Read Murder at Hatfield House Online
Authors: Amanda Carmack
Tags: #Mystery, #Cozy, #Thriller & Suspense, #United States, #Historical, #Literature & Fiction
Murder at Hatfield House
DANGER IN THE WOODS
The lurking figure watched as the girl, the foolish princess in her pretty crimson cloak, stopped at the side door and glanced back over her shoulder as if to make sure she wasn’t followed. The hood didn’t fall back to show her red-gold hair, but who else would be running about in her fine cloak at that time of day? Elizabeth’s tale of being confined to her chamber sick with a headache was patently false.
Just like all her lies, her craven prevarications. She wasn’t worthy of her place, the position she had stolen.
She’d be sorry one day soon, the Boleyn bastard. All her vaunted cleverness couldn’t save her. But for now she had to stay. Plans would take longer to come to fruition than intended—that was all.
The watching figure curled its gloved hand into a tight fist as a wave of cold, bitter frustration washed over it. Once word came that it was Lord Braceton sent to question Elizabeth, Braceton who was lurking in the neighborhood, all seemed set to finally fall into place. Braceton was not the largest prey, but he was assuredly one of those who had to pay. And his downfall would set so many others in motion, like a carefully arranged set of dominoes. It had all seemed so very easy.
Until the arrow went astray in the darkness. A terrible miscalculation, but not one that would be made again.
The girl in the red cloak slipped into the house and the garden was empty again. The drapery swung into place and the figure turned away. Failure again was simply impossible.
Braceton had to go. And Elizabeth with him.
MURDER AT HATFIELD HOUSE
AN ELIZABETHAN MYSTERY
AMANDA CARMACK
AN OBSIDIAN MYSTERY
OBSIDIAN
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC
First Printing, October 2013
Copyright © Ammanda McCabe, 2013
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ISBN 978-1-10162776-1
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For Anne, who shared my obsession with all things Tudor!
I miss you every day and wish you could see this book now.
“A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.”
—Shakespeare
CONTENTS
Sneak Peek of MURDER AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY
PROLOGUE
February 11, 1554
“My lute awake! Perform the last
Labor that thou and I shall waste,
And end that I have now begun;
For when this song is sung and past,
My lute be still, for I have done.”
—Sir Thomas Wyatt
I
t was a frozen gray day. The sun hid behind roiling banks of clouds and sent not even a ray of reassuring light to the earth below, which was eerily silent. There were no shouts in the streets, no cries from merchants selling hot cider or roasted almonds, no quarrels or laughter. The river was empty of boats, and the crowds on London Bridge scurried on their business with their muffled heads down.
The whole vast city seemed to hold its breath, and for a moment the ebb and flow of daily life, the stink and striving and heave of it all, had grown still.
Suddenly the bells of the Tower church and All Hallows Barking rang out in a slow, rhythmic, solemn song and the city lurched back to life. The door of the Tower lieutenant’s house opened and a lady appeared there, soft and quiet as a ghost.
She was small and pale, and shockingly young. The crowd gathered outside gasped in surprise at the sight of her, so tiny in her stark black gown and furred cape, her oval freckled face framed by a fine French hood trimmed with jet beads. She clutched an open prayer book in her hands, which were steady and still.
She did not cry or tremble, but the two black-clad ladies who followed in her train sobbed. Lieutenant Feckenham and his men, Queen Mary’s priest, and other grim officials joined the small procession, and they made their way slowly across Tower Green. The gathered crowd made room for them. No one said a word, overcome with sadness at the girl’s youth and composure. Not even the Tower’s ravens cawed or flapped their vast black wings.
The girl’s lips moved in silent prayer as they came closer to the scaffold built near the chapel. As she glimpsed the church’s open doors, where her young husband had been buried only that morning, she faltered for an instant.
“Oh, Guildford,” she whispered. But then her calm composure returned, and she mounted the steps to the scaffold. A hooded, red-clad executioner waited there near the scarred black hulk of the block, his ax hidden from her view in the straw scattered at its base.
The girl stepped to the edge of the wooden planks and said in a clear, steady voice, “I pray you, all good Christian people, to bear me witness that I died a true Christian woman, and that I do look to be saved by no other means, but only by the mercy of God, in the merits of his only son, Jesus Christ. Now, good people, while I am alive, I pray you to assist me with your prayers.”
While I am aliv
e. Even at the threshold of death, she was staunchly Protestant, defying Queen Mary’s Catholic ways and the priest who stood behind her. Prayers for the dead were futile, according to the new learning. The dead were beyond help.
She gave her gloves and handkerchief to her two sobbing ladies and her prayer book to Thomas Brydges, who had assisted her in the long, dull months of her imprisonment. The ladies removed her headdress and her black gown. Clad in her white chemise, she seemed even younger, purer—more vulnerable. Her waving red-gold hair fell over her shoulders.
She glanced at the executioner, who stepped forward. To him she said, “I pray you, dispatch me quickly.” And as she knelt, she added in the first quavering hint of any anxiety, “Will you take it off before I lay me down?”
“No, madam,” he answered.
She swallowed hard and nodded. In one quick motion, she tossed her hair forward and tied on a white blindfold. But then she lost her bearings in that darkness and grasped desperately for the block, her hands fluttering in the air. Her cool composure finally cracked, and she cried out, “What shall I do? Where is it?”
A shudder heaved through the crowd, a wave of revulsion at what was happening to this pale, frightened young girl. At last one of the guards gently led her to the block and laid her hands on it, and she rested her head in its hollow.
“Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” she whispered, and flung her arms out to the sides. The executioner, a skilled, experienced man at his profession, swung his ax high and brought it down only once—and it was done.
Jane Grey, sixteen years old and once Queen of England for nine days, was dead.
Her hysterical ladies were carried back to the lieutenant’s house, where they had spent all the months of imprisonment with Lady Jane, and the silent crowds dispersed, their witness done. Jane’s small body remained there in the bloody straw for hours until it could be officially collected and laid next to her husband and her traitorous father under the floor of the chapel.
Only the ravens watched over her, along with a cloaked and hooded figure lurking in the shadows of Beauchamp Tower. Alone and silent, this figure stayed with her like a guardian angel until she was carted away and the gory straw swept up and burned. The block was hidden and the Tower peaceful again—for a time.
CHAPTER 1
Autumn 1558
T
he horses’ hooves pounded like thunder on the rutted road as the two riders dashed under the low-hanging trees, still heavy from that morning’s rain. The storm had left the lane muddy and pitted, and it was late for travelers. The night was gathering in fast, and all sensible country folk were safe by their own hearths. The wind whipped cold and quick through the branches—winter was not so far off now.
But the riders took no heed of the chill. They had important tasks to perform, for very important people indeed, and they were already delayed. They had to reach Hatfield House by that night, which was why the lead rider traveled with only one servant and had ordered the rest to follow the next day.
“God’s wounds, but this is a foul place!” Lord Braceton cursed as his horse slid on the wet ground. No one should have to live in such a forsaken spot as the damned countryside. It smelled of fresh, cold air and wet leaves, of cows and pigs and peasants, and the night sounds of hooting owls seemed ominous to a man used to the constant shouts and curses of London, the pungent, heavy air of the city.
The forest to either side of the narrow road was thick, full of shifting shadows and sudden sounds. It obscured the pale, chalky moonlight overhead and hid the few houses and cottages from view. A man could be lost in such a rural thicket and never be seen again.
Aye,
Braceton thought grimly as he pulled hard at his horse’s reins, making the beast whinny in shrill protest. The countryside was a godforsaken place, fit only for animals and traitors. It was no wonder so many of them gathered here, like a filthy, buzzing hive around their whorish queen.