Murder at Hatfield House (9 page)

“That is what I heard. No one could be sure what he was doing there, as none of the servants from Gorhambury have been to the village. I do wonder if perhaps he or the servant who was killed found out something there someone would go to extreme measures to conceal,” Kate mused. “Shall I go out again tomorrow, Your Grace, and try to find out more? I could surely come up with some pretext to call on the local farms.”

Elizabeth frowned and shook her head. “Not as yet, I think, Kate—especially if there is a matter someone would kill to protect. We mustn’t call undue attention to Hatfield. I will write to Sir William Cecil, who is surveyor of my properties and thus has a fine excuse to visit us. He is Bacon’s brother-in-law, and might very well know something.”

Kate felt a touch of excitement at the thought that something could be discovered soon. They had been isolated at Hatfield for so long. “Surely Lord Braceton will be gone soon, Your Grace, just as the others before him.”

“I do hope so. But there is something overbold about Braceton, as if he knows something we don’t—or thinks he knows something. He has some errand here, beyond merely finding heretical books, that I cannot yet see, and he is most determined to carry it out.”

Elizabeth sat in silence for a long moment as she stared into the empty fireplace. Kate could hear Lady Pope shifting restlessly on the cushioned seat, but even she dared not try to tell Elizabeth what to do in that quiet tension. A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, and the air felt heavy.

“Aye, I shall write to Cecil this very night,” Elizabeth said, loudly enough for the other ladies to hear. “It is past time I looked over the accounts for my properties. You must go see to your father, Kate. I will have more wine sent to him.”

“You should dine soon yourself, my lady,” Lady Pope said. She was always particular about keeping to set mealtimes. “The hour grows late. Should I order the food served in the hall tonight?”

“I will have something in here,” Elizabeth said. “My head still aches, and I doubt the kitchen staff is in any order to prepare a large meal after their treatment this afternoon. You and Sir Thomas may dine with our—guests, if you so choose.”

As Lady Pope tried to argue with Elizabeth that all due courtesy must be shown to the queen’s emissary, Kate quickly curtsied and hurried out of the room. She wanted to find the quiet of her own small room, to try to make some sense of the strange day just past. To try to piece together something from the scraps of information floating in her mind.

She met Peg hurrying up the stairs. The maid held a letter clutched tightly in her hand, the parchment carefully folded and sealed with scarlet wax wafers.

“This just came for Her Grace—from London,” Peg whispered.

News from London was seldom good. “From Queen Mary?”

“I don’t know. It was left by a messenger at the kitchen door just now, and then he rode off as quick as could be.” Peg held the letter most carefully between her fingers, as if it could suddenly turn into a serpent and bite her.

As it very well could.

“Did Lord Braceton see it?” Kate asked. Surely not, or he would have snatched it away by now.

“No, Mistress Haywood. He is locked away in the library with some of his men, luckily. Old Cora is still furious.”

“Good. Hopefully he will stay locked away privily all evening. You should get it to the princess at once.”

Peg nodded and dashed up the rest of the stairs. Kate went down and turned along the narrow, winding corridor that led to her rooms at the back of the house. She ached to know what could be in a letter from London, but she also didn’t want to know at all. There had been nothing but a barrage of bad surprises in the last few hours. Any more news could surely wait. She had to make sure her father was recovering.

The corridor was dimly lit, the only light from one small window set high in the wall. It was too early yet for torches, but the clouds were rolling in again, casting the house in gloom. She was too far from the kitchens and the main stairs to hear anything but the ever-louder thunder.

Suddenly a door shut somewhere along the corridor behind her, the click of it unexpectedly loud in the gloom. Her nerves already on edge, Kate spun around just in time to see a fluttering shadow dart away.

“Who is there?” she called, but her only answer was the patter of running footsteps.

Surely anyone who had business there, Cora or one of the other servants, would answer her. There was nothing in this part of the house anyone would need at this hour, merely some of the princess’s household’s chambers and storage cupboards. Unless it was one of Braceton’s spies, sent to find more things to burn.

Kate ran after the fading footsteps. She turned a corner, sliding on the wooden floor, just in time to see someone darting out of a side door that led toward the stable yard.

At first she feared she must be imagining things, for this looked like no spy of Braceton’s, or anyone else she knew, for that matter. The figure resembled nothing so much as a ghost—a small, slender woman in a dark gray gown swathed in a filmy black veil that hid every hint of human features.

“Wait!” Kate called, and for an instant the woman glanced back. All Kate could see was that veil, matte black, and the effect was so very eerie it made her stumble.

She quickly righted herself, but her one false step gave the veiled figure the advantage. In a ripple of black and gray, the woman vanished through the door. Kate ran after her, only to find the gate from the stable yard open and no one around at all. A smell of violets hung in the air.

She dashed to the gate, but the lane was empty. Whoever it was had to have fled into the woods beyond, and darkness was gathering too fast for Kate to follow.

She pressed her hand to the stitch in her side just as the first cold drops of rain hit her skin. Reluctantly, she turned back to the house. There was no way she could track the veiled woman in the rain, and even if she did, what could she do if she found her? Tackle her into the mud and rip off her veil?

What if the woman was a ghost? Some strange imagining? The thought made Kate shiver even as she dismissed it. There was no such thing as ghosts, no matter what tales floated out of the Tower. And even if there were, surely ghosts made no audible footsteps.

Whoever was behind that veil, she was all too corporeal and would surely return soon to find whatever it was she came searching for at Hatfield. As Kate turned back to the house, she cursed the fact that she had not been fast enough. Next time she would not be caught off-guard.

As she stepped back through the door, she heard a low sound like a keening moan. She peered around the corner to find Ned the kitchen boy crouched on the floor, just as he had been earlier when Braceton rampaged around. Ned had his arms over his head, his thin shoulders shaking, his long legs tucked awkwardly beneath him.

“Ned,” she said gently as she knelt beside him. She touched his arm and he flinched away from her. “Ned, it’s me. Kate. Don’t be afraid.”

He peered up at her from behind his arm. His eyes were huge with fright.

“Did you see the woman in the veil run past?” she asked. She’d long felt that Ned saw much in the house that everyone else missed. He just didn’t know how to tell them.

He shook his head wildly, shrinking back to the wall again. He waved his hand in the air and made a wordless cry.

“Nay, she was surely no ghost,” Kate said. “Only someone who had no business being here. If you saw something, Ned . . .”

He broke away from her and ran as fast as his thin legs could take him, disappearing up the stairs toward the kitchen. Kate sat back on her heels for a moment and closed her eyes as a wave of weariness washed over her. When would peace ever come back to Hatfield? She had to try to find that woman in the veil.

CHAPTER 6

“Y
ou speak Spanish, do you not, Kate?” Elizabeth suddenly asked, breaking the brittle silence of her chamber.

Kate looked up from the musical score she was studying, startled. Elizabeth had been lost in her own studies all that gray morning, taking advantage of the moment of peace as Braceton and Sir Thomas Pope had gone to question some of the tenants on the estate. Penelope and Lady Pope were occupied with their sewing in the window seat, as usual.

“I— Yes, Your Grace. A little,” Kate answered. “Many of the most fashionable songs come from Spain, and my father thought I should learn enough to read them. I cannot speak it nearly as well as you do.” Everyone knew of Elizabeth’s formidable scholarship, that she could read and speak Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Italian, French, and Spanish.

“I’m sure you speak it well enough to be understood,” Elizabeth said. “I shall need you to accompany me this evening to Brocket Hall, to dine with my friend, Lady Clinton. I know you are concerned about your father, but we shall only be gone the one night and Peg can stay with him at all times. Penelope will go as well.”

Penelope’s face, set in distant, distracted lines since she sat down with her sewing, brightened. Penelope loved parties and merriment, and life at Hatfield had supplied little of either. Still Lady Pope frowned.

“Really, my lady, the weather is not conducive to visiting,” she said. “And with such guests in the house . . .”

“All the more reason for an outing,” Elizabeth said with one of her rare cajoling, charming smiles. “I have been friends with Lady Clinton since we were children, and I have not had the chance to see her in a long time. Surely Sir Thomas would not begrudge me the opportunity to call on the wife of the queen’s own Lord Admiral? Besides, there is nothing to look forward to here since the colder weather has set in.”

Lady Pope’s lips tightened. Everyone knew that Lord Clinton was one of Elizabeth’s most ardent supporters on the council, yet Queen Mary kept him as Lord Admiral despite it. And Lady Clinton, a descendant of Queen Elizabeth Woodville and daughter of the Irish Earl of Kildare, was renowned for her great beauty and charm. Forbidding Elizabeth outright to call on them would be a great faux pas, but still Lady Pope shook her head.

“We should wait until my husband and Lord Braceton return,” she said, stabbing at her linen with the shining needle.

“That could be many hours,” Elizabeth argued. “And we will have to set out soon if we are to reach Brocket Hall in time for supper.”

“The roads are not safe,” Lady Pope said tightly. “If the queen’s own man can be attacked there . . .”

“No one would dare attack
me
,” Elizabeth said. “And that is all the more reason to leave soon, while there is still much daylight. I will take some men-at-arms with me, as well as Penelope and Kate. Surely Sir Thomas cannot protest if I take guards with me?”

Kate bent her head over her music to hide a smile. With guards, Elizabeth could not flee abroad or foment a rebellion in the woods.

Lady Pope shook her head, but she said, “Very well. But you must be home by tomorrow morning, with a full report of your doings.”

“Of course,” Elizabeth said serenely. “Kate, you must bring your lute and play for us after we dine. Lady Clinton is so fond of those Spanish songs. . . .”

*

“My dearest lady!” Lady Clinton cried as Elizabeth stepped into the entrance hall of Brocket Hall, Kate and Penelope close behind her. “You are here at last. It has been too long since we saw you.”

Kate glanced up as Lady Clinton hurried down the stairs, her blue satin skirts rustling and the dying daylight catching on her upswept golden hair. The poets had called her “the fair Geraldine” and her beauty hadn’t faded with the years.

Neither had her seeming devotion to Elizabeth, her childhood playmate. The two of them embraced, exclaiming over the terrible weather.

“My husband will be so sorry not to have seen you,” Lady Clinton said as she waved a servant over to take away their mist-dotted cloaks. “But he was summoned to London for a council meeting. These are such complicated days.”

“Indeed they are,” Elizabeth said. “Has your other guest yet arrived?”

“He has,” Lady Clinton said with a conspiratorial smile. “You received the letter from London?”

Elizabeth nodded, and Kate remembered the missive Peg was delivering, with all its heavy seals. Perhaps the sudden visit to Brocket Hall made some sense after all. But Kate still didn’t know why
she
was there—or who the letter came from.

“Come into the dining hall. You must be so hungry after your ride,” Lady Clinton said. “I have some fine new wine my husband sent from the Continent on his last journey.”

“I will certainly welcome one of your good meals, my dear friend,” Elizabeth said as they turned toward the carved doors of the dining hall and passed through its dim splendor. “And I have brought Mistress Haywood with me. You enjoyed her music so much the last time you visited Hatfield.”

“Of course,” Lady Clinton said. “Welcome, Mistress Haywood. Your music is sure to cheer us all.”

“I hope so, my lady,” Kate said.

“And she speaks some Spanish,” Elizabeth added quietly.

Lady Clinton laughed and threw open the doors to a smaller chamber off the empty grand dining hall. It was a more intimate space lit with a myriad of candles that cast a soft amber glow over the verdure tapestries on the walls and the round, polished table. Cushioned chairs were drawn close to the shimmer of silver plates and goblets scattered over the table, which also held heaps of fresh fruit and loaves of fine manchet bread.

A man seated there rose and gave a courtly bow. The candlelight shone on his glossy black hair and neatly trimmed beard, and on the gold embroidery on his rich black velvet doublet. Next to Kate, Penelope stiffened as if in surprise, and Kate was sure she did the same. For the man was the Count de Feria, Philip of Spain’s dearest friend and deputy. He had visited Princess Elizabeth at Hatfield before, bringing confidential messages from his master, but of late he had been in the Low Countries with Philip.

If he was suddenly back in England, surely something very important was about to shift. Now Kate could see why Elizabeth had asked if she spoke Spanish.