Murder at Fontainebleau (13 page)

E
arly the next morning, knowing she would never be able to truly sleep, Kate sent a note to Queen Mary's rooms, asking if she could bring her some of Queen Elizabeth's favorite songs as a distraction. While she waited for a reply, she dressed and made her way to Lady Barnett's chamber, her lute in one hand and Amelia's fur muff, wrapped carefully in linen, in the other. She thought perhaps Lady Barnett would wish to have it back. Or perhaps she would not, now that it was associated with such sadness.

Mistress Berry had sent a message asking if Kate would play for Lady Barnett, to help soothe her spirits, and Kate found she would welcome the distraction herself. She had snatched only a few moments of sleep after crawling into her borrowed bed. The images of Amelia Wrightsman, her white face and staring eyes, her water-soaked white gown, haunted every dream.

Just before dawn, a vivid nightmare of Amelia rising from the water and pointing an accusing, bloodstained
finger at her made her jolt awake, crying out. She couldn't sleep again.

She had stirred up the fire and huddled by its budding warmth as she went over and over all that had happened. She remembered Amelia's laughter on their long journey to France, her charm, the way she drew everyone close to her, especially men like Toby and Monsieur d'Emours. Her anger and sadness in unguarded moments; the secrets she held in her eyes.

To distract herself, Kate opened the herbal book Mistress Berry had loaned her, hoping to lose herself in recipes for syrups and scents. She hoped that in looking at sketches of plants she might remember something else.

By the time the maidservant arrived to bring Kate's morning bread and ale and help her dress, Kate's head whirled with sadness and fury as she tried to make sense of it all. But the maid had chatted about what was happening at court in the next few days, and hunts and masques. And the crowds Kate passed on her way to visit Lady Barnett also seemed to be in a different world than the sad one in which Amelia lay mysteriously dead. There were the same smiles and light words as always. She did not see Monsieur d'Emours and his Guise relations anywhere, nor did she see Lord James and the Scots, or Celeste Renard.

The corridor leading to the Barnetts' apartment, was silent and empty. Kate knocked softly at the door, feeling choked with sadness and uncertainty.

Mistress Berry opened the door. She was as tidy and
neat as always, her graying hair tucked beneath a snow-white cap, in her hand a small tray that held a variety of bottles and pots. An apron covered her black skirts. But her bright blue eyes were rimmed with red and heavy with tiredness.

“Ah, Mistress Haywood, thank you for coming. I know the hour is early, and not one of us here has had an instant of rest.” She ushered Kate into the sitting room, which was empty and darkened.

“How fares Lady Barnett?” Kate asked quietly.

“She has calmed a bit after I gave her some of my valerian mixture in a bit of wine, but she won't eat a morsel. Sir Henry left early this morning to confer some more with Sir Nicholas. Perhaps a song could soothe her.”

Kate nodded and followed Mistress Berry into the bedchamber. The embroidered velvet draperies were drawn over the windows, leaving only the light from the fireplace. Lady Barnett was a small figure huddled in the middle of the large bed, the coverlets drawn around her. She lay on her side, staring with wide eyes into the fire, one hand clutching at the edge of her pillow.

“Mistress Haywood has come to call on you, Jane,” Mistress Berry said, tucking a shawl closer around Lady Barnett's shoulders. “She will play the lute for you—you do so enjoy her songs, I know. She'll stay with you while I fetch some bread and soup for your breakfast.”

Lady Barnett slowly turned her head to look at Kate, her pretty blue eyes blank for a moment. She bit her lip
and nodded before she aimed her stare back at the flickering flames.

“I will return anon, Mistress Haywood,” Mistress Berry whispered. “If she needs it, mix a spoonful of the herbs in that box into some wine for her to sip.”

Kate nodded and watched as Mistress Berry swept out of the room, the hem of her black skirts whispering over the rushes of the floor. Kate sat down on the stool across from the bed, tucking the parcel of Amelia's mud-stained muff beneath her and setting her lute on her knees. She started to play a soft, simple tune as she studied Lady Barnett. The woman did not stir or say anything, but her eyes grew damp with tears.

Kate swallowed her own threatening sobs and played on, finding comfort in the oft-repeated notes, the way the music slowly wrapped around her like a warm, familiar touch.

“What did she look like when you found her—my Amelia?” Lady Barnett suddenly asked. She didn't turn away from the fire and her voice sounded distant, impersonal, as if she asked the plot of a masque.

“She looked . . .” Kate shook her head as she remembered Amelia's pale face in the moonlight, her wide-open eyes and purplish lips. Her father had looked peaceful when he died, as if he had fallen asleep and drifted away to be with her mother again, but most of the times she had seen death they did not. Rob's uncle at Hatfield, her friend Mary at Westminster. It had been fearful.

“It is quite all right, Mistress Haywood,” Lady Barnett said. She turned her head on the pillow to look at Kate, her expression serious but composed. She looked much like her niece. “I am sure it could not have been tranquil.”

Kate's fingers stilled on the lute strings. She took out the linen-wrapped muff and held it out to Lady Barnett. “I found this at the edge of the pond. I know it was Mistress Wrightsman's.”

Lady Barnett took it from her and slowly unwrapped it. She gave a small sob and then fell silent, stroking the fur. “I gave her this and a matching hood for New Year's. How she loved it!” She laid it down carefully on the pillow beside hers. “I was never blessed with my own children, so when Amelia came to us when she was a girl, it was as if I had a daughter at last. Her mother, my sister, was taken much too soon, and I saw her in Amelia. Her eyes, her laugh. The way people were just drawn to her.”

“I am so very sorry, Lady Barnett,” Kate said gently. “I do fear that when I found the muff, the jeweled brooch was gone.”

A frown whispered over Lady Barnett's brow. “Brooch?”

Kate wondered if she had imagined the jewel when she saw it with Amelia at the party, but nay, it was clear in her memory. A rampant lion, like the ones on the Guise coat of arms, formed in diamonds. “Where the fur is torn there along the back. I glimpsed it when I arrived at the pavilion last night and Mistress Wrightsman greeted me. It was most lovely.”

Lady Barnett turned the muff over and examined the tear. “I do not know what she could have put there. Was it an emblem of some sort? A design?”

Of course Kate remembered what it was. Yet something held her back from telling Lady Barnett. She didn't want to grieve the lady even more by reminding her of her niece's once-scandalous behavior with d'Emours. “I could not tell. Perhaps it was something from the Barnetts?”

Lady Barnett gave a rusty laugh. “Nay, not my husband's family. I was a De la Chose through my grandmother, as was Amelia's mother, but our family has not the money for such a jewel, even if our name is an ancient one indeed. Much older than the Barnetts'.” Reminiscing seemed to give her new energy, and she pushed herself up to sit against the pillows. “Our forefathers came to England with William the Conquerer, and our grandmother was also French, an Orieux. I never knew her, though they say she was very beautiful. Like Amelia. She was the reason why we came to the French court in the first place. French families are indeed fond of such devices, though I do not know where Amelia would have found such a thing. No doubt one of her admirers gave it to her. She had so many!”

“Was there one in particular she favored? An imminent betrothal?”

Lady Barnett shrugged. “There were some who had approached my husband, such as Master Ridley, but
Amelia had not made up her mind. She deserved so much, with her beauty and wit. Mayhap even a title!” She suddenly frowned. “Master Ridley seems a good man, but men have been moved to great anger before when ladies turned away their suits.”

Kate thought of Queen Mary's accusations, her finger pointed at Toby. “I am sure Master Ridley would not have hurt Mistress Wrightsman. It must have been a terrible accident.”

“So my husband says,” Lady Barnett spat out. “He says I must be content it was so, for all our sakes. But I see her when I close my eyes. She calls out to me. . . .”

Lady Barnett's face crumpled, and tears spilled from her eyes. Kate quickly laid aside her lute and knelt beside the bed. She took the lady's hand in hers and found it icy-cold.

“If someone did indeed hurt Mistress Wrightsman, they will be found out—I promise,” Kate said.

“Nay, my husband is right. France is a dangerous place. No one knows which way their alliances will fall, where fighting will break out next. Without the goodwill of Queen Catherine and Queen Mary, England would be in much trouble here. We must call no attention to ourselves, not now. But, oh! My poor Amelia!”

Kate's heart ached for the woman, for her own helplessness in the face of such deep sadness. “Shall I fetch you some wine, Lady Barnett?”

“It makes me feel so tired, so confused. But if it can make me forget for a moment . . .”

Kate nodded and rose from beside the bed. She had just mixed up the powdered herbal potion from Mistress Berry's box when that lady returned. The sweet scent of the herbs, chamomile, and something darker, greener, just beneath, still lingered in the air, and a few long sips of the concoction did seem to help settle Lady Barnett. Mistress Berry laid her tray of bread and cheese on the bedside table and coaxed Lady Barnett to take a few bites before she fell asleep.

“Did she fare well enough while I was gone?” Mistress Berry asked as she shook out another blanket to lie across the bed.

“Well enough. We talked a bit.” Kate thought of Lady Barnett's French family, and Amelia and her suitors. “Did you happen to come to France with Lady Barnett long ago? She mentioned a French grandmother Mistress Wrightsman resembled.”

Mistress Berry gave a faint smile and busily rearranged the barely touched breakfast tray. “I did, but my experience as a young lady at the French court was rather different from Jane's. Or Amelia's, I would wager. I had little dowry, and not as much beauty. And that was a very long time ago. I am sure it could have naught to do with last night's sad events.”

Could it not? One thing Kate had learned at Elizabeth's court was that the past was always nearby. Old slights and crimes, old loves, they were always lurking, ready to roar back into the present.

There was a knock at the door, and Mistress Berry
opened it to admit a servant in Queen Mary's black-and-white livery.

“Her Majesty Queen Mary asks if Mademoiselle Haywood could attend to her anon,” he said with a bow. “And bring her music.”

Mistress Berry glanced at Kate with narrowed eyes. “A royal summons, Mistress Haywood. You must attend at once, I am sure.”

Kate nodded. She looked to Lady Barnett, who still slept, her dreams seemingly peaceful for the moment. There was naught left she could do there.

She followed the queen's servant out of the room and down the corridor toward the royal apartments, the sweet scent of green herbs clinging to her skirts.

 • • • 

Queen Mary's chambers were in a wing of the château far from the English apartments, and looked out from the windows onto long manicured garden beds and straight graveled pathways dotted with marble statues of gods and goddesses and tiny cupids, their arrows pointed at the gray sky. Behind the thick glass, Kate glimpsed a distant vision of the carp pond and the pavilion at its edge.

It looked placid and peaceful, abandoned, in the wintry light.

The room was crowded with the queen's ladies seated on velvet cushions and low footstools near the fireplaces, their silken skirts spread out around them like flowers. They laughed over their embroidery or
books of poetry, dogs scurrying between them, a parrot in its gilded cage by the window chattering and squawking.

Queen Mary herself sat by the farthest fireplace. Her auburn head was bent over an embroidery frame, her own pack of tiny white dogs gathered at her feet, almost invisible against the creamy silk of her gown. She laughed at something the lady beside her had whispered, her heart-shaped face alight.

The atmosphere in the chamber was calm, bright. After the heavy sorrow of Lady Barnett's room, it was most disconcerting.

Queen Mary glanced up and saw Kate hovering in the doorway, uncertain how to proceed. Her smile turned gentle and she held out her hand. “Mademoiselle Haywood. Welcome. Do come and sit over here, where it is warm. I was glad to get your message this morning, and to see that you have brought your lute. We could all use the cheerful distraction of music today, I do think.”

There was no trace of last night's icy anger in Queen Mary's smile. She was changeable, as hard to read as her cousin Elizabeth. It made Kate feel even more cautious. She curtsied and made her way to the fireside. A servant quickly brought her a low stool, and another offered her cakes and wine.

As she settled her skirts around her and set about tuning the lute, she studied the four ladies gathered around the queen, each of them delicately pretty and beautifully dressed.

“You have not yet met my dear Maries, Mademoiselle Haywood,” Queen Mary said, gesturing to them. “Mary Beaton, Mary Seton, Mary Livingston, and Mary Fleming. They all came to France with me when we were but tiny children, and have stayed faithfully by my side ever since. I do not know what I would do without them, though I feel I could not ask them to leave their lives here and return to Scotland, if that was what I chose.”