When Mistress Baker’s pointed stares told me I had overstayed my welcome, I went back home with my eyes cast down and ahead, keeping careful watch for refuse in the street and hoping to avoid trouble as I had had with those boys on Sunday.
Odd, really, that I did not relish a fight, considering what the situation at home had done to my mood.
I hesitated, halting before a mangy dog snoozing in the road.
What I wanted—I realized, probing my inward thoughts like a half-healed wound—was not to be seen fighting in the street.
I stepped carefully around the dog and passed it by. At least it would not call me names. Shrew. She-devil. Damn Master Horton. Damn them all.
As I approached my father’s house, I was surprised and pleased to see Ellen Brewer lingering on the cobbles out front. She caught sight of me while I was still some distance off and walked toward me so we could stroll back to my house together.
“Here,” I said, holding out the napkin. “I bought some sweet rolls. Would you like one?”
“Yes, I would love one. I thank you.” Her words were perfectly polite, but she grabbed at the napkin with great eagerness. We paused in the street so she could take her time in choosing which one she liked best. I tried not to huff with impatience.
As we walked on, she began to eat, pulling tiny pieces off the roll and putting them in her mouth one at a time. I waited for her to speak, but she was too busy savoring each bite. At last, I could wait no longer. “Why have you come?” I asked.
“There is something I thought you should know, but perhaps….” She trailed off, but it was not because she was eating. I sensed she was uncomfortable speaking.
“If I should know, I should know,” I said. “There is nothing to wonder about. Tell me.”
“It is regarding the gentlemen, or one of them. Or two.”
I rolled my eyes. “Speak plain. Which gentlemen?”
“Master Lawry. Or he who says he is Master Lawry.”
Her words chilled me. “Ellen, what do you mean?”
“That Master Lawry who comes courting here.” Her fingers shredded the sweet roll, but she no longer ate. “He is no gentleman.”
My mouth fell open. “What? How dare you say—?”
“I say it because I know it,” she said, her voice rising. “When they arrived the other night, I saw the two of them, master and man. The other man was the master, not the one who calls on your father. I’m sure of it.”
“How would you know that?”
“Because of the way they behaved.” She responded to the scorn in my voice with heat in her own. “Because of the clothes they wore, because of what each did when they arrived and since. You don’t see them when they are away from others, when they think no one is watching—”
“You must be mistaken,” I insisted. What she was suggesting was not only unlikely, it was a crime.
She shook her head. “No, I am sure of it. The other one, the one that looks like an angel sent from God above, that one is the master.”
I shook my head too, unwilling to believe her. “Even if you are right, why would they do such a thing, switching places?”
Ellen frowned, faltering. “I do not know. I can’t imagine….” She raised her chin again. “But I know what I saw, and I am telling you, the master is now pretending to be the man. I do not claim to know why. Seems a foolish thing to do, if you ask me, but there it is.”
“No, Ellen, I am sure you must be mistaken. No one would risk it. To what end?”
“I said I don’t know. I’m telling you what I saw.”
“And I’m telling you, you must be wrong.”
We stood facing each other like foes in single combat.
Ellen drew in a breath and let it out. “I was only trying to help. To warn you, in case there is something untoward.” She shoved the remains of the sweet roll back into my hands. “Thank you for the treat.”
I stared at the mess of pastry in my hands. None of this made any sense, least of all Ellen’s behavior.
“Ellen,” I said as she turned to go.
She hesitated but did not come back to me.
I knew not how to plead, how to make apologies. I had no practice in such things. I felt myself leaning toward her, but I could not make my lips form words.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Blanche turned onto our street just then, surrounded by her group of friends. The sight of them drove Ellen back to my side.
“Oh look, girls,” Blanche said, her voice echoing off the nearby houses and drawing curious housewives and maids to windows. As she intended, of course. “It’s the Town of Whitelock Old Maids’ Guild.”
What was she doing out here? Hadn’t she been happily ensconced in the solar, smiling at the beautiful Master Cameron? The Master Cameron who Ellen claimed was a fraud?
I slipped my arm through Ellen’s. Blanche was surrounded by her little flock: one Eleanor, two Alices, three Margarets, and two Marys. The names didn’t matter really. They were all interchangeable.
“Oh look, Ellen,” I said mimicking Blanche’s tone precisely. “It’s the mochyn cenfaint.”
We lived less than a hundred miles from the Welsh border, less than a hundred miles from Ludlow Castle where the old king’s eldest son, the Prince of Wales, had grown up. I had picked up quite a few terms from Welsh traders. This was one of my favorites.
Blanche said nothing, just looked at me. She had never bothered to learn any Welsh. She never learned anything she did not have to.
Mochyn cenfaint. Herd of swine.
Blanche laughed.
The swine laughed.
“Truly,” Blanche said, “the only right and proper thing for old maids like you to do is to commit yourselves to God.” She clasped her hands together in a prayerful pose, lifting her eyes up to heaven, setting the swine to giggling again. “What else are you suited for but a convent? And you do nothing but hold the rest of us back. Do you not see there are men who want us, and you are merely stones in their path?”
I could feel Ellen trembling. She had no words to use against Blanche.
“Men,” I scoffed. “You’ve spent more time with the tutors than the masters. And it seems to me that when you were with the masters, you could hardly put two words together to make an intelligible thought.”
Blanche’s perfect little mouth pursed, wrinkling the skin around her lips, and suddenly I could see what she would look like in her dotage. That alone pleased me inordinately, but when combined with the fact that she was so clearly struggling over the meaning of the word “intelligible,” I could not contain the laugh that bubbled forth.
“What would you know about it?” Blanche countered fiercely. “You’re never with the gentlemen. You aren’t invited. They aren’t interested in you at all.”
“That may be so,” I said, still smiling, “but judging by the way they talk over your pretty little head, my guess is they aren’t terribly interested in you either.”
I could feel Ellen trying to pull her arm from mine, leaning away from the barbs flying between us. Did she not understand I was doing this for her too?
“Kathryn, I must go,” she said, at last jerking her arm loose.
“Fare thee well, Ellen,” I said cheerfully. I wanted to pretend everything was fine, even if it wasn’t. I did not want Blanche to think Ellen was fleeing, even if she was.
Blanche turned to the herd. “Get you gone, my dears,” she said. “I will walk home on my own from here.”
While the Alices moaned and the Margarets sighed at the prospect of being separated from Blanche, I walked on alone.
The tutors met us at the door, distressed at having been given the slip. By this, I guessed that Father had discovered them idling. They shepherded us into the courtyard for lessons, glancing repeatedly over their shoulders at Father’s office. The thought of spending the day retracing the path of lessons I had mastered as a child was as appealing as rolling in the filth in the alley behind the house. And all this to get Blanche a
rich husband.
Which meant getting me a husband first, whether I wanted one or not.
I spent a fruitless hour with Master Cameron, in which we quickly determined that I knew more Latin than he. With a sigh, I sent him away, and he scurried away like an eager puppy to perch beside Blanche on the edge of the fountain. She exclaimed with delight to find him at her side once again, pulling the book so that it was half on her lap, half on his, and they leaned their pretty heads close together to read. Something in his demeanor, something in the way he moved near her, around her, brought Ellen’s words back to me. Truly, there was an air about him that spoke of breeding and wealth, a sense of entitlement… but perhaps that was simply arrogance as a result of Blanche’s constantly favoring him over the other fellow.
The portly music master heaved himself up off the fountain’s edge, huffing as he waddled his way over to me. His motley robes swayed like a Bedouin’s tent, and his liripipe hat perched like a massive wasps’ nest on top of his head. He plopped down beside me on the bench under the apple tree, the fancy new lute cradled in his arms. I shifted to the edge of the bench farthest from him so as not to be overcome with his odor, pungent as it was fast becoming in the warm sun. He kept his eyes on Blanche as he said to me, “Now, mistress, have you ever handled a lute before?” His voice was surprisingly high-pitched and rough, not what I expected from one who excelled at music.
“I have handled many things, sir, but nay, not a lute.”
He glanced at me sharply, uncertain of my jest, and I smiled innocently. He dumped the lute in my lap and went back to gazing across me at Blanche.
I wrapped my arms around the lute and ran a finger across the strings. A pretty sound, although I had no gift for music. That, like all other womanly gifts, was Blanche’s part.
The sound drew his attention back to me at last. “Ah, yes. If you will permit me, you put this hand here…” He placed his hand on mine to show me. His palm was clammy and hot. “And this hand here, on the neck.”
I held that position, waiting for him to tell me what to do next, feeling foolish. He was looking at her again.
“Ahem!”
He started and turned back to me. “Ah, yes. Now, these markings here, on the neck, these are the frets.”
“Frets. Now that’s a word.”
“Mistress, please.” His tone was aggrieved.
“Don’t fret. Do go on.”
My jest, mild as it was, was lost on him. “Well, you place your fingers upon the strings, pressing down upon the frets in patterns to create variations in the sounds. That which we call chords.”
“Chords. Frets.” I could enjoy myself with these words, but clearly this man did not have the wit to make it worth the effort of battering him with them.
I pressed down on a couple of the strings as he described. “I hear nothing.”
He shook his head, his ridiculous liripipe hat tipping dangerously. “Press, and while pressing, strum.” With one hand he shoved the pile of fabric back onto his head. “Like so.” He reached out, one hand holding on to his hat, the other reaching across me to touch the strings.
“I am no fool, Master Lucas,” I snapped, jerking the lute aside. Startled, he pulled back from me, eyes wide with fear and, unaccountably, hatred. The hat tipped and swayed, and while he pawed at it with both hands, it fell off entirely, unwinding in a puddle of fabric at his feet. He cried out in dismay and dove off the bench. As he scrambled to scoop up the silly thing, I caught a glimpse of paler skin around his hairline, clear evidence that he had darkened his skin with some sort of dye. I frowned down upon his balding pate. It could not be.
“Master Horton?” I said.
“Nay, of course not,” the man said, plopping the shapeless mass on top of his head, his voice squeaking high, then breaking low. “Who is Master Horton? I am Master Lucas, your music master.”
My fingers clenched, gripping the lute’s strings, which squealed in protest. He cringed at my feet.
“How dare you!” I stood up.
He shrank lower, cowering under the hat that kept sliding from one side of his head to the other as he moved. But he glared up at me with angry, glinting eyes. “She-devil,” he muttered.
I raised the lute and brought it down on his stupid, deceitful head.
He howled in shock and pain.
I shrieked, wordlessly, an unmusical counterpoint.
Now I knew why Master Horton had not been among the gentlemen. He had not been called away on business or a family matter, or yielded the competition to the others. Instead, he had connived to place himself here inside our house as a tutor in the hopes of gaining Blanche’s favor. It was not going to work—it would never have worked for him, even if the angelic Master Cameron hadn’t descended from heaven to thwart him—but that he had the audacity to try it!
Blanche and her tutor sprang up from the edge of the fountain. Father and the other gentlemen spilled from the hall. Master Greenwood, Master Lawry, and the others, craning their necks over each other’s shoulders, looked suitably horrified at my unladylike behavior. Father frowned storm clouds, his face a book that told of the exact fulfillment of his expectations. The knight, at the back of the group, looked to be hiding a smile behind one hand. I wanted to smite all of them.
Master Lucas—Master Horton, rather—was crouched half on the bench, half off, propping his hat back in place. He was hindered by the presence around his neck of the remains of the lute, its strings cutting into his throat, its neck jutting off like a third arm from his shoulders.
I stuffed my fist into my mouth. I was so close to laughing, so close to real tears.
I kicked him in one fat shin, no matter that the others were watching now.
“Kathryn!” Father’s voice shook on the word. He didn’t even have to say it. I was already heading inside.
All of the men scattered, clearing the path for me back to the house. Except for one.
Sir William.
I would have to stop or run straight into him. I considered it, but decided it would be best to stop.
I stared, breathing heavily, straight at his brocaded shoulder. I let my eyes slide sideways to his face and found him looking sidelong at me. Those blue eyes were laughing at me, his nose straight and pointed as an arrowhead, his jaw like the hard curve of a bow. He was smiling, just the barest curve of his lips. A storm raged in my belly, and while I wanted to beat him until he moved out of my way—anyone would do to assuage my wrath in that moment—at that same time, my fingers longed to touch him, to brush along his broad shoulders and down his muscular arms, to trace the strong line of his jaw, to finally, finally smooth that unruly hair. I flung my fury and confusion at him with my eyes, but his expression of gentle amusement did not change, and in a long, slow movement, he stepped aside. Just barely. Just enough for me to pass by, my hand grazing his.
I proceeded inside at a walk, but once I reached the cool, dim hall, I ran. I ran for the front stairs and up the first flight, intending to run all the way up to hide in my chamber, but before I even got to the turning, I fell to my knees, shaking with rage. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to run and keep running until I was far away, so far away I never had to see this house or these people again.
I curled tight in a ball on one step, wrapping my arms around my waist and pressing hard to keep control of my breathing, my emotions, trying not to make a sound. A breeze drifted in from the window at the front of the house, soothing my fire. I dropped my head until it touched my knees.
I don’t know how long I sat there. I heard voices pass in the street outside, birds chirping and fluttering in the eaves, horses clopping by on the cobbles. Ever so slowly, the pounding of my heart subsided. I stopped gulping my breaths.
The front door opened and I heard Father’s voice as he bid farewell to the gentlemen who had come calling. I rose, stiff from sitting so long on the stairs, and, moving like an old woman, resumed my climb up to my bedchamber.
Then, as I passed th
e small window that was open to the street below, I heard someone speaking: “…your daughter, Master Mulleyn, the beautiful, wise, and virtuous Kathryn.”
Was it possible? When had anyone ever put those words together with my name? Surely I had not heard correctly and he was speaking to Father about Blanche?
I skipped down three steps and pressed myself against the wall to peek out the front window. Father stood just outside the door with Sir William.
“I have a daughter named Kathryn, sir; that I will allow,” Father replied.
Would it have been so hard for him to allow the compliment to me? Oh yes. He could admit that he had a daughter named Kathryn, but she was not the beautiful one, or wise or virtuous. No, everyone in Whitelock agreed on that, even the one man in the world who was supposed to see the best in me. I couldn’t even bring myself to cry over it anymore.
“And what say you to my offer?” the knight went on.
Offer? My ears perked up like those of a horse offered an apple.
“I do thank you for it, sir, and you are most welcome in my home. But I fear I should say, to my great sorrow, she is not for you.”
Sir William placed his hands on his hips. “Now, Master Mulleyn, it seems you mean to keep her to yourself. Or else you like me not.”
Father shook his head vigorously, held up his hands in plea. “Nay, never say that, sir! Neither of those things! I only mean to spare you—she is such a headstrong, difficult girl—I would not wish to burden a great man such as yourself—”
“I think I am the one to determine what burdens I am fit to bear,” Sir William said pointedly. “Good day, Master Mulleyn.”
He turned on his heel and strode away. Father called after him, “Wait, good sir! There is my other daughter! You might well consider her….”
I flew down the stairs to meet Father on the doorstep as he came back in.
“What have you done?” I cried, grabbing his gown in my fists. He threw up his hands to ward me off, and I slapped at them. “What have you done?”
“What?” he said. “What mean you by this, Kathryn?”
Finding Kate Page 8
