The deserted bride, p.17
The Deserted Bride, page 17
“What we have been doing. Be patient and wait to see whether our men in London can uncover anything. Your home in London will be watched to try to find out who carries the letter to the Embassy. If and when we do so, then we can perhaps lean on him, and thus discover who else is involved. On the other hand, more might be gained by leaving him free so that we might learn who his associates are.”
Lean on him! It would be Topcliffe, the torturer at the Tower of London, who would do the leaning—which was only what a traitor deserved when all was said and done. Still, he had to believe that the Captain knew his murky business.
Drew had small appetite for the food before him. Nevertheless, he ate as though he were hungry, the food ashes in his mouth. Who was it whom he trusted who was betraying him?
Later, in the evening as they talked after their meal, Bess was asking herself the same question. She was not concerned with spies and plotting but whether her husband was betraying her. She had come, thanks to his loving attentions to her, to believe that her suspicion of him over the matter of Lady Arbell was foolish, based on unfounded jealousy. In the last few days Drew had seemed indifferent to the Lady Arbell’s attractions. His manner to her had become cool and indifferent.
But today he had changed again. Bess was not to know that Drew, driven by the need to discover exactly who was betraying whom at Buxton, had decided to encourage Arbell in her pursuit of him, in the hope that if she were involved in a Catholic plot, she would by some means give herself away when talking to him.
More wounding than that, Bess, who had spent the afternoon at the Holy Well with Marian Blagg, had walked back to her room up the great staircase and along the corridor which led through some of the bedrooms. She had heard voices; the voices of a man and a woman laughing together.
It was Drew and Arbell, standing before a window, talking intimately. Arbell was facing towards Bess, when she saw Bess coming, she flung her arms around Drew and kissed him on the cheek. From where Bess stood it seemed that Drew was encouraging her. In reality, Arbell, desperate to seduce him, thought that to make trouble between Drew and his wife was the best way to win him.
Drew heard someone coming. He detached himself—with some difficulty—from the clinging Arbell and turned to face his wife.
“Ah, there you are, my lady. You left the Well early?”
Bess was acid. “No earlier than I intended, my lord. Was there some reason why you wished me to be late?”
Arbell, who had now backed away from Drew, smiled sweetly at Bess. “I will give him back to you, Lady Exford, so that he may prepare himself for the evening meal.”
I had not thought that she had me to hand back, was Drew’s glum reaction, but judging by Bess’s face, she believes what the lying bitch has just suggested.
His bow to Arbell before they left was as gallant as he could make it, although the moment that they were out of the Lady’s hearing he said to Bess, without any apology, “Although appearances might seem otherwise, you are not to suspect that there is anything between the Lady Arbell and myself, wife.”
“No?” Bess raised her eyebrows without raising her voice. “I wonder what you would say if I behaved as lovingly to your friend Philip—or Charles—or even Captain Goreham?”
Drew gritted his teeth. “I should say a great deal, believe me, but—”
“But I am not to say anything because I am a wife, not a husband. No, Drew, do not gloss over your behaviour. I would rather you were honest with me. I do not like deceit.”
“Damnation, I am being honest with you, woman! I mean what I say, but…”
“But what? Do you mean what you do? And the Lady, does she mean what she says and does? That kiss she gave you, for example?”
“That kiss meant nothing. She forced it on me.”
Bess began to laugh, genuine laughter, no bitterness in it. “Poor Drew, to be so assaulted by a woman. Shall I force a kiss on you, husband? Like this?”
And in a mocking imitation of Arbell she turned towards him, flung her arms around him and kissed him vigorously on the lips.
They had reached the privacy of their inner chamber. Drew’s response was to take her in his arms, bear her down on to a fine Turkish carpet, and give her not one kiss, but many, before pleasuring her so vigorously that they both lay spent on the floor when their lovemaking had ended.
Panting, half-naked, his lips scarlet—as were Bess’s with the force of their passion—Drew looked down at her, as she gazed up at him. “Now, woman, will you believe me? Do you think I could have treated you so lustily if I had spent the afternoon making love to her? I’d as soon make love to a…a…”
Words failed him. He couldn’t think what it was that he didn’t want to make love to…Instead, he began to stroke and pet Bess again, until she whispered into his almost unhearing ear, “I think that the word you could not find for the Lady Arbell was ‘pillow’. And if we are going to make the beast with two backs again, husband, do you think that I could lie on something soft whilst we do so? The floor, even with a carpet on it, makes a hard bed.”
“Assuredly.” Drew picked her up again and carried her to the bed where they enjoyed themselves so heartily that they scarcely had time to clamber into their elaborate clothing before repairing to supper.
Even so, for the next few days, like Drew, Bess could not quite recapture the mindless happiness which she had enjoyed before she had seen Arbell kiss him so intimately. A shadow lay over her.
Drew’s shadow was the knowledge of his household’s involvement in the plot against the Queen. He saw and heard nothing to give him any clues which might help him to solve the mystery. By the end of the week, both Charles and Philip separately asked him what was troubling him. Was it so obvious? Plainly he would not make an agent if being a simple intelligencer was so hard to carry off!
And then a further blow fell. Captain Goreham challenged him to an archery match to replace the one which had been cancelled because of his supposed injury.
“But we must meet privately, you understand,” the Captain said, looking solemn. “We need to be alone.”
The next morning an early hour found them at the butts. They went through the pretence of a match, although neither man’s mind was on the game. They spent the time between the rounds talking of what was paramount on both their minds, although a watcher from the windows of the Great Hall would merely have seen two men enjoying themselves in the cool of the early morning.
“I have news for you,” the Captain said. They were standing at some distance from their two pages, whom they had encouraged to engage in a match of their own. “I have had a despatch from London which informs me that they have discovered the member of your household who is passing letters from Buxton to the French Embassy.
“One of your maidservants has a lover there, a man who poses as a senior footman, but is someone quite other. They are lovers, and she has been suborned into helping him by the promise of marriage. She does not understand quite what she is doing, but she takes charge of the satchel with the secret pocket after its legitimate papers have been removed and takes the letter from the pocket to give to her lover. Later he gives her a letter to Buxton which she must slip into the satchel before it goes north again.”
Drew contained himself with some difficulty. He was astonished to find, after the Captain had passed on this bad news, that he could shoot at all, let alone shoot well.
“Can I believe you?” he asked, after he had shot into the gold again. “You are telling me that it is someone from my own retinue who is sending the letters from Buxton?”
Captain Goreham shot again before replying. “Indeed, m’lord. As you plainly see, it must be so.”
“And have you any evidence of who the spy at the Buxton end might be?”
The Captain pulled an arrow from his quiver. “None at all, except…” and he paused before looking quizzically at Drew “…except that on the face of it, the traitor can be none other than yourself!”
The heavens reeled around Drew. So this accounted for Walsingham’s odd treatment of him. That he thought Drew to be the traitor, and Goreham was obviously here to keep watch on him, rather than on anyone else.
He shot again. And hit the gold again.
From a great distance he heard the Captain behind him murmur, “Well shot, m’lord.”
He was surprised by his own coolness when Tower Hill, hanging, drawing and quartering loomed before him. He stepped away to allow the Captain to take his turn, saying, “I suppose that denial is useless, but deny it I must.”
“Failing any other evidence.” The Captain was almost negligent in the manner of his reply.
Drew wanted to throttle him, and Walsingham, too. The Captain said, his own arrow having found the gold, “The main plot here began after you arrived. Earlier we know that it was being run from London. And your grandfather was a Catholic.”
“Oh, rare, sir, rare,” mocked Drew. “Seeing that he was a young man in the old King’s time when everyone was a Catholic. On that evidence you had better attaint and execute all the males in the kingdom.”
“I did not say that you are a conspirator, or even the chief one. Simply that the burden of the evidence lies in that direction. Convince me otherwise. Such are my orders.”
“Since my unsupported word of honour is not enough, only by unmasking the true traitor can I prove my innocence. Simply to shriek denials at you, and play the offended fool, would not have you believing otherwise.”
Without waiting for an answer Drew shot again—and struck the gold again. It seemed that his cold hauteur in the face of such a dreadful accusation disturbed the Captain more than it disturbed him, for from then on the match was downhill all the way for his opponent. Drew continued to find the gold whilst the Captain was doomed to the outer colours.
On his last hopeless shot the Captain put down his bow and turned to face Drew. His manner had changed completely. All its greasy unction had disappeared and the real man, hidden beneath it, appeared: the mercenary soldier completely sure of himself.
“The match is yours, m’lord. And I must confess that I have misread you again. True or traitor, you are not the soft, courtly creature I took you for. Your hand did not shake even at the moment of accusation. Rather than causing you to lose the match, from that moment on, your skill improved.”
“And what,” asked Drew, “am I to make of that? That you think me a cold-blooded plotter—or simply cold-blooded—or that you said what you did to make me shoot badly?”
The Captain shook his head, “Why, as to being a conspirator, sir, I know not. Only time will tell.”
Drew turned on his heel. “And now it is time to break fast. Forgive me if I do not accompany you back to the Hall. I have much to think of, and would prefer to do so alone.”
He walked away in the direction of the Holy Well. His first thought was that he must keep watch for the courier returning with the satchel so that he might stop him and examine it before any one else did. What he found would determine his next action.
He also asked himself how serious the Captain’s accusation had been. He thought that it might not be totally so, but the fact that it had been made at all explained Walsingham’s odd behaviour towards him—and why he had been chosen to go to Derbyshire. Lacking evidence of any kind either about the Captain, who was conceivably a double agent, or who exactly the true conspirators might be, he could come to no real conclusion until he found some.
He only knew that he had grown hungry and that Bess might wonder where he had gone without telling her of his destination. She might even suspect that he had a secret tryst with Arbell—which would never do.
On reaching the Hall, he found Charles and Philip talking together in the entrance. About him, apparently, for Charles said, somewhat reproachfully, “Ah, there you are, cousin. A pity that you did not care to tell us that you and Captain Goreham had decided to engage in your postponed match this morning. Master Sidney and I would have enjoyed watching it.”
“We met on a whim,” Drew replied shortly, “and were bent on our own pleasure, not on that of others.”
He was aware that he sounded surly, but he felt surly, and in no mood to humour anyone. One thing he had decided on his walk: that he would treat all the members of his household as though they were the traitor—even Charles. He excluded Philip from suspicion, knowing that his hatred of Catholics was so strong that he had even lost favour with the Queen because of his opposition to her marrying the French Catholic, the Duc d’Alençon.
And Bess. He excluded Bess because he would have staked his life on her honesty.
“Forgive me,” he said, brushing by them both. “I am hungry. I will talk to you both later when breaking my fast has improved my humour.”
Charles said nothing. Nor Philip neither; he raised his fine brows and wondered what flea had occupied Drew’s ear and spoiled his usual calm temper. He felt constrained to ask, his voice light to take the sting out of his words, “You lost the match, then?”
Drew, already on his way, turned back, and shook his head before he answered him. “On the contrary, cousin and friend both, I won it easily. May all such meetings for me end in victory.”
Chapter Twelve
Was he, or was he not, dallying with Arbell? If so, it wasn’t making him very happy. On the contrary her husband, who had been in the best of humour when they had arrived at Buxton, was now in the worst of one.
Bess was preoccupied by this sad thought whilst she was being dressed for the day. Her maid was tying her sleeves on to her bodice and carefully arranging the little rolls which concealed the joins. Bess had refused to wear the huge ruff which her maid—and fashion—demanded, and had chosen a small one instead.
“But the Lady Arbell will be sure to be wearing hers,” the maid wailed.
“All the more reason for me not to do so.” Bess was crisp—and, for her, a little demanding. What she really wanted to do was put on her old coarse, brown dress and go riding with Drew across Charnwood Forest. She was growing tired of idleness at Buxton, of being pushed in and out of stiff clothes and being expected by her waiting women to rival the other ladies in the excesses of her dress.
Drew put his head around the door. “You are beautified enough to allow me in, I hope.”
“Far too beautified.” Bess was aware that she was being pettish but she could not help herself. “I have enjoyed my visit to Buxton, husband. It has been a happy change to be idle, but I am growing wishful to see my home again and go riding with you in something more comfortable than this.”
“Ah, I suppose you mean that old piece of sacking you were wearing when I first met you,” riposted Drew, kissing the cheek which Bess’s maid had just treated with some sweet-smelling oil designed to make its user stay young for ever—or so the herbalist had said. “Couldn’t you consider something between the two?”
“Only if it were comfortable.”
“The Lady Arbell—” began the maid.
“No,” ordered Bess. “Do not speak of her again. I have not the slightest wish to look like her. What are you laughing at, husband?”
“Anyone less like the Lady Arbell than my dear wife, I have yet to meet. Pray leave us,” he told the maid.
“Now,” he asked, “what has brought this fit on, wife?”
“Jealousy,” said Bess bluntly, “and the fact that I wish to go home. We have been here long enough. Yes, I have enjoyed myself, but I find that I am growing homesick.”
Drew would dearly have loved to accede to her wishes, but what he was unable to tell her restrained him. He could not leave Buxton until he had cleared his name and uncovered the real traitor. After a week of waiting and watching, he was still no nearer to doing that, for the courier from London had not yet returned. He did not wish to tell Bess the unhappy truth. He could only hope that the Captain’s suspicions of him would be cleared up without her having to know of them.
Instead he remarked blandly, “I think that you deserve a little longer holiday, dear wife.”
Bess was blunt again. “What keeps you here, Drew? Me, or the Lady Arbell?”
He took her in his arms, and said fiercely. “No, do not believe that. We must stay a little longer. I have my reasons for asking you to agree to this. Believe me, like you, I am wishful to be back at Atherington again.”
This came out after a fashion which Bess could only believe was heartfelt.
But could she believe him?
“And your reasons are?”
“I cannot tell you—not yet, at least.”
He only wanted to protect her, but by doing so he was in danger of losing her trust. He was going to lose it a little more when he made his next request.
“Sir Henry has asked that we make up a party of men to go riding along the Wye. He hopes to find deer, and we shall take our bows with us. He has permission to shoot from Lord Shrewsbury. He has asked that you keep company with the Lady Arbell whilst we are gone. We are like to be away until evening.”
“Men, only men? Why cannot I accompany you? I can ride a horse as well as any man. And I do not wish to spend the day with the Lady Arbell. You may tell Sir Henry that I have a megrim and beg to be excused.” Bess was unhappily aware that she sounded both unreasonable and petulant.
“Not all the men. Charles will not be going. He has accounts to do, he says, and Master Blagg is expecting his Steward today, and will only accompany us if the man arrives before we are due to leave. Nor will the Captain go. Like you, he has a megrim.”
Which, seeing that he knew that she hadn’t a megrim, thought Bess dolefully, could be taken any way you liked.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Drew told her. “I have no wish to go, either, but I have no real excuse to offer.” Which was not the true reason why he wished to join the expedition. There was always the possibility that someone might say, or do, something incriminating whilst they were at ease. A slight possibility, but still a possibility.
“Very well, then. Go—I will entertain myself.” She accompanied this with a kiss on his warm cheek to show that she forgave him for deserting her. “Do your duty—for I understand that you do not wish to snub Sir Henry by refusing his invitation.”
