House of Shadows (33 page)

Wassenaer Hof, The Hague, April 1646

‘E
lizabeth!’

Craven barely waited for the scurrying attendants to close the door behind them before he slapped down his gloves on the table and stormed across the room, shedding his cloak carelessly on the way. He had come straight from the stable without stopping to wash the journey from him. Times had indeed changed.

Although she had been expecting this, Elizabeth raised a hand protectively to her throat. A wife, she supposed, should be accountable to her husband over the slander of her good character, even when the wife was a widowed queen and her husband a commoner. She remembered with something like nostalgia the diffidence with which Craven had first taken up his role as her spouse. She had led. He had always followed.

‘Good evening, my lord.’ She tilted up a cheek for his kiss cool as spring water. ‘I trust your journey went smoothly?’ She reached for the bell on the table. ‘Shall I call for refreshment? A glass of wine?’

She saw Craven check his temper, ease out a sigh.

‘Thank you. In a little, perhaps.’ He took the chair beside hers. The room had ceased to vibrate with his anger but there was still a hum of it in the air.

‘Elizabeth,’ he said again. ‘What the devil is going on? Is it true that your son has killed de L’Epinay? How in hell could you have let this happen?’

Elizabeth swallowed hard. It was difficult to explain and Craven had a right to anger but she felt a dual sense of shame at her behaviour and resentment that he could question her. It was uncomfortable, like indigestion.

‘Yes, it is true that de L’Epinay is dead,’ she said carefully. ‘Philip is hot-headed—’ she dismissed her youngest son’s waywardness as lightly as she could. ‘He thought that the Chevalier de L’Epinay had been too familiar in the way he spoke of me …’ She shrugged awkwardly, seeing the way that this would inevitably lead her. ‘De L’Epinay taunted him and Philip took it badly. He was defending the honour of his house—’

‘By slaughtering the man?’

Elizabeth flinched. ‘Please! There was a duel, a quarrel, high words were exchanged, it all escalated out of control …’

‘And no one had the sense to stop him before it was too late.’

‘You were not here,’ Elizabeth said.

‘Can I not be absent for even a month?’ Craven did
not sound flattered, as she had hoped. He sounded furious. ‘Where is the boy now?’

‘He fled,’ Elizabeth said. ‘The authorities are out to arrest him.’

‘Naturally. He murdered a man.’

‘William.’ Once she had welcomed his plain speaking. Now it hurt a great deal. ‘I need you to help him. That was why I sent for you.’

‘We’ll talk of that in a while, perhaps.’ He dismissed her plea with a wave of the hand. ‘This other matter – de L’Epinay’s slander of your reputation. How did that come about?’

Elizabeth’s heart sank. If she did not tell him there would be plenty of others who would make sure he heard what had happened, and in the most damaging and undignified way possible. Yet she bristled at having to explain herself.

‘The Chevalier called here at the court to pay his respects,’ she said. ‘He was witty, amusing. I saw no harm in receiving him.’

‘You were bored.’

‘I appreciated the Chevalier’s company, that is true. He was entertaining.’

‘He called often.’

‘I … Yes, I suppose he did.’

She knew he had. Every day, de L’Epinay would come to wait upon her and she had been flattered by his attentions. It was mortifying to admit it.

‘He had a most unsavoury reputation.’

‘I had not heard of that.’

She had not. She felt a fool.

Craven shifted irritably in his chair. ‘Damn it, you know how people talk. Everyone is saying he was your lover.’

‘They talk because they have nothing better to do.’ She laid a hand on his arm, half-pleading, half-restraining. She understood that his honour was injured here. She had managed to damage them all through her folly.

‘William, you know there could be no truth in it,’ she said soothingly. ‘The idea is absurd. I love no man but you.’

His gaze rested on her and for a moment she felt frightened because it lacked the usual warmth.

‘If you were to acknowledge our marriage publicly,’ he said, ‘that might alleviate the scandal.’

Elizabeth felt a rush of anger. ‘It would only make matters worse! Then they would say I was a woman who marries one man in secret and flaunts another in public!’

It was the wrong thing to say. She knew it as soon as the words left her lips but she could not call them back. Craven sprang up, walked away from her.

‘Foolishly I imagined you had sent for me because you needed me by your side as your husband.’ His voice was deceptively quiet. ‘Yet I see I was mistaken.’ He swung back to face her. ‘Let me guess … Your only desire is that I help Philip escape the law for his crimes. You wish me to see him safely abroad, to take him to England, to go with him and ensure his future. You are sending me away again.’

For a second it stole Elizabeth’s breath because it was painfully true. ‘I only thought …’ She floundered. ‘You are so good at dealing with such matters.’

‘I pay for difficult things to go away,’ Craven said brutally. He came across to her. ‘What did you imagine – that I would squire your reckless son around Europe to save his skin?’ The fury in his voice frightened her. ‘Is that all I am to you? A means to an end?’

‘You have always protected me and those I love.’ She was lost now, driven back on the truth. ‘I thought you would help me.’ The quiver in her voice, the tears in her eyes, were not entirely false. ‘William …’

For a second she thought it would not work, her power was gone. Then he swooped on her and pulled her into his arms, kissing her fiercely, violently, as though to drive away the doubts and the sharp words. Sometimes in the past they had ended arguments this way. She knew it aroused him to have her, a queen, submissive to his touch and she had exulted in it too, abandoning herself to him. Now she shook to feel that same response, washing away the anger. She forgot everything, her tiredness, the lateness of the hour, the bitter words, and let herself be taken on the rising tide of passion. His strength, the repressed violence in him, found its match in her, kiss for kiss and touch for touch. If this were his price she would pay it gladly.

Later, lying beside each other in the half-dark, they ate and drank and talked.

‘I have a cousin,’ Craven said, ‘Robert. He is a few years older than Philip, very sound, very steady. I will arrange for him to accompany the boy to England. He will make him a good squire and keep him from further harm.’

It was not good enough for Elizabeth but she knew when to leave the discussion. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘I am too old to go travelling myself any more,’ Craven said, and she knew that was as close to an apology as she would get.

‘You are scarce an old man,’ she teased, reaching for him, kissing him.

The servants took away the empty dishes and left them and she wondered, between William’s renewed caresses, why this was not good enough for him. Everyone knew they were wed. It was accepted; understood. Even if it was not openly acknowledged he was known to be her husband. She could not give him more. Could he not see it would undermine her and her fight to secure the future for her sons? She was the daughter of one king and the widow of a second and he, for all his dash and bravery was no more than a commoner. They had so much. In the beginning that had been sufficient for him. It had been more than enough. Yet increasingly it seemed that had changed.

T
here was already a crowd of people in the farmhouse garden, standing around a trench, which Holly presumed the water company had been digging when they had found the bones. It stood next to a slab of stone, which had been uncapped to reveal a tunnel below In addition to the engineers, who were standing around chatting and smoking as they watched, there were two men from the building site, armed with spades, and a whole straggle of others. Greg was there; he shot Holly a shamefaced look when he saw her but she smiled at him and his face lightened. Some of the villagers had come to watch, including Fran who had her coat collar turned up against the threatening rain and was chatting to a neighbour and dispensing coffee from an urn set up on a makeshift table.

‘Iain rang to tell me what had happened,’ she said. ‘They needed supplies.’ She hugged Holly. ‘What on earth are you doing here? You know—’ A look of comical horror slid
across her face. ‘Oh God, you know it’s not Ben, don’t you? They’re just bones. Probably eighteenth century, Iain says.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Holly said. She broke off as a police Land Rover bumped along the track and turned into the drive.

‘They always have to turn out if bones are found,’ Fran said. She shot Holly another deeply sympathetic look. ‘This can’t be good for you, Hol. Go home—’

‘I’m fine,’ Holly said. ‘I wanted to know who it was. I think it might be Robert Verity.’

Fran stared at her. ‘Who? Oh, the guy Lavinia Flyte was having an affair with? Really? Why?’

‘He disappeared,’ Holly said. ‘It’s just a hunch, but I wondered.’

Iain had waylaid Mark and they were talking to another man whom Holly did not recognise.

‘That’s Nick Frazer,’ Fran said, waving a hand towards them. ‘He’s the bones specialist. He’ll be able to date the skeleton accurately to a year or two.’

Holly shrank within her coat. The wind was rising, driving the rain across the clearing. Was this where Robert Verity had died, hurrying up the path to the mill to meet Lavinia, shivering in the biting cold of winter, having lost everything that mattered to him? Had he been hoping against hope that she would be able to escape and run to him? What plans had he been making to save her, what hopes for their future together? Holly thought of the land agent, waiting in the dark, and shuddered.

‘Here, get this down you.’ Fran passed her a mug. ‘You look frozen.’

‘Thanks, Fran,’ Holly said. She huddled deeper within
her coat and sipped the steaming liquid. She couldn’t taste it, but at least it was hot.

‘Interesting,’ Iain said, coming over to return two empty plastic cups and pick up fresh ones. ‘There’s a water mine down there that’s been blocked up a long time. The chalk and clunch wall was unstable and we think it eroded and washed the bones through, or we might not have found them.’

‘Are they going to bring the body out?’ Fran asked.

‘Once it’s been photographed in situ,’ Iain said. ‘Mark’s going down there with Nick. He’ll do a quick recce of the tunnel as well, whilst Nick examines the bones.’

‘No!’ Before she could help herself, Holly had started forwards, dropping her coffee on the grass. The fear she had felt was instinctive and powerful. ‘He can’t,’ she said. Then seeing Fran’s look of astonishment, ‘Mark can’t go down there. I mean … It’s dangerous … There’s water and the tunnels might be unstable …’

Mark had half-turned when she had cried out and now he came across to her taking both her hands in his, regardless of their audience. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked. Fran’s expression had moved on from surprise to intense speculation.

‘Yeah.’ Holly made an effort to pull herself together. ‘Sorry.’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ Mark’s voice was very level. ‘It’s all right, Holly. It’ll be quite safe.’

‘I know,’ Holly said shakily. ‘I know you will. It’s just …’ She couldn’t explain the vicious feeling of terror that had gripped her. She imagined everyone would assume she was on edge because there were too many resonances with Ben’s
disappearance but she knew that was not the reason. The emotion that had seized her had been all about Mark and how she felt about him. Or were they her feelings? Was she confusing Lavinia’s passion for Robert with her own emotions? She no longer knew.

‘Just be careful, all right?’ she said, fiercely.

Their eyes met and Mark nodded, unsmiling.

They had put a rope ladder over the side of the well. Holly watched as first Nick Frazer and then Mark went down. There was a palpable sense of tension around the group now.

‘Well,’ Fran said, in an impatient aside. ‘Do you want to tell me what all that was about?’ She paused and when Holly did not immediately reply she said: ‘If you tell me now you’re not in love with him, Holly Ansell, I’ll call you a liar to your face.’

Iain’s radio crackled. ‘Go ahead, Mark,’ he said.

Fran shot him a look of irritation. ‘Iain, this is important!’

‘I can confirm it’s the entrance to a water mine.’ Mark’s voice crackled across the airwaves. ‘Thirty feet deep, about three foot wide, brick, arched, late seventeenth century but with later additions. The wall that blocked it up was probably early nineteenth century and not very well put together.’

‘Mark said that Lord Evershot was redesigning the pleasure gardens in the early nineteenth century,’ Holly said to Fran. If Evershot’s men had been digging out the mines, she thought, there would have been no quicker and easier way to dispose of a body than in one of the pits they had already dug out. They could have taken Robert Verity and
thrown him down the shaft and sealed him in there to lie alone and forgotten for two hundred years.

The radio crackled again. ‘We have the body.’ Nick Frazer’s voice this time, steady and unemotional. ‘Hard to tell detail down here in such a dark and enclosed space. We need to bring him up.’ There was a pause. Holly could hear the indistinct mumble of voices in the background but not the individual words. Apprehension, anticipation, breathed gooseflesh down her spine. ‘Definitely male, probably about thirty years, rough dating suggests early nineteenth century.’ There was a pause. ‘Is Holly there?’

Iain passed the radio over.

‘Hi Nick,’ Holly said. She could feel herself holding her breath.

‘Mark said to tell you that you were right,’ Nick said. ‘There’s a pentant here, lying underneath the body. We think it must have been in his pocket before the material rotted away. It’s a type of navigational instrument,’ he added. ‘The sort a surveyor would use and it dates from about 1800. Oh, and I would say he was definitely murdered. There’s a blow to the head that would have killed him instantly.’