To Kiss A Spy (28 page)

Lady Bryanston regarded Pen as she stood with her back to the wall, rubbing her arm where his fingers had bruised the flesh. The hard brown eyes held just the suspicion of alarm lurking beneath the naked loathing that made Pen’s flesh crawl.

“I don’t know what game you play, Pen, but I warn you. Do not set yourself up against me. Miles is right. You can prove nothing.”

“Indeed, madam?” Pen raised one eyebrow, slipped sideways away from the countess, and walked swiftly down the corridor.

Indeed!
she thought. My child is living proof.
And by God, madam, it shall come back to bite you.

She knocked lightly on the locked door of her chamber. “Ellen?”

The door opened immediately and Pen swept inside, turning to lock the door at her back.

The children gazed solemnly at her. They were dressed now in Holland smocks and petticoats, as befitted boys not yet breeched. Each held a piece of marchpane in his fist and wore an expression somewhat resembling bliss.

“Have they said anything?” she murmured, kneeling on the floor to put her face at their level.

“Not as such, my lady,” Ellen replied. “But they’ve been all round the chamber, exploring. Mostly they need feeding up.”

“Yes.” Pen bent to kiss her son and said distressfully, “No . . . no . . . I won’t take it away,” as he recoiled, snatching his fist behind his back.

She straightened, made a move to stroke his head. He shrank away from her, and when she tried the same with little Charles he too retreated, scuttling backwards across the bed.

“I will kill her!” Pen said with soft savagery. “So help me, God, I will see her rot!”

She stood looking at the children, clasping her elbows. “Toys . . . they need something to play with.”

She felt a wave of helplessness wash over her. She didn’t know how to be a mother. She’d had no experience, no opportunity to learn. And now she had two damaged babies who’d never been mothered, who didn’t know a loving caress from a threatened blow.

But she was not alone, she reminded herself. She had her own mother, who knew everything about loving parenting, to guide her. It would be all right.

And Owen? What kind of father had he been before he’d disowned his children? Now that she looked at it, she knew that something was wrong with Robin’s story. She had been forcing a piece of the puzzle that looked right into the wrong part of the picture. Just because there was a patch of blue, didn’t mean the piece had to fit in the sky. It could be the sea, a snatch of color from a piece of clothing.

A knock at the door jerked her out of her reverie.

“Who is it?”

“Me!” came Pippa’s impatient exclamation.

Ellen opened the door. Pippa bounded into the chamber, Robin on her heels. She flung her arms around Pen.

“Oh, Pen, dearest, I am so sorry . . . so very very sorry. Mama and Lord Hugh were out riding so I haven’t had a chance to tell her, otherwise she would have come with me.”

She turned with tear-wet cheeks to the bed, saying softly, “Oh . . . there he is . . . but . . . but which one, Pen?”

“Don’t you see any likeness?” her sister asked with painful anxiety.

Pippa dashed the tears from her eyes and squatted in front of the boys, managing to produce a cheerful grin. “So, who have we here? Is that marchpane? It’s quite my favorite sweetmeat.”

They regarded her solemnly and continued to suck on the confection.

“I don’t think any child of Philip’s could have red hair,” Pippa said with a tiny laugh. “And this one has his father’s eyelashes. I’d know them anywhere.”

“Oh, Pippa!” Laughter and tears mingled in Pen’s voice as she embraced her sister. “They are Philip’s eyelashes, aren’t they?”

Robin approached the pair on the bed. “ ’Tis extraordinary,” he murmured. “But there
is
a likeness.”

“What are you going to do?” Pippa asked, rising to her feet. “How will you have him declared Philip’s son?”

Pen glanced at Robin. He gave her a slight warning shake of his head and she understood that not even Pippa could be let into the secret of Mary’s impending flight.

“I have an idea,” Pen said. She turned to the interested maid. “Ellen, would you fetch meat and ale? I haven’t yet broken my fast.”

Ellen looked none too pleased at this dismissal but curtsied and went on her way.

“Now,” said Pen. “If we can discredit Miles and his mother in some way, have them arrested even, then it will be a great deal easier to establish Philip.”

“How are you going to do that?” Pippa inquired, her gaze lively with interest.

“I’ve already begun.” Pen sat on the bed and put an arm casually around her son. This time he didn’t pull away, but rested his sticky face against her breast.

“If Northumberland can be persuaded to believe that Goodlow might once have used poison in the Bryanstons’ interests in the past, he will see treason, will he not?”

Pippa and Robin stared at her in silence for a minute. Then Pippa said, “Do you believe Lady Bryanston used her to induce your labor, Pen?”

“Oh, yes,” Pen replied, her mouth twisting. “She tried to force me to miscarry. And I believe she allowed Philip to die. But I cannot prove it, as she and Miles both said.”

“They would hardly say you could prove nothing if there was nothing to prove.” Pippa ran her fingers through a bowl of potpourri on the table, her expression distracted.

“It will serve,” Robin said with a grim smile. “Northumberland sees treason in every corner and he’s already out of patience with Bryanston, who follows him around like an eager puppy, always boasting about his close connections with the
Grand Master of the Realm
.”

Pen nodded. “Then you can nurture the seed I sowed, Robin. The duke trusts you, and because of the family connection you’d be in a position to voice suspicions about Philip’s death . . . speculate a little out loud. From what I heard, the Goodlow woman is not doing the king any good with her ministrations, quite the opposite, so the duke would have no reason to contradict what you implied.”

Robin rose to his feet. “Then I will be about this business.” He went to the door just as Ellen entered with a tray.

He laid an arresting hand on her arm and took the ale jug off the tray. He tipped it to his throat and drank deeply before setting it back. “My thanks, I had a thirst to rival a camel’s after a month in the desert.”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as he glanced over at Pen. “Until later then.”

“Yes, until later.”

“A carriage is waiting below to take Pippa and Ellen, with the children, to Holborn.”

“They’ll leave directly,” Pen replied.

Robin nodded, repeated as if it reassured him, “Until later then,” and left.

“You should eat,” Pippa said, indicating the tray that Ellen had set on a low table.

Pen nodded and broke bread, laying upon it a slice of sirloin liberally spread with mustard.

“So Ellen and I are to take the children to Holborn,” Pippa stated, instinctively taking Pen’s place on the bed between the boys. Idly she reached a hand behind her to stroke Nutmeg, who was still regarding the proceedings warily. “You cannot leave Mary? Not even for something this momentous?”

Pen shook her head and swallowed her mouthful. “I haven’t told her. I can’t risk the Bryanstons getting wind of this while the children are still in the palace.”

“No, I suppose not.” Pippa raised an eyebrow. “There’s something you’re not telling
me,
though.”

When Pen made no reply, Pippa didn’t press further. It was to be her task to break the news to her mother and Lord Hugh. There was no room for distraction.

Ellen bustled around the chamber assembling the necessaries for their journey. “We’ll be taking Nutmeg with us then,” she observed, tucking the cat into his carrying basket without waiting for an answer.

Pen picked up her son, holding him against her shoulder. His head lolled sleepily. She kissed the top of his head, inhaling the soft, clean, baby smell of him. So different from when she’d first seen him.

“We’d best go,” Pippa said. She moved to take Philip from Pen as Ellen picked up Charles.

“Yes,” Pen said, but she kept hold of her son. Her arms would not make the necessary movement to hand him over.

Then she said, “No . . . no, I cannot let him go. Take Charles to Mama. I will bring Philip when I can.” She kissed his cheek.

“But, Pen . . . Pen . . . how can you look after—” And then Pippa stopped. “We’ll see you both as soon as you’ve done whatever it is that you’re about to do,” she murmured instead into her sister’s ear as she bent to kiss her. “I don’t think any member of the family will ever argue with you again, Pen.”

At that Pen smiled; it was typical of Pippa to make such a joke.

The two women left with the bundled child and the cat in his basket. Pen carried Philip to the window. How she was to explain him to Mary, she didn’t know. But neither did she care. He was her son. And she would not let him go again.

Twenty-two

“Get rid of it!” Lady Bryanston commanded, her voice for once agitated, her skirts swinging around her as she paced the library.

“But how, madam?” Miles asked. He knew what his mother was referring to but this abrupt command took him by surprise.

“I have no idea!” she snapped. “Just
do
it!”

“But no one could have any idea where he is,” Miles protested. “He’s buried as safely in the stews as if he were six feet in the ground.”

“I should have dealt with him at birth,” his mother said, pausing by the table, her hand unconsciously caressing a massive piece of granite carved into a lion’s head that served as a paperweight.

“If you’d kept your mouth shut this morning, everything would have been fine. Instead of which, you have to lay hands on her and prate about how nothing can be proved! You are an idiot, Miles!”

Miles sighed and tucked in his chin. This refrain had continued ever since they had left Greenwich Palace after his confrontation with Pen. He’d rarely seen his mother so unnerved, but then he’d never seen Pen so curiously triumphant. And she had been triumphant, complacent, so extraordinarily sure of herself. It was that, Miles knew, that had shaken his mother.

“What does she know? What
could
she know?” Lady Bryanston muttered. She picked up a paper knife and Miles took an involuntary step backwards. His mother, while not being averse to employing others in such matters, was not herself prone to physical violence—her tongue wreaked all the damage necessary—but her mood at present was most unpredictable.

“We have to get rid of it!” she repeated, driving the point of the paper knife into the desk. The gesture merely bent the tip of the blade, but its symbolism was obvious even to her thick-headed son.

“The child is the only possible link. While he’s alive, there is always the danger that he might be found, and the whole story will come out.”

“You didn’t think so before, madam,” Miles said tentatively. “It’s been two years and more.”

“I assumed that in those conditions he would have died long since,” she declared with what sounded to Miles remarkably like a hiss. “But you heard what Pen said about Mistress Goodlow. If she starts making those connections, there’s no knowing where it will lead.”

“No, madam,” he agreed, ducking his head. “But how is it to be done?”

“Find a way!” Her hard brown eyes glared their contempt, her voice dripped icy scorn.

“Yes, madam.”

Miles bowed and hastened from the library, replacing his bonnet as he did so.

Lady Bryanston looked up at the portrait of her son Philip that hung above the mantel. At least he’d had brains, she reflected. But he would not bend to her will . . . not even as a child. He’d always followed his own path, his own conscience, and he’d married a woman who was exactly the same. Both of them pig-headed, unmovable, both of them without a smidgeon of ambition, except to see Philip’s poetry in print.

If only she could have harnessed Philip’s brain to her own ambition . . .

She sighed and shook her head at the waste of such talent and opportunity.

“My lord duke.” Robin approached Northumberland in the king’s council chamber. The duke stood alone by the window embrasure, his face darker than usual, his mouth seeming thinner, his eyes more piercing.

“Robin?” His voice was curt.

“I talked with my sister, my lord,” Robin said in confidential tones. “She is, of course, very happy to do your bidding.”

“Yes, I talked with her myself,” the duke said, his frown deepening. “She made her obedience known to me. I will assume your moment of insolence was an aberration.”

Robin bowed his head. “I ask pardon, my lord. I was taken aback and forgot my duty for a moment.”

The duke nodded, his expression still dour.

“How does the king?” Robin asked, looking over his shoulder towards the door to the king’s antechamber.

“Ill . . . very ill,” Northumberland said.

“The herbalist’s remedies do no good?”

“No. If anything the king is worse.”

“We are a superstitious family and do not ourselves have too much faith in Mistress Goodlow’s abilities,” Robin said casually. “She had but ill luck when attending my sister’s husband, and then my sister, who miscarried late in her pregnancy despite Mistress Goodlow’s best attentions.”

“Yes, so I understand.” The duke looked shrewdly at the younger man. “Lady Bryanston, however, recommends her most highly.”

“Yes,” Robin agreed. “A triumph of hope over experience, one might say.”

“One might.” Northumberland rubbed his fingertips over his mouth. “Lady Pen implied as much.”

“My sister is understandably prejudiced,” Robin said smoothly. “But Lady Bryanston has much at stake.” He smiled.

“Oh?” The duke quirked an eyebrow.

“To have one of her own servants in such close proximity to His Highness . . .” Robin paused. “It cannot help but add to her consequence, and, of course, to that of her son.”

“I had noticed,” Northumberland said dryly. He looked away from Robin, gazing out of the window at the river glittering under the feeble rays of the winter sun.

Robin glanced up at the clock on the mantel. It was close to one o’clock. Mary’s barge would be long gone from the palace dock, but it would be several hours before she reached Baynard’s Castle. His primary task was to ensure that the duke failed to notice her prolonged absence, and Robin was deriving a savage satisfaction from the business at hand.

He murmured, “My sister’s husband died very suddenly. It was such a puzzle to us all, one day he was hale, the next he had taken to his bed, never to leave it, despite all the attentions of both Mistress Goodlow and his mother.”

Northumberland turned back to Robin. “And of his wife, I assume?”

“Lady Pen was not well herself at the time. It was assumed the usual frailty of pregnancy, although she had been well up until then,” Robin said with a half shrug. “She was not strong enough to attend at her husband’s bedside much of the time.”

“I see.” Northumberland again touched his mouth. “Do you make a point here, Robin?”

“If you would take one, my lord.” Robin’s vivid blue eyes never wavered as he met the duke’s stare, his mouth was unusually grim, his body very still and straight. “The king does not improve.”

“No,” Northumberland said, and without a word of excuse pushed past Robin and stalked from the council chamber.

He entered the king’s bedchamber but remained in the doorway, wafting his pomander in a vain attempt to freshen the air. Only the woman Goodlow attended the king, holding a small copper pan over a candle flame. She glanced up at the duke, but offered no obeisance, her lips moving all the while in some incantation.

“How fares the king?” Northumberland demanded.

“He will be well within the week, my lord,” the woman said, her expression calm, her eyes quietly confident. “The physic takes some time to work.”

Northumberland frowned, hesitated. What had Beaucaire been implying? That the Bryanstons had introduced a poisoner into the king’s bedchamber? It was impossible to believe, not least because Northumberland couldn’t imagine what they would hope to gain by the king’s death. And yet the king grew worse, not better. Maybe the woman was simply a charlatan.

His mouth thinned. Charlatan or worse, she was the Bryanstons’ instrument.

He strode to the door of the bedchamber and bellowed,
“Guards!”

They came running, six of them, weapons drawn.

Northumberland pointed to the Goodlow woman. “Question her about the death of Philip Bryanston,” he instructed coldly.

Mistress Goodlow, for the first time since Northumberland had met her, paled; terror stood out stark on her countenance.

“Put her to the question,” he said with icy dispassion. “And send for the king’s physicians. They must repair the damage this woman has done.”

If God gave them the power for such an impossible task.

“I do not understand any of this,” Mary said for the tenth time as she looked across the cabin to where Pen sat holding her child. “How can we possibly flee across country with a baby on our hands?”

“I do not believe he will cause any difficulty, madam,” Pen said calmly. “He hasn’t so far.” She kissed the top of the child’s head.

Philip had barely uttered a sound since they’d left Greenwich but she was relieved to see that he seemed to be taking notice of his surroundings now. His dark eyes were wide and roamed constantly around the cabin, resting every now and again on the faces of the women, all three of whom returned his solemn gaze with a kind of horrified bemusement at the tale they had just heard.

If the situation hadn’t been so grave, Pen would have been amused at the speechless astonishment that had greeted her arrival on the barge with a baby in her arms. She had waited until Mary, with Susan and Matilda and a very heavy picnic basket, had boarded the barge before joining them, giving the helmsman the order to depart as soon as her foot touched the deck.

That had been over an hour ago, an hour in which she explained what had happened, and in the face of Mary’s objections declared with quiet resolution that she had no intention of being separated from her son again in the foreseeable future.

“The chevalier helped you find him,” Susan said, still bemused.

“How could anyone be as evil as your mother-in-law?” Matilda’s tone was awed. “To do such a thing? ’Tis well nigh impossible to believe.”

Mary was for the moment silent. She was thinking of how her own father had had her declared a bastard, his marriage to her mother incestuous; how he had stripped her of her title and forced her to serve her half sister as lady-in-waiting. On his orders she had been kept short of food and decent clothes, imprisoned in cold, drafty houses, deprived of her mother’s company. Even when Mary had been at death’s door, when she and her attendants were convinced she had been poisoned and had only days to live, Henry had not permitted her mother to tend her.

Parents could do dreadful things in the name of dynasty and ambition.

“Your chevalier is clearly resourceful,” she said after a minute. “Which is fortunate since all our hopes rest on that resourcefulness. Has he made provision for the child’s presence?”

“No,” Pen confessed. “But I have little doubt it will not be beyond his resources to manage.”

“Let us hope not.” Mary shook her head as if in resignation.

“How will you establish his identity, Pen?” Susan leaned over and hesitantly touched the child’s fragile hand. He jumped as if startled but made no sound.

Pen tightened her hold on him and glanced at Mary. “I am hoping that my mother and Lord Hugh will have some knowledge of the legal issues, but my cause would be greatly helped by your approval, madam. If you were to declare yourself satisfied that he is indeed the true Earl of Bryanston it will carry much weight.”

Mary shook her head bitterly. “Not in my present position, Pen. I have no more power than a street vendor.”

“That will not last, madam,” Pen stated. “You will be queen on your brother’s death.”

“One would hope so,” the princess returned with an arid smile. “How close are we?”

Pen rose with Philip and went up on deck. They were close now to Whitehall Palace on the north bank. She lifted the child onto the rail and crooned softly to him, nuzzling his cheek. He seemed now to accept her caresses, but he still spoke not a word.

She picked up his hand and felt the tears prick behind her eyes at how thin and fragile, almost clawlike, it was. She remembered how Anna’s hands at this age had had dimpled bracelets at the wrists, and pudgy little fingers. How her arms and legs had been so round.

But soon, she promised herself. Soon little Philip would look as he should. And soon she would see the day of vengeance.

She turned and went below. “Wind and tide are with us. We should reach Blackfriars in an hour or so, and I see no sign of pursuit, madam.”

Antoine de Noailles drew his cloak tighter around him as a bitter wind gusted off the river. “Why must we walk outside?” he grumbled to his companion. “My parlor is perfectly secure and a damn sight warmer.”

“I prefer the outdoors for this discussion,” Owen said. “There are times when walls have ears. Besides, it’s a beautiful afternoon; a little bracing, I grant you, but quite exquisite.” He gestured to the bare trees along the riverbank. Their branches were starkly white against the brilliant blue sky, their twigs glittering with a filigree of ice.

De Noailles sighed, unimpressed by the day’s winter beauty. He glanced up and sideways at the taller man. He could feel the brittle edge to the chevalier’s mood, see it in the hard jut of his set jaw, the disturbing light in his eye. Something was badly wrong with Owen d’Arcy.

He clapped his gloved hands together and returned to the main topic of conversation. If Owen wanted to confide his troubles, he would do so in his own time. “So, we are to help Mary get safely away to Essex,” he said. “Do you really think Northumberland is planning on rerouting the succession?”

“I think it’s highly likely,” Owen said, breaking off a twig from the box hedge beside the path. “It seems the most plausible explanation for these sudden plans to marry his son to the king’s cousin.”

He rubbed the greenery between his hands, inhaling the scent. “Her house at Woodham Walter is but two miles from the coast, so, if she needs to flee the land, she’s within easy reach of the emperor’s ships there.”

“Aye,” muttered the French ambassador, pulling his hat down farther over his ears with an emphatic tug. “Northumberland could have her arrested on a charge of treason at any moment since she insists upon practicing her own religion against the king’s express edicts.”

“He’ll find it harder to do that if she’s no longer under the king’s roof.” Owen turned away from the river and began to walk back up the path to the house, his companion hurrying to keep up with his long stride.

“I wonder if Simon Renard has come to the same conclusion about Northumberland’s intentions,” de Noailles said. “I must ask our ears in the Spanish embassy.”

Renard!
Of course. Owen stopped dead on the path and the ambassador nearly ran into his back. Renard would know the old scandal, and if he thought it would do him any good he would have no scruples about relaying it to someone like Robin of Beaucaire. And what more natural than that Beaucaire would know where to go for unsavory tidbits of information? The French wouldn’t tell him anything, but their rival, the Spanish ambassador . . . ? Of course.