To Kiss A Spy (6 page)

“If you’ll return this afternoon, sir, I’d be happy to—”

“Pen . . . Pen!”

She broke off at the sound of the high voice. She spun around to look up the redbrick path that led from the water to the gate in the wall around the castle. A young woman, a flash of crimson and emerald, was running down towards them, her bright skirts caught up to free her stride, words tumbling from her mouth.

“Pen . . . Pen . . . where on earth have you been? We’ve been frantic with worry.”

Pen sighed. All hope of concealing any part of the truth was gone. Pippa would ferret out every detail. And yet despite this she hurried to meet her younger sister as she arrived at the foot of the stairs. Pen hadn’t seen Pippa for close on a month and as always she had missed her.

“Pippa, I wasn’t expecting you for another three days.” She hugged her tightly. “Are Mama and Lord Hugh here too?”

“Yes, at Holborn.” Pippa’s gaze had immediately found Owen d’Arcy. Her eyes widened and she whispered into her sister’s ear, “Who’s that?”

Pen turned, her arm still around her sister’s waist. Owen d’Arcy stood smiling expectantly. She was about to make the introduction when a loud hail from the path distracted her.

“Oh, it’s Robin,” Pippa said, momentarily forgetting Pen’s companion. “He has been
beside
himself. Robin . . . Robin . . . it’s all right, Pen’s here now. She’s quite safe!” she cried. “Someone brought her back.”

“Chevalier d’Arcy at your service, madam.” Owen took his cue and stepped forward. He bowed, his bland countenance hiding his swift appraising scrutiny of Pen’s sister.

Robin arrived beside them, out of breath, his cap in his hands, his thatch of nut-brown curls windblown. His brilliant blue eyes held a mixture of anxiety and relief.

“What happened? Where have you been?”

“Princess Mary said you had stayed overnight at Bryanston House,” Pippa chipped in. “But we knew perfectly well you would never have done that.” Even as she spoke her gaze remained on the chevalier.

“The water steps were so crowded and it was so cold that I foolishly decided to strike out on my own,” Pen explained. “I ran afoul of a crowd of beggars. Fortunately, Chevalier d’Arcy happened on the scene and came to my rescue.” Her hand went fleetingly to her bandaged neck.

Robin’s gaze swiveled to the man still standing by the wherry. Suspicion darted across his countenance.
So this was Owen d’Arcy. Was his rescue of Pen pure coincidence?

He looked back at Pen and noticed her torn cloak and the glimpse of bandage beneath. For the moment he dismissed Owen d’Arcy. “You’re hurt!” He stepped quickly up to Pen.

Pen shook back the hood of her cloak to show the bandage. “It’s not as bad as it might have been. The chevalier took me to an inn he knows at the Horseferry steps. The tavern keeper was very kind, although it was so late at night. She had salves and bandages so I could cleanse the wound. It needed to be done immediately,” she added, wishing she didn’t sound so apologetic. It made it seem as if there had been something wrong about Owen’s intervention. Something she needed to hide.

Was there?

“You had an adventure,” Pippa declared in a tone of wonderment. “How strange, Pen. It’s usually me who has adventures.”

“I assure you, Pippa, you’re welcome to them,” Pen said. “That one will last me a lifetime.” She laid a hand on Robin’s arm and said, “I don’t believe you’re acquainted with the chevalier d’Arcy, Robin. Chevalier, this is my stepbrother, Robin of Beaucaire.”

Robin bowed stiffly to Owen, his mouth tight. “I’m honored, sir.”

Owen returned the bow with an ironic little smile. Pen’s stepbrother was not in the least honored by the meeting. “The honor is all mine,” he murmured.

Pen frowned at Robin. She could feel him as prickly as a hedgehog, his usual courtesy and good humor quite absent. Why would he dislike Owen d’Arcy? Maybe it was because the smooth, immaculate Owen was such a contrast with his own somewhat haphazard appearance. The chevalier had not a hair out of place. Robin on the other hand was tousled, his hose and doublet were ill-matched, his shirt collar was unbuttoned, and his short gown was slipping from his shoulders as if he’d dressed in haste. This indifference to his appearance was perfectly usual for Robin and ordinarily she would barely notice, but this morning his dress seemed particularly careless.

She said swiftly, “I’m not exaggerating, Robin, when I say that the chevalier saved my life.”

Robin looked directly at Owen d’Arcy, mistrust and suspicion still clear in his gaze. “Lady Pen’s family stand in your debt, sir,” he said in clipped tones.

“Not at all,” Owen responded cheerfully. “It was fortunate I happened to see her leave the water steps.”

“As Pen hasn’t seen fit to introduce me, sir, I must introduce myself,” Pippa announced. She regarded Owen with her head on one side. “I’m Pen’s sister Philippa, Chevalier.” Her hazel eyes, the twins of her sister’s, sparkled mischievously as she subjected him to a full and frank assessment.

Owen bowed over her hand, carrying her fingers to his lips. “
Enchanté,
my lady.”

“Oh, how pretty!” Pippa cried. “I think we are to become great friends. After all, you saved Pen’s life and that means we can dispense with all sorts of formalities.”

Robin and Pen exchanged speaking glances. Pippa was at it again. She was an incorrigible flirt but for some reason no one ever took her liveliness amiss.

“Well, that is certainly something I look forward to, Lady Philippa,” Owen returned gravely.

“Pippa,” Pippa corrected. “No one ever calls me Philippa. Not even the king, and old King Harry never did either.” She smiled at him, setting dimples dancing at the corners of her mouth.

“I can see how that might be,” Owen said with the same gravity, well aware that she was flirting with him. “Pippa suits you much better.”

Her smile became a grin and Owen could easily understand how men were attracted to her. She was far from pretty in any conventional way, quite the contrary. Her nose was long and pointed, her chin sharp, her countenance liberally sprinkled with freckles. She was thin and quick, and in her crimson and emerald silk she reminded him of a brightly plumaged little bird, not an exotic though, more like a sparrow in borrowed feathers. The French had a word for women like Lady Philippa.
Jolie-laide.
Her plainness was somehow attractive. But for his own money, he found her sister infinitely more appealing.

He turned away from the sparrow and back to Pen, who he decided reminded him of a thrush—brown, speckled, bright-eyed, and very sure of who she was and where she was going. A no-nonsense bird. He spoke with deliberate formality although his eyes had a very different tone. Their message was one of intimate complicity. “I can see I have no need to see you safe inside, madam. I leave you with Lord Robin and your sister. But I trust you’ll permit me to inquire after your health tomorrow.”

“I shall be happy to receive you, Chevalier,” Pen returned with the same formality. “I should like to present you to Princess Mary.”

“I would be deeply honored.” He leaned forward and kissed her full on the lips as he’d done once before and said softly, “In the meantime, I’ll consider that other matter.” Then he turned away and said calmly, blandly, “Lord Robin . . . Lady Pippa . . . I bid you farewell.”

“Don’t wait too long before you come to call upon Pen,” Pippa said. She had barely noticed the kiss.

“Believe me, Lady Pippa, I will not.” He stepped into the wherry where Cedric was waiting impatiently, although the page had found the exchanges on the water steps most interesting. The oarsmen took up their oars and pulled out into the current.

Owen stood in the bow with his hands clasped at his back, gazing across the river. A thrush, or a dove? No, definitely not a dove. Too sickly sweet. No, she was a thrush. Seemingly nondescript but a sweet-tongued yet tough dweller of the hedgerow. He smiled to himself. Then he recollected her stepbrother and a grimace twisted his mouth. Lord Robin could prove to be a nuisance.

Owen had made it his business to learn all he could about Pen’s brother. He knew that the man was more than a peripheral member of Suffolk’s household, that he did more than just walk the halls of the ducal houses of Northumberland and Suffolk. Robin of Beaucaire took an active part in their diplomatic intrigues. He was nowhere near as accomplished a spy as the chevalier, but he was no fool.

It was clear from the last few minutes that de Noailles had not exaggerated when he’d said that Pen and her stepbrother had a special closeness. And Lord Robin would know of Owen d’Arcy’s own affiliations.

Owen could see that he would have to forestall any tale-telling.

“How dare he kiss you!” Robin exploded as the wherry pulled away.

Pippa saved Pen the trouble of answering. “Everyone kisses everyone, Robin. You know that. Particularly if they’re really close friends, and if someone saves your life how could he be anything else?”

The reasonable side of Robin knew that he couldn’t argue with this. Such salutations were indeed quite unremarkable between friends. But Owen d’Arcy could not possibly be a friend of Pen’s. He could only mean her harm. But Robin couldn’t tell her this.

The Duke of Northumberland had been adamant that they leave the relationship to develop. Something useful might come of having Robin’s sister involved with a French spy. He had made this declaration in his coldly decisive manner and Robin had held his tongue. A man did not argue with John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, unless he was prepared to forfeit everything. And it seemed to Robin that he’d be more useful to Pen with his head still attached to his body.

His frustration took its own path, however. “How could you have done something so foolhardy, Pen? To set off on your own like that?” he demanded as they climbed up the steps to the castle. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the wherry bearing d’Arcy away had reached midstream.

“Robin, if you insist upon scolding me you must wait until I’ve soaked myself in a hot bath and a physician has looked at the cut on my neck,” Pen declared, weariness making her acerbic. She stepped up the path with a strength she didn’t have. “Pippa, I hope you haven’t said anything to Mama and Lord Hugh.”

“Oh, but . . .” Pippa looked stricken. “I beg your pardon, Pen, but when I arrived here this morning and you weren’t here I sent a message to Holborn to see if you’d gone there. So, I’m afraid . . .” She bit her lip ruefully.

Pen sighed. “I am quite old enough to make my own decisions and my own mistakes. But of course no one will accept that.”

“You’re not old enough to make them when they nearly kill you,” Robin snapped.

“Oh, don’t be so sanctimonious, Robin!” Pen marched through the gate in the wall into the quiet garden beyond. “You’d be more helpfully employed by riding to Holborn and telling Mama and your father that I’m back safe and sound. I’m going to have a bath and summon a physician. Pippa, will you tell Princess Mary that I’m back and will attend upon her as soon as may be?”

“I’ll tell her, but I think you need to sleep before you do any attending,” Pippa said frankly, examining her sister with concern. “You really do look dreadful.”

“Well, thank you!” Pen said. “That’s all I needed to know. That really improves matters.” She pulled her hood up over her head again, stalking away from them towards the palace.

“Oh, dear,” Pippa said. “Something’s happened. I don’t mean just the beggars, but something else. I wonder what.”

“If anyone can find out, you can,” Robin said, not sounding exactly as if he was conferring a compliment.

Pippa, however, took it as her due. “Yes,” she agreed. “But if you’re going to be disagreeable I won’t tell you what I discover.”

She went off in her sister’s wake, leaving her stepbrother to his anxiety and frustration as he rode to Holborn with the news of Pen’s safe return.

Five

“You’re covered in scratches and bruises, Pen!” Pippa exclaimed as she entered Pen’s bedchamber after delivering her message to Princess Mary.

Two maids were filling the copper tub before the fire. Pen was naked, examining her body inch by inch with a small Italian hand mirror of silvered glass. Pippa was not exaggerating. Her arms and breast were crisscrossed with scratches, some of which had oozed a little blood. There was a big bruise on her belly and she seemed to remember being kicked. Bruises on her thighs and shins certainly backed up the memory.

“It was horrible!” she said, shuddering as she relived those few ghastly minutes. “It didn’t last long before the chevalier arrived but . . .” She crossed her arms over her breast with another shudder.

“He must have arrived just in time,” Pippa observed, arranging herself on the deep window seat, paying particular attention to the fall of her crimson silk gown that opened over an emerald-green taffeta underskirt. Pippa shared with Princess Mary a passion for rich materials and bright colors, unlike Pen, who followed her mother’s taste for a more subdued elegance.

“So, a dramatic rescue!” Pippa declared, clearly settling in for a good chat. “Tell me everything. What an adventure. I’m quite envious. Did the chevalier beat them off all by himself?”

“His page was there, using a dagger. But Owen used a dagger and a rapier. Like an assassin, Pippa. An avenging angel. He was everywhere and they just melted away before his sword.”

“Owen?” Pippa questioned quickly. “You didn’t use his first name before.”

Pippa never missed a trick, Pen thought, cursing herself for allowing the familiarity to slip out. “I was introducing him before,” she retorted. “But we met in somewhat unusual circumstances.” She set the mirror aside and went over to the fire.

“When someone saves your life and then spends the night in the same inn chamber it seems silly to be formal.” She dipped a toe in the water in the bathtub. “Add a little more hot, will you, Ellen? And dried lavender and rose petals, please.”

“Yes, m’lady.” The elder of the two maids fetched another steaming copper jug from the fire and poured its contents into the tub while the younger sprinkled lavender and rose petals into the stream so that the fragrance filled the chamber.

“Oh?” Pippa’s eyes narrowed, but she said no more for the moment.

Pen stepped into the water, saying to the maids, “You may leave me now. I’ll ring when I need you again.”

Only when they had curtsied and left did Pippa continue her questions. “So what did you do in the chamber all night?”

“Talked mostly.” Pen slid into the hot water and rested her head on the edge of the tub, closing her eyes as the warmth laved her and her tight muscles began to relax.

“Talked? What about?” Pippa sat forward, her hands resting on her knees.

“This and that,” Pen murmured. “Then I slept for a couple of hours. When I awoke, the chevalier escorted me home.”

Pippa frowned, convinced she was not hearing the whole story. “So who is the chevalier? Had you met him before?”

“I met him for the first time earlier that evening, at the reception.” Pen wondered whether to tell Pippa about that strange meeting and the very unexpected kiss. Pippa would relish the story, but then she would extract from Pen exactly what she’d been doing in the library when Owen had surprised her. However hard she tried to keep it secret, her sister, given half a chance, would ferret out all the details and then her mother would know and everyone would be sad and vexed again. It wasn’t worth it. And most particularly not now when all her hopes were centered on Owen d’Arcy.

She continued carelessly, “As I understand it he spends most of his time at the French court. I assume he’s newly arrived in London.”

“Does he have a wife?”

“How should I know?” Pen demanded, sitting up so abruptly that the water splashed over the edge of the tub onto the waxed floorboards.

“Well, I thought you might have asked,” Pippa responded. “I would have done.”

“Yes, I’m sure you would have done. I didn’t consider it relevant to any discussion we were having.”

“Oh.” Pippa was for the moment nonplussed. “Aren’t you interested in finding out?”

“No.”

“He’s very . . . um . . . very striking,” Pippa said. “Not handsome, that’s too ordinary a word. But he’s . . .” She searched for the word she wanted.

“Exotic,” Pen supplied, and Pippa laughed and clapped her hands.

“Exactly so. Exotic. So why wouldn’t you be interested in knowing whether he was married?”

“I’m not a flirt.”

“And I am.”

“Deny it if you can.” Pen laughed, turning to look at her sister over her shoulder. “You’re an outrageous flirt. Are you ever going to get married?”

“I don’t see the point,” Pippa said. “I’m enjoying life too much just as it is. I don’t want to be proper and tied down. And I most certainly don’t want a mother-in-law. Not after your experience.”

“Well, you may understand that for the very same reason I’ve no interest in acquiring another, so the married status of Owen d’Arcy matters not a whit to me,” Pen declared roundly.

“But you do find him attractive?” Pippa pressed.

Pen closed her eyes again. There was no point denying it. And no point denying to herself that his attraction had very little to do with the possibility that he might help her in her quest. “I suppose I do.”

“I wonder how Robin’s going to take that.”

“ ’Tis no business of Robin’s!”

“He’ll think it is,” said Pippa with perfect truth.

At that moment the sisters’ tête-à-tête was interrupted. The door flew open and Lady Kendal entered in a rustle of silk and velvet. She was followed by a very elderly woman with a pronounced dowager’s hump.

“Pen, my dearest girl! What happened to you? We have been out of our minds with worry.”

“Mama!” Pen stood up in a shower of water. “Oh, believe me, ’twas nothing. Pippa reacted too quickly. There was no cause for concern.” She put a hand to her neck as if to conceal the bandage.

“Ay . . . ay . . . ay, chuck!” the old woman muttered, hurrying to the bathtub. “Look at you, girl! All scratched and bruised.”

“Tilly, ’tis nothing serious. A cut on my neck, a few bruises and scratches.” Pen smiled reassuringly at the woman who had been her mother’s nurse and then her own, and was now so old that their young half sister Anna thought she had been living forever.

“Standing there dripping in this cold, you’ll catch your death,” Tilly scolded, gathering up a thick towel and wrapping it around Pen. “Let me look beneath that bandage.”

Pen stepped out of the tub, drawing the towel tightly around her. She sat on a stool by the fire and submitted patiently as Tilly, tutting to herself, unwound the bandage.

“I think I need a little more explanation, Pen,” her mother said, regarding her eldest daughter with a frown in her dark purple eyes. At forty-three, Guinevere was still a lovely woman. Her hair, once palest gold, was now silver, and the faint tracery of lines upon her face served only to accentuate the intelligence and humor of her character. She was as elegant as ever, sapphires blazing against the black velvet of her gown.

“Pen fell among thieves,” Pippa said. “And she was rescued by a Chevalier d’Arcy who—”

“Pippa, I can tell my own story!” Pen interrupted.

“I suppose it was
your
adventure,” Pippa agreed. “But I wish it had been mine.”

“Pippa, I would discuss this alone with Pen,” her mother said firmly. “Would you please go to Lord Hugh? He’s paying his respects to Princess Mary and he has Anna with him. She’s most anxious to see Pen. Would you go and find her and bring her back here?”

Pippa knew quite well that she was being sent on an unnecessary errand to get her out of the way. Anna was perfectly capable of finding her own way to Pen’s chambers. But Pippa was slow to take offense and even the most pointed snubs rarely hit home. She went off with a cheerful wave at the towel-wrapped Pen.

Guinevere sat down on Pippa’s vacated window seat and drew off her gloves. “Now, love, tell me please what’s happened.”

Princess Mary’s presence chamber was crowded as Pippa entered. She saw her stepfather, the Earl of Kendal, and her half sister, Anna, in the circle around the princess, who sat by the fire in a carved chair, an open book in her lap. Even when giving audience, Mary was rarely without a volume at hand and would frequently disconcert visitors by suddenly withdrawing her attention and turning her eyes to her page.

This morning, however, her attention seemed wholly focused on those around her. Despite the relative poverty forced upon her by the king and his council, she was dressed with great richness in a French gown of gold brocade heavily embroidered and studded with emeralds. A gift from her cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor. Her small hands were smothered in rings, and a great diamond blazed at her breast.

Mary was a handsome woman who wore her thirty-six years lightly. She was small and slight and her auburn hair and fresh complexion gave the lie to the ill health that plagued her, exacerbated by her constant anxiety about her personal safety amid the snares and conspiracies that surrounded her.

Pippa edged through the crowd and curtsied as she reached the princess. Her stepfather laid an affectionate hand on her shoulder as she stood beside him.

“How is Pen?” Mary asked with an air of concern. “I don’t understand why she didn’t remain at her mother-in-law’s house last night. If I’d known she intended to come back here I would have sent someone to escort her.”

“It’s most unlike Pen to do anything so foolish,” the earl said with a frown. “I’m sure she must have had good and sufficient reason, madam.”

“She has a cut on her neck and many bruises and scratches,” Pippa informed all and sundry. “It was a very narrow escape and so fortunate that the chevalier happened to have followed her when she left the water steps.”

“Who is this chevalier?” asked the princess.

“The Chevalier d’Arcy,” Pippa replied promptly.

Mary raised a delicately arched eyebrow. “I am not familiar with the name but he has my thanks. Has the physician been sent to Pen?”

“Tilly is with her now so I doubt she’ll need a physician, madam,” Pippa responded. “And Mama is there too.”

“I see. But I insist the physician visit her as well. She must remain abed today.” Mary turned to one of her ladies. “Matilda, would you send the physician to Pen’s chamber?”

“At once, madam.” The woman curtsied and withdrew.

“And now, if you’ll excuse me, Lord Kendal, I must go to my prayers.” The princess rose from her chair. She smiled at the fourteen-year-old Anna, who stood close to her father. “Such a pretty child. Bring her to see me again, Lord Kendal.”

Hugh bowed his acquiescence and his daughter curtsied, her cheeks pink with a mixture of embarrassment and excitement.

Mary left the chamber, her hand resting on the arm of the Spanish ambassador, a saturnine gentleman whose dark complexion contrasted with his neat gray beard and mustache.

Anna turned to Pippa. “Did you hear her? The princess said I was pretty!”

“Well, so you are,” Pippa said matter-of-factly. “If you were at court, you’d have more suitors than you could count. Wouldn’t she, Lord Hugh?”

“Quite possibly,” Hugh said with a dry smile. “But I’m not about to let her loose on the world just yet. What do you know of this business with Pen, Pippa?”

“Only that she set off on her own after the Bryanstons’ revels last evening, and was set upon by beggars and was rescued by this chevalier, Owen d’Arcy. Did Robin tell you that we met him when he brought Pen home? Do you know him, Lord Hugh?”

“Not to speak to. But I believe he’s a close acquaintance of the French ambassador, Antoine de Noailles.”

“He didn’t sound French.”

Hugh shrugged. “That means little.” He stroked his chin, wondering if there was any significance in Owen d’Arcy’s friendship with the ambassador. It was possible that he was involved in the French king’s undercover diplomacy. Every foreign power had an undercover presence at the Court of St. James’s. If so, Hugh wasn’t sure that he wanted his stepdaughter to further her acquaintance with the chevalier. He may have done her a service, but spying was an unsavory business.

It was bad enough that Robin dabbled his toes in that murk. Hugh disliked his son’s involvement in the intrigues of the Duke of Northumberland. The Duke was a dangerous man and the young king was no more than his puppet. When so much power was centered on one man, the stability of the kingdom was inevitably threatened.

Hugh did not interfere in his son’s choice of loyalty but he watched him and the situation a deal more closely than Robin was aware.

Princess Mary was the heir to the throne. So far there had been no overt challenges to the succession, but Hugh had a feeling that the dukes of Northumberland and Suffolk had something up their sleeves. They were certainly manipulating the sick young king and managing to feather their nests in the process. If the dukes plotted treason, then Robin would be tarred with their brush. And his father would not then stand aside.

By the same token he needed to probe into the character and situation of this Chevalier d’Arcy who had managed to attract Pen’s attention so dramatically. The role of paterfamilias was an onerous one, Hugh reflected, but with an inner smile. He would not have it any other way. He adored all four of his children and drew no distinction between the two he had sired and the two he had not.

“I must seek out the chevalier and thank him once I’ve had a chance to talk to Pen,” he said. “Run ahead, Anna, and ask if she’s able to receive me yet.”

“So, how goes the pursuit, Owen?” Antoine de Noailles straightened his doublet and peered in the small mirror on the table to adjust the jewel in the lace at his throat. A pool of golden candlelight illuminated the mirror and the table, but the rest of the chamber was as dim as the gray day beyond the window. Owen stood in the shadows, outlined against the arras, one hand idly playing with the hilt of his rapier, his gloves held loosely in his other.

“A promising beginning,” he said with a shrug. “Circumstances played into my hands.”