Murder at Fontainebleau (8 page)

She closed the trunk and went to open the little window set high in the curved stone wall. She found herself looking down on an exquisite garden, all carefully symmetrical flower beds and trees in silver pots, along
with another wing of the palace. In the distance she glimpsed a pond, as smooth and silvery as glass, with a beautiful little summerhouse set on an island at its center. How she wished her father could have seen it; she was sure he would have been inspired to compose a lovely song.

There was a knock at the door, interrupting her bittersweet musings, and servants brought in pitchers of water for washing and a goblet of fresh wine. They also brought a note from Charles Throckmorton, asking if he could escort her to meet with his kinsman Sir Nicholas as soon as possible.

There was work to be done.

 • • • 

Where is he?

Amelia Wrightsman paced along the path winding beside the decorative pond in the palace gardens, anxiously scanning the horizon. She barely noticed the mud clinging to her satin hem, or the cold wind that tugged her hair loose from her headdress. It would be full dark soon, and she was expected to help her aunt retire.

But she couldn't leave until she talked to him. Surely he knew she was here now; he knew she would wait for him here, in their old place.

She swung around and stared across the rippling water to the marble pavilion set on an island at the pond's center. It was a shimmering white in the gathering dusk, and for an instant she thought she saw a light flash in one of its windows. She had a wild thought of
finding a boat, of rowing herself across the pond to hide in those stone rooms. She laughed at herself even as she desperately wished she
could
run away.

There was nowhere to run. She had made her choice long ago, and she had to finish it.

A fallen branch crackled somewhere in the trees beyond the pond path. Her heart pounding, Amelia whirled around. A bird took off from a skeletal-bare branch.

“Only a bird,” she whispered.

She started pacing again, twisting her hands together. Surely he wasn't coming now; it was too late. Too late for so many things. She would have to find another way.

As she neared the turn of the path that would take her back to the palace, she heard another sound, this one softer, lighter. A man stepped out from behind the trees, but it was not who she was expecting.

She had not even an instant to smooth her expression into her usual mask of female frivolity, the mask that always served her very well. Who would ever suspect a silly young lady who thought only of gowns and dances? She flashed a flirtatious smile, but feared it was too late for cover.

“Were you expecting someone else, Mistress Wrightsman?” Charles Throckmorton asked, his dark brow arched.

Amelia did not like Charles. He always seemed to see too much, know too much, and say far too little. “I was merely taking a bit of fresh air, Master
Throckmorton,” she said with a laugh. “Mayhap you have a rendezvous here? I was just leaving, so you will have the gardens all to yourself for your wooing. A fair Frenchwoman, perhaps? One of Queen Catherine's ladies? They are renowned for their great charm.”

She knew her words were only teasing, though, and she saw they found their mark as his jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed. Charles was a handsome man, but, like his uncle, he was a serious one. Always intent on work and studies. She wasn't sure he even liked women. He was not easy to read, as most men were. Not easy to fool.

She had to be wary of him.

“You should leave him alone, Mistress Wrightsman,” he said quietly.

Him? Did Charles know?
Nay,
she assured herself,
he couldn't possibly know.
But she shivered with a cold feeling of doubt. “Whoever do you mean?”

“Toby, of course. You can only hurt him.”

Amelia laughed. So he did
not
know. He was only trying to protect his friend. Toby Ridley was a sweet man, so earnest and attentive. She feared she hurt him just by being, but there could be no help for that. Not now. “I would never hurt him. He is a kind man, and they are a rare breed in this world.”

“Indeed he is. That is why I would beseech you to leave him alone. I know you could never care for him as he does you.”

Charles was right about that. Amelia had only ever cared for one man, cared too deeply, too passionately.
And look at the trouble it had brought her. Jacques d'Emours had been like poison, and she had yet to find the antidote.

Suddenly angry, she whirled away from Charles and started toward the palace. “You must speak to your friend, then, Master Throckmorton, not me. I cannot be responsible if others are so foolish as to leave their hearts open.”

“Just think on what I have said, Mistress Wrightsman,” he called after her. “I know you have a heart, too, hidden there somewhere. There is much you do not show to the world.”

Amelia didn't answer him. She felt confused, frightened even, but she couldn't let Charles Throckmorton see that. She lifted the mud-stained hem of her gown and ran toward the reassuring lights of the palace.

Her messages would have to wait for another day.

She hurried up the winding staircase that led to her aunt's chamber, hoping she might have a moment to compose herself before Aunt Jane called for her. Yet she found she was not alone as she turned along the corridor. The musician, Mistress Haywood, was there, walking along with her lute in her hands.

“Mistress Wrightsman,” she said. She looked as startled to find someone else in the corridor as Amelia was herself. “Are you well? You look flushed.”

Amelia nodded. She did envy Mistress Haywood, with her quiet composure, her calm watchfulness. Her work as a court musician, work that was all her own. How lovely such a life would be, dependent on no one.
Free to love as one chose. “I am very well. Thank you, Mistress Haywood. I was just taking a walk in the gardens and hurried back when I realized how late it was.”

“The gardens here are so very beautiful,” Mistress Haywood agreed. She studied Amelia's face carefully and said hesitantly, “Mistress Wrightsman, if you wish to tell me something—if you need assistance with anything . . .”

For an instant, Amelia wished she
could
confide in Kate Haywood. To share her secrets would be like a great burden lifted. But it was too dangerous. She had no one she could trust now.

She laughed lightly and turned toward her aunt's door. She could hear Aunt Jane now, arguing with Brigit. “La, Mistress Haywood, but surely you know a lady must always have a few secrets! It is part of her rare allure. I bid you good night.”

“Good night, Mistress Wrightsman.”

Amelia could feel the musician watching her carefully, and she made herself smile even brighter and wave as she slipped through the door.
There is nowhere to be alone in this world at all,
she thought with a
sigh.

K
ate could hear the echo of music as they made their way along the wide corridor that led to Queen Mary's apartments, though she could not recognize the song.
“Mignonne allons voir si la rose,”
a lady sang, high, sweet, and clear.

Ahead of her walked the Barnetts and Mistress Wrightsman, trailed by Mistress Berry. Lady Barnett chattered happily to her husband, but Amelia seemed preoccupied, as if her thoughts were far away. Toby Ridley and Charles Throckmorton followed them, and once Toby tried to take Amelia's arm, to speak to her, but she shook him away. Kate remembered how Amelia had looked when she encountered her in the corridor last night, her face flushed, hair mussed, out of breath. She had looked a bit upset, unhappy, before she covered it in a bright smile. That smile was still in place today.

Kate brought up the end of their little procession with Rob and Thomas. She studied the gold-and-white-paneled walls, glittering and elegant, and she felt a
nervous flutter deep inside. Rob grinned down at her, and she smiled back, glad she was not alone there.

Liveried servants opened a set of double doors to usher them through. A steward announced, “Sir Henry Barnett of the court of England,
pour la reine
.”

Sir Henry bowed, and Lady Barnett and Amelia dipped into low, elegant curtsies. Kate hastened to follow them, studying the chamber from beneath her lashes. At the end of the room was a raised dais that displayed an ornately carved chair softened with velvet cushions. It was surmounted by a canopy of state: crimson velvet embroidered with thistles, fleur-de-lis, and the rose of England. A few ladies sat on the carpeted steps of the dais, but no one was in the chair.

“Sir Henry! Lady Barnett,
chère
Amelia,” a musical voice called from the crowd. “You have returned at last. I have been so eager to hear all the news from my English cousin.”

“We bring messages of great condolence from Her Majesty, Your Grace's own cousin, as well as from many of her courtiers in this sad time,” Sir Henry said with a low bow.

The thick knot of people parted to allow a lady to pass through. Kate glimpsed a beautiful set of virginals near one of the tall windows, a beautifully painted instrument even finer than the set Queen Elizabeth had inherited from her mother, Queen Anne.

But the beauty of the instrument was imminently suited to the lady who had been playing on its keys and now stood before them. Kate realized it could be
none other than Queen Mary herself, and the rumors of her loveliness had not been exaggerated.

Queen Mary was surpassing tall, perhaps even taller than Rob, who was the tallest man Kate knew. She was as slim as a willow wand in a white silk gown. Kate remembered that French queens were meant to wear white in mourning, the
deuil blanc
, and that Queen Mary was said to have brought bad fortune by wearing the color at her wedding to King Francis a year and a half ago.

This gown was unadorned by any embroidery or fine jewels, as the wedding gown had been described, but was plainly styled and untouched by any color except a sable around her shoulders for warmth.

The style suited her slim figure and marblelike skin perfectly, and Kate wondered if perhaps that was why Queen Mary clung to the white when it was said Queen Catherine would only wear black, in the Italian style. Queen Mary's pale skin was set off by curls of red hair, dark auburn rather than Queen Elizabeth's red-gold. They were clustered in ringlets around her high forehead and drawn back beneath a small white cap draped with a sheer veil.

Her long, straight nose and small rosebud mouth looked much like Queen Elizabeth's, surely a Tudor inheritance from their grandmother Queen Margaret. She smiled as she held out her hand to Sir Henry, and for an instant the whole room hushed, as if her smile dazzled like a sudden burst of sun.

Kate, too, found that she could not look away from
the queen. Her royal smile seemed to draw everyone in, making them feel as if they fell into a secret world where all was beautiful. It was quite an astonishing quality.

Kate realized that she had to be on her guard with this queen if her charm was exactly as rumored.

Sir Henry cleared his throat. “If Her Grace will permit me to speak the words her royal cousin has entrusted to me . . .”

“No more of these formalities, I beg you, Sir Henry,” Queen Mary said in English, her voice low and sweet, full of laughter. “We are old friends now, are we not? I want to hear all your news! And of my cousin—everything.”

Queen Mary raised Lady Barnett and Amelia, kissing them on each cheek and exclaiming over their gowns. Mistress Berry hovered behind them and leaned over to whisper something short in Toby's ear. He shook his head, frowning.

“We are all in mourning, as you see,” Queen Mary said, gesturing to her crowd of courtiers in their sea of black, gray, and violet. “But you shall make us cheerful again!” Her gaze swept over the rest of the English party, her smile widening with an expression of perfect delight, as if she had been waiting days to see each of them. “I do not know all your friends, my dear Sir Henry. Though of course I do remember the handsome Monsieur Ridley.”

The queen laughed and reached out to tap Toby's
arm lightly with her black feather fan. He smiled, his freckled cheeks turning red, and Amelia scowled.

Sir Henry set about making the introductions. When he came to Kate, she dipped into a low curtsy as Lady Barnett and Amelia had. As she glanced up, she noticed that Queen Mary's eyes, which seemed focused now directly on her, were an extraordinary sparkling amber-brown. She held out her hand for Kate to kiss and waved for her to rise.

“You play music for my cousin queen, Mademoiselle Haywood?” Queen Mary asked.

Kate nodded, suddenly struck mute. The queen's smile was dazzling indeed, her tone most interested. “I do, Your Grace.”

“I want so much to know her favorite songs! Does she play the virginals? The lute? Does she sing?”

Kate nodded. “She plays both, Your Grace, but she rarely sings. I would be honored to perform a few English songs for you, and to learn the fashionable music here in France to take back to Queen Elizabeth.”

Mary beamed. “There is surely no better means of communication between two human spirits than music! I long to meet my cousin in person. As two queens in one isle, we would have much to discuss. For now, I suppose I must content myself with asking questions of those who know her.”

“I was also charged by Queen Elizabeth to pass on a message of deepest condolences to Your Grace,” Kate said. She glanced past the queen to see her courtiers
watching them with curious eyes and whispers of speculation. Surely they wondered why the queen was speaking with her, an unknown at their court, for so long.

But Kate was accustomed to such glances, such whispers. She knew she had to pay them no heed and go on about her own business, Queen Elizabeth's business.

Tears shimmered in Queen Mary's eyes, and she raised a lacy handkerchief to dab at them. “She is most kind. It has been a grievous loss. And so soon after my dearest
maman
died, too! I knew my poor husband since we were children. We have been sweethearts for so long. I am lost without him.” She turned and held out her hand to a man who stood at the edge of the crowd. “I am most fortunate to have my family with me at such a dark hour. Sir Henry, have you met my brother, Lord James Stewart?”

Kate studied the man with great interest. She didn't know how she could have missed him before. Like his half sister, Lord James would stand out in any gathering. He was a large man, tall, broad-shouldered, with a bright red beard. He was dressed expensively in purple velvet striped in black and gold. His manner as he greeted Sir Henry was bluff and hearty, most friendly, but Kate remembered what Cecil had said about him. He played the game from every side.

“You shall play for us later, Mademoiselle Haywood?” Queen Mary said as she turned to lead Sir Henry and Lady Barnett away. “A favorite song of my dear English cousin?”

“Of course, Your Grace,” Kate said with another curtsy.

“All of you must try the wine—it is from my own vineyard at Joinville.” On her brother's arm, Mary led the Barnetts to her dais, where she settled herself in her fine chair to talk with them quietly.

The French crowd quickly took up their talk again, watching the new English arrivals with curious eyes. Rob took two goblets of the golden wine from a page and handed one to Kate.

“What do you think of the Scots queen, then, Kate?” he said, studying the room over the edge of his own goblet.

“She is as charming as they say,” Kate answered cautiously. She watched Queen Mary as she talked to the Barnetts, her lovely marble-white face intent, her beguiling smile flashing. “And as beautiful.”

“Beautiful,” Rob said wryly. “Aye, she is that.”

Kate studied him curiously. He did not seem infatuated with the queen as everyone else was. “Do you not like Queen Mary?”

“I do not know her to say I like or dislike,” Rob answered. “She is a queen and seems a different one from Queen Elizabeth. Surely we know from our plays that there is more than one way to rule a country.”

Kate studied Queen Mary again, turning his words and those of Cecil over in her mind. Queen Mary
did
have a different air about her from Queen Elizabeth. Queen Mary had been a queen since she was a newborn, raised in these luxurious French palaces, cossetted,
petted, pleased—and learning to please in return. She had a comfort in her fine and sophisticated surroundings, a sort of regal informality that could come only from always knowing exactly where she belonged, knowing her high worth to everyone around her.

Elizabeth had never known such a life. Since her mother was executed when she was three, she had been in danger and desperation, with only her education to sustain her. Queen Mary, even now with her cushioned life thrown into uncertainty and chaos, the French throne she had been bred for gone, seemed most self-assured.

“France is certainly most interesting,” Kate said. “I am happy you're here, Rob. I should hate to be alone.”

He looked down at her with a smile. Rob's smiles were many—charming, cajoling, persuading, drawing people to him from the stage. This smile was surprised—hopeful. “If it was up to me, Kate, you would never be alone at all.”

Kate felt her cheeks turn warm at his words. But she had too much to watch now, too much to be wary about, to try to decipher Rob's meaning. She took a sip of her wine and studied the crowd again. Many of the French ladies watched Rob in turn.

Toby and Amelia were standing together across the room, Toby whispering intently in her ear. Amelia laughed and turned away from him, and a spasm of anger passed over his face before he erased it and smiled. Amelia drifted away in a cloud of blue satin skirts to giggle with Celeste.

“You will perhaps change your mind about an English wren like me when you meet more of these French court ladies,” Kate said, trying to be light, teasing. “How can they make their hair look so very perfect? Their elegance seems effortless.”

“Pomade of rose petals and beeswax with a bit of lemon juice, I should think, Mistress Haywood,” Brigit Berry said as she came to stand next to them. Her dark skirts and plain cap, her watchful expression, made her stand apart from the glittering crowd. “Mistress Wrightsman has tried it before, though I did warn her that sometimes lemon juice can make hair fall out.”

“I shall not try it, then, Mistress Berry,” Kate answered with a smile. “Mistress Wrightsman does seem happy to be back in France, with or without her hair pomade.”

Brigit studied Amelia across the room, a half-smile on her lips. “Poor Master Ridley. He has long courted her, but I fear his is a lost cause. I do feel for him, for he seems good-hearted. He deserves a wife who is equally kind.”

Kate nodded and glanced behind her at Rob's apprentice, Thomas, who watched Amelia with infatuation written on his face for all to see. She wondered if he would make a good actor after all, he seemed so little good at hiding his emotions.

“I think I must warn Thomas,” Rob whispered to her. “I knew it would be futile to tell him not to fall in love here in France, but there must be a safer target for his affections somewhere in this palace.”

Kate laughed, remembering Thomas's infatuations every time he went to court.

Rob turned to Brigit and gave her one of his charming smiles. It made even that stern lady smile in return. “What of you, Mistress Berry? Have you fallen in love here at the French court?”

“Certainly not, Master Cartman!” Brigit said with a laugh. “My days of infatuation with handsome faces are long past, and I learned my lesson in my youth. You men are naught but a nuisance.”

Rob pressed his hand over his heart as if wounded. “Mistress Berry! You do pierce me to the core with such unjust words.”

“Mayhap
you
can be excluded from my judgment, Master Cartman,” Mistress Berry said, still laughing. She looked younger, prettier, with such a smile on her face, her cheeks pink. She looked indeed like Lady Barnett. “You do recite a pretty poem exceedingly well. But these Frenchmen—pah.” She waved her hand dismissively at the crowd.

“You do not care for Frenchmen, then, Mistress Berry?” Kate asked.

“None here now, I daresay. When I was a girl . . .”

“You were in France when you were a girl?” Rob asked.

“For a time, aye, and have returned a few times since, as I am now in my kinswoman Lady Barnett's service and must go where she does. Under the old King Francis, there was such glamour here. Now . . .” Her words trailed away.

“Now?” Rob said gently.

Brigit took a sip of wine, her eyes downcast. Her expression pinched and closed off again, as if she feared she had said too much, though it seemed she had said nothing at all. Kate found she wanted to know more.