The Queen's Captive (21 page)

“Today, Master Thornleigh, I shall be your nurse,” Elizabeth declared, all business. She shooed out the maids, then told Doctor Rufus he need not stay, either. He left, still issuing instructions as she closed the door after him. “It does not require a genius to change a bandage,” she said as she turned back to Adam. “Now, sir. Let us begin.”

“Hold on,” he said sternly. “Where’s my news?”

Her businesslike expression melted and they shared a smile. It had become their daily routine: news, first thing.

“I humbly crave your pardon, my lord,” she said in mock submission, making a deep curtsy.

It sent a thrill of arousal through him. He almost had to laugh at himself. On death’s door just days ago, and the pain still so harsh it
hurt
to laugh, but all she had to do was let her eyes meet his—those sparkling black eyes—and desire throbbed through him like he was fresh and strong.

“Allow me to inform you of the doings of the great and the good,” she said, rising. “Item, the lord chancellor, Bishop Gardiner, lies very ill, like to die, they say. I say Gardiner’s a toad and his passing would be no loss to the realm.” Surveying the doctor’s paraphernalia, she dropped the sponge into the basin of warm water. “Item, my good friend Lady Cavendish comes to visit me on Thursday and brings my little godson Harry, who is not my favorite of her children, and baby Charles, who is.” She pulled the stopper from the jar of herbal ointment and sniffed, wrinkled her nose, and shoved the stopper back in. “Item, Parliament opens in six days. Your father has been telling me about the Queen’s proposed bills. He has been studying them diligently, readying to join the opposition.”

“He’s green at it, but eager for the fight,” Adam said. He’d been surprised to see his parents sitting at his bedside when he surfaced from the fever. It was the first time he had ever seen his father shed tears. They were still here, Elizabeth’s guests.

“What tigers you Thornleighs are,” she said. “Your father girding himself to combat the Queen. Your mother conniving to keep me from harm at her hands. And you…well,
you
…” She stopped, looking suddenly very serious. Her voice became soft. “To risk your life…” Emotion pinked her cheeks, but she did not look down in maidenly embarrassment. She looked straight into his eyes, her own eyes shining with wonder.

Adam wanted to sweep her into his arms. Instead, he cleared his throat. “Any idea yet who was behind it?”

She shook her head. They had already discussed this, and suspected an agent of Simon Renard, the imperial ambassador, a fierce friend of the Queen. Or even someone sent by the Queen herself.

“Has St. Loe posted more guards?”

“My purse, sir, only goes so far.”

She said it lightly, but Adam sensed it was a mask to hide how deeply the assassination attempt had shaken her. Someone was bent on killing her.

“Now, sir,” she said, holding up the doctor’s scissors, “may I begin?”

He hesitated. It didn’t seem right for a princess to be doing this task. On the other hand, how could he refuse a princess? He nodded, and she bent to begin removing the bandage. She gently snipped the fabric at his breastbone, the scissor tips cold on his skin. Her head was lowered and he watched the firelight dance on her flame-colored hair. He took in the smell of her, some faint perfume, a scent of sandalwood.

Her eyes flicked up to his. “This will not do for purchase,” she murmured, and went down on her knees between his legs. It made him catch a breath.

She snipped through the remaining cloth. “Raise your arms.”

He did, sending a jagged pain through his chest, but it was worth it just to feel her fingers’ light touch as she unwound the bandage. It fell to the floor. Her fingertip brushed his nipple. He swallowed hard.

She went still, staring at the puckered wound in the center of the massive bruise. She raised her eyes to his and whispered in awe, “How you have suffered for my sake.”

He could barely find his voice. “This is not suffering, my lady.”

“Then, sir, you must be more than human.”

“Not so. Believe me.” His body betrayed how very human.

The faintest smile curved her lips. “Flesh and blood, then?” She lifted the sponge from the silver basin and squeezed water from it, the drops pinging into the basin. “Can you turn? I’ll start on your back.”

Again, he hesitated. A king’s daughter, washing him? But he craved her touch, and the determined look in her eyes was all the persuasion he needed. He pivoted on the stool so that he was facing away from her. She gently laid the sponge against his wound. He sucked in a breath at it. The warm water. Her tender pressure.

“All right?” she asked.

He nodded.
More than all right.

Gently, she smoothed the sponge over the wound, washing away the dried blood. She patted his skin dry with a fresh cloth, then reached for the jar of ointment. He couldn’t see her face as she smoothed the balm on his back in slow, radiating circles, and he was glad she could not see his, his eyes closed, savoring her touch. The pleasure was almost excruciating. It made his heart pound so hard he was sure she could hear it. He couldn’t help his breathing getting ragged.

“Turn back to me,” she said.

He did, hoping and longing for her fingers to continue, though it was hellishly hard to keep still, not reach for her. He could not refuse a princess…but neither could he touch a princess.

Still on her knees between his legs, she reached again for the ointment to apply to the wound on his chest, but then stopped. Her eyes met his. She raised her hand to her own white skin just above the swell of her breasts, and touched the thin scar on her breastbone, faint as a fingernail paring, carved by the arrow’s tip.

She reached for his hand and lifted it to the spot, and when his fingers touched her skin he thought his heart might stop. He understood what she was silently telling him—that her scar was their bond.

“When will he
leave
that cursed place?” Frances practically shouted it, making Dyer wince.

“I understand he is recovering, my lady,” he said. “I imagine it will take some time.”

She was pacing, feeling as trapped as the caged lion in the Tower’s royal menagerie. She had hurried from Colchester to her brother’s London house. It was that much closer to Hatfield, a day’s ride closer to news about Adam. But still not close enough. It was
him
she wanted to be close to. Every time she thought of that arrow piercing him, it felt like an arrow ripping through
her.
He was recovering, yes, and thanks be to God for that, but she was trapped here, waiting for every crumb of information that Dyer could glean from his spy in the Hatfield household. While the whore’s daughter was near Adam day and night, pampering him, petting him. It made Frances wild with frustration.

“Does she touch him? Nursing him, you said. Do they say she touches him?”

“I believe she changes his bandage, madam, so I presume she must. But as to any further—”

“Stop. I don’t want to hear.” It was so unfair! She had not seen Adam’s face for months. First his ship had kept him away, the building of it taking forever, and then his quest for financial backing took him all the way to Hatfield, and now he was held hostage there by that red-haired shrew. How much longer until she could lay eyes on him? While the whore’s daughter laid hands on him.

She went to the window and rested her forehead on the cool glass, trying to settle her fevered thoughts. She had suffered fitful sleep for days, had barely eaten. The news in church that he was dead had almost killed her. She had been so sick with grief, John had brought in Doctor Markham to examine her. Then, when word came that Adam had survived, her joy was so intense she had swooned and John brought back the doctor. But Frances had dismissed the fool, for nothing mattered except being with Adam. If only he could get free of that harlot’s clutches and come to her. She kept this small, third-floor parlor for herself, removed from the household noise below, and she could make him so comfortable here. John was away on business all day, and Arabella was always out visiting friends. Adam could rest on a bed she would make up for him here by the fire. She would tenderly bathe his poor, hurt body and he would love her for it…

Dyer cleared his throat. Frances set her dreams of Adam to the back of her mind. Business first. She turned. “Bring him in,” she said.

When she heard Dyer’s footsteps clomping down the staircase, she turned back to the window and looked down at darkened Lombard Street, crowded with houses and shops. It was a chilly night, with only a scatter of people hurrying home before curfew, the shops mostly closed. A linkboy held his torch high to guide a pair of gentlemen on their way, and they passed a beggar standing on the steps of the church across the street, a scabby man wearing a filthy cloak. He scratched the back of his hand at the brand that was his license to beg. After the linkboy’s torch passed, the beggar was a mere shadow in the moonlight. A cat streaked into the alley beside the church and was swallowed up by the darkness. Frances went to her desk and opened a drawer and took out a purse of coins.

Giles Sturridge, captain of the Grenville Archers, walked in and bowed low. When he had reported to her last week, caked with dusty sweat after his frantic ride from Hatfield, he had looked terrified of her fury at his failure, but Frances had told him to return to his troop and breathe not a word of what had happened and no one would be the wiser. She might still need his services, she’d said. He had been mightily relieved.

Now, she handed him the purse of coins and made it clear that this time he must succeed. He was effusive in his thanks, bowing deeply again and assuring her that he would not fail her.

She dismissed him. When his footsteps died on the stairs she went back to the window and looked out at the church steps. The beggar had stopped scratching. He was looking at Frances’s front door as it opened, flooding the patch of street with light.

Sturridge walked out, swaggering now as he pocketed Frances’s purse. The door slammed shut, cutting off the light, leaving Sturridge alone in the moonlight. He smoothed back his hair with both hands and looked up and down the street with an expectant look, but unhurried, as though pondering which alehouse to visit.

The beggar on the church steps threw back the side of his cloak, revealing a dagger in his hand. Another man stepped out of the dark alley, and another moved forward from behind Sturridge. The three came slowly toward him, stalking. He tensed, taking in the two brutish faces before him, and their knives. He twisted around, saw the one coming behind him with an even longer knife. He shot a look up at Frances’s window, horror leaping into his eyes.

The beggar’s blade rammed into Sturridge’s back. He arched in agony. The others’ knives stabbed his neck, his chest. He dropped to his knees. The three men bent over him and hacked.

When Sturridge lay still and bleeding, the beggar dug into his pocket and yanked out Frances’s purse. The other two carried the body to the church alley and heaved it, facedown, into the darkness. The three men dispersed into the night.

Frances looked up for a moment at the moon. Was Adam looking up at it, too, and thinking of her? She pulled the curtain, blew out the candles, and went downstairs. He could sleep now, safe. She would always take care of him. No one could hurt him and live.

The horses were saddled. Richard was booted and spurred. Honor had tipped the servants and said her thank-yous. Adam was bidding Elizabeth good-bye. They were leaving for London, Richard to take his seat in the upcoming Parliament in Westminster, Adam to launch his ship in Colchester, Honor to report on Elizabeth to the Queen.

Another toothless report to lull Mary’s fears, Honor thought as she made her way down the stairs of Hatfield House to join the others outside. How much longer could she keep up this subterfuge with the Queen? The chilly autumn wind whipped her skirts as she crossed the gravel path to where Elizabeth stood talking with Richard and Adam beside the waiting horses and grooms, and she wondered if now was the time to warn the Princess. There was no crisis yet, and indeed Mary had grudgingly accepted her regular assessments that Elizabeth, well frightened by her imprisonment in the Tower and her year under house arrest, had been sobered by the reality of Mary’s reign and was now properly conforming in religion and eschewing any contact with a single soul who grumbled against the Queen. But almost weekly, festering rumors of rebellion burst like boils in Mary’s court, panicking her councilors and enraging Mary herself, and each rumor invariably peaked with the whisper that, naturally, any rebel leader’s aim would be to put Elizabeth on the throne. It maddened Mary. Which made Honor’s task of lulling her more difficult with every passing week.

“Careful, careful,” Elizabeth said, sounding as anxious as a mother as Adam swung himself up into the saddle.

He laughed. “I can sit a horse, my lady. The wound’s not in my backside.”

The grooms chuckled, and so did Richard as he mounted his horse beside Adam. It was good to see the healthy color back in their son’s face, Honor thought. Good to see him on his feet at last. He was still a little weak, and she feared his chest still ached, but the moment word had come from his shipwright that the work was finished, Adam had started packing. Honor had urged him to stay another week to get all his strength back, but she knew it was pointless. Nothing short of multiple amputations would keep him from captaining his new ship.

Elizabeth saw her coming and held out her hand, in both greeting and farewell. Honor clasped it, wondering how to begin. A groom stood holding Honor’s horse for her, but she wasn’t ready yet to mount.