‘Well, here comes Sir William now. And … yes … he’s stopped them. He’s bowing. He’s started to talk with one of them – the ambassador, most like.’
‘Very well.’ She straightened herself up. ‘That is our signal to proceed. Are you ready?’
He screwed up his face. ‘I am.’
And then she slapped him.
‘How dare you address me in that manner!’ she shrieked, loud enough for her voice to carry across the garden. ‘Get you gone, before I have you whipped!’
He widened his eyes; clearly, she had hit him harder than she had intended – that, or he was amused at her choice of language. Either way, he fled as planned without another word. Dramatically shaking her head, she turned around: on cue, Sir William was huddled with the French, gesturing towards her, asking the young man at the back of the party to find out if she needed help.
The young man at the back being Julien Bellecour.
‘Madame,’ he said, wasting no time in coming across. ‘I saw what happened. Do you need assistance?’
She smiled, looking him up and down with deceitfully roaming eyes. ‘Do not mind me. I have had words with my man, that is all.’
‘The bâtard in the hooded cloak? I could not see his face, but I shall be happy to fetch him back, if you wish it.’
‘Do not be concerned, sir.’ She blinked her painted eyes. ‘Your accent … you are French?’
‘I am. And you, may I say, are enchanting.’
She faked a laugh. ‘I see it is true what they say.’
‘What is?’
‘That chaste ladies must be on their guard around Frenchmen.’
He grinned. ‘Do they say that?’
‘But you should know, Monsieur, that the nobleman there is my love.’
He turned his head. ‘Vraiment? Sir William Calde?’
‘Indeed so. He is the King’s close advisor, so you had best take care.’
‘Sir William … Yes, I know who he is.’
‘You should hear the tales he tells of … but I am talking too much.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I am always talking.’
‘Not at all.’ He looked at her. ‘You have a charming voice. It is pleasing to hear it.’
Enough, she thought. Time to lay the snare.
She teased the lace of her plunging neckline. ‘Thank you for your gallantry, Monsieur …?’
‘Bellecour. Julien Bellecour.’
‘Monsieur Bellecour. You should know that Sir William is not a jealous man.’
‘No?’ He leant in. ‘Then I see ’tis true what they say of the women of this Court. That they need little encouragement.’
‘I walk in the park most days around noon. I should not be averse to finding you there – tomorrow?’ Pulling back, she held out her hand. ‘Goodnight, Monsieur.’
‘Perhaps I should like that.’ He bowed and kissed her fingers. ‘Goodnight, Madame.’
She inclined her head, giving Bellecour a smile she cringed from as too obvious, but the Frenchman did not seem to notice. A moment more, and she broke off to join Sir William. The great man glared at Bellecour in feigned offence before taking her arm and leading her away. Yet somehow, she managed to look back.
Utterly ridiculous, as she later thought. But then, the absurd plot had worked.
Chapter Sixteen
‘Where were we?’ said Bellecour, thirty minutes after he had welcomed her to the French emissary’s assigned rooms. ‘Would you like more wine?’
‘Just a little. It is too good to drink quickly.’
The wine licked the sides of her glass as he splashed it inside. ‘I thought you English did not much like wine. But in my time at the Court, I have observed that not to be true.’
‘Whitehall courtiers and Englishmen are different. We like wine well enough here. But tell me, Julien. How long have you served in your country’s employ?’
‘But a few years. I am still young, I hope.’
‘This is your first time away from France?’
‘No.’ He stretched to set the empty decanter aside. ‘I have been elsewhere.’
‘I too have spent time away,’ she ventured. ‘But never to the Continent. When I was in New York … it used to belong to the Dutch, you know … I decided I should like to visit Holland, but I suppose I shall have to wait a while now.’
He sniffed. ‘I should not bother. Too full of water. Too flat.’
‘Ah. You have been there?’
‘Only from necessity.’
‘You have acquaintances?’
‘So many questions.’ He smiled. ‘Why ask?’
‘Only because I have an interest in other places. Sir William and I discuss such matters often. We talk about a lot of things, indeed. But I am sure you do not want to hear about him.’
‘Oh, I do not mind. When did you meet?’
‘We were introduced last year. Now we have established … beneficial relations, shall we say.’
‘And so he brought you to Whitehall.’ He reached for a second decanter; where had that come from, she wondered? ‘Fortunate for me.’
‘Fortunate for me you were sent at this time.’ She placed a hand over her glass as he tried to top it up. ‘But I do not think you can live here, at the palace, Julien. You must have lodgings elsewhere?’
He nodded. ‘In the city, not far from St Paul’s.’
‘Watling Street, perhaps?’
‘Gutter Lane. A garret atop a tanner’s shop.’ He screwed up his nose. ‘A good reason to spend more time at the palace than in what passes for a place to sleep.’
‘The accommodation is small?’
‘Very. That is why the ambassador allows us the use of these rooms when we need to … receive guests.’
She staged a sympathetic frown. ‘It must be difficult for you here, especially with the war. Or perhaps that is why you have come, to offer our King your support?’
‘You are quite unusual, Mrs Blakewood. I have found most women are not so curious about these affairs.’
‘Oh, come, I talk of them with William most every day. Do not all such couples do so? It is what keeps the men sane, surely?’
He held her gaze, and for a moment she thought she had played the role too far. But then he smiled.
‘Perhaps it is.’
‘I should say so. But I should not speak of it here.’
‘And let a Frenchman take your secrets back to Paris.’ He held up his glass, looking at the clear liquid as he swirled it inside. ‘I can assure you, Mrs Blakewood, that is not why you interest me.’
‘Not even a little?’
‘Maybe … a little.’
‘Then I shall have to take care.’ She chinked her glass against his. ‘What is your life like at Court? I imagine you have gatherings every night. Soirées, I suppose you might call them.’
He shook his head. ‘Not every night. But as long as we do not disgrace King Louis, we have a certain freedom.’
‘It sounds fascinating. I have always wondered what it would be like to attend such an event. I hear you have one this evening?’
‘I do not think so. Where did you hear that?’
‘Oh.’ She feigned astonishment. ‘Then I must have heard wrong. When is your next?’
‘Tomorrow night, but it will not be an entertainment.’ He sidled beside her. ‘A droll conversation of tedious men, more like.’
‘A pity.’ She looked into his eyes. ‘Then the next occasion, perhaps.’
It had taken half the second decanter before she was able to slip away. While Bellecour had not much incriminated himself, nor had he disproved any connection with Virgo either. Regardless, she had discovered the two things she had hoped to learn from their meeting: where in London he lived, and when he was not going to be there.
The evening after, she was outside the Gutter Lane tanner’s shop, closed up for the day, but the stench of treated leather was still making its presence felt.
‘Dear God,’ she said to Nicholas, holding her scarf over her
nose. ‘No wonder he spends so little time here.’
‘Smells normal to me,’ he replied. ‘Are you sure you want to go in alone?’
‘Stop asking. I need you out here in case anything happens.’ She nodded at a group of men loitering near the entrance. ‘Can you make them look away?’
‘I’ll try.’
He walked towards them, then pretended to slip, sliding his way to drape his arm around one of the startled men.
‘I know you,’ he said, deliberately slurring his words. ‘You were just in The Lion.’ He nodded, giving the man a cheer. ‘Yes, The Lion.’
The man looked at his fellows. ‘I don’t think so, friend. Too much ale, eh?’
‘Yes you were. You came out after that woman, didn’t you?’ He pointed down the street. ‘Huge – you know. She went that way.’
The men craned their necks in the direction he was pointing, allowing Mercia the chance to slip past unnoticed. Reaching the door to the tannery, she quickly went inside, finding a narrow staircase that led to the garret above and so the entrance to Bellecour’s lodgings. As she had hoped, in such meagre accommodation there was no latch on the door: no need to signal for Nicholas.
Inside the room it was pitch black, the drapes drawn on the tiny window, but she dared not pull them back for fear of anyone seeing from the houses opposite. And so she waited for her eyes to adjust, until the black blurs of the few pieces of furniture sharpened into tangible shapes, abandoning their former uncertainty.
The room was as small as Bellecour had described it: barely enough space for a table and chair, a wardrobe and a bed, not much more than she had endured aboard ship. She went straight for the bed, feeling beneath the ramshackle frame, fingers brushing against what she assumed were discarded garments, a pile of towels, and a chest. Taking care to disturb nothing, she raised her head to listen, before pulling out the trunk. She set both hands on the twin clasps, and was surprised to find they sprang open, but when she felt inside there was nothing within, and she replaced the chest where she had found it.
There was another trunk on top of the wardrobe, and she clambered on the chair to fetch it down. This one was half-full, but only of folded clothes and a small box of jewellery. Balancing on the chair to restore the trunk, she nearly cried out as the legs slipped beneath her, but she grabbed at the wardrobe to arrest her treacherous slide in time. The wardrobe wobbled precariously, and for a moment she turned cold as she thought it would fall, but it teetered back into place, and as it did, a concealed object clattered to the floor behind it.
She got down from the chair, pushing it back before feeling behind the wardrobe for whatever had fallen, but although her fingertips reached the leathery object she was unable to drag it out. She searched the room for a tool she could use, and was beginning to panic she would be forced to leave the dislodged object where it was, in a place it could never have fallen by itself, when she realised she could use the length of a candle to apply pressure and tease it out.
Taking a candle from a drawer in the table, she turned her hand sideways to fit it in the gap, pressing the tip against the object. At first it slipped, coming away with nothing, and then the same, and again a third time, until on the fourth attempt she pushed down harder and eased the object towards her. Three more drags and it was close enough to set the candle to one side and grab it.
She had retrieved a thin notebook, of the sort she used herself to compile lists of things to do, or shopping for her maid to buy, and although she could tell that the first third was covered in scribbles, it was too dark to make out the writing. She squinted, holding the pages up to her eyes, but it was no use. Finally, her curiosity overcame her concerns, and replacing the candle in the drawer, she opened the window drapes the smallest amount to let in a sliver of moonlight. Over the rooftops of London it was barely enough, but she could now discern some of what she was reading.
The language was not French, that was evident. Nor was it English, or even Dutch. The letters were those of the Roman alphabet, all Qs and Ls and Ps, but which language placed impossible consonants together like that, or repeated the same vowel amidst overlong words that—
She closed her eyes.
Not again!
The notebook was written in code.
She had desired it, truth be told. Suspected it, even. If Bellecour was Virgo’s conduit to send information to the Dutch, then any notes he had compiled should naturally be encoded. The existence of the book was vindication of her premise – or, as Sir William doubted the next day:
‘They could merely be written observations on the English Court to send back to France. Or he could even be speculating on the women of the Court. You said yourself how he seemed to enjoy their company. I have known men before who like to … write down their qualities.’
‘Evaluate them like cattle, you mean.’ She blinked in the bright light streaming through the panes of Sir William’s lead-framed windows. ‘My, I think my eyes have still not adjusted this morning.’
‘Mercia, I know you enjoy trouble, but I wish you would have considered better what you were planning. I explained to you before about the need to be delicate. Breaking into an envoy’s lodgings could have brought serious consequences were you caught.’
She looked at him. ‘I was not.’
‘At least you left the book in his room. Could you translate it?’
She shook her head. ‘It was too dark to make much out. Even if there had been a light, I doubt it would have been simple.’
‘So what now?’
‘Well, we know that Bellecour was with Lady Allcot before she died. We know he was eager to speak with me in the ambassador’s rooms at Court. We know he has sent something to Amsterdam. And now we know he keeps a codebook. I suggest we put a watch on him.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Although I think someone might already have done so.’
‘Who?’
‘You recall that man from the other day, Giles Malvern?’
His cheeks reddened slightly. ‘I do.’
‘It turns out he is in the spymasters’ employ. Under the Earl of Arlington.’
‘Truthfully?’ Sir William frowned. ‘How do you know this?’
‘Malvern told me so. He says he was at Hampton Court because he was ordered to go there. But then why are Arlington’s men not looking for Virgo as well? Why permit my involvement?’
‘You know why. The King thinks you can get close to her without arousing as much suspicion. Besides, there may be no connection.’
‘The connection is strong enough. I cannot help but think that I may be being used. Me and my uncle both.’ She looked up. ‘Sir William, how are your relations with my uncle now? Do you know if he still pursues his own investigations?’
‘I have no idea, Mercia. He keeps himself too close. But as you mention Sir Francis, I would advise you to be wary. No doubt he means to thwart you and keep hold of your manor house.’
She thought a moment. ‘And what of the Earl of Arlington? Are you able to ask him about Malvern’s purpose?’
‘I can ask, but most likely he will not say.’ He shrugged. ‘He may not even know. It is his lackey, Williamson, who is in charge of these … secretive concerns. And he is even more guarded than his master. Now about this watch on Bellecour you propose.’ He roved his eyes over her innocent face. ‘I hope you do not think to suggest yourself for that duty. If others are already involved, as you imply, they will not thank you.’
‘If that is my best means of finding Virgo, I am simply following my instructions. It is past a week already since Lady Castlemaine insisted I find swift answers, and so I shall have to provide them, and soon, or we shall all risk her displeasure.’ She flashed him a mischievous smile. ‘Do not worry, Sir William. I shall take great care.’
‘Hmm.’ He threw her a wry glance. ‘I have heard you say such things before.’
‘There.’ Nicholas pointed out a hooded figure turning onto Trinity Lane. ‘Got him again.’
‘Thank the Lord. I thou
ght we had lost him.’
‘He’s certainly being careful. Let’s hope he isn’t just trying to hide his shame at going into some fuddle-caps’ drinking den.’
‘Delicate as ever, Nicholas.’ She set off again in pursuit of their quarry. ‘Come, before he eludes us once more.’
‘Ah, is that why you came this time? Four eyes better than two?’
‘To speak true, I was bored waiting for you to return the other night.’
A young girl appeared from nowhere, hawking a bucket of dented spoons, but Nicholas brushed her deftly aside. ‘At the weekend he wasn’t being this careful. And it wasn’t my fault if I was moved on. There isn’t much you can do before you start to look suspect, even in London.’
‘Is he walking in the same direction tonight?’
‘Different. That was up near Holborn, now he’s heading towards the Bridge. He has a purpose in his steps too. Something’s going on, for certain.’ He paused. ‘I still wish you hadn’t come. The letter One-Eye Wilkins promised you is due about now. Her men could be watching.’
‘Then ’tis well I have you to protect me.’ She smiled, feigning nonchalance. ‘That letter might not arrive for days. Maybe even never. Come.’
They pressed on, craning their necks over the crowds. A fight had broken out ahead of them, ostensibly about who had the right to pass under the overhang of the houses above, and so be protected from the menace of thrown-down waste. Still, not worth losing a tooth for, thought Mercia, pulling close her hood as an angry combatant struck his adversary in the mouth.
Leaving the melee behind, they followed Bellecour right onto Garlick Hill, where the higher storeys reached out to each other across the narrow way, blocking what little evening light remained.
‘He’s heading down to the river,’ said Nicholas. ‘’Tis more open there. He might see us, so stay by me and be ready to pull back.’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
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