The old woman stepped forward, her grin so broad it looked to hurt. “Ach, I cannot believe this,” Mistress Godwin cried. “Although you haven’t her coloring, you most definitely have my Frances’s pretty face.”
Her smile took a sly twist. “Nor was I so far from you that I couldn’t overhear your conversation with your grandsire. I’d say you have her fire as well,” she added in approval.
“Mistress Godwin,” Anne said, offering the old woman the show of respect she hadn’t wanted to give her grandsire. “How pleased I am to make your acquaintance. Did my mother send anything with you?”
“Indeed she did.” The fold of paper Mistress Alice pulled from her purse was tied with string. “In her letter to me Frances said that I must mention to no one that I carried this for you, especially not to your grandsire.”
Anne tensed in excitement. Such a warning said this must be the response to her questions about Lady Montmercy. There was subtle irony in Amyas unwittingly serving as escort to such a message.
Taking the packet from the old woman, Anne tore at the string to open the letter. There were three pages, all scribed in Lucy Malvin’s clear hand. This was an extravagance, indeed, and not just for the cost of the paper. It would have taken a full day for her mother to spell out so many words on her alphabet board.
Anne skimmed the greetings, her gaze catching on the assurances that her mother’s health was yet good. This was news to savor, but not right now. There’d be time later to peruse the whole from beginning to end. Seeking information about Lady Montmercy, she scanned the lines.
A sentence jumped out at her.
My beloved daughter,
Lady Frances wrote,
I am wondering if your heart yet beats swiftly over this Master Hollier, or has your fancy moved on to another?
Anne stared. How did her mother know she felt anything for Kit? Her cheeks flushed as she understood the source of her mother’s intelligence. It had become her habit to write a daily description of her activities, including the folk who peopled them, in the hopes her mother might find a little entertainment in the doings of the royal court. These notes went their way to Owls House as often as there were messengers, royal or otherwise, riding in that direction. Only now did Anne realize how large a part Christopher had played in those daily events.
Her heart twisted. It would pain her dearly to admit to her mother she’d foolishly pinned her heart and hopes on the wrong man. Clearing her throat as if by doing so she could clear her heart of her Kit, she read on. What she wanted was at the end of the missive.
You have asked about Lady Montmercy,
Lucy wrote for her mother.
Although you were right that she and I both served the last two of King Harry’s queens I knew the lady only well enough to think her a sad lass. As I have nothing to offer you I send instead Mistress Godwin, who was my governess until I wed with your sire.
Whilst Alice and I lived at court she formed an affection for Lady Montmercy. So strong was their liking for each other that upon my marriage the lady hired my Alice as governess to her daughter, the Lady Arabella. I recommend Mistress Godwin to you now, promising that you may take every confidence in her, spilling to her the secrets you have not shared with me.
Anne made a face. Would that her mother were half as witless as Sir Amyas thought her. Folding the papers, she tucked them in her purse for later enjoyment then looked upon the old woman.
“I have much I’d like to ask you, Mistress Godwin,” Anne said with a smile. “A moment please, as I must win some time in which to do so.”
The old woman laughed at this. “As I can think of no better way to spend my afternoon than with my Frances’s daughter, I suspect I’ll wait until your return.”
Anne slipped back into the Presence Chamber. Although it took more than a moment when she again left the room she had the whole of afternoon to dedicate to her unexpected visitor. “Come,” she cried, catching the grandam’s arm in hers, “the day is a lovely one. We’ll walk in the garden as we speak.”
It was to the wilder of Greenwich’s gardens that she led Mistress Godwin. May’s blossoms were gone now, the trees having set their fruit and donned their summer raiment. The tiled pathways were dappled in light, the air sweet with the smell of the wild roses that grew against the garden’s enclosing walls. As they strolled away from the gate the old woman looked about her.
“So many years and so little has changed,” she said with a smile. “It’s just as lovely now as it was in my day.”
“And, just as private, no doubt,” Anne replied. “Glad I am for that. I think it wouldn’t do us any good for someone to overhear what we say. I cannot think Lady Montmercy would much like finding you speaking to me.” This was all the more true now that the lady was aware of Anne’s curiosity in her, although not the purpose behind that interest.
“Have no fear that she might come upon us this day,” the old woman said, her smile tightening into what was almost a grimace. “I happen to know the lady is in London just now. That’s why I felt free to come speak with you this day.”
“God be praised for that much,” Anne breathed. “Before I ask my questions, speak to me first of my mother. I have only known her since”—Anne caught back since my birth left her crippled,—“since she’s been without movement and tongue.”
“So you have, you poor sweetling. Well, I expect I can tell you a thing or two.” Mistress Godwin lifted her head, looking into the distance as her eyes misted with fond memories. “My Frances was like you, all cheek and brass. Aye, so lovely and daring was she that I feared she might catch the old king’s eye.” She sighed against the danger of attracting a monarch’s eye. “I gave thanks if Frances did not, when the last of Harry’s Catherines insisted on her removal from court. It was against that that your mother’s sire married her to Sir Amyas’s younger son.”
Mistress Godwin glanced at Anne. “No insult intended, but I always felt the squire could have found someone better for Frances. Sir Amyas’s son was an overbearing braggart and your mother, well, she was who she was. But her father was certain Sir Amyas’s star was rising, and my Frances was a second daughter.”
“No insult is taken,” Anne laughed. “If I never knew my sire, I do know my grandfather and can imagine the sort of son he produced. I think Mama was content to manage the estate, only tolerating her husband’s infrequent visits.”
According to Lucy, Anne’s father had come to Owls House only at Sir Amyas’s insistence and only stayed long enough to set his seed in his wife’s womb. Four daughters in a little more than as many years there were. When Anne’s birth left her mother as she was her husband had visited no more.
“I say your father died as he deserved,” Mistress Alice said with a certain satisfaction, “surrounded only by servants in his father’s London home.” She paused to sigh. “Had I been free to go to Frances after your birth I would have done so, but she was well cared for while Betta needed me more.”
“Betta?” Anne asked, more than ready to let the conversation move away from her birth and its consequences.
“Lady Montmercy,” the old woman replied in explanation. “If your mother was unhappy in her marriage, Betta was barely surviving hers.” Here, the old woman fell silent.
Thinking Mistress Godwin needed time to gather her thoughts, Anne strode alongside her for a few moments, content to let the fragrant breeze play in her skirts and to feel the sun’s warmth upon her shoulders. When the quiet between them continued, broken only by the twittering of birds and the gentle drone of insects, Anne glanced at her. “Mistress?”
“I’m waiting,” the old woman replied.
“For what?” Anne asked in surprise.
“To hear why it is you have an interest in my Betta. What I have to say is beyond private and could see lives destroyed. Before I spill my tale I’ll know to what purpose you intend to put my words. That, and you must pay my price by telling me why you pry.” Mistress Alice looked at her former charge’s daughter, her gaze cool and calculating.
Anne studied her visitor, considering how much she could afford to reveal, then loosed a breath of defeat. Chances were her mother had guessed a good part of what Amyas was about and why Anne sought information about Lady Montmercy; Lady Frances would have written as much to Mistress Alice. Between that and what the old woman had overheard in her conversation with Sir Amyas a falsehood here could cost Anne the information she might need to save herself.
“My grandsire intends to wed me to Lord Oliver Deyville, whose wife lingers on death’s door as we speak. That I will not do,” Anne said, the iron in her voice meant to remind herself of her goal.
Mistress Godwin loosed a snort. “Why? Because you don’t like the man? This seems a selfish reason to destroy another woman’s life.”
“Nay,” Anne protested, “it isn’t that, although I admit I have no liking for the man. Who could care for him when he is another like my grandsire, cruel and uncaring? It’s my mother. Not every man would include her in his household, and I cannot—nay, I will not abandon her to spend her life alone among servants. I am all the family she has left, and she needs me.”
“So you’ll not marry Lord Deyville for your mother’s sake. Have you a man to put in his place, one who might accept my Frances as she is?” the old woman asked.
“I thought I had.” Anne offered her a small, sad smile.
“But he has refused you because of your mother?” Mistress Alice cocked a brow.
Anne sighed. “Nay, of all the men I know, I think him most likely to not only accept her, but cherish her for who she is. Unfortunately, he’s not interested in marriage, not to me or any woman.”
“Ah, a man who likes other men,” the old woman murmured, a slight sneer on her face.
The need to defend Kit against such a charge sent words tumbling from Anne’s lips. “Nay, Master Hollier’s not like that. It’s some promise he’s made that keeps him distant from me.”
This turned the corners of the woman’s mouth. “Hollier, is it? Would that make him Lord Graceton’s grandson?”
At Anne’s nod the woman’s smile widened. “Now, there was a stubborn old man if ever I saw one. Fortunate it was that he didn’t lose his head as Sir Thomas More did. If your Master Hollier is in any way like his grandfather, he’ll keep that promise of his to the death.”
Anne’s heart ached at this. So she’d also come to believe. For Owls House and her mother she had no choice but to put aside her care for Kit. “Given enough time, I can find another man,” she told the old woman, “but time is a luxury I don’t have. I need something to not only force Sir Amyas to wait while I find the man I need, but make him accept the one I choose.”
“And the search for this weapon of yours has led you to my Betta?” Mistress Alice turned her gaze to the movement of her hems as they walked.
“Aye,” Anne replied. “At my presentation there was a strange interplay between Lady Montmercy and my grandsire. Sir Amyas, who despises all women, seemed to fear her.”
Mistress Godwin’s brow creased as she pondered what Anne told her. After a long moment she nodded. “Aye then, we’ll speak of the past. First, vow to me that you’ll keep the tale I tell between we two, should you find no other use for it.”
“I so vow,” Anne replied without hesitation. Not even Lady Montmercy deserved destruction without some just cause for it.
“Then I’ll begin by saying old Lord Montmercy was a monster, and Betta hadn’t your mother’s fire. She lacked the heart to resist his evil.”
The disbelief that woke in Anne at this description of the noblewoman was strong enough to cause her to interrupt. “I cannot imagine it. Lady Montmercy seems so cool and controlled.”
The old woman gave a sad shake of her head. “The woman you see today is not the Betta I knew and loved. What now resides in that body is a creature who owns my pity, but not my heart. Lord Montmercy destroyed her, for it wasn’t a wife he wanted when he wed with her but a tool. He used her youth and beauty to seduce his enemies and tease their secrets from them.”
Anne stopped stock still in the pathway to stare at the woman. “Are you saying she made herself a whore for him?” she breathed in horror.
Mistress Alice’s gaze was warning-sharp, suggesting she did more than pity Lady Montmercy despite her protest to the contrary. “She made herself nothing. The old lord used cruelty to force a fine young woman into evil. There were beatings if she refused and handsome rewards when she complied. The rewards grew greater when what Betta brought him resulted in the destruction of one he hated. Those sapphires of hers were a gift after her greatest success. As I said, she lacked your mother’s fire, or yours, to deny him.”
“What of his heirs?” Anne asked, struggling to understand and all the while thinking of herself and Lord Deyville. “Didn’t the old lord want children from her to hold her property as his?”
“Nay,” Mistress Alice shook her head. “Betta brought him little in the way of lands, and he was content to use her properties for his lifetime, caring nothing for her bloodline. As for his own estate, he had an heir, or thought he did, in his son by his first wife, who was already wed and producing children.”
Anne’s head spun. Such horror seemed impossible on a day when wildflowers nodded their brightly colored heads to them along every turn in the pathway. At last her thoughts fixed on one idea. Mistress Alice said the old lord used his wife against his enemies. Amyas had been one of his most despised foes.
“Do you know if any of those men Lord Montmercy made his lady bed might have been my grandsire?”
“I fear I cannot say,” the old woman replied. “The shame she shared with me, but not the names. For a time I feared for her sanity. That was, until Lord Montmercy let her keep her son.”
“Let her keep?” Anne demanded.
From the bend in the path ahead of them came a woman’s teasing laugh. A man’s deeper chuckle followed, the sound filled with lust. With a gasp, Anne led Mistress Alice into a sharp turn, the two of them walking back along the tiled path to where it branched.
Only when they were well along in this new direction did Anne look at her visitor. “What did you mean by let her keep?”