B009RYSCAU EBOK

by Gillian Bagwell

  “And yet all strive most mightily to remain in his favor.”

  “Of course they do,” Will snorted. “For it seems like enough he may be king before long. Even Cecil claps him on the shoulder and smiles upon him, though he loves him little enough.”

  * * *

  WHEN BESS NEXT WAITED ON THE QUEEN SHE FOUND HER TETCHY and irritable. Her ladies kept their eyes down and scurried to be out of reach of her fan after she fetched a young page boy a blow with it for bringing her the message that Cecil wanted to see her at the same time she planned to watch Robert Dudley in a shooting match.

  “What’s amiss?” Bess whispered to Frances Newton when they were out of the queen’s hearing.

  “I think she’s in a temper because she’s just made Kate Grey a lady of the bedchamber, much against her will.”

  “She doesn’t like Kate much; why do that?”

  “Because she wants to be able to keep a close eye on her,” Frances whispered. “Kate is her nearest relative and next in line for the throne until the queen has a child of her own. Better keep Kate nearby than push her away and let her fall under the influence of God knows who.”

  “Not the Spanish,” Bess insisted. “Kate has far more sense than that.”

  “There are other possibilities than the Spanish. I’ve heard that Kate might marry the Earl of Arran.” Frances raised an eyebrow at Bess.

  “Oh.” The implications struck Bess immediately. “He’s heir to the Scottish throne, and should they have a son . . .”

  “The crowns of England and Scotland could be united, exactly. Not a terrible thing for the future, perhaps, but such a marriage now might incite some to remove Her Majesty from the throne in favor of Kate. For she would be married, and soon might bear an heir. I’ve also heard whispers that Kate might marry the Earl of Huntingdon.”

  “I doubt that will come to pass,” Bess said. “Or a marriage with Arran either. Kate’s heart lies with Edward Seymour, last I knew. And besides, there are rumors that Her Majesty will adopt Kate. That sounds as if she means to acknowledge her as her successor rather than the Scottish queen. And surely with that prospect, Kate must be prepared to wait and see, and not take some precipitous and foolish action.”

  * * *

  BESS WAS EXTREMELY WARY OF BEING SEEN TO BE PART OF ANY faction, and when she was in the queen’s company she strove to be blithe and sunny, and to speak of nothing more consequential than the latest needlework pattern and whose baby was the bonniest.

  She had plenty to occupy herself with at home. James Crompe, steward at Chatsworth, dispatched news of the progress of the building work, the crops, the livestock, and a dozen other matters, and requested her opinion and authorization of a hundred details. He sent lists of the books that Willie and Harry needed for school, and of the clothes they had outgrown or worn out, which must be replaced.

  “They might as well be eating their boots,” Bess remarked to Jenny as she counted out the money to send to Crompe. She wished she didn’t have to worry about costs, but at the back of her mind was always the debt to the crown.

  “Better they are healthy and needing clothes than needing none.”

  “Of course, you’re right,” Bess agreed, with a silent prayer of thanks that all her children were healthy.

  The thought of children brought a trace of sadness to her heart, for she and Will had been married for six months, and no child had taken root within her belly. She was grateful that he had come to love her children as his own, but still longed to give him a son and heir.

  As though her thoughts had summoned him, Will came into their bedchamber, a letter in his hand.

  “Bess, my brother Ned writes that he will visit at the end of the month, to pay his respects to you as he was not at our wedding.”

  “Good,” Bess said. “If he is as charming as your brother Clement I will be most happy to know him.”

  “He’s not,” Will said. “He’s never been anything but trouble.”

  Will’s face was stony. Did he believe, then, that Ned had murdered John and Bridget Scutt?

  “Well, let him come,” Bess said. “Perhaps he wants to make peace, and this visit can be the start of better relations between the two of you.”

  * * *

  “BROTHER WILL! AND MY GOOD-SISTER BESS,” NED ST. LOE CRIED AS they greeted him at the door of the house in Tuthill Street.

  But Bess sensed a coldness behind the jovial manner and the smile, and Will seemed wary as his brother came into the house.

  “The place is looking much more elegant since I was last here,” Ned said, clapping Will on the shoulder. “The influence of your lady wife, I make no doubt.”

  “She does have a civilizing effect,” Will agreed, gesturing his brother to a chair in the withdrawing room. “And how is Margaret?” he added with forced politeness as a servant brought in cakes and ale and laid them on the table.

  “Ah. She is less than thriving and joyous, alas.” Ned affected a mournful expression, which seemed to Bess clearly calculated to elicit concerned inquiries, but Will remained silent as he handed his brother a flagon of ale. “Actually, brother, it is partly on my wife’s account that I am here.”

  Bess saw Will’s shoulders tighten and his jaw clench, and the eyes he turned on Ned were cold. It was an old game between the brothers, she saw. Ned seeking attention and inquiry; Will refusing to be drawn into his snares.

  “The fact of the matter,” Ned said, “is that my dear wife and I were much surprised to learn of the building works going on at Sutton Court.” He turned to Bess and smiled, but there was nothing pleasant about the smile and she thought his eyes were reptilian. “For shortly before our father died, he promised the house and lands to my Margaret, to be hers for her lifetime.”

  Bess could see there was nothing feigned about the astonishment on Will’s face. It rapidly turned to outrage. Ale sloshed as he slammed his cup onto the table. “The devil he did.”

  Ned appeared to have been prepared for such a reaction. He merely crossed a booted foot over his knee and took a slow drink of ale.

  “But he did, brother Will. And I am here to demand that you remove whatever of your possessions you have put into the house and hand over the keys.”

  “And just why would Father have done such a thing?”

  “Why, it’s only fair, isn’t it? You have the property at Tormarton, and this fine house. And your lady”—a poisonous smile at Bess—“is possessed of that grand house a-building at Chatsworth, and vast amounts of land besides. What need you of yet another house? Whereas my Margaret and I are crammed into that pitiful poor house at Stanton Drew.”

  “The house that you bought from Bridget Scutt a fortnight after her husband died in such suspicious circumstances and a fortnight before you married her?” Will asked, his voice dangerously flat. “The house in which she died so suddenly after that marriage? The house in which you then took to wife your stepdaughter? You liked the house and what it offered well enough before. Why do you suddenly set your eye on Sutton Court?”

  “Because I’ve a right to it—my Margaret has a right to it.”

  “That’s a lie,” Will said, jumping to his feet so suddenly that he knocked over his chair. “You well know that our father, along with half of Somerset, was aghast at your tricks. He had time enough to change his will if he wanted to leave you something more than the nothing he gave you. Get out.”

  Ned blinked at him, and Will grasped him by the front of his doublet and hauled him roughly to his feet.

  “Get out of my house. Stay away from Sutton Court. And darken my door no more.”

  * * *

  LATE THAT NIGHT WILL WAS STILL PACING THE FLOOR OF THEIR bedchamber and practically shaking with rage.

  “It’s a lie, I’m sure of it,” he said. “Father had no use for Ned.”

  “Why would Ned think you would believe that Margaret Scutt was to have the use of the house?”

  “There is only one speck of doubt that gnaws at me; one rea
son that there might be the faintest stain of truth in what he claims.”

  He sank onto the bed beside Bess and sighed heavily.

  “My father wanted me to marry Margaret Scutt. I had no interest in the wench, though I felt sorry for her, as well as her mother and brother, for it was well known that John Scutt was a brute.”

  “He beat them, you mean?”

  Will nodded. “It is just conceivable that my father told Ned that if I married Margaret, as he wished, she would have the use of the house for her lifetime if I died before her.”

  “Oh. But surely she has no right to expect it now, since she is married to Ned and not you, and they have a house to live in.”

  “You would think not. There is one more piece of the puzzle that troubles me. Ned came to me just after John Scutt died. He asked me not to marry Margaret and he persuaded me to buy the wardship of her brother Anthony.”

  “So that it would not be bought by someone who would take over the property and marry the boy off to his own daughter. I know well enough how that works.”

  In an instant, Bess was back all those years ago, feeling once more her mother’s despair when Hardwick was under the control of the Court of Wards, and when she had had to fight Sir Peter Frecheville, who had bought the wardship of Robbie Barlow’s brother, for her widow’s dower.

  “Yes, exactly. But if that were the case, why did he not put it into his will? It makes no sense. And the only reason I can see for Ned’s claim is that he will get Sutton Court.”

  “Would your mother know the truth of the matter?” Bess asked.

  “I’ll write to her,” Will said. “But by God, that rogue never fails to set my teeth on edge.”

  “It is hard that he should have been left with nothing. It must have been a surprise to him when after years of you leaving Sutton Court alone we descended and began making changes. And with you a widower all these years and with only daughters, he no doubt came to expect that he would be your heir. But our marriage and the likelihood that we will have sons has put paid to that hope.”

  Let it be a likelihood still, Lord, she prayed.

  “My father knew Ned too well to leave him with anything valuable,” Will argued. “Six or seven years ago he gave Ned the leases of Whitchurch and Felton, and within three years Ned had sold them and spent what he got. If he gets Sutton Court—for it will be he, not Margaret Scutt, that controls it—I have no doubt he’ll ruin it or lose it gambling or through mortgaging it.”

  “Might there be a way to give them the use of the house without the control of it? We must have a steward there; why not let it be Ned? Perhaps it would make him lay down his arms and live in peace.”

  “Faugh!” Will exclaimed in disgust.

  “Well, let us think on it,” Bess said, realizing that he was in no mood to make any good decision. “Come, my own, come to bed and hold me close, and let not Ned ruin the night as he has ruined the day.”

  Will’s letter to his mother, and further letters to friends of his father, produced no confirmation of Ned’s claim that their father had promised Sutton Court to Margaret Scutt for her lifetime. But he agreed with Bess’s suggestion of making Ned steward of the property, allowing him and Margaret to live there.

  “After all,” he said, “so long as I continue in the queen’s service I must be in London, unless she is on progress and then will I be where she travels. And when you go from town you go to Chatsworth. So I suppose it may be the best way out of a bad situation.”

  The letter was written and Ned replied, tersely, that he would become steward of Sutton Court.

  “Does he thank you for it?” Bess asked.

  “No,” Will growled. “He accepts with little grace and no thanks.”

  “Perhaps he will unbend in time.”

  “Perhaps,” Will said, balling up the letter and tossing it into the fire.

  * * *

  SOON THEREAFTER, WILL’S MOTHER CAME TO VISIT. BESS HAD taken a great liking to her mother-in-law at her wedding, and was pleased to be able to entertain her and introduce her to her friends. Margaret St. Loe was not yet sixty, vigorous, and good-natured, though with a tart wit. Will’s father had been a friend of Harry Grey’s, and Bess had seen him occasionally at Bradgate House, but from what she recalled of him, she thought Will had inherited many of his most likeable qualities from his mother.

  One night while Will was kept late at court, Bess and her mother-in-law sat by the fire in Bess’s bedchamber with their needlework, Margaret St. Loe telling Bess the family’s history.

  “The St. Loes have served the crown for more than five hundred years,” she said. “Will was attendant knight at the recent obloquy for the French king; it was the same service that his grandfathers have performed since time out of mind, watching over the bodies of English kings, alive or dead. They have been warriors, always. My own husband had license to keep a hundred mounted soldiers, ready to do battle for the king.”

  Bess thought of Sutton Court with its fortified walls and tower, and could easily imagine that it could have withstood a siege in the not so distant days when such things still happened.

  “My husband was one of the knights who welcomed Anne of Cleves. And he was an official mourner at the funeral of poor King Edward, alas, so very few years after we so joyously welcomed his birth.”

  Bess got up to refill Margaret’s goblet, and stirred the fire into fresh life.

  “Will you have some of this mince pie?” she asked. “It arrived just this afternoon as a gift.”

  “I thank you, no,” Margaret said. “I do endeavor to limit my sweets. But I will happily indulge myself in a few more of those delicious dates instead.”

  Bess took the plate of nuts and dried fruits to her mother-in-law and dished herself some of the pie. It was redolent with spices, and looked wonderful.

  “Your husband spent much time in Ireland, Will said.”

  “He did. King Henry sent him there, and valued his service so that he was shortly made marshal and then commissioner. My husband’s brother William was there, as well, and Will joined them for a year at the age of seventeen, before he became gentleman usher to the Marquess of Exeter. Of course that came to a sad end.”

  “Yes, alas,” Bess murmured. For Will’s patron Henry Courtenay, King Henry’s cousin and great friend, had lost his head after Thomas Cromwell convinced the king that Courtenay was plotting a rebellion.

  “After that Will was once more soldier in the king’s service, first in Boulogne and then in Ireland for another eight years, before young King Edward placed him in charge of seeing to the safety of Princess Elizabeth.”

  Suddenly agony seized Bess, a twisting, cramping pain in her belly that reminded her of the pains of childbirth. She cried out and Margaret came to her side, her face full of alarm.

  “What is it, my dear? Are you taken ill?”

  “Yes,” Bess gasped. She was awash in perspiration and she felt nauseated and dizzy. “I—oh!—help me to lie down, please.”

  Margaret took her arm and tried to guide her to the bed, but Bess crumpled to her knees, moaning in pain.

  “Oh, dear God, I think I am dying.”

  A peculiar expression came over Margaret St. Loe’s face.

  “The pie. Whence did you say it came?”

  “I don’t know. A gift, the steward said—ohhh . . .”

  “I think you are poisoned. Have you an emetic?”

  Poisoned? Bess felt panic rising in her along with the overwhelming pain and nausea. Who would want to poison her?

  “Yes,” she gasped out. “Ring for help.”

  She felt disconnected from her body as she lay there on the floor, noting a large yellow bloom in the pattern of the Turkey carpet that seemed no less a part of her than her outflung hand with its rings. Poisoned. Surely she was dying. And she would never see Will again, or the children.

  Footsteps, alarmed voices. She was being raised to a sitting position, supported by one of the footmen, with the steward and her
mother-in-law swimming in a haze before her.

  “Drink this, my lady.”

  Her head was tilted back, a little vial brought to her lips. Terrible, terrible, oh, the vileness of the stuff being poured down her throat. Like a liquefied frog, she thought. And then a powerful surge within, her gorge rising, her belly convulsing with the effort of heaving forth its contents. Vomiting into a basin, helplessly, feeling as if her soul were pouring forth. Would it never stop? Still more, still more. Surely there was nothing left inside her now; surely her very innards had been cast out. She was on her hands and knees now, weeping with pain and despair. Vomit on the fine expensive damask of her gown and on the carpet, on her hands and face. Oh, God, let me die rather than live through more of this.

  And then blackness surged up and she was falling, falling . . .

  * * *

  BESS’S EYES FLUTTERED OPEN TO FIND HERSELF IN BED WITH WILL looking down at her, his face taut with worry.

  “My love, my own, my life.” He seized her hand and kissed it, then held it to his chest. “Thank the Lord. I feared you were lost to me.”

  A rush of memory came back. All had been well, chatting with Margaret, eating pie. The pie.

  “What happened?” Bess managed to ask. Her belly felt as if it had been trodden on by horses.

  “My mother thinks you were poisoned.”

  “Will I die?”

  “No, thank God we had a remedy to hand. The doctor has been here; you will recover.”

  “But who would want to poison me?”

  Will’s face was stony. “Ned.”

  “Surely not. My death would do him no good.”

  “But mine would. The pie was meant for me.”

  Bess was appalled. Could Ned St. Loe be so twisted with hatred that he would poison his own brother over a house?

  “I told you there were whisperings of poison when John Scutt died and then Bridget so quickly after him, leaving Ned master of their house,” Will said. “I will make most careful inquiries and learn whence that pie came and whether it is possible that Ned had a hand in this mischief. But I pray you, Bess, be most careful. Eat or drink nothing that was not prepared here in the house and bear a wary eye if you must be out of doors until I come to the bottom of this.”