Palace of Spies (19 page)

“Just the same.” Matthew ducked his head, trying to capture my gaze again. Trying and succeeding. “Can you think of me as a friend?”

“Yes. Easily.”

“Then do so.” His smile grew hopeful. “And if ever you have need of a chevalier, I can be found in the long workshop in the king’s courtyard. You know the building?”

I could have said I did not. I could have said that I would never seek help from a man I knew so slightly. Oh, folly! Oh, how weak is maiden’s resolve, that she should melt so easily before a pair of steel gray eyes and the smile that lights a lean face! I could only nod in acknowledgment, for I did know the building, and I did want to feel I had earned a chevalier. Matthew Reade smiled again, and made his excellent bow, and walked away.

It was a long time before I could do the same. But it was not admiration that rooted me to the spot. It was realization. I knew what was simmering beneath my thoughts as we sat together on the riverbank. It was Matthew’s collection of court portraits. He had taken the likenesses of three of the maids of honor—Molly, Mary, and Sophy.

Where was the drawing of Lady Francesca?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Wilderness is the name given to Hampton Court’s great hedge maze, though for what reason I know not. There exists nothing less wild than its rigidly clipped hornbeam hedges and meticulously maintained pathways.

I was so certain I was late, I decided to cut through the maze itself rather than take the longer, straighter way along the broad lanes. It might seem odd to choose a labyrinth over an avenue, but the true secret of the Wilderness is that it is fairly easy to navigate. One cannot, I suppose, risk royalty becoming genuinely lost. I selected the curving paths, to better keep out of sight of any other idlers, and carefully counted my turnings. The day had begun to warm in earnest, and the Wilderness felt as stuffy as any interior room of the palace. My skin began to itch with perspiration under my arms and under my corset, and under my garters, and under my cap. Still, I did not permit myself to slow down. I was entirely certain I was late. I attempted to berate myself for being so long distracted by Matthew Reade, but the voice of my conscience failed to muster her usual force. Instead I found myself remembering Matthew’s hand as it passed delicately over the grass stems and the way the sunlight caught his eyes.

He’d contemplated my face, and he liked what he saw. He smiled, and he offered me his friendship and his help. He did not pay me clumsy or salacious compliments. He did not paw my shoulder, my cheek, or my skirts. There was no innuendo or bribery. Matthew Reade wanted to talk with me and be my friend. How had so simple a thing come to seem so rare and so very precious? And yet—and yet there was that matter of the missing drawing. Why had he completed portraits of all the other maids, but not of Francesca?

Consumed as I was by these disparate thoughts, I did not hear the footsteps I should have, and rounded the final corner only to collide forcefully with a small girl in a blue silk dress running in the opposite direction. We both staggered backwards and stared at each other.

I spoke first. “What are you doing here?”

“The Portland says I’m not to have a puppy,” she replied with the particular and implacable logic possessed by young children.

Portland. I knew that name but could not immediately call to mind which of the long lists of courtiers it belonged to. The girl herself looked to be six or seven years old, and she regarded me with two large, slightly protruding eyes. She’d pulled her cap off her blond curls, and it dangled by its strings from one white and pink fist. I looked at those eyes, and I looked at her blue dress with its white ruffles on sleeve and collar, and the quantity of lace on her miniature petticoats. Mrs. Abbott’s training in assessing cost and material flooded through me, and I felt a deep and sudden chill run up my spine.

“Does the . . . Portland say why you’re not to have a puppy?” I asked.

“She says dogs are filthy creatures,” replied the girl. “And they’ll spoil my dress and her nerves, and if God had meant princesses to live with dogs, He would not have given them palaces, and what do you think?”

Privately, I thought that I was late to my assignation and that I did not have the time to face one of the royal daughters.

“What do you
think
?” the princess repeated with a stamp of one small, gilt-buckled foot.

“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken with God on the subject. Or your nurse, who should be here somewhere, shouldn’t she?” I tried desperately to see around the obstructing hedges.

The princess shrugged. “They’re all busy scolding Amelia and cleaning up Caroline. It’s not hard to get out.”

“Especially if you’ve had practice.” This must be Princess Anne, the oldest of the three legitimate royal daughters. I had seen her only once before, on the day of the king’s departure, and that had been from the back.

“It’s been the only good thing about moving here,” she said. “It’s big, and there’s the back stairs. Have you seen the back stairs?”

“It is big, and not yet.” At that moment, what I most wanted to see was the miraculous arrival of one of those busy nurses, because otherwise I faced a duty. A strangely domestic duty, considering my surroundings and my recent plans. No nurse came to my rescue, however, and I could do nothing but sigh.

“Well, Your Highness. We’d better return you to your people.” As Olivia had no younger siblings, my experience with children was limited. I thought I should probably like them, given the opportunity. My experience with princesses, however, was both recent and extensive, and I knew for a certainty they were not permitted to run freely about the meadows or the mazes. I suspected this rule was observed all the more strictly for the ones rendered in miniature.

“Why do I have to go back?” demanded Her Minuscule Highness. “The Portland’s an old fuss face.”

I bit my lip and attempted to approximate a frown. I had been known to utter similar sentiments at a similar age. Despite this sympathetic accord, I managed to muster at least some severity. “You have to go back because if I’m caught with you, I’ll get in trouble for harboring a fugitive. In which case, neither one of us will get a puppy.” I started down the nearest path, and as I suspected she might, the princess ran to catch up with me.

“Are you going to get a puppy? What color? May I come visit?”

“Not if I’m locked in the Tower for harboring a fugitive.”

“Oh. All right.” She trotted along obligingly for a moment, then another thought seemed to occur to the small royal mind. “If you’re not locked in the Tower, may I come visit the puppy?”

“My word of honor.”

Someone was coming around the hedge wall. I heard the rustle of cloth in the still summer air. I prayed fervently it was the nurse. I feared desperately it was Robert.

It was neither. It was Sophy Howe. What was more, she was moving slowly, with her skirts clutched close about her, while at the same time pressing her back against the hedge wall. She was going to snag her laces doing that. But I did not mention it. Neither did I mention the fact that her eyes being open so wide and her chin being drawn so far back in surprise rather emphasized that she had been caught in a position best described as mid-sneak.

“Why, Miss Howe!” I smiled my best drawing room smile. “I’m sure you know our Princess Anne?”

Sophy’s eyes narrowed, but protocol held sway. She let go of her skirts so she could render the deep curtsy that proper manners required upon the meeting of a princess, be she ever so tiny. I seized the moment, and the princess’s hand, and hurried us both out of the maze and down the broad lane toward the palace.

On the way, I realized two things. First, although the formal gardens and well-spaced trees provided excellent views all around, there was no sign of Robert Ballantyne. Either he’d also been hiding among the hedges and had decided not to make an appearance, or the person who had penned the note that brought me here was not Robert at all. Rather, it was the only other adult I’d seen since I left Matthew Reade: the sneaking Sophy Howe.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

After my abortive adventure in the Wilderness, I returned my royal charge to a fuming governess whom I had to agree merited the title of fuss face. I then returned myself to my room, where I remained under the excuse of a “slight indisposition.” This could be only a temporary retreat, however.

I had been allowed the day off from waiting, but was still required to be in attendance during the evening gathering. I eventually did have to permit myself to be dressed and painted so I could sit at a gilt and marble card table, partnered with Molly, facing Mary and, of course, Sophy over yet another hand of ombre.

That evening was a trial for us both. There was the glint of knives in her eyes and in her play. She was bidding high, much higher than usual. Even Mary Bellenden was struggling to keep up, and I’d seen Mary toss a silver-gilt bracelet on the table once over a wager she knew was as good as throwing it away. Thanks to Mr. Peele’s intensive training in the observation of play and players, I knew by now that Sophy normally played not to win, but to impress. With the titled gentlemen, for instance, or the more influential ladies of the bedchamber, Sophy played with what I can only describe as fierce insouciance. For this game, however, there was no one at our table she could have wished to impress, except me, and I had no idea what sort of impression she meant to make. My failure to comprehend her signals was clearly driving needlepoints into her already aggravated temper. I am sorry to admit it, but there was some small, malicious comfort in this.

It was Thursday, and an informal evening, and there were not above three dozen or so gentlemen and their wives in attendance. The majority of the wives were scattered among the sofas and refreshment tables exchanging light news and gossip. Some played together at the lesser gaming tables, lingering companionably over piquet, lottery, and the like as they waited on one of the subtle invitations that pass back and forth in such gatherings, which would allow them to draw closer through the layers of influence and precedence around the royal person. The gentlemen clustered in their own thick company. They had not yet refreshed themselves sufficiently from the bottles, nor had they finished their argument over whether there had been some skullduggery at the Newmarket races. When both had been completed to their satisfaction, then they would scatter among us ladies, to talk or take up cards.

My mistress was already at play. Her Royal Highness had for this time claimed Lady Cowper and Lady Montague for a game of three-handed ombre, and they were all currently seated at the triangular table made of inlaid wood and designed solely for such games. Absorbed in their own careful calculations of points and bids, they were not paying Sophy, or myself, the least bit of attention.

Or so I thought.

I had just bid two hearts when Her Royal Highness raised her voice. “It seems, Lady Francesca, that I am much reduced.”

The argument over the claret and Bordeaux had been growing heated, but the instant Her Royal Highness spoke, the men fell silent. The gossip and gasps over the gaming tables also ceased. All ears, and the majority of the eyes, turned to me.

One cannot remain seated or with one’s back turned when addressed by royalty. I was obliged to lay down my cards and stand while the whole of the gathering watched. I had not been so much the center of attention since my first night at court, and I was not enjoying this encore performance as I turned and curtsied.

“Madame?” I croaked, and felt Sophy’s smile like a knife on the back of my neck.

“I am become an errand runner.” Her Highness nonchalantly played the five of clubs over Lady Cowper’s two of diamonds. A princess, of course, need not face a courtier, even one she has summoned like a naughty pupil to the head of the class. “I am instructed, most firmly, may I add, to carry a message to you.”

“That is most kind of Your Highness,” remarked Sophy at my back. “To go so out of your way. You must be keeping very important company these days, Fran, to have a lover who will importune a princess.”

“Oh, you’re just annoyed because none of your lovers will importune Her Highness for your sake,” piped up Mary.

Which raised a general wave of laughter from the company.

“As opposed to yours, Mary, who couldn’t even reach up high enough to importune a rat catcher,” muttered Sophy to her cards. This earned a rush of laughter and a long current of
oh
s as the men drank and elbowed each other. Tiffs between the maids were considered grand entertainments and much relished by our fine gentlemen. I felt like asking Molly to go to them and collect their ticket fees. If I was going to be set upon the stage, I should at least be able to charge admission.

Molly Lepell, however, had more useful things to do. I heard the snap of pasteboard as she laid down another card. “One might wonder who gave such a message to Her Royal Highness.”

“Yes, one might, so we can find the blighter,” remarked one of the gentlemen from the herd beside the wine decanters. He had on a shocking pink and rose coat. It matched the flush in his cheeks, and I could not remember his name. “I’ll beard the fellow myself for his temerity in sending messages to my fairest.” He winked at me.

The princess smiled. “Lady Francesca, my daughter Anne wishes to know if you have been sent to the Tower yet, and if not, she asks to be informed when she will be allowed to come visit the puppy.”

This, of course, would have been the time for a poised and witty response. What I believe I said was, “Oh.”

“She then begged me to let you know that if you were in fact confined to the Tower, she would undertake to ensure your puppy was well cared for.”