The Wife Test (20 page)

It took her a moment to recover, summon a suitable glare, and stalk on toward the great hall.

Half an hour later, as the group traipsed down the hill to the mews, there was none of the usual pairing. The maids walked together in a clump, chatting noisily, and the men trailed behind in sullen silence.

Her sisters’ laughter caused Chloe to look back and give them a censuring look, which they ignored. When they arrived and spoke with the head falconer, Chloe suggested they sort themselves into pairs for instruction, and then had to finally assign them into pairs herself. Ignoring her own smarting pride, she paired Lisette with Graham and Helen with Simon. And in the interest of efficiency, she assigned Jaxton and Alaina, and Margarete and William to work together. To her chagrin, Lisette and Graham seemed to have nothing to say to each other and even the formerly cozy Simon and Helen seemed strained together.

What followed seemed to be the longest afternoon on record. The falconers were less than pleased at having to disrupt their training, the birds were fractious, the maids were skittish, and the men were less than chivalrous in their reaction to the maids’ fears. For every abrupt movement there was a scream, and for every scream there was an unsettled bird that had to be hooded, stroked, and put away in the dark mews until it calmed.

Chloe was bitten on the finger as she tried to reward a bird with a morsel of food, Margarete swooned when a bird shrieked unexpectedly in her ear, and Helen got sick as she watched a hawk eat a baby rabbit it caught. Strangely, of all of the maids, it was Alaina who seemed to take to the birds and handle them with interest and confidence. The day’s one consolation was the sight of Sir Jaxton and Alaina walking side by side as they returned to the castle, exchanging smiles and speaking eagerly about the fine mews at his home in Somerset.

Chloe was tense to the point of numbness as she climbed the steps to their chamber behind her sisters, late in the day. She was doing her best to see that they would be well wedded and happy. Why couldn’t they believe that?

As they reached their chamber, one of Lady Marcella’s serving women came running up the steps after them, calling to Chloe.

“What is it Moll?” Chloe caught the distraught woman in the doorway.

“Milady’s beasties … is one of ’em here? Milady had me come to freshen yer linen an’ the li’l minx followed me. Must’ve stayed behind.” Moll pushed past Chloe and began calling, “Cherub, come ’ere, ye little rag mop!”

They all began to peer under the cots and around the chests, calling the little dog. Margarete screamed and everyone froze for an instant before rushing to see what caused it. There on the floor, beneath the window well, lay the furry little dog with its legs rigid and eyes closed. Moll rushed to pick it up, but all could see as she did so that it was too late.

“Did you find her?” Lady Marcella’s voice came from the doorway. Then she spotted her dog in the servant’s arms. “There she is! Cherub, you naughty— What’s wrong? What’s happened.” She hurried across the room to take the little body from Moll’s arms. “Wake up, sweetness. Look at me … please …”

Chloe hurried to put her arms around Lady Marcella and lead her to a seat on one of the cots. The old lady clasped her little companion to her breast and rocked back and forth, muttering “no, no, no.” Moments later she began to sob, and soon there wasn’t a dry eye in the chamber.

“What could have happened to her?” Moll wiped her tears with her apron.

Chloe looked at the dog’s face. The hair on its muzzle was matted with something gray and gooey … something it had eaten … probably just before …

She jumped up and ran to the window where the little dog was found. The lid on the pot that was delivered to them last night had been knocked aside, and some of the contents were missing.

“Cherub died right here. She must have eaten some of what is in this dish.”

Moll wiped another tear and knelt to give the dish a sniff. “Can’t be certain wot’s in it, there’s so much pepper an’ garlic.” She used the lid to disturb part of the sticky mass. “Could be bad meat … or bad mushrooms …”

Chloe’s throat tightened as she turned back to their distraught lady chaperone. The sight of those time-gnarled hands moving over the little dog again and again, smoothing its fur and trying to comfort it in death, was heartbreaking.

They wrapped the little body in linen toweling, and Chloe and her sisters sat with Lady Marcella while Moll and another serving woman carried it out.

“I’m so sorry,” Chloe said, putting her arm around the old lady.

“They were all I had. My babies,” Lady Marcella gasped between sobs. “Haven’t I lost enough?” When she looked up with her faded, red-rimmed eyes, Chloe had no answer. “My sweet cousin … my children … my husband … my home … gone. And now my little—” She clasped her hand over her mouth, unable to even say the name.

“It’s not fair,” Lisette said with tears running down her cheeks.

“Why would anyone want to poison a sweet little dog?” Margarete demanded with a tearful sniff.

“It was an accident. I’m sure it was never meant to hurt …” Chloe’s heart stopped for a harrowing moment, then gave a violent thump and began to race.

Whether stuffed with poison or just made with food gone bad, the dish could not have been intended for anything but ill. And it had been sent to
them.
She thought of the ragged boy who delivered it, of the way he thrust it into her hands and ran off. Not even the lowest and meanest of the castle servants was so dirty and poorly dressed … or so rude. Someone had sent that dish to them hoping they would eat it and sicken. Or worse.

She looked at each of her sisters, realizing that if it hadn’t been for Alaina’s fit of pique, they might have actually tasted it. It would be one or more of them lying cold and lifeless.

But why would anyone want to harm one of them? Then she recalled the attempted abductions on their way to England and remembered Lisette’s fall from the horse and then the morning’s narrow escape with the boar. She had dismissed them as accidents at the time. The possibility that they were more sinister finally sank in, sending a cold shiver through her.

Her first and most powerful impulse was to seek out Sir Hugh and tell him what had happened. Whatever his personal feelings about her as a person and about them all as women, he was still a knight and devoted to the protection of others. Surely, he would listen.

Excusing herself to seek out Sir Hugh, she hurried down the stairs and into the great hall. Tables were just being erected for the evening, and she approached the king’s chamberlain to ask if he had seen Sir Hugh. She was directed to the knights’ quarters and the chapel. Father Ignatius roused from his nap behind the confessional screen to inform her he hadn’t seen Sir Hugh for two whole days. She stopped a familiar-looking knight outside the knights’ quarters to ask if he’d seen Sir Hugh or Sir Graham, and was told that some of the knights were still on the practice field and others had gone into the town.

It was darkening quickly now. She paused at the juncture of two roads, one leading back across the summit of the hill toward the practice field and the other leading out the castle gate. Then, in the groups of workmen, merchants, tradesmen, and day women making their way through the gate back to the town, she spotted something—someone.

It took a moment for her to realize that it was a small, ragged boy.

“You there—boy! Stop! I want to talk to you!”

The boy saw her, wheeled, and ran as if the hounds of hell were upon him. She ran after him, following both his reckless course and pace, bumping and jostling people out of the way.

“Stop!” As she emerged from the gate, she called to the people along the road: “Stop that boy!”

But the boy squirmed from their hands and raced for the heart of the town, where the streets were now filled with people and carts and animals being driven to butcher or stable. With her lungs beginning to burn and her limbs aching, she ran on as well.

Off the main thoroughfare the streets narrowed. The houses nodded together over the streets so that the little remaining sunlight was blocked and the streets and footpaths below were cast into deep shadows. Twice she lost sight of the boy as he darted around a corner, but was able to spot him again when she made the same turn. Then he ducked through a bank of stalls outside some shops, grabbing at food and upsetting racks and carts filled with wares.

She followed the commotion in the boy’s wake until it led her down another narrow side street. The noise and bustle of the market corner died, and she found herself on a darkened lane that wound down a slope toward the smells of stables, animal pens, and slaughtering yards. Her heart was pounding so that it felt as if it would leap out of her chest, and her legs were turning to mush. She slowed, trying to catch her breath.

Weathered barns and storehouses loomed on either side of her, and a taint of urine and lye from a nearby tannery made every act of inhalation unpleasant. The few people abroad in that rough quarter scurried along with their eyes on the path, seeming anxious to be off the street. When she asked if they had seen a boy run by, they shook their heads and quickly moved on. More wary now, she continued on down the path and around a bend, where she came across an open stable door, lighted from within by a tallow lamp that emitted a thin yellow glow.

The boy stood at the edge of the doorway, silhouetted, and she ran toward him, so intent on catching him that she didn’t realize he was turning … pointing at her. By the time she realized the men who were glaring at her, they were already in motion and coming her way.

“No—oh, no!” She halted and then stumbled badly as she tried to turn and run. They reached her an instant later and grabbed her by her gown and her hair, yanking her off her feet. As they carried her into the stable, she drew breath and screamed with everything in her.

Father Ignatius was the first to tell Hugh that Chloe was looking for him. The king’s chamberlain was the second, and when he arrived at the maids’ chamber, Helen and her sisters also said Chloe had left saying she needed to speak with him.

“What did she want to speak with me about?” he asked.

“She didn’t say,” Helen answered for all of them. “But I would guess it was about Lady Marcella’s dog.”

“Her what?” He scowled irritably.

“Her pet dog. It was poisoned today. Right here, in our chamber.”

A frisson of alarm ran up his spine. “Poisoned? How?”

They showed him the dish of food that was delivered to their chamber.

“It could have been any one of us,” Lisette said anxiously. “Are we in some kind of danger?”

“Stay here. Do not set foot outside this chamber,” Hugh ordered, already moving toward the passage. “Close the door behind me and bolt it. Don’t let anyone but myself or Sir Graham in.”

“What about Chloe?” Alaina asked, glancing at the darkened window.

“I’ll find her,” he said grimly.

He raced down the steps two at a time, his mind spinning, and was relieved to find Graham and the other husbands in the great hall. After a quick recounting of what the maids had just told him, Hugh sent Graham and Simon to the king with the news and took William and Jax with him to find Chloe.

There were a thousand places to disappear in a castle as large as Windsor, so they concentrated at first on places she might have gone to look for Hugh. The knot forming in the pit of his stomach tightened with each empty location and every person who claimed not to have seen her. Then the guards at the main gate reported seeing a young woman in blue … a pretty maid … running through the gate as if chasing someone … into the town.

He gained speed with every step he took, until he was running full tilt down the main street of the town. William and Jax veered off into the narrower lanes, and Hugh continued down the main thoroughfare toward the stables and the livestock yards. He could hear them calling her name and began to call for her, too.

Then, from somewhere in the distance, came a scream.

They were Frenchmen. Four of them. Dirty and grizzled and pent-up from days of lurking around the stables and trying to escape notice as they went about the castle and town. The boy had led her straight to them, and they seized her and celebrated as if she were a battle prize.

They stopped her screams with a rag and carried her out the rear door of the stables. There, they began to argue. Chloe was a bit dazed from a blow to her head, but managed to make out most of their guttural French. One wanted to kill her straightaway, but the others wanted to take time to enjoy her first. Two of them threw her onto a pile of straw, held her down, and began to paw at her while the third held their knife-wielding comrade at bay. The argument going on around them combined with her resistance to give her one brief opportunity to wrench an arm free and rip the rag from her mouth. Her scream earned her a blow across the mouth, but even dazed, she fought on, kicking and thrashing as they pushed up her gown and pinned her legs with their knees.

Please God—help me—please—

It suddenly seemed as if time itself slowed. Their rough hands pawed clumsily at her … her nails took forever when raking across one of their faces … even her screams seemed to elongate … hanging harsh and potent on the air.

Then abruptly one of the men kneeling over her fell forward and lay motionless, all but smothering her. Through the blood roaring in her head, she heard shouts, scrapes, and grunts, and the clang of metal on metal. Their attention was suddenly elsewhere, and she had both arms free. Shoving at the man sprawled over her, she managed to roll him to one side and scramble from beneath him. There was fighting nearby; blades flashed and grunts and curses flew.