Tyballis was cuddled next to him, half-asleep. Now her eyes snapped open and she wedged herself up on one elbow, staring fiercely. ‘What owner? You own it.’
He smiled up into her frown. ‘Indeed I do, my love. I was thinking of the owner before myself, though no doubt I’m as brutal and dissolute as he was. Are you hoping for confessions, then, and stories from my distant youth?’ He shook his head slightly and looked away, as if still thinking aloud. ‘No, little one,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll permit no foolish reminiscences, allow no weak indulgent memories. That would not serve us at all.’
Tyballis lay down again with a sigh. ‘I know you don’t like talking about yourself,’ she mumbled into his bare shoulder. ‘But I’d like to know more about you, Drew. Just curiosity, I suppose, and – because I care. I don’t mind telling you about myself. You’ve asked sometimes, and I’ve always answered. My life was very tedious, so it’s not quite the same. But I’ll tell you anything you want to know.’
‘I know already.’ He turned to face her again, his finger smoothing away her hair from her cheeks, tucking the curls behind her ears as he liked to do. ‘I’ve a habit of finding whatever I want to know, my love.’
She was taken aback. ‘How? Why? I’d have told you if you’d asked.’
‘No one knows the whole truth about themselves. And nor does anyone else. Ask one, ask another, ask three or four. There are a hundred different answers to every question.’
‘So, what was the question? And who did you ask?’ She was affronted.
‘You’re my question.’ He leaned over abruptly, kissing her eyes shut, hot breath making her blink, his mouth firm on her eyelids. ‘I wanted to know exactly who I was so unaccountably in love with. So, I asked.’
‘You talked to Borin?’
Her anger amused him. ‘So, avenge yourself. Ask me one thing about my past, and I’ll tell you the truth as I remember it. But no doubt you’ve already asked the others about me.’
‘Well, I have,’ she admitted. ‘But no one seems to know anything. Besides, they’re all astonishingly loyal and don’t want to talk behind your back.’ She sniffed, sitting up in bed and folding her arms over her breasts. ‘I’m quite sure you never had that problem with Borin. He’d not recognise loyalty if he bumped into it, and I’m sure he loved saying horrid things about me.’
‘He did.’ Andrew laughed, pulling her back down into his arms. ‘Indeed, I found his complaints about you most endearing. But I’m not sufficient a fool to believe the slanders of another fool. I’ve long practice at translating lies into truth.’
‘So how will I know you’re not lying?’
‘You’ll believe what you want to believe, as everyone does.’
She thought a moment as she cuddled close. ‘You told me once,’ she murmured, ‘that you’d killed a man when you were just thirteen. I don’t know how long ago that was, because I don’t even know how old you are now. But thirteen is so very young – to do something like that. So, who did you kill, Drew? Was it a burglar? A soldier in battle? Defending yourself? Were you angry, or was it a mistake? Maybe just an accident?’
His hand crept over hers, playing absently with her fingers, his fingertips rubbing over her knuckles and the creases of her palm. ‘My age? I’m twenty-eight now, just turned. And yes, I killed in anger. The man I killed was my father.’
Tyballis heard only the rain pelting on the roof, a thrumming, drumming rhythm that echoed over and over in her head. It beat at the same rate as her heart. She couldn’t think how to reply and stared up at the spreading damp across the plaster between the old beams. Then her voice came out very small. ‘Will you tell me anymore, Drew? Or mustn’t I ask again?’
‘Am I so interesting?’ He grinned suddenly, as if shrugging off melancholy. ‘But the question you have chosen, my sweet, is not at all the one I might have preferred. So, let me consider a moment, just how much I dare tell you.’ Abruptly he swung his legs to the ground and marched naked to the garderobe. He returned almost immediately with his bedrobe over his arm and a cup of light beer in each hand. Laying the robe down, he sat on the edge of the mattress beside her, handed her one cup and drank from the other, regarding her over the brim. ‘Well, my love? Still persistent? What else intrigues you?’
She sipped the beer. ‘You are intriguing, Drew. So, can I ask the obvious? Why – why on earth – did you kill your own father? Was he brutal, like Borin? And you, just thirteen and him a grown man. I can’t imagine how you did it. Was it terrible, your childhood? And then, afterwards? What happened then?’
‘A trap of my own making, I see,’ he said, still smiling. ‘I promised one answer and must now give a hundred. Yet knowing my past doesn’t explain me any more than your wretched husband explains you.’ He shook his head. ‘So, let me be brief, at least. My father was a violent man, though he had some reason. He disliked me as I disliked him. Hatred is perhaps a better word. Because of what he did, and because of my mother, I killed him. I’d turned thirteen the day before, and considered myself a man. I’d made the promise that night, to defend myself – and defend those who could do little to defend themselves. I’d not expected it to end in death, but he fought hard, and so did I.’ Andrew paused, as though remembering. Then he drained his cup, saying, ‘As for what happened afterwards – well, what could happen? They found no corpse but they dragged me off to gaol all the same, and I spent some weeks in Newgate. Then my mother found someone she knew with sufficient influence to arrange my release.’ Andrew laughed. ‘He bribed the jury. A useful tactic I’ve since used myself. But Newgate was a good teacher. Perhaps some of that does explain me, after all. Now,’ he leaned forwards, took her cup from her grasp, and pushed her back hard against the pillows. ‘That’s enough of lame excuses and feeble retrospection. I’ll build no memorials to my past.’ His face was less than a breath from hers and she saw her own wavering reflection in his eyes. Then he pushed closer and kissed her hard on the mouth, thrusting his tongue against her tongue, lips bruising hers. Her breath caught in her throat as his breath rushed hot into her lungs. When he let her go she had forgotten her next question. She whispered, ‘Oh, Drew.’
And before she could speak again, he shook his head. ‘Enough for today, little one. I need to go out before midday if I’m to find Throckmorton. There are two other men I also need to question, and with all London to cross in both directions, the weather will slow me down. I can’t take you with me, my sweet. Do you mind?’
‘Of course I do.’ She stretched, wriggling her bare toes under the dishevelled blankets. ‘But with the threat of Throckmorton back in the city, I already guessed you wouldn’t. So, I’ll stay here, and clean your rooms.’
He laughed. ‘Hiding the fingerprints, and your theft of my keys?’
‘I don’t, and I never did,’ she sniffed. ‘I dust everything because dust makes me sneeze and it looks horrid. Don’t you like your windows to sparkle?’
‘Do they? I hadn’t noticed.’ He stood, pulling his bedrobe around his shoulders. ‘With a sky as wet as this, there seems little difference if the smears are outside the glass, or in. And that accumulated dust showed me, as nothing else could, whether anyone had searched my chambers. But no more. Polish whatever you like, my love, including me. I shall try not to object too much.’
‘When the sun shines, the windows do sparkle prettily,’ she pointed out. She had cuddled back into the bed and now peeped at him from over the counterpane. ‘But if you won’t tell me anything more about yourself, Drew, will you just tell me why you do what you do? How you came to work for the king’s brother?’