she knew the brothers didn’t get along, so it couldn’t be that. So why didn’t Warhurst find a house of his own in London?

  She caught a whiff of cinnamon and the question was forgotten as he led her down a corridor past the buttery and pantry. The scent grew stronger and her stomach growled in hunger. They entered the kitchen and two women kneading dough at the large central table immediately curtsied. Alice felt like an imposter. They should not be curtseying to her.

  The elder of the women suddenly dropped her formality and beamed at Warhurst. “Ah, my lord, you smelled my apple pie, I’ll wager. You never could stay away from it as a boy.” She wiped her flour-covered hands on her apron and shooed the younger maid away. “Go get some pie, Meg, and bring it here for his lordship.” She indicated a bench seat. “Sit, my lord, sit. You too,” she said to Alice.

  Alice smiled and slid into the seat. Warhurst sat beside her. “I can never refuse a slice of your pie, Cook,” he said, rubbing his hands together.

  “More like two or three slices,” Cook said with a hearty chuckle that made the web of red lines on her cheeks stand out more. “Come on, Meg.” She flapped her apron at the young maid. “Don’t want to keep his lordship and his lady waiting.”

  “Mistress Croft,” Warhurst corrected.

  Meg placed the pie on the table and handed him the knife. He cut two triangular slices and pushed one in Alice’s direction. She watched him eat his slice in four bites while she nibbled at her own.

  “Eat up!” Cook said, pushing the pie closer to Warhurst. “You could do with some fattenin’, Mistress Croft, if you don’t mind my sayin’. I think there’s some beef left somewhere.”

  “No thank you, this is good,” Alice said between bites. “Delicious. I always thought my mother made the best apple pie in all London, but it’s nothing like this.”

  Cook beamed. Meg, standing beside her, seemed to relax. Warhurst cut himself another piece of pie.

  If the women thou
ght it unusual that their master’s noble brother had brought a woman—one whose mother cooked for her family—into their kitchen, they didn’t let on. Perhaps it was a common occurrence. Or they’d been warned ahead by Greeves and they were very good at covering their thoughts.

  “Excellent,” Warhurst said, dusting the crumbs off his fingers.

  “There’s more,” Cook said, pushing the pie closer again. It bumped Alice’s wounded arm, resting on the table.

  She sucked air between her teeth as pain flared. She snatched her arm back and cradled it against her body.

  “Are you all right?” Warhurst asked, gently taking her arm. “Let me see.”

  “What’s happened?” Cook asked, leaning closer as Warhurst rolled up Alice’s sleeves and untied the ribbon that held the cloth bandage in place. “Ooh, that looks nasty. Knife?”

  “Sword,” Alice said without thinking, earning a narrow glare from Warhurst.

  “That why Greeves sent my boy to fetch Sweet Mary?”

  “Sweet Mary?”

  “The wise woman,” Warhurst said. “Mother uses her for everything.”

  “No fancy physicians here,” Cook said. She made a huffing sound and wiped her hands on her apron again. “They’ll just check your piss and send you to Sweet Mary anyway. Charge you six quid for the tellin’ too.” She thumped her fist into the dough she’d been kneading. “Might as well go straight to Sweet Mary first and save yourself the coin.”

  Warhurst inspected the wound, his warm hands cradling Alice’s arm. Her insides danced a little jig and her skin tingled all over. To be touched with such gentleness by a potent, powerful man…it was almost too much for her poor overloaded nerves.

  He removed his hands and the spell broke when Greeves entered, a woman of middling age with smooth skin and gray hair behind him. Sweet Mary. She went to work quickly, first washing the wound in water and vinegar then applying a poultice from a pot she’d brought with her. It stank. “Marigold paste stops it festering,” she said. She reapplied a new cloth around the wound, from wrist to elbow.

  “Don’t use the arm,” Sweet Mary said, tying off the cloth ends. “And don’t take that bandage off for two days.” She packed her jars, cloths, and other implements into her satchel and tucked it under her arm.

  Warhurst thanked her. “Greeves will pay you on your way out.”

  She waved a hand. “Pay me when I check on your sister later in the week,” she said, already out the door. Greeves followed her.

  “Wait,” Cook said, wiping her hands on her apron and striding after them. “I’ve got a complaint needs seein’ to. So’s Meg, haven’t you, Meg?”

  Meg frowned. “I don’t—” Cook grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the kitchen.

  Alice found herself alone with Warhurst. He sat on the bench seat beside her, so close their shoulders almost touched. Their knees too, under the table. She swallowed and tried to think of something to say.

  “Thank you for taking care of me,” she said. It sounded so pathetic considering all he’d done for her, and how tenderly he’d done it.

  He slid out from the seat and strode across to the yawning fireplace. Small flames licked a single log of wood, keeping warm a pot suspended from a hook above.

  Warhurst stood with his back to the hearth, his hands out of sight behind him. “How does your arm feel now?”

  She looked down at the new bandage. “It hurts less.”

  “Sweet Mary’s potions work better than anyone else’s, so we’ve discovered.”

  She nodded. “That’s good.” Lord, what a dull thing to say!

  He nodded too and that was the end of that conversation. She waited for him to say something else, perhaps show her to her room, but he did not.

  “We’ll wait here until your room is ready,” he said as if reading her mind.

  So that was it. He wanted to keep Alice out of the way until he could usher her into a room and shut the door on her, the Problem. He didn’t want his mother and sister to stumble across her, didn’t want them to see the seamstress.

  Surely he knew he couldn’t delay the meeting forever.

  “What did you think of Marlowe’s discovery?” he suddenly asked.

  “You want my opinion?” It sounded bitter. She didn’t care. She’d never felt more like an outsider, like she didn’t belong. Before, when his servants surrounded them, she’d felt as if she was accepted, but that was perhaps because she was one of them, the hired help. She was not good enough for the likes of Lady Warhurst or Lilly Blakewell. Not outside the theatre at least.

  She desperately wished she was home, warming herself in her mother’s kitchen, listening to her sisters’ idle chatter.

  “Of course,” he said, incredulous. “I value it.”

  “Really.” She pretended to study the bandage on her arm but in truth she was avoiding looking at him so he would not see the tears welling.

  “Yes,” he said. She did not see him shrug, but rather heard it in the word. “I thought you knew that.”

  “I do not pretend to know anything of your thoughts, Warhurst.”

  He drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “It’s been a long day and your arm is sore. As soon as your room is ready you must retire.”

  Must she? She sat back and crossed her arms, then uncrossed them when the bandage reminded her she needed to be careful. “I think he told the truth.”

  “Marlowe? So do I.”

  “But do you think the missive will reveal that Lord Hawkesbury’s father was a plotter like he claims? The current earl doesn’t seem like a Papist.”

  “Perhaps he’s not,” he said. “Or perhaps he hides it well. Many do.”

  Every plot to overthrow the Protestant queen could be traced back to Catholic dissidents. Her Majesty was rightly suspicious of anyone who practiced the faith of the Roman Catholic church, issuing steep fines to those who didn’t attend a Church of England service on Sundays. But it hadn’t stopped the plotters. The execution of her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, only two years before, was still fresh in everyone’s minds.

  If the previous Lord Hawkesbury had been involved in a plot, then his son would naturally be someone the queen would want watched—whether he were guilty or not.

  “Regardless of his faith,” Warhurst said, turning to the fire, “I don’t think he is involved in anything treasonous.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Lilly is an excellent judge of character and I don’t believe she would fall in love with a murderer, of royalty or otherwise.”

  She’d not thought Warhurst naïve before. Not when it came to matters of the heart. He might respect his sister but surely he knew that love could be blind. As could lust, infatuation, and desire. She was considering whether to disagree with him when Lady Warhurst and Lilly Blakewell entered the kitchen.

  “Ah, there you are, Leo,” said Lady Warhurst, sweeping through the doorway in a cloud of black skirts. Her gaze flicked from her son, facing the fireplace, to Alice sitting at the table, her bandaged arm resting on the surface near the abandoned dough.

  Alice rolled her sleeve down and quickly stood to bob a curtsy, an awkward thing to do while hemmed between seat and table.

  “Hello,” said Lilly with a warm smile. “You’re from the theatre, aren’t you?” Warhurst’s half sister was a little paler and thinner than the last time Alice had seen her some weeks before at the White Swan. She’d been accompanied by her mother then too and had met Lord Hawkesbury, who’d been backstage encouraging his players after what had been a mediocre performance. Despite her lack of good health, she was just as beautiful as she had been then with her dramatically dark hair and vibrant green eyes. So like Warhurst in that respect, only Lilly’s features were pale and touched by serenity whereas her brother’s were as hard as rock.

  “I’m Alice Croft, daughter of the tiring house manager.” There seemed to be no need to mention which company. The name Lord Hawkesbury was on everyone’s mind if not their lips.

  �
��Ah, yes, I remember now,” Lilly said. “Min tells me you will be making her wedding gown?”

  “Yes.”

  “Welcome to our home. You have an injury?” She nodded at Alice’s arm, now covered by the sleeve.

  “A small cut. Nothing of concern.”

  “Enough to call Sweet Mary here,” Lady Warhurst said without looking at Alice. Her sharp gaze was aimed directly at her son, who returned it with a glare that stamped him as the noble baron. “Greeves informed us that you were hiding down here with Mistress Croft and that the wise woman had been summoned to tend an injury done to the…girl.” Had she been about to say seamstress? Or whore? Whatever she thought of Alice, she kept her opinions to herself. Much like her son. The two of them wore identically severe expressions that gave little away.

  “We are not hiding,” was all he said.

  His mother made a sound of disbelief in the back of her throat. “I’ve also been informed that you have had a room prepared for her.”

  “This house was closer than the Crofts’. It made sense to tend to her injury here. I wasn’t sure if Sweet Mary would travel to a strange house late in the day but I knew she would come here and not ask questions.”

  “Does her family know?”

  “A message has been sent.” It wasn’t exactly a lie but nor was he telling her the entire truth—the message stated that Alice was at Min’s. Warhurst’s gaze remained fixed on his mother’s. There wasn’t a hint that he’d not been honest with her.

  “Thank heaven you at least thought of that.” She turned to Alice for the first time since her entrance and let her gaze sweep down the length of the younger, taller woman. But only once. Then she turned away. “Welcome, Mistress Croft. If you’ll be so kind as to come with me.”

  Lilly took Alice’s good arm and together they followed her mother out of the kitchen. The dowager baroness’s black silk skirt rippled like a stream over pebbles, and a hint of rosewater drifted back to Alice, walking in her wake. Warhurst brought up the rear as they made their way down the corridor to a wooden staircase. Alice didn’t dare look back at him but she was all too aware of his presence, solid and near at her back.