In a Treacherous Court (2 page)

S
usanna sat in the captain’s cabin, a mug of wine cradled in her hands, staring into the dark red liquid as if it somehow held the answers.

Illogical though it might be, she could not bring herself to put the cup to her lips after seeing Master Harvey cough up so much blood. With a shudder, she put the cup on the table and pushed it away.

“Aye, it takes you like that sometimes.” Dr. Pettigrew rose from his bench and went to stand beside the tiny window facing the docks. “Less and less as the years get on, though.”

He spoke in French for her benefit, although her English was fluent enough, and Susanna thought he sounded sad. But a doctor must get used to death, surely?

“Here comes the King’s man,” he murmured, leaning closer to the thick, distorted circle of glass and looking out into the dark of early evening.

As he stepped back from the window, Susanna caught a flash of movement outside, the wave of a lantern, and heard the tread of authority on the gangplank.

“Thank God,” she said. Pettigrew only lifted a white, bushy brow, as if he was not so sure they should be relieved.

Susanna stood. She felt too vulnerable in the low chair, and she and Pettigrew both faced the door as it opened.

The captain entered first, his face flushed by the warmth of the room after the freezing deck. Behind him came a man who was forced to duck to get through the door.

He had the hard look of a Swiss mercenary about him. His eyes were watchful, and the angles of his face showed no signs of easy living and indulgence, despite his fine clothes.

His brows were dark wings above his light eyes—gray or blue, she couldn’t tell in the dim light of the cabin, but his black hair made them seem almost luminous.

He was a devil and an angel in one, and her fingers itched to paint him.

A long moment of silence filled the room as he studied her with the same intensity.

The captain coughed. “Mistress Horenbout, this is Master Parker, the King’s Keeper of the Palace of Westminster and his Yeoman of the Crossbows. He was to meet you tonight and escort you to London. Now, of course, he will stay and attend to the … er … matter of Master Harvey.”

“And a thorny matter it is,” muttered Pettigrew, and Susanna saw the King’s man start at his words, as if he’d only just realized the doctor was in the cabin with her. He was used to noticing everything, she thought, and she’d distracted him from that. Under normal circumstances, she would be flattered. But the circumstances tonight were anything but normal.

A man lay dead. Had died in her arms.

“Master Parker.” She acknowledged him with a quick curtsy.

“Mistress Horenbout, if it pleases you, I will make arrangements for you to go ahead without me while I see to things here.”

Her lips tightened at the trace of condescension in his tone. “As you wish, sir.” She would be only too happy to get off this ship and into a warm bed.

“I will need to speak to all those who had dealings with Harvey while he was aboard, Captain.” Parker’s eyes rested thoughtfully on the doctor as Pettigrew lifted a mug of wine to his lips.

“That is what I thought,” Captain Caitlin said. “That is why I bade them wait here for you.”

Susanna watched Parker struggle to find the right meaning in the captain’s words.

“Do I take it the only people Harvey spoke with while on board are these two?”

“In fact, Doctor Pettigrew only dealt with Master Harvey once he’d started coughing up his own lungs,” Susanna said, repressing the tremble in her voice. “The only person he spoke with, or had anything to do with while on board, was me.”

S
he was trouble. He’d heard of these women in the Netherlands and Italy, whose fathers took them into their studios and trained them in the arts of painting and sculpture along with their brothers, but he’d never met one. It looked like he’d caught himself a fine specimen now.

She sat opposite him, alone in the captain’s cabin, and the light gleamed like fine brandy off her hair. Her face was the shape of a heart, but it was her eyes that drew him. An intriguing mix of green and hazel, they were never still, taking in everything around her. She would make a good spy.

Perhaps she was one.

Harvey certainly had been, and after closeting himself in her company aboard the ship, he had died.

Parker was no spymaster, but he was close enough to the right circles to know Harvey never came back from the Netherlands without information. Chances were he’d had something interesting to impart this time as well.

“Will you be the one to tell his wife he is dead?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“Perhaps. I’m not sure.” He leaned forward. “How do you know he was married?”

“He told me. Gave me a message for his wife if he did not make it alive across the Channel. And the few other times we met, he’d spoken of her.”

Parker’s eyes narrowed.
She knew him before?
He kept his voice steady. “He thought he might not make it across?”

She shook her head, blinking her eyes. Her teeth bit down on her full bottom lip. “He only just made it on board. He leaped on as the ship pulled away. The men chasing him could do nothing but watch as we sailed off.” Her eyes glittered with unspilled tears. “He gave them a most jaunty wave when we were safely out of their reach, but it was all bravado. One of them had managed to get a knife in his lung before he escaped them.”

“Did you see who was chasing him?”

Susanna nodded. “I saw them, but I didn’t know them. They were strangers to me.”

Parker let that pass. “You say you’ve met Harvey before?”

“A few times, at the palace.” Mistress Horenbout scrubbed at her eyes. “He was a cloth merchant and had business with Margaret of Austria. My father and I met him on occasion while we all waited our turn to speak with her.”

“Your father was commissioned by Her Highness?”

She nodded. “My father has been her painter for many years.”

He could hear the pride in her voice.

Time to get back to the business at hand. “What did Harvey tell you before he died?”

“I’m afraid I cannot tell you, sir.”

Parker blinked. “Cannot?” Did she mean Harvey had been unintelligible?

Susanna nodded, her face solemn. “He made me swear I would tell no one but King Henry himself.”

Parker’s lips thinned. “I am the King’s trusted yeoman. I will make sure the message reaches him.”

She shook her head. “I gave my word to a dying man. Besides, I am here at the King’s invitation. I expect to be received by him. I can tell him myself easily enough.”

She was uncomfortable defying him, he could see, but the set of her mouth was stubborn.

“The message may be urgent.” He struggled to keep his voice cool, neither pleading nor bullying. Simply stating a fact.

“Perhaps. But could you, in truth, give it to the King much before I?”

“I could ride with it tonight.”

She shook her head again and stood with the fluid grace of a swan. He pushed himself out of his own chair and towered over her. Crowded her.

“You should tell me.”

She drew in a deep breath and threw back her shoulders. “I will not be forced to act dishonorably.”

He stared at her and the silence stretched out.

She shot him a cool look and made for the door, her shoulder brushing against him. As her hair passed under his nose, he smelled rosemary. He breathed it deep into his lungs. Despite her refusal to accede to him, he couldn’t help the smile that broke across his face.

She most definitely did not smell of garlic, and he was sure picking her nose was the last thing on her mind.

He had just decided arse-licking
did
sometimes work out to be advantageous, when a crossbow bolt shattered the cabin’s window and buried itself deep in the oak door, just a whisker above Susanna Horenbout’s left shoulder.

Parker threw himself toward the window. Unless there was more than one of them, he had a few moments before the shooter could load the next bolt. But the shatter of glass had aroused attention, and some of the crew rushed down the gangplank, shouting.

Parker saw the billow of a cape as a dark figure ducked behind a warehouse, and knew the shooter was gone.

He turned back to the artist, who stood frozen, her gaze fixed on the door. The bolt still vibrated where it was embedded in the wood, and when she turned to look at him over her shoulder, her eyes were wide with shock.

“It seems someone wants Harvey’s secret to die with you, madam.”

His words made her shudder.

She regarded him with eyes as fathomless as the sea. “Then you’ll have to make sure they don’t succeed.”

The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier:
To play well at fense upon all kinde of weapons.

Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman:
To accompany sober and quiet maners and honesty with a livelie quicknesse of wit.

H
e’d thought she would fuss at having a man in her chamber, but Susanna Horenbout only had eyes for the large feather bed in the center of the room and the steaming bath that sat behind a cheap wooden screen.

She staggered toward the bath and was already loosening the ties at the back of her dress before she disappeared from view.

Parker turned toward the door, and though he had checked the lock, checked it again.

He heard her sink down into the water, groaning as if relieved of an infinite burden, and again felt a smile tug at his mouth.

That she could raise his spirits even in their current circumstances disturbed him.

He lifted the heavy, elaborate gold collar over his head, a literal reminder of the weight of his office, and unclasped his fine wool cloak, hanging both over a chair near the fire. Then he sat down and pulled off his boots, neatly standing them beneath the chair before tugging at the laces of his doublet.

He knew the King’s intimates would sneer at the careful way he treated his clothes, but the memory of a hungry belly and a thin cloak were too fresh in his mind.

He took nothing for granted.

Perhaps that was why the King trusted him.

He heard Susanna rise from the bath with a cascade of water, and dry herself, then saw the tips of her fingers above the screen as she pulled her shift over her head.

She looked hollow-eyed when she stepped into view. She didn’t speak, just staggered to the bed and crawled beneath the covers.

She murmured something as her eyes closed.

“Pardon?” Parker took a step toward her, leaning down to hear her better.

“Thank you,” she muttered, her voice a hoarse whisper, and then, curled up like a babe, she fell asleep.

Parker eyed the bed he’d been looking forward to since waiting on the docks for her with regret. Only one small corner of it was occupied by Susanna Horenbout, but she might as well have been spread-eagled across it.

He took the pallet the surprised innkeeper had provided and tossed it down before the door.

This wasn’t the first time he’d guarded a doorway, and
since someone thought Susanna’s secret was worth killing for, it was unlikely to be the last.

Somehow, as he heard a faint sigh come from the bed, that thought was not as irritating as it should have been.