Uneasy Lies the Crown Read online

  Which is not to say he was of no use. Someone had hired his boat the night before the queen’s funeral. He was paid half a crown and promised the vessel would be returned no later than three o’clock the next afternoon. He’d taken the money, given to him in advance, and slunk off to watch the funeral procession, staking out a position along the route not far from Buckingham Palace. He returned to his usual spot at a bit after one o’clock and found his boat already there. A few hours later, I had descended upon him.

  I revisited every detail of that first trip I took with him, but must admit with regret that I had paid very little attention to the boat itself. There might have been some scrap of evidence still in it, and I had not even thought to look. I chided myself for the mistake, but knew self-recrimination would serve no purpose. I took Colin’s hand as he helped me into the sad little vessel, and once again its owner rowed toward Traitors’ Gate.

  With the tide high, one could get right up to the wall where the water entrance to the Tower had been bricked up. Even so, a person would gain very little by making this approach. He would still have to scale the outer wall of the Tower—presumably while carrying a body—and then make his way, unseen, across the inner pavement and into Wakefield Tower. I looked at my husband and could tell from the saturnine expression on his handsome face that we were of one mind: consumed with frustration.

  “I’m quite desperate for Mrs. Rillington to send us that map,” I said, after the boatman had returned us to the pier. “I’m convinced it will help us enormously.”

  “What have you been reading lately?” Colin asked. “Malory? Sir Walter Scott? Perhaps we could find the Thames equivalent of the Lady of the Lake and ask if she noticed anything suspicious. Forgive me, my dear. I’m not ordinarily so easily flustered. But this case…”

  I understood what troubled him. The king was under threat, and the responsibility of protecting him fell on Colin’s broad—and, if I may say so, most extraordinarily capable—shoulders. There was no one in the Empire better suited to the job, but pointing that out would only put more pressure on him.

  “Dismiss the idea if you’d like, but what would be a superior way to bring a body into the Tower than through a secret passage?” I asked.

  “I know what it is—you’ve been reading William Harrison Ainsworth’s ridiculous historical romance, The Tower of London, haven’t you?”

  “It’s a thoroughly diverting book,” I said, “and has no bearing whatsoever on my approach to this case. It’s about Lady Jane Grey, after all, not Henry VI. Although…”

  “You’re about to make an appalling suggestion, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “We could go back to the Tower and persuade some of the yeoman warders not on duty to take us to their private pub inside. After plying them with ale, we would have no trouble persuading them to show us all the hidden—”

  “No. No, Emily. We are not going to do any such thing. There were secret passages in the Tower, but none remain undiscovered. It’s unlikely Mrs. Rillington’s map will prove useful in the least. And don’t you think the guards would already have mentioned any that could prove pertinent to the crime at hand?”

  “How can you be so confident none remain undiscovered? Or discovered only by our murderer?” I frowned. “Modern man does not know everything. It’s entirely possible there are tunnels forgot for centuries.”

  “If they’re forgot, it’s probably because they were bricked up ages ago, and hence, like Traitors’ Gate, could have been of no use to our miscreant.”

  We had been walking along the embankment and stopped now, partway along the outside wall of the Tower in the direction of Tower Bridge. The snow had turned back to rain, but only a light mist. The golden reflection of the street lamps danced on the wet pavement, and the first hints of a freezing fog began to form over the Thames.

  Colin took me in his arms. “You are even more stunning than usual in this light. I rather wish I were a medieval knight and could throw you over my shoulder and take you to the Tower.” He kissed me, his lips soft. The rain started coming harder now, and he pulled me closer to him, his kisses more urgent. “I think I should get you home, unless you’ve solid knowledge of a secret passage that will take us to a hitherto undiscovered room in the Tower with a roaring fire and various, er, shall we say, material comforts.”

  “Home.”

  It was all I could manage to say. He had me thoroughly distracted.

  * * *

  I slept far later than I intended the following morning, but felt more refreshed than I had in weeks. Connubial bliss has that effect on me. Colin was nowhere to be found, but he had left for me on his pillow a note, rolled like a scroll and tied with a red ribbon:

  Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, Did my heart fly at your service …

  He always did prefer Shakespeare to all other poetry. With a smile, I climbed out of bed and rang for my maid. Deliciously addled or not, I had work to do.

  My first task was to return to the Black Swan, this time without Jeremy, who I feared might come to fisticuffs with the establishment’s new proprietor if he faced him again. I wanted to speak to Mary. Ideally, somewhere away from her place of work.

  The same group of boys I’d seen before was hanging around in the street when I arrived in my carriage. They recognized me and lamented that I had not come in the motorcar. No person—particularly no mother—could help but feel a crushing pain in her heart at the sight of these children. Their clothes were tattered and dirty, their boots full of holes, and their coats entirely inadequate for the weather.

  “Shouldn’t you be in school?” I asked.

  “We work, ma’am,” the tallest said. “Too old for school.”

  I set a skeptical eye on the smallest of the group. “How old are you?”

  “I’m eight,” he said with a gap-toothed smile. One of the older boys smacked him in the arm.

  “You’re thirteen, remember?”

  “But—”

  “Thirteen or she’ll send you off to school. You don’t want that, do you?”

  “No, I imagine he wouldn’t,” I said. “Who would prefer a well-heated school and perhaps even a hot dinner to loitering here with you lot?”

  “We’re with the King’s Boys, ma’am, and there’s no better life to be had,” the tall one said. “We’re looked after proper and we can do anything we want.”

  “Is that so?” I asked. “I saw a bakery down the road. Why don’t you go get yourselves something to eat?” I gave them a few coins, knowing this paltry assistance was nowhere near enough to make a real difference in their lives. They scattered, shouting thanks, and ran toward the shop. With a sigh, I marched into the Black Swan and demanded to speak to Mary.

  Mr. Brown, who stood intimidatingly close to me, glowered. “You ought to take better care, Lady Emily. Your sort can wind up in a heap of trouble in this neighborhood. I’ll get Mary for you, but I don’t want to see you here again.”

  Mary appeared from the back room in a state of dishabille, a ratty dressing gown pulled around her shoulders. I told her I wanted to take her to lunch and that I would wait while she dressed.

  “My time is quite valuable, Lady Emily,” she said as she started upstairs. “I don’t waste it dining with ladies.”

  “You will be compensated adequately,” I said. When she came back down, she was wearing a catastrophically low-cut gown and more rouge than I would have thought existed in all of London. I made no comment. Obviously, she meant to goad me, and I would not fall prey to her tricks. Instead, I directed her to my carriage and asked the driver to take us to Harrods. My plan had been to go to a restaurant, so that she might be around civilized people and have a decent meal, but I feared the treatment she would receive because of her appearance—accompanied by disparaging looks and comments—would not help me further my cause.

  “I don’t like shopping,” she said, when we had reached the store in Brompton. I ignored her and took her inside, marching her to the
ladies clothing department, where, with the aid of a horrified shop assistant, I selected for her a modest dress of dark green serge that flattered her complexion. I then chose a pair of sturdy, practical boots, a warm wool overcoat, leather gloves, and a jaunty little hat that was more fashionable than strictly necessary. There is never an acceptable reason to resist a good hat.

  Despite her protests, I rubbed the rouge off her cheeks with my handkerchief and we returned to the carriage, alighting from it at Brown’s Hotel in Albemarle Street. After securing a table in the establishment’s elegant restaurant, I studied my companion, who had fallen uncharacteristically quiet after we entered the hotel.

  “No one’s staring at me,” she said, when I prodded her as to the cause of this change.

  “That’s because you aren’t drawing attention to yourself by being deliberately provocative,” I said. “I am no supporter of many of the rules of our society and firmly believe that people should be judged on their worth rather than their appearance, but it cannot be argued that observing some social mores does make one’s life rather easier.”

  “The dress is nice,” she said. “I’m sorry I barked at the shop assistant and said it looked like something a nun would wear. I’ve never even seen a nun.”

  “I accept your apology,” I said. “As you know, I’ve brought you here to talk about Lizzie. From what little I’ve already heard about her, it is clear she did not want the life she had.”

  “She never put on airs, though,” Mary said, wolfing down the soup a waiter had placed in front of her. “Truth be told none of us wants that life, but Lizzie, she tried not to live it. She could read, you know, and almost got a job in service.”

  “So I’ve been told. Did she have any regular clients who seemed particularly attached to her?”

  “Not really. In the beginning, of course, she caused quite a stir. You know what I mean, right? There’s always a market for that.” I had a fairly clear idea of what she meant and was utterly horrified at the thought. “But after that, she settled in like the rest of us. We all have some regulars, but no one special.”

  “No one who might have blamed Casby for her death?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Did Lizzie have many friends?” I asked.

  “At first none of us warmed to her. She was quiet and didn’t much like a drink, but eventually we realized she wasn’t trying to act better than us. She just didn’t know what to do. Really, though, she should have. Her mother could’ve given her some guidance. She was a popular one, always—” She stopped. “Well, I doubt you’re interested in those sorts of details. Still, if you’re going to bring your girl into the business, you’d think you’d teach her how to navigate things.”

  I could feel color rushing to my cheeks and urged Mary to speak at a lower volume. “So none of the rest of you were close to her?”

  “I wouldn’t say any of us is close to anyone. You can’t trust people, you know. Everyone wants something, and nobody’s going to look out for you but yourself.”

  She said this so matter-of-factly it was heartbreaking. “Did Lizzie have friends outside of the Black Swan? People she had known before? Someone whose surname was Atherton?”

  “Atherton?” Mary wrinkled her nose. “Never heard her talk about anyone called that. There was some bloke, Ned, who she was quite fond of. He wasn’t a customer, mind you, but someone who knew her from before. She used to take walks with him on Sundays when she first came to us, but he hasn’t come around for ages.”

  “Can you recall his surname?” I asked.

  She held her fork with her fist and tapped its handle on the table. “Traddles, I think, but I can’t be sure. I hear a lot of names, you know.”

  “And what about you, Mary? I can’t believe the Black Swan is where you’ve always dreamed of being. Do you want a better life?”

  “Is this when you play noble guardian angel and try to rescue me from my life of vice? You great ladies like that sort of thing, don’t you?”

  “I don’t want to play anything,” I said. “But if you want a different sort of life, I would gladly help you find it.”

  “Thank you, but I’m quite content where I am,” she said. The waiter returned to put a plate of roast beef and potatoes in front of her. I let her eat in silence, feeling altogether useless. What good was one decent meal and a new dress? I’d done even less for the boys in Ratcliffe Highway. The sensation of being overwhelmed by the poverty in which so many in London lived was not new to me, but I would never grow accustomed to it.

  “Can you read, Mary?” I asked.

  “No, and I don’t want to,” she said. “Seems like a waste of time.”

  I would have liked to have given her any number of things to read—the novel The Story of an African Farm sprang to mind—something unconventional and shocking that might give her the idea that there were, in fact, other ways to live and that women like her weren’t the only ones looking for a better existence.

  Her plate empty, she pushed it away from her. “I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful for what you’re doing. I appreciate it, in my way. But you have to understand I’m comfortable where I am and I don’t see a better way forward. If I remember anything else about Lizzie, I’ll get in touch if you tell me how. But otherwise, there’s nothing more to be done.”

  The fact that she said she didn’t see a better way forward told me that if she did, things might be very different for her. I would not push her, but would leave open every door and window I could find for her. I pulled a calling card out of the silver case in my handbag and gave it to her. “You can come to me, anytime, day or night,” I said. “You’ve been more helpful than I think you know. Lizzie had quite a friend in you.”

  1415

  18

  Early reports said that Harfleur had fallen to the king’s army, but no detailed news had come yet from France. The baron, who had been short with everyone lately, distracted and irritated, didn’t tell Cecily any of this. She learned it from Father Simon. A calm came over her as she listened to him, and she began to believe that if something dreadful had befallen her husband, she would be able to sense it.

  She was starting a new project, a large embroidered wall covering, and was sitting at a table in Adeline’s parlor sketching out the design—a group of ladies in a flower-filled garden, one of them holding a book and reading to the others—when Dario Gabrieli came and sat next to her. She bristled and scooted away from him on the bench.

  “I do hope, Lady Cecily, that the way I spoke to you when I first arrived here did not put you off so much that we cannot be friends. I have conducted myself as a nobleman and would never dream of forcing my attentions on any lady. Yet I cannot help but notice how you have avoided me ever since. Hence, I apologize for offending your delicate sensibilities and pray you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” Cecily said, relieved at his words. “I understand the precepts of courtly love and know better than to take offense at them. They are not, however, something that interests or entices me. Your friendship, Signor Gabrieli, I should very much welcome.”

  His smile lit up his entire face. There was no denying the beauty in his well-formed features. No wonder all the ladies on the estate vied for his attention. Adeline, who had been watching the exchange between the troubadour and her friend, approached the pair. He shot her a meaningful look as she stepped toward them and burst into joyful laughter. “It is all better now, is it?” she asked. “I have hoped for nothing else. Now my two closest friends will no longer be enemies.”

  “We were never enemies,” Cecily said, wondering why Adeline would have drawn this conclusion. More astonishing was that she referred to Cecily as a close friend.

  “Go, go, Dario,” Adeline said, shooing him away. “We ladies must talk privately. There is much to discuss.” He scuttled off, but not before kissing their hands. Adeline lowered herself onto the bench next to Cecily. “You are not angry at me, are
you, my dear? I couldn’t bear it if you were. But I saw how you and Dario flirted when he first arrived and could not help but notice when it ended badly. It’s better to be friends again, though, isn’t it?”

  “I never flirted with him,” Cecily said. “He—”

  “I was a witness to those first overtures he made,” Adeline said. “You followed the pattern set out by Capellanus so devotedly. I did not know you had read his work.”

  “I’ve read it, of course, we all have,” Cecily said. “But it has never served as a guide for me.”

  “You need not worry,” Adeline said. “I shall never reveal your secret to anyone and William shall never be the wiser. Do be careful around Father Simon, though. I believe he was sent to keep a careful eye on you. Had you given your husband cause to suspect your fidelity before he left for France?”

  “I would never do any such thing,” Cecily said, putting down her pencil and feeling her heartbeat quicken. “I want only to be a devoted wife and to—”

  Adeline put an arm around her shoulder. “You need not explain to me. I’m your oldest friend. I’ve known you your entire life. There’s no one you can better trust, just as there is no one I can better trust than you. Come now. I’m planning disguises for tomorrow night. Will you join me in selecting who should wear what?”

  Cecily nodded in answer and followed Adeline, but could hardly pay attention to anything around her. Something felt wrong, very wrong, as if she were being played for a fool, but she couldn’t quite figure out why anyone—even Adeline—would do such a thing. She might have dismissed the notion altogether had she not, as they left the parlor, noticed Gabrieli slip a piece of paper into Adeline’s hand.