The Huntress (12 page)

M
ARTIN STRODE THROUGH THE KITCHEN, STRUGGLING TO
fasten his fashionable new cloak to the shoulder of his doublet. Jem looked up from turning a haunch of venison upon a spit and Maude left off cutting up turnips to gape at him.

But Martin was feeling far too harried to spare a jocular word for his servants as was his usual custom. He was already running late, readying himself for the banquet at Strand House this evening. Having to take time to soothe Agatha’s ruffled feathers certainly hadn’t helped matters.

Anticipating another fiery confrontation with Cat as well, he felt as though he would like to stitch both women into sacks and consign them to the next ship embarking for the New World.

As he stalked into the garden, he expected to find Cat ready to square off after her usual belligerent fashion. He was surprised to see her slumped down upon the bench, her chin propped on her hand.

At least she had obeyed his command to surrender his breeches. But her appearance was decidedly dejected and her worn-out horror of a frock was much to blame. Mon Dieu, but he would like to strip that rag off her back and burn it.

Martin sucked in his breath and checked the wayward thought, the notion fraught with the memory of what lay beneath Cat’s frayed bodice, that soft white breast with its delectable rosy crest. Scarcely an appropriate thought to be entertained by a man striving to be more respectable.

Besides, it was more than that miserable gown making Cat appear forlorn. She had attempted to fasten her hair back with a leather thong, but strands had escaped to straggle about a face pale with melancholy, her eyes dark blue wells of sadness. Absorbed by her own unhappy thoughts, she did not even notice Martin’s approach.

Cat was such a ferociously proud woman. It tugged at Martin in some way he could not explain to see her looking so lost and vulnerable. His vexation forgotten, he experienced a strange urge to draw her onto his knee and croon, “
What troubles you, cherie?
” An action that would likely earn him a swift clout to the ear. He contented himself with lightly touching her shoulder.

“Mistress O’Hanlon? Cat?”

Cat started at the sound of Martin’s voice. Jarred out of her unhappy musing, she glanced up and nearly tumbled off the bench at the sight before her.

The late afternoon sun struck full upon him, bathing him in a golden blaze that made him seem far too handsome to be real, like a hero from one of his plays, some great and noble lord.

He was clad in a scarlet doublet with slashed sleeves and matching trunk hose, a short dark cape swirling off one shoulder. A black toque sporting a white feather was perched on his head at a rakish angle. His taut muscular legs were encased in ivory hose, shoes with silver buckles upon his feet.

He was the epitome of the charming prince in fairy stories and she was gawking at him like a beggar maid. Cat staggered to her feet, conscious of her disheveled condition from her recent tussle with Agatha in the cabbage patch.

She tried to brush the dirt from her skirts, her mortification complete when Martin plucked a stray leaf from her hair.

“Ah, I see that another epic battle has taken place.”

Cat flushed hotly. Smoothing her hair back, she squared her shoulders. “I suppose Mistress Butterydoor has been talking to you.”

“At great length,” Martin sighed. “Cat, I appreciate your zeal in wanting to protect Meg, but if you had any doubts about Aggie, you should have come to me. Do you really think I would not have thoroughly checked anyone I engaged to look after my daughter?”

“I am sorry. I—I made a mistake. But the woman roused my suspicion by refusing to let me see her arm and all her strange talk about having been a seer of the dead.”

“A seer?” Martin appeared puzzled, but then his brow cleared. “Oh, a
searcher
of the dead. Has Aggie been boasting about that again?”

He smiled and shook his head. “The parishes of London regularly hire old women to examine corpses and report the cause of death. It’s a service no one else wants to perform for fear of contagion. The local officials don’t even particularly care how skilled or educated these searchers are. Poor and desperate seem to be the only requirements.”

Cat nodded, but she was having difficulty focusing on what he was saying. She found herself distracted by the pearl that dangled from Martin’s left ear. A fashion that might have appeared effeminate on another man, but only offset Martin’s darkly masculine looks, giving him a piratical appearance.

“…and I realize Agatha can be a cantankerous old wench. But she is devoted to Meg and she hasn’t exactly had the easiest life, beginning with the day she was born. She was abandoned by the buttery door of Christ’s Hospital.”

Cat blinked, dragging her fascinated gaze from the earring. “Oh. Buttery door. That would explain the oddity of her name.”

“Charity institutions don’t show a great deal of imagination when naming orphans.”

“So that would mean what? That you were found amidst a pack of wolves?”

He laughed. “No, the priest who baptized me didn’t trouble to give me a surname. I was merely christened Martin after the saint. When I was old enough, I dubbed myself le Loup, and as soon as the good fathers realized there was more of the wolf than the saint about me, they were glad to see the back of me. The streets of Paris became my home.”

Cat had thought parts of her own childhood unbearable, but at least she’d had the memory of her father, of being part of the Clan O’Hanlon. She could not imagine what it must have been like for Martin growing up alone, no claim to any kin.

“That—that must have been a very perilous existence,” Cat observed almost shyly.

“I survived. But perhaps that is why I feel a certain kinship with Mistress Butterydoor. Both of us orphans, never knowing any father or mother.”

“It is possible to feel orphaned and still have a mother—” Cat broke off uncomfortably.

“Your mother is still living?” Martin asked so gently that Cat nodded.

“But like your priests, my mother was quite happy to be shed of me. I think she wished I had never been born.” Cat attempted to shrug as though it were of no great matter. Once more she had been beguiled into revealing too much of herself. She was relieved when the door to the kitchen flew open and Meg burst out into the garden.

Meg lifted the hem of her gown and raced breathlessly to her father. “Papa! You are still here. I was afraid I had missed you and I so wanted to see you in your new clothes before you left for the banquet.”

Martin grinned and turned about for his daughter’s benefit.

Meg clapped her hands together with a delighted sigh. She started to touch the hem of his cloak only to draw back as though fearful of marring his finery.

“Oh, you look so handsome and—and very grand.”

“Humph! I’d rather be in rags if the prettiest girl in England refuses to embrace her poor old father for fear of creasing his doublet.”

He bent down to her level, holding wide his arms.

“Papa! What nonsense you talk,” Meg said, but she dimpled and flung her arms about his neck.

Martin’s roguish gaze softened as he kissed his daughter’s cheek. Meg’s eyes glowing with adoration, her grave face transformed until she truly was pretty.

Watching the two of them, Cat shifted her feet awkwardly, feeling like an intruder and at the same time oddly wistful.

Meg drew back, smoothing out his sleeve and giving it a small pat. “So you are off to dine with Lord Oxbridge. And the queen—she will be there?”

“So I am told.”

“The queen?” Cat let out a low whistle of surprise. “You are after keeping some grand company, Master Wolfe.”

Her wariness of Cat momentarily forgotten, Meg beamed up at her. “My father has many important friends, particularly the Baron of Oxbridge, who is greatly indebted to him. Papa saved the life of his lordship’s sister, Lady Danvers. He is quite the hero.”

“Now who is talking nonsense?” Martin playfully pinched his daughter’s nose.

Meg made an impish face at him, then rushed on, “When you return, you must tell me everything about the queen. What her gown and jewels were like, what she eats, what she says to you, and—”

Martin interrupted her with a laugh. “Despite your exalted opinion of your father, I will be of little significance among such noble company. I will be seated well below the salt and go quite unnoticed by the queen or anyone else.”

Cat doubted that. She could not imagine Martin le Loup ever going unnoticed anywhere, but Meg looked crestfallen for a moment. She angled a speculative glance at her father.

“Well, I have been thinking…”

“That sounds dangerous,” Martin teased.

Meg gave him a dignified frown and continued. “Why could I not see the queen for myself? Agatha could take me down by the river so I could see her barge arriving and—.”

But Martin was already shaking his head. “No, mon ange. We’ve already discussed this. There will be no more of these jaunts about town with Agatha, especially not in light of the Lady of Faire Isle’s warnings.”

“I suppose
she
might come and bring her sword.” Meg stole a shy glance at Cat. “Being a visitor to London, I daresay Mistress O’Hanlon would like to see the queen as well.”

“I daresay
she
wouldn’t,” Cat said. “I’d hardly risk taking you abroad with night about to fall just to catch a glimpse of that Tudor she-devil.”

Meg gave an affronted gasp. “That is no way to speak of your sovereign queen.”

“Yours perhaps, but not mine, sweetling. Elizabeth and her cursed governors have inflicted nothing but misery upon my country, thieving, burning, and killing.”

“Well, the queen would not have to be so harsh if—if you Irish were not always rebelling.”

“Ah, so it is rebellion now to try to protect your home from invasion and hold onto what is yours?”

Meg compressed her lips, clearly having no answer for that. “Very well. Don’t come then if you feel that way. I am sure Aggie would not wish to have you along, anyway.” Turning her back on Cat, she appealed to her father, “I am sure Aggie and I would be safe enough if—.”

“No, Meg,” Martin said. “Cat is right. You should not be leaving the house this near to nightfall. You may see the queen another time.”

“You have been promising me that ever and forever!” Meg cried. “I don’t see why I can’t—”

“Because I said no, Margaret, and there’s an end to the matter.”

Cat doubted that Martin had ever spoken so sternly or refused his daughter anything. Meg looked stricken, her lower lip quivering. She spun on her heel and dashed toward the house.

Martin made no effort to stop her, but he vented a regretful sigh as Meg vanished inside.

“I am sorry,” Cat said. “I didn’t mean to upset Meg, but it is nigh impossible for me to hold my tongue whenever that Tudor woman’s name is spoken.”

“It is all right. I understand, and it is more my fault than yours. For some reason, the child has conceived a strange fascination with the queen of England. I did promise Meg that somehow I would arrange for her to see Elizabeth. But it is a promise I never should have given. I don’t want Margaret to draw any undue attention to herself until—until—”

“You have succeeded in burying her past and turning her into a proper Englishwoman? You seem well on the way to achieving that.”

Martin must have sensed the disapproval in her voice. He stiffened. “Meg has always been more English than French. She spent the first five years of her childhood in a cottage near the sea in Dover. She still speaks of it. I believe that despite her mother, Meg was happier during those days than—” Martin paused, then finished bleakly. “Than she is here with me. My little girl really doesn’t care much for city life.”

That would be the daughter of the earth in her, Cat thought, but she wisely kept the observation to herself.

“Someday if all goes well, I mean to buy a small parcel of land and a manor somewhere along the southern coast,” Martin said, a hard determined light in his eyes. “But my fortunes may well be lost on the tide if I don’t hie me off to Strand House and be about my business.”

“Business?” Cat’s gaze drifted over his finery. “You look more like a man about to go a-wooing.”

It was none of her concern, but she couldn’t refrain from asking, “So, is she very fair? This Lady Jane Danvers who fancies you such a hero?”

“Oh, quite fair, hair like goldenrod, the eyes of a dove, but as to my being her hero…” Martin’s lips twisted wryly. “I fear that I rescued the lady as much for my daughter’s sake as her own.”

When Cat gave him a puzzled look, he explained, “Jane Danvers fell off her brother’s barge into the river. Meg and I were passing by in a wherry at the time and you cannot imagine the horror in my daughter’s eyes. That is how Meg’s mother died, drowning in the Seine.”

“I know. Ariane told me.”

“And Meg witnessed it. She used to have such terrible nightmares about Cassandra’s death. Watching Lady Danvers drown would have been more than Meg could bear. So I was obliged to rescue the lady.”

“And if Meg had not been there, you would have let Lady Danvers drown,” Cat challenged.

“The Thames is full of currents and can be very treacherous. I don’t know if I would have taken the risk.”

“I do. You strike me as exactly the sort of chivalrous fool unable to resist a damsel in distress. I am sure this Lady Danvers must be brimming over with gratitude, ready to fall into your arms.”

“Hardly. She is a gentle and noble lady, as far above me as the stars in the heaven.” Whether the man realized it or not, his voice took on a softer note as he spoke of the lady.

Mother Earth defend him, Cat thought. Martin had found himself another Miri Cheney and would likely end with his heart just as broken. The sisters of barons were not noted for surrendering their hands to nameless rogues, no matter how handsome.

Arching one brow, Martin regarded her quizzically. “You, of course, would never have need of being rescued.”

“Hah. I’d be more likely to have to rescue you. I prefer to fight my own battles,” Cat grimaced. “And speaking of which, I suppose I’d best
hie
myself off to the kitchen lest I end up being served roast toad for my supper.”