The Huntress: A Novel (Dark Queen) Read online

  Cat flushed hotly. Smoothing her hair back, she squared her shoulders. “I suppose Mistress Butterydoor has been talking to you.”

  “At great length,” Martin sighed. “Cat, I appreciate your zeal in wanting to protect Meg, but if you had any doubts about Aggie, you should have come to me. Do you really think I would not have thoroughly checked anyone I engaged to look after my daughter?”

  “I am sorry. I—I made a mistake. But the woman roused my suspicion by refusing to let me see her arm and all her strange talk about having been a seer of the dead.”

  “A seer?” Martin appeared puzzled, but then his brow cleared. “Oh, a searcher of the dead. Has Aggie been boasting about that again?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “The parishes of London regularly hire old women to examine corpses and report the cause of death. It’s a service no one else wants to perform for fear of contagion. The local officials don’t even particularly care how skilled or educated these searchers are. Poor and desperate seem to be the only requirements.”

  Cat nodded, but she was having difficulty focusing on what he was saying. She found herself distracted by the pearl that dangled from Martin’s left ear. A fashion that might have appeared effeminate on another man, but only offset Martin’s darkly masculine looks, giving him a piratical appearance.

  “…and I realize Agatha can be a cantankerous old wench. But she is devoted to Meg and she hasn’t exactly had the easiest life, beginning with the day she was born. She was abandoned by the buttery door of Christ’s Hospital.”

  Cat blinked, dragging her fascinated gaze from the earring. “Oh. Buttery door. That would explain the oddity of her name.”

  “Charity institutions don’t show a great deal of imagination when naming orphans.”

  “So that would mean what? That you were found amidst a pack of wolves?”

  He laughed. “No, the priest who baptized me didn’t trouble to give me a surname. I was merely christened Martin after the saint. When I was old enough, I dubbed myself le Loup, and as soon as the good fathers realized there was more of the wolf than the saint about me, they were glad to see the back of me. The streets of Paris became my home.”

  Cat had thought parts of her own childhood unbearable, but at least she’d had the memory of her father, of being part of the Clan O’Hanlon. She could not imagine what it must have been like for Martin growing up alone, no claim to any kin.

  “That—that must have been a very perilous existence,” Cat observed almost shyly.

  “I survived. But perhaps that is why I feel a certain kinship with Mistress Butterydoor. Both of us orphans, never knowing any father or mother.”

  “It is possible to feel orphaned and still have a mother—” Cat broke off uncomfortably.

  “Your mother is still living?” Martin asked so gently that Cat nodded.

  “But like your priests, my mother was quite happy to be shed of me. I think she wished I had never been born.” Cat attempted to shrug as though it were of no great matter. Once more she had been beguiled into revealing too much of herself. She was relieved when the door to the kitchen flew open and Meg burst out into the garden.

  Meg lifted the hem of her gown and raced breathlessly to her father. “Papa! You are still here. I was afraid I had missed you and I so wanted to see you in your new clothes before you left for the banquet.”

  Martin grinned and turned about for his daughter’s benefit.

  Meg clapped her hands together with a delighted sigh. She started to touch the hem of his cloak only to draw back as though fearful of marring his finery.

  “Oh, you look so handsome and—and very grand.”

  “Humph! I’d rather be in rags if the prettiest girl in England refuses to embrace her poor old father for fear of creasing his doublet.”

  He bent down to her level, holding wide his arms.

  “Papa! What nonsense you talk,” Meg said, but she dimpled and flung her arms about his neck.

  Martin’s roguish gaze softened as he kissed his daughter’s cheek. Meg’s eyes glowing with adoration, her grave face transformed until she truly was pretty.

  Watching the two of them, Cat shifted her feet awkwardly, feeling like an intruder and at the same time oddly wistful.

  Meg drew back, smoothing out his sleeve and giving it a small pat. “So you are off to dine with Lord Oxbridge. And the queen—she will be there?”

  “So I am told.”

  “The queen?” Cat let out a low whistle of surprise. “You are after keeping some grand company, Master Wolfe.”

  Her wariness of Cat momentarily forgotten, Meg beamed up at her. “My father has many important friends, particularly the Baron of Oxbridge, who is greatly indebted to him. Papa saved the life of his lordship’s sister, Lady Danvers. He is quite the hero.”

  “Now who is talking nonsense?” Martin playfully pinched his daughter’s nose.

  Meg made an impish face at him, then rushed on, “When you return, you must tell me everything about the queen. What her gown and jewels were like, what she eats, what she says to you, and—”

  Martin interrupted her with a laugh. “Despite your exalted opinion of your father, I will be of little significance among such noble company. I will be seated well below the salt and go quite unnoticed by the queen or anyone else.”

  Cat doubted that. She could not imagine Martin le Loup ever going unnoticed anywhere, but Meg looked crestfallen for a moment. She angled a speculative glance at her father.

  “Well, I have been thinking…”

  “That sounds dangerous,” Martin teased.

  Meg gave him a dignified frown and continued. “Why could I not see the queen for myself? Agatha could take me down by the river so I could see her barge arriving and—.”

  But Martin was already shaking his head. “No, mon ange. We’ve already discussed this. There will be no more of these jaunts about town with Agatha, especially not in light of the Lady of Faire Isle’s warnings.”

  “I suppose she might come and bring her sword.” Meg stole a shy glance at Cat. “Being a visitor to London, I daresay Mistress O’Hanlon would like to see the queen as well.”

  “I daresay she wouldn’t,” Cat said. “I’d hardly risk taking you abroad with night about to fall just to catch a glimpse of that Tudor she-devil.”

  Meg gave an affronted gasp. “That is no way to speak of your sovereign queen.”

  “Yours perhaps, but not mine, sweetling. Elizabeth and her cursed governors have inflicted nothing but misery upon my country, thieving, burning, and killing.”

  “Well, the queen would not have to be so harsh if—if you Irish were not always rebelling.”

  “Ah, so it is rebellion now to try to protect your home from invasion and hold onto what is yours?”

  Meg compressed her lips, clearly having no answer for that. “Very well. Don’t come then if you feel that way. I am sure Aggie would not wish to have you along, anyway.” Turning her back on Cat, she appealed to her father, “I am sure Aggie and I would be safe enough if—.”

  “No, Meg,” Martin said. “Cat is right. You should not be leaving the house this near to nightfall. You may see the queen another time.”

  “You have been promising me that ever and forever!” Meg cried. “I don’t see why I can’t—”

  “Because I said no, Margaret, and there’s an end to the matter.”

  Cat doubted that Martin had ever spoken so sternly or refused his daughter anything. Meg looked stricken, her lower lip quivering. She spun on her heel and dashed toward the house.

  Martin made no effort to stop her, but he vented a regretful sigh as Meg vanished inside.

  “I am sorry,” Cat said. “I didn’t mean to upset Meg, but it is nigh impossible for me to hold my tongue whenever that Tudor woman’s name is spoken.”

  “It is all right. I understand, and it is more my fault than yours. For some reason, the child has conceived a strange fascination with the queen of England. I did promise Meg that somehow
I would arrange for her to see Elizabeth. But it is a promise I never should have given. I don’t want Margaret to draw any undue attention to herself until—until—”

  “You have succeeded in burying her past and turning her into a proper Englishwoman? You seem well on the way to achieving that.”

  Martin must have sensed the disapproval in her voice. He stiffened. “Meg has always been more English than French. She spent the first five years of her childhood in a cottage near the sea in Dover. She still speaks of it. I believe that despite her mother, Meg was happier during those days than—” Martin paused, then finished bleakly. “Than she is here with me. My little girl really doesn’t care much for city life.”

  That would be the daughter of the earth in her, Cat thought, but she wisely kept the observation to herself.

  “Someday if all goes well, I mean to buy a small parcel of land and a manor somewhere along the southern coast,” Martin said, a hard determined light in his eyes. “But my fortunes may well be lost on the tide if I don’t hie me off to Strand House and be about my business.”

  “Business?” Cat’s gaze drifted over his finery. “You look more like a man about to go a-wooing.”

  It was none of her concern, but she couldn’t refrain from asking, “So, is she very fair? This Lady Jane Danvers who fancies you such a hero?”

  “Oh, quite fair, hair like goldenrod, the eyes of a dove, but as to my being her hero…” Martin’s lips twisted wryly. “I fear that I rescued the lady as much for my daughter’s sake as her own.”

  When Cat gave him a puzzled look, he explained, “Jane Danvers fell off her brother’s barge into the river. Meg and I were passing by in a wherry at the time and you cannot imagine the horror in my daughter’s eyes. That is how Meg’s mother died, drowning in the Seine.”

  “I know. Ariane told me.”

  “And Meg witnessed it. She used to have such terrible nightmares about Cassandra’s death. Watching Lady Danvers drown would have been more than Meg could bear. So I was obliged to rescue the lady.”

  “And if Meg had not been there, you would have let Lady Danvers drown,” Cat challenged.

  “The Thames is full of currents and can be very treacherous. I don’t know if I would have taken the risk.”

  “I do. You strike me as exactly the sort of chivalrous fool unable to resist a damsel in distress. I am sure this Lady Danvers must be brimming over with gratitude, ready to fall into your arms.”

  “Hardly. She is a gentle and noble lady, as far above me as the stars in the heaven.” Whether the man realized it or not, his voice took on a softer note as he spoke of the lady.

  Mother Earth defend him, Cat thought. Martin had found himself another Miri Cheney and would likely end with his heart just as broken. The sisters of barons were not noted for surrendering their hands to nameless rogues, no matter how handsome.

  Arching one brow, Martin regarded her quizzically. “You, of course, would never have need of being rescued.”

  “Hah. I’d be more likely to have to rescue you. I prefer to fight my own battles,” Cat grimaced. “And speaking of which, I suppose I’d best hie myself off to the kitchen lest I end up being served roast toad for my supper.”

  As Cat headed for the house, Martin fell into step beside her. “I suspect that my household has been giving you a difficult time. I will speak to them all again, making it clear to everyone, including Meg, that when I am absent, your authority is absolute. Anyone questioning your orders will answer to me.”

  “That will really endear me to everyone. I’d prefer to handle things my own way, but I promise I’ll do it without breaking heads. And as for Meg, she will be safe while you are gone, so don’t worry.”

  “Strangely enough, I am not. For some reason I can’t begin to fathom, you inspire confidence, Catriona O’Hanlon.” He stopped just short of the kitchen door and gazed at her, his eyes warming.

  He took her hand. Cat was so surprised by the unexpected gesture she let him.

  “I know nothing of your mother, so I can’t presume to speak of her feelings. But as for myself, I am glad that you are here.”

  Damned if the man didn’t sound as though he meant it. Perhaps that was why Cat was unable to snatch her fingers away. He carried her hand to his lips, saluting it as though she were some great lady and not a dispossessed Irishwoman in a worn frock.

  The brush of his lips was light, but her skin tingled. He flashed her a smile that set her heart to racing.

  Cat was disconcerted to realize she was blushing. Ah, the rogue had charm in abundance, she was obliged to concede that much. If he smiled at his Lady Danvers in that way, belike he would win the woman’s heart.

  This was nothing in the least to do with her, Cat told herself fiercely. But she was hard-pressed to explain why the thought gave her such a pang.

  Chapter Seven

  MARTIN LEANED BACK IN THE BOAT, WHILE THE WHERRY-MAN plied his oars, cutting through the murky waters of the Thames. The river was by far the fastest way of moving through the city, the streets too dirty and narrow, jammed with carts, horses, and pedestrians.

  But tonight the Thames was heavy with traffic, the river teeming with boats and barges sporting their square sails. Even at this hour, the docks were a forest of masts, cargo still being unloaded—wine, timber, herring, and wool. The evening reverberated with the sound of rough English voices, laughing, swearing, singing, and arguing, and the perpetual cries of the boatmen soliciting customers.

  “Westward ho! Eastward ho!”

  The bustle, the noise, and the dank smell of river life were all familiar to Martin from the days of his youth. If he closed his eyes he could almost imagine himself back on the banks of the Seine. Londoners were a hardheaded, insular lot, contentious and suspicious of any foreigners, which meant anyone who hadn’t been born in the city. Although Martin did not despise the English as much as Cat did, he missed the lyrical voices of his own countrymen, the fine wine to be had in the taverns, the passion and verve for life that was Paris.

  He was seized by a rare sense of longing for his native soil and did his best to shake it off. Shielding his eyes from the last glare of sunset, he watched the rays streak the water with a red glow, as fiery as Catriona O’Hanlon’s hair.

  An involuntary smile touched his lips at the thought of the fierce Irishwoman. Despite his final stern admonitions to his servants regarding Cat, he had sensed their simmering resentment. But he had no doubt Cat would be able to hold her own, and more important, she would keep Meg safe.

  A comforting thought, the only one that gave him any ease of mind about this evening. He tensed as the boat neared that part of the city where palatial houses loomed above the Thames, their lawns and gardens stretching down to the water. The kind of grand homes where Martin would not even have been able to press his nose against the windowpanes during his youth, for fear of having the dogs set upon him.

  He had risen far in the world to be attending a banquet at Strand House as an invited guest. But the satisfaction that he should have felt was marred by the sobering realization of his true purpose tonight, not as a guest, but as Walsingham’s spy.

  There was to be a fine supper, music, dancing, a play presented by the Crown Theatre’s company, and fireworks, all in honor of the queen. Ned Lambert had gone to no little expense, arranging all of this entertainment, but Martin would be able to enjoy none of it.

  He would spend the evening on tenterhooks, feeling like a treacherous bastard himself as he awaited his opportunity to steal away from the festivities and search the house. But search for what? Evidence of treason that he was certain was not there to be found.

  He wondered, in frustration, how he could ever convince Walsingham that Lord Oxbridge had no part in any of these plots swirling about Queen Elizabeth. It was so much easier to offer proof of a man’s guilt than his innocence.

  Resting his elbow upon his knee, Martin propped his chin glumly on his hand as the boatmen steered the wherry toward the landing be
low Strand House. It was a massive stone manor with a wealth of diamond-paned windows. Windows that appeared, for the most part, strangely dark for a house hosting a vast gathering. Nor did there appear to be much activity along the path or in the gardens leading up to the manor.

  Martin frowned, sitting bolt upright. He feared he might be a trifle late, but there should have been some sign of other guests arriving. As he gazed up at the silent house, his gut clenched with the sense that something was very wrong.

  He scarce gave the boatman time to make the dock before climbing out of the wherry. Tossing a coin to the man, Martin headed away from the landing. The shrubs, the towering oak trees, and the tidy borders of the elaborate knot garden were lost in shadow as darkness descended.

  But a torch flickered on the path ahead. A small group of men marched down from the house. Martin stepped beneath the shelter of a tree until he ascertained who they were. Their modest attire along with the viols and lutes they toted marked them as the musicians engaged to play for the fete. They were closely followed by a young lady in a silk gown draped over a farthingale.

  No, not a lady. Martin recognized the familiar boyish stride of Alexander Naismith, the youthful actor who assumed the role of the female leads at the Crown. As he came down the path, Alexander hiked up his skirts, revealing the breeches he wore beneath.

  As the musicians streamed past Martin’s place of concealment, he stepped out of the shadows and caught Alexander by the arm. The boy started a little at Martin’s sudden appearance.

  “Master Wolfe.”

  “What’s amiss, Sander? What’s happened?”

  “Not our performance, that’s for certain,” the boy replied in disgruntled tones. Although nearly sixteen, his face was still smooth from lack of beard and his voice had a high pitch. His heavily rouged cheeks looked even more garish as he stripped off his black curling wig.

  Sander’s own chin-length blond hair had been pinned up out of the way, revealing an ugly stump where his left ear should have been. The boy was usually self-conscious about the deformity, taking great pains to conceal it, but at the moment he seemed too vexed to care.