Face Down Beneath The Eleanor Cross Part 18

And doubtless he'd let Grimshaw see his reaction. For a moment, Walter almost felt sorry for the lawyer.

"It was only after Robert had gone away again that Matthew began to talk about marrying me. I did not mean to encourage him but Appleton Manor can be a lonely place."

His grip on her shoulders tightened.

"I did not let him into my bed," Eleanor blurted.

"Robert?"

"Matthew! I mean neither. I mean, not since London. With Robert. Ohhhh. You are trying to confuse me!" She attempted to pull away from him but he would not release her.

"Shhh." Although he was not sure he believed her denial, he appreciated the sentiment behind the lie. She did not want him to think ill of her. That meant she cared. He tugged her close and bent his head, meaning to kiss her.

"I think Matthew believes I did kill Robert," she whispered when his lips were a scant inch from their target. "He must. He bribed my servants to swear that I never left Appleton Manor, and he invented that story of a visit of his own in order to support their claims."

So that was why her retainers had seemed so nervous. Distracted, Walter subst.i.tuted another embrace for the kiss he'd intended. He'd seen enough of Grimshaw's behavior to know the man would have accompanied his bribes with threats.

Eleanor stirred in his arms. "Do you believe me innocent of Robert's murder?"

"Lack of trust is not much of a recommendation in a suitor." He did kiss her then, and she returned it with considerable fervor, but before matters could progress much further the slam of a door had them breaking apart in alarm.

A woman carrying a lantern scurried across the coal yard to the privy. Walter pulled Eleanor close once more, to wrap her in the concealing folds of his dark cloak.

"Jennet," he whispered.

"She does not like me," Eleanor whispered back.

"She is loyal to Susanna. She dislikes all of Robert's mistresses."

"Perhaps she killed him," Eleanor suggested, then fell silent.

They might be interrupted again at any moment, Walter realized. And they had been absent from the common room far too long. Bates and Fulke had been absorbed in one of their endless games of Put when they'd slipped away, but the others were bound to notice if they did not return soon.

"Eleanor, I beg you to trust me," he pleaded. "If you know more than you have told us about what Robert planned to do after he left Appleton Manor, you must confide in me now."

He felt her stiffen in his arms.

"Have faith in me. I'll not hold aught you say against you." His innards twisted at the thought she'd refuse.

Reluctance vibrating in every word, she at last began to speak. "Robert did not say much about the future, but he did tell me how he spent the months before he came to Lancas.h.i.+re."

"He had us convinced he'd drowned in the Solent."

He felt her nod, for her cheek once more rested against his chest. "His original plan was to live in Spain. That changed when his mission failed. He never said what it was or what went wrong."

Walter did not enlighten her. After a moment, she resumed her account.

"France, he said, would not have welcomed him, either, so he went to Jersey to regroup. There something unforeseen happened, and he lost all his money."

A similar fate had befallen Eleanor, Walter recalled. No doubt Robert's plight had aroused her sympathy.

"He sent word to me in advance of his arrival, as I have told you. He wrote that he would be using a false name, John Secole."

Walter waited for her to refer to the Knox cipher and the book Susanna had told him she'd found in Eleanor's chamber, but she said nothing about it.

Jennet, weaving slightly, left the privy and returned to the inn. He wondered if she'd been sick. He was feeling a bit queasy himself. Ignoring the growing discomfort in his belly, he continued his gentle interrogation of Eleanor.

"Did Robert write again after he left you?"

"No. Nor did I expect him to. I do not know where he meant to go, Walter. You must believe me. Oh, he'd talked of places in general terms. Of Muscovy and the Indies. Places where he said a clever man might make his fortune. But he was never specific. He did not confide in me, only warned me against telling anyone I'd seen him. He convinced me that Susanna would throw me out into the street if she learned I'd helped him."

"And you believed him?"

"I did not know what to believe. I still do not. Oh, she has said she'll provide for Rosamond, but-"

"Yes. Rosamond." A flare of jealousy seared him at the thought Robert might have wanted to take Eleanor and Rosamond with him. The girl was his only child, and Eleanor had given her to him. "Did Robert-?"

A m.u.f.fled sound from Eleanor cut him off. It was somewhere between a snort and a laugh. "Robert did not take to fatherhood."

They did not speak for several minutes, content to hold each other in a quiet embrace. "What else can you tell me?" he asked at length. They had little time left if they were to return to the common room without arousing suspicion.

"What else should I know?"

The way she phrased the question made him frown. There was a great deal more he could ask. Had she loved Robert? Did she still seek to protect him? Instead he posed a less crucial question.

"Did he shave his head and beard before or after he left Lancas.h.i.+re?"

She pulled away from him in surprise. "Robert was bald?"

"Aye."

"He died that way?"

The same thought struck them both. Robert had been pa.s.sing proud of his thick, wavy head of hair. And he'd tended the beard, which had been grown in imitation of Lord Robin, the earl of Leicester, with inordinate care.

Walter tried to fight off a wave of inappropriate mirth but it was no use. Eleanor did not even make the attempt to stay her laughter. A moment later, Walter joined her.

Tears streamed down her face by the time they subsided. Walter's ribs ached. She had not loved Robert. Knowing that, he could hope that she might yet come to love him.

Going their separate ways, they returned to the common room, only to discover that they'd had no need to worry about being missed. Fully half their party had been struck down, apparently by tainted meat, and within the hour Walter, too, was groaning and casting up his accounts.

Their departure was delayed by a day while everyone recovered. The only bright spot was that Eleanor did not fall ill. Working together, she and Susanna and the few others who remained unaffected, nursed the stricken members of their entourage back to health.

Chapter 34.

Catherine smelled London before they reached it. A miasma compounded from the stench of tannery and soap factory, sewer and slaughterhouse eddied out into the countryside to give the traveler fair warning of what lay ahead.

Following Aldersgate Street into the city from the northwest, their party of twenty adults and one child arrived on the second day of April, a Monday, having spent Mid-Lent Sunday in Islington. Ten of their number were outriders, the six who had come to Appleton Manor with Annabel and Catherine's escort of four.

Catherine had visited London before, but she had never lived within the city walls. There was something about the place, she decided, sprawling and crowded and noisy as it was, that infused new energy into blood and bone. She sat up straighter in her saddle, straining to see everything at once.

Even the reactions of her traveling companions interested her. Eleanor seemed uneasy, Walter preoccupied. Matthew, as always, was surly. Annabel affected boredom, no doubt convinced that after Paris, no other city could compare. Though she fussed and carried on when she grew overtired, Rosamond, who rode with Susanna, shared Catherine's interest in seeing new things.

And Jennet? Jennet's irritation predominated over other emotions, as it had for most of the journey south. She'd complained bitterly the whole way, until Catherine was ready to suggest leaving her behind at some convenient inn.

She meant well, Catherine reminded herself. Jennet was as concerned about Susanna as Catherine was. That bond kept them tolerant of each other even if they did not agree about how to proceed. Kidnap Susanna? Spirit her away to Scotland? Even as a last, desperate measure to save her life, Catherine could not see any merit in the idea. She would not wish life in Dunfallandy on her worst enemy.

Thinking of that place reminded her of yet another unpleasant fact. Gilbert's mother resided in London. Catherine supposed she would have to call upon her but she did not look forward to the visit. The elderly Scotswoman would want to know why Catherine had deserted her son. And why there were as yet no bairns in Gilbert's nursery.

Up ahead, Susanna reined in her mare. "There is no need for all of us to go to Silver Street."

That was where, according to one of Walter's intelligence gatherers, Robert had kept a room during the last months of his life. The search for it had taken three men more than two months of asking questions all over London and Westminster about a bald man who'd not been seen since the first week in January. At length, their perseverance had paid off and word of their success had reached Walter on the way south.

It must have been the saving grace of the last few weeks for him, Catherine thought. At Coventry, he'd been more ill than anyone else from eating bad meat, and then, just north of Islington, he'd been the only one injured when brigands tried to rob them. His arm was still in a sling.

Catherine s.h.i.+vered, remembering the attack. Such incidents were not uncommon. Travelers were often easy prey. But these fellows had been bold indeed to attack so large a party. Annabel's men had driven them off but not before one had shot Walter with an arrow.

Before going on, Susanna dispatched Annabel and those same henchmen to find an inn large enough to accommodate everyone.

"Accompany them," Catherine ordered her escort.

"And you, Fulke," Susanna added. "You go, too, and when the rooms are bespoken, return to tell us where we will lodge."

Jennet, perforce, went with him, but Susanna did not send Eleanor away.

Walter led the smaller party to the corner of Silver and Mugwell Streets. "This is an area largely inhabited by clothmakers," he remarked. "The house we seek belongs to a French-born tiremaker who specializes in headdresses and periwigs." Robert had hidden in plain sight, counting on his shaved head and beardlessness to be sufficient disguise.

They entered a small enclave created by the north-west angle of the city wall and reined in before a brick house with twin gables. The ground floor was a shop. Robert's room was in the garret.

"Did your lodger have many visitors?" Susanna asked the tiremaker's wife.

The woman wanted no trouble in her adopted country, and Walter handed her a hefty purse to further encourage her cooperation. She a.s.sured them that if there had been any, they had taken care not to be seen. She also revealed that the bald man, who'd given his name as John Secole, had paid her well, and in advance, to a.s.sure his privacy.

"Do you recognize any among us?" Susanna asked. Their party was still large enough to block the narrow street in front of the shop.

The woman squinted at them-Catherine, Walter, Matthew, Bates, and Eleanor, to whom Susanna had pa.s.sed Rosamond when they dismounted. She hesitated, then shook her graying head. "Non."

"You are certain?" Susanna pointed to Eleanor. "Not that gentlewoman?"

Both Walter and Matthew started to protest but subsided when the Frenchwoman insisted she'd never seen Eleanor before.

The tiny chamber Robert had occupied was squeezed in under one of the gables. There was barely room to move once Susanna, Catherine, and Walter crowded in.

Walter retreated in order to let Eleanor enter. "I will go and inquire about Robert's horse and leave you three to search."

"What about Matthew?" Eleanor asked. They could hear the lawyer on the stairs.

"He can go wait with Bates."

Poor Bates, Catherine thought. He did not look happy to be back in London. She could only suppose it was because he had become fond of the woman he'd been a.s.signed to guard. Susanna had been unfailingly courteous to him. And she paid him well, besides.

In a battered chest, they found several rolled charts. "Routes to Muscovy," Susanna murmured. She glanced at Catherine. "Your brother was in the duke of Northumberland's household at the time the first expedition was sent there."

She said no more, but Catherine could almost hear her mind working. It flew like a spindle in the hands of an expert spinster.

By the time Fulke appeared, Walter had claimed Robert's horse, a poor specimen compared to Vanguard, and Susanna had turned the Silver Street lodgings upside down and inside out. They carried away with them all of the murdered man's possessions.

A pitiful few, Catherine thought, for a man who'd loved to acquire things. There were no letters from Eleanor or anyone else and only one book, a new copy of John Knox's The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women with some of the pages still uncut.

Following Fulke, they left the city through Aldgate on the main road heading east. "No other place was large enough to accommodate so many," he said as he led them through the outer gateway of an inn just beyond the city wall.

The Crowne was larger than it appeared from the street. At the front it extended less than fifty feet, but it was more than three times that long and had been constructed around not one but two yards. The first was surrounded by the main buildings of the inn. Through a second gateway with stories over it lay a stableyard with haylofts. Catherine smiled. Vanguard would be well taken care of.

Their party required all twelve chambers. Their hostess, a widow who introduced herself as Johanne Turnbull, showed them first into the parlor, a wainscotted room comfortably furnished with settles and chairs. An attached gallery looked down into the courtyard. Most pleasing, Catherine decided. But something about the place was not right. Widow Turnbull seemed pa.s.sing nervous, and Eleanor had lost every bit of the color in her face.

A few minutes later, when Fulke had been dispatched to Leigh Abbey with messages and Susanna had closeted herself with Jennet and Walter to show them the charts she had found, Catherine gave Wynda charge of the child and took Eleanor aside.

"You have been here before. Widow Turnbull recognizes you."

"This is where Robert and I were accustomed to meet." She gave a mirthless little laugh. "Rosamond was conceived here."

Catherine uttered a mild curse. "Did Fulke know this?"

"Certes, he did."

But Fulke had not been in charge of the group a.s.signed to find lodgings. Annabel had. Catherine did not like what she was thinking about her friend's motives, but she knew that Annabel, like Jennet, still thought Eleanor had more cause than anyone else to want Robert dead. With him gone, she'd have expected to stay on as the lady of Appleton Manor and, through Rosamond, might have hoped to one day lay claim to other Appleton holdings. Was staying here a deliberate attempt to put pressure on Eleanor? Catherine shook her head. If it was, Annabel had ignored the fact that Susanna, too, might feel uncomfortable if someone told her the place's significance. Best to keep her in the dark.

"There is no need for Susanna to know," Catherine told Eleanor. Susanna's feelings must be spared. "Instruct Widow Turnbull that she must pretend she has never met you before. Or Fulke. While you deal with her, I will go down to the stables. The ostler is sure to have recognized Vanguard but no doubt a bribe will persuade him to hold his tongue."

"Walter knows about this place." Eleanor said.

"You need not worry about him. He'd never do anything to cause Susanna pain."

But as Catherine watched Eleanor walk away, she wondered. A master of espionage he might be, yet when it came to women, Walter's feelings were as transparent as a clear stream. Susanna had fascinated him for years but he was in love with Eleanor. If the only way to save one woman was to sacrifice the other, Catherine was no longer certain what Sir Walter Pendennis would choose to do.

Chapter 35.