Face Down among the Winchester Geese (22 page)

Not an easy woman to live with.

He'd needed Eleanor and others like her. A man had to have someone to admire him, praise his prowess, encourage his efforts. Oh, Susanna was agreeable enough when it came to helping him advance at court now, but under Queen Mary she'd nearly ruined everything by allowing men of the New Religion, those forced to flee into exile to avoid arrest, to shelter at Leigh Abbey on their way abroad. It did not matter that Robert had professed to be of that faith when Edward was king. Everyone had abandoned Catholicism then. Religion was a political issue, as far as he was concerned, but Susanna had never wavered. She had been brought up in the faith King Henry made and had kept to its tenets even during the five years of Mary's reign.

He'd be a good Papist in Spain. Robert grimaced. King Philip had the Inquisition to enforce piety. That alone was reason enough to leave Susanna behind.

Susanna.

He'd ordered her to London, insisted she return as quickly as possible from the brief trip to Leigh Abbey, because she gave him a respectable image and an excuse to leave Whitehall without explaining his absences. His friends at court believed he went home to his wife every night. No one questioned his movements, even when he vanished for several days at a time.

Susanna insisted she wished only to clear his name, but if that were true, she'd have accepted his arguments for Cordoba's guilt. Damn Eleanor for going to Leigh Abbey. Damn this child for being born. Susanna's behavior was naught but her way of taking revenge. Why else would she so stubbornly pursue the matter of Diane's death?

He drank more ale and brooded.

Her resentment went back to the beginning of their marriage. She had never liked being under his control, had demanded and gotten unheard-of rights from him in a weak moment. Mayhap now she'd decided she'd prefer to be a widow.

But if he were executed for murder, or for treason, she would not get control of his entire estate. Everything he owned would be forfeit to the Crown. Scowling, Robert drained his cup and refilled it. She'd have her dower rights. And the profits from those damned herbals she kept writing. She'd also have her wits.

Aye, widowhood would suit her. And the way Pendennis danced attendance on her, she could marry again if she chose.

She would not do so, he thought. His lips twisted into a wry grimace. She'd rather exist in poverty than subject herself again to the whims of a man. Under the law, widows gained the rights to manage their own estates and to choose to marry again or not.

Unless they were royal. He chuckled into his ale. Any royal lady had to get the queen's permission to wed or she ended up in the Tower of London. Unless some kindly soul kidnapped her. He toasted the air and drank again, renewing his vow to complete what he had begun. He would use Susanna's name to lure the Lady Mary into the trap. Aye. She'd help him, though she'd know it not.

The court would be on the move soon. It could not be soon enough to suit Robert Then he would leave England.

But he would return one day. Nothing had ever altered his desire to see a king on the throne of his homeland. Lord Guildford Dudley would have been ideal, but Lord Guildford was long dead. Now the only choice left was a Spaniard. Either King Philip would come with an armada and conquer this island nation, or a child born to the Lady Mary by Don Carlos would claim the throne when Queen Elizabeth died.

Or was assassinated.

Yes, he would return ... and still be legally bound till death to Susanna.

There was a sobering thought, especially when Robert realized that, in spite of the antagonism between them, he would probably miss her while he was in Spain.

She was a challenge. Someone he could never quite comprehend. It confused him that she'd waited to tell him about his bastard daughter. And yet she had taken steps to make sure the child was not in want. Susanna was not a vindictive person. She had already given mother and daughter a home.

Why hadn't she told him about Rosamond sooner?

Had she been saving the information to use when it would most hurt him?

It wasn't as if he'd ever flaunted his women in his wife's presence. The last few years he might have grown insensitive where her feelings were concerned. He was not proud of that. But he'd never set out to hurt her.

This was all Diane's fault.

He drank deeply, then drank again.

The Frenchwoman had presented a danger to his plans, making demands on his time and energy, directing unwanted attention to him. He was glad she was dead. Her murder had solved a problem for him. Too bad it had created more.

At the thought of that night with Diane, a loneliness descended, an almost unbearable need for the kind of comfort only a warm female body could offer. Not Susanna. God, no. He wanted as far her opposite as he could get.

"Small and dark,” he muttered, and laughed.

A memory stirred. He knew where to find one such, one who had not yet been listed on Susanna's tally of victims. Was she still there, or had she fled, alerted to the danger she was in by Susanna's investigation?

Robert had imbibed far too freely to be deterred by the downpour. He slammed out of the inn chamber, calling for someone to saddle his horse.

"Three nights past, during the great storm, your husband came looking for me at the Sign of the Smock."

Petronella's words worried Susanna. She'd known something was amiss the previous morning, when she'd received a note from the brothelkeeper requesting permission to come to her in Catte Street to discuss a matter of utmost urgency. They had not met in person since Susanna's return from the country, at Petronella's request, but had kept up a correspondence, largely to report no progress at all in their search for a murderer. Susanna had also stayed in touch with Sir Walter and with the Lady Mary Grey, with the same results.

Susanna had not suspected Robert would be the reason for this meeting, though she'd been careful to schedule Petronella's arrival at a time when she knew her husband planned to be closeted with Sir Walter Pendennis in Blackfriars.

"Robert did not hear your name from me,” she told the other woman.

"He did not remember my name. He remembered what I look like."

Susanna conducted her guest through the solar and into her bedchamber, where they could be private even from Jennet. “What happened?"

"He arrived dripping wet and prodigious cup-shotten. I came out to see what the commotion was about when Vincent attempted to evict him from the premises.

"Robert saw you, then?"

"Aye. And spoke to me."

"To say what?"

"'Well met, mistress. ‘Tis good to see you are still alive.’”

Susanna's stomach lurched, but her words came out in a firm voice. “Whatever his reason for saying that, ‘twas not because he has killed all those women, or means you to be next."

Compassion shone in Petronella's eyes. “I cannot be so certain of that as you are, Lady Appleton. Someone has been following me for weeks, since before your friend Diane was killed."

"Diego Cordoba?” she asked. “No. That cannot be. Robert said he'd fled the country."

"Not Diego,” Petronella said.

In the little silence that stretched between them, the two women looked deeply into each other's faces, seeking truth, seeking trust. At last Susanna spoke.

"You know Cordoba well. As well as I know Robert."

"I have known Diego for a long time,” Petronella amended.

That was not quite the same thing, Susanna realized, but most like more accurate in both cases. “I wish to prove my husband innocent. You wish to do the same for Diego Cordoba."

"Yes.” Petronella seated herself atop Diane St. Cyr's traveling trunk, which Susanna had moved into her chamber.

"Then we must no longer hold back any information. Only if we both know everything will we have a hope of finding the real murderer. It was Cordoba who told you about Lora, was it not?"

"Yes."

And you have already said you knew all of them at about the time Lora was murdered."

"Before that, Lady Appleton."

Briefly, she gave an account of how they'd been accustomed to come to the Sign of the Smock in King Philip's time, all of them but Marsdon, and revealed that Diego Cordoba had continued to visit her through the years.

"I never felt any sense of danger until shortly before Diane's murder. Since then I have again had the feeling of being watched. In Duke Humphrey's Rents when I visited my friend Isabel. And in Southwark, these last few weeks."

Susanna was not sure what that meant. Possibly it made Cordoba's guilt more likely. Had he been saving Petronella, murdering other women who looked like her first? Or had Diane had been murdered by mistake, as she'd thought at the beginning?

Perching at the foot of her bed, Susanna watched her guest closely. “If the killer we seek is not Cordoba or Robert, we are left with Marsdon, Pendennis, Lord Robin, and Francis Elliott. But Elliott suggested to me that a servant might have been responsible, or some functionary at the court, a person who is always there, blending into the background."

"If that is true, we will never discover the killer's identity."

"Thanks to Sir Walter, I have eliminated a few. Lord Robin has no one man who was with him at court from the time Lora died to the present, and on one St. Mark's Day, Lord Robin himself was absent, having gone from Windsor to his manor at Kew instead of returning with the queen to Whitehall.” Susanna did not believe she'd need to question him in person, after all.

Petronella's expression was glum. “If we consider every man who provides a service at court to be a suspect, the list will be endless."

"But we can take a closer look at Master Jerome Elliott, Francis Elliott's father. He was employed by the Office of Revels under Queen Mary and lives now in Bermondsey. He and his son vouch for each other's whereabouts when Diane was killed, but they could be lying."

"I do not know this Jerome,” Petronella said, “but what reason would either father or son have to think Diane a whore? Assuming she was not murdered in mistake for me."

Her words reminded Susanna that the killer had left a feather to mark his victim as a Winchester goose. “Elliott escorted Diane to the inn where she spent the night before her death,” she mused aloud. “Did she do something during the short time she spent with Elliott to make him think she would sell herself for a price?"

"I do not believe Master Elliott has any dislike of those in my profession. He is a regular patron of the Castle-on-the-Hoop.” Petronella's tone of voice carried a hint of disdain. At Susanna's lifted brow, she explained that this particular bordello was not a well-kept, reputable establishment like the Sign of the Smock. She shook her head dismissively. “Men ofttimes have peculiar tastes."

"Do you have firsthand knowledge of Master Elliott's ... tastes?"

A laugh answered Susanna's hesitant question. “In Elliott's case they must have developed over time. He was easy enough to please when I knew him."

"Were any of them ... difficult to please? In bed, I mean?” Susanna felt her face flood with color. She could discuss midwifery, lecture other women on preventing conception, but she had never before thought much about, let alone openly discussed, the sexual appetites of men.

Taking pity on her, Petronella did not go into detail. “No one was violent. None were impotent."

Susanna sighed. “We must start over, then. Consider everyone's background. Assume any or all of them may have lied to me."

"What is it you hope to find in the killer's past?"

"A woman, I think. Does it not seem likely that something a woman once did to a man is responsible for his desire to take revenge on other women?"

Slowly, Petronella nodded. “Men have been known to take out their frustration with one female on another. While ‘tis true that under the law a man may beat his own wife, a whore makes a convenient substitute when there are reasons why he should not."

Shocked, Susanna stared at her. She had voiced a theory. Petronella spoke from experience. Her words made Susanna wonder if Robert's inability to control her had ever driven him to vent his anger on another woman, a woman who did not dare fight back.

She did not think so, but how could she be sure?

Abruptly, she hopped off the bed and fetched ink, pen, and paper to start a new list. A few minutes later she threw down her quill. “This is impossible! They were all wronged or deserted by some woman!"

Petronella studied what Susanna had written. “Marsdon was jilted at the church door. He resented his sisters but he married off all six of them. Jerome Elliott's wife, who was also Francis Elliott's mother, deserted the family when Francis was thirteen. Cordoba's mother died when he was a boy. Lora, his mistress, flirted with other men. What have you crossed out by Pendennis's name?"

"A woman in his past killed herself. I have no details."

"I think,” Petronella said gently, “that you must ask for them. What of Sir Robert? How old was he when his mother died?"

"Three. And he'd lost three stepmothers by the time he was fifteen."

"Any chance his father killed them?"

With a rueful smile, Susanna thought of all the stories she'd heard about Sir George Appleton, the father-by-marriage she'd never met. “Only if it was through overuse. He was reputed to be a lusty fellow, and he took a fifth wife, too."

Jane had been her name, Susanna remembered. She'd once been intended as Robert's bride.

Susanna had never revealed to her husband that she'd heard the rest of the story of his aborted betrothal from Mark and Jennet, who had stayed on in Lancashire after Susanna left and become friendly with the neighbors. It seemed that Robert, at nineteen, had not wished to marry Jane. He'd claimed he desired to enter the priesthood and therefore would not wed. Since that part of Lancashire clung to Catholicism even after it was made illegal in England, he'd been believed. Susanna was uncertain why he'd then been sent to the Dudley household, where the New Religion was ostentatiously practiced. Perhaps to cure him of such a wrong-headed notion. Perhaps as a ploy to allow Sir George to continue to worship as he pleased while his son convinced those who counted that the family was loyal to the Crown.