Kissed by Shadows (27 page)

“You aren't,” Robin stated flatly. “As soon as Pippa is safe, Jem will escort you back to London.”

Luisa made no comment, merely climbed back into the coach. She leaned back in her corner and regarded Pippa anxiously. “Feeling better?”

“Yes, I thank you.” Pippa closed her eyes, thinking that if she could just sleep for a little, brief unconsciousness would give her both respite and strength.

Luisa closed her own eyes, the better to think. She had planned to suggest that Jem take a message of her own to her guardian, its gist that her reputation was quite safe with Lady Nielson, who had need of a female companion on her present journey.

It was of course possible that Don Ashton wouldn't see the matter the way she did. In fact it was more than likely that he was already searching for her. But he wouldn't know where to start. He knew nothing of her friendship with Robin, no one knew of it. He would think for the time being that she had been abducted from the streets. They would be desperately anxious and for that she was sorry, but she couldn't see what else to do.

There was one thing of which she was certain. She was going to see this mysterious adventure through to the end. The idea of returning to her previous existence was impossible to contemplate.

Lionel and Malcolm rode as if the devil's hounds were on their heels. They reached High Wycombe late in the afternoon and split up to make inquiry of the town's three inns. It was the most obvious place for the travelers to have stopped for refreshment and Lionel was not surprised when Malcolm reported that the White Hart had served a gentleman and his page, and had sent refreshments out to the two ladies who had remained in the carriage except for a few minutes stretching their legs.

Lionel drank a tankard of ale at the ale bench outside the inn and considered. Robin had to carry his now unnecessary message to Lord William of Thame, but he could not risk taking Pippa there with him. Philip and Mary's spies were everywhere and buzzed with particular vigor around Elizabeth's avowed supporters. The ladies would have to be left in an inn somewhere while Robin completed his business.

He guessed that they would stop well before nightfall, and Robin would probably plan to ride on to Thame tonight and continue to Woodstock in the morning, leaving his companions in hiding. Unencumbered he would be able to ride hard and deliver his messages quickly, so he had to be intercepted tonight, before he reached Lord William at Thame.

Lionel frowned into his ale. He had no illusions. His hardest task would be to convince Robin of Beaucaire to put his sister in his safekeeping. It could prove an impossible task.

He carried with him de Noailles's instructions that Robin cancel his present mission and accept Lionel Ashton as a trustworthy colleague, loyal to their own causes. But would that be sufficient to get Beaucaire to listen to him despite what he must now know about his part in what had been done to Pippa?

Pippa.
Even if he succeeded with Robin, how was he to regain Pippa's trust? He was no closer to an answer.

He tossed back the contents of his tankard. “Let's be on our way, Malcolm. We'll need to ask in the villages if they've been seen. I'm certain they'll deviate from the road as we get closer to Thame.”

“Right y'are, sir.”

They followed the carriage's progress as far as Princes Risborough, and then learned from a cottager that the gentleman riding alongside the carriage had asked for the name of a nearby inn off the main Oxford road that had beds for travelers.

“The Black Cock in Chinnor's as good as it gets in these parts, and so I told him,” the old man said, leaning on his fork over the compost heap he was turning. “Not up to much for gentry folks, but as good as it gets.”

“We have them,” Lionel stated. His outward demeanor was as calm and detached as always, but his heart felt squeezed and apprehension lay sick and heavy in his belly. He had to persuade Pippa to trust him enough for him to get her to safety. He had to persuade her to endure his unendurable company until she was safely on French soil. He would bear any humiliation, sacrifice every iota of his pride, to achieve this. And he would swear to her that once she was safe he would leave her life forever.

And he didn't know how he could do that.

He turned his horse across the field indicated by the cottager and they rode in silence as the last pink rays of the setting sun faded in the western sky.

Pippa looked around the small chamber in the Black Cock with a grimace. “I would rather sleep in a tent,” she said. “This is filthy. I'm certain there must be fleas.”

Robin held up the tallow candle provided by their surly landlord and surveyed the accommodations as unhappily as she. There was but one guest room in the inn and the four of them would have to share it.

“Well, we must make the best of it,” Pippa said in resolute tones. She reflected that if this miserable hovel was the worst thing that happened on their flight they could count themselves fortunate.

She made disposition briskly. “Luisa and I will take the bed. Robin, you won't mind the truckle bed, and Jem, I'm afraid you will have to make do with the floor.” She gave the page an apologetic smile. “We'll find a blanket for you.”

Luisa tried to conceal her horror at the smell of damp and mildew and dirt. At the unglazed window and the filthy straw on the floor. Pippa's matter-of-fact acceptance of the conditions astonished her. But she had never been exposed to the rough living of a traveler, unlike Pippa, who as a child had traveled in the company of a troop of soldiers the many miles from Derbyshire to London when Lord Hugh of Beaucaire, Robin's father, had arrested her mother and taken her to appear before King Henry VIII and his Star Chamber.

Robin set the candle on the shelf above the cheerless hearth. He regarded Luisa in the dim light and saw her consternation. “You should have stayed at home,” he observed.

Luisa flushed angrily. “I do not mind this,” she denied. “Pippa will need my help all the more in these conditions.”

Pippa gave her an appreciative smile. “That is a very kindly thought, Luisa,” she said. “I'm sure we can do something to improve this. I shall go and confront Goodman Brown. He must sweep up this straw and replace it with fresh rushes. A fire would help the dampness, and he must supply fresh herbs to sprinkle on the mattress.”

Pippa was aware of a welcome surge of energy at the prospect of something concrete to deal with. Moping with unhappiness sapped one's energy and drive quite dreadfully, she reflected.

Robin followed her into the narrow passage outside. “Pippa, I must leave you here,” he said, pulling the door closed behind him so that Luisa could not hear.

“Yes, I know what you have to do,” Pippa replied quickly. “Will you return this night?”

“Yes, of course. My errand will not take long.”

She tried to hide her relief that they would not be alone overnight. “Then go to it, love. I'll have enough to do trying to make this place habitable and finding something halfway palatable for supper.”

“I will leave Jem with you.”

Pippa nodded. “Yes, that would be wise. We shall put him to work.” She smiled at Jem, who had accompanied his master. “A poor exchange, I know, Jem, but I would not wish to be left here without a man's company.”

Jem was so gratified by this elevation in status that he forgot his disgruntlement and returned readily to Luisa and the bedchamber when Robin waved him away.

Robin said uncertainly, “I hate to leave you.”

“The sooner you're gone the sooner you'll be back,” Pippa replied, heading for the stairs.

“This may cure Luisa of the wish to go adventuring,” he said with a sigh as they reached the cramped hallway at the bottom of the stairs.

“Would you wish her cured?” Pippa regarded him with narrowed eyes.

“She's Ashton's ward. She can mean nothing to me,” he returned with sudden harshness.

The surge of energy that had buoyed her faded as abruptly as it had come. “She's not tarred with her guardian's brush. I sense only goodness in her.” Her voice was low and bitter and she averted her eyes so that he did not see the pain in them. But he felt it nevertheless.

“Pippa, I—”

“No, don't say anything. There's nothing to be said. I will manage this.” She touched his hand. “Go, Robin. We have but two days before they discover I'm gone.”

Again he hesitated, but now she met his gaze steadily. “Go,” she repeated.

He nodded, and strode out into the gathering dusk.

Pippa stood for a minute, wrestling with the pain that threatened to sap her resolution completely. She knew that she must not see herself as a victim. If she did so she would see no point in going on. She had been touched by an evil, but it was not her
self
that had been touched. She had to hold on to that.

With a little encouraging nod to herself she turned towards the kitchen, prepared to do battle with Goodman Brown and his slatternly wife.

She heard Lionel's voice from the yard before she had taken a step. It came so suddenly it seemed to have sprung from her thoughts. She stood immobile in the shadows of the hall, terror icing her veins. He would take her back.

But she would not go. She would die rather.

Robin's voice, raised in anger and alarm, reached her, drowning out Lionel's more measured tones. She crept farther into the shadows as if they would somehow protect her from discovery.

Had he come after Luisa or herself? Not that it mattered. Once he saw her he would try to take her back.

She moved at last, forcing herself to go to the door that opened on the yard. She could not,
would
not, be found cowering.

Lionel and a man she didn't know had dismounted from their horses and were facing Robin, who had his hand on his sword hilt.

“Don't draw on me, Beaucaire,” Lionel said. “I will not fight you and it will do no one any good if you run me through. I have something from the French ambassador for you . . . something that may make matters clearer.” He put his hand inside his doublet.

Robin kept his hand on his sword but made no move to draw it. With his free hand he took the sealed document. The seal was authentic, unless Ashton had stolen it, or had access to an exact replica. Doubts swirled as he read the message. He knew the ambassador's handwriting and this was certainly it.

He handed the paper back, saying dismissively, “That is all very well, Ashton, but your true colors matter little to me. Your ward is above stairs. My sister is my business, and I may do it all the faster now that my mission is canceled.”

“No, I'm afraid she's mine.” Lionel took the letter, folded it, and put it back in his pocket. “You must forgive me, but I can get her to safety more effectively than you, Beaucaire.”

“As effectively as you used her,” Robin said, his hand still on his sword. “You must forgive
me,
Ashton, but I would not trust my sister to you if I were on my deathbed.”

“It is for Pippa to make that decision. 'Tis her life at stake,” Lionel declared, still quietly. “I believe I can save her life, where you will fail.”

Pippa struggled to make sense of the exchange.
What was he saying? What did Robin mean about true colors?

The sight of Lionel filled her with such rage and sorrow that it took her breath away. She had expected never to lay eyes upon him again and was utterly unprepared for the effect his presence had upon her. It made it impossible for her to think clearly, to make sense of what was going on.

She heard Robin's sword rasp in the sheath as he drew it. And she knew that good swordsman though he was he would be no match for Lionel.

She stepped out into the yard, her voice carrying through the gloom. “No . . . no, Robin, sheath your sword.”

Pippa looked directly at Lionel with eyes so cold he felt they would turn him to stone.

“So, Mr. Ashton, am I to understand that your deep games were all in the right cause? I should be grateful that you would save my life, it seems. How nice for us all to have you on our side.”

Her lip curled in a sardonic travesty of a smile. “You will understand, I'm sure, that I prefer to take my chances with my brother. Luisa, however, is above stairs. You will be glad to know that she is quite safe, her reputation untarnished.”

“I never doubted that,” he said, knowing he must not waver, must not allow Pippa to turn him away however much icy scorn she poured upon his head. “She will return home with Malcolm as soon as 'tis light. But you
must
hear me out, Pippa. Beaucaire cannot do for you what I can.”

He looked across at Robin. “I doubt you would dispute that, would you?”

Robin said nothing, his lips set tight and thin in his taut face.

“That may be so,” Pippa returned, repeating flatly, “but I will take my chances with my brother.”

“You should hear him out.” Robin spoke with obvious difficulty, but there were facts he could not deny. It was clear as day that Lionel Ashton had skills he could not begin to match. A mole who could bury himself so deeply in enemy territory would have tricks way beyond Robin's experience.

He put a hand on his sister's arm. “There is so much at stake here, love. At least listen to him.”

Common sense told Pippa to take her brother's advice, but it was a bitter pill. Without a word or a gesture she turned back to the inn.

Robin regarded Lionel in bleak silence. Lionel inclined his head in acknowledgment of all that lay beneath the silence, and followed Pippa.

Twenty-one

Lionel followed Pippa upstairs. She didn't acknowledge him as she flung open the door of the bedchamber and entered the room, but she didn't slam the door in his face either.

Luisa gave a little gasp when she saw him and then faced him with the air of a hare at bay. “How did you know how to find me?” she demanded.

“'Tis unwise to underestimate Malcolm,” he said dryly. “I'll talk with you later but for the moment my business lies with Lady Nielson and her brother. Go downstairs and remain with Malcolm until I come to you.”

Luisa looked at Pippa in confusion. Instinctively she took a step closer to her.

Pippa touched her shoulder briefly. “'Tis a complicated situation, Luisa, but you need have no fear.”

She glanced towards the door where Robin now stood bristling like a terrier. She could hardly endure the prospect of being alone with Lionel, but she could endure even less the prospect of an audience to whatever was going to be said.

“Robin, will you take Luisa downstairs? See if we can get a fire in here and fresh rushes and some kind of supper.”

Robin frowned. “I think I need to hear what Ashton has to say. Do you not wish me to stay with you?”

Pippa shook her head. “No. This lies between him and me.”

Robin hesitated before saying reluctantly, “Very well. But I shall be just downstairs. You are to call if you need me.”

“I doubt Mr. Ashton means me any further harm.”

Lionel winced at the acid remark but he said nothing, merely stood waiting until Robin and Luisa with the intrigued Jem had left them alone.

“What a miserable pigsty,” he observed, glancing around the chamber.

“I don't imagine you're here to make small talk,” Pippa stated.

She clasped her hands tightly against her skirts, aware that her fingers were trembling a little. She told herself she had nothing more to fear from this man. He had done everything he could to her, but she was afraid that he would say or do something that would weaken her. He had always had such power to move her, to draw her to him. She needed to be armored against him.

“No,” he agreed. He looked at her. “I need to tell you something I have never revealed to another person. I tell it to you not as excuse for what I have done, I understand that for you there can be no excuse, but as a simple reason, a matter of fact. Will you hear me out?”

Pippa saw the pain in his steady gaze, heard the desperation beneath the calm tones. She knew she was going to hear something she didn't want to hear, that she was going to be touched with some other evil, and her spirit shrank from it.

“I will hear you.” She shivered in the cold dankness of the chamber and drew her cloak more tightly around her.

“I believe I told you that I had five sisters,” he began, looking straight at her, but she realized with an inner shudder that he wasn't seeing her, he was inhabiting some other place, some other time.

“Margaret was my twin. She married a Flemish merchant when she was fifteen. Her own choice of husband.”

“You lived in Flanders?” Pippa crossed her arms over her breast, hugging herself beneath the cloak. Simple factual questions would be her armor, they would keep all feeling at bay.

“Our father had a fleet of merchant ships that sailed out of the port of London. Pieter Verspoor was one of the traders in Ghent who did business with him. He came to stay one summer. We had a house on the river at Chiswick. He stayed for several months.”

The sentences came clipped and short. The tallow candle flickered on the shelf above the hearth and his face was in deep shadow.

“Margaret and Pieter fell in love. It was wonderful to see them together. My sister never did anything by halves. She saw the world in black and white and when she committed herself to something it was with all her heart and mind. She would entertain no criticism, no doubts, once she had given her loyalty to a person or to a cause. She and Pieter were married in Chiswick and sailed to Ghent on one of my father's ships the next day. It seemed their marriage was idyllic. There were two children in quick succession. Healthy children and uncomplicated births.”

He paused for a heartbeat and then said, “In the spring of 1549 they went to Geneva, where Pieter had some business, and there Margaret heard John Calvin preach.”

Lionel turned away from Pippa and she could only see his deeply shadowed profile. He didn't speak again for a long time and she didn't prompt him. The cold was now in her bones. And it had little to do with the ambient temperature in the chamber.

When he spoke again she started. His voice sounded hollow, as if it was coming from some deep pit.

“You know of course of the emperor's Edicts against the Reformation. You know how harshly they are administered in the Netherlands. You know that it is a crime punishable by death for a man to know of his neighbor's heretical beliefs and fail to report them to the authorities. You know of the Edict of Blood that makes it a capital crime for any layperson to discuss the Bible and for anyone who has not studied theology at a university even to
read
the Bible.”

Pippa managed a half nod of comprehension. Her tongue was thick in her throat. She knew of these things in the abstract. Everyone did. But she had never had to confront their reality. The armor was being stripped from her shred by shred as the horror that would end Lionel's story began to take life and form.

“Margaret became a passionate Calvinist. Pieter pleaded with her for the sake of her children to keep her beliefs to herself. We all pleaded with her.” His voice dropped as if he were talking to himself.

“I still don't understand why she wouldn't listen to reason. Why she refused to keep her religious beliefs within the walls of her own house. But Margaret displayed her Calvinism to the world. She would not stoop to clandestine hedge preaching. She preached it in the marketplace. There was no need for a neighbor's tale-telling, although there were many who did. She spoke for all to hear.

“She was three months pregnant with her third child when she was arrested. Because her husband was a respected and powerful citizen, she was treated with consideration, allowed to receive visitors, housed in some degree of comfort. Until Philip arrived in Ghent, sent by his father to sharpen the teeth of the Edicts. The emperor Charles had heard that too many heretics were escaping the stake.”

Lionel turned back to Pippa. His expression in the gloom was as twisted and bitter as his voice. “Philip visited my sister in jail. Margaret was a very beautiful woman. She had a fire in her eyes that could inflame a man. Philip offered to overlook her heresy if she would become his mistress. Margaret laughed in his face.

“He took my sister's case under his own personal judgment. She was delivered to the Inquisition in Brussels, who for the remaining months of her pregnancy strove for her immortal soul.”

His face twisted with pain and contempt. “They allowed us to see her after five months. They offered us the chance to plead with her to recant. According to the Edicts if she recanted they would bury her alive. If she refused she would be burned. The child was still alive in her womb, God alone knows how. Margaret was unrecognizable, an old and broken woman, but they would not send her to the death she chose until after the birth.”

Pippa felt that she had supped full of horror that day. Horrors that all began and ended with Philip of Spain. She kept her eyes on Lionel and despite everything her heart went out to him. She had tried to shield herself from emotion but there was no shield or buckler proof against the anguish she saw in his eyes.

He continued, his voice now without expression, his face closed. “She would not recant. They racked her during her labor and she still managed to deliver a healthy girl child. They took the child and burned Margaret the next day in the public square. They used green wood. I could do nothing to help her. I had to stand and watch my twin sister, half dead already after months of torture, die a slow and agonizing death.

“I could do nothing!”

It was a dreadful low cry wrenched from the depths of his soul. Pippa was aware that she was weeping soundless tears and she made no attempt to stop their fall. She could not drag her eyes from his tortured countenance. Sick and weak, she sat abruptly on the bed.

When he spoke again, the desperation had left his voice but it was infused with passion of another kind. His gray eyes glittered like liquid mercury.

“I swore then, in the moment of her death, that I would be avenged upon Philip, upon his father, upon Catholicism. I would find ways to frustrate Spanish interests wherever they lay. To do that I had to work from within. I had to get close to the man, become an intimate in his retinue. And I had to lose all emotion, all moral scruple, and pursue just one goal.”

He looked at Pippa and for the first time since this had begun she thought that he was really seeing her again, that he had returned to this chill and shadowed chamber. “I do not expect you to forgive me, or even to understand.”

He opened his palms in an unconscious gesture of futility. “I did not know you. I could not stop what happened to you, but I could stop their plan from coming to fruition. To do that I had to be a part of it. I intended to take you to safety just before the birth.”

He shook his head and turned away from her again as if he could not bear to look at her any longer.

“I did not know you,” he repeated softly, “but I realized after that first dreadful night that I had not succeeded in quelling all emotion. I could not distance myself from you as a person, as a
woman.
I found myself needing to get close to you, to help you somehow. When you came to me after you'd discovered your husband's secret, I could not hold back. I gave you what I felt you needed and in the giving received in return a gift more precious than any I could ever have imagined.”

He turned slowly back to her. “Since that moment I have been true to you, and to that gift. And now you must let me get you to safety. My plans are laid, although I had not expected to implement them so soon. I have revealed my hand to Philip and am no further use to the people I work for, indeed my life like yours is in danger. So you must bear my company until we reach France. I will not intrude upon you, I swear it, and once you are safe you need never lay eyes upon me again.”

Pippa took a deep, shuddering breath. She could find no words. He had drawn her to him with the tale of his agony, just as she had feared, but he was still the man who had taken part in her violation. She told herself this fiercely as if it would thus tear apart the connection he had spun between them. But there was another fact that held tight the silken thread. He was still the man she had loved.

Had?
Or
did
?

The hurt was still too great for her to see the answer clearly, but she would have to discover it. Just as she would have to discover if she could forgive.

“What happened to Margaret's child?” Once again she sought distance in facts.

“Judith was given to her father. She's now three years old.”

Silence fell between them. Lionel had bared his soul. He could do nothing now but await Pippa's judgment. He stood unmoving, watching her as she remained sitting on the bed, her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes on the floor.

Feet on the stairs, a sharp rapping on the door broke their mutual reverie.

“Pippa!” It was Robin's voice, loud, imperative, infused with anxiety.

Pippa was aware only of relief. “Come in, Robin.” She turned her head to the door as it opened.

Robin stood in the doorway suddenly awkward. He didn't know what he'd expected to find, but when at last he couldn't endure the waiting he had raced upstairs in a fever of concern and a sweeping resurgence of his deep anger and distrust of Lionel Ashton. He couldn't understand how he had agreed to leave Ashton alone with the woman whom he had so devastatingly betrayed.

What he found was Pippa sitting quietly on the bed, Ashton standing by the window, and an atmosphere so heavy and portentous that Robin felt that he had intruded upon something that was absolutely none of his business.

“Jem is bringing up hot coals to make a fire and the goodwife is sending a girl to clean the floor and lay fresh rushes,” he said as if this was his excuse for intruding. “There's a decent fire in the taproom, we can sit in there until this chamber is prepared.”

Pippa felt his discomfort as if it were her own. “Did you contrive supper?” she asked, managing a reassuring smile with difficulty, trying to return some normality, some ordinariness to their situation. “I am famished.”

“Oxtail soup,” Robin said, a little comforted by the smile. His eyes darted to Ashton by the window. “Are you intending to stay under this roof tonight?”

Lionel said quietly, “That is up to your sister.”

Robin looked at Pippa. She rose from the bed. There was no real decision to be made. She could not fall again into Philip's hands, and her best chance of escape lay with Lionel. What lay between them must be ignored.

If it could be.
But that rider she firmly put from her.