The Lady Series (8 page)

Anne waited until Amyas had gone a distance before she turned to the young woman. “You are Mistress Mary Radcliffe?”

“Indeed, I am,” her mother’s distant cousin said with a smile. Mary was as pretty as her dam, the London merchant’s daughter who’d won herself the earl of Sussex’s uncle as a husband.

For her departed sister’s sake, Anne dropped into a deep curtsy. “I cannot tell you how glad I am to meet you, Mistress Radcliffe,” she said, her head yet bent.

“Nay now,” her kinswoman said, catching Anne by the arm and forcing her to rise. “I’ll not have such formality between us. You must call me Mary just as I’ll call you Anne, or Nan, if you will it.” She pressed a swift kiss of greeting against Anne’s cheek.

Anne grinned in pleasure. “Nan, it is, for I’ll have no other name between us, not after the great kindness you showed my sister. Eliza’s letters always spoke of you with such fondness, may God rest her sweet soul.”

Sadness dampened Mary’s eyes. “Poor Eliza. I yet miss her dearly. She deserved more happiness from life than four dead infants and a husband who loved her so little. Sometimes I think her experience in wedlock, more than my vow to remain a maiden as long as our sweet mistress owns that state, keeps me from the church door.”

With a final sigh for Anne’s recently departed sister, Mary looped her arm through Anne’s. “Come, then. We’re off to the maids’ dormitory.” The two of them started toward the gallery that led to the more residential areas of the palace, Mary’s pace forceful, indeed.

“Mistress Anne,” Patience protested, following them in that modest, measured tread of hers, “you must slow your pace. ‘Tisn’t decent.”

Mary shot a sharp glance over her shoulder at Patience, the twisting of her features saying she didn’t think much of servants who corrected their betters. “Is this your maid?”

“My governess, set upon me by my grandsire,” Anne replied. “I fear she finds immorality in my every movement.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Have a care with what you say near her. She’s also my grandsire’s spy.”

Mary choked back a quick laugh then her face came to life with the need to do mischief. “Shall we give her something to report? Faster, cousin,” she urged, stretching her legs as they started down the gallery.

Anne laughed and kept pace, leaving Patience to trail ever farther behind them. It was good to have a friend in this strange place, but even better to know an insider.

“Mary, I wonder if you noticed my grandfather's reaction to Lady Montmercy when the lady made her suggestion.”

“Ugh,” Mary replied, her mouth pursed in disgust. “Now, there’s a woman in need of your Patience. Lady Elisabetta is as immoral as they come.”

This startled Anne. “Then why does our royal mistress tolerate her presence as a lady-in-waiting?”

Mary offered an arch smile. “Why keep friends close, when it’s your enemies who bear watching? Our gracious lady keeps them close so they have less opportunity to do her harm.”

Anne frowned at that. “It cannot be easy for our queen to live so.”

Her kinswoman nodded. “Perhaps not easier, but far safer. As for your grandsire’s reaction, I cannot say I saw anything unusual since everything he does seems so odd. What do you think you saw?”

Their pace had slowed as they talked. Anne glanced behind her to see if Patience could overhear. Patience glowered at her, Amyas’s spy yet several yards behind them. Anne shrugged as if she were helpless to prevent Mary from dragging her along then turned her attention back to her kinswoman.

“Her presence seemed to overwhelm him as if he feared her. My grandsire has no regard for the weaker sex. That any woman should affect him so, well, the mystery of it is more than I can bear.”

The joy of prying into others’ secrets came to life in Mary’s face. “If there’s a mystery to be solved, I can help, doing so for your sake as much as to scheme against Lady Elisabetta.”

Anne laughed. “There’s nothing weak-kneed about your opinions, is there? Aye,” she said with a nod, “I’d welcome your assistance as I know nothing and no one at court.”

“You will soon enough,” Mary laughed, then glanced behind her and gasped. “Look, your Patience is catching us. Hie, cousin,” she cried, and once more dragged a laughing Anne down the passageway.

It was a glorious spring day made all the sweeter by the memory of last winter’s unusual cold. Kit drew a deep breath, filling his lungs with air spiced with the tang of the Thames. Gulls soared overhead, bird song rose from every copse and thicket. The sun warmed his leather riding jerkin, while beneath him, his gelding strained at the bit, begging to be allowed to run.

Aye, it was a fine day for a ride, even if his duty had him riding with the some three hundred wagons that followed the queen to Greenwich.

Kit grinned to himself. Last night’s dream had his spirits soaring. Rather than his persistent nightmare it was Mistress Blanchemain who had visited him in his sleep. With a sigh he savored the imaginary and wondrous sensations her dream form made in him. Even remembered, the things they’d done left him breathless.

If only he hadn’t drawn baggage duty for the day. Kit stared up the road. Men on horseback filled the narrow throughway. The farthest he could see was the hundred gentlemen who rode with Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. He only recognized them because the sun gleamed off their velvet attire. Mistress Anne rode ahead of them, in the maids’ company and protected by the queen’s lifeguard.

“Huh, just as well she cannot see you now,” Bertie Babthorpe said, riding at his master’s side, the baskets containing their belongings bouncing against his horse’s rump.

Startled, Kit turned in his saddle to stare at his man. Bertie couldn’t have discovered his involvement in Lady Montmercy’s plot, not when Kit had taken such care to keep all covert. For all that was good about him Bertie had a tendency to talk. “Who?” he demanded.

Bertie’s smile was dazzling. Although short as men went he owned a face so handsome half of London’s wives were panting after him. The other half were also panting, or so Bertie claimed, their gasps elicited by the memory of his prowess between their thighs.

“Why, whoever it is that has you so heated,” his man replied, his bright blue eyes gleaming from beneath the tumble of dark hair upon his brow. “Have a care, Master Kit. If she catches one look of your face she’ll know every detail of your plan for her.”

Kit frowned. “What plan?”

“What, indeed,” Bertie scoffed. “Yesterday, you nigh on drove me mad picking over your clothing to find just the right attire. Now this morn, you’re sniffing up this train of ours like a leashed dog smelling a bitch in heat. You’re after a woman, of that there’s no doubt.”

“I vow, Bertie. I’ll have to dismiss you one of these days. You’re hopelessly impertinent.”

So empty a threat drew only a rude sound from Kit’s man. A lifetime’s worth of familiarity gave Bertie the confidence to speak so to his employer; the Babthorpes had been Graceton men almost as long as the old keep tower had existed. “If I’m impertinent, then you’re too eager and wholly inexperienced in this sort of hunting,” Bertie retorted.

That piqued Kit’s masculine pride not a little. “Hardly so,” he snapped at Bertie for thinking him an inept lover. “If I’m not as promiscuous as you I’ve seduced a woman or two before this day.”

“Nay,” Bertie laughed, “you only think you’ve seduced them. In truth they’ve had you. It’s just the way you are, Master Kit, too blind to know they’re setting their traps for you until you’ve been snared. Do you remember Mistress Bridget, the cobbler’s wife?”

Kit drew a swift, sharp breath. Remember her?! Breasts round and ripe as melons, hair the color of gold, lips as rich as Madeira. Even as a memory, Bridget could wake his body.

“How could I forget?” he asked, then banished Bridget’s image from his mind. She wasn’t the one upon whom he needed to focus. The lovely image of Mistress Blanchemain again formed before his inner eyes. Lust was a fine thing to feel this day.

Kit shot Bertie a chiding look. “By the by, if this is your example of a woman having me, then you’re proved wrong before you start. I saw Bridget before she even knew I existed. She was walking through the market at Saint Paul’s. It took me days to discover where she lived.”

A sly grin twisted Bertie’s finely made lips. “You’d have saved yourself all that time and effort if you’d returned to Saint Paul’s the next day at that same hour. She was there, waiting for you.”

Kit’s chin jerked up as he turned in the saddle to stare at his manservant. “How do you know that?” he demanded.

“You jest!” Bertie cried. “A woman like that doesn’t go unnoticed by any man. I went back the next day, hoping she’d be there, and there she was. Sweet Jesus knows I tried, but she was very definite. ‘Twas you and no other she wished to attract.”

“She told you that?” Kit gaped at him.

His servant shrugged. “Not as such, but there’re some things that need no words. Suffice it to say she was already at the hunt and you were her prey.”

The look Bertie bent on his master was that of the hoary, aged tutor upon his foundling student. “Now, if you wish to be the hunter, do as the shoemaker’s wife did. Appear to be disinterested, but make your presence known and felt. Oh, and I warn you, if your quarry glimpses even a flicker of what’s been filling your gaze this day, Venus’s gate will be barred to you for all time.”

“Well then, I’m doomed already,” Kit snapped again, still irritated but newly resolved to be more distant when next he and Mistress Anne met. “My quarry had a good look at me outside the Presence Chamber yesterday.”

Bertie held up his hands. “Master, I’m only trying to aid you,” he cried, a shade too much laughter in his voice to carry off his protest of innocence.

Well and truly wounded by Bertie’s attempt to school him in the lover’s art, Kit glared at his servant. With his next breath came the means to give Bertie a thrust in return. Laughter strained at Kit’s throat. He returned his gaze to the road, staring at the narrow line of muck as if it were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.

“Since you’re so eager to aid me in this, there might be something you could do,” he said, baiting his trap.

“What’s that?” his manservant asked. The new interest in his tone suggested he circled Kit’s hook, not quite ready to bite.

“Nay,” Kit said, creasing his brow as if in consideration. He let the quiet drag out long enough to tease Bertie’s interest then shook his head to convey that his yet-unspoken request was quite beyond his man’s capabilities to achieve. “Never mind. It’s just a wayward thought and wouldn’t serve at all.”

“What? Speak,” Bertie insisted, now eager for a chance at the bait.

“Well, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you my thoughts,” Kit said, “although it isn’t the sort of thing one man asks another to do. Bertie, you say a man must find a way around the barriers a woman sets to discourage others, thus forcing his image into her mind. In this woman’s case, I think there’s but one barrier: her servant. What a boon it would be if you could win her maidservant’s heart, thus opening that door for me.”

When he finished Kit offered his man a sorry smile as he waved away his own request. “Foolish of me, I know.”

Bertie stared at him in blatant surprise. “You want me to seduce a woman? You, who is ever chiding me that I will lose my cock if I’m not careful where I put it?!”

Kit sighed sadly. “I told you it was but an errant notion. Besides, it’s quite impossible, even for a man of your talents.” However honest this warning, Kit knew without doubt he’d just firmly fixed the hook in Bertie’s mouth.

“Impossible!” His man came bolt upright in his saddle, blind to the fact he was now swimming to the end of Kit’s string. “There’s no woman in the world I cannot conquer.”

Such arrogance deserved its comeuppance. Kit formed his face into an expression of grateful innocence. “Glad I am to hear it. How long do you think such a thing would take you? A week? Two?”

“Two weeks?” Bertie scoffed, sounding insulted at the notion. “It hasn’t taken me that long to win a woman since my twelfth year.”

Kit let his breath gust from him as if deeply relieved. “Glad I am to hear your confidence for I was certain this woman might be immune to any man’s charm, even yours.”

A flash of concern shot through his servant’s pretty eyes. “Why?”

Kit rubbed his gloved hand over his mouth to contain his grin. “Perhaps, it would be better if I showed you. Follow me,” he said.

Turning their horses, they trotted down the long line of wagons that creaked and groaned their way down the road, their big wheels squealing through the muck. The wagons were pulled by massive dray horses or teams of bellowing oxen. Furnishings filled their boxes—chairs, chests of plate, trunks of linens. And beds, whole wagons worth of disassembled beds. What didn’t belong to the queen belonged to her courtiers, for no man with a rank high enough to claim a bedchamber went abroad without his own furnishings.

Kit pointed to the cart belonging to Old Amyas. “There. Do you see that woman in brown walking beside yon wagon? That’s Mistress Patience Watkins, companion to Mistress Blanchemain.”

Bertie caught his breath as he recognized the name. “Are you mad?!” he cried. “Mistress Blanchemain is one of the queen’s maids. You cannot seduce one of those virgins!”

“Hush, Bertie,” Kit warned. “Who said anything about seducing? All I want is a chance to spend time alone with her. Can I help that my heart is given?”

“If it’s your heart you intend to give her then I’m the lord of Graceton,” his man snorted, turning in the saddle to study the frail, flat-chested woman.

Kit looked as well. Having seen the fire in Mistress Anne’s eyes, he didn’t wonder why Sir Amyas set such a pinched-faced jailer on his granddaughter. Mistress Anne’s keeper was as tight in mind as she was in body. He’d seen her twice chide those around her for giving way to laughter, proclaiming that such explosions of gaiety opened the doors of their hearts to Satan.

“Look how her mouth moves as if she’s speaking to some invisible companion,” Bertie said after a moment, his voice weak. “What’s she doing?”

“Praying, no doubt,” Kit replied. “Sir Amyas would hardly supply his granddaughter with a servant of low morals now would he? I’ll wager the woman believes as he does.” He grinned at his servant.

“But he’s a Calvinist,” Bertie cried, a worried line destroying the perfection of his brow.

Kit reared back in his saddle in mock outrage. “What’s this, Master Cock-too-big-for-his-codpiece? I thought you expert in the seduction of unwilling women. Have I been led astray?” He pressed his hand to the front of his jerkin to display how much the notion of Bertie’s incompetence shocked him.

“Imagine how stunned your companions will be when I tell them there’s one woman in the world beyond your charms,” Kit continued, “one woman who won’t even look in your direction.”

Bertie’s eyes narrowed. Only now did he feel himself flopping and flapping at the end of his employer’s line. “You wouldn’t.”

Kit’s grin widened in triumph. “Wouldn’t I?”

“I should have known this was naught but a prank on your part,” the man muttered.

“A week was it you said?” Kit asked, savoring his victory.

Bertie once more turned his gaze on the tight-minded woman then heaved a martyred sigh. “I’ll think on it as the challenge of a lifetime.”