Palace of Spies (17 page)

Mrs. Abbott clearly did not like any of this, but for now, at least, she failed to find new objections. Instead, she indicated with a curt gesture that I should precede her into the dressing room. I stood beside the table with its oval mirror while she opened the various drawers and boxes. She was not looking at me, and so did not see me take a deep breath and attempt to gather my courage.

“Mrs. Abbott. Have you learned anything new about the footman Robert and Lady Francesca?”
Possibly while you were making up a hand cream for Sophy Howe?
But this last I kept to myself.

She did not even bother to straighten up. “That is nothing you need to know.”

“I’m afraid it is. Robert has asked me to meet him in the Wilderness.”

“This is why you call me?” The heat of the glare she now turned on me had increased to the point where I was in danger of becoming a charred cinder, rather than simply well-toasted. “You want me to help you to an assignation with that man?”

“I want you to tell me what you’ve found out about him and how things stood with him and Lady Francesca, so I do not give myself away.”

“You do not need to know,” she repeated as she held open the closet door, clearly indicating that she expected me to exit now. “You will not meet him. That will end the difficulty.”

This was no less than I had expected. I stood up as tall as I could in my bare feet and nightgown. “Mrs. Abbott, if we are to continue here, I must play the whole part. Robert can expose us as well as anyone with a title. Maybe even better, because no one will know where the gossip comes from if a servant starts to spread it. I know this is painful for you—”

I faltered. Her steady and powerful gaze did not in any way mask her hard mind full of calculations, anger, and grief. It also showed how she disdained any display of pity from such a creature as me.

“I understand that I am not Francesca, and I never will be, and you have every reason to be bitter about my assuming her name and station. But Francesca was keeping secrets, Mrs. Abbott, and you and I both need to know what they were. Yes, I have my own reasons for what I do. Believe it to be the money, if you will. We can help each other in this, and I am ready to pledge that help to you. Which is, I think, more than Messrs. Tinderflint and Peele have done.”

That last was a shot in the dark, brought on by Mr. Tinderflint’s sudden departure from court and the belated letter that contained so little explanation. I held my breath and prayed to the departed soul of my own mother, wherever she might be, for steadiness and luck.

Slowly, Mrs. Abbott closed the door to the outer chamber. Her gaze slid over me without pause as she turned back to the business of my clothing. Our only light now was the candle, protected by its glass chimney and reflected in the mirror. Mrs. Abbott considered possibilities with regard to petticoats and brought out my yellow morning dress to inspect the folds and lace ruffles for damage before pronouncing it fit to wear.

As she worked, Mrs. Abbott began to speak. Against her habit of keeping to English with me, she fell into French. Her words were smooth, but there was a lilt and an edge to them, an accent I did not recognize.

“She came home suddenly. She had not written—she just appeared at the door in a hired coach. She was already not well. She did not sleep. She did not eat. It should have been no wonder she fell into fever. But she was not despairing. No. She was all but giddy with some excitement. I begged her to confide in me, but she would not say what nourished such feeling. That was why I agreed to this mad scheme when Monsieur—Mr. Tinderflint—proposed it. So I could come here and find out who had driven her to her illness, and to be certain they would pay for what they did.”

Giddy.
I rolled the word about in my mind several times, trying to grow accustomed to the feel of it. It was not what I had expected to hear. Frightened, possibly. Depressed, or even despairing, most definitely. But giddy? That spoke to happiness and the expectation of good fortune, not the sort of trouble that would drive a maid from court.

“When was this?” I asked. “When did she come home?”

“She came home for the Christmastide. She had before this told me she would be spending the season with the court, but then”—Mrs. Abbott shrugged—“she did not. And no, before you ask, she did not say why she changed her mind on this point either. I questioned her about it and received no answer.”

There was a deep sorrow under those words, and a very old one. I thought of how vehemently Mrs. Abbott had defended her daughter’s character and actions, and the myriad secrets she was uncovering. I wondered at the heart within her, and how many more secrets it would be able to bear before it broke.

“Why were you not here with her?” I asked.

Mrs. Abbott bit her lip, and for a moment, I thought she would cry. “I had a commission from Mr. Tinderflint,” she croaked at last. “Letters that needed to be carried. It took longer than expected. When I at last returned, I myself was ill with fatigue for a time and then . . . and then . . .” She did not go any further, and I did not ask her to. Indeed, I determined now would be a good time to change the subject.

“How did you meet Mr. Tinderflint?”

“Tinderflint.” Mrs. Abbott smirked as she laid the petticoat she’d selected over the back of the chair and gestured that I should assume the position to be dressed. “The man has more masks than a whole troupe of Italian players.” She loosened the ribbons on my nightgown and pulled it off over my head. “When I met him, his name was Taggart. He had come to the Court of Saint-Germaine. You know of what I speak?”

Of course I knew. Saint-Germaine was the palace that King Louis of France had deeded over to James the Pretender. Saint-Germaine was the inmost heart of a recurring series of plots to dethrone the Hanoverians and return the Crown of England to the Stuarts. This last winter, they had come closer than usual to succeeding. In addition to the fighting in the North, there had been Jacobite riots in the streets of London. Aunt Pierpont had locked Olivia and me into our bedrooms and had the male servants stand guard with staves and carving knives. Uncle Pierpont had been away from home at the time, and when he returned, he was not at all pleased with his wife’s dramatics.

“Five years ago, Tinderflint had come to Saint-Germaine to speak with some English exiles,” Mrs. Abbott was saying as she tightened the laces on my stays and held out the petticoat for me to step into. “And Francesca and I . . .” She shrugged in that so-eloquent French fashion. “I was able to do some favors for him, to make sure some letters reached certain parties and others did not. It was the beginning of our . . . association. In payment, he promised to bring Francesca and myself to London, to furnish her with education. He had turned her head with his stories, I think. After we met Tinderflint, she begged me to let her go to England. If it would help her become the lady I knew that she could be, I was ready to make the attempt.” Mrs. Abbott smiled wanly. “Blood will out, you understand, and my Francesca had the blood, but also the quickness and the beauty. All she lacked was a chance.”

A chance, and a father who would acknowledge her, I suspected. But given my own uncertainties in that regard, I was not going to cast aspersions.

“Let me help, Mrs. Abbott,” I said. “Let me find out what part Robert played in what happened to Francesca.”

“Why would you care?” she demanded.

“Because I know what it is to be alone and to have no choices.” The words came to me slowly, so weighted down with truth were they. “Because I’d be sorry to help anyone who hurt such a girl.”

I could not reveal my whole reason, but this was the foundation of all. It was not, however, anything like enough to please Mrs. Abbott. Her rigid stance and her grim expression told me as much. She was determined I should be nothing more than an adventuress without conscience, while her daughter, who had worn this same disguise, was a sweet and clever girl lacking only opportunity. Although how any girl of dubious birth raised among a court made up of the ambitious and disappointed of three different nations could remain as sweet as Lady Francesca was purported to be was surely one of nature’s great mysteries.

Still, Mrs. Abbott also wanted to know what had driven Francesca from the court, exhausted but giddy, and that was the desire that won.

“This footman Robert’s family name is Ballantyne. They have been in service to the kings of England for three generations.” She moved about me, knotting the laces of my overdress and straightening the bows at my elbows and waist. “Robert is the last son of the family. His father died waiting at the door of old Queen Anne, at the same moment she herself died, or so they say.” Mrs. Abbott shrugged again, indicating what she thought of the probable veracity of this detail. “Robert Ballantyne is not much liked among his fellows. They say he is ambitious, which is acceptable, but he thinks himself better than they, which is not. He is not the only servant who willingly consorts with the quality, but it is said he is not careful enough and that he will one day bring trouble to himself because of it.”

“Do you think that he was looking to Francesca as a way to fulfill his ambitions?”

“I think it is possible.” She pushed me into the dressing table chair with her customary roughness and set about brushing and pinning my hair. Alliance was evidently not reason enough to grow soft with me. “Men are known to do such things.”

“Did Francesca care for him?” I asked.

Mrs. Abbott knotted a hank of my hair in her fist. “He bragged that she did.”

After that, Mrs. Abbott’s mouth shut like the lid of a box. I let her have her silence. For now, it was the only favor I could return her for her pain and her honesty. At least she had helped allay one fear. Francesca had met her end at home. The story I had gotten from Messrs. Tinderflint and Peele about her fever matched what Mrs. Abbott now told me, and that was something. At least I hoped it was. This little conversation with Mrs. Abbott raised yet more questions, though. Why had Francesca so suddenly changed her mind about where to spend Christmastide? And what had made her so happy?

When Mrs. Abbott had finished with my hair and pinned my dainty cap in place, we faced each other. She still did not like me, and she probably never would. That was fair, as I would probably never like her. But we needed each other. I believed that as long as I was of use, she would help me, and in so far as I was doing her work, I could trust her.

It was not much, but it would do for now.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Among her many other pursuits, the Princess of Wales was much addicted to fresh air and vigorous exercise. On fine days, she rose early to walk through Hampton Court’s parks and gardens for two or three hours. This was done at a clip that left all of us poor maids and ladies breathless, except Lady Montague, who I had begun to believe could have outstripped the king’s best hunting horse if she had a mind to. It also meant that I was at least as well acquainted with the grounds surrounding the palace as I was with the galleries inside it.

We maids were permitted some occasional days for our private use, as long as at least two of us were in waiting at any time. I had been allotted today as one of mine, a fact that Robert had surely discovered when he decided on this rendezvous. We were fortunate in our timing. The morning that bloomed around me was beautiful. The rain had abated at last, leaving the air cool and fresh. Dew and cobwebs made a silver fairyland of the lawns. I picked my way gingerly along the damp, sloping bank where the reeds and flags nodded in the breeze. This was not a place Her Highness generally chose for her walks—I did not want to risk coming across the royal party. I needed time to bring some discipline to my deeply disordered thoughts before I kept my rendezvous.

What Mrs. Abbott had said about Robert Ballantyne was important to me, but nothing like as important as what she said about Mr. Tinderflint. Mr. Tinderflint had been in the Pretender’s court and had been involved in intrigues there. How had my mother figured into those intrigues? He’d said she had written him letters with pieces of news. Was she keeping him abreast of comings and goings in London while he traveled? I tried to imagine Mama sitting at a card table as I did. I tried to imagine her making conversation with the great lords, teasing out bits of information that might lead to conclusions of loyalties and alliances. The visions made me oddly queasy. On the one hand, I liked the idea that Mama was clever and daring. On the other hand, what did one do with a mother who was not only daring but duplicitous, perhaps even dangerous?

What if it was worse than that? What if Mama had been in the pay of Mr. Tinderflint not because she was clever and dangerous, but because she was foolish or desperate? Mr. Tinderflint, I realized as I stared across the river, surrounded himself with women he found useful. With my father gone, Mama could have easily been in need of money. There certainly had been none for me to inherit. I had no idea how we had lived, at least I hadn’t until now. There was more than one form of blackmail in this world.

So what use did Tinderflint ultimately intend for me? I did not even know which side he stood on. Was it possible he was a Jacobite and that I was a Jacobite’s daughter? Surely my fat, beribboned, fluttery guardian did not mean to call on his purported acquaintance with my mother to try to persuade me to do . . . something. Some Jacobite thing involving plots and gunpowder.

Except Mr. Tinderflint had already succeeded in convincing me to follow him this far, and he’d been very much helped along because I wanted to stay close enough to him to find out what else he knew about my mother.

I berated myself bitterly and at length for not asking Mrs. Abbott the vital question of which side Mr. Tinderflint had intrigued for. Given the boldness of the scheme in which he had embroiled me, he could be for anything or anybody. It might be that my initial supposition that this business was about money was not wholly wrong. Tinderflint and Peele might simply be working for whosoever paid the best.