Linda Barlow (39 page)

"You said you weren't coming until later. How long have you been listening?" Roger's voice as he addressed Lacklin was cracking with stress.

"Not long. When I heard the sound of a woman's voice, I thought you were entertaining a whore. The library seemed an odd place for it, but knowing your exotic tastes—"

"Kindly refrain from such commentary in front of Alexandra. There's no need to take this out on her."

"I wouldn't dream of taking it out on her. It's you who are responsible. In faith, Roger, taking your brother into your confidence was bad enough, but this? Charles Douglas' daughter, for God's sake. Lady-in-waiting to the queen herself. On the very eve of our largest undertaking, I come in to find our security compromised."

What was their largest undertaking? Alexandra remembered the air of tension in the room when she'd interrupted Roger and Alan and their friends a few minutes ago. Had she stumbled right into the middle of one of their plots?

"I won't betray you," she said.

"No," Lacklin agreed, "you won't." He looked back at Roger. The animation he had briefly shown had melted back into the discipline and control that she had always associated with him. Cold Mr. Lacklin, but for an instant he had been hot. She glanced from him to Roger. They were both formidable men.

"Think, Roger," he went on. "Her father's spies are but half a step behind us, and God only knows for what purpose Geoffrey is using her. You trust her, apparently. I'm glad to discover that there's still one corner of your soul that's not given over to total cynicism, but I cannot share your confidence. For all you know to the contrary, she could be in league with de Montreau."

"Oh please," Alexandra snorted.

Lacklin ignored her. "She has been seen in conference with the Frenchman far too often. We dare not allow her to walk out of here, not now, not today. Too many lives are at stake."

Roger heard him out in silence. Slowly he turned to look at Alexandra with an expression she didn't recognize. When he finally spoke, his voice was gentle. "I'm sorry, Alix, but he's right. You've disregarded my warnings one too many times."

She felt a thrill of fear that was all the stronger for being completely unexpected. "What on earth are you going to do? Turn me over to him to get my throat slit? I don't believe that, Roger." She began to walk toward the door, restraining her irrational urge to break into a run.

Neither man moved. "It's locked," Roger said, holding up the key. "And for the love of God, don't scream for Alan; you'll only upset the lad. As it is, he's probably waiting out there with a small cannon, lest I harm a single hair on your head."

"I have no intention of screaming. I never scream. I will certainly argue bitterly, however, if you don't unlock that door and let me leave."

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "You're not going anywhere."

She turned to face him once again, lifting her chin and stiffening her spine. She was blasted if she would give them the satisfaction of knowing she was afraid.

Roger knew, though; she could see it in his eyes. There was no threat there; she read compassion in those brown depths, and she felt encouragement flow toward her like a wave. It seemed impossible, yet she knew his thoughts, as if their minds were one. "It's for your own safety as much as ours that you must remain here," he told her. "Francis doesn't trust you,"—he shot his friend a scowl—"and people whom Francis doesn't trust have an uncanny tendency to die young."

"I said I wouldn't touch her. Do you require me to swear it?"

"No. Let's simply assume that none of us trusts any of the others, shall we? That way everyone is careful and no one is unpleasantly surprised. I'm sorry now that I didn't take your advice about Geoffrey. Can we still have him killed? Now, tonight?"

"I'm not having anybody killed on my account," Alexandra put in. "Not even him."

"You're in no position to argue. As you've so cleverly worked out, Francis and I are dangerous criminals, and you, sweetling, are our prisoner."

Her head cocked to one side as she examined their faces. Her heart had stopped beating quite so rapidly. Roger's expression continued to be reassuring, renewing the courage that had momentarily faltered in her. "One of the queen's ladies? Surely that is treason? My father won't like it one bit."

Neither man commented.

"Might I inquire how long my captivity is likely to last?"

"A day or two, that's all."

"And where shall I spend it? Here in your house?"

Roger walked over to the fireplace and tripped the mechanism that revealed the secret passage. He then crossed to her side, took one of her wrists in a hard grip, and led her back to the narrow black oblong. "Here in my dungeons, my love."

Chapter 21

Inside the hidden passageway, the air was chilly and damp. Roger's arm slipped around Alexandra's shoulders as he steered her around a sharp corner. Behind them, Francis Lacklin lit a torch and handed it to Roger, then another, which he kept for his own use. "I'm going on ahead," he said. "I've got one more rendezvous before tonight. I'll return after dusk."

"Be careful," Roger returned as Lacklin moved past them and disappeared down the steps, his torch throwing his shadow huge against the mildewed wall. To Alexandra he added, "Watch the stairs. They're steep and slippery."

"Am I about to find out what you're hiding in your cellars?"

"Aye, lass."

"I'm no longer certain I wish to know."

"Too late for regrets."

She nodded grimly, wondering if caution and restraint were virtues she would never learn. Her mind ranged over the possibilities: contraband of some sort? An illegal printing press where seditious, heretical documents were spawned? A team of assassins plotting new attempts on the life of Mary of England? She prepared herself to be outraged.

The reality was less outrageous and far more disturbing than she'd imagined. The murmur of voices greeted her as she and Roger passed through an arras in a wide, torch-lit basement; the high-pitched voices of women and children. They were quiet voices, depressed perhaps, subdued.

There must have been close to thirty of them, simple folk mostly, clad in worn and tattered garments. Of this number, most were women of various ages, some with small children in their arms. There were a few men, many of them elderly, and several beardless lads. In general, the group did not look well. Several coughed, some sat or lay listlessly on straw pallets spread out in rows along the stone floor.

"Who are they?" she asked Roger under her breath.

"Religious dissenters. Heretics, as you call them. If they stay in England, they will be burned at the stake."

"Oh God, Roger! Mothers with little children?"

"One of the women already executed was heavy with child when they bound her to the stake. Her labor began while they were lighting the faggots. She gave birth to an innocent child, who perished with his mother in the flames." His fingers had tightened convulsively on her arm. "Was Almighty God pleased with that sacrifice, do you suppose?"

"I've heard that story too. 'Tis fable. Pregnant women cannot be executed until after their babes are born. So reads the law."

Roger scoffed. "Listen more closely to your mistress's doctrines next time, Alix. God's law supersedes civil law. God's law as interpreted by Bishop Bonner, that bloody-minded swine. He takes pleasure in having his victims whipped until they recant. Women in particular. Have you ever seen a person flogged, Mistress Innocent? If the torturer is skilled at wielding the lash, there are few torments more exquisitely agonizing."

"So I've heard," she managed.

"But what torments there are, Bonner knows. If the venerable bishop's victims remain firm to their beliefs, horrors follow that even your strong stomach would heave to hear about. Torture is illegal, too, in this land. But I challenge you to find a single prison in England where it is not occasionally practiced."

She made no answer. After a moment she said, "You've been giving these people refuge here? Even though your house is watched? Surely there is someplace else where they would be safer?"

"Ah, but that's the beauty of the plan. Not even my enemies will believe I would be so foolish as to shelter heretics right under their noses."

She had to acknowledge the truth of that. "How on earth did you sneak them in?"

"There is a tunnel leading from these cellars to the river. One of my illustrious ancestors, it seems, engaged in a little smuggling to augment his income. They were brought in that way, and will be removed in a similar manner. In the meantime, your father's watchdogs will attest that no unauthorized persons have entered my house in the past few weeks." His eyes met hers with the faintest suggestion of a leer. "Except an occasional persistent woman of easy virtue."

She ignored this, looking from one bedraggled heretic to the next. "What will you do with them?"

"How slowly your brain is working tonight. The Argo sails on the dawn tide tomorrow. Tonight, after dark, Francis and I will shuttle these people down river to the ship and make sure the
Argo
gets away safely. They will be traveling to the German states and Switzerland, where the climate is better for dissenters."

"You’re not going with them, are you?"

"No. We’ve done this before, although this is the largest group we’ve ever sheltered. I’ve told Francis it’s the last; my part in this enterprise will soon be over."

"Sweet Jesu. Alan guessed what you were up to. I thought he was being his usual romantic, Malory-inspired self, but he was right about you for once."

"Alan's probably been right about me more often than you have," he pointed out, to her chagrin.

"He knows about this?"

"Yes. He's proved to be quite helpful. I'm beginning to see some value in the lad, after all."

Roger introduced her to the piteous group simply as a friend. He then stood back and watched her become exactly that to them. She went from one refugee to the next, speaking gently and encouragingly to them, but without condescension. She played with the children, and checked to ensure that the sick were comfortable. She breathed not a word about politics or religion. But they assumed she was one of them, and when one old man led them all in a familiar prayer in English—not the Popish Latin—Alexandra unhesitatingly spoke it aloud with the others.

At one point, as she moved in front of a torch holding a sleeping child in her arms, the light that was cast upon her face revealed the shadows under her eyes and the faint hollows under her cheekbones. She is tired, he realized. There was nothing peaceful or easy about working in the personal suite of Mary of England. Her days and nights were filled with tensions and worries, like his own.

And yet it occurred to him as she bent over the baby that she was more beautiful than any woman he had ever known. Her splendid hair, the color of flame…hair that matched her fiery soul…bright fire, pure fire. A candle in the dark. And her body, which was straight and stalwart, yet softer and more feminine than it had been last summer at Whitcombe. Her clear, silken skin. Her green eyes, always intelligent, but wiser now that she had lived so many months at court. Her impish smile, her tempting mouth. She was nineteen. A woman fully grown. Mature in body and in mind; luminous in spirit, and generous in heart.

And suddenly he knew that he loved her. The realization struck him where he stood with all the power and force of a squall at sea. He was rent from head to toe; his entire way of looking at himself and his world transformed forever. One minute he believed himself incapable of love, and the next he knew that he would hold Alexandra Douglas in his heart from now until the end of time. That he had always held her there. That she was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and that nothing remained but to acknowledge it.

The feeling was sweeping, frightening, and far stronger than anything he had ever known before. Yet his love for her had always been there, ever since they were children at play together. He saw her, wild-haired and imp-eyed, clambering up the highest trees in the forest after him, joining in his most violent games without an ounce of fear, holding him in her skinny arms and trying to comfort him after he'd been beaten by his father. They had been remarkably close for a boy and girl separated by a six-year difference in age. They had been remarkably close by any standards.