The Spymaster's Daughter (12 page)

Robert did not reply for several minutes, until they turned into the corridor near her apartment. “Thank you, my lady,” he said as if he had just retrieved his voice. “I will try to amuse you.”

Frances breathed deeply. She had meant to set a distance between them, but now that his reserve matched her own, she was regretful. Why did she so insistently send a flawed message to Robert Pauley? And why did he consistently misunderstand her? Even if her words had been meant in a friendly guise, he was unused to friendliness from his betters. He would be naturally suspicious.
Bastards were never equals, or well treated, regardless of their merit. He had armored himself against disillusion just as she had shielded her heart against Philip's blinding love for Stella.

Did Robert suffer as she did? He was a man and would never speak of a sore heart. How strange that servant and mistress might have so much in common.

A kitchen under-cook was waiting with her supper. He bowed and left, the food now cold, but then it always was, because the huge kitchens were so prone to fires that they were banished to many levels below the royal chambers in all royal palaces and great manors.

“May I warm your dinner, my lady?”

“How?”

Robert pulled leather gloves from the pocket about his waist, donned them, and held the bowls over the candelabra. “Not hot, my lady,” he said, “but not cold.”

He made so many things easier for her. Of course, that was what a servant was for…so why did Robert seem so special? “Are you hungry?” Frances asked, snatching at some idle talk.

“Aye, my lady, though I would eat even if I were not. I learned to eat when I could or go hungry ofttimes.”

“Then it is well you eat what you want of this meal. I have small appetite.”

He held her chair for her, then lifted the first cover from its pewter plate, exposing a small bread coffin, the aroma making a lie of her professed small appetite.

“Soused pig, my lady, stuffed with a moor cock and with some boiled, spiced meats on the side.” He lifted another cover, this time of pewter, and drew in a deep breath. “Baked capon pie,” he announced.

She wrinkled her nose. “No fish? I do love fish instead of so much game.”

“I will speak to the fish kitchen's master cook when next I go to the tiring room for Mr. Secretary's double ale. What would you like of this meal?”

“Capon, Robert, and thank you.” She picked at the capon crust to open it for its spicy sauce and took a little more than usual. The crust was white manchet, and excellent. She relaxed, feeling quite comfortable now that Robert had not mentioned the morning…or what he had thought since. Nevertheless, that did not stop her from wondering.

“Thank you for coming to my aid this morning,” she said, compelled for some reason to speak of it herself, but not looking directly at him, not wanting to read his face.

“You are most welcome, my lady,” he answered, busy with his dinner. “My apologies for not being entertaining, Lady Frances. Would you like me to play for you?”

“No, you should eat your dinner while it is warm. I would not be so thoughtless a mistress.”

He smiled. “You may ask anything of me, my lady,” he said, and went to his pallet for his guitar. Returning, he said: “This is a happy country tune.”

Robert nodded to her, and Frances joined in the refrain:

They both sang the next verse.

She laughed, thinking that she
was
merry, and grateful to him for lifting her mood. “Now I do insist you eat your dinner.”

He took a little of each dish and placed it on his bread, wiping
his knife before he cut with it. He chewed with his mouth closed and did not talk, nor take a bite before he had swallowed the last. His manners were impeccable and must have been learned at his noble father's table. She tried to imagine him as young and cared for in a fine manor. What hurt he had suffered to be turned out.

“You are quiet, Robert,” she said, hating his silence after the music.

“Beg pardon, my lady. I do not wish to burden you with my talk.” He took a drink of ale, wiped the rim politely, and set the glass in front of her again.

“Why would it burden me? Do you think my day so filled with interest, or riotous speech?” She realized her voice was too loud. “Now I beg
your
pardon, Robert.”

“I understand perfectly, Lady Frances,” he said, inclining his head toward a letter addressed to her husband but not sealed. “You must be concerned for Sir Philip's safety, now that the Earl of Leicester will soon leave for the Low Countries to take command. You called your husband's name in your sleep.”

Was he watching her face for a response? “Yes, of course I am,” Frances said, perhaps too quickly, glancing at his plate, from which he had eaten a little more than half. “But I am keeping you from your dinner.”

“Not at all,” he said, pushing his plate away and wiping his mouth on his handkerchief instead of his sleeve.

“The food is not to your liking, either?”

He shrugged, but kept his face pleasant. “While a brewer's apprentice, I learned to like pottage and workman's stews of potatoes, tomatoes, turnips, parsnips, and such in broth with a bread of rougher grain. I found myself with a quieter stomach and more vigor than when my meals were all too much of game.”

“But food from under the earth is considered poor,” she said, frowning.

“Perhaps by those who have not tasted it,” he said. “Would you like to—”

Frances laughed. “Jennet would think you were poisoning me.”

“The punishment for poisoning your mistress is the boiling death.” He grinned to make the response, though true, a jest. “I like my food boiled, but that's as much heat as I desire.”

“Robert, I will try your pottage…someday.”

“When it is your wish, my lady, but now I must to your father's work.”

“And I to Dr. Dee's chambers.”

“I
will escort you there, Lady Frances,” Robert said. There were far too many rude young ne'er-do-wells with no better occupation than to trouble ladies without servants.

He would never have her waylaid, though she was no easily frightened ninny. Such duty befitted a servant, he told himself again…a servant who was fast becoming far more caring of her than he needed to be. He searched for a more truthful explanation, admitting that in spite of all his attempts to keep the distance demanded of his rank, he had been unable to maintain enough separation in his thoughts.

After he had held her trembling body in the night, he had felt the heat of her soft skin for hours. If she had branded him, he would have carried no more intense warmth.

Leading the way through corridors past the magnificent Chapel Royal, he stopped to look inside, as he always did, admiring again its hammer-beam roof and wonderful carvings everywhere. A quick glance revealed Frances's aunt Jennet kneeling at prayer in the transept shadows. He heard Frances catch her breath, and saw her turn and enter the chapel.

He followed and took his proper seat behind her, unable to look away from her white shoulders, slender but strong enough to carry her sadness. A beam from the high west-facing windows cast
its light on her slender neck and the soft whiteness he was trying, and failing, to forget. Yet how could he ignore such loveliness when no one could see him? And why should he deny himself that small pleasure?

He waited for her to bow her head in prayer, but she did not, staring toward her aunt.

Then he saw what had turned her into the chapel and what she now must see with some horror: Jennet's fingers moving against her bodice as if she were saying the rosary of the old faith. Did she still secretly cling to the ancient ways? And in the queen's palace, where recusants were seen as traitors?

Robert knew what Mr. Secretary would do if he found a Catholic in his household. She would not be spared. His strict faith and dutiful reading of the law would not allow it, no matter how close in blood the woman was. For a moment Robert's mind was torn between duty and cruelly taking a beloved aunt from Frances. The moment passed as he realized he knew he could do no such thing. Refusing to wonder at a choice that made him equally a traitor, he tried to stop all such thoughts. Still, the sense of her so close was almost more than he could abide.

What he felt for Frances was not just the hopeless excitement of an impossible and even dangerous attachment. There were more of those in Elizabeth's court than he could count…even a high lady or two who would not mind a discreet tumble with him in any dark corridor. Yet he could think of no one but his mistress.
Fool!

This madness had started in the coach on the way from Barn Elms. He had recognized something in her face, her eyes, something that he saw in his own mirror…betrayal.

Or could he have seen what he wanted to see?

He had to take his roving mind in hand. She was merely being kind to him. And she was a married woman, a queen's lady, and he…a bastard of low rank.

He clenched his fists, forbidding further runaway thoughts,
though he doubted the ban would last the day. She would come to him again in the night.

F
rances breathed deeply, inhaling incense, trying for a face of solemn reverence, though she had long since had to deliberately wear that mask. If the sacrament of marriage meant nothing, then she had come to doubt all church ritual. Her rejection by Philip had ended in her rejection of the Church…although she kept these feelings hidden and secret. In Elizabeth's England, as in her father's house, it was best to follow the new Protestant faith.

Before she moved on, Frances bowed her head as was right on All Souls', praying for her mother's peace and hoping she was in heaven, hoping there was a heaven, since there was no peace on this earth. When she lifted her head, she saw she could not warn her aunt now, but she would later.

Jennet knew that recusancy had been treason since 1570, when Pope Gregory had excommunicated Elizabeth of England and named her a heretic, thus allowing her assassination by any Catholic. In the pope's eyes it was no crime; nor would it prevent the assassins' entry into eternity. The queen's life was now under daily threat, and so were the lives of Catholics in her realm.

Frances glanced at Robert. Had he seen Jennet as she had? When she turned to him, his head was bowed in prayer, but she could not be certain. Would he take the tale to her father? He had no cause to love Jennet. Yet Frances trusted him not to bring hurt to her. It was blind faith, but she was convinced he would never bring harm to anyone she loved.

Quickly, Frances rose and walked past the spectacular great hall, with its high mullioned windows and walls covered with Henry VIII's fantastical hunt tapestries, and stopped before Dr. Dee's door. Robert knocked; a servant answered.

Frances had no more than spoken her name before Dr. Dee's
deep voice boomed from beyond the antechamber. “At last, my Lady Sidney, you honor me with a visit. I have been waiting for you.”

“Good doctor, the queen gave me leave to come today.”

“Yes, we have been quite busy with a new star chart that would foretell the progress of the Holland war draining Her Majesty's purse.”

Nodding to acknowledge Robert, Dee strode into the room, doctor's robe billowing. He bowed and kissed her hand, his white beard sweeping across her arm. “You are most welcome, madam. My former pupil Sir Philip is indeed fortunate to have gained so beautiful a wife”—he took a quick breath and spoke on—“and, from what Her Majesty tells me, a lady of learning.”

“The queen is too kind. I only
aspire
to learning.”

“As do we all, madam.” He paused and looked into her eyes. She thought he must have been very handsome as a youth, with his clear complexion and straight nose. His wide-set eyes yet had a sparkle, and she expected he would make very old bones.

“Doctor, I am most interested in ciphers.”

He frowned. “I believe your interest is true, my lady, but as a friend of your father, I must pass a word of warning before we begin. Since I wrote the
Monas Hieroglyphica
more than twenty years ago, and more lately have delved into the world of spirits and angels, I have been suspect of trafficking in the realm of the devil. How much more would a lovely young woman like you be thought to do a witch's work?”

“Doctor, I am not afraid of the ignorant.”

Dee smiled. “It is the ignorant we should most fear, my lady.” Then he nodded. “But you are as I expected. The queen also said you were a woman of spirit.” He pointed the way. “Come into my library. Master Pauley, you may wait here.”

Robert bowed. “My pardon, Lady Frances, Dr. Dee, but I must attend on Mr. Secretary Walsingham.”

“Of course,” she said.

Dr. Dee nodded. “I will escort Lady Frances to her rooms,” he said, and led Frances into the next chamber.

She looked back once, but Robert was quickly gone, the door closing behind him.

The room she entered was full of books and manuscripts in beautifully carved bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling, their glass doors standing open. The doctor's library put the one at Barn Elms to shame. It was grand enough to take away her breath. “I have heard you have the best library in England, Doctor, and now I believe it.”

“Many of my best volumes are at my home in Mortlake, near your manor of Barn Elms, my lady. You are most welcome there at any time.” He swept his arm about him. “For now, please look as you like.”

Frances began tracing her finger below the titles of the leather-bound books, astonished, thrilled, almost overcome by such treasures. Here was Dante's
Divine Comedy
; several of Erasmus's works, including
In Praise of Folly
; Sir Thomas More's
Utopia
; Boccaccio's
Decameron
; and Montaigne's
Essais
. She touched each one reverently and turned to Dee, who was smiling at her.