Pen stood up, gathering the children to her. She hesitated, looking at Owen, wanting to say something, hoping that he would say something, but he only returned her look with cold detachment.
“We will go then,” Pen said.
“Yes.” He didn’t move from his perch on the table as Pen, the children, and Robin made their way in silence around him and out into the daylight.
They stepped onto the quay, which was now abustle. The French ambassador’s barge pulled away almost immediately, and Pen stood watching as it swung into midstream.
For all Owen’s apparent detachment, she had read the hurt and anger and disappointment in his eyes, and it pierced her soul. But why wouldn’t he defend himself?
If he had told her it wasn’t true, she would have believed him. Wouldn’t she?
Pen looked down at the child in her arms. For now this was all that mattered.
“This is my son,” she said her eyes radiant.
Robin looked at her helplessly. “How can you know?”
Pen’s explanation was succinct. “We went into High Wycombe. The woman who delivered him told us that Miles took him away as soon as he was born. She told us where to look for him. And we found him tonight.”
Robin gazed down at the child. He could not bear to think of what she had suffered in the last two years . . . she and this scrap of jetsam in her arms. “And what of the other?” he asked.
Pen exhaled softly. “I don’t know what plans to make for him yet, but I could not leave him in such a place. Such a dreadful place, Robin. I think I will kill both Miles and his mother.”
It was said with such low-voiced ferocity that Robin at that moment believed her capable of it.
“There are other routes to retribution,” he said. “Leave that to your mother and my father.”
“Yes, but establishing his identity, his rightful title, that will be more difficult.” The words now tumbled over themselves in her urgency. “But Mary can do it. Mary is the heir to the throne; once she’s free she’ll have the power to declare my son’s legitimate right to his father’s lands and title.”
Pen stopped talking. There were many people on the quay now, boatmen with wherries laden with produce for the palace kitchens, servants hurrying to unload them. Soon there would be courtiers, people who might recognize her. Maybe even Miles. The future was a grim tangle, but now the immediate needs of the two small lives she held took precedence.
“I have to take care of them,” she said. “Find them clothes . . . food . . . milk . . . warmth . . . baths. Robin, I don’t know where to start. Look at them, poor mites. They don’t speak. They barely cry.”
And she remembered how Owen had thought of the needs of small children. He had brought food where she had not thought to do so. Food, milk, and blankets. He knew more than she did about such matters. He was a father.
It made no sense.
But she was a mother. A mother of two. Their lives were now her responsibility.
That made sense.
“Should I take them to Holborn now?” Robin suggested. He had no idea how he would do such a thing, but he assumed he would find a way.
“No,” Pen said. “They are my children. I won’t let them go again.”
She bent and with some difficulty scooped the other child into her arms. She considered for a second, then stated, “I believe his name is Charles.”
Robin gave in to the inevitable. Soon his stepmother would unknot this skein. “What if someone comes looking for him?”
“They dumped him . . . abandoned him in a hellhole. They’ll not come looking for him.”
Robin scratched his head. Pen was making this sound so simple, so obvious. “Pen, you have to help the princess leave Greenwich. How can you do that with two babies in your arms? How can you even imagine keeping them in your own apartment without the whole palace knowing? Without Bryanston knowing?”
“Oh, he’s going to know soon enough,” Pen said grimly. “But for the moment, fetch Pippa. Ellen will help me care for them now, she has a whole host of younger brothers and sisters, so she’s bound to know what to do. When you get back you can arrange transport so that she and Pippa can take them back to Holborn. I will stay with Mary until Owen has arranged her escape. When Mary is free, then so will I be.”
Robin hesitated before asking, “Do you trust d’Arcy in this?”
“Absolutely.” Pen hoisted both children higher in her arms so that Robin could no longer see her face. “It will serve his own interests.”
Again he hesitated. “Do you love him?”
Pen did not answer the question. Instead, keeping her face averted, she repeated, “Fetch Pippa, Robin. I’m going to take the boys to my apartments. Ellen will look after them while I wait upon Mary and tell her of Owen’s plan.”
Bitterly Robin wished that they could do without the assistance of Owen d’Arcy. But he knew that the full resources of the French ambassador and the agile mind of his top agent could do what he himself could not.
“Let me carry Charles.” He took the red-haired child from Pen. The boy allowed himself to be moved from one set of arms to the other with a mute passivity that made Robin want to weep.
Pen’s chamber was still empty, as Robin had left it. Ellen always waited for her mistress’s summons in the morning, although she expected it soon after dawn, when Princess Mary would be ready to receive her ladies.
“Tell Pippa the truth,” Pen said, taking Charles from Robin’s arms. “She’ll understand.”
“She won’t be surprised.” Robin took out his own less than pristine handkerchief and kneeling, wiped both runny noses. “She and I were talking about how maybe there was something in this obsession of yours . . . I can’t get this off. It seems to be encrusted.”
Pen laughed, and for a moment she was lighthearted. “You won’t recognize them when Ellen and I have finished.” She smiled then and said, “Well, I always thought Pippa would see the light in the end.”
Robin, still on bended knee, looked up at her. “We were so wrong. Can you forgive that, Pen?”
“Yes,” she said simply. She paused with her hand on the bell that would summon Ellen. “It was a strange story, Robin. I’m sure I seemed crazed with grief. I can understand how difficult it was.”
They had all done what they had believed was in Pen’s best interests. And Robin thought now of how in the same mistaken belief he had interfered between his sister and Owen d’Arcy. He had done what he thought right, but he could see now that he had meddled where he should not. Pen’s family had caused her enough grief as it was. He went to the door.
“I’ll be back with Pippa in three hours.”
He glanced back at Pen, who was on her knees in front of the children, unwrapping the blankets. “Yes . . . yes, hurry back,” she said absently.
Robin left her, passing Ellen on his way. She bobbed a surprised curtsy at the sight of him coming from Pen’s chamber so early in the morning. He offered her a distracted nod and hurried on his way.
Ellen entered her mistress’s chamber, then stood in the doorway, jaw hanging. “Lord love us, madam. What’s all this?”
“My son, Ellen,” Pen told her. “And his brother. We need to bathe them, feed them, and find some clothes for them.”
“Lord love us!” Ellen muttered again, sinking down on a stool, fanning herself with one hand. She knew, as did every member of the Kendal household, of Lady Pen’s tragedy; now she could only stare, mouth agape.
Pen had expected such a reaction. She said sharply, “You don’t need to understand at the moment, Ellen, you just need to help me. You must fetch everything yourself because
no one,
and I mean
no one,
must know that they’re here. As soon as Lord Robin and Lady Pippa get here, you and my sister will take them to Holborn, to my mother and Lord Hugh. Now, fetch me hot water.”
Ellen rose slowly. She was by no means a stupid woman and Lady Pen didn’t strike her as someone who had lost her wits. “I thought there was only one, my lady.”
“Well, that’s another story,” Pen said, relieved to see that Ellen was at least willing to cooperate.
Ellen came over to the children. They gazed blankly up at her, naked and shivering in the early-morning chill. “Oh, it’s a crying shame,” she said. “Look how thin they are.”
“Hurry!” Pen said with sharp urgency. “I’ll make up the fire while you’re gone.” She wrapped them again in the blankets and then threw fresh kindling on the fire, poking it into a blaze before piling on logs.
She sat down on the floor before the fire, taking the boys onto her lap. “Do you talk at all?” she whispered. “Can you say something to me?”
But they remained silent, both gazing at the fire as if mesmerized by the flames and the warmth, her son with his thumb firmly in his mouth.
Ellen came back with two silver porringers. “I thought we’d best feed ’em first, Lady Pen. I doubt they’ve seen hot water in their lives, poor little mites, don’t want to shock ’em to death.”
“Oh, yes, Ellen. A good thought,” Pen said with approval. “Food will soothe them. Will you feed Charles?” She lifted him from her lap.
Ellen set him on a stool and lifted the lid of the porringer. The child grabbed for it as the fragrant steam curled in the air. “Slowly does it,” Ellen said, taking his hands in one of hers and holding a spoonful of honeyed gruel to his mouth.
Pen held her son on her lap and fed him in the same way. His eyes never left the spoon, following its progress from bowl to his mouth and back again.
“Do you think he looks like his father, Ellen?”
Ellen glanced over. “Hard to say, madam, under all that dirt,” she replied diplomatically.
“Yes,” Pen agreed, scraping the last of the gruel from the porringer. The boy licked his lips and it seemed to her now that some of the blankness had left his eyes, some of the shocked rigidity gone from his body. He reached for the empty bowl. She let him have it and he ran his finger around, licking it before upending the porringer.
“They need more, Ellen.”
“Yes, but not too much at once,” Ellen said with authority. “After a bath, we’ll try a coddled egg and some more milk.”
Pen reached under the bed for the copper bathtub and pulled it in front of the fire. “We shall need clothes for them.”
“Aye, madam, that’s easily done,” Ellen declared. “I’ll fetch water.”
Pen took both children on her lap again and rocked them gently, singing a soft nursery song from her own childhood. It seemed the natural thing to do. They had to learn to trust; they had to learn to expect good things to happen.
Tears pricked behind her eyes as she thought of all the time wasted, of all the desolate months that these scraps had been on earth without hope or expectation.
But from now on they would know only love, and warmth, and full bellies.
The bath was much less of a success than honeyed gruel. They kicked and struggled but still astonishingly made very little sound, just a whimper that occasionally approached a wail.
They put both of them in the water at once. Charles instantly scrambled out and ran dripping into a corner.
“Leave him for the moment,” Pen said. “It’s going to take both of us to handle just one of them.”
She held her son firmly as Ellen soaped him and rubbed him. It was like cleaning tarnished silver, Pen thought, watching the pale clean skin emerge beneath the application of the wash cloth. His face was small and angular, pale with lack of fresh air and adequate food, but she thought she could see Philip now in the line of his nose, the shape of his mouth. And definitely his eyes. He had the same long lashes that Philip had had. Heartbreaker’s lashes, she used to say, teasing him.
“He is like his father,” she murmured, more to herself than to Ellen.
“Aye, there’s something there,” Ellen agreed, rinsing off the child’s head. The still downy baby hair was a soft brown, curling against his neck.
He had stopped wriggling now and went passively into Pen’s arms as she wrapped him in a towel. His thumb was back in his mouth and his eyes closed abruptly.
“Exhausted, poor mite. Let him sleep while we do the other one.”
Pen wrapped him securely in a dry towel and laid him on her bed. Nutmeg regarded him warily, and moved to the farthest edge of the bed. Little Philip didn’t stir, but slowly his thumb slipped from his mouth.
Charles beneath the dirt was revealed as freckle-faced, green-eyed, with a very pale complexion. His hair once washed was a bright carrot red; much more abundant than the little earl’s, it stood up in a spiky halo.
“I have to go to the princess now,” Pen said, once Charles had joined his brother in sleep on the bed. “Stay here with them, Ellen. Don’t leave the chamber.” She reached behind her to unfasten her laces. Her gown was in no fit condition for visiting the royal apartments.
Ellen hurried to help.
“Just unlace me and then fetch more food and clothes and whatever they’ll need while I’m gone,” Pen instructed. “You must stay with them with the door locked when I’m not here.”
Ellen went off to fetch what was needed. Pen changed her dress, keeping an eye on the sleeping children as she did so. She tidied her hair, tucked it away under a plain linen coif. There was no time for an elaborate coiffure this morning.
As soon as Ellen returned Pen hurried to the door. “If I’m not back when Lord Robin and Lady Pippa arrive, let them in. But no one else!”
“Forgive me, madam, but I’m no fool,” returned Ellen.
Pen smiled. “No, I know.” She closed the door, then stood for a minute, bracing herself for the visit to Mary. It was so hard to switch her mind from the domestic concerns of her children to the harsh reality that lay ahead. The scheme she had to manage.
And there was no time, no time at all, to consider what she had lost.
Twenty-one
“Why would the French help me in this?” Mary mused as she placed a silk ribbon in her book to mark her place.
“For your favor, madam,” Pen returned, even though she assumed the princess’s question had been rhetorical. “I understand that they hope to promote your marriage with the Duc d’Orleans.”
Mary’s laugh was ironic. “I’m sure that they do. And it does no harm to let them think that I might agree . . . one day.” She rose from her chair and went to the lectern placed to catch the daylight from the embrasured window. “Do you trust your chevalier, Pen?”
Pen saw no point in disputing her personal connection with the chevalier. “Most assuredly, madam.” She stood by the fire, her hands clasped against her skirts.
“He is one of de Noailles’s spies, I imagine?” Mary’s tone conveyed little interest in the question or its answer.
“I believe him to be the ambassador’s master spy.”
Mary flicked the pages of the great tome that rested on the lectern, as if she was looking for a particular passage. “How long have you believed that, Pen? Or should I not ask the question?”
“Perhaps you should not, madam.” Pen became aware that her nails were digging into her palms, that there was an ache between her shoulders. She tried to relax her tense posture and slowly uncurled her fists.
Mary looked up briefly. “I trust you, Pen. Therefore I will trust your agent. We will put ourselves in the hands of the French.” A thin smile touched her mouth. “ ’Tis not as if we have much choice in the matter, and it will annoy Northumberland most powerfully.”
“Aye, madam.” Pen turned her head from side to side in an effort to release the crick in her neck. She realized that she was exhausted. Sleepless nights seemed to be her lot these days.
“I will accompany you, of course. But who else would you have? No more than one or two others. It must not look as if you’re going out for more than the briefest time.”
“Who do you think is best suited to such an enterprise?”
Pen considered the members of Mary’s retinue. “Matilda and Susan.”
“Very well. I leave the organization to you. But I will not go without my books. They must be crated somehow and taken aboard.”
Pen didn’t bother to argue. It was just one more logistical issue she would have to deal with.
“How does the chevalier propose I leave Baynard’s Castle?”
“He hasn’t said, madam.”
“I see. How reassuring.” Mary was suddenly tart. “I go into the lion’s den without a sure means of emerging.” She moved towards the prie-dieu, saying in dismissal, “I would needs pray, since all reassurance lies with God.”
Pen curtsied and left the bedchamber. Mary had a considerable cross to bear, but there were times when she made life very irksome for those around her.
She took Susan and Matilda aside and explained the situation. They had been attendant upon Mary for almost as long as Pen had. Matilda was soon to be married for the second time, to one of the king’s equerries, and Susan, like Pen, was a widow.
“Taking a crate of books without being remarked won’t be easy,” Matilda said.
“No,” Pen agreed. “We’ll have to pretend it’s a picnic hamper.”
“A very heavy one,” said Susan. For some reason this made them all smile, for a moment forgetting the danger in which they all stood.
“Well, let’s get on,” Pen said. “There’s much to do. Matilda, would you order the barge for noon? Try if you can to ensure that Master Braddock is at the helm. His loyalty to the princess is unquestioned.” Matilda nodded and they parted to make their own preparations.
The clock in the tower in the central courtyard struck nine. Pen looked down from one of the tall arched windows in Mary’s antechamber. Robin had left at seven. She could not expect him back before ten at the earliest.
Her heart seemed to be beating far too fast, and her skin felt dry and tight. Fatigue, she knew, but there was more. She was tense, filled with an apprehension that was somehow mingled with excitement at the prospect of the day ahead. The danger of the day ahead.
One false move, and Northumberland would have all the excuse he needed to impeach Mary, not to mention her companions in flight. The plan, at least up until they reached Baynard’s Castle, rested entirely on her shoulders. Then Owen would step in, but she’d still have a part to play.
Owen.
Excitement, apprehension, dimmed. When this was over she could not imagine that she would ever see him again.
When this was over she would have her child in peace and love and safety. She must concentrate all her emotional energies on that. Her relationship with Owen d’Arcy had begun with that and ended with it.
Instantly Pen left Mary’s apartments, her step quick, her jeweled slippers silent on the waxed oak floor. Her children awaited her.
“Lady Pen?”
The unpleasant voice of the Duke of Northumberland arrested her. She turned slowly. “I give you good morning, my lord duke.”
“How does the princess?” His cold gaze flitted across her face and she was glad of the somber light in the corridor.
“A little better, I believe, my lord duke. She talks of perhaps taking the air later today. It seems that the sun has shown itself for once.”
“Taking the air?” He stroked his neat beard. “She must be feeling quite improved.”
“Her physician believes a little river air might do her good, sir. She intends to be carried by litter to the barge for an hour on the water.”
“I see. At what hour?”
“After her prayers, my lord duke. When the morning mists have lifted and yet the sun is not too bright.” That, Pen thought, was evasive without being obviously so. There was never a set period for Mary’s prayers and they would often continue for hours.
Northumberland regarded her from beneath heavy brows, a slight frown in his eyes. It struck him that Pen Bryanston was a little too like her mother for comfort. Something in the set of the head, the gleam in the eye. And yet she appeared perfectly correct in manner.
“Have you seen your brother since last even, madam?”
“I had brief speech with him an hour ago, sir.” Pen smiled.
The duke again touched his beard. Perhaps it aided his thinking, Pen reflected.
“And did your speech touch anything of moment, Lady Pen?”
“I believe so, my lord.” She curtsied but kept her eyes on his face. “You will find, sir, that I know my duty, as does my brother.”
Northumberland took this in, his hand still at his beard. Then he bowed, as if satisfied. “Pray, madam, give the princess my felicitations on her return to health.”
“And the king . . . how is the king’s health this morning?” Pen asked, her tone pleasant and concerned.
Northumberland’s frown deepened. “His Highness’s health improves daily,” he said stiffly, and went on his way.
In a pig’s ear!
Pen thought, waiting until he had rounded the corner of the corridor. On impulse, she turned down a passage that would take her past the king’s antechamber on her way back to her chamber. It would be useful to know which members of the Privy Council were at Greenwich when Mary made her escape.
She heard the voice of Miles Bryanston braying down the passage long before she reached the entrance to the antechamber.
“Mistress Goodlow, my lord duke, has always had the most beneficial results.”
Goodlow.
Pen stopped. She held herself still in the shadow of the walls, glad that her dark gown blended with the gray light.
Goodlow!
Lady Bryanston’s pet herbalist. The woman Granny Wardel had said was Betsy Cosham’s colleague. A woman who had been at Philip’s bedside during his illness . . . had watched him die.
A woman who had given Pen tonics to strengthen her during her pregnancy. Herbs, potions that she had perhaps acquired from Betsy Cosham, who knew any number of ways to end an unwanted pregnancy.
What had Owen said? Something about how the gift to do good could as easily be turned to evil.
Philip had been well, much stronger than usual during that winter. His cough had barely troubled him. Then so suddenly he had started to sicken . . . and had started so quickly to fail. Mistress Goodlow had attended him.
Before he became sick or after?
Pen stood in the shadows, one hand on her throat, as her memory of that dreadful time cleared. His mother had hovered, all solicitation. She had summoned the herbalist when Philip began to sicken. Only the herbalist, no other physician had been allowed to approach Philip’s bedside. Pen couldn’t remember whether Mistress Goodlow had given Philip any medicines or not. If she had, nothing had worked. His cough had grown worse and worse. Pen from her own sickbed had heard him day after day, night after night.
Pen saw again Philip’s gray countenance, the greenish pallor as he’d started to vomit, to sweat, the dreadful desperation in his eyes as he’d accepted the inevitability of his death. They had all watched him die. His mother had stood quietly, dry-eyed in the shadows. Mistress Goodlow, so calm as to be almost indifferent, had closed Philip’s eyes, drawn up the sheet.
Pen stared into the corridor, her breath paused in her throat as a dreadful thought took shape.
Philip’s mother. A woman capable of inducing a premature birth, of condemning an infant to the living death little Philip had endured . . . a woman who consulted Betsy Cosham about the disposal of unwanted children . . .
Such a woman would be capable of watching her son die. Her unsatisfactory and uncooperative son.
Philip’s mother had never liked him . . . no, much stronger than that. He had threatened her, threatened her control. Miles, on the other hand, had slavered at her hand like a trained boarhound ready for the signal to kill. Had Lady Bryanston taken advantage of Philip’s weak constitution? Had she allowed him to die?
Pen listened intently to the continuing discussion in the antechamber.
“Mistress Goodlow’s results don’t seem to be particularly beneficial at present, Bryanston,” the duke declared with a sardonic sniff. “She appears to be doing no better than the physicians. Indeed, worse, I would have said.”
“A few more days, my lord duke. Just a few more days and I am certain you will see some improvement,” Miles wheedled.
“Indeed, my lord, Mistress Goodlow’s physic is renowned.”
Pen froze at the odiously familiar voice of her mother-in-law. Panic shot through her, but she couldn’t seem to move a muscle. Her son . . . the children . . . they were only a few yards away. She had a sudden desperate fancy that her mother-in-law would smell her grandson’s presence, like some beast of prey, scenting the wind.
“You will find, my lord duke, that Mistress Goodlow’s physic works over time,” Lady Bryanston was saying, the customary sharpness of her voice effortfully mellowed.
Oh, yes, Pen thought. Her mind was as cold and clear as crystal. She could taste on her tongue the bitter liquid Goodlow had given her in the days before her labor began. Her stomach muscles clenched in involuntary response to the vivid memory.
Was this the way Miles and his mother had chosen to curry favor with the duke? To introduce their own herbalist into the king’s bedchamber? The woman had shown herself utterly loyal to Lady Bryanston, and presumably she could do good as well as evil.
But what if she failed? What if the king’s condition worsened? Who would Northumberland hold responsible?
Lady Bryanston, for all her viciousness and ambition, had a crude mind. Her strategems were without subtlety and she had played straight into her daughter-in-law’s hand.
Pen moved away from the concealing shadows. She walked into the king’s antechamber, her soft skirts swaying gently around her. She was smiling.
“I give you good morning, Lady Bryanston . . . Lord Bryanston.” Her curtsy was impeccable. Her brother-in-law recovered from his surprise quickly enough to offer a passable bow in return.
“Do I understand that Mistress Goodlow attends upon the king?” she inquired of Northumberland. The chamber was as always crowded, some with reason for being there, most without, but her quick glance showed her the Earl of Pembroke standing in a knot of courtiers. He was here, not at Baynard’s Castle. All to the good.
“Aye, madam. You know of this woman?” The duke looked at her intently.
“Indeed, sir. She presided over my husband’s death, and over my own premature labor.” Pen continued to smile. “I am of a superstitious nature, my lord duke. I prefer an angel of mercy to an angel of death.”
Lady Bryanston drew breath in an audible hiss. Her son turned dark crimson.
“I can see that you would, madam,” the duke said. “How unfortunate that two such misfortunes should have followed so closely upon one another.”
“I have always thought so,” Pen agreed. “But ill luck attends many bedsides. Is that not so, madam?” She turned her brilliant smile upon her mother-in-law.
“Mistress Goodlow’s reputation reaches far and wide, my lord,” the dowager countess said through rigid lips.
“Yes,” Pen agreed. “She’s a woman who inspires confidence. For some reason,” she added with a tiny shrug, still smiling. “You’ll have to forgive me if my experience has given me little faith in her
healing
powers.” The emphasis was minute, but sufficient for Northumberland, whose intent gaze had not left Pen’s countenance.
The seed was sown. Pen said blandly, “If you will excuse me, I have duties to attend to.” She curtsied again and made her way back to the corridor through the thronged chamber.
Miles, ignoring a warning look from his mother, pushed through the crowd in her wake.
“Wait!” He seized Pen’s arm, his fingers hurtful on her forearm.
“So rough, Miles,” she chided gently. “If you would have speech with me, pray do so. I am at your service.”
“You can prove nothing!” A shower of spittle flew with the words although his voice was barely above a whisper. “Nothing!”
Pen wiped her face with a fastidious grimace. “What would I be interested in proving, Miles?”
“That’s enough, you dolt!” Her mother-in-law was there, her mouth thinned with malice and fury. “Get back to the duke.”
Miles glared at Pen.
“Nothing!”
he declared, ignoring his mother’s jabbing elbow. Then he pushed past his mother and obeyed her instruction.