Kate spent her day wondering what the second night of her marriage might be like, the first having been so unexpectedly rewarding. She was also haunted a little by the young beauty whose portrait she had seen in the closet in Martin’s room. She was tempted to ask Martin who she might be when he came upstairs after dismissing Frampton, but remembering what a private man he was, she decided not to. After all, she thought, it might not be wise to confess that she had been secretly prowling around his bedroom.
He found her in her sitting-room, stitching away at her canvas work. Jennie was busy lifting her clothes out of one of the chests, refolding them and carefully laying some of them away in the other. She looked up when Martin strode in, and immediately left them together.
Martin laughed. ‘You have a well-trained maid there,’ he said, leaning forward and kissing Kate on the cheek. ‘She probably knows why I have come upstairs.’
‘Oh, why?’ asked Kate, apparently artlessly.
‘For this,’ Martin told her, scooping her up into his arms, and once she was safely there, tossing her canvas work on to the bench on which she had been sitting.
‘Oh, whatever are you doing?’ squeaked Kate, who knew perfectly well what her husband’s intention was, particularly when he threw her on to the giant four-poster, and after kissing her until her senses reeled, began to undress her.
‘Something you will enjoy,’ he promised her. Which she did, crying out his name when they had scaled their mountain of delight together, to lie quiet in his arms.
‘Oh, you were right,’ she panted at him when she could speak again.
‘About what?’ asked Martin, who was also having trouble with his breathing.
‘I enjoyed it,’ she managed.
Martin, who had sunk back on the bed to lie by her side, raised himself to lean over her.
‘So, you would not be troubled if I pleasured you again? When I have recovered a little myself, that is.’
Kate decided that he needed to be teased.
‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.
‘Minx!’ he exclaimed, the mere sight of her naughty mocking face arousing him all over again. ‘You deserve to be punished for that.’
His punishment of her was all and more than Kate could have desired. When it was over she whispered in his ear, ‘Now I know what the poets mean when they write of love. I love you, Martin.’
His reply was not what she had expected. He pulled himself away from her, to sit up. ‘No, Kate, I would have you my satisfied and happy wife, but you are not to love me.’
‘Why?’ It was Kate who was sitting up now, and challenging him. ‘Why should I not? It is the truth. From the moment I first saw you at Bretford House when I thought you were a servant, you have never been far from my thoughts. At first, I did not know that it was love, but now I do. Can you not love me, too?’
‘No!’ The cry was wrenched from him. ‘I must not. I do not wish to lose you, which I might if I am tempted to love you. I will make you happy, if I can, but do not ask for love—nor speak of your love for me.’
The bright day dimmed a little for Kate, who was seeing her dream of love shattered. ‘I cannot deny what I truly feel,’ she said quietly, turning away from him.
‘Because I cannot love you does not mean that I cannot honour and treasure you, Lady Hadleigh. No man could value you more.’
‘Truly?’ she whispered, turning towards him again.
‘Truly. I will never lie to you, Kate, however many lies I have told to others. You do not deserve to be lied to, and they did.’
Kate was on the verge of asking him who the young woman whose lock of hair and portrait he so obviously treasured was. She desisted. She must not demand too much of him.
I will make him love me, whether he wishes to or not, was her last thought, after he had pleasured her again and she was sinking into the deep sleep which comes to some fulfilled lovers, if not to all, quite unaware of the treacherous tear which was sliding down her face.
Her sleep was another blessing for her—one which was not given to Martin, who raised himself on his elbow in order to look down on to her tranquil face, his busy mind whirling.
I have vowed to treasure her, and that I will do to the utmost of my ability, but, alas, time and chance may thwart me as they did with Mary. Pray God it may be otherwise with Kate.
Webster and Rafe were with Jacko in his room. It was a small, if comfortable, one over the stables. He had refused better quarters in the house, saying that he would be happy to make his home with the servants, but Martin had insisted that one of his oldest friends was worthy of something more than that. The room over the stables was large and comfortable and well furnished.
The three of them retired there when they wished to be private. ‘No one in a big house is private,’ Rafe said, and Jacko was happy to have his friends with him occasionally.
‘So, how goes the hunt for Martin’s assassin?’ Webster was asking him.
Jacko shrugged. ‘He thinks that Frampton is trying to top him and I agree with him. Proof is difficult. Frampton is a fool who thinks he is cleverer than he is, but gossip says that he has sent more than one man to his doom, either directly or indirectly.’
Rafe said, ‘But why? Does he work for others who need such offices done for them?’
‘No proof of that, either. He works alone—or so all I have questioned say.’
‘He came here today,’ said Webster.
His hearers stared at him.
‘For what?’ Rafe asked.
‘I know not. He did not stay long. Martin threw him out in a mockery of politeness.’
Rafe began to laugh. ‘He is a master at that, is Martin.’
Webster unbent enough to offer Rafe a small grin. ‘So I am beginning to find out. Tell me, has he been married before?’
Jacko fixed Webster with a truculent stare. ‘Why do you wish to know?’
‘Curiosity—something he said once, which made me think.’
‘You think too much,’ grunted Jacko.
‘Probably,’ Webster offered him.
‘It cannot hurt to tell you the truth,’ Rafe said. ‘Better that I should, rather than that someone who hates him should tell you lies.’
‘And the truth is?’
‘Years ago, when he was on his way to becoming the magnate he was before ever his father sent for him, he married the daughter of his benefactor, Mary Williams. It was a true love match. Her father, James Williams, having no son, had already become Martin’s patron and encouraged rather than opposed the match. They were a pair of lovebirds if ever man and woman were. She was expecting his child, but before she reached her term and while he was at sea, the child arrived early. She was a little thing and both she and the child died. He arrived back in England to find her three weeks buried.
‘I have never seen anyone so stricken. Before that he had always been a hard man, but jolly. Afterwards he was quite different. Now that I know a little of his past, I believe he must have thought that the gods were determined to punish him.’
Webster thought for a long moment, before saying, ‘She was small and delicate—not like Lady Kate then.’
‘Quite unlike.’
‘And this James Williams, what of him?’
‘You might almost say he adopted Martin after his daughter’s death. He died early, too, of a wasting illness—leaving a small fortune to Martin, who was a rich man himself by then.’
‘Tell me, Rafe, if you will, how it is that you know all this?’
‘I was James Williams’s distant cousin, and had worked for him since I was a child. When Martin married my cousin Mary, Master Williams suggested that I became his lieutenant. I went to sea with him and I was at his side when he landed in England to learn that his wife was dead. I have been with him ever since; Jacko, too.’
This explained many things which had puzzled Webster. ‘It did not distress you that James Williams left Martin his fortune?’
Rafe smiled. ‘Not all his fortune—half of it came to me. No, I could not grudge Martin his share; he had made both Mary and her father happy until Mary’s sudden death.’
‘Yet you still work for him even though you could have become your own master.’
Rafe shrugged. ‘We have become brothers—he being the elder. I have learned so much from him, and he saved my life once, nearly at the expense of his own. I owe him that. I know that if I wished to leave him he would release me on the instant. I am not like Martin, I am too easy. I never suffered hardship in my early youth and prefer to follow orders rather than give them.’
Jacko had been nodding his head during this recital. Now he said in his downright way, ‘If Mistress Mary had lived until my master died, Martin would have inherited everything—as her husband. It was Martin who persuaded the old man to leave Rafe something for his faithful service. He is a good man, is my master. His damned father neither knows the true man, nor wants to.’
Webster could not prevent himself from asking yet another question. ‘This is my last,’ he promised. ‘Do either of you know how, and why, he came to leave his home?’
They shook their heads at him. ‘Something to do with the elder brother perhaps,’ Rafe offered, ‘but that is mere assumption.’
Nevertheless, these revelations had provided Webster with an explanation for some, though not all, of the puzzles surrounding Martin Chancellor’s life after he had fled Bretford House.
‘I’ll say one thing,’ Jacko muttered. ‘Mary Williams was a sweet young thing, but Lady Kate will be a better wife for him. Mary was as gentle as an angel, but, myself I don’t think angels fit for this world.’
This astonishing piece of insight nearly confounded Webster, who had been thinking the same thing. He looked at Jacko with renewed respect. There were those who thought that only the educated, the nobility and the gentry were able to make accurate judgements about life, but Webster was rapidly beginning to learn otherwise.
‘I ought to go and find him,’ he announced, rising. ‘He said that he needed me to write some letters for him.’
Jacko put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Best you wait,’ he advised. ‘He went upstairs to Lady Kate some time ago, and I doubt me whether he’d be very pleased if you interrupted him while he was alone with her on the day after they were wed.’
Webster sat down again. ‘I defer to your wisdom,’ he announced—and he was not mocking Jacko.
It was evening before Martin reappeared, and by then Webster decided that it would not be tactful to badger him over the letters. There was a glow about him, rather like the one a starving person possesses when he has eaten a good meal after many days’ short commons.
Kate did not come down. Jennie took her supper up to her, found her dozing in the big four-poster and, smiling knowingly, had to prod her gently to awaken her.
‘Is it morning already?’ Kate quavered, still lost in a dream in which she and Martin had been walking in a beautiful garden. He had just turned to kiss her when Jennie’s hand on her shoulder snatched her from her dream of bliss.
‘Lord, no, m’lady. It is but early evening. M’lord ordered me to bring you some supper. No need to rise until tomorrow, he said.’
‘Oh!’ Kate sat up. Now everyone would know how she and Martin had spent their afternoon. ‘That was very good of him. Put the tray on the table over there and I will get up to eat it. What is it?’
‘Broth, m’lady, and good wheaten bread and butter with a deal of cheese, some sliced beef, a couple of sweet biscuits with apples for a dessert, and a tankard of good hippocras to wash it all down when you’ve supped the broth.’
Kate had not realised how hungry she was until she began to drink the broth. Later, she was to tell Martin how surprised that made her. ‘After all,’ she said, ‘I hadn’t done anything but sleep this afternoon.’
‘No?’ Martin’s eyebrows rose in amusement. ‘It’s hard work pleasuring ourselves—think how heavily we panted afterwards.’
‘As though we had run a race,’ said Kate, remembering how, when she had been a young tomboy, she had huffed and puffed when she had joined the stable lads’ vigorous games when they were off duty.
‘Exactly.’
‘Are you still hungry?’ he asked her, throwing off his clothes—she was later to discover that, unlike most gentlemen, he had no body servant to help him in and out of them.
‘Yes, but not for food.’
This was the answer he wanted, and in a trice he was in the bed with her and the whole delightful business started all over again, to end in deep sleep and dreams of power for them both, for to please the loved one is to exercise a form of power over them. True, Martin denied that he loved her, but he behaved as though he did and surely that was all that mattered.
This time they fell asleep together, hand in hand, and it was morning before Kate woke to the gentle sound of a lute and a man singing in a low voice.
She sat up, wondering who the musician could be—to discover that it was Martin. He was seated where he could see her and she could hear him. He was wearing an elaborate full-length night robe.
He stopped playing to smile at her. ‘I thought that you might like to wake up to music, so I have been tuning my lute so that I could sing you a song which you may not know, although, during our frustrated transports yesterday, you said something which reminded me of it.’
‘I had not thought that you could play and sing so well,’ was all Kate felt able to say, so surprised was she.
‘No?’ He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘I learned before I left home, but did not find time to play again until after I left the sea. Oh, I sang shanties and bawdry with the best, but nothing like this. To sing this I must keep my voice low, or I lose the tune—which did not matter when I was on board ship.’
He winked suggestively at her before beginning to sing a popular song called ‘Beauty’s Self’, which Kate had never heard before.
My love in her attire doth show her wit,
It doth so well become her;
For every season she hath dressings fit.
For winter, spring and summer
No beauty she doth miss
When all her robes are on;
But Beauty’s self she is
When all her robes are gone.
‘And since we were married,’ he said, watching her blush when he sang the last line, ‘you have been Beauty’s self for me many times.’
He had surprised her yet again. She said, ‘Are there no end to your talents, husband?’
‘Do not flatter me, wife—even though it pleases me when you do—since you are showing me proper respect. I am a very humble troubadour; my true talents lie elsewhere.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Kate earnestly, although she knew that she was treading on forbidden ground, ‘since you come from a family which denies that you possess any talents at all, you must allow me to applaud you each time you show me a new one.’
‘Which was not why I sang you that song,’ he told her, rising and putting the lute down. ‘You must be feeling hungry again after all the exercise we took last night, so you must allow me the honour of going down to the kitchens and bringing up a small feast so that we may break our fast.’
‘Oh, I do so allow,’ remarked Kate grandly, as though she were the Queen herself. ‘But I demand a kiss from you before you go.’
Martin shook his head. ‘Alas, I must deny you such a favour. If I were to kiss you, I fear that I should leap into the bed in an instant, with the result that we should not eat our breakfast until the time for supper arrives.’
He was not lying. To his own profound astonishment, the mere sight of her still had the power to rouse him. He felt like a boy again, enjoying the first delights of lust and love, call it what you will.
‘In that case, I bid you go, but only on condition that you will return before supper arrives!’
‘Now there is a condition with which I shall have no difficulty in complying,’ he said, giving her yet another meaningful wink before he left.
So far married life was proving quite different from what Kate had expected—but how long would this carefree, idyllic existence last? She had already gathered, from what she had overheard of Webster and Rafe’s conversation, that Martin led a busy life as some sort of merchant. The world in which Kate had lived until she had married him had had little to do with merchants. Well, one way or another, she would try to find out exactly what it was that merchants did.
At the moment this particular merchant appeared to have but one idea in his head, and that was to pleasure her as often as he could. She lay back in the bed, and easily drifted into sleep again.
Martin’s arrival with a footman and two trays of food did not disturb her. It took a kiss from him to rouse her—in more ways than one! She was rapidly learning the verbal tricks and ploys which went with love and would shortly be as dexterous as he in using them.
The food was simple—Kate was beginning to find that she liked simplicity. The drink he brought her was mead, which he discovered that she preferred to hippocras when she seized it avidly and began to enjoy it before starting to devour what he had brought her.
Kate could not remember ever having felt so hungry before, not even on the previous evening. Martin, too, was tearing at his bread and cheese as though he had not eaten for weeks. He looked at her, mischief written on his face.
‘One hunger begets another,’ he said cryptically.
At first Kate did not take his meaning. When she did she blushed again. He laughed, winked at her once more and added, ‘I like a woman with a good appetite.’
It was only when he had said it that he remembered that Mary had never been a great eater. At the time he had liked her for that: it seemed to show a pleasing delicacy. Now he suddenly wondered whether her poor appetite had been partly the cause of her death, since she had lost weight while carrying their baby, not gained it. Her father had always been urging her to eat: he had been a great trencherman himself. Now, Martin found himself relishing Kate’s obvious love of food.
He looked out of the window. The late September morning was fine and sunny, if cold. He resisted the temptation to leap into bed with Kate because he also wanted her to take her first ride on Swallow and didn’t wish her to suffer too much discomfort in the saddle through over-vigorous love-making, particularly since he had only just found out that she had not ridden for years.
He said, apparently casually, ‘I thought that you might like to have your first outing with Swallow in the forenoon.’
‘Oh, yes,’ breathed Kate. ‘But only if you will go with me.’
She could not have said anything to please Martin more.
‘Of course, it will be the first of such journeys together, I trust.’ He rose. ‘That being so, we must make ready for the day immediately.’
Kate leaped out of bed. ‘I shall ring for Jennie straightway. I have several dresses which might be suitable for me to wear on horseback. I think that I may still own the boots which I wore when I first tried to ride.’
‘If not,’ Martin said, ‘you may borrow a pair from one of the younger stable-boys.’
Impulsively Kate kissed him, then blushed again. Perhaps he might think her forward. But he seemed to like her being forward, for he kissed her back, and then had to school himself strictly not to leap back into bed with her again.
‘I will see you in the stables later,’ he told her when she retired to her sitting-room to wait for Jennie to be sent for to help her to dress.
Martin, successfully dodging Webster, who he was sure would be waiting for him with some duty or other to perform, arrived in the stable-yard, booted and spurred. There he found Sim being talked to earnestly by GabrielWatts, his head groom.
Gabriel saluted Martin when he entered, saying, ‘I was about to ask an audience of you, m’lord, but now that you are here I will tell you my sad story.’
‘There’s nothing amiss with Swallow, I trust.’
‘Fortunately not, but last night someone broke into the yard and killed two of the dogs, we think by feeding them poisoned meat. They also laid waste to the tack room, stealing much and smashing what was left. Fortunately they made rather more noise than was wise, and Sim, who is a light sleeper, heard them, got up, and taking a lantern with him, went to find out what was wrong. They had just tried to enter Darius’s stall when they heard him coming and ran off. Sim chased after them, but he was too far behind them to catch them up, so they escaped.’
He paused, then added, ‘This is not the first time lately we have found damage done in the yard and in the little park at the back of the Hall. Some of the wooden benches were smashed and quite a number of plants and shrubs were uprooted and the pretty little statue of Cupid destroyed—and now this. I have not troubled you before, m’lord, but this latest piece of wickedness, added to what has gone before, makes me wonder if someone is deliberately trying to harm you. Imagine what might have happened if they had got at Darius.’
Martin grinned at him. ‘Say rather what that lively stallion might have done to them. But you are right. I shall immediately arrange for guards to patrol the Hall and park at night. And thank you, Sim,’ he said, turning to the lad who had been standing by while Gabriel told his sad tale, ‘for acting so promptly.’
Sim shook his head. ‘I’m only sorry, m’lord, that I didn’t catch one of them.’
‘Never mind that, you tried. Now you must ready Darius and Swallow for me. I shall be accompanying m’lady on her first ride.’
While he was waiting for Kate, Martin exercised Darius, whom he had not ridden for some time. He was also trying to decide whether this was yet another piece of nastiness organised by Frampton—if in truth he was his unknown enemy—designed to unsettle him. He would send Jacko and Webster out again to try to discover some hard evidence on which he could act.
Kate’s arrival drove these musings out of his head. He dismounted in order to make sure that she was properly equipped. She smiled at him. ‘I found my boots,’ she told him proudly, ‘and they still fit me, see. And this old dress will serve to ride in.’
Martin thought that anything she wore would be suitable for her to go anywhere, either on horseback or not. He was, he admitted, falling so far under her spell that he would shortly be witless if matters continued in this fashion this much longer! He was beginning to admit that he had never reacted like this to Mary. She had affected him in quite a different way: his feelings for her had always been protective. She had offered him silent worship, whereas Kate cheerfully teased and tempted him with every word she uttered.
He was not surprised to discover that she had a natural talent for controlling a horse and enjoying herself at the same time. Side by side they rode through the park at the back of the Hall and then on to a lane, or byway.
‘We are making for Moorgate and the Moore fields,’ he told her, ‘from whence you may see the Finsbury windmills and the open spaces where the citizens of London meet to enjoy themselves. On the way we shall pass the house where Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s spymaster, lived. Like ours it has a small park at its back. I have no notion who bought it after his death.’
Kate was constantly being surprised by how much Martin knew. He kept a firm eye on her to ensure that she was never in any danger, but at the same time he told her about the people who lived in the fine houses off the narrow lanes through which they rode.
‘I shall not always be able to escort you,’ he said when they finally returned to Saxon Hall, ‘and you must promise me that you will never on any account go out without a suitable escort.’
Kate had already noticed that two of the grooms had followed them, but that apparently was not enough to protect her if she were not with him, for he went on to say that if Jacko were not free then Rafe, or another of the two other attendant gentlemen in his service, either Robert Field or James Riley, must always accompany her. He did not add that they would be armed, but he would notify them of that before they rode with her for the first time.
It had already occurred to him that, now that he was married, his enemy might strike at him through Kate, but he told her nothing of that. She would doubtless put his insistence on her being surrounded by protectors to an excess of caution. After all, they were not living near to the parishes where those criminals, who preyed on the incautious, lived.
Her smile for him when he handed her down from Swallow, was a brilliant one. ‘Oh, I really enjoyed that,’ she exclaimed. ‘May we do it again, some time soon?’
‘Yes, while we are still on our honeymoon. After that, my duties may call me away, but provided that you always take someone to guard you, there is no reason why you should not ride as often as you like.’
For Kate, that ride seemed to set the pattern of their life together. Of course, once the honeymoon was over the mad whirl of excitement in which they had enjoyed one another to the full by day and by night had to yield to the demands of ordinary living—at least in the day. One thing, however, remained constant. Martin always rose before her and woke her up each morning by singing and playing gently to her. He seemed to know a remarkable number of songs, some of them tender, some funny and some which were so earthy that, at first, they made her blush.
She found that time had never passed so quickly when they were pleasuring each another, nor so slowly, when, after the honeymoon, she waited for him to return home. He was away one afternoon, when she had an unexpected visitor. It was her former guardian, Lord Clifton, who was bringing Aunt Jocasta with him to be her companion now that the honeymoon was over.
Kate was in the library, inspecting an old map which Martin had told her was an imaginary picture of the New World which was very far from the truth. ‘Quite useless if you wished to explore it without becoming lost,’ he had told her.
In one corner strange men, with their faces between their shoulders and wearing weird clothes made of leaves so that they looked like fledgling trees, were parading in single file. In another a little motto proclaimed Here be Dragons, which was a piece of nonsense, Martin had told her, because he had spoken to many men who had travelled in the Americas and none of them had ever seen a dragon, nor for that matter had they met people with their faces in the wrong place.
She was interrupted by the majestic entry of the steward. He had come to inform her that she had visitors.
‘It is m’lord Clifton and Mistress Jocasta. I have shown them to the withdrawing-room to await your arrival.’
Kate put the map down immediately. ‘I shall go there at once.’
The steward coughed, and looking down, said, ‘Your pardon, m’lady, but I would be greatly pleased if you would allow me to escort you to them and introduce you in due form.’
He was so apologetically wistful when he came out with this that Kate suddenly realised that Martin’s refusal to allow him to practise his trade properly, was making him profoundly unhappy.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Pray lead on.’
Proudly he raised his staff, and walking a few paces before her he led her to the withdrawing-room, where Lord Clifton and Aunt Jocasta rose on his entrance, bowing to Kate as his announcement of Lady Hadleigh’s arrival rang out with the pomp and ceremony which he was rarely allowed to muster.
Kate, repressing a tendency to giggle at his grandeur which, by its manner, undoubtedly impressed her visitors, welcomed them warmly.
‘I understand,’ Lord Clifton began, ‘that Lord Hadleigh is visiting the City today.’
‘Indeed, but I am only too delighted to entertain you both. I thank you for having had the goodness to accompany Aunt Jocasta on her journey here rather than leaving her to make it alone.’
‘Yes, your aunt thought that it was time that she took up her duties with you, and as I am leaving for the country in a few days I decided that I would wish to see you both before I did. I am sorry to have missed your husband.’
This was all so different from his behaviour when he had first met Martin that Kate had to repress another giggle, particularly when he added, ‘I am pleased to see you looking so well, niece. I must admit that your air of good health pleases me greatly, because when the new Lord Hadleigh arrived at Bretford House I began to worry somewhat about the wisdom of a match between you. Now, however, that I have come to know the details of his life during his exile, I do not regret allowing you to marry him. At the time, however, I considered whether, despite your—and my—legal obligations I ought to withdraw my consent to it. Fortunately, I allowed the marriage to continue.’
Not knowing quite what to say to this confession, Kate nodded at him, which was not very polite of her, but was better than saying something tactless.
His answer to that was, ‘I must, however, ask you this question. Are you happy with him, my dear?’
Kate could not truly offer him an unqualified yes. She was still aware that, for all his kindness and care for her, Martin was still withholding something of himself from her, so she said, quite simply, ‘We deal well together.’
This seemed to satisfy m’lord and Aunt Jocasta as well, if their smiles were to be believed. Indeed, Lord Clifton beamed at her. ‘Excellent, my dear, excellent. I must admit that since your wedding day I have been a little troubled about your welfare but, by your appearance, I see that I was wrong to worry.’
His care for her future welfare surprised Kate a little, and if she had ever believed that her uncle had never had any true feelings of affection for her, she now knew that behind his stiff and reserved manner he had always loved her and wished her well. Impulsively, and to his surprise, she kissed him on the cheek.
The rest of the visit passed happily except when her uncle said, with regret, that he had asked Martin’s father to accompany them, but he had refused, pleading old age. This was not the truth. He had snorted at Lord Clifton, ‘Visit Martin! Never! I hope never to have to see him again.’ He could, however, hardly tell Martin’s wife that.
Aunt Jocasta’s first remark when m’lord had gone was to ask Kate, in an apparently idle way, whether Jacko was still with them.
‘Indeed, he is,’ was Kate’s reply. ‘He has accompanied Martin to the Royal Exchange in Southwark this morning. Martin has promised to take me with him one day. He says that the shops there are even more splendid than those in Cheapside. You must come with me, Aunt. It seems that there are stalls where one may eat and drink.’
Her aunt sighed. ‘How strange it is that Martin continues his trade as a merchant, particularly since he has no need to work for a living now. He has inherited his late mother’s large dower, and I understand that he is already rich.’
‘He says that he likes working and that the Chancellors were not always grand people. His great-grandfather was a sheep farmer who made his money by trading with the Low Countries. When he grew rich enough to buy an estate and be granted a title, his first coat of arms had three sheep on it to remind everyone where the family’s wealth sprang from.’
‘There are no sheep on it now,’ was Aunt Jocasta’s reply to that.
‘True, that was because Martin’s grandfather was ashamed of his father’s origin and changed the sheep for an animal which looks like a cross between a cow and a griffin.’
Martin had told her that it was the usual thing for newly-made aristocrats to alter not only their arms, but also their names. ‘For example, the real name of the very rich Willoughbys of Wollaton in Nottinghamshire, was Bugge—which then meant bucket and signified that they were originally humble servants of a great man.’
The look of distress on Aunt Jocasta’s face when Kate informed her of this was a profound one because, like many, she believed that the gentry and aristocracy were the chosen of God who were thus different from all other men and women.
‘Even if what you say is true,’ she finally murmured, ‘it is best that it is not widely known, lest we lose the respect of our inferiors.’
Kate decided not to take Aunt Jocasta’s education in the realities of life any further. Instead, she accompanied her to her room, which her lady’s maid was making ready for her. She could not prevent herself from hoping that Aunt Jocasta’s presence would not interfere with the happy life which she was beginning to enjoy with Martin, but her aunt had nowhere else to go but the poorhouse, being the daughter of a gentleman of the Saville family who had gambled his property away and had then died, leaving her penniless. It was Kate’s Christian duty to look after her, since she had no other relations to turn to.
Her aunt happily settled, she returned to the library and, having looked her fill at the map, began to explore its shelves further. On one of them a commonplace book rested on top of a great pile of paper. She pulled it down and opened it to find that she was looking at the text of a play. What was most intriguing was that it was written in Martin’s careful and legible handwriting, which was greatly like that of a trained clerk. It was a talent of his which she found surprising, since it clashed with the notion that he was principally a man of action.
Kate was particularly intrigued when, on reading it, she discovered that the first scene took place on board ship in a storm—something which Martin must have experienced. When she turned the pages, however, and reached the second scene, she found that corrections and emendations had been made in another, less clerkly, hand.
Obviously someone else had read Martin’s play and had also slipped in a page of dialogue, with at the end of it, after the words ‘Note well’: ‘The action must continue at speed, not dally and delay.’
So Martin not only played the guitar and sang. He also wrote poetry, for she was sure that he had composed one of the bawdier songs which he had sung to her in the morning. Like many of those around the court he was engaged in letters and humane learning as well as in seamanship, and now, as she had lately discovered, in earning a living as a successful merchant. Raleigh, his friend, was yet another whose interests were wide.
And all this from a man whom his father despised.
Kate put the commonplace book down. She had learned many things from it, one, in particular. Her husband was an even more remarkable man than she had first thought him. So much so that his breach with his father and his family seemed more inexplicable than ever.