Back in the annexe and much later, it was Casper, having been collected some days ago from Whistle Alley, who brought wine and spiced oat cakes, but he did not stay to share them. ‘Not my place,’ he shook his head when asked. ‘You two talks about them things as don’t interest me, not one little bit. You wants me – you calls.’ And he puffed from the chamber.
Tyballis sipped her wine. It was a warm evening and the fire had not been laid. Ten sweet honey-scented candles stood unlit in the dim, unbreathing air. It was some time since Andrew had spoken, disclosing little of his recent conversation with the duke. Now his eyes were half-closed, as though dreaming.
Tyballis sat on the footstool at his knees, curled towards him and gazed up, her arms crossed over his lap. After a minute, she said, ‘They say when a normally eloquent man stays silent, he is preparing to speak of something horribly unpleasant.’
‘Ah,’ Andrew smiled, ‘the ubiquitous they who plague all our lives with warnings and predictions of disaster. Where are they who will promise us comfort and uninterrupted pleasure?’
‘Nowhere. They don’t exist.’
‘Let me introduce them to you,’ he said. ‘Comfort? Come into my arms, little one, and let me kiss you. Uninterrupted pleasure? So come into my bed, and let me love you.’
‘Tell me the bad news first,’ she said, watching him carefully. ‘Then hold me. I’ll need holding. You’re going away again, aren’t you? And it’ll be dangerous. Where are you going? France?’
He smiled again slowly, eyes crinkling, and said, ‘Brittany. But not yet.’
‘Then why –?’
‘First I have a man to follow,’ Andrew said. ‘But he knows me and knows my purpose. If I am seen, I will be attacked at once. And also a woman. She does not know me, but her lover does. So, I need a partner I can trust – at least a little. Nat has stayed with his woman in Yorkshire. The other Portsoken friends are gone or scattered.’
She felt the solid strength in the muscles of his thighs beneath her hands as she nestled against him. She nodded, and sighed, and rested her chin on her wrists. ‘Dangerous, then,’ she murmured. ‘But not so much – not yet, anyway. And if you want someone you trust – at least a little – will I not do?’
He looked back at her, unblinking. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You will not.’
She felt a lurch of profound disappointment. ‘You don’t even trust me a little? I know I’ve made mistakes – I’ve let you down –’
‘Foolish beloved,’ he interrupted her. ‘I trust you implicitly. But it is far too dangerous. This closely involves Lord Marrott, and he would recognise you immediately.’
‘Oh.’ In a way, it was a relief. ‘But he only saw me in the shadows of his bed curtains and I was half-naked,’ she mumbled. ‘He thought I was a strumpet. If I dress up as a lady, and maybe wear a veil, he wouldn’t know me at all.’
Andrew looked down at her, frowning. ‘Once seen, my love, you cannot be easily forgotten. I have proved that myself.’ He paused, thinking, and finally said, ‘But perhaps, for one small part of the plan, you might help me. Are you sure you’re prepared for the risks involved? They are considerable.’
Crosby’s small annexe had become their home. With the duke now so near, Tyballis felt a sense of security even greater than before, and after the violent trespass at Cobham Hall, she adored the domestic simplicity that lit each day and warmed every hour. She could not contemplate a solitary life again after discovering the joy of companionship. ‘I may not be very brave,’ she admitted, ‘but it would be far more frightening to sit here alone, wondering what was happening to you. Look what happened to me last time you were away! I know courage is a virtue. But perhaps being afraid of doing nothing is even more useful.’
Andrew sat in silence for some time, as if weighing one danger against another. Finally he said softly, ‘Courage is a virtue. But not all courageous men are virtuous. I do not prize courage for its own sake, nor consider fear a weakness. Yet, if you are afraid for me when I am away, then you trust me as little as I trust others.’ She began to interrupt, but he laughed suddenly and said, ‘Truly, if you’re to stay with me and be my love, you’ll learn more than courage, since danger will always be our bedfellow. This is more than my work – it is who I am. So, welcome to risk, beloved. I’ll accept your offer. Tomorrow I go to Westminster. You will dress as a queen, and accompany me, where it’s a queen you’ll be meeting.’
Chapter Sixty
This time she wore black. Her veil was stiff gauze below a neat cambric headdress, and her pale yellow curls were severely pinned back, their colour hidden. But the result had been achieved after some argument, for her brow had been heightened, and the hairline shaved upwards. Once finished, standing over her, one finger raising her chin and her gaze to his, Andrew had inspected the result.
‘Not one scratch. Not one bead of blood,’ he pointed out. ‘Do you trust me now, little one?’
‘I did. I do,’ Tyballis sniffed, dislodging his grip. ‘But no one has ever come at me quite like that before, not waving a knife at my face.’
‘Really? Then you’re lucky,’ he grinned. ‘It happens to me all the time.’ He allowed her to sit as he stood behind, his hands on her shoulders and his mouth bent to her ear. ‘Though I protest. I surely did not wave the blade at you, my love. I am, you must admit, quite practised in the business of shaving, and I believe waving the knife would have resolved very little.’
Tyballis regarded herself in the little mirror he held up to her. ‘Oh well,’ she conceded, ‘it does look very smooth. Very fashionable. And it makes me look very ladylike and elegant. And old.’
‘Therefore less like yourself,’ he nodded. ‘Which does not personally please me, but will certainly suit the business at hand. Now, for the gown.’
‘It is sometimes quite disconcerting,’ Tyballis mumbled as she stood and obediently raised both arms for dressing, ‘to discover you know a whole lot more about women’s fashions than I do.’
The black silk was carefully lowered over her head and her now-smooth white brow. ‘Simple expediency,’ Andrew told her, suppressing his smile. ‘Correct presentation is a necessary part of my job. The world is shallow. Looking the part can be more effective even than speaking the lines.’
They walked together down Bishopsgate, her hand tucked inside the crook of his elbow. Her smart new shoes clicked on the cobbles and she held the train of her skirts over her other arm. She walked straight-backed to balance the headdress, and privately decided that being a little less grand was preferable, since comfort was far more desirable than beauty. She did not say so. She said nothing at all. Andrew, however, said a great deal. He appeared to her as a resplendent shadow, a towering darkness in velvet so thick and black at her side that she was almost intimidated, and kept her lips, honey-smeared, tightly pursed.
Andrew said, ‘Repeat once again, silently this time, everything I tell you, my love.’ His voice was a murmur in her ear. ‘It is utterly essential that you make no careless mistake. Mistakes, this time, could prove fatal. We will be regarded with some suspicion, for a man rightfully enters sanctuary only to tend to those sheltered there, or to claim shelter himself. Alone, and in the company of a lady, I will appear less threatening, but we will be challenged nonetheless. Now. You are Mary, daughter of Lord Berwick, and we are affianced. You will speak very little, since you have not long arrived in London, know nobody and are rather nervous. Naturally you are still under your father’s protection but he is indisposed at present. You will reply to any impertinent questions with a cold stare and an offended silence. This should overcome any difficulty with the gaps in our story. I am Lord Feayton, as you know. Your father recently arranged our betrothal. I assume you are an heiress of some note, but as yet we are barely acquainted, and therefore share no particular affection. We have not, I’m sure I need not remind you, spent the past few days wrapped almost permanently together in a bed at Crosby’s, quite deliciously naked and glued as one by the sweat of pleasure.’