The Shadow of Albion (12 page)

be greater – that the League should be funded from the Privy Purse directly – that

each ruler, upon his accession, should be given one chance, and one chance only, to

disband this secret weapon. Five kings had chosen to retain it, but the sword had

always remained sheathed.

So far.

What Wessex had done in France had been done at the behest of his masters in

the Order of the White Tower. But before he had pledged himself to them, Wessex

had pledged himself to the League, and if his King so commanded, Wessex would

betray England at the command of the Crown of England.

Or would he?

For now, the bonds of his oaths did not pull Wessex in opposite directions.

Service to the Nation was still service to the King, and» in his infrequent resorts to

prayer, Wessex hoped that fact would never change.

But the possibility remained. Wessex stood between the Tower and the Oak –

two holy and binding pledges – and lived with the nightmare that at any moment he

might be called to break faim with one of them. When his other problems seemed

too formidable, it was bizarrely soothing to think about this one.

There was a soft scratching at the door.

„The Marchioness will receive you now, Your Grace.“

Dame Alecto had not made her appearance while Sarah’s abigail dressed her

under Gardner’s supervision, but Dr. Falconer had, and bullied Sarah into submitting

to another examination. As he held the listening tube against her chest, Sarah

searched the doctor’s face with as much circumspection as she could muster. This

man was her personal physician. Why did he seem an utter stranger to her?

She did not remember him at all Carefully, Sarah kept her expression neutral.

She was the Marchioness of Roxbury. This was Mooncoign, her home. As if it were

a tale she had heard others tell, she recalled the particulars of her privileged life:

orphaned as a child, she had been an autocrat from the time she learned to ride her

first pony, and sole mistress of her fate by the age of sixteen.

„I find nothing amiss with Your Ladyship,“ Dr. Falconer pronounced with an air

of great reluctance. „You were thrown clear of the wreck, and I have known you to

take worse falls upon the hunting field – though I cannot say that your four days’

sleep settled my mind overmuch.“

He stared at her, his amber gaze fervent with mysterious meaning. „I warn you,

should you regret your bargain, you will not find it as easy to unmake.“

This was the second time he had mentioned a bargain, and Sarah still did not have

the slightest idea of what he meant. She shrugged. „No bargain is easy to unmake,

Doctor.“

„Then on your own head be it,“ Dr. Falconer pronounced, as if he were judge,

not physician. Gathering up his tools into their bag, he walked quickly from the

room.

There. Now I have offended him, and I am sure I do not know how. But it

would be better, perhaps, if he worried over offending me….

The alien thoughts lay on the surface of her mind like smooth stones, and as she

turned them over in her thoughts Sarah slowly became aware that Knoyle, the abigail,

was chattering away, offering Sarah unfamiliar garments for her approval.

Knoyle knew her. And Knoyle was her personal maid Why did she not know

Knoyle?

„ – and I may say, my lady, that the Duke is quite tolerably featured,, for all he do

go on glaring at one so!“

„He quite surprised me,“ Sarah said cautiously.

„Bursting in on Your Ladyship in that savage fashion!“ Knoyle said

disapprovingly. „What would his grandmother – who is your godmother as well –

think of such behavior?“ Apparently Sarah need not make any reply to this, for

Knoyle sniffed critically and went on with her monologue. „And for all that your dear

papa betrothed the two of you when you were born, such license – “

„I am to marry this Duke?“ Sarah blurted, horrified.

„Your Ladyship must marry someone,“ Gardner pointed out imperturbably, „and

the dukedom’s lands march with your own. What could be more suitable?“

A stormy knot of rebellion formed within Sarah’s bosom even as Knoyle pulled

her corset-lacings tight. Though all else seemed oddly vague, she was quite certain

she had never agreed to marry the Duke of Wessex.

But wait… Knoyle had spoken of a childhood betrothal. Perhaps the engagement

was not so irrevocable as it had first sounded?

Knoyle left the room for a moment – Sarah could hear a whispered conversation

with the maid whose job it was to take care of Lady Roxbury’s clothing, and not her

person. She turned to the nurse, who was coming forward with a shawl to place

about Sarah’s shoulders as she stood waiting in her stockings and petticoats, though

with the fire on the hearth the room was already quite unseasonably warm.

„Oh, pray do not cosset me so, Gardner,“ Sarah protested. „I am far too old for

that.“

„You shall never be aught but the veriest babe to me,“ Gardner told her firmly.

„T’was I who took you from the midwife’s arms. Your dear mama would have no

one save me to attend her – though there were some as said I was past my prime,“

she added darkly.

Sarah searched the old woman’s face for veracity, suppressing a pang of despair

when she found it easily. How could all those around her know her so well and she

not know them at all?

„Here you are, my lady. In the first stare of fashion it is, and just such a gown as

will put roses in your cheeks.“

Sarah stared at the primrose-yellow gown of printed muslin that Knoyle held

proudly over one arm. The neckline and the tiny puffed sleeves were threaded with

bits of green ribbon, and knots of tiny floss roses trimmed the flounced hem and

demi-train.

„Oh, how beautiful!“ Sarah said. And beautiful it was, like a bird or a flower;

purely ornamental and not at all for use.

Unresisting, Sarah allowed Knoyle to dress her and arrange her hair in a simple

style, and Gardner to drape the cashmire shawl about her shoulders. When they were

finished, a stranger stared back at Sarah from the cheval-glass, a stranger with

high-piled hair and an immodest expanse of skin exposed by the fashionable gown;

someone Sarah did not know at all.

„And now,“ Knoyle said, „I shall just get the hare’s foot and your jewel-case – “

„Oh, never mind that,“ Sarah said impatiently, turning her treasured ring round

and round upon her finger. Now that her strength had returned, she itched to see the

world beyond this room, and to discover what the Duke of Wessex was doing here,

and how she might escape the clutches of their betrothal. „Where is this Duke?“

* * *

The house was not familiar to her at all, but Knoyle accompanied her as if

expecting Sarah to need a stout arm to bear her up, conducting Sarah along

unfamiliar corridors until she reached the library. Once inside, Knoyle stood beside

the door as though hoping to emulate one of the suits of armor that Sarah had seen

in the corridor, and Sarah gazed about the room with interest, stories that someone –

who? – had told her resonating within her mind.

Family legend swore that, in the time of the martyred King Charles the First,

before ever a Roxbury had walked these halls, this room had been not library but

chapel to the manor’s Catholic folk. Puritan storm and Glorious Restoration had

destroyed most of the evidence of this – if ever there had been any – but what

remained were three magnificent high-crowned windows in the north wall, the center

one surmounted by a small but splendid rose window that had surely never been

meant as any secular ornament. Sarah gazed out through the tiny diamond-shaped

panes of the narrow windows at a world now red, now blue, now greener than grass,

now a strange blank amber.

The room itself was filled with books and curios. There, there are the antiquities

your father gartered in Greece; the Canaletto King Charles gave your

grandfather…. She crossed to the shelves and took a book down at random. More

books than she might read in a lifetime, here for the taking. Why did that astonish her

so?

„Lady Roxbury?“

Sarah turned at the sound of the voice, automatically setting the volume in her

hands aside. She clasped both hands before her, fiddling nervously with her ring.

The Duke of Wessex was just closing the door to the library behind him.

„Your Grace,“ the appropriate tide came to her lips almost automatically. „What

are you doing here?“

„Admirably direct,“ Wessex flicked a glance toward Knoyle, then crossed the

room to where Sarah stood. „Send your maid away.“

„I – I beg your pardon?“ Sarah wondered if she heard him rightly.

- „What I have to say is for your ears alone, Lady Roxbury. I won’t have it

repeated in every kitchen in – in England.“

Sarah glanced toward Knoyle but received no clue there; the loyal abigail’s face

was a mask of righteous indignation that gave no hint whether Wessex’s request

might be reasonable. Sarah looked back at Wessex, trying to judge what sort of man

he might be.

Face like a swordblade, and dark smudges of exhaustion beneath his eyes. His

mouth bore the stamp of both temper and cold calculation, but some instinct

prompted Sarah to grant his request.

„You may go, Knoyle.“

The abigail fairly quivered with silent protest, and Sarah locked eyes with her,

willing Knoyle to obey. After a moment Knoyle dropped her eyes and curtseyed

before exiting the room.

As Knoyle left, Wessex made a cat-footed circuit of the library, lifting curtains to

peer behind them and glancing into the chairs beside the fireplace-as if to assure

himself there was no one else present. Before Sarah could quite frame an objection,

he had returned to her side.

„Victor Saint-Lazarre is one of your guests,“ Wessex said without preamble.

Victor Saint-Lazarre. Die royalist, a ghostly voice prompted Sarah. „I know,“

she said.

„Why did you invite him?“ Wessex pursued.

As Sarah herself had not the slightest notion, the question only increased her

unease. As she wrung her hands, the too-large ring on her finger slipped free and

went bouncing across the Turkey carpet, landing against Wessex’s gleaming boot.

He bent and picked up the precious ring, and to Sarah’s horror, she saw that in its

fall the catch had come loose, and the stone had reversed to show its secret scene.

When he saw me image, the Duke of Wessex stared at the unicorn beneath the oak

as if he had been turned to salt.

She is one of us. An apprehension he had not known he felt lifted from Wessex’s

heart. He need fear no betrayal from Lady Roxbury – as a member of the Boscobel

League, both her honor and her loyalty were above question.

Normally members of the League were unknown to one another – both members

and candidates were masked at their election, and no list of the membership was

kept. Wessex himself did not know who his fellows were. But if their common bond

was not common knowledge, neither was it strictly forbidden for one member to.

reveal himself to another if need arose, and Wessex blessed Lady Roxbury’s

audaciousness in doing so. The revelation was safe enough, for the symbol meant

nothing to anyone outside the League – and everything to those within it.

He glanced up and saw the Marchioness’s wide grey eyes studying him

expressionlessly. She could not know that he was also a member of the Boscobel

league. She must be awaiting some hint of her gambit’s success or failure, but she

showed no evidence of any inner disquiet. Her face was the cool mask of a master

gambler, and Wessex felt his spirits lift. With Roxbury to back his play, they could

save Saint-Lazarre and take his would-be hunter without scathe.

„Your ring, Lady Roxbury. It is a pretty design,“ he added, turning the enamelled

badge inward and clicking the bezel into place. „And it is one I have seen before.;“

„Have you?“ the Marchioness said coolly, as if the matter were of no interest to

her. „Perhaps you will be so good as to tell me what it is you felt you could not say

before my maid.“

His spirits bolstered by the knowledge of her trustworthiness, Wessex was blunt.

„That Victor Saint-Lazarre is to be murdered – here, tonight, in your house – by

agents of the spymaster Talleyrand who are determined that a Royalist coalition shall

not bear fruit.“

„Murdered- – in my house?“ Her ladyship’s tone was still cool, but the ghost of