The Tudor Secret - C. W. Gortner [105]
I turned to creep around the house. I found a coffer propping the back door open, as if someone had been coming and going in haste. Beyond was the mullioned window of Cecil’s study. Flat against the wall, I inched forth and craned my head upward to peer within.
When I spied the figure inside, taking ledgers from the desk and stuffing them into a valise, I returned to the door and slipped into the house.
Gloom submerged the interior. I eased toward the far, open doorway with caution, looking to either side. The wood floor creaked under my feet. I froze, anticipating thugs to come lunging at me with knives and fists. Then, when nothing happened, I inched forth again until I was close enough to look inside the study.
Cecil stood with his back to the door, wearing his black breeches and doublet. A traveling cloak was tossed over his chair; he had the valise on the desk, about to close it when he went still. Without looking around, he said, “Now, this is a surprise.”
I stepped over the threshold.
He turned, glanced at the dagger in my fist. “Have you come to kill me, Squire Prescott?”
“I should,” I said. Now that I was face-to-face with the man who had played and outmaneuvered everyone with the skill of an expert puppeteer, my heart beat impossibly loud in my ears. I looked about the room. “Are you alone? Or do I have to deal with your assassin first?”
He gave me a thin smile. “If you’re referring to Walsingham, I assure you the situation has become far too precarious for a man of his staunch persuasions. I imagine he’s on his way to Dover by now, to book passage to the continent. I’d have gone with him myself, had I not my family’s welfare to consider.”
“What, is Queen Mary getting too close for comfort?”
His smile did not waver. “Entirely. In fact, I was about to take my barge to the bridge and hire a mount to Hertfordshire. It’s not far from Her Grace’s manor at Hatfield.” He paused. “Would you care to join me? She’ll be happy to receive you, I’m told, after everything you’ve done for her.”
My anger, held too long under check, blazed. “Don’t you play with me, not after everything you have done.”
He regarded me without a single hint that I had perturbed him. “It seems you’ve a bone to pick. Come, let us sit and discuss it like gentlemen.” He leaned to his valise, as if to shift it aside.
I didn’t hesitate. Leaping forth, I pressed my dagger to his ribs, hard enough to be felt through his doublet. “I’d be careful if I were you. I don’t need another reason to make you regret ever having met me.”
He went still. “I would never regret that. May I at least sit? I have a touch of gout; my leg pains me today.”
Despite everything, I had to admire his restraint. I even found myself hoping I wouldn’t be forced to act. Truth be told, I wasn’t certain I could carry out my threat, particularly now that my initial blinding rage had started to ebb into something more manageable. I wasn’t like him. I didn’t relish the elaborate subterfuges, the coils within coils. And I needed his cooperation, if I was to discover the final reason for why he and I found ourselves like this.
“I’m not sure what I’ve done to offend you,” he began, his hands draped on the armrests as if he addressed an inopportune guest. “I am no more a traitor than any other councilor obliged to support the duke against the queen.”
I met his cool appraising eyes, which had been my first indoctrination into his perfidious world. “My business with you is private. I’ll leave Her Majesty to ordain whatever punishment she deems best.”
“Ah. I must say, you stay remarkably true to character. You believe Mary has been wronged and that I had a hand in it.”
“Would you deny that you provided the duke with the information they needed to pursue her? Or was it coincidence that Lord Robert happened to be on the same road as me, at almost the same time?”
Cecil leaned back, crossing his trim legs in their dun-colored hose. “I won’t deny that I nudged him in the right direction.