The Hawk and the Dove (34 page)

Matthew cautiously opened the chamber and stuck in
his head. “Don’t throw that, sweeting, you’ve got the wrong Hawkhurst.”

“Oh, Matthew, I thought you’d deserted the ship long ago with the other rats.”

“I thought you might need me,” he said, surveying the packed trunks. “Where are you going?”

“I’m on my way to Blackmoor.”

“That’s ridiculous, you can’t ride over two hundred miles on your own. Go to Mother at Hawkhurst—it’s only forty miles off, but still far enough from the queen’s wrath.”

“I’m not removing myself from the queen, I’m removing myself from your brother. It’s all over, Matthew, he’s promised me a divorce.”

For a moment his heart soared. He asked, “He knows, then, that you are his wife?”

“No, but he will when he turns up at Blackmoor with the divorce papers for Sara Bishop to sign.”

“Sabre, you are deluding yourself if you think he’ll divorce you when he finds out you are legally wed.”

“I don’t think so, Matthew, for I have the means to force his hand.”

He scoffed. “He’s like a damned dog with a bone— he’ll never let you go!”

She tossed her head. “I’ve Walsingham’s secret files on him.”

For a moment he looked at her blankly. “Walsingham had secret files on Hawk? For what?”

She looked at him strangely. “You don’t know?”

He shook his head, perplexed, then asked incredulously, “You mean he suspected him of piracy? But the queen knew and looked the other way.”

Sabre realized she should have said nothing. She veiled
her eyes and changed the subject. “I’m taking the carriage and I’ll take a maid and also ask Mr. Mason to come with me. What about you, Matt, will you come?”

He was sorely tempted, but she had whetted his appetite about his brother. She obviously considered the secret files damaging enough to use as blackmail and he immediately realized she must be taking the invaluable papers with her. “Sabre, I can’t come tonight, but I will as soon as I can. You go and tell Mason and the girl to get ready and I’ll have a reliable Hawkhurst man from the stables drive you to Blackmoor in the carriage. Give me your trunks and I’ll take them down to the stables.”

She came forward with gratitude in her eyes and placed her hand on his arm. “Thank heavens I always have you to fall back on, Matthew.”

He wanted to crush her to him as a wave of desire swept over him. At this moment he knew she was very vulnerable, but a warning caution bell was clanging in his brain. Patience. This woman should have been his woman, and if he helped along the divorce it was possible that he would still be able to claim her for his own. He brushed his lips across her temple and stepped back deliberately, then picked up her luggage and carried it downstairs. Later, when he stood on the driveway and waved the traveling coach on its way, the Walsingham files were safely tucked inside his doublet.

Shane cursed under his breath for not having effectively silenced the guard when he had the chance. There was no room in the sordid business of espionage for mercy, and none knew it better than he. In a flash he undid the fastenings at the front of his doublet and slipped from the garment like an eel. The two jailers recoiled
in superstitious horror at the monster painted on his flesh, but they had not seen his face. Once Shane was out of their grasp there was no chance this side of hell that they would recapture him. He was outside the Fleet in seconds, but the two guards sounded the alarm and, joined by others, were bent on taking the Black Shadow, a most prestigious collar.

It was fortunate that Hawkhurst knew London like the back of his hand or escape would have been an impossibility. He went neither right nor left, but chose to go up instead. He climbed to the roof of the massive fortress because they were close upon his heels and he knew that though they saw him go up, they were not agile enough to follow. Moreover, their lanterns were not strong enough to cast a light past the second story. He surveyed the streets from his high perch and chose his hiding place instantly. With silent stealth he descended to the street and slipped into the churchyard of St. Bride’s.

His black doublet had made him invisible, but now that he was naked to the waist he knew he would be seen if he made a run for it. He crawled facedown until he had put many tombstones between himself and Fleet Street. Suddenly he heard voices much closer than he thought his pursuers could possibly be. A freshly dug grave loomed before him and without a moment’s hesitation he jumped down eight feet into the cold, damp shaft. He let out a breath of relief as he discovered it was the Irishmen’s voices he heard. Apparently they were taking refuge in the cemetery instead of using what little intelligence God had given them. By now they could have been on a ship bound for home.

Shane stayed silent, for if the noisy bastards didn’t
hush their racket they would soon attract their pursuers. The men were having a gentleman’s disagreement.

“Youse haven’t the brains of a soddin’ louse, McGuire. Just for the satisfaction of puttin’ yer knee to his cock ’n’ balls, youse let them take the poor bastard who risked his life to free us!”

“I don’t give a shit. Any bastard stupid enough to risk his life fer others deserves what he gets. Youse two piss-pots shoulda kneed him an’ taken his pistol when I created the diversion wi’ the guard.”

“Yer a vicious swine, McGuire. I never shoulda thrown in my lot wi’ youse. We shoulda tried to help the poor bastard, I say.”

“Sod ’im … and sod youse too!”

Hawkhurst then heard a sound like a shovel being smashed into a man’s skull. There was a grunt and then silence. In that moment Shane realized there would never be peace in Ireland, for if the English were driven out and the lords of Ireland ruled their own land, the clans would again turn on each other.

Suddenly the heavens opened and the rain came down in icy sheets. This turn of events, like every other in life, had it advantages and its disadvantages. The men in the graveyard took to their heels and the guards out searching for escaped prisoners would give up and return to the shelter of the Fleet. The disadvantage, however, was that Shane was standing calf-deep in a sea of mud and no matter his agility or strength, he could not climb up the sheer, eight-foot sides of the mud-slimed grave. Each effort brought down more clumps of oozing earth and his feet sank deeper and deeper. Suddenly his feet hit something solid and he realized it was a coffin. The humor of the ridiculous predicament in which he found himself
had not escaped him. He banged the coffin lid with his heel and said, “Hello, down there. Sorry to be standing on your head, my friend, but circumstances are beyond my control.” He knew one horrific moment as the coffin collapsed and he went through it, then he was out of control. He leaned against the wall of the grave and laughed until the tears rolled down his face. How ignominious to be found down the hole in a quagmire of mud by the gravedigger at first light. Very probably one of the Irishmen lay dead, head bashed in by a shovel, and he would be blamed. No, there was no doubt about it, he could not be found in this predicament. Almost weak from laughter, he used his hands and dagger to cut stepping holes in the grave wall. Though most times the soggy earth collapsed under his weight, occasionally it did not and gradually he raised himself by slow degrees until he was able to haul himself to the mouth of the grave and roll onto the wet grass.

By stealth he made his way back to the Walsingham House stables and was soon on his way home, grateful again to have the great stallion between his thighs. Every once in a while he threw back his head and laughed. Tonight his spirits soared as he returned from the grave. Tomorrow he would willingly spend two hours on his knees begging the queen’s forgiveness, but tonight he would make love to Sabre whether she would or not. She was a little wildcat and he was the only man in the world who could subdue her. And he would, he vowed with relish.

Matthew Hawkhurst’s mood, on the other hand, was one of seething resentment rather than elation. In his chamber at Greenwich Palace he had pored over the secret files with horror, reading and absorbing it bit by
bitter bit. The one galling fact that he could not forgive was that Shane was the O’Neill’s bastard and yet he had inherited the Hawkhurst shipping empire along with the title of Lord Devonport. His fist crashed down on the table, sending his goblet of wine spilling across the papers in a blood-red stain. Shane had everything—always had! Georgiana had kept quiet and allowed her bastard to get his, Matthew’s, rightful inheritance. They had deceived his father, the poor weak fool, and they had deceived him! In that moment he hated his father, his mother, and his brother with a poisonous venom. The thing that rankled most was that Shane had Sabre. If it was the last thing he did he would take her from his brother! He put the papers away for safekeeping.

By morning the corridors of Greenwich rang with the news that the elusive Black Shadow had been taken in the Fleet, but had managed once again to elude his captors. The man had been masked, but it was now thought that he was in league with the devil, for on his broad back rampaged a hideous monster. The moment Matthew heard the gossip, a picture flashed into his mind of Shane’s dragon tattoo and he immediately knew that his brother was also the Black Shadow; it was the one thing missing from Walsingham’s secret file.

Matthew, blinded by jealousy and the need for revenge, sought an audience with William Cecil, Lord Burghley, but was better served when Burghley’s ambitious son Robert Cecil took time to see him. The queen called Robert Cecil her pygmy fox because of his misshapen back and brilliant mind, and he made the handsome young courtier feel welcome.

Once the greetings were out of the way, Matthew got right to the point. “My lord, the daring escapades of the
Black Shadow are on every tongue to the point where he is being admired rather than reviled. We no sooner put an Irish rebel behind bars than he frees him, with nothing more to aid him than a dark night and a black mask. It has occurred to me that someone in Ireland is calling the shots; someone who holds a high place.”

Robert Cecil studied him a moment, wondering what personal ax he had to grind. “Let us get down to brass tacks. I believe you are alluding to O’Neill, and yet he has always been able to disprove accusations of treason and conspiracy leveled against him.”

“Nay, my lord, in actuality he has never disproved them, only convinced the queen and council that the accusations were groundless and reassured them that he was protector of the queen’s law in the north of Ireland.”

Cecil conceded a small bow in Matthew Hawkhurst’s direction. He had the mind of a strategist and had always known O’Neill thought himself king of Ireland. Matthew continued. “Set a trap with important Irish hostages, but put them where they will be safe in the Tower of London. It follows as night follows day that the Black Shadow will try to free them.”

Cecil finished for him, “… and when we have the Black Shadow we will be able to prove him an agent of O’Neill?”

“Precisely!” Matthew nodded, crushing down a growing horror inside himself at what he was doing.

“A little wine? I think you will like this, it is spiced with aromatic myrrh.”

Cecil was proved wrong in this, for Matthew found himself vomiting into the first gutter he came upon after he took his leave.

*   *   *

The queen had paced her chamber most of the night, working herself up to a state of frenzy. Gray dawn had not yet penetrated the corners of her apartment when she began to shout. “Where are my women?”

A few came running.

“I want
all
my women!”

A short time elapsed before all who had been summoned could ready themselves. She was still wearing the purple gown with the bishop sleeves lined with amethyst satin, and her small crown. Most of the assembled women stood before her trembling, though only a few knew of the previous evening’s debacle.

In a deceptively sweet voice she asked, “What news of my Sea God?” She stamped her foot at their collective silence and spat, “All deaf and dumb? What news of Hawkhurst?” In her agitation her crown fell askew and she tore it from her head and hurled it across the room, crying, “My crown is a crown of thorns!” Unfortunately her wig came off with the crown and her own graying hair stood up in thin wisps.

“He has taken that sly she-wolf for mistress!”

Mary Howard stood closest to the queen, her lips pressed together in terror.

“You kept it secret from me!” She slapped the girl’s face. “And you, and you!” Each serving woman close to her received a stinging blow on the cheek. One of the older women of high rank tried to soothe her. “The temptations are so great, Your Majesty, you cannot blame him.”

“Blame him?” flared Elizabeth. “By God’s body, I’ll blame him. He shall pay for all the pleasure he has had with her. They shall go to the Tower for this!”

Old Blanche Parry, who had been her nurse, pushed through the ranks of women to take charge. “You will make yourself sick over some silly rumor.”

“I saw with my own eyes what was going on.” Her voice had risen on an hysterical note and Blanche knew she was on the edge of losing control. She said briskly, “It is not as if they were secretly wed, or that she is with child … it is only that he is a philanderer, a rake, a deceiver.”

The queen heard another of her women say, “Yes, he is the worst of men!”

The queen turned upon her with the light of madness in her eye. “How dare you say so?” she demanded. “You know he is not; it is all her fault!” The queen began to tear at the sleeves of her gown, and the crystal beads scattered everywhere. A quick consultation between the countess of Warwick and the duchess of Suffolk decided that it was a job for Leicester. Only Robert Dudley could handle the queen when she was out of control.

He came hurrying to the queen’s apartment clad in a rich velvet bed robe and immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion when he saw her state. She fell into his arms, then pushed him away because he was a man and therefore not to be trusted. He dismissed all her women with an easy command stemming from years of being England’s uncrowned king. “Bess, Bess, what can I say? I knew it would come to this when you learned of what he’d done. But, my dearest dear, you have spoiled Robin to the point where he actually believes he can do no wrong. Come, now, my own Bess, be brave. What cannot be cured must be endured,” he said heartily.