Martin’s verbal duel with Kate Wyville had the oddest effect on him. Not only had she roused him with her flashing green eyes and her naughty tongue, but all his other senses had been heightened. The first consequence being that he remembered where he had heard of Bevis Frampton before—something which had evaded him when Lord Clifton had spoken the man’s name.
That night, before sleep claimed him, he recalled that earlier in the year he had been at a meeting of the Friday Club at the Mermaid Tavern, off Friday Street, not as Martin Chancellor, but as his other self of which Bretford House knew nothing. Sir Walter Raleigh had been there and, his tongue loosened by drink, had conversed more freely, perhaps, than was wise.
Martin recalled how little some of the others spoke, in particular the playwright Shakespeare, who invariably sat in a corner, listening, always listening, to what the great men like Raleigh had to say, doubtless so that it might end up in one of his plays. More than one man had ruefully recognised himself in the mummer who was entertaining the mob by his quirks and follies.
That night, Raleigh had been cursing some of those around Lord Essex, who had just arrived back from Ireland in deep disgrace. ‘And no wonder at that,’ he had concluded, ‘since lately he has taken to listening to that old fellow Frampton, who privately hates all of us because of the knighthood which he has never been given.’
‘Essex is like Edward II,’ Ben Jonson had said, ‘he listened to bad advice, too.’
‘To say nothing of King Richard II,’ Shakespeare had offered quietly; he was always quiet. ‘M’lord Essex is only different in that he is—or rather was—Her Grace’s favourite, but while those monarchs listened to their favourites and were destroyed by them she seems to have avoided that fate.’
Those around him knew that Shakespeare had written a history play called Richard II which had been staged in 1597 and had caused a great deal of excitement, since the Queen had let it be known that she disliked intensely the notion that a monarch could be turned off the throne by a successful rebellion if his courtiers and the country grew tired of him.
‘Aye and therein lies the old woman’s greatness,’ Sir Walter had said, ‘for she may have her favourites, but she never listens to the stupid ones, something which Lord Essex failed to remember.’
They had all laughed at that, for the gossip about how scurvily she had treated him when he had returned home from Ireland a failure, instead of forgiving him as he had expected, had run round London, growing in the telling. Not only had she banished him to the confines of his own home, but she had caused many of his revenues and monopolies to be cut off, thereby reducing his fortune greatly.
‘At least,’ Sir Walter had ended, ‘she didn’t order him to be executed, so he kept his head on his shoulders—for the time being, anyway,’ which unkind sally had provoked yet another laugh.
So that was where Bevis Frampton’s name had been mentioned in his presence, but echoes of it still rang in Martin’s head. He had surely heard of him before, if only briefly, but to his annoyance, he could not recover that further memory which still eluded him.
For some reason sleep that night was long in coming. To begin with he could not keep Kate Wyville out of his head, nor, try as he might, could he think of any convincing plan by which he might avoid marrying her nor how, if marriage became inevitable, he could bring the two opposing parts of his life together. Looking back, it might have been better if he had told his father the truth about himself straight away, but the desire to trick him had, perhaps, overwhelmed his common sense.
In the end he punched his hot bolster vigorously and virtually commanded sleep to release him from the snakes writhing round in his head until, at last, it reluctantly obeyed him. But his dreams were many and various, and although he forgot them when he awoke the next morning, he knew that they had not been pleasant.
Which, after all, was no new thing for him.
Kate was faring no better. Meeting the bear had served not only to excite her, but to present to her a whole new world. She was beginning to feel as though she were one of the European explorers when they had first set foot in the Americas. Like them she had no notion of what the next day might bring—except that it would probably prove dangerous.
After she had broken her fast, her uncle visited her in her room.
‘I have been trying to discover where you and your husband-to-be are to live once you are married. Lord Bretford appears to believe that you will lodge here, but your future husband, when I questioned him myself, was most brusque. He left me in no doubt that he does not wish to settle at Bretford House. As to where you might dwell instead, he shrugged his shoulders and made no answer, other than that you would undoubtedly have a roof over your head somewhere. Which is no answer at all.’
‘No, indeed,’ agreed Kate. ‘He is a most disobliging fellow, is he not, who never offers one a straight answer.’
‘And with a quarterdeck voice when he is annoyed. When I remember his brother’s charming civility…’ and Lord Clifton shrugged his shoulders in disbelief.
‘Yet you still wish me to marry him?’
‘Oh, one does not marry a man for his manners.’
Kate could not resist the pun. ‘Unless, of course, he possesses plenty of manors—and their rents.’
‘Precisely,’ returned her uncle, resisting her intended joke and taking it seriously.
Perhaps the best way to think of her wedding was as a joke, rather like that play she had seen two years ago where the principals, Beatrice and Benedick, sparred with one another all the way through it, before falling into one another’s arms at the end. Only a fool would not have seen that coming.
‘Much Ado About Nothing,’ she murmured aloud, confusing her uncle still further.
‘Eh, what’s that, niece?’
‘Nothing, uncle, just a stray thought.’
Would Martin Chancellor allow her to have stray thoughts? Did he have any stray thoughts himself, or was he strictly practical? She ought, for sheer self-preservation, to try to discover more about the man he really was behind all the flim-flam and humbug she was sure he was serving up to everyone. What was the true man really like? For no reason at all she believed that he was otherwise than he seemed to be.
A line from the play she had recently been thinking of shot through her brain. ‘A star danced and I was born.’ Could she possibly be as constantly witty as Beatrice—and thus transform Lord Hadleigh from a bear to a…To a what? She could not really think what kind of man she wished to marry, since she had always consistently refused to think about marrying.
‘You are attending to me, niece, I trust,’ her uncle was saying, while she wool-gathered.
‘Oh, yes,’ Kate managed, although she had not heard a word of her uncle’s lengthy speech and did not know what she was agreeing with.
‘I was saying that I will have a word with Lord Bretford himself. Since, by Lord Hadleigh’s dress and manner, his father is the one who controls the purse-strings, he might bring particular pressure to bear on Hadleigh to settle at Bretford House—in a place that your rank should demand as of right—rather than in some hole in the corner where I gather that he has hitherto been living.’
Kate, remembering the bear’s determined face and the brisk fashion in which he had treated his subordinates, prevented herself from saying, Must you, uncle? She had no doubt that however much the two lords might bully him, Martin Chancellor would do exactly as he pleased.
There was one question which she had hitherto refrained from asking and now felt that she ought to. ‘How soon will my marriage take place?’
‘As soon as possible—which we hope will be in a fortnight. The ceremony will take place in St Paul’s.’
St Paul’s, that gloomy cathedral which she had always detested.
‘Not in the local parish church?’
‘By no means. Your rank—and his—demands no less.’
Her rank seemed to be demanding a great deal which she did not want. By her uncle’s manner it was useless to complain. After all, this was how most women were treated—as though their opinion and wants were of no matter—always excepting, of course, the Queen.
It was perhaps unfortunate that when she went downstairs, the first person she saw was her future husband. He was as untidy as usual—except for his boots, which were spotless.
‘Well met, lady,’ he told her, bowing.
‘Why should that be?’ she asked, deliberately trying to provoke him.
‘Why?’ Martin considered for a moment before saying, ‘I have just been told by Master Dudgeon that my manner to you is not sufficiently flattering or courteous, and so I am trying to please two people, you and him, by improving it. Do I understand that I was not successful?’
What witty answer would Beatrice have made to that? ‘Not exactly. I was merely wondering why we were well met when all we had done was encounter one another, quite by chance, at the bottom of the stairs.’
This might not be witty, but it had at least the merit of being the truth.
Martin’s smile was rueful. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t please you. It was merely one of a small selection of apt remarks which Rafe suggested I might use when I told him that my life had not prepared me for making the kind of compliment which ladies seem to expect. I chose that one because I thought it rather more apt than most.’
It was Kate’s turn to consider.
‘I suppose,’ she said slowly, ‘that once you had made it I should have simpered at you and offered you something equally meaningless in return, such as, “Indeed, sir.” You could, of course, if you will accept a suggestion from me, have offered me an even more flattering remark.’ She paused to think for a moment before adding. ‘Yes, I have it. “You look remarkably fine this morning, Lady Kate,” would do very well.’
‘Would it? And what would your answer have been to that?’
‘Another simper, or perhaps a toss of my head and the words, “You flatter me, m’lord,” which would have given you the opportunity to reply, “Indeed, not.”’
Martin asked, as though he really wished to know, ‘What would that have earned me?’
‘A giggle and a hand before the mouth, like so,’ and Kate gave a remarkable imitation of an empty-headed beauty. ‘Of course, if I were carrying a fan at the time I could have struck you gently with it—or not so gently if I were feeling frisky.’
‘Frisky, eh?’ and Martin began to laugh. It was safer so, because even at this early hour the sight of Lady Kate Wyville making mock of him was having its usual dreadful effect on his self-control.
Before Kate could laugh back at him they were interrupted by Rafe Dudgeon entering and saying impatiently to his master, ‘I thought that you were in a hurry—the horses were ready for us some time ago. Oh, I do beg your pardon for interrupting you, Lady Kate. I must say that you are looking remarkably fine this morning.’
Whereupon Kate tossed her head and simpered at him, saying, ‘You flatter me, Master Dudgeon,’ which, to the bemusement of Rafe, set Martin laughing again.
Rafe forgot that while they were at Bretford House they had privately agreed to avoid the easy camaraderie which he shared with Martin away from it—and with which Webster had begun to join in—and said, his tone a bantering one, ‘What’s the joke, Martin, I mean, m’lord?’
‘I’ll tell you later—if the horses are waiting I must immediately take my leave of m’lady with a suitably apt phrase.’
‘May I, perhaps, suggest something in the order of the following, “I can scarce wait to rejoin you again—but duty calls,”’ was Kate’s swift reply in her most teasing voice.
‘Oh, I can’t speak of duty since Rafe and I are merely going for a gallop to clear our heads and we don’t want to be back too soon.’
Kate shook her head at him. ‘No, no, that won’t do at all. Forget the truth and remember that gallantry is all. I suggest that you say it to me before you leave—and I promise to be equally untruthful in return.’
Martin, Rafe’s wondering eyes on him, did as he was bid, and in return Kate laughed confidingly back up at him and said, ‘Ah me, pray do not be too long, I can scarce wait for you to come back to me.’
Martin leaned forward and said, very quietly, so that Rafe should not hear him, ‘Minx—you speak more truthfully than you know.’
And then, after Rafe had left them, it struck him like a hammer blow—What was he doing? He was in danger of forgetting his campaign against his father by succumbing to her charm. If he did so, he would merely succeed in obliging him. He must, at all costs, disillusion her. So he said, his voice and manner as cold as he could make them, ‘Are all women the same? Virtual courtesans who offer any man only the words that they most wish to hear?’
He had the dismal satisfaction of watching the colour leave her face before she turned away from him. He cursed himself and fate before leaving her and walking to the stables where Rafe and their horses waited for them.
Rafe said, ‘What was all that about? You surely didn’t tell her of my advice to you!’
‘I surely did—and the lady had the goodness to offer me some pithy phrases of her own which she thought rather better.’
‘I can see that she is beginning to come to terms with you—and perhaps you are both not regretting this marriage over-much as a consequence.’
‘Coming to terms with me! No, she is arranging it so that I come to terms with her. Every remark I make is taken up and embroidered by her to her own advantage. The woman has the tongue of the devil.’
Then you are well matched, was Rafe’s unspoken gloss on that, before they mounted their horses and set off for a tavern in the city where Martin hoped that Webster would be waiting for them with some information which he had earlier required of him. The formidable Jacko had been in attendance on Webster not only to protect him in the deep waters of the criminal underworld in which he had been trawling, but also to point him in the right directions.
‘You never told me that you had been attacked,’ Rafe said reproachfully to Martin. They were all drinking warm ale of poor quality in order not to look out of place in an alehouse and listening to Webster’s report, given in low tones so that he might not be overheard. He was amused to note that, today, the usually immaculate Webster looked nearly as untidy as his master. Doubtless Jacko had told him that it would not do to look too much like a member of the Queen’s court.
‘I wasn’t sure whether it was the result of an accident or by design. Jacko and Webster have been busily making enquiries for me and, as he has just said, it seems that the attack was definitely by design.’
Webster nodded. ‘Jacko knows of several assassins who can be hired for a goodly sum and the fourth man we questioned—or rather,’ and he started to laugh ruefully, ‘whom Jacko threatened, told us all that we wished to know. What now remains is to give you the name of his paymaster and ask you, Martin, what you know of him. He is Bevis Frampton, an old fellow who has been hanging around the court since the Queen’s accession. I thought it most unlikely that he was the one who wanted you dead, but the fellow was adamant—even gave me a description of him.’
‘Bevis Frampton,’ said Martin wonderingly. ‘Why the devil should he want me killed? So far as his appearance is concerned, I was told by Sir Walter Raleigh that he is a little man, stooped and grey, with a servile manner. Is that how your informant described him?’
‘Exactly.’ It was Jacko speaking at last. ‘To the very word, master.’ Of the three of Martin’s henchmen he was the only one who spoke to him as he thought a man of his master’s station ought to be addressed. ‘Once I convinced him that it was in his interest to tell me the truth he could scarcely stop talking.’
‘Which doesn’t surprise me,’ remarked Martin dryly. ‘What does, is his motive for wanting me dead. I scarcely knew he existed, although my father mentioned his name the other night.’
Webster leaned forward. ‘But that establishes a connection with your family, does it not? Could he be trying to attack your father through you?’
‘But the attack was before you had found me for my father. Who else could have known that I was my father’s son? After all, I only recently started to call myself Chancellor when I bought my Forge Street home, and so far as the world knew I was dead and gone long ago.’
Rafe said, ‘That is truly a mystery, but—forgive me for saying so—under the name you have borne since you left home, there are places you might have frequented recently where this Frampton fellow might have seen you, but you might not have noticed him. Beneath the disguising hair that you are sporting at the moment, do you resemble your late brother at all?’
Martin considered, ‘A little, perhaps, but your theory, I must say, consists of drawing a giant bow at a venture.’
‘But it could be true for all that,’ put in Webster. The other two nodded their heads in agreement.
‘The only real truth we possess, though, is that for some reason Frampton wants me dead. Webster, I think that you ought to begin discreet enquiries about the fellow and Jacko, you can come back with me to Bretford House and watch my back. He might yet try again and at present I have so many other distractions that I would find it difficult to guard myself.’
Distractions like Lady Kate Wyville, Rafe thought, but did not say aloud.
‘Another draught of ale before we go, Master, seeing that we shall have missed dinner at Bretford House,’ was Jacko’s contribution to the conversation, ‘and the bread and cheese is better than the ale.’
They all said Amen to that, and as Martin remarked while waiting for their order to arrive, ‘It’s as well that we have, at last, found something on which we can all agree.’
Martin was still thinking about Webster and Jacko’s revelation when he arrived back at Bretford House with his three henchmen in tow. If the butler’s eyebrows rose when he saw Jacko enter, that was the only comment which he allowed himself. On Martin’s instructions he sent him off to the servants’ hall and wondered what they would make of him.
Kate, Aunt Jocasta nearby, was seated in the withdrawing-room when Martin came downstairs after scrubbing himself in an effort to remove the smells of the tavern from his person. He had left Webster demanding a bath before he consented to resume his usual clean and decent clothing again. ‘I wonder that you can bear wandering around looking so unkempt,’ he had moaned at Martin. ‘Remember that I have seen you in your usual habiliments.’
Trust Webster to use a long word when a short one like garb or clothing would have done, was Martin’s reaction to that—but the man was turning out to be trustworthy and reliable and must be allowed his little freaks of speech. He was still grinning when he sat down on a long bench opposite to Kate.
She was working at a tapestry and did not greet him until she had reached the end of what appeared to be an everlasting line of stitching.
‘You are late back and have missed your midday meal,’ was all she said. ‘Would you care for me to order something for you to eat?’ Her manner was so different from the lively one which she had adopted earlier that day that Martin was a little troubled by it, until he remembered his last harsh and cruel words to her.
Aunt Jocasta was also glaring at him, probably because she distrusted all men—and who was to say that she was wrong. His conscience pricked him again and he said, ‘Thank you, but no. We all had a meal at a tavern on Bankside.’
‘And ale, too?’ was Kate’s response.
‘Of course, rather more ale than food, I regret to say.’
‘You were on some sort of errand, perhaps?’ Kate asked, her curiosity aroused by the we. ‘I gather that the butler informed your father and my uncle that you had brought home some kind of bravo.’
‘Not a bravo, but my friend who has saved my life in the past. It is his wish, and not mine, to use the servants’ quarters rather than associate with us.’
He heard Aunt Jocasta snort. ‘At least he knows his proper station,’ she said coldly.
‘As I do not?’ Martin could not help riposting.
‘If the cap fits,’ she told him.
He could see that Kate was troubled by this exchange. ‘You forget,’ she told her aunt, ‘that Martin is Lord Hadleigh and thus Lord Bretford’s heir.’
‘Then let him behave and dress as though he is.’
For some contrary reason her frankness pleased Martin. At least she had the courage to be honest. Everyone else, even his father and his future uncle-in-law, tiptoed around him saying nothing of his untoward appearance, although he suspected that it was the cause of a lot of gossip behind his back. He was beginning to find it tiresome himself, but he judged that the time had not yet come for him to abandon it and display his true self.
One of the things which surprised him most was that, for all his recent hard words to her, he wanted Kate Wyville to accept him as he was. Rafe had passed on some servants’ gossip which said that Lady Kate, when speaking to her tiring-maid, had once referred to him as a bear—supposedly because of his hairy appearance. As he had been contrary in his appreciation of Aunt Jocasta’s honest appraisal of him, he was contrary in his sudden wish that Kate would accept him as the bear he seemed to be. Not because he was handsome, or had perfect manners, or wore the correct, beautiful clothing of a nobleman, but because she would like him as the man he truly was, not because of his trappings either as a nobleman or a bear.
‘Beneath our clothing,’ Martin had once told Rafe, ‘we are all at one with Adam. And if the old sayings have it that manners and clothing make the man, then those sayings are wrong, because despite my present untoward appearance I am the same man that I ever was. I am simply Adam’s brother or his distant descendant, call me what you will, but I am nothing else.’
It was something which he had come to understand when he had served on his first ship in the battle against the Spanish Armada. He had still been Lord Bretford’s son and Lord Hadleigh’s brother, and felt little different from the man he had been when all around had deferred to him. Then they had bowed to him, pulled their forelocks, obeyed him and attended to his slightest wish, but on board ship he was the one who carried out these humble duties—yet he still remained the same Martin Chancellor underneath.
It had been hard at first to become the slave and not the master, but he had learned that to be true to one’s self was the only thing that mattered. He did not know whether or not he had been a good master before his flight, but his pride demanded that he cease to hanker after the lost past and become the best servant that there ever was—which he had done.
If he had succeeded in life—and he undoubtedly had—it was because he had learned these necessary lessons. He had already discovered that Kate Wyville was a strong woman. Bear she might think him, but she was baiting him, throwing buns at him in the form of witticisms, not showing any fear of him, and when they were sparring nothing mattered but that. They were man and woman together, Adam and Eve before the fall—which would be their marriage—if they married, that was. More and more, though, he was coming to accept that he was ready to make her his wife after all. There was some time still to live through and she might yet find a way to refuse him, but Martin was starting to relish the challenge which the lady presented to him. Did she feel the same about him?
Kate had quietly resumed her stitching, Aunt Jocasta was scowling at him over the top of hers, and he was sitting there, mumchance, staring blankly at the tapestry on the wall behind Kate, which showed Paris carrying Helen off from Greece and thus starting the Trojan War. It all went to show how much love and passion ruled the world if an empire like Troy could have fallen because of it.
The mere idea of behaving like Paris, snatching up Kate and making off with her, attracted him, which was stupid since he was being offered the lady legally, on a platter as it were—so there was no need for him to have fancies about abduction.
With some difficulty a highly aroused Martin rose, saying, ‘I forgot that I have need to speak to Rafe. I trust that you two ladies will forgive me if I leave you.’
‘With pleasure,’ said Aunt Jocasta tartly. Kate said nothing, but her rather sad smile for him was enough. The memory of his last words to her still hurt her, but she told herself that she must always remember how hard his life had been and forgive him a little if he were occasionally savage with those around him.
She was not to know that Martin went out to cool himself down. He wished that he could find a lake where he might strip to the buff, dive into the water and work off his thwarted lust—except that he was beginning to wonder whether lust was the right word for what he was starting to feel for Kate.
In the meantime he was compelled to live at Bretford House, from which Kate was to be married since Lord Clifton’s London home was being rebuilt and was in no fit state to be used for wedding celebrations. At least this had the advantage that he could get to know his future wife a little more than if he had been compelled to wait until their wedding day before he met her—something which many bridegrooms would have welcomed.
All too often the first sight of their bride had been in the church where they were to be married.