The Best of Men (53 page)

He removed his cloak and tossed his pistols on the bed. “Is anything wrong?”

“No.”

“Then why are you trembling?”

He reached for her, but she pushed him away. “Beaumont, this is not the time.”

“We have plenty of time.”

“Oh, I see, now I know the reason for your excessive punctuality.”

Irritated, he shot back, “Have you seen our friend Digby recently?”

“Yes.” She turned on him a bright smile. “And in fact we spoke of you. He hoped you might help him: he is about to publish a broadsheet, to assist the King in spreading news of his victories and discrediting the nonsense going about London these days as to his Cavaliers’ awful atrocities,” she carried on, as though delivering some speech that she had memorised. “Women raped and children skewered on muskets! Prince Rupert’s dog is even being portrayed as a satanic familiar. It is hilarious what people are willing to believe. But since many Londoners are now pleading for an end to war, Digby thinks they deserve better information to sway their allegiances.”

“Better information, or better lies?”

“Why so cynical? If you agree to help, Digby might get you exempted from military service this spring. He needs reliable intelligence from all parts of the country to be reported quickly to Oxford, so that the broadsheet can be printed weekly and then distributed in London. He might have it reprinted there, if we cannot import sufficient
copies. I shall organize for it to be smuggled into the capital, under the best cover in the world: women’s skirts.”

“How ingenious,” he said, laughing. “Your idea?” She nodded. “What’s he going to call his broadsheet?”

“
Mercurius Aulicus
.” She hesitated, surveying Laurence, then resumed in a brittle, careless tone, “Do you know you have an admirer at Court? That poor young widow Lady d’Aubigny is besotted with you, or so rumour has it.”

“You shouldn’t listen to rumour,” he said dismissively.

“Well, beware. She’s a flighty girl and has deluded herself that she has a gift for politics. And she is practically the King’s cousin.”

“Isabella, have you anything to drink?”

“No.”

“I can go down for it.”

“Would you?” Suddenly her expression changed and she became herself again. “Beaumont, I am so dreadfully on edge. I hope Captain Milne doesn’t disappoint us tonight.”

“And
I
hope Falkland doesn’t.” He smiled, to reassure her, and took a step towards her. “I forgot to tell you how much I like your perfume. Let me guess: attar of roses, orrisroot, musk … and …” He bowed his head to her neck and sniffed. “Perhaps a touch of frankincense. Am I right?”

“Why, yes!” she said, visibly impressed. He was about to venture yet closer when they heard the toll of church bells. “That’s ten o’clock,” she reminded him. “You should fetch the wine.”

Down in the taproom, Laurence had to elbow his way through the crush. Someone tried to grab his arm, but he paid no attention until, over the din of voices, he heard a man cry, “I’ve got him!” He recognised a couple of Hoare’s guards peering out of the crowd at him, and another nearby, who had attempted to seize him. He kicked that man in the shins, shoved his way back towards the stairs, raced up to Isabella’s
chamber, hurried in, and slammed and bolted the door. “Hoare’s men are downstairs,” he whispered urgently.

“What shall we do?” she gasped.

He flung wide the window. There were more guards below, Corporal Wilson amongst them; they had surrounded the tavern entrance.

“You can’t – it’s too far down,” Isabella protested, as he hoisted himself over the sill. “Beaumont, you’ll break your neck!”

Men were now hammering at the door. It gave on its hinges as Laurence was squeezing his shoulders through the window frame. “Throw the pistols down after me,” he called up to her.

But she disappeared as though she had been snatched away, and Corporal Wilson’s face loomed over him instead, grinning. “Mr. Beaumont, we meet again!” Laurence released his hold and fell, then scrambled on hands and knees down a narrow alley beside the tavern. There was no exit, he quickly realised. “He’s down there!” Wilson yelled to his companions below. They rushed after Laurence, dragged him out into the street, and began to assail him with blows and kicks, until he was writhing about on the wet ground.

A pair of shiny boots approached and stopped in front of his face. “Mr. Beaumont,” said Colonel Hoare, “a happy Christmas to you.”

“And a happy one to you too,” Laurence managed to reply, just as two guards marched Isabella out of the tavern.

“What right have you to treat him so?” she demanded of Hoare, attempting to tear herself free from them.

“I need to get some answers from him,” Hoare said calmly. “I shall also detain you for a while.”

“You are a brute, sir!” she shouted. “Lord Digby shall hear of it!”

“He may hear of it, madam, but he has no power to prevent it.” As if to emphasise his point, Hoare sank one smartly booted toe into the pit of Laurence’s stomach.

“Let her go,” panted Laurence.

Hoare delivered another kick, lower than the first; Laurence retched and nearly fainted. “As I think you should recognise by now, Mr. Beaumont, you’re in no position to order me about. Take her to my quarters,” Hoare told the guards, who led her off. “And as for you,” he added to Laurence, “I have a special place.”

A horde of young carol singers had arrived at Richard Ingram’s door hoping for cakes and ale in return for their performance. Radcliff accompanied Richard, his wife, Dorothy, and Madam Musgrave to hear them, for Kate and Ingram had gone off together to talk; and as the children trilled and warbled, he assumed a genial smile that belied his own roiling thoughts.

He felt everything slipping out of his control, and for reasons that he could not fathom. First had come the news about Tyler. Having heard nothing from him since they had parted at Aylesbury, Radcliff had bidden Poole to go looking for him. In the last week of November, when Radcliff was with his troop, he received a letter from Poole informing him that Tyler had been shot dead in Oxford around the time that the city fell to the King. Poole had made inquiries at the gaol in Oxford Castle, and the description of Tyler’s killer matched Beaumont precisely. Meanwhile, Seward was back at Merton and it seemed the charges against him had been dropped.

After reading the letter, Radcliff bore such a hatred for Beaumont that he wished he could do away with the man at once. But it was too risky, for the moment. Their waiting game would continue.

And then there was Kate. From the day Radcliff arrived at Newbury for the holiday, she seemed continually to avoid him, or else she would eye him piercingly when she imagined he was not looking. They rarely made love, and when they did, he sensed that she dreaded his caresses. Madam Musgrave tried his nerves with her gross
comments; and she too gave him odd glances occasionally, as though she knew some secret about him that was not to his credit. Although Ingram remained the same as always, even-tempered and affectionate, this was small solace.

At length the carollers were shepherded into the kitchen by Madam Musgrave, and Radcliff went to join Kate and Ingram. As he might have predicted, Kate immediately left on the excuse of seeing to their refreshments.

“What’s been bothering you these days?” Ingram asked, his innocent concern like a scourge to Radcliff’s troubled soul. “You don’t appear to be enjoying yourself here as you should.”

Radcliff selected the only matter that he could discuss with his brother-in-law. “It’s Kate. She is so aloof with me lately.”

“Oh, now, she’s always like that,” Ingram protested, but not strongly enough.

“She is not aloof with you.”

“No, but women are strange creatures.” Ingram paused, at the sound of footsteps.

Kate returned with wine, poured out three glasses, and sat down with an air of trying hard to be agreeable.

“Did those young rascals get their fruitcakes?” Ingram asked her.

“They did. Aunt Musgrave has eaten almost as many. I wonder that she’ll have any appetite for supper. To Richard’s disapproval she was calling for a game of cards before we eat.”

“My aunt fancies herself a cardsharp, Radcliff,” Ingram said. “But we haven’t played thus far because my brother holds such pursuits in low regard.”

Unsurprisingly, Radcliff thought. Richard had succeeded in losing most of his property without resorting to games of chance. “There can be no harm in the cards themselves, as long as one doesn’t bet money on them,” he observed.

“You should have seen her with your friend Mr. Beaumont,” Kate murmured to Ingram, in what was clearly intended as a private aside. “She’d have played cards with
him
all night.”

Radcliff started at the name. “What did
you
make of Mr. Beaumont, Kate?” he asked, assuming an offhand tone.

“I am obliged to him for bringing me the letters, after Edgehill,” Kate replied, very properly.

“Yes, indeed, as am I. My dear,” he went on, an unpleasant idea occurring to him, “I know that you did not open mine, as I had requested, but I had written some instructions to that effect on the letter itself. Did he happen to read them?”

That same piercing look crept into her eyes. “How could he have?”

“Your letter was enclosed in mine,” Ingram said to Radcliff. “He wouldn’t even have seen it. And why would it matter if he had?”

“Those instructions were for Kate, in confidence. One cannot always trust people to be discreet.”

“Indiscretion is not amongst Beaumont’s faults,” Ingram said, rather crossly.

“Forgive me, Ingram, but you forget that I don’t know him as well as you do,” Radcliff said, with a conciliatory smile.

Ingram grunted in assent, as he lit his pipe. “It’s true though, Kate – he certainly must have charmed Aunt Musgrave,” he began again. “She called him a delectable young devil.”

“He is not attractive to
me
,” Kate said. “It is as if he is of … of some other
breed
than the rest of us. And there is something impolite about his gaze.”

“There you go, Radcliff,” Ingram said, smiling. “At least he won’t steal Kate from you.”

Radcliff hesitated, to swallow his outrage at the suggestion. “Why, is he in the habit of luring married women away from their husbands?”

“He has at least once or twice in the past, and I don’t believe he owes his success entirely to his looks.”

“Oh, naturally, with his wealth and noble blood –”

“That’s not what I –” Ingram checked himself, casting a glance at Kate.

“If
he
were wed, I am sure
he
would not appreciate such behaviour from others,” she commented, wrinkling her nose as at some disagreeable smell.

“He may be married soon, to the daughter of one of Lord Beaumont’s neighbours.”

“Then all the husbands in England will be the safer for it,” Radcliff said, with an artificial laugh that tailed off as Richard Ingram entered, with Joshua Poole.

“Those impudent boys will not leave the kitchen,” Richard was complaining. “They intend to eat us out of house and home, by all the evidence. Sir Bernard, you have a visitor.”

Steeling himself to betray no hint of his surprise, Radcliff introduced Poole to Ingram and Kate. “Mr. Poole is my lawyer. What brings you here, sir?” he asked Poole.

“Some documents regarding Longstanton that require your signature, Sir Bernard,” Poole said, humbly. “I must apologise for bothering you with them, given the season.”

“No, no,” said Radcliff. “I must have overlooked them on my last visit.”

“You may go to my counting office,” Richard said. “You’ll find pen and ink where I keep my books.”

Radcliff hurried Poole from the room. Once they reached the office, he demanded harshly, under his breath, “Why did you show your face here?”

“It was not my choice, sir.” Poole appeared more bedraggled than normal, his thin features bitten by cold. “My Lord Pembroke called me
to his house last week and asked what tidings I had of your affairs. I thought it best to tell him that Tyler had been stabbed to death in some taproom brawl, and that it was nothing to do with us.”

“What did his lordship make of it all?”

“He made no comment about it. But he sent me to tell you at once not to correspond with him for the present,” Poole went on. “And he stressed most categorically that you must cease using the code that you gave him.”

“Why?” Radcliff asked, a cold sweat passing over him. “Does he think it unsafe?”

“He did not explain.”

“How did he seem to you, Poole? Was he angry?”

“No, sir. The opposite, in fact. He said he was much encouraged by the political climate in London. The war is growing unpopular there, and its staunchest advocate, John Pym, is ill and frequently absent from Parliament. Even he might not carry the Commons in a vote to continue hostilities, and the Lords are inclining to reach a settlement this spring. His lordship even remarked that we may have no need to detain the King by use of arms, as you had planned in the last resort, in order to negotiate a peace.”

“If I am not to communicate with his lordship, what then would he have me do?” Radcliff said, in a faint voice.

“Lie low until he comes to Oxford early in February as a Commissioner for Parliament. When he arrives, he will leave you directions at the Lamb Inn.” Poole blinked at Radcliff like some sad old blackbird. “Sir Bernard, in the case of a swift resolution to our country’s woes, I may choose to retire from your service. I’ve been plagued by heart trouble, and a quiet life would suit me better.”

“Yes, yes,” Radcliff said, hardly listening.

“I fear my friend Robinson is no more,” Poole whispered next.

Radcliff could not contradict this; he felt a sudden sympathy for
Poole, caught up in a business he knew so little about. “Are you suffering from a cold, sir?” Radcliff said, more kindly. “I can ask Madam Musgrave to spare you a bowl of soup.”

“Thank you, Sir Bernard,” Poole said, as he blew his nose into his handkerchief, “but I would prefer to leave for London straight away.”

“What’s wrong between you and Radcliff, Kate?” Ingram burst out finally. They had both been silent, ever since Radcliff had left with his lawyer. “Are you concerned that man might have brought him bad news about his estate? Or is it something else?”