The Charmer (61 page)

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CHAPTER 1

1583 - London, England

L
awrence Shawe burst through the
apothecary shop's door with far more vehemence than usual.  Considering he
never undertook any activity that required enthusiasm on his part, it was
enough to distract Isabel from her herbs.  She glanced up from the jar she’d
been filling with dried juniper berries to glare at him but the look on his
face dampened her temper.  His cheeks were flushed and his hat sat lop-sided on
his silver-streaked hair.  He'd certainly exerted himself on this occasion.
Indeed, he might even have been running.

"What is it,
Lawrence?" Isabel asked.  "What's happened?"

"Someone tried to poison
the queen."

She dropped the handful of
berries onto the workbench.  "Dear God, how awful!  Is she all
right?"

Lawrence nodded and squeezed his
finger and thumb into his eye sockets.  When he drew them away again, he no
longer looked exercised, just exhausted.  His reddened eyelids sagged like old
porch roofs over his blue eyes and even his clothes, usually so fastidiously
tidy, had creases.  Creased clothing equated to utter disarray in Lawrence's
book.

As physician to Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth, Lawrence would take a poisoning attempt on her life very
seriously.  Any threat to her health was a direct threat to not only his
career, but perhaps even his life if he failed to save her.  As the only son of
Isabel's aged employer, she had a vested interest in Lawrence's wellbeing, and
therefore Her Majesty's health too.

"Perfectly all right,"
he said.  "Lady Manningham, however, is quite ill."  He crossed the
rush-covered floor of the small apothecary shop and stood beside her at the
workbench.  He picked up a berry and rolled it between his thumb and fingers
until it crumbled.  "Her Majesty’s Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber ate
the poisoned sweetmeats intended for the queen."  He snorted out a laugh
as he sniffed his fingers.  "Silly woman.  I’ve told her on numerous
occasions her taste for sweet foods will be the death of her."

Isabel didn’t think the joke
terribly funny considering the circumstances.  Nevertheless she breathed a sigh
of relief over the queen's condition.  "Is there any remedy you require
for Lady Manningham?  You’re welcome to anything from the shop, of course.
Your father would wish it."

He sprinkled the crushed
remnants of the berry onto the bench and dusted his hands.  "How is Father
today?" he asked.

"The same."  She
sighed deeply and swept up the crumbs with her bare hands.  "His limbs
ache and he’s confined to his bed most of the time, but he still insists on
personally greeting his favored clients."  She smiled.  Old Man Shawe, as
everyone affectionately called the apothecary, would rather die than give up
his work entirely.  Even so, his ill health meant Isabel now ran the shop and
the Shawe household since Lawrence lived elsewhere.  She dealt with customers
and suppliers, servants and apprentices.  She prepared remedies, dispensed
advice and kept the accounts.  Old Man Shawe was apothecary in name only—and a
well-known name at that, bringing new clients from all over London—but she
included him in all the decisions out of courtesy.  It was the least she could
do for the man who had helped her at a most desperate time.

"Have you been massaging a
hot poultice of comfrey into his limbs?" Lawrence asked.

"Every morning and
night."

"Yes, but with vigorous
strokes.  Like this."  He took her arm and rubbed his thumb along her
sleeve with far less pressure than was correct.  "The massage itself can
be more soothing than the poultice."  He used gentle, low tones as if
speaking to one of his ill patients.  She wondered if he spoke to the queen
that way, in and out of bed.  Or so the rumors went.

Isabel pursed her lips to stop
the wicked smile threatening to betray her thoughts.  "Yes, Lawrence,"
she said, withdrawing her arm.  "I am caring for your father as best as I
can."

"I didn’t mean...  I’m
sorry, I..."  He blushed, turning his milky cheeks rosy, then tried to
hide it by dipping his head.  "Forgive my rudeness.  I know you're giving
Father the utmost care.  I wouldn’t entrust his health to anyone else."
He smiled an apology and at that moment Isabel could see why so many women
found him attractive.  He was only a little taller than her but still handsome
for a man past his fortieth year.  With his good looks, pleasant manner and a
favored position at court, the widower was considered a catch by many women.

Isabel wasn’t one of them.  She
liked Lawrence well enough, but he meant nothing more to her than a friend and
fellow scholar of medicines.  And as her employer’s son, she was as much
indebted to him as to his father. 

"Forgive me?" he said,
with a raise of his eyebrows.

"There is nothing to
forgive."  She moved towards the door at the back of the shop which led to
the rear storeroom and the stairs up to the living rooms.  "Do you wish to
see your father?"

"Yes but I can only spare a
moment.  There is much to be done at Whitehall."

"Of course.  Poor Lady
Manningham.  Has the villain been caught?"

"Not yet.  Burghley and
Walsingham are investigating." 

"I suppose you’re here
because you need a tonic."

"And to see your pleasant
face."  Although his words were playful, he wasn’t smiling.  In fact, his
gaze had turned alarmingly tender.

Isabel laughed in an attempt to
rescue them both from a potentially humiliating situation.  "Then I’m
sorry to disappoint, as I’m sure my face is hideously red from spending all
morning beside a bubbling cauldron."

He lifted one shoulder as if
shrugging off the tension that had threatened to engulf them.  "But still
a pleasing sight, nevertheless."

"You’re too charming for a
humble apothecary’s assistant, Lawrence," she chided.  "Go use it on
one of the ladies at court."

He leaned back against the
bench, smiling.  The moment of tender seriousness had passed and Isabel
wondered if perhaps she had imagined it. 

"Not a single one of them
can match you," he said.

"Now I know you’re teasing
me.  There are many beautiful women at court.  And some very eligible ones who
I’m sure harbor a secret admiration for a handsome physician."

"I’m not merely talking
about external beauty, Isabel, although you certainly have that."

She had been wrong.  Laurence
was merely attempting a different tactic.  She quickly rounded the long counter
which doubled as her workbench and scanned the earthen jars shelved above it.
"If you tell me what was in the poison, I can provide you with something
to counteract Lady Manningham’s discomfort," she said, returning to a safe
topic.  "I assume she didn’t ingest a large dose, considering she is still
alive."

"Fortunately she merely
nibbled on one of the poisoned sweetmeats.  I left her in Doctor Lopes’s
capable hands," he said, referring to Her Majesty’s chief physician.
"She’s taken a purgation but there is not a lot more to be done except perhaps
a soothing tonic to settle her stomach.  Ah, horehound."  He pointed to a
labeled jar on the lower shelf.

Isabel unstopped it and
carefully poured some of the liquid into a phial.  "It should ease her
pain somewhat."

He took it and thanked her.
"Add it to Whitehall’s account."

"I’m sure your father would
want me to give it to you without charge, particularly if it’s intended for Our
Sovereign’s lady."

"He would but I insist you
charge the palace the full amount."

Isabel reached under the counter
and pulled out the accounts book.  She dipped the quill in the ink and wrote
down the quantity and price.  "Now, was there anything else or would you
like to see your father?"

"Ye-es."  He pocketed
the phial.  "Isabel."  He looked up and a sense of foreboding crept
over her.  "My real reason for coming here today was to warn you to be
alert.  Someone from Whitehall will probably want to ask you and Father some
questions."

The sense of foreboding turned
to dread.  She should have known that her past would one day find her.
"What sort of questions?  What has the poisoning got to do with us?"

"I could smell the poisons
used in the sweetmeats."

"And?"

"Hemlock, henbane and
monkshood.  This is one of the few apothecary shops in London that sells all
those ingredients."

She tensed.  "They all have
legitimate purposes if used in their correct dosages.  And we keep them in the
locked storeroom.  I’m the only one allowed to dispense them.  Besides, there
must be other apothecaries who sell those three herbs."

"I know of only five."

Isabel picked up the jar of
horehound and tried to replace the stopper but it didn’t seem to fit no matter
how hard she tried to force it.  "Stupid thing," she muttered,
casting it aside.

Lawrence passed her another
stopper.  "I think this one belongs to that jar."  Concern made his
angular features even sharper.  "Don’t be nervous." 

"I’m not nervous," she
said, willing the hairs on the back of her neck to flatten.

"This has nothing to do
with your father," he said.

Papa.  Poor, dear Papa, seven
years in his grave and still unable to rest in peace.  "I know."  But
would the authorities agree?  When they discovered her connection to him she
would become their main suspect.  And a capable investigator would surely
discover it.

Well, she would just have to
hope for an incapable one.  "Papa was innocent."  The words slipped
out from habit.  It seemed she had been thinking them, if not saying them,
every day for the last seven years.

Lawrence said nothing.  Since
his mother’s death, he was one of only two people in Isabel’s new life—as she
thought of her years living in London—who knew her background.  His silence was
damning.

"I must see Father."
He caught both her hands in his.  "Be careful what you tell the
authorities when they come."

"Of course," she
managed to whisper through her tight throat.

He left through the rear door
and his footsteps retreated up the stairs to Old Man Shawe’s room.  Too
distracted to work, Isabel looked out the window at Bucklersbury Street and
wondered what an official from Whitehall would look like.  Whoever he might be,
he would wear finer clothes than the merchants, tradesmen and servants going
about their business in the muddy apothecary’s street.  She was sure she would
know him when she saw him.

It had begun to rain, scattering
people forced to be out on such a bleak February day.  Some retreated indoors
while others sheltered beneath the overhanging upper stories of the grocery and
apothecary shops lining the street.  Isabel thought one or two might make use
of her warm fire, but none entered.  The rain would keep trade slow that
afternoon but she didn’t mind.  There was much to be done. 

She pulled the rickety ladder
out from the gap between two sets of shelves and picked up the jar of juniper
berries from the workbench.  The bottom two rungs groaned under her weight.  It
seemed Fox hadn’t got around to fixing them yet.  She would have to have
another word with him, and this time she would make sure he knew the
consequences of avoiding his duties.  If Fox couldn’t take orders from her
instead of Old Man Shawe then he would have to seek an apprenticeship
elsewhere. 

She frowned at the layer of dust
on the top shelf and considered wiping it off.  But the jar grew heavy and
since no one except herself and Fox would ever see the dust anyway, she decided
to leave it.  She heaved the jar up but there wasn’t enough space for it on the
shelf.  The entire row, every single jar, needed to be moved along.  That meant
returning the jar she held to the workbench, shifting the ladder down to the
end then climbing back up and shuffling the other jars one by one then
retrieving...