Face Down among the Winchester Geese (25 page)

Robert touched shore. In spite of aching muscles and throbbing bruises, he leapt from the boat and dragged it and himself into cover. He'd fetched up exactly where he'd wanted to on the Isle of Wight, but with Pendennis in close pursuit, he dared leave nothing to chance.

He hated to give up the jewels. He could live for a year on what the brooch would bring. But he knew no one would believe he'd willingly part with it and therefore it must be sacrificed. He set the scene, wrecking the small craft that had carried him to safety.

One hand on the leather pouch that contained his gold, he ran for the cave where he'd arranged to hide until one of the local smugglers came for him. Food and blankets had already been stowed. He'd hoped not to need them, had planned to be aboard a small caravel by now, with his “wife” secured below in a cabin, but he'd made not one but two contingency plans during several visits to this area in recent months. He was glad now that he had.

Not until he was one with the concealing blackness inside the cave did Robert fully comprehend all that he had lost. He'd been forced to leave his horse behind. Lady Mary was still free and on English soil. And now he was a man without home or country. His mission a failure, he could expect no rewards from Spain. He had burned his bridges in England.

This was all Susanna's fault! The sight of her in the pursuing coach had shaken him to the core. And with Pendennis! Damn the man. Robert wished he'd shot him. He should have killed them both. What did one or two more deaths matter?

Cursing his wife, Robert hugged himself for warmth and waited for his disreputable confederate to appear. He still had his gold, he reminded himself. He had suffered no serious physical damage.

He would survive. He would return. Somehow, he would regain all he had lost.

"A brooch was found caught in the splintered planks of a rowboat washed ashore on the Isle of Wight,” Diego Cordoba said. “The Lady Mary Grey and Lady Appleton both recognized it as one Sir Robert was accustomed to wear on his bonnet."

Petronella watched her lover carefully, trying to judge his feelings. He'd told her everything: the plan to kidnap the queen's heiress; Sir Robert Appleton's scheme to leave England, and his wife, and live in Spain; Diego's own decision to stay secretly in England when Sir Robert had bade him flee the country.

He had left the Sign of the Smock, for the first time since coming to her to hide, on the morning of the day the queen's barge sailed downriver to Greenwich. Appleton's plan, Petronella now knew, had been to convey the Lady Mary to a secret rendezvous near Southampton and take his prisoner and their horses aboard a smuggler's ship for the voyage to Spain. Appleton had scouted the area and made contacts well in advance.

"You think he survived,” she said. Diego had been on the scene, in disguise, following Pendennis's men, an easy enough task for one who had spent so many years in England.

"Yes. I think he left the brooch to be found. But whether he can make good his escape from England, that is another question. He'll dare not show his face."

"Will he try to reach Spain?"

"I do not think so. Not now. Nor will I."

Puzzled, she frowned at him. “Had you meant to be aboard the same ship as Sir Robert?"

"I meant to come back for you if he was successful.” Petronella's heart began to race. “At first, I thought to take you with us, to serve the Lady Mary on the journey to Spain. Then I decided to wait rather than risk your safety. When I realized Sir Robert's scheme had been thwarted, I might have ridden on, taken ship in some port farther west, but that thought brought me no pleasure. I followed my heart instead, and returned here, to you."

Had he come back for a final farewell? Or was he proposing something quite different? Petronella warned herself not to hope for too much.

"Were you serious when you suggested I could pass as a waiting gentlewoman?” she asked.

"
Si, mi corazon
."

She knew what the words meant. My heart. But she had difficulty believing he could envision her as anything more than what she was. She attempted a light tone, as if this were all a great jest. “My name alone gives away my background, Diego. Petronella is no gentlewoman."

"'Tis not your birth name, either. You were christened Mary, and still called Molly by some when I first knew you."

"You remember that?"

"I remember much more than you will ever guess, and from the beginning I knew you were the only woman for me, but pride kept me from admitting it, from speaking to you then of love. Because of what you were, what I was, I saw no future for us. Later I pursued a woman of gentle birth, Lora, because she looked like you. I might have married her. Our posts at court made such a union acceptable. But she was not you."

Flattered, astonished, she could not think what to say to him. She was still struggling to grasp the significance of all he'd told her when he moved close, taking her into his arms.

"After Lora died, I saw the truth. No other woman could ever take your place. That is why I returned here, to you, year after year."

"I am scarce unique,” she whispered. “There were others very like me."

"I never met any of the other small, dark women who were killed. And no woman I encountered in my travels, of any description, was your equal. I want to marry you,
querida
. I should have asked you long ago."

"I am a whore, Diego!"

"You will be my wife when we are wed. Your past will be of no more importance than mine. Turn this place over to Vincent. I have money enough for us to live on. We will find a small house in the country, far from London, and both of us will be reborn. We will take new names, new identities. Become exactly what we want to be."

Was such a thing possible? Could they start over?

When she looked into her lover's eyes, she saw that he believed every word he'd spoken. Her heart tripped double-time. “Yes,” she whispered.

"I am accustomed to answering to the name David when I travel in the English countryside,” Diego said.

A smile blossomed as she curtsied to him. “Good day to you, David. My name is Molly Bainbridge."

"Bainbridge,” he repeated, nodding his approval. “A good English name. Shall we keep it, for both of us?"

"I would like that,” she said.

"I love you, Molly."

Tears of joy began to flow as she melted into his arms. “Oh, David,” she managed to say between sniffles, “I love you, too."

She suspected she always had.

The Catte Street house interested Lady Mary, not only because it had been the home of Sir Robert and Lady Appleton for some months, but also because she had experienced very few opportunities to see how ordinary folk lived. She had spent her entire life in mansions and palaces, surrounded by wealth, luxury, and power. She owned an exotic parrot brought from foreign lands, and a lap dog. Lady Appleton kept a ginger-colored cat who did not seem to make any distinctions between the heir to the English throne and the housekeeper who'd opened the door to them when they arrived in London after their arduous journey to and from Southampton.

Lady Appleton was telling this woman everything, as if her servant were her equal. Was this a typical gentlewoman's household? Lady Mary thought not. When the order had been given to bring them hot, spiced wine and fetch meals for everyone from one of the nearby cookshops, Lady Appleton's housekeeper had joined them in the solar and sat right down with her betters.

Sir Walter seemed to think nothing of it, nor did he trouble to censor his words around the woman. Jennet, Lady Appleton had called her. Like the small Spanish pacer Lady Mary had ridden after the wreck of her coach.

"We must talk about this situation, Susanna,” Sir Walter said.

"We have talked. Endlessly. Nothing changes the fact that Robert committed treason. All he has is forfeit to the Crown, even his life."

Poor Susanna, Lady Mary thought. She would not believe her husband had drowned. There was no way any man could survive that wild current, those terrible waves. And there was no reason that the good woman he'd left behind should be made to suffer for what he had done. Neither Queen Mary nor Queen Elizabeth had punished Lady Mary's mother for the treasons committed by her husband, Lady Mary's father, even though both parents had been hand-in-glove with the duke of Northumberland, plotting to put Jane on the throne instead of either Tudor princess.

Lady Mary frowned. Queen Elizabeth as yet knew nothing of what had transpired. Word had been sent to her that her cousin's arrival at Greenwich would be delayed. Nothing more.

Why trouble her now with events past and done? No harm had befallen kinswoman or country. For the most. part, except for the jouncing and bruising she'd received riding in that wretched coach, Lady Mary herself had enjoyed the adventure, although she had been heartily glad to be rescued. She'd had no desire to visit Spain, and less to marry a man about whom she'd heard most frightening tales. At the same time, it had been pleasant, for a change, to be wanted.

With her most imperious air, Lady Mary put down her wine and stood. “Sir Walter,” she said in a loud, carrying voice that made his eyes widen and riveted his attention. She could sound exactly like the queen when she chose. They were, after all, closely related.

"Yes, my lady?” Since she had stood, he was obliged to rise also. Lady Appleton and the servant followed suit, Lady Appleton rather more stiffly. Lady Mary stifled a sympathetic smile.

"Both coaches have been repaired and returned to Whitehall, have they not?” Their party had stayed in Southampton long enough to allow for that. Lady Appleton had refused to leave until they'd conducted a thorough search for her husband's remains, but in the end she'd had to accept that a body might be swept out into the Narrow Seas and never be seen again.

"Aye, my lady,” Sir Walter agreed.

"How many persons know what happened to me, all or in part?"

"My men. Fulke. Master Boonen. Those of us in this room.” He'd dealt with others at various stages, but they'd been told very little. They'd answered questions or followed orders without needing to know Sir Walter's purpose. None were likely to have recognized Lady Mary or guess she had been taken from Whitehall against her will. Only Sir Walter's trusted outriders knew the identity of the man they'd sought with such diligence.

"Are your men loyal?” Lady Mary asked. “Can they be sworn to secrecy? Or bribed? Can Boonen be persuaded to say nothing?"

She saw he divined her intention and that he dared hope they could manage what she proposed, for Lady Appleton's sake.

"I see no reason to reveal what really happened,” Lady Mary continued. “Let it be given out that when I recovered from the illness that required me to remain behind at Whitehall, I accepted an invitation to visit my friend Lady Appleton and have stayed all this time with her here in London."

"And Sir Robert's death?"

"Have you not just sent him on some mission abroad, Sir Walter? I am aware of what power you wield."

She took smug satisfaction from Lady Appleton's covert glance in his direction and Jennet's open look of confusion. It was gratifying to be in possession of knowledge few others shared.

"You may have begun as just another intelligence gatherer, but you are much more than that now. You do not report to any of the great men at court, but only to my royal cousin. And you choose what to tell her and which things she has no need to know."

"Is this true, Walter?” Lady Appleton looked worried. “Is that why you suspected Robert of wrongdoing all along?"

He took her hands in his. “True enough, but I am in your debt for any favors I have earned at court. You know that well."

Lady Mary did not, but was too fascinated to plague them with questions. She had found their relationship most interesting to study during the three-day journey back to London from Southampton.

"Robert did not realize his reports from Spain went directly to me,” Sir Walter said. “Word sent by others from that hostile land obliged me to keep a watchful eye on him after his return to England. I did not know his intentions, but ‘twas clear he was plotting something. He visited Durham House repeatedly, even attended mass there."

Startled, Lady Mary interrupted. “He was a Catholic?"

"He was born in Lancashire,” Lady Appleton said quietly. “A great many people keep to the old religion there, even now."

"Is that why he threw in his lot with Philip of Spain? He wished to restore Catholicism to England?"

"I think,” Lady Appleton said carefully, “that he was more concerned with getting a male heir for England. Begging your pardon, my lady, but the plan was to marry you to the Spanish prince, was it not? Had Queen Elizabeth died and King Philip enforced your claim, Robert would have seen Don Carlos rule as King Charles and any child you bore him would inherit both thrones. Robert had expected to rise to power under King Guildford. He never got over the failure of Northumberland's scheme. Though he was careful what he said in public, in private he chafed at serving women, first Queen Mary, then Queen Elizabeth. For a time, he clung to the conviction that his great friend Lord Robin would one day marry our sovereign lady, share the throne with her, but when that last hope died.... “Her voice trailed off. She did not need to say more.

"What else did your men observe Sir Robert to do?” Lady Mary asked Sir Walter. Clearly they had not followed him everywhere or she'd have been at Greenwich ere now and Sir Robert lodged in the Tower.

"Sir Robert met frequently with a clerk at the Spanish embassy named Ruy Vierra. My men failed to recognize him as Diego Cordoba. They had no reason to take particular notice of him and neglected to mention to me that this Vierra had but one eye.

Lady Appleton drew in a sharp breath, shaking herself out of her misery over her husband's treason and probable drowning as a thought struck her. “Did you have Robert under surveillance the morning Diane died?"

"Aye. And Cordoba, as it happens. They crossed paths at Durham House, your husband entering as Cordoba left. Neither could have been in Southwark at the time the woman was murdered."