The Tudor Secret - C. W. Gortner [122]
“Yes, well.” She snorted. “Serving her is no charm, you’ll see. I should know; I’ve been with her since she was this high, and you never met a more contentious soul, even in her leading strings. Always did have to have her way. Still, all of us in this household couldn’t love her more. She has this way of stealing into your heart. You can’t help it. And before you know it, she has you wrapped about her pretty finger.” She wagged her finger. “That’s when you have to be careful. She can be canny as a cat when the mood takes her.”
She smiled. “Well, I’ll be off, then. You’ve the two of them waiting on you, and I’m hard-pressed to say which of the two is less demanding. Wash yourself well. Her Grace has a nose like a bloodhound. Nothing she hates more than sweat or too much perfume.”
The door closed. I descended on the fare with gusto. After I’d eaten my fill, I bathed and took out the clothes from the press. I was glad to find my saddlebag there. Gently, I removed the leather-bound volume, which was more battered for the wear. I opened it to that front page and the handwritten inscription in faded blue ink.
Votre amie, Marie.
I caressed the slanted writing, penned by a beloved hand I’d never felt. I set the book on the bedside table. Later, I would read Mistress Alice’s favorite psalm. And remember.
I was able to shave using lather from the soap, my knife, and a sliver of cracked mirror from my bag. Though I couldn’t see myself well in its fractured reflection, what I did glimpse as I washed away the hair-flecked spumes brought me to a halt.
The face looking back at me was bruised, pale, more angular than I recalled, its youth tempered by hard-earned and sudden maturity. It was a face not yet twenty-one years of age; a face I had lived with all my life, and it belonged to someone I did not know. But in time, I would come to know the stranger I had become. I would make myself his master. I would learn everything I needed to survive in this new world, and I would stake my place.
And I would not rest until I found Master Shelton.
For he knew far more about me than he had ever let on, of that I was sure. He had served the late Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, and mourned the duke’s wife, my mother. Had he also known that the golden leaf he’d conveyed to Mary Tudor was from the same jewel whose other leaf had ended up hidden among Dame Alice’s possessions? And if so, did he know Dame Alice had been entrusted with it, and why? I had so many questions that only he could answer.
I turned away to dress. The clothes were a remarkably close fit.
Passing through the great hall with its impressive hammer-beamed ceiling and Flemish tapestries, I proceeded to the open oak doors and into a lingering summer evening that drifted over eglantine and willow like a velvet rain.
Kate stood ankle-deep in an herb patch, a straw hat on her head as she bundled fresh-picked thyme into a basket. She glanced up at my approach, the hat slipping off to dangle on ribbons at her back. Gathering her in my arms, I indulged my starved senses.
“I assume you slept well,” she whispered at length, against my lips.
“I’d have slept better if you’d been with me,” I said, my hands running down her waist.
She laughed. “Any better and you’d have needed a shroud.” Her laughter turned husky. “Don’t you think to tempt me. I’ll not give in to any old tomcat that decides to wander home.”
“Yes, I like that about you,” I growled. We kissed, after which she drew me to a bench. We held hands, gazing at the diminishing sky.
Presently Kate said, “I have these.” From her skirt pocket, she brought out the leaf and, to my surprise, Robert Dudley’s silver-and-onyx ring.
“I’d forgotten about this,” I murmured as I slipped the ring on my finger. It was too big.
“Do you know what’s happened?” she asked.
“Last I had heard, the duke started to march on Framlingham when his army deserted.”
She nodded. “Word came today. He never reached it. The moment the council proclaimed Mary queen, Arundel and the others rushed to grovel at her feet. Arundel