Palace of Spies (16 page)

“Mr. Thornhill,” said Her Royal Highness brightly as she gestured for the lean man in front of her to straighten up. “A tour of your great works, if you would be so kind. My guests were pining to see what progress you make.”

“I am most honored, as always, Your Highness, and I think you will be pleased with what we have accomplished.” Mr. Thornhill was a pleasant-looking man of middling height, with an oval face and a long nose. His hands were bare, and the skin was strangely mottled-looking, stained, I supposed, by the colors of his work. He dressed in plain breeches and a plain smock but carried himself with an air of consequence.

He also turned to me and flashed a broad courtier’s smile. “And you have brought me Lady Francesca! How delightful to see you again, my lady.”

By this time, I had some experience with greeting people who knew me far better than I knew them, and I made a shallow but polite curtsy. “Thank you, Mr. Thornhill. I trust you are well?”

“Very well, thank you. But I will have words with you later, my lady. I understand you have been ill, but you have not my leave to permanently neglect your studies.” He turned to the princess. “Your maid, madame, has a wonderfully deft hand at sketching. And a quick eye. It is a shame she is not a boy. I would have taken her on to ’prentice immediately. I’m sure she’d profit from the office more than some . . .” His voice trailed away, and I could not help but notice his gaze trailed away too, until it was pointed straight at Matthew Reade. Mr. Reade was not looking at his master. He was instead hunched over a crowded worktable, laboring busily with mortar and pestle. I had the distinct feeling he’d been through similar scenes before, and I wondered what he had done to earn so much disdain from Mr. Thornhill.

“Well, Lady Francesca,” said Her Royal Highness, bringing my attention back where it belonged, “you did not tell me this was what you were doing with your free days.”

“Oh, I did not want to bore Your Highness with a recitation of my little hobbies.” Modesty, I had found, made for an excellent distraction, and was almost always an acceptable excuse for neglecting to mention some point later found significant.

“Nonsense.” Her Highness spoke lightly, but I felt the regard of her clever eyes like a fingertip laid against my arm. “I wish more of my ladies would decide to spend their time engaged in such improving activities.”

Why do our mistresses say such things? Now all the maids were looking at me; Molly thoughtfully, Mary mockingly, and Sophy Howe as if she heartily wished I were the one being ground to powder by Mr. Reade.

“Now, Mr. Thornhill,” the princess went on briskly, “let us hear your report.”

“Of course, Your Highness. Tobias, Ezikial, bring the plans here.”

The two young men bustled forward, laying out great sheets of paper for the princess and her guests. Everyone clustered around to hear Mr. Thornhill expound on the composition of his ceiling decoration, drawing our attention now to the plan, and now to the partially completed painting over our heads. He sent Tobias and Ezikial scurrying about the room, fetching other sketches and plans to further explain what he had done in regard to other ceilings, and how that decoration compared to this. Not once did he call on Matthew to perform any function.

All the party obligingly clustered at the center of the room and looked up or down as directed. I will freely acknowledge it was a splendidly rendered scene. The illusion of sunlight and open sky created to surround the old gods was indeed impressive. Yet my eyes kept straying to Matthew Reade. His table was apart from the bustle and clutter. It was covered with wooden boxes and jars of glass and clay. For a long moment, he seemed aware of nothing but his hands and their work. But then he raised his eyes, just a bit, to see me looking at him. One corner of his mouth turned up, and I saw he knew me, as I knew him.

“And here, of course, we have the figure of Leucothoe attempting to restrain Apollo from entering his chariot, and . . .”

As everyone again lifted their eyes to the sun god facing the defiant woman, I slowly faded backwards toward Mr. Reade’s table, keeping my eyes dutifully pointed upward. It was against all protocol to turn one’s back on royalty, so walking backwards without tripping over my hems was something I’d been able to practice with great regularity of late. I prided myself that I was getting rather good at it.

“You have not encountered any more demons, I hope, Mr. Reade?” I asked, keeping my back to him and my gaze toward the ceiling.

“I have done my best to avoid them, Lady Francesca. I trust you have not been troubled?”

“Knowing you are on watch, how could I possibly be?” I risked a glance back and saw that a small smile had appeared on Mr. Reade’s face.

“So this is your occupation?” I gestured at the table.

“As you see.” The smile vanished, replaced by a much more bitter expression. In addition to the mortar, there were delicate trowels and knives, brushes and palettes arranged neatly around him. There were also scoops and scales and vials of viscous liquid enough for any alchemist to begin work at once on his philosopher’s stone. “Mr. Thornhill regards it as fit work for the son of a London apothecary. Sometimes I am permitted to trace a fresh line on a plan or tie a new brush.”

“You have my sympathies.”

“And this is your occupation?” He cocked his head toward the maids and lords. Mr. Thornhill was leading his guests about in a small circle, describing the various shades of blue and the allegorical significance of the robed figures. Something about the ceiling bothered me, but I could not say what.

“Today we are permitted motion. It is a wonder and a delight.”

“You have my sympathies.” He grimaced and looked down at the bright yellow compound he had been grinding. “I’m sorry. This is done. If I work it any more, the consistency will be wrong and then . . .” He glanced significantly at Mr. Thornhill, who was tracing sweeping arcs with his arm to illustrate some progression among the images. I contemplated them, aware that Matthew Reade was contemplating me.

“Lady Fra—”

Why my mind chose this exact moment to realize I’d been a blind imbecile, I will never know. But it did, and I was, because I knew these figures and this mural. I clapped my hand over my mouth to muffle an undignified squeak.

I owned a copy of this work, drawn in pencil on a page that I had stared at as often as I could contrive to do so. It had taken me so long to recognize this because the penciled copies, it seemed, were not exact. In fact, they were quite poor. Francesca’s rendering of the portraits of the Prince and Princess of Wales in their medallions, for instance, was nothing like what I now saw overhead. Her sad and desperate version of the figure of the winged Leucothoe attempting to pull Apollo back from his chariot was quite different from Mr. Thornhill’s decorously determined lady. In fact, the only figures she seemed to have taken a good likeness of were the cherubs.

I became conscious of a slow, terrible sinking sensation within. I had pored over those sketches. I had spent hours wondering what great and wonderful clue they might hold to the mystery of my predecessor’s life. Was it possible they were simply a shy artist’s attempt to hide sloppy work?

“What’s the matter?” murmured Mr. Reade. “Don’t tell me you’ve found an incorrect proportion with your quick eye?”

He was trying to raise a tart response, but it was all I could do to remember where I was just then. “No, not here. It’s just . . . another drawing.”

“Another drawing? Of this work? For Heaven’s sake, don’t tell Thornhill. He doesn’t let anyone copy his paintings before their debut.”

“No. No. Not this one.” Several inelegant and descriptive curses rang through my head. All the trouble I had taken to keep those sketches safe, all the time I had wasted attempting to fathom their secret meanings, and here it seemed they meant nothing, except that the other Lady Fran was not so accomplished an artist as she first appeared.

I could tell from his tone that Mr. Thornhill was reaching the end of his lecture. I glanced at Mr. Reade in sympathy and guilty apology and moved closer to the royal party. Molly noted my return with a quizzical and somewhat worried look. Mary gave me that particular cheerful sideways glance of hers that always meant “Caught you.”

I shrugged at them both, but what pleasure I’d felt in seeing Matthew Reade again was now entirely gone. Because not only did it appear that I had been an overly dramatic ninny regarding Francesca’s sketches, I had made an error in deportment in sidling away from the flock to speak with a mere apprentice. I told myself it was nothing serious. We were all supposed to be flirts. It hardly mattered that one or another might be seen talking with any man. If Molly or, more likely, Mary, mentioned it, there would be gossip and a few jokes tossed about the card table, along with professions of jealousy by the gentlemen who wanted their feelings soothed, and that would be that.

At least, that’s what I tried to convince myself of. I might even have succeeded, had Sophy Howe’s sparkling eyes not also been fixed upon me. She lifted her fan to her temple and tipped me a sly salute.

My room was empty when I returned to change for the evening’s gathering, but a silver tray with a sealed letter waited on the table. When I picked it up, there proved to be another missive underneath, with only the letter
F
written on its face.

I broke open the forest green sealing wax on the first letter and found that it had been written in a tiny, tidy hand, and entirely in Latin.

My dear
,

I can only hope you will forgive my most inconsiderate absence. Business has kept me away from court, but I assure you I will return the instant I am able. I urge you to be mindful of your part and behave just as you should. I know you will heed your guardian and give him no cause for concern. If any little thing arises, you may write to me care of Lloyd’s Coffee House on Tower Street
.

Yours, etc
.,

Mr. T

And that was all.

While I was relieved he’d thought enough of my situation to give me some way to reach him, I missed any sign of friendship. I should not have been left disappointed by this. We were, after all, only partners in a most peculiar crime at best. At worst, he was another danger to me and my hopes for a future, and I should be glad he was keeping well away.

But I also could not help noting that I was to write him care of a coffee house, not the house where I’d been hidden during my ladyship lessons. I thought about the austere and very much absent Mr. Peele, with his delicate hands that belonged to someone so adept at cheating at cards. I thought how Mr. Tinderflint quailed before his anger. I thought about how many lies Mr. Tinderflint had told me, and Mr. Peele’s interest in the people I met during the games at court evenings. Was it possible Mr. Tinderflint didn’t want Mr. Peele to know it when I did communicate with him?

I glanced at the door and tucked Mr. Tinderflint’s letter beneath the sofa cushion. If I had time, I’d hide it in my workbasket. Trepidation fluttered through me as I picked up the second note. This one was much shorter and told me in its few words that my interlude of relative calm was at an end.

The Wilderness. NE corner. Tomorrow. Noon
.

R
.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

In all dramas featuring heroines of a romantic nature, there is one constant character: the trusty lady’s maid. She may prove false or true, but she is always present at her mistress’s side, fully involved in whatever travails the playwright has seen fit to lay upon her. It was only during my time as maid of honor that I came to I understand why this was.

As a lady, I could not do for myself what the youngest farm hand could: I could not get dressed.

The keen observer of fashion will note that the laces that are so very necessary to securing a lady’s garments all tie at the back. As a result, we frail flowers of gentle English womanhood are rendered helpless by our own clothing. We become dependent entirely on the goodwill of others to escape the necessity of parading about in our night things.

But my assistant was of more dubious character and temperament than any maid in any drama. If I rang for the Abbott, she would want to know where I was going and why, and I remained at a loss as to what to tell her. Surely not the truth. All I knew for certain about Mrs. Abbott was that she remained devoted to her lost and secret daughter. She had assigned herself the part of avenging angel in our particular drama, but exactly what she was avenging and how she intended to carry out her role were still a mystery to me.

As I meditated irritably on this, it occurred to me that I might not need the answer to this mystery yet. I might, in fact, have what I needed to persuade Mrs. Abbott to play along with my plans. I kicked my way out from under the quilts and rang the bell.

Mrs. Abbott entered my rooms under full sail, the glare in her dark gaze lit and well stoked. But I was ready for this. I kept my back straight, my chin up, and my visage calm as I faced her grand displeasure. That my heart was attempting to beat its way out from under my ribs was my own affair.

“I need to get dressed, Mrs. Abbott, if you would be so kind.”

“It is too early,” she snapped back. “You will be remarked on.”

“I intend to walk in the gardens. If anyone remarks, I will say that I am following the example of Her Royal Highness as to the importance of fresh air and exercise.”

“They will think you are currying favor.”

It was with great self-control that I refrained from rolling my eyes. “And in what way will this be out of character for a courtier? A light morning dress, if you please, and my half boots.” With luck, she would not feel the immediate need to send for an undermaid to assist with this task.