Kissed by Shadows (19 page)

But they would probably await the outcome of the queen's pregnancy before making any such move, Lionel decided. In the meantime he would work on Robin of Beaucaire. The man had already established communication with the imprisoned Elizabeth and he would make a sound accomplice . . . once he had accepted that Lionel Ashton was in the right court. At the moment, Lionel was aware that Robin disliked him, and deeply distrusted whatever influence he seemed to have with his sister. Lionel would have to change his mind, and a friendly domestic supper was one good way to start. And Pippa would influence her brother. Robin would come to trust Lionel if his sister did.

He pushed the parchment aside and opened another. It was of a more personal nature. His brother-in-law wrote of his children, Lionel's nephews and nieces, Margaret's children.

They had burned Margaret the day after she had given birth to Judith, who was now three. It was Philip, on a mission to Flanders for his emperor father, who had personally denied her respite from the interrogators of the Inquisition. They had stretched her on the rack during her labor, in one last vile attempt to save her soul with a recantation. Margaret had not given it to them.

Lionel folded the letter, no expression on his countenance now. The rest of the correspondence was as he expected. Promissory notes and promises of arms and men in the event of an uprising in favor of Elizabeth. He held the documents over the candle flame and watched as the ends curled and the fire consumed them. A small pile of ashes lay on the table.

He brushed them into his cupped palm and cast them into the grate. The information, the code words, were now in his head. He would send his replies to Bruges on Captain Olson's trading vessel.

He left the tavern as unremarked as he had entered it. The evening air cleared his head, but he had retrieved his horse and ridden most of the way to his house before the darkness of memory had lifted sufficiently for him to face his guests.

Fifteen

Pippa was ready and waiting for Robin by seven o'clock. She paced her bedchamber, listening for sounds from Stuart's chamber, but there was only silence. She guessed that he had not gone to Mary with the request that Pen should be invited to court to visit his wife. She didn't really blame him, it would have been a futile errand that probably would have irritated the queen. But still, he might have made some effort to stand up for her, it was the least he could do in the circumstances.

Robin's knock made her heart jump and she realized how impatiently she'd been waiting for him. She grabbed up her cloak from the chest at the foot of the bed as Martha hurried to open the door.

“Are you ready?” Robin asked unnecessarily as she came across the chamber, clasping her cloak at her throat.

“Yes, I've been ready this age.” She made one final check of her appearance and could find no fault, then she turned back to Robin. Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “You look very tidy. Almost elegant.”

Robin was annoyed to feel his cheeks warm. “That's a backhanded compliment if ever I heard one.”

Pippa laughed. “It was not meant to be. It was sincerely meant. I was just a little surprised, you have no interest in sartorial matters.”

“Not in the way you and Stuart have, certainly,” he declared. “To hear the two of you chatter on about dress one would think it was the most important consideration in the world.”

“Well, sometimes it is,” Pippa retorted. “Thank you, Martha.” She took her gloves and fan from the maid. “I doubt I shall be late, but go to bed if you wish. If I need you I will ring when I return.”

“Yes, m'lady.” Martha curtsied. “I'll wait up for you. The nights are turning chilly, I'll have a fire kindled against your return.”

Pippa smiled her thanks and went out on Robin's arm. In the corridor she looked around her. The usual crowd of people were milling about, spilling into the wide hallway at the far end, clustered in arched doorways.

“Is it only Mary I'm forbidden to show myself to, or must I behave as if I'm invisible the minute I stick my nose out of my chamber?” Pippa murmured with a sarcastic smile.

Robin didn't know the answer, and it was a legitimate question. “Let's see if anyone acknowledges you,” he said, keeping his voice as low as hers. “As far as I know, there's been no general decree to ignore you.”

“Not yet,” Pippa returned. She walked with her head up, smiling slightly when she saw an acquaintance, but offering no verbal greeting. Her nods and smiles were acknowledged but she detected a certain stiffness to them. Not that she cared.

It was Stuart who would suffer the most. He would be showered with false sympathy, conversations would stop abruptly as he approached, he would overhear her name whispered. For a man whose currying favor with the Spaniards had already lost him friends and respect, it would rub salt into the wounds.

And for some reason she could find it in her heart to feel sorry for him.

Robin made a point of greeting acquaintances effusively, calling out to people, waving with cheerful insouciance, as they progressed out of the palace and down to the water steps.

“You'll find yourself in bad odor with the queen if you go on like that in my company,” Pippa remonstrated. “She'll see it as defiance.”

“I care not,” Robin said. “Ah, there's Jem. I sent him to hail a wherry for us.”

The page loped across the quay to his master. “I've found a nice clean one, sir.”

“Good lad.” Robin escorted Pippa to the steps. He ran a critical eye over the wherry that bobbed at the bottom of the steps. So many of the craft for hire were filthy, soiled with whatever cargo they had last carried, be it bloody carcasses, broken ale casks, or a crate of chickens or piglets. This one was swept, the decking dry, and the benches were covered with relatively clean sacking.

“This will do.”

He thought as he jumped down into the boat that it would have been nice if Ashton had offered to send his own barge to fetch them. Luisa, while trying to persuade him to take her downriver to Richmond one night, had waxed most eloquent on the barge's elegance and commodious seating. She had not taken kindly to his refusal to attempt such a journey in the dark of night, on a part of the river that was unfamiliar and known for its unpredictable currents and eddies. A stream of Spanish insults had fallen upon his head. Only to be as fervently withdrawn with a flood of apology.

Robin grinned slightly at the memory and wondered again how Luisa would manage herself this evening. It would be an interesting test of her resourcefulness, something in which he placed considerable faith.

“What's amusing you?” Pippa demanded, taking his proffered hand and stepping down beside him.

“Oh, just a passing thought,” he said airily. “The sacking seems clean enough.” He gestured to the thwart.

Pippa brushed it with her hand, then spread out the skirts of her cloak before she sat down. She regarded Robin closely. “Just a passing thought?”

“Aye.” He took the seat opposite her. Jem took his place in the stern with the boatman, who began to pull for midstream.

Robin didn't hesitate to deflect the conversation from his own thoughts. “What is it that you like so much about Lionel Ashton?” he asked directly. He was no more inclined than Pippa to tread lightly when it came to the welfare of those he loved.

“Who said I liked anything about him?”

“'Tis obvious, Pippa. The man is charged with overseeing your every move and you don't seem to resent it in the least. That's not like you.”

He paused, and when Pippa said nothing, continued a little diffidently. “It seems to me that there's something between you. This afternoon I noticed it. I would almost call it a closeness.”

He scrutinized her expression in the dusky gloom. He had a sense, a premonition almost, that Pippa was in some danger. He didn't know where it would come from or what it would be, but he could almost smell it in the air, and he had spent enough years living on his wits to know that smell as clearly as if it were the devil's sulphur.

“I do like him,” Pippa said. She could see little point denying it. There was no need to admit to anything else. “I don't know why. He seems to like me too.”

“I can understand that.” Robin leaned over, covering her gloved hands with his own. “But . . . but, Pippa, you must be careful. You're already out of favor at court. You are carrying your husband's child—”

“My husband is unfaithful to me.” Pippa interrupted him, sliding her hands free of his light grasp.

“You cannot be sure—”

“I am
certain.
” She stared at him, her eyes fixed, daring him to disagree with her.

In the face of that conviction Robin could only believe her. “I am sorry,” he said after a minute. “Truly sorry, Pippa.” Then, still hesitantly, he said, “But you know what they say about two wrongs?”

“Don't lecture me, Robin. You know nothing about it.” She looked up into the sky where the evening star was bright and a gibbous moon was rising over the trees lining the river.

He sighed. “Maybe not. But when it comes to family I'm all you've got for now, Pippa. I can't watch you do something that will ruin you.”

Pippa laughed suddenly. “Oh, how dramatic, Robin. I'm not going to be ruined! Surely it's good that I find my jailer a pleasant companion. You would not begrudge me some pleasure in his forced company?”

“No . . . no, of course not.”
Just not too much.
But Robin kept the addendum to himself. “When is the babe due?”

“I'm a little uncertain, but I would guess in late April or very early May,” she said. “I do appreciate your concern, Robin, but you must see that there's no need. Lionel has as much a care for my reputation as do you. You would not else have been here with me now. What could tongues find to wag about in a quiet supper party with a child and her duenna and me accompanied by my brother?”

Child?

Immediately diverted, Robin reached up to adjust the set of the plume on his flat velvet cap. He would gain nothing from Pippa with further questioning . . . at least not tonight. He flicked at the small ruff at his neck, lifting the lace edging with a fingertip. “You approve of my dress then?”

“Certainly. I am always telling you that you should wear blue. With eyes like yours it would be foolish to wear any other color.”

Robin shuffled his feet. “There is nothing special about my eyes.”

“Oh, yes, there is,” Pippa crowed. “They are the very twins of your father's. I doubt my mother would have fallen so readily for Lord Hugh if it hadn't been for his eyes.”

“Sometimes, for a sensible woman, you talk arrant nonsense,” Robin declared roundly.

“Oh, I am not always sensible,” Pippa said with a mischievous gleam in her eye. “But believe me, brother dear, you are not the only one to notice things about people. You are very different these days with your newfound interest in cleanliness and clothes. I would wager that you are courting.”

“More arrant nonsense!” Robin exclaimed.
He was not courting. Of course he was not.

“Those must be Ashton's water steps,” he called out a little too loudly. Pointing to the bank, he stood up too soon in his eagerness to have an end to this conversation, and the wherry rocked violently. He fell back heavily onto the thwart and his hat flew off.

Jem leaped for it, catching it the instant it was about to fall into the water.

“Oh, well done, Jem.” Pippa applauded. “That would have been a sad loss.”

Robin picked himself up and retrieved his cap if not his dignity. The wherry bumped the water steps and the man waiting for them above took the painter and made the boat fast.

Robin climbed up onto the quay, straightening his doublet, dusting off his cloak and hose. Pippa came up the steps lightly and joined him. She looked around her with interest.

The mansion threw light from its many windows across the sweep of lawn to the iron gate that separated the garden from the river. It was a substantial house, with a wide stone terrace and parapets. A beautifully outfitted barge was tied up at the steps.

Pippa nodded thoughtfully. Lionel Ashton, it seemed, was a wealthy man. Not that that was surprising. Most of the Spaniards who had come with Philip were rich. But as far as she knew none of them had London houses.

But then how many of them had wards to house?

“This way, my lady . . . my lord.” The man who had been waiting for them held a lantern high and preceded them through the iron gates. He wore a resplendent livery of green and silver. Robin sent Jem back with the wherry and followed Pippa and their guide. The grounds were familiar to him, but he had never entered the house, so it was easy for him to appear as unfamiliar and curious as Pippa.

Luisa turned around in front of her mirror of silvered glass. “Oh, Bernardina, do you think this mantilla goes with this gown? Should I not wear the green silk? See, there are threads of green in the embroidery here.” She picked at the embroidered flowers on her orange damask underskirt.

“My dear child, there is no need to get so excited,” Bernardina said, but with a fond smile. Luisa looked particularly well this evening. The gown of ivory velvet over the vibrant underskirt set off the warm pink glow of her complexion. She could well understand the girl's exhilaration, indeed felt some herself. They had been so long out of society.

It had been so long since there had been a truly lively conversation at the supper table. And she was looking forward to demonstrating her skills as chatelaine to Don Ashton. He would find that she had provided a most delectable repast for his guests, and he would see how perfectly his ward conducted herself in company.

“Did Don Ashton give you the names of his guests?” Luisa asked, unpinning the virginal white mantilla that she wore and reaching for the green silk.

“No, I had barely time to exchange a word with him. He was in a hurry on his way to dress.” Bernardina took pins from the dresser and began to arrange Luisa's mantilla to her satisfaction. The green against her black hair was very striking.

“But he did say they were brother and sister. There could be no objection from your dear mother to a family party.”

Luisa made a small moue of dismay. A brother and sister sounded like poor company. An elderly pair who kept house together, presumably. Don Ashton would, of course, go out of his way to find the most boring and respectable guests.

But even a brother and sister would be more enlivening company than dear Bernardina and her embroidery frame for an interminable evening. And if they were truly respectable enough even for Bernardina then a reciprocal invitation could be accepted. And maybe she would meet other people there.

Luisa's spirits, never down for long, rose on a surge of optimism. She would charm this dull and elderly pair with her wit, her sweet Spanish docility, and her music, and they would open the doors for her.

She flicked at the mantilla that Bernardina had pinned to her looped braids. “I do think it is better. Do you not?”

“Certainly,” the duenna agreed. “You have impeccable taste, my dear. You get it from your mother.”