“Now, girl,” Mistress Alice chided in quiet amusement, “you don’t strike me as such an innocent. A woman cannot go from bed to bed without occasionally bearing fruit. Only once was the old lord unable to force my Betta’s body to shed the child that grew within it. That one, a lass it was, he took from her, refusing to say where he went with the little one and whether the babe lived or died. Everyone else was told the babe had been stillborn.”
“May God have mercy,” Anne murmured. Only after she’d offered up a prayer for the innocents old Lord Montmercy had killed did she again look at Mistress Alice. “So why did he allow her to keep her son?”
“That was the last year of King Edward’s reign. Lord Montmercy knew his life was ending. There’d been Plague the previous year, the outbreak catching in its first wave Montmercy’s heir and his family.” Mistress Alice shot Anne a look filled with dark satisfaction. “I say it was the Lord’s retribution for Montmercy’s evil, of that I have no doubt.
“At any rate it didn’t suit the old lord’s hatred for his brother to allow the estate to fall to that man, so he took to lying with Betta, something he’d not done before then. When she proved fertile he let that child stay where it had rooted.” Alice leaned close and lowered her voice. “In all truth I’m not certain he knew the child wasn’t his.”
“You believe Lord Andrew isn’t his father’s child?” Anne asked, now both wholly shocked and fascinated by this tale.
“I know he isn’t,” the old woman replied with not a little satisfaction in her voice. “My Betta knew whose seed grew in her.”
Anne’s head reeled. Lord Andrew was a bastard. What if he were Amyas’s child? Excitement tried to rise. Was it Amyas she’d seen in Andrew’s strut and heard in his hoarsened voice? Her hopes collapsed.
It couldn’t be. Amyas was incapable. However intriguing Mistress Alice’s tale it offered nothing to connect Amyas to Lady Montmercy.
“Until the last year of his life,” Mistress Alice was saying, “the old lord had taken care to see his wife formed no affection for those she used. But in those last months he was too ill to watch. All I know is that my poor dearling was happier than I’d ever seen her. Whoever fathered her son Betta loved him with all her heart.”
Anne pulled a face. If she was looking for proof positive that Amyas wasn’t Lord Andrew’s sire here it was. How could any woman love him?
“Of one thing I am certain: the man is a devout Protestant,” Mistress Alice continued, “for he went into exile upon Queen Mary’s coronation.”
“As did my grandsire,” Anne mused, trying to imagine Lady Montmercy and Sir Amyas as lovers. The pieces were there, but the fit was wrong to solve this puzzle.
The old woman nodded. “Even though my Betta was then a widow and could have had another husband she held firm in her affection for this one, believing him just as faithful. Five years she waited until Queen Mary lay dying, her Protestant sister set to take the throne. What saddened some made Betta nigh on joyous.”
Mistress Alice shot Anne a quiet, sidelong look. “And why not, since a Protestant queen meant the return of all those exiled during the Catholic queen’s rule? Betta went to serve the new queen, all the while watching for the one she so desired. She doted on her son, giving him the love that she couldn’t shower on her lover.” The old woman shook her head against the memory, her whiskered mouth twisting into a small smile. “How she cherished that lad.”
“So I’m told,” Anne said, the inklings of understanding stirring within her. “That is, until the day your Betta gave her son to a warden and turned her back on him. It’s said she’ll have naught to do with him to this day.”
Mistress Alice sighed. “In that, I fear the lad pays for his father’s sin.” She stared ahead of her, the look in her eyes once again distant. This time, she viewed the past with only sadness in her face.
Even though she was already certain what the answer would be, Anne asked, “What happened when Betta’s lover returned?”
“He rejected her,” the old woman said in a quiet voice. “In doing so this man achieved what Lord Montmercy had not managed with his cruelty. Something in my Betta broke with his rejection. She threw away his son and became what you see when you now look upon her.”
Here was cruelty of which Anne knew her grandfather capable. She breathed out, imagining the pain of having endured a husband’s torment with only a lover’s promise of happiness to keep her sane, then to be tossed aside by the one she trusted. “How horrible for her.”
“You, my sweet, cannot afford to pity my Betta.” The old woman’s voice was tight.
That brought Anne out of her musing with a start. “What do you mean?”
“Come now,” Mistress Alice taunted gently. “Having heard my Betta’s sorry tale, do you think your need to escape marriage to Lord Deyville enough to cause me to spill it? When your mother wrote to me, I plied my Betta with subtle questions and liked naught the answers I received. Nay, you hear what I know because my love for your mother cannot countenance your destruction, and that is what my Betta plans for you.”
Kit sat in the house where he and Lady Montmercy had first met, once more using the barrel-chair. With summer upon them the window’s shutters were thrown wide, allowing the sun to flow into the forechamber. The bench before the fireplace gleamed a warm brown while the wee copper pot standing upon the brick hearth glinted cheerily. Gone was the fine writing desk, suggesting it had belonged to the lady not the householder.
It was rage Kit expected and now found in Lady Montmercy. He watched the noblewoman pace the length of the bedchamber. Gone was her doll-like blankness of expression. Instead her skin seared bright red along her cheekbones, while her mouth was held to a thin line.
“I’d not have thought you so limp of prick,” she snarled, throwing the insult like a spear. “Did you forget to tell me you could not couple like a normal man?”
Even as her charge stung his pride Kit bit back his challenge for her to try him. Proving his manhood to this woman wouldn’t protect Anne, and her protection had become his all. He hadn’t had a nightmare since that day in the barn, as if shielding Nan from harm somehow balanced the wrong he’d done to Nick all those years ago.
Lady Montmercy whirled, her dark blue and gray skirts hissing and snapping against the floorboards as she returned toward the street door. “Have you nothing to say?” she demanded.
“What can I say?” Kit replied. “You wanted to know if a Puritan miss is as easily seduced as any other maid. I’m here to report that she is not. Mistress Blanchemain holds tight to her virtue.”
She jerked around to glare at him. “This is your defense, that she is a virtuous woman?”
Kit shrugged. “Am I to be blamed if there are women in the world who won’t give way to sin?” He tossed this out in repayment for her insult.
The lady’s chin snapped up. “You dare?” she snarled.
“Nay,” he replied, “I but report. I even set my man to seducing her maid in the hopes of winning some aid in that direction. Like her mistress, the servant holds tight to virtue.”
This fact left Bertie much humbled, very frustrated, and utterly unwilling to admit failure. This, despite that Mistress Patience had refused to speak with him the whole of last week over some slight Bertie had done her. Indeed, Bertie’s failure seemed only to have strengthened his determination to have the maid.
Now bracing his elbows on the chair’s arms, Kit leaned forward to rest his chin upon his steepled fingers. “Madam, I’m dismayed that you expect success to come so swiftly. You are too eager.”
“A full month, and you call me too eager?” she shouted at him. “How much time did you think to take?”
“As long I need,” he retorted. “We never discussed how quickly I was to achieve your goal.”
“Sir Amyas could die before you make use of her,” she nigh on shrieked. “You fool! He wants her married. No doubt he’s already planning her wedding.”
Kit shook his head. “Nay, Mistress Blanchemain tells me her grandsire has received several offers for her hand and refused them all.” Aye, Amyas was yet waiting for Deyville’s wife to die while that godforsaken woman had become the bane of Kit’s existence as she persisted in her existence.
“Take heart, madam,” he went on. “If Mistress Anne isn’t yet willing to yield to me, know that she’s sorely tempted.” So deep was Anne’s need for him that her every touch blistered his skin with her wanting. This kept his own desire for her simmering barely under control in spite of his cause.
Lady Montmercy whirled at the doorway to the bedchamber, her sapphire earbobs dancing. Frustration seethed in her gaze. “Be gone from me. I’ll find me another to do what you cannot and see you in prison for your failure.”
Kit waved away her dismissal as the empty threat it was. “Set a new man in my place, and he’ll only have to begin at the beginning, going where I have already gone. Who knows how much longer that might take?”
“If you cannot seduce her then force her,” the noblewoman shouted.
“Where?” he sneered. “In Greenwich’s hall whilst I school her in dancing with half the court to witness my attack? That’s where it must be done, since I’ve no other access to her.”
Her eyes narrowed, and her mouth twisted into a vicious line. “You’re not the first man who thought he could play me for a fool. Like the others you’ll pay the price for your arrogance. I know of those secret lessons of yours.”
It took all Kit’s will to keep surprise off his face. “We have no private meetings,” he lied, his voice hard.
She was but probing, she had to be. Not even Leicester, who had pried with all of his skill, knew of their private lessons.
Caution stirred anger into life. This wasn’t the first secret thing Lady Montmercy had discovered about him. There was that contract written before their initial meeting, addressing the very issue that so plagued him. Someone, someone who knew him intimately, was talking too much and only to her. Even as Kit put his finger upon the only man who could offer up such information, he shied away from the thought. Bertie couldn’t have betrayed him.
Her eyes widened until he could see a ring of white about her irises. “Ball-less man,” she spat out. “Since you’re not man enough for it, and say seduction will take more time than I would wait, I think I’ll hire me one with a bolder cock than yours to force her. Rape is such a simple thing, three minutes and it’s done.”
Here was the threat Kit had come prepared to face. Rising from the chair, he strode to stand before her, using his greater height to carry home his point. “Have a care with the man you choose,” he retorted coolly. “He must either have a position like mine, giving him legitimate access to the heiress, or be a man close to Amyas. Anyone else and it won’t be revenge you win, not with Parliament’s temper just now. Instead Amyas will make a martyr of his granddaughter, using her to decry the queen’s court as wicked and immoral. Every member will echo his charge, and Mistress Anne will be a rallying point as they again try to force our queen to wed. Instead of Amyas’s destruction, you’ll but turn court and country’s sympathy in his direction.”
Rage drained from the lady’s face as he explained to her what she already knew. With a gasping breath she buried her face in her hands. “May God damn you,” she cried into her palms, her voice edged in hysteria. When she lifted her head, her face was once again composed, her eyes expressionless.
With Anne’s safety neatly achieved, Kit met her look.
“I’ll give you until the court begins its summer progress.” Her voice was lifeless and dull. “If she is yet virgin at July’s end or affianced before that date, you’ll find yourself in the Fleet for your debts where you will die.”
“And if I should offer to pay to you what I owe?” A pointless question. He knew what her answer would be.
“You can try,” she replied coldly, “but I find I’m not in a generous mood. I want what was originally promised me in return for my loan.”
Kit offered her a quick bow. “My lady, do your worst, knowing that I, and I alone, hold in my hands all you hope to accomplish.”
Turning, he strode from the room. The end of July. Lady Deyville damn well better be dead by then. If not, Lady Montmercy would have no reason to arrange for his demise. He’d have already expired, having eaten himself alive for want of Anne.
It was a short walk to the alehouse where Bertie waited. This was an older establishment, the plaster between its dark beams gray and spotted with mold. There was no glass in its windows and with the lower floor’s shutters all thrown wide to welcome in so fine a day, Kit could see nearly all the public room.
Bertie sat by himself at the farthest table, his cup before him. His shoulders were bent, his head bowed. Bertie had the look of a man stewing in guilt.
Kit’s anger stirred anew, tempered by hurt. Lord, to think he’d been betrayed by a man he’d known since his sixth year. Two steps took him down into the alehouse’s main room then he strode across the room to set his hand on his man’s shoulder.
Bertie nearly leapt from his skin. “God Almighty, Master Kit,” he gasped out, “I didn’t see you enter. You’re back more swiftly than I expected.”
The need to ask after Lady Montmercy was strong, but so was Kit’s need to avoid hearing Bertie’s answer. If his man admitted to betrayal, Kit had no choice save dismissal when he couldn’t imagine life without Bertie at his side.
“So I am,” he said at last. “Fetch the horses. I’d be at Greenwich before the evening meal.”
Mounted and traveling along London’s narrow streets, there was too much traffic to allow for conversation. Then they were outside the city, leaving behind the urban noise and stench. With no more reason to delay, Kit looked at his man.
Bertie was muttering to his saddle, the words owning a measured cadence. It took a moment for Kit to recognize what his servant did. Bertie prayed.
Stunned, Kit leaned over and slapped Bertie’s thigh with a glove to gain his attention. The man’s head snapped up, bright blue eyes wide in surprise.
“What eats at you today?” Kit demanded, his voice seeming overly loud and accusatory against the quiet of the countryside.
Rather than an irritable retort as the old Bertie would have given, Kit’s servant drew a shattered breath and threw back his head. Eyes clenched shut and his fists closed at his sides, he cried to the sky above them. “I cannot believe what I have done.” His tone was as heartbroken as any man might be in confessing that he’d betrayed his master.
Pain snaked in Kit’s gullet. “What have you done?” he demanded.
Bertie’s eyes widened in desperation. “Master, I asked Patience to wed with me.”
This knocked the breath from Kit’s lungs. “You did what?” he managed to gasp.
“I proposed marriage,” the servant whispered, head hanging.
Disbelief ate up all that worried Kit. He couldn’t stop himself. “You,” he dared to taunt, “who vowed no female would ever lead you about by your nose, have let that wretched woman ring you?”
Anger clouded in Bertie’s eyes. “Patience is a woman of great faith, good morals, and the owner of as sweet a heart as any man might want in a wife,” he shot back. “I’ll not have you speaking so about her.”
This lover’s defense only prodded Kit’s need to tease. “But marriage, Bertie,” he protested with a laugh. “You, as a husband, now there’s an image quite beyond my ability to concoct. How could this happen to you, you the master of all women, the one who swore Mistress Patience would be writhing beneath you in under two weeks time?”
Rather than mount a defense or give way to outraged pride, Bertie’s expression drooped. “Master, I’m so ashamed of myself. I was wrong to ever contemplate seducing her. Now I’ve made my proposal without admitting what I first planned for her. To trade vows before confessing my original evil intent will befoul the affection I feel for her.”
His words resonated in Kit, waking his own unease with what he’d done. What sort of man contracted to destroy an innocent woman? His well-trodden honor chose this moment to raise its head from the muck of his soul and demand he make a similar confession to Anne.
“I find I’m a great coward,” Bertie continued, very real worry staining his blue eyes. His voice lowered. “I fear if I tell her that she’ll cut me out of her life forever.”
Kit grimaced. His heart descended to ride in the heel of his boot as he saw his own fate reflected in Bertie’s fears. By God, Anne would kill him when she heard the story of that contract, and rightly so.
“So what will you do?” Kit asked, curious for his own sake.
“I don’t know,” his man muttered. “Master Kit, I never knew it possible to crave a woman’s mind and soul more than her presence in my bed, but so it is with Patience. This last week, whilst she refused to talk to me, I thought I’d die. No quick tumble is worth the possibility of losing her.”
Kit’s brows rose at this. “Is that what you did to anger her? I wondered.”
A sheepish grin twisted Bertie’s fine mouth. “Aye, she caught me with another maid. I tried to explain that all men need release and just because I laid with that woman didn’t mean I loved her. Rather than soothe her, this only made her angry.” Astonishment colored his every word.
A laugh caught in Kit’s throat. “More fool you for attempting honesty.”
Bertie gave a pained shrug. “My mind was filled with her teachings, making me forget she’s a woman like any other. I tried telling her that I laid with this wench because I didn’t want to befoul her with my sinful lusts. Rather than see the compliment she cried as if I’d killed her.” Befuddlement and regret filled his face.
“From the frying pan into the fire,” Kit groaned.
“Aye,” Bertie agreed with a sorry nod. “Then, last night when Mistress Anne arrived for your dancing lesson, there was my Patience, smiling at me as if ready to forgive. The proposal leapt from my mouth before I could stop it.”
Kit shook his head at his love-struck servant. “So ringed you will be. Well, I suppose she can take up residence in my London house, but how will she feel when the court moves and you must attend me elsewhere?”
Bertie’s gaze flickered away from him to stare across the verdant roll of hills. “Actually, I’d thought of taking her to Graceton where we’ll live with my mother,” he muttered. “There’s too much temptation for me at court.”
“Ringed and castrated,” Kit hooted.
Bertie glowered at him. “I was going to invite you to our wedding. Perhaps, I’ll reconsider.”
“Probably for the best,” Kit said. “I’ll ruin all by rolling upon the floor whilst you spew your vows.” Then, before he could change his mind, Kit asked after what he so needed to know. “Bertie, do you know Lady Montmercy?”
His servant frowned. “Nay, not the lady herself, but I know of her, through Nell.”
“Nell?” Kit prodded.
“Aye, Nell was the lady’s maid once, although I think she now serves the Viscountess of Hereford. I met Nell when you and I first came to court. Our affair didn’t last long, Nell being far more interested in you than me. I fear I don’t tolerate competition well.” This was a weak jest, given Bertie’s soon-to-be married state.
It was confirmation of a connection, but one four years old. Kit frowned. Did Lady Montmercy investigate every man who came to court, or had he somehow caught her eye?