Assassin's Masque (Palace of Spies Book 3)

by Sarah Zettel

  If there was one aspect of Lord Lynnfield’s character that held steady, it was his respect for an accomplished gamester, even when he lost. “You are to be congratulated, Mrs. Oglethorpe.” He bowed. “I did not believe she could be turned.”

  Mrs. Oglethorpe inclined her head regally. “I think we may now safely say I have fulfilled my end of our bargain.”

  “Have no fear. I will do as I promised. Provided she behaves with discretion and compliance, Miss Fitzroy is our welcome guest.” He smiled that bland and terrible smile. “Now that you are here, under my roof, Miss Fitzroy, you will find that the rules of engagement are somewhat different. We are not a court or a coffee society. There is no going back, no cheating the conclusion. You have made yourself dependent on me, and you will conduct yourself accordingly. Is that understood?”

  I should have shown submission, but to acknowledge myself beholden to Julius Sandford was beyond me. “I know how this game is played, my lord. You even once suggested I might teach you a few refinements.”

  I instantly regretted these words because they bought me another long look of assessment. “Yes, and you may be sure we will speak further on that point, once I have cleared up some trifling business with our good Dr. Atterbury and my brother. Good morning to you both.”

  He took his leave. My knees trembled suddenly and I sat down. I should have picked somewhere other than the sofa that was also occupied by Mrs. Oglethorpe. She reached out and patted my hand, and I had to resist the urge to yank myself away.

  “I know—he can be most unsettling. It is his way. You will soon become accustomed to it.”

  But I would never become accustomed to Lord Lynnfield. Not even if my only other option was to drown myself in the marshes. This, however, was not a suitable reply. “That letter, the enciphered one that trapped Mr. . . . Lord Tierney. That was your doing?” I twisted my fingers in my lap. “Was it genuine?”

  Mrs. Oglethorpe frowned, and for a moment I feared I had gone too far. “It was genuine in that it genuinely used the Great Cipher of the French Court, which should keep the German’s code masters busy for some time. It has never yet been broken.”

  “Then it was all a trap,” I murmured.

  “Tierney was one of the few men who could have brought our plans to a halt,” said Mrs. Oglethorpe. “He had to be gotten out of the way. It was all a fairly simple matter to orchestrate. Sebastian led you to the library and placed the letter for you to find. You gave it to Tierney, and he took it into his possession. Lord Lynnfield whispered to the German princeling, who by this time was more than willing to hear what he had to say, and all was done.”

  But even as all these pieces fell into place, I remembered Sophy’s parting words: Find me when you know the favor I’ve done you. One did not speak of favors to someone falling into a trap. “What was Sophy Howe’s part?”

  Mrs. Oglethorpe shook her head. “Poor Miss Howe. Such wasted talents. I do hope she weathers the coming storm.”

  I had intended to ask the Old Fury how she’d induced Sophy to change her mind about Lord Lynnfield, but I bit the question back. “Sophy left the palace before I did.”

  “Yes. Lord Lynnfield warned her away.”

  “Has he said she might marry Sebastian?” I ventured, but Mrs. Oglethorpe only gave a small shrug.

  “Sebastian, as I think I intimated, has been a disappointment.” Her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Sometimes it is best to tell him what he wants to hear and deal with the consequences later.”

  I stared. I couldn’t help it. Why was she talking about Sebastian this way? Who was this woman? What right had she to run this house? Why did Lord Lynnfield permit it?

  Mrs. Oglethorpe, however, did not choose to give me the leisure to contemplate these highly interesting questions.

  “Now,” she said briskly. “As you can imagine, our business requires a great deal of careful correspondence. My eyes are not what they should be anymore, and I was hoping you’d oblige me by writing to my dictation.” She gestured toward the desk that waited by the French doors.

  “Of course. I’d be glad to.” I settled myself at the neat, practical desk. There, I found paper, quills, and ink at the ready. I tried to compose myself to patience as I trimmed the first quill. This would, if nothing else, keep me out of Lord Lynnfield’s way. It also might provide me with information I could pass on to Matthew and Olivia when they found me. If they found me.

  A wave of loneliness passed over me. Where were Matthew and Olivia now? Had they reached Godalming yet? How long would it be before they realized I was not there?

  What had Olivia said in the letter she left for my father?

  Mrs. Oglethorpe proved to be a harsh taskmistress. She dictated quickly and expected me to keep up. Her letters, addressed to a wealth of correspondents from all parts of England and Scotland, were filled with references to “our friends” and “our business.”

  It wasn’t until the third thoroughly ambiguous letter that I realized what she was doing. This was not an old woman with tired eyes dictating her business. This was my enemy creating a stack of letters in my handwriting. These letters could then be produced the moment any person needed to be convinced that I, Margaret Fitzroy, was a secret Jacobite. I wasn’t signing any of them, that was true, but such forgery would be the work of a moment.

  I was assisting in my own blackmail, and there was not a thing I could do, save to smile and keep writing.

  We worked until one of the clock. By then, my hand had begun to cramp. Ink stained my fingers and spattered my sleeves. Libby would have fits, assuming I ever saw Libby again. Mrs. Oglethorpe, however, appeared as fresh and alert as she had when we’d begun. So fresh was she, in fact, that she ordered the footman to bring us a cold collation by way of nuncheon so that I might keep writing and reading for her.

  This had the effect of keeping me under her eye in this one room and prevented me from wandering off to discover anything about the house or join in any unauthorized conversation.

  Exactly as the hour struck three, the library door opened and Miss Anne Oglethorpe sailed in.

  “How is this, Mother!” she cried heartily, in order, I suspect, to disguise how false her merry tone sounded. “You haven’t kept Miss Fitzroy at work all this time?”

  Mrs. Oglethorpe laughed, to all appearances highly amused by her daughter’s impetuousness. I found myself wondering if these two had at any time played in Drury Lane, so expert were they at staging scenes.

  Well, they were not the only ones who knew their lines. “I’m glad to be of some use,” I said. “It’s all been such a shock, and, well, I have no idea what my future is to be now.”

  Anne Oglethorpe beamed. “Oh, there’s plenty of time to decide that, Margaret.”

  I made a show of hesitation. “And yet your mother . . . Mrs. Oglethorpe . . . said our business was moving along more quickly than anticipated?”

  “Why should that matter?” Miss Oglethorpe waved her hand, a gesture that rivaled any of Mary Bellenden’s for carelessness. “Once we are successful, we will be better positioned than ever to help you to a good future. Unless you think something’s bound to go wrong?” She cocked her head toward me.

  “I’m sure I could not say. I know so very little of the . . . the . . . business.”

  “Oh?” She arched a carefully plucked brow in her mother’s direction. “An oversight, surely. But we’ll speak of it later. I insist you come along with me. You were promised a tour of the grounds, and I’ve already sent the maid for our cloaks and bonnets, and your dog.”

  I made my curtsy to Mrs. Oglethorpe and obediently followed her daughter. At least this would get me out of the library, even though I was still quite unmistakably under guard.

  Miss Anne Oglethorpe might have been a hardened veteran of the Jacobite cause, but the moment she saw little Isolde trotting downstairs at the maid’s heels, she became a simple and simpering country girl.

  “How precious!” She clapped her hands. “What a d
arling! Does she know her name? Here, Isolde! Here, darling! Come see your Auntie Anne!”

  “You’ll do better if you give her this.” I fished a bit of biscuit out of the reticule the maid had also thought to bring.

  Miss Oglethorpe held up the biscuit for Isolde. Born courtier that she was, my puppy responded by jumping up and attempting to balance on her hind legs, and promptly falling over. Which brought on another bout of laughing and cooing, earning her the biscuit. I smiled and Miss Oglethorpe smiled, and I swear upon my life Isolde smiled. At least, she pricked up her ears, in case any more biscuits might be forthcoming.

  From this felicitous beginning, the tour proceeded in all outward signs of conviviality. The Bidmarsh gardens proved to be strictly conventional. Even Isolde had difficulty finding things of interest as she nosed about. There was the wide lawn, turned brown and white by frost. The rectangular flower beds were quite bare except for rosebushes wrapped in burlap. A thick grove of poplars and elms was already stripped bare of leaves by the frigid wind that blew off the marsh. The orchard looked out of place in the otherwise empty landscape, and I imagined the trees to be huddling together for warmth.

  Miss Oglethorpe did not seem discommoded by the cold or the wind. She led me down the straight gravel path to the garden wall at a leisurely pace. It was at the gate that my breath was finally well and truly taken away. Because out there lay the vastness of the Great Romney Marsh.

  People speak of London’s streets as bleak. But the melancholy of the meanest alleyway was nothing compared to the view of the Romney Marsh in November. There was no color in this whole world except for the hard blue sky overhead. To the west, the land stretched out brown and gray and white all the way to the black line of the horizon. The only visible building was the church I’d seen the night before, keeping its proud and solitary watch over the empty countryside.

  To the south, the ground sloped toward a great black lake with a hunched brown island in its center. Several boats lay beached on the gravelly bank. Shelves of gray ice had formed about the shore and the island, all decorated with white ribbons of early snow.

  “I hope you’re not contemplating a stroll, Miss Fitzroy,” said Miss Oglethorpe cozily. “That smooth-looking ground”—she gestured toward the west—“is a maze of water, channels, creeks, and quicksands. Those who don’t know their way are in very grave peril indeed.”

  “What about there?” I pointed toward the island. “Surely that’s a pleasant place for a day’s excursion? A picnic, perhaps?”

  I’d meant it as a joke, considering my hands were all but blue with cold as it was. But when Miss Oglethorpe answered, she had a knowing gleam in her dark eyes. “Ah! Now, there’s a very special place. We will be housing our . . . extra guests there as they come to us.”

  “Guests from France?” I murmured.

  “Of course from France. And Spain as well.”

  As she spoke, Miss Oglethorpe’s drawn face glowed with an inner light. There was nothing soft or elevated in her rapture. It was sharp as frost or any smile of Lord Lynnfield’s. Anne Oglethorpe gazed at that lake, those small boats, and that bare brown island, and she saw victory.

  “Is he coming as well?” I made myself ask softly. “The King over the Water?”

  Miss Oglethorpe’s fiery expression dimmed just a little. “Not here. He’ll be greeted by our friends in the north. That will keep the German prince’s attention focused there while our allies in England rise and walk toward London.”

  And there it was. All the plans hinted at in those letters I’d written this morning. Now I knew them. And now I would never be allowed to leave this place.

  “The country around here is very open,” I ventured. “I would think any . . . guests . . . would be seen arriving and would be stopped.”

  Miss Oglethorpe shrugged. “If they are stopped, the troops our king brings to the north will be more than enough to succeed, and of course London will be all in confusion.”

  “How is that?”

  She smiled. “Because the false prince will be dead. And with his father still away in Hanover, who will there be to lead the German allies?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  IN WHICH A REUNION OF SORTS IS ACHIEVED.

  It never ceases to amaze me how difficult it is to hear one’s own fears spoken aloud. I could see the prince as if he stood before me now—saw him bowing to his wife, saw him patting his daughter indulgently on her head, saw him sick with rage at the death of his son.

  Saw him stretched out on the ground, blood on his chest, his eyes open and staring.

  I cast my gaze about quickly, searching for something to distract me from this ominous vision. It was then that I noticed that Isolde was no longer nosing about the base of the wall where she had been a moment before.

  My first reaction was annoyance, but then I remembered I was meant to be playing the nervous child in front of these would-be assassins. In service of this illusion, I clapped my hands together. “Oh! Oh! Miss Oglethorpe! Isolde! Wherever has she gone!”

  Miss Oglethorpe tore her gaze away from the island to see my open-mouthed distress. “Dear me, Miss Fitzroy, you would think we’re in a wilderness!” She laughed. “Your puppy can’t have gotten far. You take the gardens.” She pointed. “I’ll look out that way.” She set off through the knee-high brown grasses toward the lake. “Here, Isolde! Here, girl!”

  I hurried back into the garden’s safer confines. I was worried, and annoyed at my worry. I should never have brought the blasted dog. Indeed, I would not have except that I’d thought she would suit the nervous character I had adopted.

  “Isolde! Izzy!”

  I saw an unmistakable flash of pure white bounding away in the direction of the grove I’d noted earlier. I muttered an oath as I set off after her as quickly as skirts and half boots permitted. By the time I reached the trees, Isolde had darted between them. Then I saw another movement.

  Isolde was not alone. A man peered out from behind the nearest tree trunk and ducked back again just as quickly.

  My breath caught in my throat, and I glanced behind me. In the distance, I saw that Miss Oglethorpe had reached the boats beached on the lake’s gravelly shore and was paying no attention to us. Cautiously, I slid into the grove’s shadows. I did not have my straight pin immediately to hand, but my boots were sturdy enough that I could deliver a good kick if that proved necessary.

  The grove was an old one, and its trees crowded so closely together that the space beneath them was filled with permanent twilight. Isolde was leaping up and down, trying to snatch a tidbit held out for her by a man in a dirty smock.

  I drew on my best expression of haughty outrage and, despite the unevenness of the frozen ground, attempted to sail up to the stranger. The man grinned saucily at my approach and, as he had no hat brim to tug in salute, touched his knuckle to his forehead. A hoe rested carelessly across his shoulders, but if he was really a gardener for Bidmarsh House, I was the Queen of Sheba. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the shade, I saw that he was younger than he’d first appeared. He was also unshaven and unwashed, and his hair was nothing so much as a black tangle on his head. His gray eyes stood out, strangely bright in his grimy face.

  His gray eyes.

  I stared. I stared and I forgot to breathe.

  Matthew—for it was Matthew—let Isolde catch the bit of cake he held.

  The sight of his beloved, if somewhat poorly disguised, countenance raised but one response in me. “What in Heaven’s name are you doing!”

  Matthew just grinned his saucy grin and touched his forehead again. “Making sure you’re all right,” he breathed. He held out a scrap of paper I was sure hadn’t been half so grubby before he got his hands on it. I snatched it away and stuffed it up my sleeve.

  “Note’s from some devilish French-lookin’ chap wi’ a nephew, a fancy fellow all in blue. Said I was to have extra if I give it to Pretty Peggy-O. Oh, he’s a sly one. Made certain inquiries on the road, he did. Kept some p
eople from goin’ too far astray.”

  Clearly, Matthew had been much contaminated by his association with Olivia. Further, his attempt at a workingman’s accent was truly atrocious and I would tell him so later, when I had my breath back, for between his appearance and his news, he had taken it quite away. Olivia was here! And my father. They were well and together, all of them. They were still free and they knew where I was. My heart soared for the simple fact that I was not alone.

  There were, unfortunately, two sides to that particular state of being.

  “Miss Fitzroy!” called Miss Oglethorpe, and her voice was much closer than it should have been. “Miss Fitzroy!”

  I snatched up Isolde and whirled around, endeavoring to put myself between Matthew and the rapidly approaching Oglethorpe.

  “Oh, look, Miss Oglethorpe, I have her!” I cried happily as I hurried forward.

  But Miss Oglethorpe wasn’t looking at me, or Isolde. She was staring at the grove’s deeper shadows. “Who was that?” she demanded.

  “One of the gardeners.” I had to force the words out through a throat that was attempting to clamp shut. But as I turned to follow her narrowed gaze, my breath returned in a rush. Matthew had vanished as if he’d never been. “He had Isolde.” I held my wriggling dog up a little higher, in case Miss Oglethorpe had missed her.

  She hadn’t. Nor, apparently, had she missed a decent look at my greasy messenger. “He was none of ours. What did he want? What did he say?”

  “He said nothing.” Fortunately for me, a blank and confused expression was entirely appropriate to the moment. “Nothing of any import. He had Isolde, and I—”

  I was not permitted to get any further. “This is extremely bad, Miss Fitzroy. What on earth were you thinking?” She grabbed my arm. “We must get you back to the house.”

  It was indeed bad. In fact, it was disastrous, although Miss Oglethorpe and I probably wouldn’t agree as to the reason why. If this woman, her mother, or—Heaven help me—Lord Lynnfield realized I had just met with a confederate, it was all up and I’d be lucky to live through the rest of the day.