Emeline spoke in a hurry, fearing further interruption. “So, did anyone discover any clues at all? Do we even have any guesses? Did you discover anything on that mad romp through the countryside while the rest of us were half dead with worry?”
There was a clatter as Adrian once again took up his knife and spoon, and Nicholas reached for the wine. Avice shook her head but the baroness, quickly swallowing a mouthful of honeyed pears, took advantage of the short pause and said, “As it happens, perhaps I have. Chasing after you two girls, I had occasion to speak with the sheriff at Gloucester. He informed me of some interesting facts which I had not previously been told,” here she frowned briefly at Nicholas, “and although I’ve no wish to repeat any unsavoury secrets, the female who was evidently slaughtered at the same time and in the same manner as my poor husband, had a grown son. This son has since entirely disappeared. Although becoming the inheritor of his mother’s property, he has recently run away. I find that most suspicious.”
Nicholas glanced at her, cup in hand. “With one’s only parent dead under gruesome but mysterious circumstances, a child might run, don’t you think, to search for protection elsewhere?”
“You know about him then,” scowled the baroness, “since seemingly you know he had no father.”
“Quite true, my lady,” he replied. “I spoke to the sheriff at some length shortly after the tragedy occurred. I saw no reason to pester you with uncomfortable and entirely incidental irrelevancies. The child was devastated at the loss of his mother and was in no way implicated either in her previous immorality, or in her death.”
“You presumably know a good deal more than the sheriff, then,” said the baroness, “since he seemed to think it as suspicious as I did.”
Nicholas shrugged. Sysabel sat up suddenly very straight and stared at him. “So you’ve no real interest in finding who killed your own father-in-law, Nicholas – nor in who slaughtered your own brother.”
“My cousin, the sloven, the coward and profligate,” muttered Adrian.
“As you say,” nodded Nicholas cheerfully, shaking out his sleeves. “And not nearly clever enough to go hunting murderers across our wide green pastures. I shall leave all that to you ingenious females. Just don’t lynch anyone too quickly. Fear can make the innocent appear guilty, while the guilty are invariably working very hard to appear innocent. I shall take an interest from afar.”
“From afar tavern?” suggested Adrian.
Nicholas shook his head. “The quality and quantity of good wine is superior at my own table. But you should know, dear cousin, since you’ve been helping yourself to it for two days now.” He turned to Emeline. “Do as you wish my dear. I have things to attend to now, if you’ll excuse me. But we can talk in private this evening.”
It was late when he came to her bedchamber and found her alert and waiting. She wore only her shift, with her hair still pinned high beneath a pearl trimmed net. She held out her arms and Nicholas sat on the edge of the bed and kissed the fingertips of both her hands. Then he stood again and began to undress. She watched him. Two candles were lit and the room was cradled in leaping shadows and the sudden lustre of dancing gold. The light toned and emphasised the muscles and taut sinews of the body, the dark hair, and the curves of bone and flesh. His skin glowed, and where the flat hardness of belly followed down to the groin, the silky hair began to curl and snuggle tight, deeper than shadow.
Emeline sighed and said, “Nicholas. Tell me the truth. Do you know who killed my Papa?”
His exhaustion showed. He turned to her abruptly. “I remember you once asking if I’d killed Peter. Is this the same question?”
“Don’t be cross, my love. I know perfectly well you didn’t. But you knew about that whore’s son, and chose to exonerate him without any explanation.”
“No.” He sat naked beside her, smoothing his palm across her forehead as he began to unpin her headdress. “I’ve wondered, guessed at an occasional possibility, had my suspicions. But I’ve no real idea who killed either Peter or your father, and would certainly do something about it if I knew for sure. After Peter was discovered dead, I had months to ponder and puzzle. I had doubts and those doubts lingered. At one time I thought perhaps I knew. It would have been an inconvenient truth – a possibility I hoped mistaken. Indeed, I no longer believe it. I simply believe coincidences hide less coincidental intentions, and so I’m sure both men were slaughtered by the same killer. And although I don’t know who it was, I have a fair idea of who it wasn’t.”
She frowned and shook her head. The last of the pearl pins cascaded. “Like the little boy who was crying in your stables yesterday?”
He regarded her a moment, then began to laugh. “How glad I am I married you, my love.” He picked the scattered pins from the pillows and deposited them on the chest beside the bed where one of the candles was beginning to burn low. “You are right of course. The child is simple, young, and as much of a victim as his mother. Now also destitute. So I judged him innocent and offered him employment.”
Emeline scrunched up her knees beneath the covers, avoiding pins. “So you’ve brought the son of my father’s mistress into our household?”
“Yes, I suppose I have.” He was still laughing. “Do you mind? You need never meet him. And he’s not your father’s son, in case you were wondering.”
“You know so much?”
“I know the present threat to this country is greater than the threat to us from one small boy.” Naked now, his clothes discarded across the floor, Nicholas stood again and went to the hearthside table where he filled two cups from the jug waiting there, and brought one to Emeline. “You’re getting to know me, my love. You order wine, and have it waiting when you expect me to come to your chamber. So drink with me.”
She took the cup. “Threats to the country? Are you trying to frighten me, Nicholas, or simply change the subject?”
“Neither. Drink up.” He drank, sitting again, the mattress sinking as he stretched his legs, resting back against the pillows. His cup in one hand, he slipped the other around her shoulders, holding her close. “But you must know a little of what I do and where I go, so let me tell you I’ve spent most of the afternoon and evening talking with James Tyrell, and another part of it with the king’s secretary Kendall. The problem is France. Invariably it is France. Now they’re using that exiled son of Stanley’s Beaufort wife, trying to set him up as claimant to the throne.”
Emeline snuggled, though she lay below the covers and he stretched out above. “That doesn’t make any sense, Nicholas. England has a king.”
“Henry Tudor has never known what to do with himself,” nodded Nicholas. “He claims an earldom forfeited long ago, and both titleless and landless, has drifted in exile for long dismal years. But France now has a plan. They’ve no more interest in Tudor than England has, but they have an avid interest in weakening and undermining English security. France knows our King Richard is no lover of French politics, and long ago refused a French pension, even when half the English nobility gladly accepted one. Our king is not a man to play games or accept bribes. So France distrusts him. Tudor will play along – it’s in his interests now and he’s started to imagine a more hopeful future for himself. More importantly, his mother will push him.”
“To claim – what? I mean, he’s nobody. I don’t understand.”
Nicholas stroked her shoulder beneath the eiderdown. “It’s the old story of Lancaster against York, Lancastrian objections to our present Yorkist monarch, and Woodville malcontents uniting with various wandering exiles. Tudor has no claim anyway since the Beaufort line is legally barred due to original bastardy. Even ignoring that, which no doubt his mother chooses to do, there are sixteen or more in the Lancastrian bloodline before him, including the Portuguese Infanta whom our King Richard is planning to marry. But as England grows stronger, so France simply wants an excuse to batter at our coasts and weaken English power. False claimants and divisive threats are their principal artillery.”