Murder at Hatfield House (29 page)

“And it was the duchess who found you a place here?”

“So she did. She has always been most kind to us. She is undeserving of the vile reputation her enemies have given her. It wasn’t enough for them to kill her husband and daughter; they have to besmirch her name as well.”

“And you repay the Greys by bringing chaos to Princess Elizabeth’s house? Their own kinswoman?” Kate said, her anger burning even hotter.

“Kinswoman?” The icy facade of Penelope’s beautiful face cracked and a spasm of fury twisted her mouth. “Elizabeth has never helped the Greys, and she never will, for she knows the throne should rightfully be theirs. They are legitimate where she is not, and Lady Katherine Grey should be the next queen.
That
is how I repay them. That is how I get my own life back at last.”

And suddenly all the shattered pieces that had been floating through Kate’s mind snapped together. These acts were not merely to avenge Lady Jane’s death, but to remove Elizabeth to make way for the Greys to return to power.

Kate could understand Penelope’s reasons. She and her mother had lost so much in their service to the Greys, had seen so much injustice done. Suffering could become twisted into something ugly and wrong. Seeing the men who had carried out the death of Lady Jane, the disgrace of her family, could surely drive someone to madness.

Yet there was one terrible thing Kate could not fathom. “What of Ned? He could have had nothing to do with this game of crowns. Yet you killed him as well.”

A flicker of some emotion crossed Penelope’s face, a swift crumpling of her brow, a flash in her eyes. But it vanished as quickly as it came, and she shrugged.

“I did not want to do that,” Penelope said. “I heard from my mother of Braceton and his friends’ scheme to seize Leighton Abbey, on the pretense that they were devout Catholics and servants of the queen and the Eatons were traitorous heretics.” She gave a bitter laugh. “As if men like Braceton value their eternal souls over their earthly fortunes. I wanted him to see the hypocrisy of his words. I tried to kill him once, cleanly and quickly, but it didn’t work, and I saw there was a reason for that. Killing such a man required something—dramatic. Something frightening and vivid. And Ned was so trusting and simple. He never would have been happy in this life. I did him a mercy, just as he did me a service for the greater good.”

Kate had read of such things, of cruelty to the innocent, but now that she was face-to-face with it she feared she would be sick. It was so very appalling. Surely this was all some nightmare. But she knew it was very real. That evil was so close she could reach out and touch it. “And Master Cartman? Did he do you a service as well?”

“Of course. But he grew greedy in the end. The play was part of my plan to let Braceton see that someone knew what he had done, that someone would soon come after him. And it worked, did it not? You saw how furious he was. How frightened.”

Kate
had
seen it, the raw terror that she now knew was realization on Braceton’s part. The realization that someone knew the part he had played in Jane Grey’s death and the official concealment of its true purpose, that someone unseen and ruthless was bent on revenge. All planned by Penelope, carefully, quietly. The consummate deception.

“But you also killed innocent people, Penelope, along with Lord Braceton,” Kate whispered, her head still whirling with the terrible truth. These events had happened right under her nose, and yet she hadn’t seen until it was too late.

“Innocent?” Penelope snapped. “Lady Jane was the innocent. She only wanted to be left alone with her studies. She never sought the crown, even though it was hers by right. She never would have risen against the queen. And I saw her die there in the Tower. I saw the blood. They left her body there for hours.”

Kate shook her head, choking on a sob. “I saw Ned’s blood! There on the holy altar. How does more blood, more death, make a wrong a right?”

“Oh, Kate. You are so innocent as well. Surely you have been in this world of the court long enough to see you must destroy your enemies before they destroy you? You must be strong, ruthless. The Lady Elizabeth knows that, and you must learn it if you stay in her service.”

She never wanted to be strong like that. “Is that why you tried to kill me in the road?” Kate said.

“I did not try to kill
you.
I thought it was her—Elizabeth.”

“And you were making room for Katherine Grey?”

“I told you, Kate. You must be strong; you must do a wrong sometimes to make something right. Queen Mary will soon be gone. Jane Dormer came to bring Elizabeth some of the royal jewels, which means even the queen knows the end is near. Katherine Grey should be the next queen. I had to act quickly. Too quickly, I see now. I never meant to hurt you. I swear it.”

Kate stared at her, and for an instant she thought she saw the Penelope she once knew, or thought she knew. The friend who had shared this life in exile. But then it was gone, and the murderous stranger stood before her again.

And it made Kate ache with sorrow. With anger at the waste and cruelty of it all.

“I would gladly have let you kill me there on the road if it meant Princess Elizabeth lived,” Kate said quietly. “She is the only hope any of us have.”

A hard smile curved Penelope’s lips. “Very noble of you, Kate. And foolish. You will learn, as I have had to do. You will do what you must to survive.”

“And so I will. But I won’t let you kill anyone else.”

“You won’t have to. Oh, Kate. Perhaps you will never believe me, but I am sorry. You have always been kind to everyone around you, even me. And I do not deserve it.”

Penelope suddenly spun around, her right palm sliding up her left sleeve and emerging with a brightly polished dagger. Her eyes widened, and Kate knew that Penelope was about to kill her. Kate feinted to the right and then took a running step the other way, evading the flash of the blade as it slashed down. Sheer panic took over her mind, and all she knew was she had to escape.

Kate knocked a chest into Penelope’s path, making the other woman stumble. But Penelope leaped up again and scrambled after her. Kate screamed and screamed, the sound echoing through her own head. Penelope grabbed her arm, almost wrenching it out of its socket, and Kate scratched her down the side of the face. She heard Penelope shout, but she also heard something else—footsteps running up the stairs outside the chamber.

Penelope looked up, a frantic light in her eyes. Before Kate could fathom what Penelope was doing, Penelope spun around and clambered over the window ledge. In a flurry of silken skirts, she vanished into the night. In a mere second, there was a hideous thud—and complete silence.

Kate screamed in shock and ran to the window. She peered down to the cobblestone courtyard below and saw Penelope crumpled there, like a broken doll. Blood, darker than the night around them, seeped across the stones.

“Penelope, nay,” Kate whispered. She couldn’t breathe. It felt as if a great hand squeezed at her heart, twisting it, extinguishing it until she was no longer the girl she had been only moments before. The darkness of the blood enclosed her just as it had Penelope.

CHAPTER 25

“After all the stormy, tempestuous and blustering windy weather of Queen Mary was overblown, the darksome clouds of discomfort dispersed, the palpable fogs and mists of most intolerable misery consumed, and the dashing showers of persecution overpast; it pleased God to send England a calm and quiet season, a clear and lovely sunshine . . . and a world of blessings by Good Queen Elizabeth.”

—Holinshed’s Chronicles

November 17, 1558

“A
re you warm enough, Father? Here, you need another robe.”

As Kate took a fur-trimmed blanket from the clothes chest, her father laughed and shook his head. “You must cease fussing, my Kate. I am well. I’m home now—am I not?—and not much worse for wear. I have a fine fire, and work to do. You needn’t worry about me so much.”

But Kate tucked the warm wrap around him anyway. It was true that in the days since her father had returned to Hatfield and the queen’s officers had left, Matthew had been doing well. Cora’s good food had taken away his gaol thinness, and the princess’s doctor had prescribed cordials to cure his cough. Yet his gout seemed to pain him more than ever, and she feared his eyes appeared more faded, more distant. He talked very little, losing himself even more in his music.

She wished she could lose herself thus as well. The notes and melodies that once carried her away from everything else were elusive now, jangling in her mind like mere noise. Dreams plagued her at night, visions of death and blood she couldn’t be rid of.

“I
like
fussing over you, Father,” she said. She went to stir at the embers of the fire. “It is so good to have you home again. Our rooms were much too lonely.”

“And it is good to be home, for certes,” he answered. “I fear I should have been here for you when—well, when everything happened. You should not have been alone and in such danger.”

“I wasn’t alone,” Kate said. And indeed she had not been. From the moment Penelope died and Kate’s screams woke the house, she had been surrounded by concerned people. Princess Elizabeth, Rob, Peg, all the household at Hatfield tucking her into bed, pressing possets on her. Yet in her heart she could only feel cold and hollow. “And I am assuredly not alone now that you have returned.”

“I won’t be here forever, Kate.”

“Father!” she cried, appalled. “Nay . . .”

“You know it is true, my dear. I won’t be here forever, and you are a lady now. You need a household of your own.”

A household of her own? That seemed as distant as the stars. And Kate wasn’t sure she wanted such a thing anyway. “Things are too uncertain right now to think of anything like that.”

“But you have your mother’s lovely face, and her talent too. You need to get out in the world, meet more people. What about your young lawyer friend?”

“Anthony? I have heard little of him lately. Master Hardy summoned him to London.” And Anthony had only sent her a short note telling her of his journey, and of his happiness that she was not hurt. Nothing else since that strange, intimate moment between them at their last parting.

She told herself she didn’t care about that, that he had his own career, his own life to lead. But she knew that wasn’t entirely true.

“Well, there are plenty of young men out there. Once we are in London—”

“I think we have enough to consider right now, Father, without trying to marry me off,” Kate said, mustering a laugh. “We have much work to do, with the Christmas season almost upon us. We all need a little cheer now.”

“Aye, and hopefully we will have more company by then. You need more to do than play nursemaid to me.”

Kate gave a rueful smile. She sat back on her heels and watched the fire catch and roar higher and higher. “I think I have seen quite enough of the wider world for the time being, Father. I’m not sure I’m made of a courtier’s cloth.”

“My dear girl. You have seen too little of the world to be bitter about it now. There are many ways to serve a queen, you know. And I daresay fire building is not your best skill. It is so warm out today, we’ll be roasted if you keep that up.”

Suddenly there was a commotion in the corridor outside their sitting room, the sound of swift, light footsteps and the rustle of skirts.

Kate barely had time to rise to her feet before the door swung open and Elizabeth stood there. She was dressed in somber dark green, her red hair bound up in a gold knit caul. Kat Ashley, long the princess’s governess and Mistress of Robes, separated from Elizabeth since Wyatt’s Rebellion and her incarceration in the Tower, but now returned to Hatfield, hurried after her to wrap a shawl around her shoulders.

“Indeed it
is
a warm day, Kate,” Elizabeth said. “We must not waste such a treasure after all the cold rain. Come walk with us in the garden.”

“I thank you, Your Grace, but I really should stay with my father,” Kate said.

“Nonsense,” Matthew said heartily. “You need exercise, my dear, and I need to get on with my work. I shall do very well here for a few hours.”

Kate studied him uncertainly, but he did seem well settled in for the afternoon. And she would have to face Elizabeth sometime soon.

“Very well,” she said. “But send Peg for me at once if you have any need of me.”

“We will not go far,” Elizabeth said.

Kate took up her cloak, her old dark brown one this time, as the fine red velvet one had been ruined with blood, and followed Elizabeth out to the gardens. In the foyer, just at the base of the grand staircase, Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth’s surveyor and most trusted secretary, sat at a hastily arranged desk, busily writing out lists and documents. He had arrived just as Queen Mary’s officers left, the greatest sign yet of vast changes to come.

Elizabeth led them briskly along the pathways, Kat Ashley and a few other ladies following, but the princess was much lighter of foot than they. She took Kate’s hand and drew her along, and soon they were far ahead of the others, beyond the formal pathways and near a grove of old oak trees on the slope of a hill.

From there the red bricks of the house gleamed in the amber sunlight, warm and welcoming. A maid shook a rug out of an open window, and a dog barked. Everything looked so calm, so peaceful, as if nothing terrible had ever happened in such a beautiful place.

“Has your arm healed, Kate?” Elizabeth asked.

“Very well, Your Grace. Peg’s poultices worked wonders. I think there will only be a small scar.”

“Aye. ’Tis better to hide the scars inside, where others can’t see them.”

Elizabeth paused to lean back against a tree, narrowing her eyes as she stared off over the empty fields. She twisted her pearl-and-ruby ring around her finger. “Your father is right, you know. You cannot blame yourself for what happened.”

Kate closed her eyes against the rush of pain. She had gone over and over those words in her own head and still she had no solution, no solace. “I should have seen it was Penelope all along. I let my feelings of friendship blind me.”