Face Down among the Winchester Geese by Kathy Lynn Emerson Read Free Book Online Page B

Lora looked a good deal like you, with dark hair and dark eyes and pale skin. She was tiny, so small 1 could span her waist with my hands."
    Petronella did not like this talk of another lover. She frowned into a small polished metal mirror on a stand as she used the reflection to adjust her neck ruff. “What happened to her?"
    "She was murdered in Whitehall Palace. Her neck was broken.” Abruptly Diego stood. He stared hard at Petronella with his one good eye. The other was covered by a black velvet eye patch. “The murder took place on St. Mark's Day."
    A chill passed through her. Two women. Both murdered on St. Mark's Day. And with Ambrosia, perhaps a third. “You think these women were slain by the same hand?"
    "I think you believe it, do you not, querida ? But if ‘tis true, then you are no longer in danger."
    "Not for another year,” she whispered, following his logic. So much for her hope that he would make light of her fears.
    He paused in the act of pushing a previously missed doublet button through its hole.” ‘Tis not your time yet, nor mine to lose you."
    The comment increased her uneasiness, but piqued her curiosity. “Was the woman at court a whore?"
    "She was a chamberer to the queen."
    Another question occurred to her. “How could someone be killed at the royal court and no murderer caught?"
    "There were reasons no one looked very diligently.” A long pause ensued. Then Diego seemed to speak more to himself than to her. “Lora's death changed me."
    Petronella felt her uneasiness return, but she told herself that Diego's feelings for a long-dead woman were not her concern. And in her profession, she could not afford to feel any emotion, least of all jealousy. She had learned long ago that the only way a woman could gain control of her own destiny was to avoid becoming attached to any one man. Diego was the best of his kind, but he was naught but a paying customer. To allow herself to dream he could become anything beyond that was the worst kind of folly.

Chapter 9
    Sir Robert Appleton traveled by water downriver from Durham House, the Spanish ambassador's residence, to Blackfriars Stairs. Once a great friary, before King Henry dissolved all the religious houses, the enclosed precinct now housed tenements, private houses, and shops. Sir Walter Pendennis's lodgings were in what had once been the friars’ buttery. Robert entered from the former cloister, passing through a door near its north end, and climbed narrow stairs to the two upper rooms his old friend used when in London.
    Pendennis sat at a writing table, reading what appeared to be a lengthy message. He glanced up when Robert entered, cast a speculative look his way, and went back to his task without speaking. Robert poured himself a cup of ale from the jug on the table by the window, then turned to study the other man.
    Pendennis had a new hat, a fantastic creation of buff-colored doeskin slashed to reveal salmon-colored satin and decorated with a braid band and an embroidered badge. Robert was not close enough to see what design had been worked upon the latter, but he'd wager ‘twas both intricate and beautiful. His friend had a weakness for fancy clothes.
    Before they'd embarked on their present employment, providing invaluable services to the queen, unfortunately for little reward, Robert Appleton and Walter Pendennis had been young men together in the household of John Dudley, the nobleman who'd eventually become duke of Northumberland, then been executed for treason because he'd tried to prevent Queen Mary from succeeding her brother Edward to the throne of England. Northumberland had meant to disinherit Elizabeth, too.
    How would it have been if he'd succeeded? Robert often wondered. The duke had wanted to proclaim a royal cousin, the Lady Jane, queen in Mary's stead. Most conveniently, that young woman had been the wife of Lord Guildford Dudley, Northumberland's son. As king, he'd have advanced his friends, including Robert. Privy