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Bryce eased himself off his chair to grope around on the floor for the coin.
“Tell me Bryce, did you have no brothers to play catch with as a boy?”
“No, my lord,” answered Bryce as he reached underneath the bookcase.
Oswald thought of Fenella's words. “Nor sisters, either?” he asked.
“I was an only child, my lord,” said Bryce clambering to his knees. He opened his palm to show the coin and then tucked it away in a pouch at his belt.
“Who brought you up then?” asked Oswald, suddenly curious.
“I was raised by my paternal grandfather,” replied Bryce. “He was a legal clerk,” he added when Oswald continued to regard him thoughtfully.
Maybe Fenella was onto something after all, thought Oswald. “I see,” he said aloud. “Very good, Bryce.”
His assistant bowed and exited the room with an air of injured dignity.
Oswald leaned back in his chair, his thoughts returning to the last letter from Ambrose Thane. There had been absolutely no change in tone in that letter. Nothing to indicate that her husband's feelings had undergone some dramatic change or that he'd become alienated from his wife. True, if Oswald had read that letter and none of the others, he would have thought their marriage dead in the water. But the fact was that every single one of his letters was dull as ditchwater. Thane had mentioned a local family of influence that he dined with on several occasions, and if pressed, Oswald would have hazarded a guess that the Lady Colleen was one of the daughters of that house. It did not really make any difference to him, but he realized that Fenella might well want some answers. He tapped one finger on the desk top as he pondered this point. He did not want her dwelling on the past, but he also did not want it to build up and become some great mystery in her life, rather than the brief rather dull chapter it was. He drew another piece of paper across his desk top and addressed it to J. Francis, another of his agents. Briefly, he outlined a series of points that he wanted clarified in the courtship of Sir Ambrose Thane and his second wife. Then he sealed the envelope with hot wax and selecting his Vawdrey seal, the passant panther, pressed its impression firmly into molten red wax.
Throughout the afternoon he had visits from various agents reporting their findings over the last week. They knocked on the door in various patterns and two of them even arrived by his secret passage rather than using the outer door. Oswald punctuated their narratives with a few sharp questions but made few notes. Bryce came in during the second half of the afternoon and sat quietly in the corner observing.
“What do you think, Bryce? Anything of interest?” Oswald asked him as the door shut on the last visitor.
Bryce looked thoughtful. “I could not understand the significance of the message Jeffries intercepted to the ambassador to the Western Isles,” he said slowly.
“You picked up on that,” Oswald replied. “Good, I begin to have hopes for you Bryce. Something seemed amiss, did it not?”
“Y-es,” agreed Bryce hesitantly. “But I'm not sure what? The letter was so short. And you did not keep Jeffries overlong for interrogation.”
“There would be very little point. He knew nothing, only that it did not arrive with the regular messenger and that the ambassador attempted to burn it.”
“But why?” asked Bryce. “The body of the letter seemed very innocuous. It had no sinister intent that I could discern?”
Oswald closed his eyes briefly. “Bryce,” he tutted. “Think about it analytically. Barely any of it made sense. The weather last Tuesday week was not fine, it is highly unlikely that anyone would spot a sedge goose this far south, they are northern birds and we know that Ambassador Hybridge does not hunt.” Oswald drummed his fingers on the table. “So what conclusion can be drawn from this?”
“It is in code?” suggested Bryce with a frown.
“Indeed,” said Oswald. “Which is why I have asked Jeffries to make copies of any letters to the ambassador in the last six months and bring them to me. We will need to wade through them and see if we can decode it. Hybridge has been in post for some nineteen months,” he ruminated. “His connections are respectable but there was a branch of his family that supported the Blechmarsh claim to the throne.” He grimaced thinking of the last of that troublesome line. Princess Una was shut up in a fortress under house arrest, and had been for the last seventeen months. It didn’t stop others from constantly plotting in her name. The sedge goose was a northern bird famed for its stubbornness and lack of common sense. Much like the House of Blechmarsh.
Bryce coughed. “But then, most families have similar stories in their not too distant past,” he pointed out.
“Quite so, my dear Bryce. My own great-grandfather believed the Argents to be a bunch of upstarts with only the most tenuous link to royalty.”
Bryce tried to hide his shock but failed.
“Come now, Bryce,” said Oswald. “We must be realists. We have no proof that the ambassador is plotting against our monarchy, but even so, we must be vigilant.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I want you to read through the correspondence Jeffries brings, as soon as it arrives and I want you to make notes around any birds, weather or hunting references. See if you can spot a pattern.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“This afternoon I shall be meeting in the main chamber with the privy council. After that I will put devote a few hours to the new trade agreements with the south.”
Bryce's nodded solemnly, “Very well, my lord.”
“Have you anything for me?” asked Oswald.
Bryce shuffled his papers. “Signor Pezzini wished you to know he is an artiste and cannot be hurried, however said he will send over two gowns this afternoon. That is the best he can do. The rest will arrive as it is completed.”
Oswald nodded.
“Packages have arrived from the shoe-maker and the glover, I have had them sent along to your rooms.”
“Good.”
“You have received an invitation from the Dowager Duchess of Lessing to attend a feast tonight in the lower chamber. She invites you and your new bride,” said Bryce.
Oswald looked pained. “Ah, the good Dowager does so dearly love to know all the gossip,” he sighed.
“Shall I decline?”
“On the contrary, we will be pleased to accept. Especially now Fenella will have a choice of gowns,” said Oswald wryly. “A married man cannot shirk social engagements like a bachelor. At least, not until his marriage is established fact.”
If Bryce thought this a strange thing to say, he did not let it show. Instead he inclined his head. “It shall be done, my lord.”
The strange thing was, Oswald found it difficult to keep his mind on the tasks at hand that afternoon. Even in the council meeting with his peers, his thoughts kept wandering back to his wife. It irritated him that under the cloak, she would be wearing that shabby gown bought for her by another man. He wondered for the first time, if the month-long induction to court life he had previously envisioned, would be long enough, before he shipped her off to Vawdrey Keep? And if it was to be longer, then Lady Sumner had a point. She would need a mentor. He tapped his pen against the desk top and debated the point. The ideal person for the task would be his sister-in-law, Linnet. He did need to write to her and Mason informing them of his marriage. Should he ask them to make a protracted stay at court on his behalf? It could lead to awkward questions from Mason about his hasty marriage which he did not look forward to answering. One of his fellow privy members nudged him, and Oswald frowned at him abstractedly.
“It is your turn to debate this article, my lord,” the other prompted him.
“I abstain,” said Oswald swiftly.
“But it was you who proposed this amendment last month,” pointed out Lord Sutton looking shocked.
Oswald glanced down at the document. “Did I? Many things have changed since last month.”
There was a murmur at this, which Oswald barely noticed. He had not had an att
ractive wife to drive him to distraction last month.
“There may be some new trouble brewing we should be aware of,” he started reluctantly before the meeting came to its conclusion. “There were discrepancies with some diplomatic correspondence this last week.” He paused heavily. “It may be there was some reference to a certain lady in the north.”
A few indrawn breaths greeted this.
“Have you told the King?” asked Lord Caterby leaning forward in his seat.
“Not yet,” admitted Oswald. “But it will have to be done.”
Lord Schaeffer tsked. “That most unfortunate female will be drawn into dark intrigue all over again.”
“That most unfortunate female will be lucky to keep a head on her shoulders if there’s another plot to supplant the King,” put in Lord Sutton dryly.
Oswald winced. This was unfortunately true if he did not think of a more lasting solution.
“I suppose,” said Caterby hesitantly. “There’s no question of her direct involvement...?”
“None whatsoever,” answered Oswald swiftly, crushing their hopes of justified retribution. He would not have them absolving themselves of any guilt, if they pronounced a death sentence on the poor woman. “Una Blechmarsh is quite innocent.”
The other privy council members shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Frankly, her innocence was nothing but a damned inconvenience to them, one and all.
“Is all well with you, Vawdrey?” asked Lord Schaeffer at the close of the meeting. His bushy eyebrows wagged. “You work too hard, my boy. Over-taxing that famous brain of yours.”
Oswald glanced at him. “How long have you been married, Schaeffer?” he asked suddenly.
Lord Schaeffer peered at him closely. “Some thirty years or thereabouts,” he answered vaguely. “Why do you ask?”
“No particular reason,” Oswald fobbed him off. Schaeffer bored on for a while longer about approaching the King with some petition. Oswald nodded and made murmuring noises in the pauses, and then at the earliest opportunity excused himself to return to some urgent work. He could feel Schaeffer’s eyes on his back as he left the room, but was soon re-absorbed in this issue with his wife before he’d even reached the end of the long gallery. It boiled down to this: if Fenella was to be around any longer than a month, then he would need to address his own growing attraction to her. Which could well be a problem, considering the fact she was still traumatized from her abandonment by her previous husband. He had no proof, but he suspected it was him that kept throwing out the bolster between them as they slept. He seemed to gravitate toward her in his sleep, when his iron self-control also slumbered. He’d suffered a shock seeing her in that court dress the night before. Truth to tell, he didn’t think he’d entirely recovered from it the whole evening. It had made him churlish and surly toward her when he should have been conciliatory. Of course, he hadn’t known that bitch Colleen Thane had stolen her necklace at the time, but even so. He was starting to find it a strain to always be around her when there were so many limits in place regarding their intimacy. In that dress, he had been confronted with the fact that his wife’s looks were likely to be pleasing to more than just himself. In truth, he did not feel as secure of her as he would like before exposing her to all and sundry. Had he made a mistake in his strategy, by giving her time to adjust to him as a husband? He had reached his office by this time and let himself in before sitting at his desk and unlocking his drawer. He placed the draft trade agreement on the desk before him and stared down at the title page as he debated the corner he had backed himself into regarding his marriage. The thought niggled away in a corner of his mind, telling him he’d erred somewhere along the line. But he was damned if he could see where! He dropped back in his seat and groaned. Maybe, just maybe he was over-complicating things? After all, Fenella was a straight-forward country girl. Her father and brother were nothing more than country squires. Buying her ruby necklaces and taking her to royal banquets was bound to unnerve her. Perhaps he should just take her to Vawdrey Keep and dump her there and be done with it? Without her lying in his bed beside him each night, he could return to some semblance of normality in his day-to-day life. While it was curious that she had wrought this effect on him, it was perhaps not unexpected considering how hard he had been working lately and how little time he had spent in the company of women. He had been under a great deal of pressure. While the war in the north had ceased some four years ago, the unrest in the kingdom had rumbled on and the peace had been maintained with the northern barons only with intense mediation and work behind the scenes. A lot of this work had been his responsibility and he had pursued it ceaselessly ever since. Indeed, his meteoric rise to prominence at court had been based on this work. His family, even the King had often urged him to take a break from the heavy workload, but he been like a man possessed. Even after the King had honored him with his earldom he had refused to take a break from court life. He frowned. Clearly it had taken a toll on his self-control. He could not remember the last time he had entertained a woman. Certainly, it was before he had joined the King’s privy council. Since then he had lived like a monk. And before that…even as a soldier he had been particular in his tastes. Not for him a roll in the hay with a willing country wench, or the dubious charms of some camp follower. He was simply more fastidious than most men. He even prided himself on the fact. And yet, here he was…coveting the leavings of an obscure nobody like Ambrose Thane. It was inconceivable. Doubtless it was overwork, he told himself sensibly. Once Fenella had fallen into line as his wife, all would fall back into its rightful place. The problem was…He just wasn’t sure where a wife’s rightful place was.
Oswald was late returning to their rooms to supper that evening. He sat distractedly while Fenella chattered away about her walk with Lady Schaeffer’s and that good lady’s advice to her about how a respectable woman spends her time at the royal court.
“Lady Schaeffer explained she is the patroness of many artists,” Fenella explained with a faint air of puzzlement. “She encourages them in their endeavors and they often dedicate their works to her.”
Oswald nodded as he pushed a pie crust around his plate. “That is quite usual practice,” he agreed. “You could easily espouse some artist, if you so wished.”
Fenella’s eyes widened. “I would hardly know how,” she confessed.
Oswald’s mouth twisted. “As a high-born lady, it usually involves throwing the odd purse of money their way.” As soon as he’d said it, he wished he hadn’t. Why was he always showing his cynical side to the very person he should hide it from the most? With any other female he would trot out some flattering phrase, without even a second thought. He put down his knife. “Forgive me, that was ill considered and rude,” he said. “I am sure Lady Schaeffer takes her duties as a patron of the arts very seriously.”
Fen was looking at him in some concern. Hesitantly, she reached across to touch his hand. To his embarrassment, he jumped at her touch. “You’re tired my lord,” she said softly. “You must have had a very busy day, I think?”
He stared at her abstractedly.
“Please do not think you need to stand on ceremony around me, husband,” she said sweetly serious. “You should be able to speak your thoughts, without having to censor or filter them first for my consumption.”
Her warm voice affected him oddly, in the strangest of places. Gods, she was pretty, he thought, in the flickering candle-light. What the hell had he been thinking, considering her plain? His eyes searched her face. “Do you mean that?” he asked. Even to his own ears his voice sounded unnaturally husky. He took a hurried swig of water.
“Of course, after all, I am your wife,” she answered with only a trace of self-consciousness.
Then he remembered Ambrose Thane’s whining, self-pitying letters. Of course, Fenella was used to crotchety, unreasonable husbands.
“What is it, my lord?” she asked in alarm and Oswald realized he was glowering.
He passed a hand ove
r his face. “Tis nothing, nothing,” he replied gruffly.
“I hope you are not coming down with aught,” she said worriedly. “Only your voice does sound a little hoarse this evening.” She bit her lip and fiddled with her napkin. “I hope you would not think me sadly fussing, if I suggested an early night?” she ventured.
Oswald sat silently a moment. “Fenella-” he started, but found he could not continue any further.
She cocked her head to one side. “Perhaps I should ask Meldon for a posset? With honey, sage and thyme for a sore throat?”
Oswald didn’t have the heart to tell her that nothing afflicted him, except her. “How did the meeting go with Meldon’s god-daughter?” he asked instead, ruthlessly shoving down his ignoble impulses.
Fenella cleared her throat. “I told her she could start on the morrow,” she confessed. “Her husband has lately lost his business, through no fault of his own,” she added hurriedly. “And poor Trudy needs the extra income for their family.”
Oswald eyed her wearily. “Did she seem capable at least?”
Fenella avoided his eye. “I am sure she will soon pick up the skills needed.”
“So, she has no experience,” he deduced.
Fen fidgeted in her seat. “She’s a very lively, bright sort of person and given the opportunity I am sure she will do well.”
She was wearing the velvet headband again with the veil suspended down her middle back. The only jewelry she wore was the small turquoise ring. She had on the shabby blue dress she had said was her best from her previous life. Even that couldn’t detract from her heart-shaped face and clear, creamy skin. He shifted in his seat. With a hand that trembled slightly he reached for the pitcher and poured himself a cup of water. “Did you receive any packages today?” he asked with a frown.
“Yes, I meant to thank you. Some books of poetry,” she said with enthusiasm. “They are bound in red leather and have such pretty clasps. I am very much looking forward to reading them.” She glowed. Such a small thing. His wife went pale at the sight of jewels, but a present of books gave her a pretty blush. He had forgotten he’d even ordered them. “What about clothes?”