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As soon as Rohesia saw the letter that had set Sir Oliver in motion that wonderful and terrible night of Edwin’s visit, she had been trying to gather all she needed to prove her suspicions correct. Requiring only two pieces of evidence, she had thought she would have everything within a few days. But both items necessary to her plan remained elusive.
After a few weeks of trying and failing on her own, she recruited Joanna to take another letter to the bench with the hollow arm for Robert Tynsdale. If anyone could either secure what she needed or advise her how to do so herself, it would be Robert. A few nights later, she once again awoke to Robert and Baron William Aitken in her room.
“Apologies your majesty, for our unannounced visit,” Robert said as he once again handed her the bathrobe hanging behind her bed.
“It can’t really be a surprise, though,” the baron muttered, for which Robert gave him a most ungracious look.
“It is most welcome,” she whispered as she shrugged on her robe. “Do you have any ideas how we might obtain the note from Sir Oliver as well as the other piece of evidence I mentioned?”
“Can you not just show the note to his grace and forego the other piece of evidence?” William asked. “I mean, assuming you are right, your majesty.”
“But that is what I want to make absolutely certain of before I take it to Duke Aldrick,” she explained. “And, I must admit, I do not trust him to know for certain without the other for comparison.”
“Your majesty, of course, knows best,” said Robert, once again turning a less than friendly glare on William. “We can get the note from Sir Oliver. He does not drink to excess, but he does frequent a tavern where I have...friends working.”
“You are not to poison him! I know he is an agent of the enemy, but he is a good and decent man who has only done his job, without malice or overstepping the bounds of law or gentlemanly behavior.”
Robert bowed. “Perhaps only a little something in his ale to make it easier for us to slip the note from his pocket. I promise no lasting damage.”
“Very well, then,” she answered, relieved that she had Robert to rely on. “Do you have any ideas about the other piece of evidence? I thought possibly you might intercept the mail, but I had hoped this might be achieved without drawing too much attention.”
“Has your majesty thought about writing her grace a note? Would she reply in writing?” William asked. “No one would think anything of that.”
Rohesia thought back to the three notes she had written Rachel. One had gone completely unanswered, and another two had received curt verbal replies from a servant. “I am afraid she will not answer anything I submit to her in writing.”
“To see you treated like this.” Robert shook his head, jaw and fists clenched. “I will see you restored to your rightful place.”
“I thank you. And the two of you obtaining that note from Sir Oliver will go a long way. I will find some method of getting what else I need, you may count on it. I will not let you waste your efforts. You may be assured of that.”
Robert bowed again. “We should go. When we have the note, we will put it in the bench. Have Lady Joanna check it as often as she can without drawing unwanted attention.”
Rohesia offered her hand to Robert. He clasped it tight and bowed low over it. When she turned to address William, he wore an amused grin. “I will not forget the aid you are providing. Thank you.”
The next morning while Alice and Helena read together on a couch in the tapestry room, Rohesia told Joanna about her late night visitors and the need to check the bench. Joanna readily agreed, but she also added, “I wish I could do more. I never have told Queen Muriel anything important about you, but she sent me here, hoping I would be her spy. I’d like to make it up to you.”
“You have already done so much. Do not berate yourself for not doing more.”
“But you’ve said that the note may be useless if you don’t have a comparison. Isn’t there some way I could get it?”
Rohesia thought about this. Rachel had no particular feelings, positive or negative, toward Joanna. She would answer a note from Joanna, except that everyone in the palace knew Joanna was not the sort to put anything in writing that could be said aloud instead. But not suspecting Joanna of ill-intent, perhaps she could get into Rachel’s study....
“If you are in earnest,” Rohesia said, “I have an idea.”
***
TWO MORNINGS LATER, Sir Oliver’s note was in the hollow arm of the bench. He would soon notice that it was missing or had been replaced by a forgery. (She had not thought to ask Robert and William how they might try to cover up the theft, so she had to assume Sir Oliver would notice sooner rather than later.) She and Joanna had no time left to waste.
“Remember,” Rohesia whispered to Joanna as they walked down the stairway just outside Rachel’s personal parlor where she wrote her correspondence, “do not take anything that strikes you as so important she will immediately note its absence. And make certain it is something written by her. The last thing we want is to end up with something written by someone else.”
“Yes, your majesty.” Joanna took a deep breath. “Are you certain you want me to do this? I mean, it’s a very good idea in theory, but you’ve had to notice that I have trouble reading sometimes.”
Rohesia squeezed her hand. The fact was, she wasn’t sure Joanna would be able to do this, but she had no one else she could ask. Knowing this, they had spent the last two days with Rohesia showing Joanna what the name “Rachel” looked like, and she just had to pray to Earstien that would be good enough. “I have no doubts. I will be in the tapestry room with the girls. Come to me when you finish. And do not forget the story we devised in case you are caught.”
“I’ll say that you won’t let me use your fancy Immani stationery, and I need to write my family and find out the truth of this horrible war.”
With one final squeeze of the hand, Rohesia sent Joanna off and trotted back up the stairs to the tapestry room.
Rohesia attempted to maintain a veneer of normalcy with Alice and Helena. She busied Helena with her hand-me-down blocks and reviewed Immani verb tenses with Alice. Her chest ached every time she heard someone in the hallway, and her mouth had gone completely dry when at last, twenty minutes later, Joanna joined them.
It was difficult to read Joanna’s pretty, but usually artless face. Perhaps she looked uncertain? Rohesia gave Alice a bit of a nudge off the sofa they were sharing. “Alice, if you would please, go play with your cousin for a few minutes. I need to speak with Lady Joanna.”
Joanna took Alice’s spot once the girl was off. Rohesia had never seen her look so pale. With a shaking hand, Joanna held out a scrap of parchment. “Will this do your majesty?”
We will require 3 large geese, an extra two pounds of nuts, an extra pound of flour, and two more casks of red wine for the supper of the 24th. This is on the explicit orders of Duchess Rachel.
Joanna had done well in that she had recognized “Rachel” at the end of the note. However, she had not been able to decipher the messy scrawl of one of the palace kitchen staff well enough to understand it had not be penned by Rachel.
“I thank you for your efforts,” Rohesia said with far more calm than she felt. “But I am afraid this will not do.”
“As I warned you ma’am, I do better with the more regular writing in books. It’s other people’s variable hand that really confuses me. That’s why I thought it might be best if I took a couple. Is this one better?” And she handed Rohesia a piece of paper folded in half.
Rohesia held her breath and opened it.
It was a letter Rachel was still composing to her sister Abigail. It was not signed yet—in fact, it had barely been begun—but it mentioned “Aldrick” and “my darling girl, Lily.” This had unquestionably been written by Rachel.
Shaking, Rohesia fumbled in her pocket and pulled out the note sent to Sir Oliver. She held the two side-by-side. There was no question that they had been written by the same person.
Rohesia threw an arm around Joanna and pulled her close. “This is perfect. Earstien bless you.” She kissed Joanna on the top of the head. “Watch the girls. I have to go speak to Aldrick.”
Luckily, it had started to rain not long after Joanna’s trip to the bench, so Aldrick was not out riding, hunting, or enjoying any other outdoor pursuit. He was in his study with his steward and a few of his knights. Some were reading or talking, while Aldrick looked to be going over something with his steward at his hulking desk in front of the windows overlooking the beach. Rohesia was let in by the guard outside the door, and she cleared her throat. All the men, save Aldrick, stood.
“My apologies for intruding. But may I have a word with his grace in private?”
All the knights muttered “Of course,” or some equivalent, bowed, and left, as did the steward. Throughout the exit, Aldrick stared at her, one eyebrow cocked. Rohesia almost felt bad that she was about to shatter an important pillar of his life, and at the moment, he only seemed slightly amused.
When the door closed behind the last, he gestured at the chair his steward had occupied. “This isn’t like you. I hope it’s good.”
Rohesia perched on the edge of the chair, the two letters clutched in her lap. “I am afraid it is not good at all. Aldrick, I must tell you that it was your wife who alerted Sir Oliver to Edwin’s presence all those months ago. It was she who brought that foul usurper’s wife here and led to the death of Sir Alan Porcher, not to mention the increased scrutiny of your life and home.”
“What in the Void are you talking about? Rachel knows that if Broderick ever found out we let Edwin come here and then leave, it could mean the end for us.”
“And yet, she did so.” Rohesia placed the note to Sir Oliver on the desk in front of Aldrick. “This is what Sir Oliver received the night Edwin was here.” She put the letter Rachel had been writing next to it, not trusting Aldrick to recognize his own wife’s handwriting. “That is a sample of Rachel’s handwriting. It is the same. I believe she was afraid of you becoming embroiled in the war again and thought getting rid of Edwin would prevent it.”
“That...cunt! How could she?” In a much louder voice, Aldrick called out, “Hello? Who’s on duty out there?”
The guard who had let Rohesia in opened the door. “Do you need something, your grace?”
“My fucking wife. Now!”
The next ten minutes while Rachel was located and brought to the study consisted of Aldrick stomping around and hurling abuse. He referred to his wife with every unkind word that might be applied to a woman in both Myrcian and Immani. He then launched into what he thought of Muriel and why it had been profoundly foolish of Rachel to have tried to help the Gramiren guards catch Edwin while he was there.
Normally, seeing someone so utterly furious would evoke a response in Rohesia to try and calm the person. Her usual course would be to encourage Aldrick to think clearly, see things from Rachel’s point of view, remind him that he loved his wife. But Rohesia buried those instincts and permitted Aldrick to rage. Vengeance was not an emotion or act she typically indulged in, but in this case, knowing what could have happened if Edwin had been caught, having seen what happen to Sir Alan and Sir Franklin, Rohesia could not find her accustomed mercy and reason. She did not know what Aldrick had planned for his wife, but as long as he didn’t plan on forgiving her, Rohesia would gladly support any choice he made.
“You sent for me?” Rachel said when she entered. But then she saw Rohesia and frowned. “What is she doing here?”
“She’s telling me what a cunt you are,” Aldrick hissed. He snatched up the note and pressed it into her face so that she surely could not have read it. “She showed me this. It’s you telling the fucking Gramirens that Edwin was here.”
Rachel took a step back and could finally see the note. She blanched, but her jaw tightened. “So what if I did? Having him here was only going to be a problem. We don’t read any more problems because of that boy or her.” She snarled this last part at Rohesia.
Aldrick grabbed her chin and turned her face back to him. “Whatever you think of her, she’s not bloody Muriel fucking Gramiren! How could you be so stupid?” He shoved her away, and Rachel staggered.
“For Earstien’s sake! How can you still take her side over mine? I’m your wife, Aldrick. You’re never going to get to fuck her. Please get that through your thick skull already.”
Rohesia fully expected Aldrick to slap Rachel, and Earstien forgive her, Rohesia did not know that she would entirely blame him. Instead, he went incredibly still, as Rohesia had never seen him before. His hateful gaze wasn’t even turned on her, but it made her shiver all the same.
“You are no longer my wife in any way that matters,” he said softly. “You will leave this afternoon for my estate outside Brawley. You will live there the rest of your life without me, the children, or any society. Except as a bill my steward has to pay, you are dead to me.”
She grabbed his hand. “Aldrick! You can’t do this to me. I was only doing what was best for all of us.”
“Someone get this woman out of my sight!” he bellowed loudly enough, it made Rohesia’s ears hurt. The door banged open and three guards came in. “The duchess is going to Brawley. She can pack one bag. I’ll send the rest later. I want her out in an hour.”
***
ROBERT RETURNED THAT night, this time without Baron William.
“I saw Duchess Rachel’s carriage leave in a hurry,” he said. “I felt sure you would write soon, but I had to know if all was well with you and see how things had gone.”
Rohesia recapped the scene in Aldrick’s study. Since then she had spent a great deal of time thinking about the implications. On one hand, the person who had betrayed her son had been found and punished. On the other, Rohesia was now living in a home with Aldrick, who considered his wife dead. How long would it be before he attempted to convince her to marry him? Would she be able to refuse him under these circumstances? How long could she tell him, “No,” until, like Rachel, he decided she was no longer worth protecting? She tried to take comfort that at least Rachel’s daily cruelties would no longer be visited on her and the girls.
“So, the person responsible has been found,” she said in summary. “And that is good.”
Robert did not look happy, however. “She is now a woman with nothing to lose by openly confessing all to Muriel and Broderick. If your majesty will forgive me for contradicting you, Duchess Rachel is more dangerous than she has ever been.”
“What can we do?”
“You should not worry, your majesty. I may be gone for a few days. If need anything, go through the usual methods you use to contact me, and Baron William will do anything you require.”
Rohesia pulled her robe more tightly around herself. “I could manage for a few days, surely, if you would find Baron William’s talents useful for...whatever you intend.”
Robert smiled, but there was nothing glad in it. “There was a time that I could ask for no better aid than Baron William. But there are certain things he no longer does.”
They were dancing around the truth, but Rohesia knew exactly what Robert planned. With a word, she could stop him. She would be perfectly content with Rachel living out her life on Aldrick’s Brawley estate. But Robert was right. They could not chance that Rachel would never speak of what she knew of Edwin’s visit. With proof, Rohesia could only imagine what the Gramirens would do to her, Alice, Helena, and even Aldrick. Rachel was a petty, vindictive person. If Rohesia wanted to keep herself and her family safe, she had to allow Robert to do as he intended.
“Be careful, Robert. I will count on seeing you safely returned before the Summer Solstice.”
He bowed and kissed her hand. “I will be back long before. I swear.”