Face Down under the Wych Elm (4 page)

The oldest scholar was Lady Appleton's goddaughter and had been named for her. She was not yet seven years old.

"Have you the answer, Susan?” Lady Appleton asked, using the ekename the younger Susanna preferred.

Susan's mother, Jennet Jaffrey, hearing the question as she passed by the open door, paused to listen for the answer. Some had criticized Leigh Abbey's housekeeper for eavesdropping on other people's conversations, but Jennet justified her habit by arguing that it was helpful for those in charge to know what went on behind their backs. Besides, she could see no wrong in observing the children's lessons when three of the four youngsters were her own offspring.

Jennet peered around the jamb. Susan was chewing on her lower lip in concentration, a habit she'd copied from her mother, as she stared at the numbers she'd inscribed on a pair of tables. Those wax tablets, bound in pairs to protect their faces, were one of the child's most treasured possessions.

Just as Susan was about to reply, Rosamond thrust her slate under Lady Appleton's nose in a demand for attention. She was too young yet to handle the stylus used for writing on wax, let alone write on paper or wield a knife to sharpen a quill.

Jennet's son, the youngest of her brood, imitated Rosamond's action, though he had written nothing at all on his slate. Two months older than Rosamond, he was the little girl's shadow.

Jennet pursed her lips, struggling to conquer her ill will toward the child, no easy task when Rosamond resembled her deceased father more each day. She had his looks—the narrow face and high forehead, the dark brown, wavy hair, the deep brown eyes—though in Rosamond they combined to make her a pretty child. She also had Sir Robert Appleton's arrogance. And his temper.

The little mistress, as the servants were wont to call her, had been taken in at Leigh Abbey by her father's widow when she was two. After another two years with Lady Appleton, she scarce remembered her real mother. It was Susanna Appleton she called Mama, not Eleanor Lowell.

To her credit, Lady Appleton tried not to spoil the child. She dressed her simply, in much the same sort of clothing worn by Jennet's two daughters.

What worried Jennet was the way her son deferred to Rosamond in everything, even accepting a new name from her. She'd dubbed him Sir Mole during one of their games, for the pale, mole-brown color of his hair, and now he would answer to nothing else.

Jennet had considered asking Lady Appleton to intervene and insist he be called Rob, but no one liked to remind the mistress that the boy had been her late husband's godson and namesake. Mole had stuck.

Lady Appleton praised Susan's work and checked Rosamond's sums and set Rob back to work on his ciphering. Rosamond snickered. In response, the boy gazed at her with a pup's adoration. He did not seem to care that she was better than he was at arithmetic.

Jennet sighed, impatient for the day when her son would turn six and could be put in breeches and sent to the village school. He'd learn far more with other lads.

"Ka-a-a-te!"

Susan's wail of protest jerked Jennet's attention away from her son. She was in time to see one daughter drop her stylus and attempt to box the other's oversized ears.

Like the mole-colored hair, those ears were the children's common legacy from their father. In every other way, five-and-a-half-year-old Kate differed from her siblings. She was outgoing where they were quiet. Unable to sit still for more than a quarter of an hour. Now she danced out of Susan's reach, into the sunbeams streaming in through the east-facing window, laughing in delight. Lady Appleton's soft-spoken words of reproof made no dent in her mischievous grin.

It grew broader still when the infection spread to the other children. Rob tried manfully to suppress his giggles, but Rosamond did not even make the attempt.

"Enough,” Lady Appleton declared when all four children dissolved into laughter. “Go your ways. There will be no more lessons today."

But she called Rosamond back as the others left the room. Jennet remained where she was, just on the far side of the open door. She had a clear view of the two people standing in front of the huge
mappa mundi
hung on one paneled wall.

"I did not do it, Mama,” Rosamond said.

Lady Appleton lifted one brow but let the child's comment pass unremarked.

Rosamond had always done something, Jennet thought, but it was second nature to her to deny any accusation.

She was her father's child.

"I am going away for a little while, Rosamond,” Lady Appleton said. “I want you to promise me you'll be a good girl while I'm gone."

Unaware that any trip had been planned, Jennet moved into the study, coming to a halt just inside the heavy oak door. She kept one hand on the huge ring of keys suspended from her waist. They were the symbol of her position in the household and opened everything from the spice chest to Lady Appleton's stillroom but they had an annoying tendency to jangle at inopportune moments.

"I will go with you,” Rosamond declared.

"Not this time."

"Why not?"

Lady Appleton hesitated. “There is no need to disrupt your routine, Rosamond. I will be gone less than a fortnight."

"But I want to go with you.” Rosamond's lower lip slid forward into a pout and she crossed her arms across her chest.

Foot stamping would come next. If Jennet had been able to place a wager on this, she'd have won. Lady Appleton tried to reason with the child first, a futile effort. Their discussion ended with Rosamond in tears and Lady Appleton obliged to play the heavy-handed parent. She sent for the nursery maid to carry Mistress Rosamond, kicking and screaming, to confinement in her bedchamber.

Only after the child's outraged cries faded into the distance, did Jennet speak. “It appears, madam, that she does not want you to go."

As Lady Appleton had long since accepted that Jennet overheard things—in truth, that ability had proven most useful to her in the past—she did not comment on her housekeeper's knowledge of what had just transpired. Instead she asked, “Do you suppose she thinks I mean to desert her?"

"You have left Leigh Abbey ere now and always returned."

"Only a handful of times since she came to live with me and only twice have I left her behind.” She sat at her writing table to sort through the papers piled there.

Jennet picked up several abandoned slates and stacked them atop a table already heavy-laden with leather-bound volumes. “You are not Lady Pendennis."

There was no reason to mince words. Rosamond's real mother had left the little girl to be fostered at Leigh Abbey in order to travel abroad with her new husband. They'd gone first to Poland, to the court of Sigismund Augustus, as representatives of Queen Elizabeth. Now they were in Sweden and showed no inclination to return to England.

"No, I am not Eleanor,” Lady Appleton agreed. “But does Rosamond understand that?"

"Where are you going that you cannot take her with you?” Jennet asked.

"To Maidstone."

"For the Assizes?” Jennet brightened, remembering something a passing chapman had told her.

"I wish to spend some time in Nick Baldwin's company before he leaves England for an extended stay abroad.” Lady Appleton's words were blunt, her meaning clear. “He has gone to stay in his town house in Maidstone.” She rearranged the contents of her penner, straightening a goose-quill pen already shaved of feathers.

Shaken by the notion that her mistress would openly consort with a man, and a mere merchant at that, Jennet found herself at an uncharacteristic loss for words.

"I would like you to accompany me there, Jennet.” Lady Appleton closed the fancy leather case with a snap. “We will endeavor to give every appearance of propriety while we are together in Maidstone."

"Are you sure that is possible, madam? I have heard that Maidstone is a most self-righteous place. In the spring, the corporation ordered the maypole removed, and ‘tis said they frown on dicing and card playing in the taverns."

With any other employer, even an upper-level servant who so far forgot her place would have been sent packing, but Jennet had been with Lady Appleton for far too long to fear reprisals.

"We have no plans to play cards."

"Madam, think of your reputation. Your good name."

"How times have changed.” There was more amusement than annoyance in Lady Appleton's voice. “Before you married Mark, I had similar fears for your virtue."

"I wed Mark before I let him bed me."

With startling abruptness, Lady Appleton's face lost its smile. She rose from her chair in a rush, towering over Jennet, who was only of middling height for a woman. Tight-lipped, she began to pace, passing the cold hearth with its marble chimneypiece, pausing before the small, carpet-draped table that held Venetian glass goblets and a crystal flagon of Rhenish wine, but then moving on, empty-handed, to the window seat. There she seized up a cushion and hugged it to her chest while she stood with her back to Jennet and stared out at the fields and orchards.

"Nick asked me to marry him. I said no."

"But if you—"

"You know my feelings on marriage, at least for myself."

"Better to marry than to become a mistress. What if you—"

Jennet broke off when Lady Appleton tossed aside the cushion and whirled about to face her. Eyes snapping in vexation, she was a daunting sight.

"Leave sermons to the vicar, Jennet. I mean to go to Maidstone and stay in Nick's house. The only matter open to question is whether you will accompany me."

Unable to hide how troubled she was by their exchange, Jennet's answer came out sounding stiff with disapproval. “I am yours to command, madam."

Lady Appleton hesitated. For just a moment, she seemed to waver. Then she straightened her shoulders and dismissed Jennet with a curt nod. “Good. See to the packing, then. We leave on Monday."

In the fashion made popular by the queens of France and England, Susanna rode her own horse using a sidesaddle. Her mare was sweet-tempered. The weather was perfect for travel. She could wish for nothing else to make the day perfect ... except Jennet's approval.

Susanna regretted her sharp words to her housekeeper and the strained relations between them since that day. From the time Jennet had become Susanna's tiring maid, when Susanna was nineteen and Jennet only a bit more than three years younger, a bond had existed between the two women. By the time Jennet married Mark Jaffrey and assumed the post of housekeeper, she had also become Susanna's close companion and confidante.

Jennet would come around, Susanna assured herself. Indeed, the fact that she was just behind, perched on a pillion attached to the back of Lionel's saddle, seemed a favorable sign. Jennet could easily have made an excuse to remain at Leigh Abbey—her duties as housekeeper, the children, the fact that she abhorred riding. Susanna always felt a little guilty that she took so much pleasure in travel when it was abundantly clear that Jennet did not enjoy anything about it.

In spite of Jennet's air of martyrdom, Susanna reveled in the journey to Maidstone. They entered the town near dusk and rode down the High Street in the direction of the river crossing. Following Nick's directions, they turned south just before they reached the stone bridge, passing by the archbishop of Canterbury's palace and the parish church of All Saints. Both buildings showed their most opulent faces to traffic on the Medway, in effect turning their backs on the town.

Nick's house lay just beyond the church in part of what had once been a college of secular canons. At the dissolution of the monasteries, the buildings had passed into private hands. The resultant dwelling was small but pleasant and had the advantage of possessing its own stable and a minuscule garden.

To Susanna's disappointment, Nick was out when they arrived, but his man Simon was waiting for them and eager to show Susanna to the elegantly appointed room that would be hers for her visit. The garden lay just beneath her window. She could not see much of it in the rapidly falling darkness, but when she inhaled deeply she drew in the scents of roses, at least two separate varieties, and catmint, and honeysuckle, though it was late in the year for that.

She turned at the sound of someone entering the room behind her and smiled when she saw it was Nick. Before he could do more than grin back at her, Jennet came bustling in, a bounce in her step and a determined look on her face. She was followed by Susanna's henchmen, Lionel and Fulke, and two of Nick's servants, bringing with them a modest repast of cold meats and fruit for their supper. Nick's servants left once the meal had been set out.

Susanna's did not.

Resigned to their company for at least a little longer, Susanna dipped her hands into the bowl of scented water Jennet thrust toward her and washed her hands.

"We can serve ourselves,” Nick told Lionel, who was second gardener at Leigh Abbey but often took on additional duties when his mistress traveled.

Even as a boy, he'd towered over Jennet. Now that he'd grown into his body, he was a formidable figure, lean and well muscled, with an air of confidence unusual in a servant. He was also, Susanna realized with a sense of surprise, quite a handsome young man, with sparkling hazel eyes and a cleft in his chin. He'd be breaking hearts all over Maidstone if they remained here long.

"Are you certain you need nothing more, madam?” Jennet asked.

An awkward silence fell. Fulke, Susanna's second manservant, a strapping, ruddy, rough-skinned fellow some two years Lionel's senior, grew even more red-cheeked than usual and avoided meeting her eyes.

Susanna cleared her throat. “We have had a long and tiring journey. I give you all leave to seek your beds. You, too, Jennet."

If all went well, Nick would provide the services usually performed by a tiring maid.

He opened the door and stood by it, waiting for the three of them to go.

A worried look on her face, Jennet followed Fulke and Lionel out. Then Nick dropped the bar into place to keep intruders out and Susanna forgot all about Jennet and Fulke and Lionel. For the rest of the night, every thought centered on her lover.