Masques of Gold (3 page)

That sounded unlikely to Justin, but the incident was nearly a year in the past and an ox-drawn cart was highly unlikely to have knocked down a man on his feet, no matter how shakily. Oxen were just too slow to cause an accident. Justin dismissed the subject from his mind as Dunstan came in to report that there was evidence that a horse had been stabled at the back of the hut in which the servants seemed to live and there were marks of a cart's wheels. Justin nodded; it was about what he had expected. He sent Dunstan off to Goscelin with a request that he send messengers to the guards at the gates to stop two-wheeled carts leaving the city, but he did not expect any results. Flael's sons would have passed the gate some time ago, he was sure, possibly before the guard changed. He would have to question both sets of guards, but that must wait until he got a description of the sons, the cart, and the horse from those above.

“Cover the man,” Justin said to Halsig, gesturing at the body. “We have learned everything Master Peter de Flael is ever going to tell us. There is no one here to take prisoner, so send the men out to ask the neighbors if they saw anything. Tell them to ask about the sons leaving with the cart too.”

“And me?” Halsig asked.

“You go too,” Justin replied, “I will need no help with those above.”

He mounted the stairs, signaled to the guard to go down, and pushed open the door without requesting permission to enter. The solar was well and luxuriously fitted out. On one side of the back wall was a hooded hearth in which a brisk fire burned. On the other side was a large, double-lighted window covered with oiled linen. To the right of the fireplace, in the most sheltered corner, stood a handsome chair. To the left between the fire and the window was a bench with an embroidery frame before it. Just opposite the door he had flung open was a table with three stools drawn up to it on which Madame Heloise, the maid, and the boy were sitting. There were signs that they had eaten, but large pieces of bread and cheese, Justin guessed from the shapes, were covered by a cloth at one side.

“Why did you not tell me Master Peter's sons had left the house?” he asked in French as he entered the room.

“Have they not yet returned?” Lissa responded in the same language, looking surprised. “I thought they must have gone to some friend of Peter's to put the strongboxes in safekeeping, but they might have decided to take everything to Canterbury. Only that will take days if they go by road.”

“Why should they take the strongboxes away?”

“I do not know.” Lissa shook her head and put a hand to her lips, her forehead creased with anxiety. “I assumed that Peter had left orders for them to do so.” She paused and looked appealingly up at Justin, then went on slowly. “I know very little about Peter's business. We have only been married for six weeks, and I—I was not bred to the goldsmith's trade. It seemed reasonable. I thought perhaps Peter feared that debts would be claimed against him or—or—I do not know. I think young Peter and Edmond were fond of their father. I cannot believe they would have left him as they did unless the matter was very urgent. Or unless—”

A tide of color swept up from Lissa's throat into her face and tears rose to her eyes. The fingers, which had dropped while she spoke of the reasons her sons-by-law might have had to remove the strongboxes in such haste, crept up to her lips again, making her look like a vulnerable child. And the pink in her cheeks combined with the mist of tears to wash the green out of her eyes so that they looked all soft brown. Justin had to remind himself sharply that this image of gentle timidity might easily have connived with one or both of the absent sons to murder the old man. If she and one of the sons were lovers, and if old Peter had discovered them…

“Unless what?” Justin asked, keeping his voice soft with spurious sympathy and suppressing the spurt of rage he felt at nearly succumbing to a glance full of appeal and admiration.

“Unless they thought I would attempt to steal their heritage from them,” Lissa replied, straightening her back and dropping her hand so she could clasp both together in her lap. She looked at Justin with a touch of defiance. “I cannot imagine how they could be so silly as to believe I would have any claim to Peter's money or property. What was to be mine on Peter's death was clearly defined in our wedding contract and put into safekeeping with Hamo Finke, but Peter's sons were very much opposed to our marriage. It is possible, I suppose, that they suspected I had…seduced their father into making a new will while we were at Canterbury, but—”

Lissa stopped speaking abruptly and bit her lip. She had nearly blurted out the fact that Peter did not really care for her and had only married her as part of some arrangement with her father so it would have been impossible for her to influence him against his sons. She must not imply there was anything unusual about her marriage or that her father was otherwise involved than to obtain the best settlement he could for his daughter. It would be fatal to allow her feeling that Sir Justin was a strong, safe haven to induce her to tell him more than was safe for him to know. Sir Justin—she had inquired about him after meeting him—was known for truly seeking justice, and that was dangerous to her in this case.

“Then there is no new will?” he asked.

“No.” Lissa brought a hint of indignation into her voice. “It would have been stupid and cruel of me to try to obtain such an advantage. I told you I know nothing of the goldsmith's trade. What good would the reversion of Peter's business have been to me? Besides, I am my father's heir—” She stopped again, troubled by the way her father kept creeping into her mind and conversation.

“And your father is…?”

“William Bowles,” Lissa answered shortly.

“I
do
remember you!” The words burst out before Justin thought, followed by an irrepressible smile.

The name of William Bowles, the sharp tone of her voice, and her slightly indignant expression brought back to Justin a clear memory from the past year. After the rain, which had finally quenched the terrible fire that had destroyed a third of London, many of the townsfolk who had escaped loss had come out to do what they could for their less fortunate fellow citizens. In one of the churches where the homeless and injured were being sheltered, Justin had been questioning a distraught woman, and Madame Heloise had interposed herself, telling him sharply that he would learn more if he spoke more gently.

Justin remembered being so startled by having a young woman dare take him to task with such firmness that instead of blasting her with withering scorn, he had excused himself, admitting that his temper might be short because he had not slept in two days. Then she had apologized to him and begged him to leave the woman to her. In two minutes she had obtained the information he wanted. But Justin could not see how that meeting between them would give her reason to admire him for his charity. Unless she had noticed him later when he had almost come to her assistance.

She had been tending an injured child, and his attention had been drawn to her just as hers had, no doubt, been drawn to him earlier—by a loud male voice. He had seen William Bowles standing over her and ordering her not to waste her time and
his
ointments and potions on strangers. Justin had been infuriated and had started toward them to tell Bowles that what she was doing was necessary by the mayor's will. However, before he could make his way through the injured lying on the floor and those who recognized him and plucked at his sleeves begging for help, she got to her feet and drew her father away from the child. He had not heard her first few words, but as he drew closer, he heard her bid Bowles leave her to her own devices in a voice of such cold threat and fury that the man had flinched away and, after a glance around, departed.

The smile faded from Justin's face. At the time he had been delighted with the lady's determination to continue her charitable activity and amused by the way she vanquished a man known for miserliness and driving a hard bargain. Now, however, remembering the force of will in Madame Heloise only increased his suspicion that, had she a strong enough purpose, there was little beyond her ability. But one cannot take back a smile, and she was now smiling at him, a little ruefully. The pink that had faded from her cheeks while she spoke about her sons-by-law was back.

“You cannot remember much good of me,” she said. “I am afraid I bespoke you sharply, and unjustly too. That woman was a fool, and you were so good and kind to those who begged you for help.”

“It was my business to bring them help,” Justin said stiffly and dismissively. “I was ordered by the mayor to discover what was burnt, what was damaged, and what was whole and who was live, injured, or dead. So I did no more than my duty.”

Sir Justin was one of those, Lissa thought, who could not accept praise graciously. He had done a great deal more than his duty; she knew because the very moment after she snapped at him, she had seen that what he said in excuse of his impatience was true. Not only was his skin gray and his eyes red-rimmed and sunken with exhaustion, but his face was pocked with burn marks, one hand had an angry red wheal, and his rich gown was torn and singed from fighting the fire himself instead of directing others from a safe distance. And he had also come himself to bring good news and bad so that attention from one of his high station and authority would bring what comfort it could to the afflicted. Lissa found the awkwardness with which he tried to avoid a compliment endearing in a man otherwise so assured in manner. Forgetting for a moment the dreadful circumstance that had brought him back into her life, she could not help wanting to tease him.

“You did your duty,” she agreed, lowering her eyes demurely, although her smile grew a little broader. “But another would have gone home to bed first, not come when he could hardly stand to tell half-dead men that their homes were still standing and hysterical women that their husbands were alive.”

“I wish more of my news had been of that kind,” Justin remarked, his eyes bleak as he recalled wails of grief and faces gone dead with despair.

Lissa glanced up and saw that his embarrassment at her praise had been swallowed by the memories of those terrible days, memories that were still painful to him. “Yet to know is better than to be left in doubt.”

She said the words to comfort him, but her voice faltered as she realized they were true for her at this moment. She was sorry about Peter's dreadful death and frightened about her father's possible involvement, but both emotions were far less painful than the agonies of doubt she had endured during her sleepless night.

Justin's brows rose, and Lissa sighed and added, “When the worst is known, one begins without even willing it to plan for the future. One may begin by thinking, What will become of me? but the question demands an answer and draws the mind away from grief.”

Justin did not answer directly beyond a single thoughtful glance. He said, “Madame Heloise, would you please send the maid and the boy down to the workroom so that I can talk with you alone? You understand, do you not, that I must speak with all of you separately about what happened?”

Lissa felt a flood of gratitude, knowing he could have given the order himself and undermined her authority over her servants. She began to tell Binge and Witta to go down to the workroom and wait, then halted them with a raised hand and turned to Justin who had come closer to the table and taken off his cloak.

“Instead of waiting while you question me, may Witta go for a priest? I must make arrangements for Peter to be buried—or—or do you think I should wait for his sons to come back…or be found? Or perhaps I must wait until someone else examines Peter?”

“You may send the boy for the priest if you are sure he will come back.”

“He has nowhere else to go, poor creature. At least he has never told me of any home or family. And I think he is fond of me. I am sure he will return.” She told Witta what to do, and the boy ran off. Then she raised her eyes to Justin again, her lips curving upward as she said, “Now that I have nibbled on a finger of your good nature, I am about to bite off the whole hand. May Binge go to the market for food? And if she may go, should she buy sufficient for dinner for you and your men?”

Justin should have snarled at her that his presence in her house was not meant to be a social occasion. What he said was “Yes, yes, send the woman out. We all must eat.”

“You may be sure she will not run away either,” Lissa said, her smile broadening into a mischievous grin. “She is waiting most eagerly to tell you how much better a wife and mistress Peter's first wife was.” Then a frown replaced the smile. “But she will tell everyone in the market of Peter's death, and perhaps—”

“That will not matter,” Justin said. “My men are already questioning your neighbors and those who came early to the Chepe, so your husband's death is no secret.”

His sense of shock at his easy agreement to all she asked had been dissipated by Lissa's grin. Either the woman was so completely innocent of ill will toward her husband that suspicion of herself was inconceivable to her or she was guilty and so good at concealing her thoughts and feelings that open attack would be useless. His reaction was most fortunate, Justin thought, watching Binge close the door as she left the room. If he wanted the truth about Madame Heloise, he would have to trick it out of her. And that could not be done at once; she would be too suspicious of him to let down her guard immediately. Over a period of days or weeks if he allowed himself to seem seduced by her charms and sympathetic and helpful, she would relax and might easily let slip evidence he could use.

“And speaking of food,” Lissa said, rising and going toward the wall that separated the bedchamber from the solar, where fine silver plates and goblets were displayed on two open shelves, “you told me you had come without breaking your fast. You must be famished by now.” She smiled at him over her shoulder, took down a plate and a goblet, and brought them back to the table. “Do sit down. You may question me while you eat.”