Linda Barlow (8 page)

Dear heavens. She swallowed hard, then crossed herself, asking God to preserve her from lustful thoughts. She was going to retrieve her pendant, that was all. He had called her back and she had discourteously ignored him. It was his first night home. She must apologize and give him the chance to do the same. Courtesy demanded that she put things right with him.

Without further examining her motives, she rose, straightened the skirts of her gown, and made her way back down the narrow stairs. At the bottom, she heard voices coming from the hearth in the great hall. She had imagined him sitting there alone with his wine cup, wishing himself back in the Middle Sea, where he had only to contend with minor annoyances, like Turks and corsairs. But instead it sounded as if he had found himself a companion.

Pausing on the threshold of the archway, Alexandra peered into the great hall. Through the gloom, she could see Roger and Francis Lacklin sitting facing the fire with their backs to her. They gave no indication of having heard her quiet footsteps on the stairs.

Damnation! She didn't want to speak the lighthearted little speech she'd been preparing on the way down the stairs in front of the dour Mr. Lacklin. Well, there was no help for it. She was about to enter when she heard the mention of her own name.

"Don't underestimate Alexandra," Roger was saying. "She's not easily duped. It sounds as if you've been overdoing it, anyway. Endless hours of boring prayers? Long sermons on spiritual grace? Jesus, Francis. I thought it was the earthly kingdom you cared about, not the bloody world to come."

Alexandra stood poised in the archway, ashamed to be eavesdropping, but too appalled to stop: Francis Lacklin really was the hypocrite she thought him. And Roger knew it.

"Make no mistake," Lacklin said. "I believe in the doctrines I teach."

"I know you do. But you’ve always insisted that your aims were more political than religious. That’s certainly what you claimed last summer. Now here you are at Whitcombe, leading my father down the garden path of righteousness. I'd be laughing at the lot of you if embracing heresy weren't so dangerous."

Last summer? But hadn’t it been a lot longer than that since they'd been together? They had said they’d known each other when Roger was a fledgling seaman. Alexandra crept closer, keeping well in the shadows.

Roger paused to drink, still partaking of the wine. "When I didn’t find you in London, I wondered where you’d gone, but I certainly didn’t expect to find you here. What happened, did things get too dangerous for you in the city? Are you taking a respite up here, away from court intrigue?"

"It was prudent for me to leave London for a time, yes. But I will soon be going back."

"Whatever happened to your ingenious plot to assassinate Bloody Mary and put her sister on the throne?"

Francis Lacklin turned his head, and Alexandra leapt back out of sight, her heart pounding in her throat. Assassinate the queen? That was treason! Was Roger serious? Was Lacklin part of a clandestine rebellion against Queen Mary? She had never liked him, but it hadn't crossed her mind that he might be a rebel and an assassin.

Pressing herself back against the wall, Alexandra tried to regulate her breathing. She wasn’t easily frightened, but this scared her. Roger had lied to her, lied to them all. Obviously he and Francis Lacklin were much better acquainted than they had admitted. And if Lacklin was plotting murder and treason, dear heavens, these were heavy crimes.

"If you refuse to stop drinking that poison, at least keep your voice down," Lacklin said.

"I'm celebrating my homecoming."

"You're the very devil when you drink. I felt like smashing your teeth in earlier when you were going on about my skill as a swordsman. Christ, man, have you no sense at all?"

"It bloody well serves you right for coming here. I suppose you wanted to assure yourself of my loyalty? What's the matter, don't you trust me to keep our agreement?"

"I trust you," said Lacklin.

A silence. It was so quiet Alexandra was sure they must be able to hear her breathing. But they were looking at each other and not toward the place where she stood clutching the cold stone wall and condemning herself as a
bona fide
intruder into Roger Trevor's dark and twisted soul. His loyalty? Their agreement? Roger had criticized his father for embracing treason and heresy, but it looked as if he was up to his neck in it himself.

"And I, you," said Roger to the unbearable Mr. Lacklin. "But I've no wish to be hanged, drawn and quartered as a traitor. Or roasted as a heretic."

"I need you. You promised me your help."

Jesu! With what? Regicide?

"If you really expect any assistance from me, you will leave Whitcombe. My position here is precarious enough without your presence."

"Let me have some of that wine," said Lacklin, pouring himself a cup. He stared into the fire, and then said, "You might be right. We cannot continue to play so dangerous a game in front of your family, and besides, there is much to be done in London to help our people escape the burnings." He looked back at Roger. "But if I go, I expect you soon to follow. I need you there," he repeated.

Roger said nothing.

Lacklin's voice dropped and she missed the next several sentences. Then she heard another name: her father's. "As you know, Sir Charles has achieved considerable power at court," Lacklin was saying. "In addition to his public office, he runs a considerable network of papist spies. They report to him, and he reports to the queen and her Council. But he is no devout Mass-goer."

Roger laughed harshly. "That's certain. He may pretend to be pious for Mary Tudor’s benefit, but it doesn't extend to his private life. I saw him in a tavern in London on May Day with a wench on each arm. His poor wife must get lonely sitting there at Westmor while Douglas makes the most of his freedom at court."

"I doubt if Douglas wastes much time worrying about his wife," Francis Lacklin said dryly.

Her heart slamming, Alexandra slipped away from the archway. She felt sick, and she couldn't listen anymore. She had cramps down deep in her belly at the thought of her father with a wench on each arm.

That's what you get for eavesdropping, she told herself miserably.

She crept back up the winding staircase, not daring to make the slightest sound lest they discover her. She had spied upon them; they had probably killed people for less. She had a disagreeable vision of them catching her, forcing her to tell them how much she knew, and debating various lethal ways of silencing her. Nonsense, she said to herself as she reached the sanctuary of her bedchamber. Roger Trevor might be a hypocrite, a traitor, and a potential assassin, but surely he would never hurt her, his oldest friend. She wasn't so certain, however, about Francis Lacklin.

She threw herself in bed, overwhelmed by a heavy exhaustion. Just before she sank into sleep, she remembered her lovely silver and opal pendant as she had last seen it, lightly held between the lean brown fingers of Roger Trevor's hand.

Chapter 4

One week later, Alexandra stood at the dressing table in Lady Douglas' bedchamber at Westmor Abbey trying to arrange her mother's glimmering gold hair. The wood-and-glass casements of the onetime monastery had been flung open to let in the morning light, and the fresh scent of late-summer flowers helped dispel the less pleasant odors of human habitation which were unavoidable around a large household, even one as meticulously clean as Westmor. Lucy Douglas was fanatical about cleanliness, making certain that both her person and her surroundings were subjected to frequent scrubbing. She had just emerged from her daily bath, which her servants considered an oddity.

Alexandra was having difficulty with her task. Each time she secured one of the heavy locks with a hairpin, several stubborn strands would fall loose. Lucy Douglas frowned at her in the polished metal mirror.

"Sometimes you are quite hopeless, Alexandra," she said, reaching up to assist her daughter.

"You know I'm no good at this, Mother. Where's your maid?"

"Abed with the ague, or so she claims. She's probably got herself with child again, the little slut. If it weren't so difficult to find a competent attendant, I'd be rid of her."

"I'll send mine in if you wish."

"What does she know about hair, that trollop you insisted on employing? She never touches yours, I vow. You usually wear it loose or hanging down your back in braids, like a schoolgirl. Really, daughter, you ought to develop some sense of style."

"Unmarried maidens are supposed to wear their hair loose," said Alexandra in as neutral a tone as she could manage. She was anxious to finish. She had several errands planned for the day, and the sun was already well up.

"You are a grown woman. It's high time you added some feminine accomplishments to your arsenal of Latin, Greek, and, may the Lord bless us, violent physical exercise. Your ability to swim faster than all the village boys is not going to help you find a husband."

"I'm not looking for a husband."

"No, you've never had to look, never had to worry. With Will Trevor alive, your future was assured. But matters are different now that you must go to London seeking a husband. Your lack of skill in the courtly arts is quite appalling."

Alexandra had heard this before. She did not doubt it was true. She could knit the coarse country woolen or stitch herself an everyday gown, but she was hopeless at embroidery and needlepoint, and she couldn't have done a stately dance to save her life. She couldn't sing or play the virginals, and the only thing she knew about current court fashions was that her own clothing and accessories were several years out-of-date.

"'Tis silly to learn all those things; you've told me that yourself. You wanted me to be able to read and write, Mother. It was you who first sent me to Alan's tutors. You never did a stitch of needlepoint, you said, once you were wed."

"I wanted a literate daughter, certainly; but I never intended you to make a scholar of yourself. If I hadn't been able to read, write, and cipher, we'd have been in a pretty pass with your father never home to manage things. Lord knows I've had my hands full. That miserable bailiff couldn't add a column of figures if his neck depended upon it. There's a bit coming loose on the left side."

Alexandra stabbed in the last hairpin and stepped back. "That's the best I can do."

Lady Douglas turned her head from side to side, critically surveying her reflection. "It will have to do. My looks are fading, I fear." She sighed. "Not that it matters, of course. Be thankful you're not a beauty, child. Better by far a man loves you for your good sense than for your looks."

Her mother had been a famous beauty once, everybody said so. Now she rarely saw her husband, and if what Roger had said about Sir Charles Douglas was true, her father was no faithful husband. But she could not bear to think about that.

Alexandra glanced at her own reflection. She knew she was no beauty. She didn't possess the blue-gray eyes, the blond hair, or the milky white skin that the poets had declared ideal. Her forehead was too high, and the summer sun had brought out all her freckles. But her features were regular, at least: her eyes big and green, her nose straight, and her mouth generous.

Alan had told her that she had a tolerably nice smile. She grinned at herself, considering. There were herbs she could use to bleach the freckles, and plant dyes that would darken her eyebrows and thicken her lashes. Her friend Merwynna, the wisewoman of Westmor Forest, dispensed such items all the time; next to love potions, beauty enhancers were the most sought-after mixtures the wisewoman prepared. Alexandra had learned the recipes long ago, but she had never bothered to use them. It seemed foolish to go to all that trouble when she would never be able to do anything about her most lamentable feature, her screaming red hair.

"Your hair is still so lovely," she said, wondering why her mother insisted on pinning the golden tresses up and hiding them beneath a trim linen cap. "Why couldn't I have inherited yours, instead of Father's?"

"Fortune, my dear. At least you'll be noticed in a crowd, which might prove useful at court."

But Alexandra was beginning to wonder if she would ever get to court. At Will's burial, her father had announced that he was going to find a place for her there forthwith, but there had been no word from him since. Sir Charles was not known for keeping promises to his family.