House of Shadows (25 page)

The wood was alive with noise now; the thunder overhead, like a crouching beast, the rain falling hard on the leaves and softer on the forest floor. Lightning lit the sky and Holly shivered convulsively.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said. ‘I can’t. It’s too difficult.’ She looked up and met his eyes. ‘I’m sorry it happened.’

‘Are you?’ Mark said. ‘I’m not.’

He brought his mouth down on hers and it was exactly what Holly had feared and exactly what she wanted, the sweet rush of recognition, the sense of rightness, the hunger, all the things she had always avoided because they were too risky, all the things she wanted now with an intensity she’d never known.

They kissed until the world around her vanished and all she felt was heat and need. Her clothes were soaked and her hair was sticking to her head and she could feel rain running down her face and neck but all she felt inside was desire. She
felt dizzy, aware of nothing but the giant oak that covered them with its shelter, the roughness of bark at her back and the coldness of the night breeze on her bare skin where Mark had moved her shirt aside to kiss her throat and the tender hollow above her collarbone. It was sublime, it was lovely, and the intimacy of it scared the hell out of her.

She wrenched herself away and steadied herself with one hand against the trunk of the oak. Everything was much too intense for her. It was going much too fast.

‘I must get home before I drown,’ she said shakily. She stood on tiptoe to kiss Mark’s cheek. ‘Goodnight.’

‘Wait.’ Mark put out a hand towards her. He shook his head sharply as though to clear his mind. If he was feeling anywhere near as pole-axed as she was, Holly thought it was no wonder. ‘You can’t just run off,’ he said.

‘I’m nearly back,’ Holly said. ‘I can find my way from here.’

‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

Holly knew what he meant. He wasn’t going to let her just walk away. Not this time.

They fell into step, side by side, without any further words. A light glowed in the window of the water mill. It looked ordinary and safe, so different from how Holly felt inside.

‘Thank you for seeing me safely home,’ she said.

Mark smiled. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said and kissed her, little more than a brush of his lips against hers, then again, a little longer, a whole lot hotter.

This time Holly watched him as he walked away through the trees and she thought of Lavinia, running through the
snowbound woods to meet her lover, risking everything for an hour in his arms. She was starting to feel like that. She was starting to feel too much. And she didn’t know what the hell to do about it.

Wassenaer Hof, The Hague, December 1635

C
raven was tiring of Margaret. The sweetness that had seemed charming at first now felt cloying. She bored him. He told himself that it had nothing to do with his feelings for Elizabeth but he knew that was not true. Elizabeth was gold to Margaret’s base metal. He hungered for her and the more he took Margaret the less satisfied he felt. Once upon a time Margaret’s raw lust had been enough to satisfy him. She was prim out of bed and shameless in it, and he had liked the way she would do whatever he wished, match him and then exceed him. Now, though, he wanted her gone.

He sat up and reached for his day shirt. They had not slept much and he felt exhausted. He had chased his dreams of Elizabeth all night and felt empty and spent.

‘William.’ Margaret placed a hand on his bare shoulder, staying him. ‘There is something I must tell you.’

He drew away from her touch and pulled the shirt over his head before turning to face her.

‘What is it?’

She avoided his gaze. Her slender fingers plucked at the coverlet, which was drawn up to her chest in a pretty gesture of modesty. This show of innocence would once have made him smile. Now he deplored the calculated sham of it.

‘Well?’ He spoke roughly, pricked by irritation.

‘I am with child,’ Margaret said. ‘Your child,’ she added, evidently sensing that he was crass enough to raise the question.

The shock hit him in his stomach like a blow, stealing his breath. He wondered why he had never imagined this might happen. He had been thoughtless, careless. It had all been lust and excitement in the beginning, and then it had been habit and now … Now it was a disaster.

Margaret was watching him, biting her lip as though she was anxious of his reaction. Yet her blue gaze was watchful not scared. Craven found his thoughts falling away from her to centre on the child. It might be a son, perhaps, an heir. It was not long since he had thought such things did not matter. It was interesting how quickly a man could change his mind.

He looked at Margaret again. She was pretty, well bred, presentable enough. She was not Elizabeth, of course; there was no depth to her, there was no compassion or sincerity, but he should not be comparing his mistress to the Queen. He could never have Elizabeth and Margaret would be a perfectly acceptable wife. Her family had no money for a dowry but he had plenty enough for both of them. And if
this child were a daughter then that would be agreeable. A son would surely follow, and more children, a nursery full of them. And if there was no real love then that was the way of aristocratic marriages. The thought caused him an odd pang that felt like grief.

‘We should wed,’ he said, realising too late that his tone had an element of regret in it and that his words were not the most gracious of proposals. He tried to make up; took her hand.

‘Margaret,’ he said. ‘Marry me.’

‘I do not wish to wed you.’ Margaret freed herself from his grip. She sounded very matter of fact, unsentimental. ‘I am already wed.’

Craven’s heart stumbled like a missed footstep. ‘What?’ He felt confused and foolish. ‘How? When?’

‘Years ago.’ She waved a slender hand in dismissal. ‘Lord Verity’s son.’ There was a tiny pause. ‘He is insane.’

Craven knew nothing of Lord Verity, or of his son and his insanity. His mind felt sluggish. All he could think was that he had not known. How was it that he had not known? He reached mechanically for his trousers, his fingers fumbling with the ties whilst his mind fumbled for the right questions.

‘Who knows about this?’

‘It’s common knowledge.’ There was a shadow of scorn in Margaret’s eyes. ‘But you never listen to court gossip, do you, William? If you did, perhaps you would have heard.’

So it was his fault now. He rubbed a hand across his eyes. ‘Where is he?’ He looked around almost as though he was expecting Verity to leap out of the chest.

‘He stays in England, on his father’s manor in Kent.’ Margaret was dressing now, quickly, efficiently, as fast as she had shed her clothes the night before. ‘I will need to return there at once now that I am with child.’

Craven watched her, the nimble fingers tying her laces, fastening her hair, the cold efficiency and the calculation. Something hardened within him.

‘And what,’ he said courteously, ‘will his lordship say when you return home bearing a child that is most certainly not his son’s?’

‘I imagine that he will be delighted,’ Margaret said evenly. ‘Robert is childlike, little more than a babe himself. It fast became apparent that he would never father an heir.’

‘I see,’ Craven said. He did. Suddenly he saw it all very well. This child would not be his heir. It would be heir to the Verity title and lands.

‘And what do you want from me?’ he asked. ‘Why did you even tell me you were expecting a child? Why not simply leave?’ He sought to control his voice, sought also to control the fury that was building in him, hotter than a furnace. He had not known his own capacity for anger. In battle he was always calm. It was one of his greatest strengths. What he felt now though was harsh, ungovernable and white-hot. His hands itched with the urge to take Margaret by the throat and snap her slender neck with one turn of the wrists. He had lost his child before it was even born.

He forced himself to keep very still.

‘I need money.’ She faced him squarely. ‘For my passage back to England.’

‘And you think I will pay? For you to steal my child away, my heir?’

A shadow touched Margaret’s eyes, but what he read there was surprise, not guilt. ‘I did not think you would care,’ she said. ‘You never cared for me.’

He could not deny that. He did not want to deny it. ‘A child is different,’ he said.

She did not flinch. ‘You should wed. Father a legitimate heir of your own.’

‘I thought,’ Craven said, with the first touch of bitterness he had allowed to show, ‘that that was what I was doing. With you.’

She raised a shoulder in a half-shrug. ‘I’m sorry, William.’ The words were conventional and he doubted the sentiment was more than hypocrisy. ‘But I am tied to Robert by law and the church. There is nothing that can be done.’

Craven was not sure that he would wish to marry her anyway, now he had seen so deep into her venal soul.

‘You will have to speak to my man of business about the money,’ he said. His voice was stiff. He moved across to the window and thrust back the curtains, opened the window wide as though the cold night air could banish the sickness in the room.

‘There is no need to involve anyone else.’ Margaret spoke lightly. ‘You have in your possession a diamond mirror, a pretty piece. I could sell that to Meneer Bode on the Denneweg and it would raise sufficient money to fund my journey home—’

‘No.’ Craven had crossed the room and caught her by the shoulders. He was not even aware he had moved until he
felt the thin cotton of her chemise, and the fragile bones beneath.

‘How did you know about the mirror?’ he demanded.

There had been apprehension in Margaret’s eyes but now there was curiosity and a speculation that made his heart lurch sickeningly.

‘It’s a secret,’ she said slowly. ‘I see.’

‘Don’t be foolish.’ He let her go abruptly, turned away.

‘Did you steal it from the Queen?’ She was poised, on tiptoe, straining like a hunter scenting its prey. ‘I know it was once hers. I saw it in a portrait.’

‘Of course I did not steal it.’ Craven’s voice rang with insincerity. Even he could hear it. ‘Why would I do such a thing?’

‘I don’t know.’ Margaret answered him seriously. ‘I’m not sure I need to know. But if Her Majesty is not aware of the theft then that makes matters simple for me. Give the mirror to me and I will not tell her what you did.’

Silence. It felt thick. Craven could feel his heart thudding. That accursed mirror. He had intended to destroy it. He had told Elizabeth that he had. So many times on the journey from Metz to The Hague he had been about to cast it into a lake or thrust it down a rabbit hole and let the earth swallow it up. Yet he had not done so and he did not know why. He had told himself that he had no belief in its power and yet something – a superstition that he did not wish to admit to – had made him keep it alive.

Alive.

It was not a living thing. Yet it felt as though it were.

Margaret had taken it from the bottom of the Armada
chest where he had hidden it, wrapped in a silken shawl, and was holding it up before her. He could see the candle flame reflected back at him and the sparkle of the diamonds as they caught the light.

‘It’s a fine piece,’ she said, with the satisfaction of a costermonger driving a hard bargain. ‘One of those diamonds alone would pay for my passage back to England a dozen times over.’ She was seeing her future in the mirror right enough, Craven thought, and it was all fat profit. She swung around towards him.

‘So? Do we have an agreement?’

The mirror went dark. Margaret was half-turned towards him and so she did not see, but Craven was transfixed. He stared into the swirling heart of the darkness. It was like a whirlpool, pulling him down until the cold and the grief closed over his head in a drowning wave. Then the mirror cleared and all he could see was the outlines of the room in the pale candlelight and all he could feel was emptiness.

He cleared his throat. ‘Take it then. Sell it. Only do it discreetly.’

She gave him a look of contempt. ‘Of course. I have no wish to be arrested for theft like poor Mrs Crofts was when Her Majesty’s father saw her wearing his gift of a necklace.’ She had already stowed the mirror within her bodice. ‘It’s better this way, William,’ she said, suddenly. ‘The Queen would never have permitted us to wed.’

‘What?’ Craven said. It seemed like an irrelevance. ‘I’m not sure that the Queen has the right to forbid my marriage,’ he said.

Margaret snapped her fingers so sharply he jumped. ‘You
are naïve. She could withdraw her patronage, then you would discover what it is like to be without preferment.’

‘I take nothing from the Queen,’ Craven said slowly. ‘She is poor. She does not have anything to give.’

‘You took this.’ Margaret patted her bodice where the mirror lay against her heart. ‘And how curious that you should do so, you who are so virtuous and loyal.’ There was a sneer in her voice. ‘What did she do to you that you claimed such a revenge?’

Craven did not explain. He would not rise to her provocation, least of all tell her that he felt guilt and grief because Elizabeth had trusted him to destroy the crystal mirror and even now he did not understand why he could not.

After a moment Margaret made a sharp sound of derision.

‘You had better hope she never discovers what you have done,’ she said, and it sounded like a curse. ‘I doubt she would forgive you for such a betrayal. After all, you are her creature.’ She came up to him and he could feel the fury tight in her body and see the brightness of it in her eyes and suddenly he understood, suddenly he knew. This was why she hated him; this was why she wanted revenge. This was why she was taking his heir.

‘You belong to the Queen, William,’ Margaret said, ‘like her dogs and her monkeys do. She snaps her fingers and you come running. You are hers; you always were and you always will be.’