“Wrong,” I retorted, keeping my husband’s sleeve in a tight grip. “I am Philippe de Clermont’s blood-sworn daughter, as well as Matthew’s wife. I’m a de Clermont twice over, and neither I nor my child will ever call you father.”
Andrew Hubbard looked stunned. As I heaped silent blessings on Philippe for always staying three steps ahead of the rest of us, Matthew’s shoulders finally relaxed. Though far away in France, his father had ensured our safety once more.
“Check if you like. Philippe marked my forehead here,” I said, touching the spot between my brows where my witch’s third eye was located. It was slumbering at the moment, unconcerned with vampires.
“I believe you, Mistress Roydon,” Hubbard said finally. “No one would have the temerity to lie about such a thing in a house of God.”
“Perhaps you can help me, then. I’m in London to seek help with some finer points of magic and witchcraft. Who among your children would you recommend for the task?” My request erased Matthew’s grin.
“Diana,” he growled.
“My father would be very pleased if you could assist me,” I said, calmly ignoring him.
“And what form would this pleasure take?” Andrew Hubbard was a Renaissance prince, too, and interested in gaining whatever strategic advantage he could.
“First, my father would be pleased to hear about our quiet evening at home on the eve of the New Year,” I said, meeting his eyes. “Everything else I tell him in my next letter will depend on the witch you send to the Hart and Crown.”
Hubbard considered my request. “I will discuss your needs with my children and decide who might best serve you.”
“Whoever he sends will be a spy,” Matthew warned.
“You’re a spy, too,” I pointed out. “I’m tired. I want to go home.”
“Our business here is done, Hubbard. I trust that Diana, like all de Clermonts, is in London with your approval.” Matthew turned to leave without waiting for an answer.
“Even de Clermonts must be careful in the city,” Hubbard called after us. “See that you remember it, Mistress Roydon.”
Matthew and Gallowglass spoke in low voices on our row home, but I was silent. I refused help getting out of the boat and began the climb up Water Lane without waiting for them. Even so, Pierre was ahead of me by the time I reached the passage into the Hart and Crown, and Matthew was at my elbow. Inside, Walter and Henry were waiting for us. They shot to their feet.
“Thank God,” Walter said.
“We came as soon as we heard that you were in need. George is sick abed, and neither Kit nor Tom could be found,” Henry explained, eyes darting anxiously between me and Matthew.
“I’m sorry to have called you. My alarm was premature,” Matthew said, his cloak swirling around his feet as he took it from his shoulders.
“If it concerns the order—” Walter began, eyeing the cloak.
“It doesn’t,” Matthew assured him.
“It concerns me,” I said. “And before you come up with some other disastrous scheme, understand this: The witches are my concern. Matthew is being watched, and not just by Andrew Hubbard.”
“He’s used to it,” Gallowglass said gruffly. “Pay the gawpers no mind, Auntie.”
“I need to find my own teacher, Matthew,” I said. My hand fluttered down to where the point of my bodice covered the top of my belly. “No witch is going to part with her secrets so long as any of you are involved. Everyone who enters this house is either a wearh, a philosopher, or a spy. Which means, in the eyes of my people, that any one of you could turn us into the authorities. Berwick may seem far away, but the panic is spreading.”
Matthew’s gaze was frosty, but at least he was listening.
“If you order a witch here, one will come. Matthew Roydon always gets his way. But instead of help, I’ll get another performance like the one Widow Beaton gave. That’s not what I need.”
“You need Hubbard’s help even less,” Hancock said sourly.
“We don’t have much time,” I reminded Matthew. Hubbard didn’t know that the baby was Matthew’s, and Hancock and Gallowglass hadn’t perceived the changes to my scent—yet. But this evening’s events had driven home our precarious position.
“All right, Diana. We’ll leave the witches to you. But no lies,” Matthew said, “and no secrets either. One of the people in this room has to know where you are at all times.”
“Matthew, you cannot—” Walter protested.
“I trust my wife’s judgment,” Matthew said firmly.
“That’s what Philippe says about Granny,” Gallowglass muttered under his breath. “Just before all hell breaks loose.”
Chapter Nineteen
"If this is what hell looks like,” Matthew murmured the week after our encounter with Hubbard, “Gallowglass is going to be sadly disappointed.”
There was, in truth, very little fire and brimstone about the fourteenyear-old witch standing before us in the parlor.
“Hush,” I said, mindful of how sensitive a child that age could be. “Did Father Hubbard explain why you are here, Annie?”
“Yes, mistress,” Annie replied miserably. It was difficult to tell if the girl’s pallor was due to her natural coloring or some combination of fear and poor nutrition. “I’m to serve you and accompany you about the city on your business.”
“No, that wasn’t our agreement,” Matthew said impatiently, his booted feet landing heavily on the wooden floor. Annie flinched. “Do you have any power or knowledge to speak of, or is Hubbard playing some joke?”
“I have a little skill,” Annie stammered, her pale blue eyes contrasting with her white skin. “But I need a place, and Father Hubbard said—”
“Oh, I can imagine what Father Hubbard said,” Matthew snorted contemptuously. The look I gave him held sufficient warning that he blinked and was quiet.
“Allow her a chance to explain,” I told him sharply before giving the girl an encouraging smile. “Go on, Annie.”
“As well as serving you, Father Hubbard said I’m to take you to my aunt when she returns to London. She is at a lying-in at present and refused to leave while the woman still had need of her.”
“Your aunt is a midwife as well as a witch?” I asked gently.
“Yes, mistress. A fine midwife and a powerful witch,” Annie said proudly, straightening her spine. When she did so, her too-short skirts exposed her skinny ankles to the cold. Andrew Hubbard outfitted his sons in warm, well-fitting clothes, but his daughters received no such consideration. I smothered my irritation. Fran?oise would have to get her needles out.
“And how did you come to be part of Father Hubbard’s family?”
“My mother was not a virtuous woman,” Annie murmured, twisting her hands in her thin cloak. “Father Hubbard found me in the undercroft of St. Anne’s Church near Aldersgate, my mother dead beside me. My aunt was newly married and soon had babes of her own. I was six years old. Her husband did not want me raised among his sons for fear I would corrupt them with my sinfulness.”
So Annie, now a teenager, had been with Hubbard for more than half her life. The thought was chilling, and the idea that a six-year-old could corrupt anyone was beyond comprehension, but this story explained both her abject look and the girl’s peculiar name: Annie Undercroft.
“While Fran?oise gets you something to eat, I can show you where you will sleep.” I’d been up to the third floor that morning to inspect the small bed, three-legged stool, and worn chest set aside to hold the witch’s belongings. “I’ll help carry your things.”
“Mistress?” Annie said, confused.
“She brought nothing,” Fran?oise said, casting disapproving looks at the newest member of the household.
“Never mind. She’ll have belongings soon enough.” I smiled at Annie, who looked uncertain.
Fran?oise and I spent the weekend making sure that Annie was clean as a whistle, clothed and shod properly, and that she knew enough basic math to make small purchases for me. To test her I sent her to the nearby apothecary for a penny’s worth of quill pens and half a pound of sealing wax (Philippe was right: Matthew went through office supplies at an alarming pace), and she came back promptly with change to spare.
“He wanted a shilling!” Annie complained. “That wax isn’t even good for candles, is it?”
Pierre took a shine to the girl and made it his business to elicit a rare, sweet smile from Annie whenever he could. He taught her how to play cat’s cradle and volunteered to walk with her on Sunday when Matthew dropped broad hints that he would like us to be alone for a few hours.
“He won’t . . . take advantage of her?” I asked Matthew as he unbuttoned my favorite item of clothing: a sleeveless boy’s jerkin made of fine black wool. I wore it with a set of skirts and a smock when we were at home.
“Pierre? Good Christ no.” Matthew looked amused.
“It’s a fair question.” Mary Sidney had not been much older when she was married off to the highest bidder.
“And I gave you a truthful answer. Pierre doesn’t bed young girls.” His hands stilled after he freed the last button. “This is a pleasant surprise. You’re not wearing a corset.”
“It’s uncomfortable, and I’m blaming it on the baby.”
He lifted the jerkin away from my body with an appreciative sound.
“And he’ll keep other men from bothering her?”
“Can this conversation possibly wait until later?” Matthew said, his exasperation showing. “Given the cold, they won’t be gone for long.”
“You’re very impatient in the bedroom,” I observed, sliding my hands into the neck of his shirt.
“Really?” Matthew arched his aristocratic brows in mock disbelief. “And here I thought the problem was my admirable restraint.”
He spent the next few hours showing me just how limitless his patience could be in an empty house on a Sunday. By the time everybody returned, we were both pleasantly exhausted and in a considerably better frame of mind.
Everything returned to normal on Monday, however. Matthew was distracted and irritable as soon as the first letters arrived at dawn, and he sent his apologies to the Countess of Pembroke when it became clear that the obligations of his many jobs wouldn’t allow him to accompany me to our midday meal.
Mary listened without surprise as I explained the reason for Matthew’s absence, blinked at Annie like a mildly curious owl, and sent her off to the kitchens in the care of Joan. We shared a delicious meal, during which Mary offered detailed accounts of the private lives of everyone within shouting distance of the Blackfriars. After lunch we withdrew to her laboratory with Joan and Annie to assist us.
“And how is your husband, Diana?” the countess asked, rolling up her sleeves, her eyes fixed on the book before her.
“In good health,” I said. This, I had learned, was the Elizabethan equivalent of “Fine.”
“That is welcome news.” Mary turned and stirred something that looked noxious and smelled worse. “Much depends on it, I fear. The queen relies on him more than on any other man in the kingdom except Lord Burghley.”
“I wish his good humor was more reliable. Matthew is mercurial these days. He’s possessive one moment and ignores me as if I were a piece of furniture the next.”
“Men treat their property that way.” She picked up a jug of water. “I am not his property,” I said flatly.
“What you and I know, what the law says, and how Matthew himself feels are three entirely separate issues.”
“They shouldn’t be,” I said quickly, ready to argue the point. Mary silenced me with a gentle, resigned smile.
“You and I have an easier time with our husbands than other women do, Diana. We have our books and the leisure to indulge our passions, thank God. Most do not.” Mary gave everything in her beaker a final stir and decanted the contents into another glass vessel.
I thought of Annie: a mother who’d died alone in a church cellar, an aunt who couldn’t take her in because of her husband’s prejudices, a life that promised little in the way of comfort or hope. “Do you teach your female servants how to read?”
“Certainly,” Mary responded promptly. “They learn to write and reckon, too. Such skills will make them more valuable to a good husband—one who likes to earn money as well as spend it.” She beckoned to Joan, who helped her move the fragile glass bubble full of chemicals to the fire.