In the Garden of Sin (18 page)

“I… I passed myself off as one of Signor Vitturi’s novices when I learned you were going to be coming here with him, and I dressed like this so I could come along on the hunt. I desperately need to talk to you about—”

“Does he know about this ploy? Vitturi?”

“N-nay. Nay, he—”

“He shall find out about it as soon as I return to the château. I shouldn’t think he’ll be very pleased to have been played for a fool after everything he’s done for you.”

“Your Grace—” I began, but he was already striding away through the darkening woods.

“He loved you!”
I yelled desperately. “My uncle loved you, and look what you’ve done to him!”

Wheeling around, Buckingham stalked toward me, his face dark with fury. “Look what
I’ve
done to
him
? The lying dog betrayed me! He betrayed England! The bloody papist gave Spain advance warning of our Cádiz campaign.”

“Why do you think it was my uncle who told them?”

“I
know
it was your uncle. I have a coded letter that was sent to him from Olivares, which—”

“From whom?”

“Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimentel, Count of Olivares. He’s the favorite and chief minister of King Philip of Spain, and a powerful and impiteous man. The young king is but a puppet. ’Tis Olivares who pulls the strings. The letter leaves no doubt that Guy was spying for Spain, and had been for some time. ’Twas to that end that he manipulated my affections. He never loved me, but he tricked me into loving—” Buckingham’s voice broke; I saw not just anger but pain in his eyes. “He played me for a fool.”

“How do you know this letter was really from Olivares?” I asked.

“Aside from the fact that I know his handwriting, ’twas written on Spanish-style laid paper with a Spanish watermark, and it bore the royal seal of Spain. ’Twas most assuredly from Olivares.”

“If this letter was sent to my uncle, how did you come by it?” I asked.

“’Twas found amongst his belongings in a trunk he kept in my chamber.”

“Your bedchamber?”

The duke answered that with a withering glare.

“Who found it?” I asked.

“I don’t have to stand here and be interrogated by the likes of you.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “I think I already know.”

“Thank God you’re back,” Elle greeted when I entered
la Chambre des Voiles et des Miroirs
about an hour later. She wore black satin breeches with matching stays, and had a birch switch in her hand. “I can’t tell you how bored I’ve been. I hardly ever get bored with sex, but he’s just such an insipid little nit.”

On the training bed knelt a naked Jonas Knowles with his whip-striped bum in the air and his head and hands locked into the headboard stocks. His good looks did not extend to his body, which was terribly soft and pale compared to the virile beauty of Elic, Inigo… and, of course, Domenico.

“Who’s there?” asked Knowles, who was facing away from me.

With an expression of weary disdain, Elle raised the birch
and slapped it down onto Knowles’s posterior. “Did I give you leave to speak?”

“Nay, mistress. Pray pardon my insolence.”

I said, “’Tis I, Jonas.”

“Mistress Leeds?” he said excitedly. “Two of you! Splendid!”

“I’m afraid not, Jonas.” Extracting a big brass key from her bosom, Elle unlocked the stocks and raised the top half, which slid up through grooves in the bedposts. “Methinks you’ve had enough for one night.” Yawning, she added, “I know I have.”

I thanked Elle for her help in detaining Knowles and bade her good night; she kissed me on the cheeks and left. Knowles, coming down off the bed, gaped at my short dark hair and workingman’s costume. “My God, what have you done to yourself?”

“These must be yours,” I said, lifting a bundle of clothes and a pair of shoes from a chair and handing them to him.

“You aren’t one of those Moll Friths, are you?” he asked as he pulled his shirt down over his head. Moll Frith was a character in the play
The Roaring Girl
who dressed in men’s clothing.

“I wear disguises when my assignments call for them,” I said as I seated myself in the chair where the clothes had been.

“Assignments?”

I sat back and crossed my legs. “From our mutual master, the Count of Olivares.”

He stilled in the act of tugging on his breeches. After a couple of seconds, he pulled them up and started buttoning them. “Master? Olivares serves the king of Spain, which makes him an enemy of England.”

“And yet we both spy for him. I do it because of my Catholic sympathies. I suspect your motives are a bit less noble.”

“A spy? Me?”

“You tipped Spain off about England’s plan to attack Cádiz
and capture that fleet of galleons. Don’t deny it,” I said when he opened his mouth to do so. “Olivares himself told me ’twas you. And then, so that you could usurp Guy Goodchild’s place in the ducal bed, Olivares wrote that incriminating letter for you to plant in his trunk. In return, you were to exploit your position as the favorite of England’s chief minister to spy for Spain, but Olivares is displeased with your performance in that respect.”

Knowles, pulling on a stocking as he sat on the edge of the bed, looked up sharply.

I said, “He suspects your purpose in foiling the Cádiz expedition and framing Goodchild was merely to advance yourself within King Charles’s court and that you don’t give a fig about Spain. He sent me here in part to coax information out of Buckingham as to England’s intentions toward Spain and in part to find out why you can’t seem to do the job yourself.”

“But I
have
—” Knowles flushed. “I… I have no idea what you’re talking ab—”

“Jonas, ask yourself how I would know all this if Olivares hadn’t told me.” After all, how could a mere “lusty little light-skirt” have sorted out such intrigue on her own?

Knowles looked around nervously as he donned his doublet, trying to peer through the veiled gaps between the mirrors.

“There’s no one out there,” I assured him. “Would I be talking about this if there were? Believe me, I’ve no more desire to be arrested for treason than you do. You’re a cautious man, though. That’s
one
point in your favor.”

Rising from my chair, I went over to button his doublet, standing a good deal closer to him than was strictly necessary. “Cautious and clever,” I said, my voice pitched low. “Maneuvering your way into the duke’s bed was brilliant. Did Olivares suggest that, or was it your idea?”

“’Twas mine.” Leaning back against the bed, he closed his hands over my bum and pulled me even closer. “You should have seen Buckingham when I showed him the letter from Olivares to Goodchild. He blubbered like a baby, said except for losing King James, it was the most sorrowful thing that had ever happened to him, that he would never smile again. ’Twas all I could do to keep from bursting out laughing.”

Dear God
. “You fancy men and women both then, eh?”

“Nay, of course not,” he said, a note of disgust in his voice. “Buckingham’s the only man I’ve ever shared a bed with. To tell you the truth, it sickens me, the things he makes me do with him.”

“But ’tis the price you pay for your ambition, eh?”

Grinding slowly against me as he kneaded my bottom, he said, “What better way to gain preferment at court than to attach oneself to the most powerful courtier in England? He’s promised to knight me, and if I can continue to stomach… what I must stomach, I expect to be made viscount within the year, or at least baron.”

“And thus shall you serve your interests as you serve those of Spain, eh?”

“Spain—aye, of course! Of course.” Gripping me by the shoulders, he said, “You must tell Olivares that I shall endeavor to be more vigilant in digging up information for him. I’ve no desire to make an enemy of such a ruthless bastard.”

Raising my voice as I backed away from Knowles, I said, “Have you heard enough, Your Grace?”

Knowles stared, aghast, as the Duke of Buckingham stepped into the chamber flanked by two brawny Swiss Guards.

“I’ve heard more than enough,” the duke replied.

The guards wrestled Jonas Knowles into manacles and leg irons. As they half dragged their frantically gibbering prisoner from the room, Buckingham turned to me and said, “My most
sincere and humble thanks, Mistress Leeds. Your uncle will, of course, be released from the Tower and exonerated of all charges.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

“I don’t suppose he’ll want to see me, but if you would be so kind as to bring him a letter from me…”

“Of course.”

“I should never have trusted that snake Knowles. ’Twas my gullibility that landed Guy in the Tower. I don’t expect him to forgive me after what he’s been through, but I must make some gesture of appeasement. A title, perhaps. I could give him a barony.”

“I am certain he would be most appreciative.”

“Er…about what happened earlier, when we were alone in the woods… ’Twas shamefully crass on my part. I haven’t been myself since your uncle…”

“Don’t give it another thought, Your Grace.”

Monsieur Pépin, looking uncharacteristically glum, was waiting for me at the bottom of the tower stairs.

“Mademoiselle Leeds,” he said with a bow.

“Monsieur.”

“Signor Vitturi has asked me to have your belongings moved from his bedchamber back into yours.”

“Oh.”
Oh, God. So he’d heard. He knew everything
.

“And…” He sighed heavily. “I am to tell you that a carriage will be waiting outside the gatehouse at dawn tomorrow to transport you and two attendants to Calais. This,” he said, handing me a heavy kidskin purse, “should provide for your accommodations and your passage across the Channel.”

I looked inside the purse. “There’s…too much here, monsieur, far too much.”

“’Tis what the signore gave me to give you.”

I nodded as I looked down at the bulging purse, my heart like a brick in my chest.

“Je suis désolé
, mademoiselle.”

Me, too
.

UCH LATER, after the castle’s occupants had retired for the night, I eased open the door to the library, which was dark save for a corona of lamplight in the rear bay. I knew it must be Domenico with his nose in a book. He wasn’t in his bedchamber—I had just come from there—and the library was, after all, his favorite refuge.