“What are you—,” Celine began indignantly.
But Kate had no time for niceties. “Is Richard St. Long your lover, Celine?”
Celine, who had started to push herself up from her stool, sank back down again. Her eyes narrowed, and behind the thick rim of kohl Kate saw they were a pale blue-gray.
Golden eyes. Blue eyes. Dark Boleyn eyes. They seemed to be only the outward signs of deeper, darker familial inheritances.
Celine gave a harsh laugh. “My lover? A young man like that?”
“He is something to you, I know.”
“So he is.” Celine studied Kate’s face carefully, and whatever she found there seemed to convince her that Kate was not going away. “I am fond of him, despite myself. But how did you know we were connected?”
“Your ring.” Kate gestured toward the silver band of flowers on the bawd’s finger. “Everything kept coming back to Master Lucas’s shop, his fine silverwork. Of course, you might have been blackmailing Lord Henry Everley over something and got the ring from him, but that doesn’t seem likely. A bad word about your house from one courtier could ruin your prosperous trade here, and Lord Henry hasn’t enough coin to make up for that.”
“Most clever, my lady,” Celine said, a note of grudging admiration in her smoke-roughened voice. “But mayhap Lord Henry is my lover, and thus disposed to giving gifts?”
Kate laughed. “I hear that he likes blond hair. Much like his friend Edward Seymour.”
Celine laughed, too, and leaned her elbows on the edge of the table. “So he does, when he can afford them. I quit giving him credit, despite Richard’s pleading for his kinsman.”
“Are you Richard’s mother?”
Celine’s laughter faded. “Now, how could I be the mother to the cousin of a lordling like that?”
“Everyone did think Master St. Long was the son of Lord Everley’s long-dead sister. But Lord Henry tonight claimed Richard St. Long was no true cousin of his, but a son of his father’s old doxy.”
“Lord Henry talked to you?”
“Not willingly. And not nearly enough,” Kate said. “He was arrested tonight at Master Lucas’s shop, accused of killing his own sister. But he claims no knowledge of Bess and Nell. If he killed them, a stay at the Tower will soon have the truth out of him. If not—the killer might still be here in the lanes of Southwark, looking for women with red hair.”
Celine smoothed her hand over the elaborate arrangement of her vivid hair. Kate let the silence stretch out for a long moment, let Celine think over her words.
“You have built a profitable business here,” Kate said quietly. “’Twould be a shame to let it crumble away. . . .”
Celine sighed. “True. I am above all else a woman of business. I have to be, in my position, or I’ll starve and all my girls and servants with me. Nay, I am not Richard’s mother. He is my nephew.”
Kate frowned, quickly working out the possibilities in her mind. “I take it you are not somehow related to Lord Everley’s sister. Your sister was the earl’s leman? And Lord Everley is Richard’s father?”
“I fear it is not so simple as that. If it was, my Richard might have had a happier life, as would my sister—and her other child.”
“Other child?”
“Richard had a twin sister, an angelic little girl. But she died young. Mayhap it was a blessing.”
Celine suddenly pushed back her stool and leaped to her feet, as if she couldn’t stand to sit still a moment longer. She paced to the fireplace and stared down into the flames. By the golden light, Celine looked younger, softer. Sadder, as she lost herself in the past.
“I lived with my sister, Nan, and her babes when they were young, in a cottage given by Lord Everley on his estate, and I came to love them like they were my own,” Celine said.
“You didn’t live here in Southwark?”
“Nay, not then. We were country girls born, fresh as new milk, and Nan was so very pretty. Pretty, but innocent. Our parents had no money, but they did what they could for us before we had to go seek our own bread.”
“They must have done better than most parents,” Kate said, gesturing to the ledgers. “You can read and write, do sums.”
“I was always good at numbers, though Nan wasn’t. She could barely write her name, but she was sweet. She took up for a time with Lord Everley, and he was good to her. Infatuated with her, everyone said.”
“But he is not Richard’s father?”
Celine sighed. “Nay. Sweet and pretty Nan was, but not clever. She wanted more than a little room in the country. I had come to London by then, so she left Everley and came to stay with me. After a time she found another lover, and I seldom saw her. She became most secretive, and every time I met with her, she wore finer and finer clothes. Until she was with child, and this new lover cast her off.”
It was a sad tale indeed, Kate thought, and one far too common. But who was the secret lover, the one with the fine gifts? “She did not tell you who this lover was?”
Celine shook her head. “She kept that secret forever. Poor, stupid Nan. Whoever he was, he was a right hedgepig for casting off his own children like that. I wrote to Lord Everley when Nan lay here sick and pregnant.”
“And Lord Everley took her back?”
Celine glanced back at Kate over her shoulder, a small smile on her painted lips. “You think him only an ill-tempered old coin-pincher now?”
“He seems to care little for his own children, or his neighbors and relations. He has spent most of his time bringing lawsuits in recent years.”
“Aye, he was dour enough even back then. But he had a soft heart for my Nan. He was good enough to her, gave us a cottage to live in at Everley Court, saw that Richard was educated. All he asked was that Nan stay with him, and she did until she died of the sweating sickness. No one is all bad, my dear. A woman like me, you see where people are vulnerable.”
“And your nephew is your own vulnerability?”
Celine’s face hardened. She kicked out at a fallen log. “I’ve been a fool where he’s concerned, but I see my poor Nan in him. When she died, my little niece was already gone and Lord Everley said he would look after Richard. I thought Richard would be better with a man’s influence in his life—he was such an angry, bitter little person. So I came back here, built up this house. I sent money and letters to Richard when I could, but I hadn’t seen him for a long time until he showed up late last year. I was happy to see him, so tall and handsome, but—well, he wasn’t the boy I remembered. Not entirely.”
Celine twisted the silver ring on her finger for a long moment. Suddenly she turned to face Kate. “Do you truly think he might have done these murders?”
Kate thought of everything she had learned at Master Lucas’s shop. “Aye, I think perhaps so. Though I don’t know why yet. I only know he must be found and questioned before anything else happens.”
Celine nodded, looking suddenly old and sad. Tired. “How can I help you?”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Before Bess disappeared. He came here one night with that young ruffian Edward Seymour and his friends. They spend their coin freely enough, but ’tis always a mess when they leave. I have warned Richard that Seymour is not as clever as he thinks, that he is a vain peacock overly proud of his family. But Richard just laughs and says he must get ahead at court as best he can for a man with no coin and no family.”
“Did he talk with you that night?”
Celine frowned as if she tried to remember. “For a moment. He seemed in a merry mood. He gave me this ring, and said soon his fortunes would be made.”
“Made how?”
“That he did not say. ’Twas a busy night, and I didn’t see him again.”
“Was he fond of Bess or Nell? Show a preference for red hair?”
Celine shook her head. “He
wasn’t so very selective. Besides, I should think he wouldn’t care for red-haired bawds. His mother and sister both had red hair, as I did. Do. He seemed to like dark hair.”
Parents—it always seemed to come back to that. But why had Richard suddenly been in a good mood that night? “Are you quite sure you know nothing about your nephew’s life now? Nothing about his real father?”
“I have heard court gossip sometimes, that is all. Who is in favor, who is not, who loves who. Nothing substantial. As for the twins’ father . . .” Celine shook her head again. “He must have been a wealthy man. When Nan was with him, she had fine gowns and hoods, jewels even. Once she wore a bracelet I thought had a crest of some sort on it, but she drew her sleeve down over it and refused to show it to me. She said she should not be wearing it in public anyway.”
“What happened to the jewels?”
“Most of them were sold, after she came to me, sobbing and pregnant. Cast off by her fine lover with a bruise on her pretty cheek. She did have a small, locked casket she gave to Richard right before she died. But he was just a boy then. Who knows what he did with it?”
If it was indeed a crest that Nan once wore, surely it could be used to help identify Richard’s father? “You never saw the bracelet again? You can remember nothing about it?”
Celine closed her eyes tightly. “Nay, nothing. It was bright-colored enamel, set in gold. Framed with pearls, mayhap. I do know my jewels.”
From the corridor outside the room, heavy footsteps thudded on the floor and Mad Henry came running in.
“Trouble with Master Carew again, Celine,” he announced.
“A pox on that man, he is more trouble than his coin is worth,” she said. She pushed back from the fire and shook out her red striped skirts. “I’ll be there in a moment. Fetch my dagger, will you?”
As Celine passed Kate on her way out of the chamber, she glanced up at her. Her painted eyes were stark, sad, shining with tears that she would never let fall.
“Do you really think Richard did these things?” Celine said quietly, not quite meeting Kate’s gaze. Such uncertainty, such hopeless hope, from the bold bawd was disconcerting.
“You know what he is capable of more than I do,” Kate answered. “But I think it rather likely now. You should take care.”
Celine laughed, putting on her careless mask again. “Me? I am never alone here. He couldn’t get close. You, though . . .”
“I will be careful.” Kate had a sudden thought. “If you can wait for me but one moment?” She quickly went to Celine’s writing table and scribbled a note on a scrap of parchment, addressed to Anthony. She handed it back to the bawd. “Can you see that this gets to the house of Master Hardy the lawyer, in Cheapside?”
Celine studied the paper in her hand. “Of course. Godspeed to you.”
“And to you.”
Kate made her way down the back staircase into the chaos of a Southwark night again. She knew where she had to go next.
CHAPTER 27
“‘As Vesta was from Latmos hill descending, she spied a maiden queen the same ascending, attended on by all the shepherds swain. . . .’”
Kate peered down at the great hall far below the narrow gallery walkway, hidden from the glittering court in the shadows. The music was not quite as perfect as she would have made it, but no one seemed to notice the flat notes and wobbly crescendos amid the shimmering white and silver of the elaborate costumes and the painted sets that soared toward the ceiling.
A bejeweled moon rose over the tableau of Diana and her nymphs, their faces hidden by white masks as they sang of purity’s joys and danced gracefully with their hands joined and white satin skirts floating. The queen sat on her dais, also dressed in white brocade with diamond moons and stars in her loose red hair.
Robert Dudley, hastily changed from the stark black he had worn to raid the Lucas shop into peacock green velvet, sat beside her, laughing and whispering into her ear.
Anyone watching them now, as almost everyone in the court was, would never know he had just chased down a murderer and tossed him into the Tower. Robert Dudley looked like a man who cared for naught but the cut of his doublet and the wine in his goblet. Kate knew she could learn much about concealment from him.
From her perch high above the masque, Kate could scan the gathering with no one watching her in turn. There were rows of cushioned benches behind the queen for those of the highest rank, and Kate saw the Greys among them.
Lady Frances had even left her sickbed to attend the performance, though she looked pale and out of sorts. Her husband, young Adrian Stokes, kept pressing wine and sweetmeats and handkerchiefs on her, which she waved away with a frown. Little, crookbacked Lady Mary Grey sat beside him, watching the masque closely with her hands neatly folded in her lap.
Lady Catherine, though, was obviously restless, twitching at her skirts, craning her neck to peer behind her, until her mother gave her arm a little shake to make her be still.
Kate saw what she was looking for—Edward Seymour, who sat with his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Somerset, in one of her rare appearances at court. Edward was most attentive to his mother, but when the duchess wasn’t looking, he would grin at Lady Catherine.
Neither of them seemed terribly concerned that their friend Lady Mary Everley was dead, or that her murderer could still be running free among them. Nor were their friends Feria and his Spanish cohorts at the performance. But the French ambassador seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.
Kate examined the crowds standing at the back of the room, but she could catch no glimpse of Richard St. Long. Perhaps he had already heard of his cousin’s arrest and thought it best to be discreet. Perhaps he hoped Lord Henry would be blamed for everything.
One of the palace guards had told her that Lord Everley had departed already, with most of his servants, though whether it was to return to Everley Court or to meet his son at the Tower no one yet knew. Kate couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness for the old earl, despite the thoughtless way he treated his children. Once he had loved a woman, Celine’s flighty sister, and he had kept his promise to her when she died to look after her child. Surely such a man could not be all bad?
But it seemed the same could not be said of his adopted nephew. Kate felt sure he had killed Nell and Bess, even if Lady Mary was not a part of it. Yet—why? She was baffled.
She studied the crowd again, tracing the family alliances, the furtive romances. She needed proof, something solid she could take to the queen. If she could find the bracelet Celine’s sister wore, the finely wrought one of enamel and pearls with a mysterious crest, perhaps it could tell her who Richard St. Long’s real father was.
Perhaps, since the Everleys had vacated their rooms so quickly and Richard hadn’t been seen at the palace that night, some of his possessions were left behind. Kate backed away from the gallery railing, leaving the glitter of the masque behind her, and quickly lit a candle before she ran down the narrow back staircase.
She came out into one of the twisting corridors that made up the vast rabbit warren of the queen’s palace. All the secrets and passions and schemes of hundreds of courtiers were hidden behind those doors, just like the doors of the Cardinal’s Hat. Tonight they were silent, though, as everyone was in the great hall currying favor. Even the servants were gone on their own errands, and there was an almost eerie silence hanging heavy in the air.
Kate thought she remembered where Lord Everley’s rooms were, after her last visit to him, but she took a wrong turn on one staircase and found herself staring at a blank wall hung with a tapestry depicting Diana’s hounds tearing Actaeon apart for daring to watch the goddess at her bath. It almost made her laugh, finding the furious virgin at every turn when it looked as if all the trouble began with faithless lovers of all sorts.
At last she found the right apartments, at the far end of another branching corridor. Sh
e carefully tested the door handle and found it unlatched. Holding her breath, she pushed it open and peered inside.
Lord Everley had been gone for only a few hours at the most, but the unmistakable staleness of abandoned rooms rushed out on a breath of cold air. It was dark and silent, yet Kate knew she had to hurry. She put her candle down on the nearest table and looked around her.
It seemed Lord Everley had packed in a hurry, for a few stray garments still trailed over the floor and torn documents were piled on the table. Some of the furniture had been removed, but the valuable bed was still there, though the hangings and bedclothes were gone.
Kate quickly sorted through the papers, yet saw nothing of interest. She peered into the connecting chamber, whose door was ajar. Lady Mary had been housed with the other ladies, of course, and it looked as if Lord Henry and Richard St. Long had shared this room. There was one narrow bed with a truckle half-shoved beneath it. A few clothes, in the bright colors and elaborate decorations Lord Henry favored, were hastily abandoned on the bed and spilled out of an open chest.
Another clothes chest, plainer and not carved, sat beneath the one window. It wasn’t locked, and Kate hastily threw it open and searched through the meager contents. It appeared to be Richard’s, with a dark doublet she remembered him wearing once, and the short, embroidered cape he wrapped around himself at the coronation procession.
Crumpled in the bottom corner, she found the velvet doublet she had noticed Richard wearing before, the one that seemed to fit him so ill. The fastenings were plain bone buttons. She studied he fabric closer. It was finely woven and well dyed, but she found a stiff spot in the nap where wine had spilled and been sponged away. Just as Lord Henry had said when he claimed he gave the damaged doublet to his cousin.
Kate held it up to the light and saw faded places where other decorations had been removed. The silver buttons? But why take away such a fine decorative element? Unless Lord Henry removed them before discarding it. But then how had they been found in Nell’s and Mary’s hands?
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