The Fatal Fashione Read online

  “I shall start at the beginning,” he said, his voice catching.

  “Do that. And don’t mind my lord Cecil. Anything that is said here will be safe with him, for all England is safe in his hands. Say on.”

  As he began to speak, he held to the fact that she needed him. Surely she needed him, despite what he was going to confess.

  Elizabeth tried to appear calm but she gripped the arms of her chair so hard her fingers went numb. Thomas Gresham was terrified, and that terrified her. She could not lose him, but what was he going to say that shook him so?

  “A long time ago in Antwerp, before you were queen,” he began, then paused.

  “It sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale, but I warrant it is not, is it, Thomas?”

  He cleared his throat. “No, Your Majesty. Fourteen years ago, to be exact, though I was wed, I took a Flemish mistress, and she bore a child the next year, a daughter.”

  Click went one of the pieces of the puzzle, the queen thought. At least that could be the reason for the terrible tension between the Greshams.

  When he hesitated again, she prompted, “And that child is Marie?” An admission of marital infidelity from even one of her closest friends used to send her into a ranting fury over another man betraying another wife. Hell’s gates, at this rate, she feared even Cecil kept a string of women, when she knew he was entirely too busy with his royal mistress and the kingdom.

  “Yes—Marie,” Thomas nearly whispered. “Anne does dote on her, though.”

  “I’ve seen that. She hovers over her and can yet carry her about as if she were still in leading strings. Go on, then. I know there is more.”

  “My lord Cecil, are you recording what I say?” he asked, craning his neck to see what the queen’s chief advisor wrote. “Oh, you are just drawing—a large ruff?”

  “Say on, Thomas!” the queen cried. “Since you came in you have hopped about like the grasshopper emblem your family claims. My lord Cecil is merely here to help me think all this through. And that, my man, is why you are going to tell me more.”

  “Anne insists on calling Marie—the name her real mother gave her—Marie-Anne after herself. Marie’s mother, Gretta, died of childbed fever six days after the birth. I was distraught. I adored Gretta. God forgive me, she was the love of my life.”

  “My royal father once told my mother that—before he went merrily on to other women and other wives,” she cried, and smacked her palm flat on the table.

  Thomas jumped. Cecil merely shifted in his seat.

  “Anne and I,” Thomas went on when she said no more, “well, she hasn’t been happy for years, and nor have I.”

  “And who is in the painting?” Elizabeth demanded. “I want more matter with less cunning.”

  The man’s facade crumbled; he looked as if he would put his head in his hands on the table and sob the rest of his story. “In the double portrait, the girl in the window light is Gretta, actually, about the age Marie is now. And the one in shadow, evidently because her temperament was darker, is her twin sister—Hannah von Hoven.”

  Elizabeth sat back in her chair. Finally she held a trump card, but if she played it—if she lost her financial genius Gresham—could she still lose the game?

  “You knew Hannah back in Antwerp also?”

  “Not well, but yes. Hannah was lighthearted on the surface but resented me.” Words seemed to pour from him in a great torrent. “I met her again when I—we—buried Gretta. Hannah was struggling financially. It seemed she always was. I promised her that my wife and I would rear the child as our own. Hannah wanted her, too, but she could ill afford to rear her. You see, Anne had a difficult birth with our son, and we knew there would be no more children, which she—we—longed for. I gave Hannah some money to start her starch business in Antwerp and didn’t see her again.”

  “Not even when she came to England, sir?”

  He looked taken aback, perhaps at her formal address to him but more likely because he saw where this was going. “Yes, I saw her here—just once, when she came to the house for money again.”

  “Which you gave her?”

  “I did. I asked her to wait in the courtyard while I got it for her right then, so I would not have to see her another time. Badger saw her, but I told him she was the widow of someone I’d known abroad who needed financial help. I swear, I didn’t see her again after that. Anne was out of the house at the time and never saw her, not that she would have known who she was anyway.”

  “Even if not, Thomas, perhaps someone else did see her. Was Marie home?”

  “But she knew nothing about her real mother or Gretta’s twin sister. She’s never asked Anne, for fear, I think, of hurting her.”

  “You do realize Marie has a clear view of most of the large courtyard from her windows, do you not? Young women are so curious, especially one who is watched so closely. Let me have the letter, Cecil,” she went on, holding out her hand. “Thomas, I have a note here your daughter wrote surreptitiously to an unnamed friend, but I believe we can guess the intended recipient. Listen to this,

  “I pray you let me visit, for I can manage it without their knowing, I vow I can. Please, for I would know so much more of her, more than just seeing her in your lovely face …”

  “No!” he cried. “God as my judge, I had no idea.”

  “There is more. Or could you not come here again and I will slip out where we spoke before? I hope you will wear these sweet gloves, my gift to you, in exchange for any sweet memories you can give, and if you still need money to … There she stops.”

  “You received that from Marie?”

  “Do you doubt it? I would let you see it closer, but, sadly, this is evidence as to why she, though now senseless of the reason, was near Hannah’s starch shop that sad day.”

  “You think she went to see her? But saw something else, something terrible?”

  “Don’t you, Thomas?” she demanded, flourishing the note before she returned it to Cecil, who slipped it back into his papers.

  “You aren’t saying they had some s-sort of argument?” he stammered. “That little Marie h-harmed Hannah?”

  “I am saying that if Hannah knew her niece was coming to visit and realized that niece was Thomas Gresham’s natural daughter—perhaps even an heiress—she might send her ladies home for the day. That’s what she did, and I could not fathom why.”

  “Marie wouldn’t harm Hannah—wouldn’t harm anyone.”

  “Thomas, someone has harmed Hannah, and if it’s not Marie, we must work together to discover who it was.”

  “As always, Your Majesty, absolutely anything I can do to advise and help you, I will do.”

  She nodded, but she felt afraid to trust him now. Besides, she could see from the corner of her eye that Cecil was scribbling on his diagram exactly what she was thinking. In separate sections, he’d added to his list of possible killers not Marie’s name but those of Thomas Gresham and his wife, Anne. And Thomas’s name had gone in the place where Cecil had previously written Lover?

  Monday morning, Hugh Dauntsey requested an early audience with the queen, so she summoned him to the privy gardens, where she was taking her morning constitutional with her ladies trailing behind. The brisk breeze tugged at their clothes, and everyone’s feet crunched gravel on the angular paths.

  Besides hearing what he had to say, Elizabeth hoped to learn more from him about his ties to her other starcher. Now that the Greshams had a motive to silence Hannah—to keep her from perhaps extorting funds from them, embarrassing them, or even alienating them from their daughter’s affections—the queen was desperate to prove someone else had murdered her. Even if she lost her master starcher and the entire ruff market crashed to ruins, she could not lose Thomas Gresham.

  “Your findings so far?” she asked, looking not into Dauntsey’s rimless eyes but straight ahead as she walked.

  “I simply wish to give you a preliminary inventory, Your Majesty,” he said, walking briskly to keep up with her.
He wore a doublet and matching cape of canary yellow, but at least it was not adorned with jewels or slashings. Did the man actually visit that dirty, smelly stock market in such garb? The stranger thing was that each time they took a turn onto the path facing eastward, between the sun in her eyes and his pale clothes and coloring, he almost seemed to disappear.

  “But,” he went on, “I have a question, too. Although Hannah von Hoven’s starch shop seemed quite untouched, but for her body being found there, of course, her earthly personal goods in her privy chamber nearby were obviously picked over, to say the least.”

  “I cannot account for that,” she told him, not mentioning she’d taken a look at the place the night she’d seen the body. “Whether someone heard that she had died and broke in to pilfer her things, or the murderer himself went through looking for something that might implicate him, I know not.”

  She forced from her mind the image of Thomas ransacking Hannah’s room, looking for something that would link him to her. No, she told herself for the hundredth time, it cannot be Thomas.

  “You assume the murderer and pilferer was a man, Your Majesty,” Dauntsey went on. “But in speaking yesterday with Chief Constable Nigel Whitcomb, he mentioned the murderer could well be a woman. That is, I’m quite sure he said ‘she,’ not ‘he.’”

  Elizabeth nearly stumbled. “He has told me no such thing,” she declared. Could Whitcomb have found a link to Anne Gresham so soon?

  “He mentioned he was coming here with particular proofs and even a warrant for you to sign—to question someone under duress, I think he said. Here are the separate inventories of the shop and house of the deceased,” he went on, handing her two folded lists from the soft leather pouch at his waist. She noted for the first time that his fingers were stained with black ink. “I also have quite a list of those who must have ruffs or fees returned, so that will cut into her estate a bit. But you see how short the household list of goods is.”

  She skimmed it quickly. The accounting amounted to large items that could not easily be moved, such as a bed, washstand, chair, and table. Very few garments—but for four shifts, a night rail, and a pair of perfumed gloves! It could mean the notes from Marie went through the perfumer to Hannah—or it could be mere coincidence. Perfumed gloves were expensive, but they were all the rage. Would a starcher who had evidently borrowed money more than once own a pair that wasn’t a gift?

  “This pair of perfumed gloves,” she said, pointing to the item in his bold, slanted writing. “I would like to have them to give to a woman who was Hannah’s close friend, a whitster who lived nearby and has been of great assistance to me. I know they would mean a great deal to her.”

  “Ursala Hemmings, Your Majesty? She came round today while I was working in the loft, but I sent her scurrying. No good to have her in the way or trying to make off with something, but I didn’t know you favored her. I’ll see that the gloves are included with the reckoning that comes to you, along with the worth of each item, when I find fair market value for the things.”

  “That would be fine. How long will it take, do you think?”

  “I am making it my first priority, though some of the starching items I’ll have to price by speaking with the van der Passes or perhaps your own herbalist. She evidently sold Mistress von Hoven the starch herbs—ah, here,” he said, pointing to the longer list. “Cuckoopint herbs with the name Meg Milligrew, queen’s herbalist. Strange name, cuckoopint, isn’t it? Do you know what it means?”

  He was glib and ingratiating today, while she felt simply stunned. Could her chief constable have solved this crime? If Anne Gresham had discovered Marie was entranced by Hannah, could she have followed the girl that day but found Hannah alone? After all, Hannah could have dismissed her women so she could meet secretly with Marie—or even with Anne herself.

  Then Anne’s argument with Hannah might have turned violent. If Anne could yet carry Marie about so easily, she could surely choke Hannah, then heft her into a tub of starch to finish her by drowning. So, did she return hastily home to join the search when Marie was discovered missing?

  No. If Anne were so protective of their child, surely she would not have left her out on the streets—unless she had no idea Marie had seen her kill Hannah. Such a terrible thing could be what caused the girl to lose her senses. But then, who took Hannah out of her starch-water coffin and put her on that shelf?

  “Your Majesty?” Dauntsey prompted when she did not answer whatever he had just asked. “Are you quite well?”

  “Of course, and pleased with your progress so far. I shall see you again when your sums of the goods are ready for me.”

  Though the queen had a full agenda planned that day, she ordered Nigel Whitcomb to be brought to her forthwith when his request for a hearing was announced. “Cecil,” she said, “send someone ahead to the council chamber to delay the meeting with my advisors, but come back to hear this. I think the chief constable of London may have some interesting news for us. Perhaps our local law enforcement is not as impotent as I believed.”

  Nigel Whitcomb was built like a tree trunk, straight up and down and sturdy. Somewhere between thirty and forty years old, he was balding and, no doubt, had grown a long beard to make up for that. Elizabeth barely recalled seeing him, but Cecil had said he had more or less cowered in the back row the day the delegation from Parliament visited to urge her to wed. Cecil had also said the man was pushy, picky, and vain. She was reminded that he had been head of the Skinners’ Guild when she saw the fine fur trim on the cape and cap he held in his nervous hands.

  “Your Majesty, I bring good news—and sad news, too,” he told her as he produced an official-looking parchment, sealed with a big blob of wax, and proffered it to her. “My immediate and thorough investigation of the starcher’s untimely demise indeed shows murder, and the coroner has agreed. I have petitioned here to question the chief possible perpetrator of this heinous crime.”

  In uneasy anticipation, Elizabeth shifted forward in her seat, took the warrant, and handed it to Cecil, who stood behind her.

  “Why is this sad news?” she asked Whitcomb as she heard Cecil break the seal. She steadied herself to hear the chief constable or even Cecil pronounce Anne Gresham’s name. She would have to deal with it, she thought. At least suppress Anne’s being examined until she could break the news to Thomas and assure him that his wife was merely being questioned to provide information.

  “Because the person I must accuse and examine is in your charge, Your Majesty.”

  “All my subjects are ultimately in my charge, Master Whitcomb.”

  “I have it on good authority from several witnesses that jealousy was part of the motive,” he went on.

  “Yes, I understand that.”

  So he had somehow ferreted out that Anne Gresham was still jealous over the fact that Hannah’s twin sister had been the love of her husband’s life. Surely Hannah’s resemblance to Gretta had not lured Thomas to desire her, too? Could Anne have yet been so incensed about Gretta that she took her fury out on the dead woman’s living image, or had Hannah been blackmailing Anne? And how did this man uncover all of that so swiftly?

  Whitcomb was still speaking. “I also have the sworn statements of several women who overheard an argument over prices for supplies between the deceased and the accused herein.”

  “What?” Elizabeth demanded.

  “Your Grace,” Cecil said quietly behind her, “best brace yourself. This warrant for interrogation and arrest names Meg Milligrew and no other.”

  Chapter the Tenth

  AS MEG SAT WITH NED AND SALLY ON A BENCH IN the corner of the courtyard gardens at Gresham House, she had never been happier. Marie was to join them soon, but for now it was just the three of them, so Meg could pretend that they were a family with a fine home of their own. Ned was attentive to her and so very kind to Sally.

  “I still love my other mother and father,” Sally told them, “though they let me down something dreadful, not telling me’bo
ut how I was poxed and all.”

  “They wanted to protect you,” Meg said, reaching for her hand. “Just as Marie’s parents have tried to shelter her, they didn’t want you to be hurt.”

  “And now look what it got my folks and the Greshams!’Sides, just like Marie, I think this place is so fine—the city, I mean, not just Gresham House.” Though no one was nearby, Sally lowered her voice. “It’s kind of a pretty prison here, Marie says, and I know what she means. It’s lots more of a lark to go out and’bout. Bet her real mother’d never take her out for a day picking herbs with fairy lights,” she added with a pert smile and a squeeze of Meg’s hand.

  Meg gaze snagged Ned’s. He, too, must be thinking not only of Sally’s two mothers but of Marie’s. At the Privy Plot Council meeting last night, the queen had explained about the von Hoven connection to the Greshams and how neither Sir Thomas nor Lady Anne had really gotten over it.

  But Ned asked only, “Fairy lights? It sounds like something I could use to present a fantasy at court.”

  “You know, you could,” Meg said, “but you’d better use them for a tragedy. We could dust one of your ghosts with cuckoopint pollen—I’ve a box of it saved—because it would give an eerie glow in the dark.”

  “I believe both you ladies are going to come in very handy to me,” Ned said, and bathed them both in his brightest smile. “Sally, is there anything you have to tell the queen? Has Marie remembered anything else?”

  Sally darted a glance up toward Marie’s second-story rooms. “Don’t look now,” she whispered, “but Lady Gresham’s staring down at us.”

  “That’s all right,” Meg assured her. “Tell us if there’s aught else before Marie comes down to join us.”