Murder at Fontainebleau (12 page)

“Then what of the other man in the duel?” Kate asked.

“Monsieur Mamou?” Celeste said. “He went back to his own estate in the Languedoc and has not been seen at court since, which is probably most sensible of him. He is kin to Montmorency, the Guises' great rival, and it is surely best to see which way the wind is blowing before he returns. He danced with Amelia a few times and seemed to admire her, of course. Most men do. But to lose his senses in such a way? Very odd. Everyone knows the limits of how far a courtly flirtation can go.”

Did they? From what Kate had seen, both at Fontainebleau and in England, courtly flirtations flamed into destructive passions much too often. “Then why a duel, if neither man cared so very much for Mistress Wrightsman?”

Celeste gave a small catlike smile. “That,
chère
Mademoiselle Haywood, is certainly the question. I have heard that perhaps Monsieur Mamou, far from pursuing Amelia, had been casting aspersions on Jacques's family. A d'Emours would not stand for any scandal on his name.”

“Scandal? What sort of scandal?”

Celeste gave an elaborate shrug. “I do not know. His mother was most pious, they say, but his father something of a rogue. Not that such a thing is very unusual.”

A sudden blast of horns filled the domed chamber, echoing off the stone walls. It was unlike anything Kate had heard before. The shepherdesses melted away, and a procession of Lord James Stewart's Scots attendants appeared, led by two pipers.

Queen Mary followed on her brother's arm. She wore white again, a filmy silk with sheer sleeves trimmed with dark fur, and beamed with pleasure at the music. In her sunlike presence, it seemed as if Fontainebleau could not be a dark place, not filled with shadows that changed with every passing moment. Queen Mary seemed to trail laughter in her wake, even in the midst of her mourning.

Yet Kate had seen many times that light could conceal even more than could darkness.

She stopped near one of the half-open windows and peered outside at the cold night beyond. Most of the partygoers were inside watching the dancing now, but a few people moved through the flickering torchlight outside, their laughter a faint echo on the wind.

But one of those people was not laughing. Kate glimpsed Amelia's golden hair and pale satin gown. She stood facing a taller man, her hands curled into fists. She seemed to shout something, words Kate couldn't catch. Amelia tried to turn and leave, but the man caught her arm and spun her back to face him.

Kate saw that it was Monsieur d'Emours, his expression blank and tight. He did not seem as angry as Amelia did, but he did not let her go. Kate started to go to her just as Amelia jerked her arm free and laughed up into his face.

Before Kate could do anything, Amelia vanished into the night, leaving d'Emours to stare after her. Their argument had been brief yet obviously intense. A burst of pipe music caught her attention, and when she looked back outside, d'Emours too had vanished.

 • • • 

“What do you think of France, then, Kate?” Rob asked as they strolled across the marble terrace that looked out over the night-dark gardens. The party had ended an hour before, but Kate found she didn't yet want to retire, and Rob felt the same.

She studied the view before them. Many of the lanterns strung through the trees to light the way to the pavilion had gone out and most of the revelers had escaped the cold night to find their own firesides, but there still seemed to be a sort of magic hovering over the gardens, like a mist caught on the branches, a trace of laughter fading into the sky.

“There is certainly great beauty here,” she said. “So much art and music, I am dizzy with it all! Fontainebleau itself is lovely beyond compare. Yet I do prefer England.”

“Why is that?” Rob asked. “Because of Queen Elizabeth?”

“Because of the queen, of course. And other English
things.” She thought of the queens here at Fontainebleau. Queen Mary, with her beauty and charm, her feminine delicacy, the way she seemed to want only to laugh and work at her embroidery and shied away from authority. And Queen Catherine, the very opposite, so strong and sure. They were certainly potential formidable foes for Queen Elizabeth, depending on which way the French winds blew.

Yet could they not be formidable allies, a bulwark against the cold ambitions of men like the Guise?

That vision she sometimes had of a comfortable London hearth with Anthony, a life with no queens and no Guise-like families, shimmered. She pushed it away. “Also,” she added, “because France seems so very old. Tired, mayhap. England seems new.”

“New?” Rob said with a laugh. “A country that has been there for centuries?”

Kate laughed, too. “So it has. But so very much has changed with the Tudors, with Queen Elizabeth. There is a new freedom, yes?”

“And Queen Mary? She is also of Tudor blood. Do you think she could bring such a newness to Scotland, if she returned?”

“Queen Mary is charming indeed. I have never been to Scotland, but they say it is rather a rough place. I can't imagine she would find much of France there.”

“I am sure she would find gallants eager to serve her wherever she went, even to the wilds of Scotland,” Rob said, a wry tone to his voice.

Surprised, Kate glanced up at him. “Do you still
not like Queen Mary, Rob?” That was most strange—Rob always liked ladies, especially pretty ones.

He smiled down at her, but it looked too much, too theatrical. “I like her as well as any man here. She is, as you say, charming, and most beautiful. But as a queen . . .”

“Mistress Haywood! Thank the stars—there you are. I need your help.”

She turned to see Lady Barnett rushing toward them, closely followed by Celeste Renard and two maidservants. Lady Barnett looked as if she had been preparing to retire, for her hair was loose, her silver satin sleeves removed and a knitted shawl wrapped around her shoulders, slipping away even as Brigit ran after her, trying to fix it. Her eyes were wide and frantic.

“Oh, Mistress Haywood, Master Cartman! I am so glad to have found you,” Lady Barnett cried. “Have you seen Amelia?”

“Mistress Wrightsman?” Kate said, trying to remember the party and the last time she had seen Amelia, which had been during the dancing. “Nay, not since just after the party.”

Lady Barnett glanced back at Celeste. Mademoiselle Renard was still dressed in her fine purple silk gown, her hair caught up in its ruby bandeau, not a strand out of place.

“Has she not returned to your rooms at all, Lady Barnett?” Rob asked gently.

Lady Barnett shook her head. “She returned to the
château with me, but then she said she had left her fur muff at the pavilion and went to retrieve it.”

“I offered to go with her,” Celeste said. “But she said she would not keep me from my bed, that it would only take her a moment to fetch it herself, as she knew where it was.”

“Yet that was long ago!” Lady Barnett wailed. “And no one has seen her. Henry is playing cards with Sir Nicholas, and I dare not disturb him. He would just say she is being frivolous and flighty again.”

Kate exchanged a worried look with Rob. Amelia might seem frivolous, true, but Kate knew that truly she was not. Also, she had been arguing with the chilly Monsieur d'Emours.

“Shall we go see if she is at the pavilion, Lady Barnett?” Rob asked.

“Oh, would you?” Lady Barnett said with a relieved sigh. “Celeste and I will search with some of Queen Mary's ladies—she has many friends there—and Brigit can ask the servants.”

“Of course, Lady Barnett,” Kate said, giving her a reassuring smile, even though she herself felt distinctly uneasy. It was true that Amelia had many friends—and Fontainebleau was a vast place. She surely had just gone off to play cards or to hear some music or to chase a lady-in-waiting's dog around the gardens.

She followed Rob down the steps and into the
jardin anglais
that led to the pond. It was silent and dark, lit by only a few of the more stubborn lanterns in the trees.

They said nothing as they made their way along the pathway to the pavilion. The night had grown colder, every small noise louder in the frost, the bare tree branches clicking in the wind. At the edge of the pond the abandoned boats bobbed at their moorings, their festive wreaths wilting and ribbons trailing in the water. There was no one there at all.

Yet there was still a light glowing in one of the pavilion windows, flickering on the water.

“Should we go look in there?” Rob said. “If she has a rendezvous with someone . . .”

“With a suitor, you mean?”

Rob gave a wry laugh. “I am sure they would not wish to be interrupted.”

Kate nodded. Amelia's romantic life was indeed complicated, but her behavior the past few days had been puzzling. One moment so merry and laughing; the next fearful, sad. “She should know her aunt is looking for her, at least, before Lady Barnett alarms more people in the household. They have been through such scandal before. I do think . . .”

Her attention was suddenly caught by a pale flash against the dark shore of the pond, the water lapping against the reeds. She hurried over to examine it, and found it was Amelia's silver fox-fur muff.

Shivering with a new foreboding, she knelt down and turned it over, half fearing she'd spot blood marring the beautiful fur, but it was only water staining the fine edges. Surely Amelia had dropped it in the
confusion of leaving the boats and then became distracted when she came back to look for it.

Then Kate noticed something else. There was a tear where the diamond brooch of the Guise badge had been. The shimmering jewels were gone now.

She stood and studied the pavilion across the water. “Perhaps we
should
look for Amelia there.”

Rob gave a grim nod. He untied the nearest boat and helped Kate climb onto its narrow seat, its soft cushions now gone. He pushed them away from the shore, and for a moment there was only the sound of the oars cutting through the waters.

Kate studied the scene around them, so different now than it had been at the party, so empty and haunted. She and Rob seemed all alone in the dark, cold world, even though a palace full of people was just beyond the trees. Kate slid closer to his reassuring warmth on the narrow seat, and he reached out to give her hand a small squeeze.

Her breath caught in her throat, almost choking her, when she saw something pale break the shadowy ripples of the water. “Rob, over there!”

He rowed toward it in silence. Kate leaned over the edge of the boat and gave a choked cry as she realized it was exactly as she feared.

Reaching out, she grabbed a handful of Amelia Wrightsman's white brocade skirt, now buoyant with trapped air. It was what had kept her afloat, facedown in the dark waves. She tried to drag Amelia closer, but she was too heavy, and Kate herself almost toppled into the pond.

“Help me,” she sobbed, half hoping this was just a nightmare, even as she knew it was much too real.

“Nay, my love, let me,” Rob said softly. “You steady the oars, and don't look.”

Kate nodded, trying to hold back her tears. They would help no one now, and she had to keep a cool head. As he leaned over the side of the boat, she held the oars and studied the shore. There was no one there at all, no clue as to how Amelia had ended up where she was.

Kate glanced back as Rob pulled the body from the pond and laid it gently in the bottom of the boat. Water flooded Kate's boots and the hem of her skirt. Before Rob covered Amelia with his cloak, Kate glimpsed her face. It was as white as ice in the moonlight, her lilac-hued lips parted and her eyes wide-open, staring at the night sky. Her hair was loose and tangled with leaves, matted with dried blood at the back, and her fine gown was torn away from the shoulder.

There was that perfect stillness, that utter absence, that Kate remembered all too well from seeing death before. She remembered Amelia laughing and dancing, her frantic, frivolous energy only a few hours before.

And the tears when she warned Kate against trusting love.

Swallowing back the bitter rush of tears, Kate looked away, back toward the pavilion. The light flickered in the window and a shadow passed in front of it before it suddenly went out.

“I think there is someone there!” she cried.

Rob took back the oars and quickly steered them
toward the small island. By the time they ran into the pavilion, they found it completely empty, aside from the smear of a dark stain on the marble steps. Yet there was still one torch lit in its iron wall sconce, flickering from the wind that rushed through an open window. The tapestries stirred, and dried leaves brushed across the bare floor.

Kate ran to peer out the open window, yet she could see nothing outside except the empty water and the waning moonlight. It was as if Amelia had already become a ghost.

“H
ow could this have happened to Amelia? Everyone admires her! She never hurt anyone at all,” Lady Barnett wailed. She sat huddled by the fire in the Barnetts' small sitting room. It had been only about an hour since Rob had carried Amelia's body back to the palace, but a large pile of crumpled handkerchiefs lay in Lady Barnett's lap. Her face, free of the fashionable cosmetics she usually wore, looked worn and lined with grief, her eyes wide with shock.

Mistress Berry, who stood at Lady Barnett's shoulder with a bottle of smelling salts, handed her another square of linen. “I am quite sure it was an accident, Jane. Amelia had consumed a great deal of wine tonight. She probably tripped and hit her head and then fell into the water.”

Sir Henry, who sat beside his wife but never offered her a consoling touch, nodded. His bearded face beneath his white nightcap was grim. “I fear that must have been what happened.”

Kate glanced at Queen Catherine's doctor, Monsieur Folie, who had joined Rob, the Barnetts, Mistress Berry, and her in the room. He had been roused to look at the body, which had been placed in one of the cold underground storage rooms beneath the kitchens, and had then joined the Barnetts. He wore his fine fur-trimmed night robe and a linen cap, but he did not look as if he had just been roused from his bed. He looked most thoughtful, even interested, and Kate wondered what he had found.

Sir Nicholas Throckmorton had been sent for and had not yet arrived. Kate thought of his general exasperation toward women, from Queen Mary on down, and the way he insisted their foolish behavior made his work in France so much more difficult. What would he say about Amelia Wrightsman turning up so inconveniently dead in the royal pond? Would it even be important enough to make him leave his rooms at such a cold, dark hour?

Perhaps Brigit Berry was correct, Kate thought, and Amelia had only met with a terrible accident. Amelia
had
been full of merriment that night, dancing and drinking wine, but her mirth had been frantic, her laughter edged. An accident of this sort made sense, but more than that, it would create one less difficulty in a royal court that was already overflowing with complications.

Yet something kept tugging at her mind, telling her it was not that simple. The light. The shadow. There
was something she could not quite catch hold of, her mind too fuzzy with tiredness and sadness.

She shivered as she remembered Amelia's blank eyes, the dried blood matting her hair. Rob put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him, and she was glad she had someone to lean on. That she was not completely alone in this strange country, surrounded by people she barely knew and all their secrets. So very many secrets.

“What would my sister say?” Lady Barnett whispered. “I promised I would keep her daughter safe.”

Mistress Berry silently handed her the bottle of smelling salts.

The door suddenly opened and Sir Nicholas appeared there, hastily dressed in mismatched hose and doublet, his hair tangled. Charles was behind him, grim-faced but still dressed in his fine black velvet from the party. Beside him was Toby Ridley. Poor Master Ridley was anything but composed, clad only in his night robe, his eyes feverish in his white face. Charles tried to hold him back, but he surged forward.

“Where is she?” he shouted. “I must see her!”

Sir Nicholas gave him a narrow-eyed glare full of disdain, but it was Sir Henry who answered, surprisingly gently. “She has been taken to a suitable place and treated with great decency. Please, Master Ridley, do sit down here with us.”

“I will not!” Toby cried. Kate could see he was beyond reason, crazed with grief. Another emotion, too, lay
beneath the surface, but Kate couldn't make out what it was. Charles took his arm in a firm grasp and whispered something in his ear as he led him toward the fire. Toby at first stiffened, as if he would snatch his arm away from his friend and fight him, run away, but then he crumpled like a piece of cloth in the winter wind. He suddenly looked very young, devastated. Charles helped him sit down on a stool, and Mistress Berry poured him a goblet of wine.

“Now it only remains to find out what really happened,” Sir Henry said.

“We will have to do it quickly, then, or at least agree on a plausible tale,” Sir Nicholas said. “For Queen Mary is on her way here as we speak.”

“Queen Mary?” Sir Henry cried, leaping from his seat. “What can she know of this sad event already, at such an hour?” He shot an accusing glance at Queen Catherine's doctor, who merely shrugged.

Sir Nicholas shook his head with a scowl. “One of these infernal ladies-in-waiting, I am sure. They have nothing better to do than prowl the corridors at all hours, hunting for gossip to carry back to the queen.”

“But what could be her interest?” Sir Henry growled. “My wife's niece was just an English visitor, and a silly, insignificant one at that.”

Kate, too, was rather surprised to hear that Queen Mary herself was on her way to the Barnetts' rooms before dawn. Yet she could not agree that Amelia was only an insignificant visitor, not with her involvement with a kinsman to the Guise.

“Queen Mary was very fond of Amelia—you know that, Henry. The queen is a kind lady who takes much interest in her friends.” Lady Barnett sniffled. “Everyone was Amelia's friend.”

The door opened again without so much as a knock, and Queen Mary swept in, followed by several ladies, including Celeste. Queen Mary was not yet dressed in her courtly garments and wore only a deep-coral-colored velvet gown trimmed with sable, her auburn hair tumbling over her shoulders. She looked even more beautiful in this simple gown than in her queenly robes, but the usual welcoming smile on her face was absent, replaced by a white marblelike coldness.

“I have heard of what happened to my friend Mademoiselle Wrightsman,” Queen Mary said, each word clipped and steely. Her amber gaze flickered over the company, touching each person as if to memorize his or her expression, and landed on Queen Catherine's doctor. Her eyes narrowed. “You have seen her, I presume, Dr. Folie? What news of her are you carrying back to my mother-in-law?”

Dr. Folie bowed low, his own expression hidden by his cap. “I fear I have not yet had time for a proper examination, Your Majesty.”

“Then you must
make
time immediately,” Queen Mary snapped. “I have many enemies creeping around me now that I have lost my husband and am unprotected. Mademoiselle Wrightsman was known to be my friend. What if they attacked her because of that?”

“Your Majesty,” Sir Nicholas said soothingly. Kate
remembered how even he was charmed by Queen Mary's feminine delicacy, though he was careful not to approach her too closely now. “We are certain Mistress Wrightsman was merely the victim of a sad accident.”

Mary's hands clenched into fists, and Kate could see how much she looked like Queen Elizabeth—right before Elizabeth threw something at someone's head. “How can that be, Sir Nicholas? Why would she be at the pavilion when everyone else was gone? Surely she was lured there! Perhaps they thought she had information about me or my family. Perhaps they . . .”

She suddenly whirled around to face Toby Ridley, who still sat crumpled on his stool, seemingly oblivious to everything around him. She pointed one slender white finger at him, and he looked up, startled.

Kate had the unpleasant sensation she was trapped in a scene of a play and could not get out. Mary had Elizabeth's Tudor genius for setting a tableau, for the drama of every moment, but it was not so amusing in real life as it was on the stage.

“You pursued her, I know,” Queen Mary said. “And she sent you away again and again. Everyone knows this, Monsieur Ridley. Perhaps you killed her because of this.”

Toby's eyes widened in horror. “I cared about Amelia, 'tis true enough. I would never have hurt her!”

Mary would not relent. “Mayhap you were caught in a great fit of passion—or mayhap you are in the pay of my cousin, or people who would seek to discredit me in her eyes. I know you English are always watching,
watching. Waiting to send foul lies back to your queen, to ruin the friendship that should be between us.”

Sir Nicholas and Sir Henry exchanged alarmed glances, as if this was what they had feared all along here at Fontainebleau. A rupture between the two cousin queens.

“I would never do such a thing,” Toby cried.

“Your Majesty,” Sir Henry said soothingly, or at least what Kate assumed he
thought
was soothing. It sounded more as if he were trying to back away from a mad dog. “I am honored you consider my niece a friend, and truly we will do all in our power to have justice for her. She met with an accident—”

“Accident!” Queen Mary shouted. “I am no fool, Sir Henry. I have been a queen since I was a week old, and even then your England tried to destroy me and my mother. Now
pauvre
Amelia has paid the price. Either you find who did this, or I will. Even my own cousin's servants must pay the price for such an evil.”

She whirled around and left the chamber as she had entered it, like a storm rumbling across the sky. Celeste gave Toby a quick, pained glance and Kate a sympathetic smile, and followed the queen. The door slammed behind them. The royal doctor also swiftly took his leave, and the room fell into a heavy silence.

Toby broke down into audible sobs, and at Sir Nicholas's urging, Charles led him away. Mistress Berry mixed some herbs into a goblet of wine and handed it to Lady Barnett, who was sniffling into her handkerchief.

Rob led Kate from the room, slipping out while the Barnetts were distracted. “Shall I see you to your chamber?” he asked. “I am supposed to meet Thomas.”

Kate shook her head. “I will be well enough. Thank you, Rob.” She felt too confused, too restless, to be alone in her room, yet when Rob walked away, she wasn't sure where to go next. Where to look for answers. She longed for a moment alone to think.

“Mistress Haywood,” Sir Nicholas called, “will you walk with us for a moment?”

Kate glanced back to find Sir Nicholas and Charles coming up the stairs behind her. Gray-faced and solemn, they both looked as weary as she felt. She longed for her bed, but she knew it would still be long before sleep could find her. She nodded and followed them into an empty corridor.

“What think you of this sad business tonight?” Sir Nicholas asked.

Kate was rather surprised he'd asked her—a mere female—her opinion of anything. But, then again, he was facing a serious complication, one where as many watching eyes and listening ears as possible would be an asset. “Mistress Wrightsman was kind to me,” she said carefully. “And Lady Barnett seems most grief-stricken.”

“It could be a dangerous thing for Queen Elizabeth,” Sir Nicholas snapped.

“Toby is one of the queen's own emissaries,” Charles said. “If it was thought he killed one of Queen Mary's friends . . .”

“Charles says that a lady can go places where we cannot,” Sir Nicholas said, with great reluctance in his tone. “Queen Mary would be more unguarded with a woman.”

“Queen Catherine as well,” Charles added.

Sir Nicholas gave a snort. “Nay, never Queen Catherine. She is never unguarded, perhaps not even in her sleep. But you could be of much assistance to us in this dire situation, Mistress Haywood.”

Kate nodded. She was not as known as the Throckmortons; people were not as careful in what they said around her, and she was trained to watch and listen closely without being observed. But a woman was dead under suspicious circumstances. Surely everyone would be doubly wary now, and she herself would have to watch her path most carefully. “I could send a message to Queen Mary tomorrow, begging leave to bring some books of music to her.”

Sir Nicholas gave a terse nod. “That would be best. Queen Mary does like her frivolities. It is best to distract her now, before her accusations damage our delicate negotiations here.”

Kate remembered being shoved against the railing on the ship, the rush of raw fear, and she swallowed hard before she nodded. “I will do my best, Sir Nicholas. I am here to serve Queen Elizabeth however I
can.”