A Broom at the Masthead (The Drowned Books Book 1) (25 page)

“Why should he feel any obligation to you, then?”

“My husband died and left me drowning in duns, madam. This is
common knowledge. Ask -” her spaniel’s eyes flicked to Fairmantle, braying on
the opposite side of the table. “He hears all, doesn’t he? Hears all, tells
all, and knows nothing. I am much attached to His Majesty. He never has any
money, either, the poor darling, or he would have helped, I’m sure. No, behold
poor Astraea, running distracted from the debt-collectors with little to
commend her but one set of glass pearls, one silk gown, much turned, and her
wits. Enter one slightly sardonic Caliban, a little ragged at the edges.”

“Oh, please don’t call him Caliban!” Thomasine begged impulsively.
“My lord Wilmot began it. He hates it. He is not a monster, he -”

“Began it himself, mistress,” Mistress Behn said gently. “
Not
honour’d with a human shape-
 the man-beast in The Tempest, d’you see?
He signed himself so, when he made his reports. ‘Tis a humour, no more. He had
always a perverse humour, my poor Crophead, and was ever much misunderstood.”

“You mean you and he were
spies
, together?”

“Did I say so?”

“
I
did,” Thomazine said. “He has told me as much already.”

“Well, love makes fools of us all, doesn’t it?”

To which Thomazine, sitting in an overstuffed room in a gown that
was too tight in the breast, with tortuous loops of her hair pinned to her
skull with great jewelled pins and full to miserable overflowing with fancy
cream sauce, could only agree.

Mistress Behn smiled at her, and took the poet Nat’s inky white
fingers in her own. “I believe my lord Talbot needs to piss,” she said sweetly.
“We are, remember, Fortune’s whores. Observe the trollops of Cheapside. The
tuppenny strumpets display their wares like a market stall,” she gave her
hostess a charming smile up the table, “those who would rise are more
audacious. Ask Nelly Gwynne. She’s made her way in the world with little more
than wit.”

“You
are suggesting that I become an
actress
?”

“She’s suggesting that you move up the table and sit in Talbot's
chair while he’s not in it,” Nat said mildly. “Though, you know, if you’ve a
mind to go on stage, Aphra is the lady to write it -”

“Hush,
Nathaniel. Women playwrights? Shocking!”

And
leaving them giggling at some shared private joke, Thomazine made her way up
the table. And then the rich sauce made its way up her throat, and with one
piteous look at the back of her husband’s head, she fled.

43

Russell
was saying as little as ever, but although he did not seem to have noticed his
wife's dignified dash for the door, Chas would have laid good odds that he had.

Kettering was squawking at him,
jiggling like a badly-set custard in his seat with excitement. Odd thing, that.
Must be quite a useful trick, having that carefully expressionless look on your
face. Meant you didn't look as if you minded when excitable pups like Kettering
were four inches from the end of your nose and spraying you with
part-masticated supper and spittle.

Fairmantle put his hand on
Russell's shoulder - see, you puppy, I
know
this man, I am his intimate
- and leaned down to whisper, "I believe Thomazine is indisposed, sir. You
may wish to -"

And the major turned his head and
stared at him with those glittering mad eyes, and said, very clearly, "
Mistress
Russell
, my lord. I would only choose that her
friends
use her given
name."

Kettering snickered, and Russell
slid out from under Fairmantle's hand to stalk out of the room after his wife.

"Well, there's you told,
sir!"

"Jealous," Fairmantle
said stiffly, "jealous as a cat, poor soul. After all -"

"D'ye say?" Kettering
said, round-eyed.

But he wasn't talking to
Fairmantle. He was talking to the Earl of Rochester's whore, who had leaned
across to whisper something in his ear. (Something about Fairmantle? No: she
wasn't looking at him. She was looking at the door, and whispering behind her
fan, as if the thing, whatever it was, was a thing of excitement.)

He went back to his seat, and sat
down, pasting the smile to his face.

"
Again
, Chas?"

He stiffened. Not often the Duke
of Buckingham noticed him, and he turned, eager, wanting to say something
memorable, intelligent. Something witty, for once, that would -

"My dear man," Villiers
said, smiling, and Fairmantle preened, "you are like a little dog, sir.
The harder we kick you the more you whine for attention."

He rummaged amongst the debris of
supper on the table, till he found a chicken wing. A foul object, greasy with
sauce and ragged with gnawed flesh.

"Here we are, Chas," he
called, and heads began to turn on the far side of the table, "now, sir -
fetch
!"

44

She
did not feel so ill, lying down.

Lady Talbot's maid was very kind:
a plump, motherly woman who reminded Thomazine of her own mother, and who did
not show any revulsion at all at her heaving up most of her supper into one of
Her Ladyship's bowls.

She was a
little
bit cross
at the tight-laced stays.

"Well, young lady?" she
said, and she had a wet cloth in her hand which felt like heaven as she wiped
Thomazine's mouth with it. "How long d'you mean to go on with this?"

"Until I find out what I
need to know," she said wanly, and the maid - whose name was allegedly
Hortense, and who had dropped her genteel French accent almost as soon as
Thomazine had collapsed in a sad puddle of emerald silk on the banquette -
looked at her blankly.

"D'you not
know
,
then, girl? How many
might
it have been?"

"How on earth would I
know?"

"Well, I assume you were
there at the time, mistress! Unless -" her eyes flickered, "you
weren't - I mean - has he promised you marriage, dear? Because most of them are
already married, and not like to put their wives aside for such as you -"

"I'm already married
myself."  Which made her feel a little bit happier, "the tall
gentleman with the fair hair, in black? Is my husband."

Hortense patted her hand comfortably.
"Well, I'm sure it will all work out, then. Though not John Wilmot's, I
hope, young lady - not that it's any of my business, but he's not known for his
kindness to his girls when he tires of them, and I'd not look to him for help -"

"Why on earth would the Earl
of Rochester help me? Unless he happens to know something useful -" she
struggled upright, and gave a sigh of relief as the stiff bones of her unlaced
stays parted over her tender belly. "I imagine it would be the first time
in his life he did!"

She wondered if it would be a
dreadful thing to take her shoes off, too. Hortense was staring at her.  It
seemed she grew stupid, as well as queasy. "I think we may be at a
misunderstanding," Thomazine said with dignity. "This is my husband's
child. Not the Earl of Rochester's. You didn't really think I would - oh,
please
!"

"You wouldn't be the first,
madam."

"I'm sure. London draws
fools faster than a turd draws flies."

The Frenchwoman's lips twitched.
"Surely. Well. That is some relief, mistress, for if your husband is the
fair gentleman, he'd not own a son that favoured my lord Wilmot, who's as black
as a raven. What on earth
possessed
you, then? D'you mean to do that
child a mischief, coming out so tight-laced? That babe needs room to grow! For
you're no slip of a thing, if you'll pardon my free speaking, and your man's a
fair height - does he
know
?"

"Don't you dare tell
him!"

"Is he daft altogether that
he hasn't
noticed
?"

"He hasn't
said
,"
she corrected gently. "I think he - he hopes. But I would rather he did
not know until he - until we - until I
know
."

"Don't tell my lady,"
Hortense said, and her eyes darted suddenly sideways, as if the willow-light,
romantic figure of Lady Talbot might suddenly drift through the wall.
"She's slipped two before now."

"Oh, I am so sorry -"

"One was her husband's, and
she didn't want to lose her place with Buckingham. And t'other was
Buckingham's, and she didn't want
His Lordship
to know. She doesn't care
for children, her ladyship. Not if they might disadvantage her."

"What has that to do with me
and my husband?"

"She won't like it,"
Hortense said firmly - what was the woman's real name, she wondered, she could
not keep thinking of her as a fake Frenchwoman - and Thomazine still did not
understand, "not one bit she won't like it. You do not want to put
yourself out of favour with Her Ladyship, madam. If you draw the attention
she’s marked for herself, she will not care for it. She is a jealous lady, and
hot-tempered."

"Is she known, then, for
such malice?"

Wondering what she might have
done to Lady Talbot, perhaps what
Thankful
had done to her - slept with
her (she didn't like
that
thought), not slept with her, not been
sufficiently in awe of her - Thomazine didn't think she'd set eyes on the woman
before this week to have deserved such malevolence.

Hortense's face stilled, and she
shook her head. "I could not comment, mam'selle," she said, in her
best careful Parisian accents. "I will leave you to rest, if you please.
To be careful, of the child, you see?"

And she bustled out with the bowl
and its horrid contents, leaving Thomazine in peace.

The room smelt of rosewater, and
a little of spice - see, another tiny, tenuous link, that could mean something
and could mean nothing - and it was dark and here, in the little-used
apartments at the back of the house, she could not hear the laughter and the
voices from downstairs. Might as well be on the moon, for her remoteness. And
Thomazine felt very lonely, and she wanted, very badly, to be at home, in her
mother's house, being petted and made a fuss of. One hot tear slipped from the
corner of her eye and burned its way down onto Lady Talbot's damask upholstery.

She might have slept. And she
might not. But she heard the door open.
"Tibber?" he whispered, "you all right?"

She sat up, and did not care that
her bodice fell about her in stiff disarray, or that her stays were all but
unlaced. Sat up and put her arms out to him like a child wanting to be picked
up, and he came and held her, with a great sigh.

"That lady gave me a -
garment - for you to borrow," he said, and rocked her gently against his
shoulder. "She said she forbade you to lace your stays so tightly as
previously as you had, for the sake of what reason you knew. Are you feeling
better?"

"The better for your being
with me."

He smelt of smoke, and sweat, and
stale food-smells, but under that he smelt of Russell, and home, and she buried
her face in the ribbed silk over his warm shoulder, and felt the solid curve of
muscle, and the bone beneath it. “Should we return to supper, then?” she said
against his arm.

“Unless you would rather we made
an early night of it, tibber? We don’t have to – we are not obliged to be
polite – we could go home, we could – you could read to me, and I could comb
your hair out, like we were used to, before?”

Oh, but she
wanted to. Wanted to go to their plain, warm lodgings, where she could take her
shoes off and sit with her feet in his lap and he could rub her aching feet,
and they could talk of what had been, and what might yet be, God willing.

And then there
was Lady Talbot, whose malevolence might not extend to ruining a man’s
reputation for the joy of it, but who might take pleasure in a woman’s
sickness, and exult in having seen a rival off. “I would rather go back in,”
she said. “I was enjoying the company, you see.” He looked so forlorn, and at
the same time so indignant, as if she’d just slapped him. “Oh, lamb, it’s not
that, it’s just – Lady Talbot –“

“You would
rather spend time with
Lady Talbot
than with me?”

And there were
times when it was tempting to slap him for his stupidity. “No! But I’ll not
have her think –“

He stood up, and
his mouth had taken on that prim, twisted look, as if he had bitten into
something not ripe. “I see.
I see.
Well. I shall keep you no further,
Thomazine, if you prefer to keep the company of that – that –“

She was not a
plaster saint, and he was a pain in the backside. She stood up as well. Her
bodice was not closed, and her stays were loose, and once he would have looked
down at her undress and smiled and probably kissed her, or at the very least he
would have put his arms round her. Tonight he held up Lady Talbot’s elegant
fur-lined velvet jacket and thrust her arms into it as if she were still a
child –