The Tudor Secret - C. W. Gortner [65]
“Depends on what it is.”
“If something goes wrong, will you do whatever you must to see her safe?”
His bared teeth gleamed. “Did you think I’d leave her to that pack of wolves? I’ll see her safe all right. Or die trying. Either way, they’ll never get hold of her.”
We passed into an enclosed ward, fronted by the palace. An odd derelict-looking tower rose at one end. I smelled the aroma of the river nearby.
Barnaby halted. “The entrance is in that tower.” He went still. I likewise came to a halt, an unspoken curse on my lips. The others also paused. In the silence, I heard Elizabeth draw a sharp breath between her teeth. “Sentries,” she whispered.
There were two of them before the tower, which squatted among Greenwich’s soaring tiers like a medieval toadstool. The guards, sharing a wineskin and conversing, were not keeping an eye toward whoever might approach. They probably didn’t expect anyone on a night like this, with the duke’s son’s wedding afoot. It explained why they were probably half drunk and surly, lounging by the wall. They’d been left in the cold to watch over a doorway few knew about, while the court fattened itself inside on roast meat and frolic.
“I thought you said it was safe,” I said to Barnaby.
He grunted. “It usually is. I guess our lord the duke isn’t taking any more chances. He never had that entrance watched before.”
I glanced at Elizabeth. Inside the hood of her cloak, her face was like a pale icon, the toll of her encounter with Robert hidden in her eyes. “There are only two,” she said in response to my unvoiced question. How could I have thought she’d say anything else? “We’ll have to find a way to distract them.”
Before I could reply, Kate shifted to me. Her apple-tinged fragrance made me acutely aware of how much she had begun to affect me, much as I wanted to deny it.
“I have an idea. Her Grace and I have played similar games before, albeit with a different caliber of gentlemen. But men are still men, and these two have drunk more than their share. If you and Barnaby are amenable, I believe we can accomplish this task with a minimum of effort.”
I stared, speechless. Barnaby grinned. “Now, there’s a lass after my own heart.” Even as I struggled for a reasonable refusal, Elizabeth tugged her hood farther over her head, concealing her face. I reached for her arm. “Your Grace!” I ignored her barbed glance at my fingers. “Please, think before you do this.” I shot a look at Kate. “You could both be arrested.”
“I have thought of it.” Elizabeth reached down and pried my hand from her sleeve. “It is all I have thought about since I came to court. I told you, I must do this. Are you willing to see it through or not?”
I met her stare and nodded. Kate muttered instructions, such as they were, then flipped back her hood to expose her face. With a deliberate sway of her hips, she sauntered over to the two men as they passed the wineskin between them.
“Time to fly, my friend,” I said, and Peregrine fled into the darkness.
I gripped my blade, watching with my heart in my throat as Kate and Elizabeth neared the men. The sentries had come to their feet, startled but not suspicious. The random light cast by the waning moon and reflections of candles in the palace’s upper windows were enough to show the intruders were women, who had wandered into the gardens. And women who wandered into gardens at night were, by the very act, not considered ladies.
The larger of the two men lumbered forth, a lascivious grin on his face. Kate was in the lead. Elizabeth lingered a few paces behind, her elegant stature made more pronounced by her hooded cloak. I doubted the sentries would bother to notice that the cloak’s velvet was costly, but should her face be revealed by some mishap, I had no illusions as to whether or not she’d be recognized. There wasn’t another face like hers in all of England.
“Be on the ready,” I said to Barnaby. He grunted in response.
The guard’s voice carried into the night. “And what are these pretty damsels doing here?” He was already reaching a grubby paw to Kate, and