The Lady Series (21 page)

“Do you recall speaking to this Nell of life at Graceton?”

Only now did Bertie comprehend there was more to his master’s questions than simple curiosity. The servant straightened in the saddle, a pinched line marring the perfection of his brow. “I suppose I might have, Master Kit, as those first few months found me often longing for home.” His expression soured. “Given how little I liked Nell all those years ago, I cannot imagine why I ever agreed to rekindle our affair.”

“You what?” Kit twisted in his saddle to stare at the man.

Bertie’s mouth twisted bitterly. “Aye, Nell’s path and mine crossed again some two months back. At the time it seemed convenient, since we knew each other and all,” he shrugged. “I was with Nell when my Patience found me.”

Even as Bertie confirmed that it was he who’d betrayed his master, Kit felt blame for the betrayal come to rest squarely upon his own shoulders. Kit closed his eyes and scrubbed at his brow. Why hadn’t he realized that keeping his servant ignorant of his involvement with Lady Montmercy left Bertie vulnerable to the manipulations of that viper in silk?

“Is something amiss?” Bertie asked in growing concern.

Kit found himself no more ready to tell his man of that contract than he was to tell Anne. Nor did it matter. Now that he knew where the lady’s conduit lay he could guard against it. At least he had the assurance that Bertie was no Judas, only a loose-lipped, if pretty, fool. “Nay, I was but curious.”

“Master, if I’ve done wrong by lying with Nell know I’ve already vowed to Patience that I’ll do so no more.” Bertie lifted his hand and vowed, “As God is my witness, Master Kit.”

“That’s akin to a fish vowing to never again swim,” Kit scoffed then readied himself for what was sure to be a long and pleasant argument over Bertie’s newly strengthened morals.

Although it was well into the evening the sun yet hung hours above the horizon. So it was in late June, the days long and sweet when the weather was good. Here in the wilder of Greenwich’s gardens those creatures living within its walls were busy using these extra hours of light to their best advantage. Aye, and why not? None of them had to marry Lord Deyville.

Anne blinked back tears as she strode along the tiled pathway. Sir Amyas’s note had arrived late yesterday, his message contained in but two terse lines. The first said he’d accepted an offer for her hand in marriage, although he didn’t reveal her intended husband’s name. The second informed her to be prepared to leave the queen’s custody in the near future. This could only mean Lady Deyville was dead.

She was doomed. A month had passed since Mistress Alice’s revelations and Anne had found no way to make use of the woman’s revelations. Nor had she the opportunity to begin again her search for a new husband.

Anne nearly stumbled as she again lied to herself. There’d been time. Rather than take action, all she’d done was dance the days away with Kit.

Guilt rolled in like the tide, aided by the words in her mother’s recent letter. In this message Lady Frances wrote that Mistress Alice had written highly of Anne, calling her a true and loving daughter. How could she have abandoned her mother so?

Anne’s shoulders slumped. Aye, so true a daughter was she that she’d settled her heart on Kit to the exclusion of all others. It was he and no other she wanted to wed. The thought of never again feeling his hand on hers, or his arm around her as he led her through the patterns of a dance, tore her in twain. Tears welled, but she swallowed them. She wouldn’t cry, not when this might well be her last night with him. On the morrow he left court on the queen’s business. She’d likely be gone before he returned.

“There you are,” Patience whispered, stepping out from the wee copse of willows that served as their hiding spot.

The shock of Patience’s attire was enough to startle Anne out of her black mood, at least for the moment. “What are you wearing?” she cried quietly.

Patience smiled and turned a circle, her arms wide to better display her new bodice. It was a pretty greenish-blue, the hue dark enough to make the wearer’s eyes glow the color of Lady Montmercy’s sapphires. “Do you like it?”

“I do, indeed,” Anne replied, but it was Patience she liked more. Gone was the pale, pinched spy. Love for Bertie Babthorpe revealed a fine woman with shimmering eyes and a mouth that ever curved into a pretty smile.

“It’s a wedding gift from Bertie,” Patience said, fair glowing. On the morrow, she and Kit’s servant left for London where they were to be joined by Patience’s uncle. Patience’s family, Calvinists all, paid no heed to banns and required no celebration of the event.

Anne did her best not to let her mood destroy her governess’s joy. “Then, it was no bad thing that you caught him in that other woman’s arms,” she teased gently.

Satisfaction filled Patience’s smile as she ran her hands down the new bodice’s front. “A woman does what she must to get what she wants, is that not right, mistress?”

Then she caught Anne by the arm and drew her in amongst the willows. “Come now, let’s get you changed. Bertie and the musician must be waiting.”

At the center of the copse’s drooping branches was a small open space. The bundle of Anne’s practice garments lay on the moist ground. Kit, worried that someone might discover their secret lessons, had come upon this strategy. Anne strode into the garden as a maid-of-honor, changed into these far humbler garments, then departed, looking more like a servant than a woman of consequence. The process was reversed at the lesson’s end. And, also for concealment’s sake, Patience now walked with the musician, while the disguised Anne was escorted by Bertie. Aye, and neither Patience nor Bertie knew where they were off to until the last moment.

Easing around Anne’s back, Patience tore at the lacings that held her charge’s bodice closed. “Is all well with you, mistress?” she asked as she worked. “You seem out of sorts this day.”

As much as Anne wanted to tell her governess her news, she couldn’t bring herself to speak the words aloud. It was all too horrible. “In all truth,” Anne lied, “I long for home, being sick of this place and its stench.”

Patience laughed as she pulled off Anne’s bodice, leaving the sleeves attached. “Aye, two months here with so many people and not enough river to wash away the offal has made it foul, indeed, even to one such as I, who has lived all my life in London!”

As the woman folded this garment, Anne shucked her skirts, along with farthingale and all the underpinnings. Her ruff and corset followed, leaving her dressed in only her shirt.

Anne pulled it closed over her bare breasts as Patience handed her the one-piece garment country girls wore. The dress combined both skirt and bodice, the bodice’s front scooping low beneath her breasts. Dyed a pretty red, it had served Anne well on cleaning days at Owls House.

Once she’d donned it Anne discarded her black velvet headdress, braided her hair, and tied on a coif, not unlike the one Patience wore. That left only her shoes. Anne leaned against a tree trunk to don them, while Patience wrapped the expensive court attire in the oiled cloth against an unexpected shower. When the bundle was set aside, Patience turned to look at her mistress.

“Where do we go today?”

“Duke Humphrey’s tower,” Anne replied.

“Right, then. I’m off to meet the musician,” Patience said, only to stay where she stood.

Anne looked up. Her servant smiled, the movement of her mouth sad. “Each time you step out with no one at your side I think of the Maying and Lord Deyville’s attack,” she whispered. “I worry for you every second, mistress.” With that, she slipped from the glade.

Anne stared at the swaying branches. She was worried for herself as well.

Kit stood in the tower’s gateway, dwarfed by its thick walls. Duke Humphrey’s tower, an old defensive structure not unlike the one that crumbled at Graceton’s heart, stood at the top of the hill behind Greenwich Palace. All in all, it was a marvelous spot. Looking one direction a man could see the hodgepodge of buildings that filled Greenwich palace’s compound. Looking in another, Kit could see the rooftops of London. That was, if the day was clear and the man was looking.

Kit stared blindly out through gritty, burning eyes at the gentle, rolling landscape. Last night, for the first time in two months, the nightmare returned, all the more stunning for its long absence. With a sigh, he leaned against the cold stones of the gateway.

He knew why. The queen had commanded him home.

Elizabeth writhed with fear over a Catholic uprising. Although indebted and yet without his rightful title, Nick’s holdings were substantial and his Catholic leanings well known to his queen. Elizabeth wanted assurances that Graceton’s squire wouldn’t encourage those who lived on his lands to rise against her.

Unfortunately, Kit’s nightmare was no respecter of causes. It knew only that Kit was returning to the source of his guilt.

A movement below him caught Kit’s attention. He watched a couple emerge from the park gate. They crossed Woolwich Road then made their way across the grassy expanse that was the Lawn to start up this hill, confirming they were of his party.

Kit freed a bitter breath, torn between anticipation and frustration. These lessons were sheer torment. No longer was it only lust for Anne that plagued him. Somehow his need to protect her had twisted into an emotion Kit didn’t care to name. This was dangerous, indeed, tempting him into thoughts of permanence, even when he knew such a thing was impossible.

The couple was halfway up the tower’s hill now. Kit frowned. The lute player he recognized, but who was that woman at his side? She wore a pretty blue bodice atop her brown skirts, while beneath her coif soft wings of brown hair framed a fine, oval face. As she chatted to the man beside her, her hands dashed and darted in lively punctuation.

He straightened, eyes wide. Mistress Patience? As if she’d heard his thought, she looked up the hill and smiled. Kit gaped in astonishment. How could she have changed so, and he not notice? No wonder Bertie was in such a hurry to wed and bed her.

Once she and the musician strode into the tower’s gateway Mistress Patience offered him a respectful bob, while the musician more touched than doffed his cap in deference to Kit’s gentle status. “A fine evening, master,” the man said. “So where’s it to be tonight?”

“In the garden,” Kit replied. “Tap upon the gatehouse door,” he pointed to the opposite end of the tunnel-like passage that led into the tower’s grounds, “and the caretaker will show you the way.”

As the musician strode past him through the shadowed gateway into the courtyard beyond it, Bertie’s bride-to-be stayed where she stood. The maid watched him, her look intense. Kit shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny then tried to smile. “Is there something I can do for you?”

A small frown creased her brow. “Master Hollier, am I right in thinking you hold some affection for my mistress in your heart?” This was the probe Kit expected from her in May. She offered it now but with none of the harsh accusation he’d envisioned her attaching to that question.

He opened his mouth only to have an admission of love crowd onto his tongue. Kit choked it back, stunned at himself. Where had that come from?

Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Mistress Anne has become a good friend, well liked by me for her wit and humor. Does that satisfy your question?”

“Indeed, it does,” she replied, her smile beautiful. “Bertie said you’d not speak the whole of it, only skirt around your true feelings for her.”

Kit started. Bertie had spoken to her of him? By God, the man was worse than a sieve!

“Nay now,” said Mistress Patience as she all-too-rightly read his outrage, “you mustn’t think Bertie spilled some secret. What he said was offered in passing. He said you were a private man and not one to share your inner thoughts with others. By that do I judge your words.”

“Take no insult, but I can only hope marriage to you will teach him better manners,” Kit replied, only a little soothed by her attempt.

“I’m sure it shall,” Mistress Patience promised with a surprisingly wicked twinkle in her eyes, then she sighed and sadness chased the smile from her lips.

“Master Hollier, against your fondness for my mistress I now presume to tell you something, praying you’ll keep my words in confidence. Sir Amyas writes that Lady Deyville departed for her heavenly home yesterday. Once Lord Deyville has spent his proscribed two months mourning his wife, Sir Amyas intends for Mistress Anne to wed with him.”

Kit stiffened at this news. Anne was his, Deyville couldn’t have her.

Only Anne wasn’t his, nor would she ever be his no matter what he willed. Should he dare to wed her she’d be a widow within a week. Either Lady Montmercy, Sir Amyas, or Lord Deyville would see to his death.

“Why do you tell me this?” he asked, fighting his need to protect Anne.

“Because she cannot wed Lord Deyville,” Patience replied, a frantic edge to her voice. “You saw him at the Maying.”

So he had. The image of that nobleman trying to force himself on Anne turned itself into a vision of his Anne suffering beneath that godless lecher on her wedding night.

“Now, mistress,” Kit said, attempting to soothe them both at the same time, “what we saw that day was a man trying to convince a woman that she should return his affections.” It was a sour lie. Deyville had no affection for Anne. “He’ll not treat her so, not once they’re wed.”

“So you’d say, being a man,” Mistress Patience retorted with surprising spirit, “but I have a different experience with one much like that nobleman. Bowing to my father’s will, I agreed to wed a man he called his friend. Within a month I came crying to my parents of his abuse. Rather than heed me my father blinded himself to my bruises, saying they were my fault. He wouldn’t”—she paused to draw a ragged breath—“nay, he couldn’t believe ill of his friend. Instead he abandoned me to my marriage just as Sir Amyas will do to my poor mistress.”

She stepped closer to lay a hand upon Kit’s arm, the need to protect her charge flowing into him from her slender fingers. “Sir Amyas will come soon to claim her. If you care for my mistress at all, Master Hollier, you’ll not abandon her.”

The woman’s mouth set to trembling as tears swam in her eyes. She turned abruptly on her heel as if embarrassed to have revealed so much about herself and followed the musician and caretaker to the garden’s gate. Her shoulders were square, her spine pike-straight. Kit watched her until he could see her no longer.

What sort of world was it that offered his Anne naught but abuse, yet left him incapable of saving her? What sort of coward stood idly by while the woman he loved entered into marriage with a monster? This was worse than watching Nick fall into the fire, for Kit knew his brother had survived, however badly marked. Anne wouldn’t fare as well.

He closed his eyes, feeling the impotence of his dream close around him anew. Once again, someone he cherished was going to be destroyed. Once again, there was nothing he could do to stop it, for not even his death would save her.