“Who was that?” Kate asked as they turned the corner into the crowded street and walked toward the more respectable environs across the river.
“Mistress Celine. She owns the Cardinal’s Hat, and a harder landlady you could never find,” Rob muttered. “But she keeps the place clean enough, and never overworks the girls.”
“Has she been there a long time?” It seemed to Kate that most of the bawds were young, and soon worn-out. Celine must be a strong woman indeed.
“Very long,” Rob said without much interest. “They say before she ran a house in some country village. Then a rich lover set her up here. Why are you looking for this goldsmith, Kate?”
Kate fished the button from her pouch and showed it to him. “Master St. Long said his cousin Henry Everley often borrowed money from Master Lucas. I want to see if this shopkeeper has met with Lord Henry lately, and if he knew who made this. The jewelers of London must know each other’s work, I think.”
Rob nodded. “I know a shorter way. Turn here.”
They dashed across the muddy road, leaping over the midden trench that ran down the middle and dodging around a cart laden with turnips. Rob led her down a narrow side alley, with dingy plastered walls looming to either side, his steps so swift she almost had to run to keep up. But she knew she had to. Without Rob, she would surely be lost.
CHAPTER 18
Master Lucas’s shop appeared to be a most respectable, most ordinary one, Kate thought as she studied it from across the lane. The large front window was thrown open to reveal an enticing array of wares, pretty rings and brooches, shining in the dull gray day. A painted sign swung over the door, a picture of the Moor’s head, the symbol of the goldsmith’s trade. A plump, fair-haired older lady in a fine dark green wool gown leaned out of the window, laughing with a customer.
Kate glanced at the tall, timbered buildings to either side. One was a draper’s, with bolts of cloth spread over the front counter, and one a bookbinder. She doubted any of the Everleys were great readers, but their clothes were fine enough. Perhaps if they patronized Master Lucas, they called on the draper as well.
“Are you sure this is the place, Kate?” Rob asked, frowning up at the shop’s top-floor windows. “They don’t look the sorts to be involved in the murder of a bawd.”
“I don’t think Master Lucas had anything to do with Nell or Lady Mary,” Kate said. Not yet, anyway. “I merely want to ask him something. You needn’t go in with me if you have another errand.”
Rob flashed a smile down at her. Despite the strain of the last few days, his unshaven jaw and rumpled hair, he was still one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. He was also a merry spirit, a man of hidden depths she had glimpsed at Hatfield. She hated to think he could have done anything so cruel as kill one of his lovers, not after the way he once saved her own life.
“I will do whatever I can to find who did this to Nell,” he said fiercely. “Shall we go in?”
Kate nodded and led the way across the lane, weaving through crowds of housewives with market baskets on their arms, children clinging to their skirts as they did their day’s shopping. There were soldiers hurrying to their posts, merchants in their warm furred robes, beggars lingering in the meager shelter of the walls, quickly driven away. A new queen might be on the throne now, but households must still be fed and commerce go on.
Kate pushed open the door to Master Lucas’s shop, setting the bells jangling. Aside from the customers the lady was gossiping with over the open front counter, the shop wasn’t busy. It had a well-kept, well-polished air about it, the wooden floor swept, the wares carefully displayed. A metallic smell hung in the air, combined with the sweetness of lemon and beeswax polish.
A back door swung open and a man emerged, looking most harried. His sparse gray hair stood on end, and he wore a leather apron over his shirt and fine wool breeches.
He shot an annoyed glance at the woman, who went on obliviously with her chat. “How may I assist you?” he asked shortly.
Kate tugged her cap lower on her brow, hoping the dimness of the room would help her boy’s disguise hold. Behind her, Rob waited, silently, with his arms crossed.
“Are you Master Lucas? I come from—Sir Robert Dudley at the queen’s court,” she said in a low voice, struck by a sudden inspiration. “He has heard you do some very fine work.”
The man’s impatient expression vanished in an ingratiating smile. “Aye, Sir Robert indeed! A most discriminating man of fashion. I am sure I have some wares he would admire. Perhaps he looks for a gift for someone? For Lady Dudley? Or mayhap—Her Majesty?”
“If he was pleased, my master’s patronage would know no bounds,” Kate said. “He much admires these, and was told they were your own work.”
She pulled out the silver button and handed it to Master Lucas. He took it to the light from one of the windows and carefully examined it.
“Aye, ’tis mine,” he said proudly. “That braid work on the edge is one of my own trademarks. ’Tis most complicated to work.”
“Sir Robert said he saw it on the garments of Lord Carew, or mayhap of Lord Henry Everley, he could not recall. He much admired the fine effect.”
“I have not had the fortune to work with Lord Carew yet, but the Everleys are patrons of mine. Most particular about their adornments, they are.”
And particular about how they paid for them? Kate remembered Richard St. Long saying Lord Henry came to Master Lucas for loans as well as adornments. “Who would wear these particular buttons? A young man like Lord Henry, or someone more old-fashioned in their tastes like Lord Everley?”
Master Lucas gave an overly affable laugh. “I only make the buttons, young sir, I do not tailor the garments. It could have been any of them, or perhaps one from another family. I have many patrons at court. Sir Robert would never be shamed by my work.”
Kate nodded. She knew she had to be careful in her questions and not rouse any suspicions. She casually examined a tray of poesy rings, delicate bands of flowers engraved with forget-me-not messages.
“Mayhap Lord Henry has not been here in a while, anyway,” she said.
Master Lucas glanced to the side, his jaw tightening. The merest flash, but she knew he hid something. “Not that I recall. We have been most busy of late, and I am kept busy working with the wares in the back.”
“That kinsman of his was here not so long ago,” the woman at the window suddenly said. “Brought a woman with him.”
Kate glanced over at her. The woman watched them with avid eyes, bright under her respectable headdress. Definitely the sort to enjoy a fine gossip. “Did they buy anything then, mistress?”
The woman snorted. “Nay, not him. And she didn’t look like the kind who would find our work to her tastes.”
“A redhead, was she?” Kate said, taking a wild guess. When the woman frowned suspiciously, Kate looked down and scuffed her boot along the floor as if suddenly shy. “’Tis just that I saw Lord Henry’s cousin with a red-haired lady once. Beautiful, she was.”
The woman’s frown turned to an indulgent smile. “Ah, young infatuation. So sweet. Nay, brown hair she had. But who knows? Everyone wants red hair like the queen. The apothecary does a great business in dyes now, he says. Anyway, they seemed most ale-shot, giggling all over the place. I thought he might have come on an errand for his cousin.”
“Hush, Ann,” Master Lucas cried. “We wouldn’t want Sir Robert Dudley to think we cater to Bankside geese.”
Kate had the feeling she had heard all she could in that shop for the day. She couldn’t overplay things. “Sir Robert knows you have good-quality wares, Master Lucas,” she said. “I will tell him of the fineness of your goods and what you have on display.”
Master Lucas beamed. “Tell his lordship I would be most happy to bring my goods to court at any time, my boy.”
Kate nodded and made her way out
of the shop just as the door opened to admit more customers. It seemed clear she would get no more information out of Master Lucas; the man was too intent on keeping his good business name. Mistress Lucas, on the other hand, looked as if she was fairly bursting to talk more. Kate thought it might be worth her time to come back when the lady was working alone.
Or maybe she should send Rob, she thought as she watched him bow to Mistress Lucas and the lady giggled back.
“Did you get what you came for?” Rob asked as they headed back down the street.
Kate shook her head. “It is most maddening. When I think I come close to an answer, it only slides further away. At least I know the button could come from the Everleys, but it could come from other courtiers as well.” She kicked out at a loose cobblestone in frustration. “Perhaps if I could find Richard St. Long’s dark-haired doxy . . .”
Rob laughed. “I fear there are more dark-haired whores than red, Kate. And they don’t always stay one hair color or the other.” He grew more somber as they reached the narrow walkway that ran along the water’s edge. The smell of the river was stronger there, sickly-sweet and fishy. “You don’t think I really had anything to do with these women’s deaths, do you, Kate? I should hate to think such vile suspicions were between us now.”
Kate tipped her head back to study him from under the brim of her cap. He looked older in the daylight, his golden beard roughening his fine-hewn features, his eyes red-rimmed.
She remembered how suspicious she had been of him when they first met at Hatfield. How strange it was that he had shown up just as Queen Mary’s agent was wreaking such havoc in Princess Elizabeth’s household. How he was too charming, too easy-mannered, too capable of hiding his thoughts behind a player’s mask.
But then she had glimpsed some of the kindness he tried to conceal, the care he so strenuously denied. After his uncle was killed, that mask had dropped for an instant. And then he had saved her life on that rain-swept lane.
She thought of how Bess held on to him, smiled at him so fondly. Bess was no innocent simpleton. She knew the darker ways of men better than Kate could. She surely wouldn’t behave so if she believed Rob capable of killing her sister.
“Nay,” Kate said. “I know you did not, Rob. You haven’t got it in you.”
He gave a crooked, humorless smile. “You think I could not kill?”
“I didn’t say that,” Kate said. They walked along the river path, past fishermen mending their nets, women washing bits of laundry in the icy water, grubby beggar children chasing one another. “You could kill. If you were angry enough, to take revenge or protect yourself. But to harm a woman, especially one you were—fond of. Nay, I think not.”
She suddenly thought of the unknown Walter with the golden eyes. Had he loved Mary—or loathed her? Was he one of the family of Boleyn supporters, out to take revenge so long after the feud between Seymour and Boleyn had faded?
Rob’s smile withdrew and he looked solemn again. Older, harder. He nodded, and stopped to buy them some warm ginger cakes from a barker’s cart. Kate realized she had eaten nothing that day, and the spicy warmth of the cake chased some of the chill of the water away.
“I was fond of Nell. She was a merry girl,” he said. “And a sweet one. She would never hurt anyone.”
“And she favored you? As her sister does?”
Rob laughed ruefully. “I am an actor, Kate. ’Tis hard to settle for one sort of woman when there is such a delectable banquet in life.”
Kate shook her head. Rob did like women, aye. It was part of his charm—and part of why she knew she could never get too close to him. “You are a great rogue, Rob Cartman. But not a cruel one. You might break a woman’s heart, yet you could never be violent to one.”
“Thank you for that, Kate,” he said quietly. “I am honored you would have such faith in me. Many would not. That you can see people so clearly sometimes. You are truly a most extraordinary lady.”
“I wish you were right, Rob. I wish I could see people as easily as looking through an open window.” Kate wiped her gingery fingers on her boy’s breeches and watched two of the queen’s swans glide past. “Then I could easily pick out the villains amongst us. Yet I think almost all of them look like villains right now. The queen has many enemies.”
They walked onward, looking for an empty boat to carry Kate back to the palace.
“I will ask around the stews,” he said. “Bawds and pimps see everything around them. You stay at court, Kate. It is safer there.”
Kate laughed, thinking of the fine stairs at Durham House. Safe indeed. “Courtiers see everything, too. We all must sing for our suppers in our own ways.”
They found an empty boat at last, and Rob took her hand to help her climb aboard the creaking planks. His touch was warm and steady on hers, his fingers roughened and callused from an actor’s stage sword-craft. Before he let her go, he suddenly pulled her close for a quick, hard kiss.
He tasted—surprising. Sweet and dark all at once, his lips soft and firm as they moved expertly over hers. His arms close around her kept her from falling as the world spun around her.
But his kiss was over as suddenly as it began, and the freezing day closed in around her again.
“I mean it, Kate,” he whispered. “There is no other woman like you, I vow.”
Then he let her go, and Kate sat down hard on the narrow wooden bench. The grizzled old wherryman said nothing; he surely saw even stranger displays every day.
But Kate was not kissed every day. Her lips still tingled from the touch of Rob’s, and she could taste him, ginger and ale mingled with some darkness that was only him. He was a very good kisser. Her head still swam with the feeling of it, and she couldn’t quite fathom it yet.
Of course there was no time for worrying about kisses now. A killer was still out there, or mayhap two killers, and somehow Kate had the terrible feeling that he needed to be found most quickly. Before something else tragic could happen.
She glanced up as they neared the bridge, and saw that even though no heads now adorned the waiting pikes, crows wheeled around them still, waiting for their future feast. This was no time to think about romance at all.
“Rob . . . ,” she began, unsure of what she should say to him. What had just happened.
Rob laughed carelessly, as if he kissed girls every day. And probably he did. “I am sorry, Kate. I meant you no insult. We are friends, are we not? I should not want anything to mar that. You just looked so very . . .”
“Aye,” Kate murmured. Friends. It was only a strange moment. “I know, Rob. No insult meant at all.”
CHAPTER 19
Queen Elizabeth was walking in the gardens when Kate made her way toward the palace. Though the ladies who trailed behind her were shivery and miserable-looking in their thick cloaks, Elizabeth was striding briskly down the graveled pathway. Her fur-lined mantle swirled around her, stirring up the dead leaves on the ground. The only sign of the head cold that had confined her to her bedchamber was a reddened nose.
“So you have returned at last, Kate,” Elizabeth said. She waved to her impatiently, leading her farther down the path where the others could not hear. “How do you fare today?”
“Much better, I thank you, Your Majesty,” Kate said. She had to concentrate on hurrying to keep up with the queen. “The salve your physician sent via Mistress Ashley worked marvelously well.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “’Tis a den of lions, that Spanish house, and if I could, I would clear it out altogether. But I fear I must always have dealings with my former brother-in-law. He is ever a thorn in my side, just as Mary of Scotland and the Greys are. Families are one infernal nuisance, Kate.”
Kate nodded, suddenly grateful her own family was so very small. That they had no secrets from each other. Her father was never a thorn of any sort, and she realized how much she missed his quiet company thes
e last few days. The two of them working on their music together by the fireside, away from tangled webs of families that hated and schemed against one another.
“Hopefully I will not have to send any more innocent souls into Durham House soon,” Elizabeth said. “Tell me what you discovered today.”
Kate quickly recounted what had happened at the Cardinal’s Hat and Master Lucas’s shop, including her suspicion that Bess’s and Mary’s deaths might be linked in some strange way, and that Edward Seymour and his friends often visited the stews of Bankside—despite his obvious liking for Catherine Grey.
“That damnably foolish girl,” Elizabeth muttered. Bright red spots rose up in her pale cheeks and her dark eyes blazed. “She never knew her place, never knew what was good for her, just like her whole grasping family. I should have known she was scheming something. At least she is not in my confidence, and can have nothing of great value to tell them. It will be easy enough to detect any scheme she conceives—she is not bright enough to long conceal herself.”
Elizabeth glanced back at the ladies who followed in her wake: Kat Ashley, and Mary Sidney, who was Robert Dudley’s sister; Lady Clinton; and Mistress Radcliffe. They huddled together for warmth near a silent stone fountain, laughing at the barking antics of a little lapdog. Catherine Grey was not among them now, nor was her mother, but the youngest Grey daughter, Mary, was. Mary Grey was tiny and malformed, her back crooked, but her eyes were always alert, watching everything around her.
“Perhaps I was mistaken in keeping my cousins at a distance,” Elizabeth said thoughtfully. “I could keep a much closer watch on them as Ladies of the Bedchamber, mayhap. Did you hear anything else at Durham House, Kate?”
Kate hesitated, thinking of what Feria said about their “lost friend,” the spy who was better than any other.
Mary Everley was dead now; it seemed cruel to darken her memory in any way. Yet her dealings at Durham House, if indeed it had been Mary who was the spy, could have led her to that death.
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