Towson chuckled. Welch tipped his cup a little, in a gesture that acknowledged a hit had been scored.
Elizabeth Lytle had inherited a number of things from her Portuguese mother, along with her dark eyes, slender frame, and attractive appearance. Among them was a wide mouth that lent itself very nicely to a derisive expression. "Tell a former whore about the salacious nature of the male sex, will you? I believe I am quite familiar with that phenomenon, Patrick Welch, thank you very much. And I'm telling you those two men weren't thinking of bedding me. They were contemplating-not seriously, simply as a possible measure-whether they might have to slit my throat."
Her slim shoulders shivered slightly. "Scary, they were, in a quiet sort of way. I'm telling you, they didn't belong there. They're up to something. Some sort of criminal enterprise."
"That hardly makes them out of place in Southwark," said Leebrick. "They might have no connection to Juliet and George at all, you know?"
Liz sipped slowly at her tea, thinking about it, then shook her head. "I can't prove it, Anthony, but I think they do. The tavern they were sitting outside of-with the table they'd chosen-allowed them to keep Juliet's house under observation. Along with the rest of the street leading to it. Well, part of the house, at least. It's set back a ways from the street, right close to the river."
Leebrick looked at his two companions. After a moment, Towson shrugged. "The hunt for us has died down. As many weeks as it's been since we escaped Cork, by now they must think we're out of England entirely. They certainly don't think we're anywhere in London. And I, for one, am sick to death of never seeing anything except the inside of Liz's lodgings. Meaning no offense, you understand."
Patrick scowled, slightly. But the expression was more a matter of habit than anything concrete and specific to the moment. Perhaps because he was Irish, Welch was the sort of man who just naturally looked for the trap, the moment he spotted a juicy morsel. That made him occasionally annoying, in casual circumstances, but it also made him a superb officer to lead reconnaissance missions.
"I've got no objections," he announced, after a few seconds. Again, he made that little tip-of-the-cup acknowledging gesture, this time at Leebrick. "I will admit-not that I'll sign anything to that effect, mind-that our gallant commander has proven to be right. Hiding in London was a stroke of genius. The hunt passed right over our heads, and they'll never think of looking for us here now. So why not move about some, finally?"
His sneer was even better than Elizabeth's. "We have the added protection, after all, of the portraits they circulated everywhere on reward notices. A man could have those posters in his hand, be staring right at us-and he'd swear there was no resemblance at all."
Leebrick chuckled. "They were wretched, weren't they? I was quite offended, actually. The only thing they got right was our beards."
Smiling, Towson tugged at the goatee of his Vandyck. "So they did. Doesn't help much, though, does it? Seeing as how every other man in England-half the continent, too-shares the same style. They showed us wearing clothing, too. Thereby clearly distinguishing us from all the traitors running about the island stark naked."
Leebrick finished his cup. "Fine, then. Liz, draw us up a little map, would you? We'll go tonight, and see what your friend is about."
She frowned. "Why don't I just guide you?"
Welch shook his head. "Not a good idea. You said yourself those two men watched you closely. Even in the dark, they'll recognize you."
"Oh, nonsense. I'll wear a bonnet."
Patrick scratched his head and said nothing. For a wonder, a spasm of diplomacy seemed to have seized him.
Leebrick smiled. Towson chuckled outright. "Won't matter if they see your face, girl. They'll recognize your walk."
"My walk?"
"Yes. You have a certain way of… well, you're not prancing, exactly. But it's quite distinctive."
She gave her paramour a sharp, suspicious glance. Anthony's smile widened. "I'm afraid he's right, love. First thing I noticed about you, when we met. Well. More precisely, when I first spotted you on the street and began following you. We hadn't actually met yet. Quite entrancing, it was."
She sniffed disdainfully. "Men. It's a wonder you get anything done."
Since everyone had finished, she gathered up the cups. "All right, but be careful. They really are rather frightening-looking people."
At least, they'd allowed him paper and a pen. So Thomas Wentworth was able to communicate with his wife in some manner, even if it was ridiculous to be writing letters to a woman to whom he could have spoken in person by simply taking a two-minute walk from the Bloody Tower to the Lieutenant's Lodging. But Sir Francis Windebank refused to allow Thomas to leave the Bloody Tower, for any reason, and he refused to allow him visitors of any sort. Not even his wife and children.
Naturally, they wouldn't allow him to seal the letters he wrote. Windebank's men would read every line before they passed the letters on to Elizabeth-and the same, with any of her replies.
Once the shock of those first days had passed, Thomas had been able to gauge the near-maniacal manner of his imprisonment for what it was. A sign of fear on Cork's part, not confidence. Richard Boyle had come to power by seizing on a fluke, not by dint of anything more substantial. True, he'd had a powerful faction following him already, but so had several other men. It had only been the terrible nature of the completely unforeseen accident combined with Cork's sheer luck in being in the right place at the right time-and his own decisiveness, of course; Thomas would give him that much credit-that had allowed the earl to seize power in a single day.
Wentworth wondered again, as he had so many times since he'd been overthrown, whether Cork's presence at the scene of the accident had simply been fortuitous. The coincidence reeked, after all. But, no matter from what angle he examined the problem, he simply couldn't see any way that Boyle could have manipulated the situation. Not the accident itself, at any rate. He'd certainly manipulated the aftermath. It was blindingly obvious, in retrospect, that the warning brought to Thomas that the king had suffered a mishap on the West Road was a ploy of Boyle's-and, for perhaps the hundredth time since that day, Wentworth cursed himself for having been a fool. If he'd simply stayed at Whitehall and sent a lieutenant to investigate, he'd have been able to forestall Cork's later machinations.
But he was well-nigh certain, after weeks of thinking upon the matter, that the horrible accident that had taken the queen's life was simply that. An accident, unforeseen by anyone. True enough, the sudden appearance of the Trained Bands at that particular time and place might have been the work of Cork, or one of his accomplices. But the Bands hadn't caused the accident. Leebrick and his mercenary company could have dispersed them in a few minutes. Something else had caused the carriage to race off, and there could only be two explanations. Either the king had panicked-the queen, more likely, with the king acquiescing-or the commander of the escort had somehow caused it to happen.
Again, as he had dozens of times before over the past weeks, Thomas reviewed his knowledge of the king's character, and that of Captain Leebrick-and again, as he had dozens of times before, came to the same conclusion. That Charles or Henrietta Maria would panic in such a situation was not difficult to believe at all. That Leebrick was a traitor was not impossible, but Wentworth thought it extremely unlikely. All the more so since one of the guards keeping him captive in the Bloody Tower had let slip that there was a giant manhunt on for Leebrick and two of his lieutenants. They'd been taken for questioning by Cork, it seemed, and had then made a daring-and quite bloody-escape from his mansion.
That same bloody escape, of course, was being pointed to by Cork and his party as proof of Leebrick's complicity in a treasonous plot masterminded by Wentworth himself. But Thomas knew that was nonsense, and nonsense thrice over.