The Licence of War (47 page)

“My boy,” said Seward, “in some respects you grew rather too early into your manhood, but in others, you were somewhat retarded.”

Laurence smiled. “Thank you, Seward.”

“What is your next move with de Zamora?”

“Tom will arrange for the three of us to meet tomorrow night, at the inn where he’s lodged.”

“I shall pray for you and Thomas,” Seward told him. “It could be the gravest peril that you will ever confront as brothers.”

“If you were about to invite me, sir, I won’t trouble to come in.” Veech handed Draycott a thin, sealed packet at his door. “Plant this tonight. I’ve informed Corporal Stanton you’ll be visiting her late. He knows no more than that. Bide until morning if you can, to allay her suspicions. Stanton says her husband went to Rochester in the coach, and won’t return until next week. I’ll stop here again tomorrow afternoon to find out where you hid the evidence, and then we’ll go on a hunting party with the militia.”

“Why not wait, to catch Sir Montague as well?” asked Draycott, as scornfully as he could.

“He’ll be drawn in after she’s arrested.”

“But … you will require a search warrant to enter the house.”

“Leave that to me. Once she’s in my custody, perhaps Judith and your children will run home to you.”

Draycott recoiled. “What do you know about them?”

“I know where they are. You’ve lost one child. You wouldn’t want some accident to befall another.” And Veech turned, to limp off down the street.

Draycott wished he had a loaded pistol to discharge at Veech’s retreating figure. He slammed the door and broke the seal on the packet. The pages were covered in a cipher; had he weeks, he would be unable to make sense of it. Still in a quandary as to what he should do, he unbuttoned his doublet and used a knife to unpick some stitches in the lining. He stuffed the pages back into the packet and forced it far inside the thick layers of cloth, rebuttoned his doublet, grabbed his hat and cloak, and headed for the Strand.

Antonio dropped a coin onto the floor by his bed, and started languidly to fasten his breeches. “Take your money and go.”

The girl was on her knees between his thighs, spitting into her apron. “You promised me twice as much.”

“That was to fuck you. You should not have tried to sell yourself to a gentleman at your time of the month.”

Snatching up the coin, she scrambled to her feet. “Most gentlemen hereabouts don’t care.”

“Oh get out,” said Antonio.

She nearly collided with Diego, who came rushing breathlessly into the chamber. He shut the door after her, and announced, “I have seen him. And, saints above, he
is
your very image.”

A thrill coursed through Antonio, more pleasurable than the service for which he had just paid. “Continue, Diego.”

“I followed him to Merton College, where Thomas went after you two last spoke. And he knocked at the same door, and was admitted by the old man.”

“Who can
he
be? Did you inquire?”

“Yes, in the gatehouse. The porter said that his name is Doctor William Seward. He’s a scholar learned in philosophy, medicine, and astrology. So I said that
I
was a student of medicine, and had heard of him by repute.”

“You are a paragon of ingenuity.”

“I’m not finished,” Diego said. “I mentioned that I had seen a tall, dark man entering his room but a moment earlier. Was this person also a scholar at the university? Oh no, that would be Mr. Beaumont, the porter said. Dr. Seward had been his tutor, and now they’re fast friends. And what sort of a fellow is Mr. Beaumont, I said?” Diego imitated the porter’s speech, in English. “ ‘Charmin’ as can be, sir, and he treats us like we was as good as he, though he’s of noble blood..’ ”

“Then he must be soft in the head,” muttered Antonio.

“It supports Thomas’s contention that he doesn’t wish to be a lord.”

“He may not want the responsibilities of a title, but I doubt he’d appreciate being told that he’s a cuckoo in his father’s nest.”

“I think we should talk to the Doctor, Don Antonio.”

“Why, my clever monkey?”

“He’s known Beaumont for half of Beaumont’s life. And old men are easily intimidated. I asked the porter if I might request a consultation, on a medical issue. He said that Dr. Seward had condescended to heal him of his warts, and would surely assist a scholar such as me.”

“On this occasion, your ingenuity may prove redundant,” Antonio said. “Thomas and his brother are coming here tomorrow night, to meet with me.”

“Mr. Draycott, thank God,” exclaimed Lady Isabella, opening the door to him herself.

“My lady, are you all alone in the house?” he asked.

“No, but my husband took Greenhalgh with him to Rochester. Lucy is abed with a chill.”

When they were seated in the gallery, Draycott inhaled a deep breath. “Clement Veech informed me today that Lord Digby was your guardian, and that you and his agent, Laurence Beaumont, were once lovers,” he said, altering the truth a little. He was too ashamed to admit that he had told Veech about the inscription in her book, even if it offered no material proof of treachery, as Veech obviously knew; hence the incriminating packet.

“Of what significance is my past to Veech?” She sounded more cross than frightened. “I did not choose my guardian, and as for my relations with Beaumont, they ended before my marriage.”

“Last autumn when I was still an officer in the Trained Bands, I arrested Beaumont, although I was unaware of his identity at the time, and mistakenly released him. The same night, Veech apprised me of who he was, and while we were chasing him, he fired on us. He wounded Veech with a crippling shot to the knee. It was after my mistake that Veech hired me. He thirsts for private revenge on Beaumont, quite apart from the enormous prize to Parliament of capturing Lord Digby’s most able man.”

Lady Isabella’s gold-flecked eyes darted to and fro. “Beaumont won’t be caught here again,” she said, as though stating a fact.

“My lady, tomorrow afternoon, Veech will bring me and a party of militia to raid your house, to find evidence to bring you to trial on a charge of treason. He knows you are Digby’s courier. He will arrest you, and then Sir Montague, although you are his target: he is convinced that Beaumont will attempt to rescue you from gaol.”

“He will find no evidence of treason in my house.”

“He has ordered me to plant a packet of documents in cipher tonight, and then stay, and … and make love to you, so you would not suspect me.”

Lady Isabella paled, and fluttered a hand to her breast. “And will you plant it?”

“No. I am your friend, as I promised you. Veech has wrecked my life, but he shan’t have the satisfaction of wrecking yours, if I can prevent him.”

“Bless you, sir, for your courage and your loyalty to me,” she murmured. Then she asked in a harder tone, “Where is the packet?”

Draycott thought of Veech whittling away at the polished oak settle; and he thought of Judith and the children. “At my house.”

“What will you do when Veech makes no discovery?”

“I’ll have to act astonished, and swear that I did his bidding.”

“You might say I gave you no chance to hide it.”

“He would only send me back for another attempt.”

She moved closer to Draycott; he could smell mint and cloves on her breath. “You said he has wrecked your life. What did you mean?”

“Judith has left me, and taken the children. She despises me for being in thrall to Veech. I could force her to come home, yet I can’t make her love me again – if ever she did.”

Lady Isabella kissed him. Her tongue slipped inside his mouth, and she raised him up and ran her hands down his chest, around his waist, and along his spine and buttocks. His heart was thudding; would
she detect the packet? But she separated from him, and said in a low voice, “Can we comfort each other tonight?”

“Yes,” he said, feeling as if his entire future had just changed irrevocably with that single word.

She ushered him from the gallery, through a passage, and into a dimly lit bedchamber. She sat him on the bed and like some handmaiden of yore removed his shoes and stockings, unbuttoned his doublet, took it off and cast it aside, drew his shirt over his head, and then stripped him slowly of his breeches and close trousers. No one had undressed him since his childhood, and not once in the entirety of his marriage had he been naked with modest Judith.

“Lie back,” Lady Isabella told him, “and shut your eyes.” He caught the smoke of an extinguished candle, and next a wonderful, unidentifiable fragrance. He felt her hands, smooth with oil, massaging his tight muscles, from his neck, to his shoulders, then his chest and belly, and on to his thighs and calves; everywhere but his rigid sex. Her touch, when at last she touched him there, was paradise, and his whole body sang.

D
raycott woke in the featherbed to the lingering scent of Lady Isabella’s perfumed oil. Embarrassment consumed him as he thought of their sinful night: although he had not lain with her in true adultery, after the massage he had allowed her to lavish on him more intimate caresses that had sent him into paroxysms of joy. Then he must have slept.

He dared to open his eyes. She was curled up next to him, fully dressed on top of the counterpane, her face so young and seemingly innocent in repose. Anxious not to rouse her, he eased himself from the bed, and gathered his strewn garments and shoes from the floor. He burrowed a shaking hand into the lining of his doublet. The packet was undisturbed. He ran to the window and peered through the curtains. The sun was still low in the east: about six of the clock, he estimated. In the street he saw the usual dawn traffic, and servants scouring the steps of the houses; and, to his alarm, a party of Stanton’s militia on patrol.

He threw on his clothes, listening for any noises in the house. All was silent. Shoes tucked under one arm, he stole to the door; but as he reached a hand towards the latch, he heard her voice. “Mr. Draycott?”

He turned, his cheeks hot. “My lady, I don’t know what to say …”

“Say that next time
you
will please
me
.” She smiled serenely, and rose from the bed with a rustle of silk. “I’ll accompany you to the front door, though we must be very quiet. And in the afternoon we shall meet again, in less happy circumstances.”

“I … I have the packet on me,” he stammered. “I wanted to show it to you last night, but I was afraid. I told you Veech had threatened my family. Yesterday he spoke of hurting one of my children if I didn’t obey him. I never would have, my lady, as God is my witness. I was going to take the packet home with me, and burn it.”

Lady Isabella stopped smiling and came towards him; she looked tormented, as though on the verge of some similar admission. Then a resigned sadness crossed her face, and she hugged him, as he might have hugged his sons. “You are a good man, sir, and he is a
monster
.”

“No, I am weak. And I must convince Veech that I am weaker yet and in his power, or you and I will both be undone. He must find nothing here that could link you to Lord Digby or to Beaumont – no letters, or … lines in their writing.” At once he knew from her eyes: she had guessed he had seen that inscription in her book. “Let me give you the evidence now, and you can destroy it.”

“We’ll destroy it together,” she said. “He can search all he likes. He will find
nothing
.”

Veech knocked around three of the afternoon. He sniffed at Draycott as he pushed past into the kitchen. “Sweet as a rose, sir. Stanton tells me you wandered out of her house early this morning. Did you fuck her?”

“By God, no. It was the strangest night of my life.” Draycott had little trouble matching his face to the story he had rehearsed: it was enough to remember spending into Lady Isabella’s agile hand while she delved the fingers of her other into a forbidden place. “She must have drugged me. She served me some wine that dizzied me, upon the second or third glass.”

“Did you hide the packet?”

Draycott rubbed his temples as if his head throbbed. “Yes, in the gallery, while I was briefly alone – I … I must have put it somewhere among her books, but my senses were growing confused by then.”

“Did she attempt to question you, in your befuddled state? Did she ask you about me?”

“Not that I recall, though I can’t be sure. I wanted to leave, but she insisted that I lie down in her guest chamber. And I knew no more until dawn. I let myself out of the house – everyone else must have been still asleep.”

“Could she have seen you hide the packet?”

“No – she had gone to prepare the chamber for me.”

“What accounts for your scented skin?”

“The bed linen reeked with perfume. In the morning it nearly made me sick.”

Veech examined him solemnly. “You understand what a poisonous, conniving bitch she is, Mr. Draycott. She had hoped to make you talk. That’s why we have to entrap her. Now let’s go a-hunting.”

They took a hackney coach to the Strand, where Corporal Stanton and a half-dozen militia were gathered on the steps of Sir Montague’s house. When Lucy answered the door, Veech shoved her aside and barged through to the entrance hall. “Summon your mistress to the gallery,” he told her. “Mr. Draycott, lead the way for me and Corporal Stanton. You stay below,” he ordered the troopers.

In the gallery Corporal Stanton fidgeted with his hat, inspecting the imprints of his muddy boots on the polished floor. “What a business for her ladyship,” he said to Draycott.

Lady Isabella entered and addressed them calmly. “Corporal, Mr. Draycott, and … who are you, sir?”

“He is Mr. Clement Veech, my lady, servant to Mr. Oliver St. John,” Stanton said.

“This warrant signed by Mr. St. John licenses me to search the premises,” said Veech, thrusting it at her.

She read it, and thrust it back. “Your charge is pure slander, as I shall inform him. And I will not allow a search of this house in the absence of my husband.”