Kissed by Shadows (24 page)

If she was in some way involved with Ashton, then hearing that he probably was a Spanish spy and not just a plain member of Philip's retinue would be hard for her, but Pippa knew the world they lived in too well not to be able to handle such knowledge. She had said herself that everyone had to dissemble, that honesty was too dangerous to be practiced. She had no illusions. She would be able to reconcile herself to such a blow. To the knowledge that Lionel was using her.

Robin hoped fervently that his sister had done no more than flirt with the man. He prayed that she had really had her eyes open, that she understood and accepted that the man was the enemy even if she was attracted to him. Surely she had protected herself from too much intimacy?

He hurried up the staircase, tapestries whispering in the breeze of his passing. He ignored the crowds of people now thronging the corridors. At Pippa's door he knocked sharply and tried the latch. It was locked from the inside.

“Pippa, 'tis me.”

There was silence from beyond the door. He rattled the latch again. “Pippa, are you still asleep? I have to talk to you now. I'm going on a journey in a couple of hours.” He couldn't say more than that while shouting at a closed door in a public corridor.

He knocked again.

The door opened. He stepped in, speaking as he did so. “I'm sorry if I woke you but 'tis urgent that I . . .” His voice died as he looked at her. “Good God!” he whispered. “What has happened? What's the matter, Pippa?”

She was so white he could see the blue veins along her forehead, beneath her jaw, standing out in her neck. There was a wildness in her eyes, and she seemed to be holding herself together, as if afraid that if she relaxed her posture her body would fly apart.

“Is it the baby?” he demanded when she didn't respond. “Are you sick? For God's sake, Pippa, answer me!” He took her upper arms and shook her, desperate to get a response from her. Then he put his arms around her and held her as tightly as he could because he could think of nothing else to do.

Pippa let him hold her, let his warmth and his familiar smell and the feel of his body cut through the dreadful black trance that had enveloped her since she'd returned to the palace. She knew what she had to do, had known from the first moment of that ghastly revelation, but a paralysis had crept over her once she had locked herself into her chamber and she had not been able to think, let alone plan.

“Are you sick?” Robin repeated after a minute, still holding her tightly. “Is it the baby?”

Pippa pushed herself away from his comforting arms. “No, I am not sick, Robin. But I have to leave here now . . . right now. And you must help me.”

Her voice was strangely flat, colorless, as pallid, Robin thought, as her complexion. He was aware of an anxiety so powerful that it bordered on fear. He dreaded what she was going to tell him but he knew he had to hear it.

“Tell me,” he said.

She told him, standing still in the center of the chamber, holding her elbows across her body, her voice as flat as a millpond, the only expression in her eyes, where green fires burned in the hazel depths. Only by keeping all emotion from her voice could she put words to the horror. She was degraded by what had been done to her; she felt filthy. It was agony to tell the facts of her degradation, but she kept to herself the hideous sense of her own worthlessness. A feeling that made her want to scream and tear at her hair, to rip at her skin with her nails.

But she showed none of this.

Robin listened in appalled horror. There was much evil in his world, he had come to grips with that knowledge many times over in his thirty years, but the cold-blooded viciousness of this violation was beyond his comprehension. And yet he knew it to be true. It was beyond comprehension but it entirely fitted with Philip's reputation for vice, his fanatical Catholicism, and his hunger for power.

It put all questions about Lionel Ashton to rest. The man was as evil as his master. And he would pay. Robin would see to it.

But
Stuart
. . . Stuart had sold his wife to save his own skin. “Stuart,” he said at last in a voice where hurt and bewilderment mingled. “How . . . ?”

“They threatened his lover,” Pippa said as flatly as before. Stuart's betrayal no longer meant anything to her. Not beside Lionel's. “I do not think he was so worried about his own life.”

She moved finally from her statuelike pose in the middle of the chamber and sat down on the end of the bed, one hand absently cradling her stomach.

“I have to get away from here, Robin. I cannot let them do what they want with me and this child. And I must go now, today. I cannot endure to stay another hour under the same roof as any of those men. So you must help me.” It was a clear statement of a fact that would admit no negotiation.

It did not occur to Robin to offer any. It was simply a matter of how she was to leave and where she was to go.

“I am supposed to leave on a mission to Woodstock for the ambassador,” he said. He debated for only a second whether to tell her that the sudden mission was necessary because of Lionel Ashton. He couldn't bring himself to speak the man's name to her. And yet why had Ashton told her this truth? What possible goal would it serve? Surely they needed Pippa unaware and compliant.

“Why did he tell you?” he blurted without volition. “What did he hope to gain by that?”

It was a question Pippa didn't want to examine. She had demanded the truth from Lionel and he had given it to her in all its brutality. In some tiny recess of her brain where shock and horror had not penetrated, she knew that he had not told her simply to cause her unimaginable distress. But she could not think about that, about reasons for Lionel's actions . . . any of them.

She shook her head. “I don't know. We had just made love and—” She waved a dismissive hand at Robin's exclamation. “Spare me the prudery, Robin. My husband prefers men to women. My preferences are my own.”
And I live with their consequences.
The recognition hovered, unspoken.

Robin nodded and kept a grim silence.

“I don't imagine he would have told me if I hadn't known that something bad had happened to me and that he had a part in it.”

With an involuntary movement she crossed her arms over her body again in a defensive hug. “How does one know these things, Robin? Did some unconscious memory, like a nightmare that haunts you even if you can't describe it, lodge itself in my mind?”

“I don't know,” he said, his heart aching for her. He knelt beside the bed and took her cold body in his arms and rubbed her back.

She stayed in his embrace for a few minutes, more to ease Robin's distress than for any real comfort it brought her, then she straightened her shoulders and stood up. “It matters not, Robin. I have to deal with what is and what will be. I will go with you to Woodstock.”

Robin jumped to his feet, sure here at least of his ground. “Pippa, you cannot go to Elizabeth. There's no safety for you there. If you join her openly you will be accused of treason. And there's no way you can take refuge with her without Bedingfield's finding out.”

“Then I will not go to Elizabeth,” she said with an icy calm. “But I will go with you out of this place. I cannot stay here. If you won't help me, then I must go alone.”

Robin put his hands on her shoulders. He almost shook her in a desperate need to break her icy detachment. He could barely recognize her. The bright, laughing, devil-may-care Pippa on whom the sun always shone was now this cold shadow.

“Don't be ridiculous, Pippa. Of course you won't go alone. We'll go to Woodstock and then I'll take you into Derbyshire.”

Pippa was surprised that she had already made her plans. She shook her head. “No, I won't be safe in
England. You will have to help me get to France, to Pen and Owen.”

“Yes . . . yes . . . that would be best,” Robin agreed, his mind once more working freely. “But then what?” What future would she have running with an infant from the long arm of Spain?

“I can't think of the future,” she stated. “I can only deal with the present. I have to get myself and this child to safety.”

Her voice was steady, her tone firm as if she was stating the obvious, and Robin could only accept her need to focus on the immediate issues. He pushed his bleak question to the back of his mind. It was fruitless to dwell upon the answer now.

He spoke his thoughts as they came to him. “How can we keep your escape a secret for a day or two . . . you had best be ill and keep to your chamber. Your maid . . . what's her name? . . . Martha . . . can she be trusted?”

“I doubt it,” Pippa said with a wry twist to her mouth. “She has already betrayed my confidence once to Stuart.”

“Then you'll have to be rid of her,” he said matter-of-factly. “Send her away. Pretend that she has offended you in some way and—”

“No, I cannot be so unjust,” Pippa interrupted him. “But I will send her to Holborn. I will say that my mother has requested that she assist the housekeeper there for a few days and that I will use a palace servant until she returns at the end of the week.”

“That will serve.” Robin paced the chamber. “I will attend on de Noailles now and return here for you within the hour. Make your preparations and see to the maid.”

He stopped in midstride. It was a relief to be making plans, to be dealing with the situation not crying over it, but he could not imagine how Pippa was managing to maintain her calm focus when the ever-present reminder of the hideous thing that had been done to her was growing inside her. He wanted to talk to her about it, but he could find no words.

He had to be content with the recognition that beneath the happy-go-lucky, flirtatious facade, she was and had always been a woman of the same ilk as her mother and sister. She would manage to do what had to be done. And yet his silence made him feel like a coward.

He reached for her, wanting to take her in his arms again, but instead she merely reached up and kissed his cheek. “'Tis all right, Robin. I will get through. Just help me to get out of this vile place.”

“Yes,” he said. “I'll return within the hour.”

“I'll be ready.”

The door closed behind him and Pippa locked it. Then she locked the connecting door to Stuart's chamber. She sat down at the table, mixed ink powder with water in the inkwell, and dipped her quill.

She thought for a minute. Thought of how Stuart, her husband, had used her, had betrayed her. And she felt nothing. Stuart had deemed her unworthy of his love and loyalty and she deemed him unworthy of any emotion of her own. Why should she waste words and energy on accusations and recriminations?

She began to write. She told him simply that she knew what had been done to her and why he had lent his support. And she told him she was leaving him. Their marriage was not valid in her eyes or those of the church. She would not expose him, but in return he must keep her disappearance a secret for two days and make no attempt to find her, or to claim her as his wife.

She signed the parchment, sanded it, folded it, and sealed it. She wrote his name on the front.

She tapped the folded sheet against the palm of her hand. It was the end of her marriage. The end of her life as she had known it. The end of all expectations of what her life would be.

A curious thought. Strangely detached from her self, from the physical presence of her self in this so familiar chamber.

Pippa unlocked the door to Stuart's chamber and entered. It was empty as she had known it would be. She didn't think her husband had slept in his own bed for close on a week.

She put the letter on the mantelpiece above the brightly burning fire. He would find it when he returned from wherever he was, to change his clothes for the day.

She left, locked the door again, and rang for Martha.

Nineteen

“I think I would like to ride in the city this morning, Malcolm,” Luisa stated as she arranged her skirts in graceful folds across the saddle.

“Not much chance for a gallop in the streets, m'lady,” Malcolm pointed out, mounting his own horse.

“Maybe not, but I'm tired of the river and the park. I've seen little enough of the city and I would like to ride towards the city walls. Isn't there a place called Aldergate?”

“Aldgate,” Malcolm corrected.

“I understand it's very busy, with crowds of people, a lot to see,” Luisa said with an eager and disarming smile.

“That's true enough. But it'll be noisy and dirty. Can't hear yourself think, like as not.”

“Oh, I would like to hear some noise and see some dirt,” Luisa declared. “You cannot imagine how tame life is, Malcolm.”

“Reckon I can at that,” Malcolm replied. “But Crema won't like it.”

“Oh, she'll be good as gold.” Luisa leaned over and stroked the mare's neck. “It's good for her to learn to handle crowds.”

“She'll handle them well enough,” Malcolm said. “But she won't like it, is what I said.”

“Then perhaps I should use another horse. Don Ashton has others, surely one would suit me.”

Malcolm shook his head. “Mr. Ashton doesn't keep ladies' horses in his stables . . . none but Crema.”

“So what should we do?” She raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“Reckon we'll take to the streets,” the groom said phlegmatically. He headed for the gate out of the yard and onto the street.

Luisa smiled and followed, her heart skipping a little with excitement. It was a challenge, to see if she could outsmart the sharp Malcolm. It would only be a momentary triumph, but she needed something to keep her wits honed.

Thanks to her excursions with Robin the street scenes were not as unfamiliar to her as she would have Malcolm believe. She averted her eyes from a bearbaiting, glanced with a shudder of sympathy at a vagrant whose ears had been pinned to the pillory, and guided with an expert hand Crema's delicate high-stepping across filthy cobbles and through the running sewage of the kennels.

Malcolm kept his eye on her in his usual relaxed fashion. He had some sympathy for the lady's need for a change of scene. They left the Royal Exchange behind and rode along Lombard Street. Luisa could see the city walls up ahead. All around her the throng ebbed and flowed going into and out of London. Aldgate was very close now.

Luisa drew rein suddenly. “Malcolm, I would like to look in that silversmith's shop.” She pointed with her whip to the dark interior of a shop whose wares were indicated by a silver hammer hung above the lintel. “'Tis Dona Bernardina's birthday next week and I had it in mind to buy her a silver thimble.”

She gave him her smile again. “I cannot buy anything if I cannot visit the shops and markets.”

That was certainly true, Malcolm reflected. He dismounted and went to help Luisa from her horse.

“There's no need to accompany me,” she said, covering her face with her discreet black mantilla. “I would not wish to leave Crema in the hands of a street urchin.”

Malcolm looked into the gloom of the silversmith's shop. He could see nothing out of the way there. There were no other customers, and the smith himself was polishing a pair of candlesticks.

He took the reins of both horses. “Very well, m'lady. I'll wait here with the horses.”

“Thank you, Malcolm.”

Her smile was concealed beneath the silk of her mantilla but he could hear its warmth in her voice. He nodded with a half smile in return and turned to survey the street.

Luisa stepped over the threshold of the shop. The silversmith came forward, rubbing his hands expectantly. “What can I show you, m'lady?”

“Thimbles,” she said, her gaze darting around the dim, dusty room. She saw what she had hoped to see at the rear. “Could you assemble what wares you have and I will return in five minutes to make a selection.”

The smith beamed his agreement and disappeared through an archway to the right of the table where he'd been working.

Luisa darted towards the door she'd seen at the rear of the shop. If it did what she expected of it after her excursions with Robin, it would open onto a back alley. The back alleys were all connected, a whole warren of lanes that snaked through the city keeping vaguely to parallel paths with the main thoroughfares.

She stepped out into sunshine. It was close to noon. A couple of very small half-naked children toddled out of a noxious courtyard into the lane. Luisa hurried past them. She knew where Aldgate was from Lombard Street, all she had to do was follow the same basic direction along the backways. No more than three or four minutes.

She half ran, her skirts held high to protect them as much as possible from the muddy, unpaved ground. To her surprise she felt no fear. It was reckless even at high noon for a woman dressed as she was to go alone through these parts of the city and yet she felt ridiculously invulnerable. And maybe she gave off some aura of invincibility because apart from a few curious glances no one made any attempt to impede her progress.

The lane twisted and turned and debouched into Aldgate at the very top of Lombard Street. Luisa stopped to catch her breath. She wondered how she would see Robin in this throng. He would be heading for the gate, of course.

She pushed her way towards the gate, where a constant shoving, shouting procession pressed in both directions. Watchmen stood idly by. Outside curfew the gate was open to all unless they received orders to close the city. Luisa found a spot against the wall, close to the gate, and waited, searching the throng, her heart beating fast. If Robin didn't appear soon, she would have to go back to Malcolm.

And then she saw him. He was riding beside a closed carriage and his expression made her stare. Her excitement vanished like a flame under a bucket of sand. She had never seen him look so bleak, so angry, and yet so cold. She was used to his laughter, his teasing, his light flirtation, and sometimes to an intensity in his gaze that made her heart sing. But this was not a man she knew.

She stepped out almost without thinking, right into his path. “Robin?”

He looked down at her, so astonished that for a moment it was as if he didn't recognize her. “Luisa?”

The carriage had halted and a lad of about thirteen jumped down. “Are we to go through, sir?” He stared at the veiled woman in frank curiosity.

“Just a minute, Jem.” Robin dismounted. “What on earth are you doing here, Luisa?”

“It was a little adventure. I wanted to see if I could slip away from . . . Oh, never mind that! What is the matter, Robin? What has happened?” She laid a hand on his arm, her voice a thrum of anxiety and sympathy.

The carriage door opened and Pippa stepped down. “Why have we stopped?”

“'Tis just me,” Luisa said, tossing back her veil. “I was having a little fun but I see that I have been foolish.” She came to Pippa, reaching a hand for hers. “You look so dreadful. Both of you. Please tell me what has happened. How can I help you?”

Pippa's first reaction was impatient annoyance. They had no time to stand in the street having a pointless discussion with an importunate girl who didn't understand anything of reality.

“You cannot, Luisa,” she said with a dismissive gesture, turning back to the carriage. And then came a sudden overwhelming desire for the company of another woman, for the familiar comforts female companionship would offer after the dreadful betrayals of men.

But she needed her mother or sister, not Luisa. Luisa was too sweet and too young to understand life's evils. And she should be sheltered from them.

She said peremptorily over her shoulder as she climbed into the carriage, “Come, Robin, we have no time to waste.”

Before she could close the door, however, Luisa scrambled in after her. “You may think I can be of no help, Lady Nielson, but I think I can,” she said with a stubborn twist to her mouth. “I intended to turn back as soon as I had met with Robin, but now I know that that is not what I am supposed to do.”

Robin's head appeared in the doorway. “God's blood, Luisa, get out! What are you doing here alone?”

“Never mind,” she said. “I'm going with you. Lady Nielson is my chaperone, so there will be no damage to my reputation, and I can see that she needs my help.”

They had no time for this,
Pippa thought. But she felt a certain admiration for Luisa's persistence, and a sympathy with her relish for adventure. Both traits she recognized in herself. She wondered fleetingly if she still possessed them. Or had they been stamped out of her by the heavy boots of horror?

And then she thought that maybe Luisa could help her to find that part of her old resilient self that would enable her to lift her head above the mud. At the very least her bubbling companionship would be a diversion.

She threw scruple to the devil. If the girl wanted to find herself hip deep in this mire, then so be it. “Let her come, Robin.”

Robin shook his head. “For God's sake, Luisa, Dona Bernardina . . . your guardian . . . they will be frantic with worry.”

“I will find a way to send them a message.” She threw a shrewd glance between the two of them. “When it is safe to do so.”

No fool, this Dona Luisa, Pippa thought. She said with something approaching a smile, “Robin, if you are not prepared to wrestle Luisa from this carriage, I think she must accompany us. Indeed, I would think it discourteous of you to send her home alone through the city streets and you know that we dare not tarry another minute.”

Robin realized he could dispute neither of these statements. Luisa had settled herself firmly on the seat opposite Pippa and it would take more than a mere man to wrestle her down. He threw up his hands, slammed the carriage door, and remounted.

Lionel barely heard the conversation around Philip's council table. His fingers stroked the narrow stem of his wine goblet, his gaze rested unseeing on a patch of sunlight on the oak surface of the table.

“Don Ashton, how did it happen that Lady Nielson flouted the king's edict this morning?” Gomez leaned across the table towards him.

Lionel forced his attention back to the chamber. “That was my error. Last even I had given her permission to ride this morning and told her to depart from the smiths' court. When His Majesty decided to visit the court himself I did not think that Lady Nielson would have ventured forth so early in the morning.”

He shrugged and drank from his goblet. “It was barely past dawn. Ladies of the court are not in general early risers.”

“Unless, of course, they are attendant upon the queen,” Renard declared piously. “Her Majesty is at her prayers well before dawn and dealing with matters of state soon after.”

Lionel made no response to this admiring observation. He drank again and leaned back as a page hastily refilled his goblet. The wine seemed to be having little effect on him although he was drinking more deeply than was his habit.

“You appear distracted, Don Ashton,” Philip remarked, leaning one elbow on the wide carved arm of his chair, reflectively rubbing his chin with his forefinger.

“No, sire. I am not in the least distracted.” Lionel set down his goblet.

“I am considering whether it would not be better for all concerned if Lady Nielson were to be removed to my house. My ward and her duenna are already in residence, so there would be no hint of impropriety. It will be much easier to control her movements there. 'Tis impossible in the palace unless she is kept under lock and key and I don't think that would be wise. We don't wish to draw yet more attention to the situation. Her obvious imprisonment in the palace would stir up anger and resentment from Elizabeth's supporters and we need to keep them quiescent.”

“And what of her husband?”

“Lord Nielson, I am certain, will offer no objections. He can be told to explain that since he's so busy himself he cannot care adequately for his wife, and she would benefit from close female companionship since her own family are absent from court.”

“Nielson will do as he's told after last night's little incident with his lover,” Renard said, his thin mouth tight. “My men tell me it went off very well.”

“Well, I think you should do as you think fit, Don Ashton,” Philip stated. “The queen and I have no wish to think of the matter again.”

Unless it becomes necessary.
It was the unspoken thought of every man at the table, but no one would venture to cast doubts on the successful conclusion of the queen's pregnancy.

Lionel pushed back his chair. “I will put this matter in train immediately.”

He bowed to the table and left the chamber.

Removing Pippa from the palace was essential to securing her safety. He had had this suggestion in mind for several weeks, guessing that it would be well received, particularly by Pippa, but that had been before this morning's dreadful revelation. Now he had to coerce her cooperation. His shame and remorse were so powerful he could not imagine how he was to face her, how to talk to her. But it had to be done.

He rapped sharply on her chamber door. Silence answered his knock. He rapped again. Usually her maid was with her. Still silence. He tried to lift the latch but it was locked. He hesitated for a minute, then strode to the door of the adjoining apartment.