Susanna listened with only half her attention. The other half was on the waiting gentlewoman, who continued to strum her lute, providing background music without calling attention to herself. The woman was almost as thin as her mistress. Light brown hair framed a face distinguished by a sharp blade of a nose and a slight droop at the corner of one of her blue eyes.

As ailing persons were wont to do, Lady Northampton tired herself out with talking and, between one word and the next, fell deeply asleep. A moment later, Constance rose from the window seat, gesturing for Susanna to follow her into an anteroom.

As soon as the door to the adjoining bedchamber was closed, Constance turned to face Susanna, staring at her with disquieting intensity. She was several inches shorter than Susanna. That did not surprise her. Robert had disliked excessive height in a woman. What was unexpected was that Constance appeared to be older than she.

"You killed a good man." Constance said.

"You are wrong, on both counts." Susanna made no attempt to pretend she did not know they'd shared Robert's attentions a dozen years earlier.

Neither did Constance. "You never appreciated his finer qualities. You belittled him."

"'Tis plain you did not know him well. Or recently."

Constance's wince confirmed the latter.

"You were his mistress years ago." Susanna did not mean to be cruel, but she doubted Robert had continued the liaison after Northumberland's fall. That had occurred only a few months after her discovery at the Lady Jane's wedding.

"He was a bright light in my younger days." Constance's voice broke. "A comet, streaking through my universe, bringing color and excitement." A single tear flowed silently down her cheek. Then another.

Memories coated with nostalgia were a potent force. Susanna experienced a pang of sympathy for Constance. "We all had grandiose dreams back then," she murmured.

"He might have married me, had Northumberland not forced you upon him."

Startled, Susanna voiced her first thought. "A pity he did not."

Constance's eyes widened.

"None of us had control over our choices."

The duke of Northumberland, Leicester's father, had been her guardian. He'd arranged her marriage to Robert, one of a number of gentlemen attached to his household. Walter Pendennis had been another. How different things might have been, she thought, if Northumberland had matched her with Walter Pendennis. Would Robert have wed Constance? Since they would never know, such speculation would not only be painful, but fruitless, as well.

"Why did you come here?" Constance demanded. "Why did they not keep you in prison?"

"I am released on my promise to return for trial. In the meantime, I intend to find out who killed Robert. I did not, Constance, but whoever did knew him well. Perhaps a woman, someone he trusted. A former mistress, mayhap?"

"You think I poisoned him?" Aghast, she backed up several steps, knocking into a small table and setting a mortar and pestle to rattling.

"The thought did cross my mind." Susanna spared a glance for her surroundings. They were in a storeroom of sorts. Medicines of all kinds, in flasks and bottles and pots of a.s.sorted sizes, lined the open shelves of a large cupboard, together with a box containing a bone ear-picker and toothpick set.

Constance cleared her throat. "I believed Robert died of the plague more than a year ago. I grieved for him."

Susanna rounded on her. "When did you last see him?"

Constance hesitated, refusing to meet her adversary's eyes.

"Did he ever visit you again after Northumberland's arrest?"

Susanna felt certain now that her earlier guess had been accurate. Soon after she'd seen Robert kissing Constance in the garden at Durham House, the duke of Northumberland had been executed and Robert, for a short time, had been imprisoned. The marquis of Northampton, more deeply involved in the plot, had been deprived of t.i.tle, land, and income. Lady Northampton had lived for years in near poverty. If Constance had remained with her, Robert would have gone out of his way to avoid any contact with her. He'd been most eager to prove himself a loyal subject of the new regime.

"I am sorry," Susanna said, and meant it.

Constance swiped angrily at the tracks of her tears. "How did you know about me?"

"I saw you and Robert together. In the garden at Durham House."

Constance sighed deeply. "That was the last time I was with him. Robert Appleton was the one great temptation of my youth, and my great folly. I thought if I gave myself to him, he would fall so deeply under my spell that he would defy Northumberland, renounce his pre-contract with you, and marry me."

"But that day in the garden-that was after he and I were wed."

Constance's expression was unreadable. "What you saw, Lady Appleton, was my farewell to your husband."

Chapter 13.

The kitchen at Leigh Abbey was almost as large as the manor's great hall and was connected to it by a long range containing a small parlor and the b.u.t.tery, pantry, and scullery. Beneath them all were underground cellars. Above were servants' lodgings.

The vast room was still warm when Jennet entered, even though it was the middle of the night in winter. The heat came from the fire still burning in one of two huge hearths built side by side against one wall.

Traceried windows high on those same walls let in slivers of moonlight, but greater illumination came from the lantern on the cook's long, narrow, recently scrubbed worktable. At the sound of Jennet's footsteps on the stone-flagged floor, Lady Appleton unbent from her position next to a gently steaming kettle, round-bellied like a small cauldron, that hung over the flames.

"I see I was not the only one too restless to sleep," she said.

"I am hungry." Mark had eaten all the tidbits Jennet had squirreled away in their privy lodgings in the east wing. She'd left him snoring to forage for food.

Late that afternoon, three days after Lady Appleton's release from Newgate, she and her servants and Bernard Bates had returned to Leigh Abbey. First thing in the morning, she would journey to Dover, seven miles distant.

Lady Appleton had never met Alys, the mistress Sir Robert had acquired during the last years of the reign of Queen Mary. Jennet, who had, was not eager to repeat the experience.

"Have you slept at all, madam?"

"I was confined away from mine own home much too long, and the quest we begin tomorrow may occupy many weeks to come. Is it so surprising that I feel the need to indulge in a pastime I may never be able to pursue again?" A small smile played about her lips. "I had a greater craving for milk of almonds than for sleep."

Jennet saw that Lady Appleton had been occupied with this particular task for some considerable time. The sweet almonds waited in a bowl, blanched, peeled, and pounded. The pounding was a long and tedious business, but every good housewife knew that what was sold in shops as ground almonds was more often made from peach kernels. The only way to be sure of the quality of the ingredients was to prepare them at home.

Lady Appleton also preferred to make her own barley water, which she'd done by boiling a handful of barley three times. As Jennet watched, she combined a beaker of the stuff with the ingredients already in the pot, added the almonds, and left the mixture to simmer.

Jennet spared a glance for the containers neatly lined up next to the lantern as she cut herself a wedge of cheese, added a heel of bread, and began to munch. Sorrel. Violet and strawberry leaves. The tops and flowers of borage. Bugloss. Endive. Succory. Pansies. Marjoram. Rosemary. She frowned. "I thought milk of almonds was made with onions."

"One sort is. Yet another has no onions, nor any salt, but contains a great deal of sugar. This is a more complex recipe, one I have tried but once before. 'Tis a pity Lady Northampton does not care for almonds, else I'd send some of it to her along with my gift of sweetmeats."

"You have said little of your visit to her." Jennet took possession of a convenient stool, first displacing a long-haired cat. That characteristic marked it as one of a litter sired by Bala, the odd-looking feline their nearest neighbor had brought back with him from foreign parts.

"There is little to tell. Lady Northampton is dying."

"There's more to it than that." Jennet polished off the cheese and licked her fingers. "Sir Walter had a worried look on his face when you told him where you'd been."

Then he'd asked Lady Appleton if she'd talked to Lady Northampton's waiting gentlewoman, and Lady Appleton had admitted she had. Jennet had been mulling over that exchange ever since.

Lady Appleton strained the milk of almonds and poured it into two goblets, offering one to Jennet. As the beverage cooled, she supplied sketchy details of the two visits she'd paid before they left London. It had been the Lady Mary Grey who'd told her where to find Constance Crane, yet another of Sir Robert's mistresses.

Relishing her role as Lady Appleton's confidante, Jennet listened attentively to every word, then asked if Constance could have killed Sir Robert.

"Possible, but not probable. She's far too busy nursing Lady Northampton. And why wait almost a dozen years to take revenge?"

"Mayhap she lied about not seeing Sir Robert again."

"Mayhap she did. If she did, I will find her out. In the meantime, I mean to question other suspects."

"Alys?"

"Alys. I chose to ignore her existence when Robert kept her, but I knew about her. A grocer's daughter. Young. Pretty. And after Robert evicted her from the house he'd kept her in, I could scarce avoid hearing that she swore he'd regret having treated her so callously."

"But if Alys meant to murder him, would she not have done so in the heat of her anger?" Jennet sipped thoughtfully at her almond milk. "Alys is the sort to act on impulse. I do not think she'd have either the patience or the cleverness to plan for Sir Robert to die the way he did, let alone arrange that the blame should fall on you."

Lady Appleton's eyes narrowed. "You have met her?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"When? Where?"

"'Twas the first July after Mark and I returned to Leigh Abbey from Lancashire. We had gone to the Dover fair. Alys was nearby when someone spoke to me, addressing me in such a way that 'twas obvious I was in service at Leigh Abbey. The next thing I knew, Alys had stuck out her foot and sent me sprawling to the ground."

"The July after-but you would have been great with child."

"Aye, and she could not have helped but notice. My son was born that October."

"Do you tell me she intended to trip you, even though doing so might harm an unborn babe?"

"Oh, aye. I knew it had been deliberate even before I heard someone mention Alys's name."

"What happened after?"

Jennet snorted derisively. "She offered her hand to help me to my feet and made a great show of apology and remorse. I did not believe a word of it. Faith, I could see the deceit in her eyes and the hatred there, too. 'Twas plain she did much dislike anyone connected to Leigh Abbey or the Appletons. But she acted in the heat of the moment, not after careful planning. That, too, was obvious."

"You should have told me of her behavior straight away," Lady Appleton said.

But Jennet shook her head. "What could you have done? And 'twas a busy time just then. Right before Sir Robert left for Spain. And that same week, you met Master Baldwin."

A small smile played across Lady Appleton's face at the mention of her stormy first encounter with Bala the cat's master. It vanished a moment later, when she recalled they had been speaking of Alys's a.s.sault on Jennet.

"A woman who would do what she did to you, Jennet, is capable of other violent acts."

"Alys is vicious. That is true enough. But she seems an unlikely poisoner. Then, too, though it pains me to argue for her innocence, it would be pa.s.sing difficult to mistake her for you. She lacks your height."

"Chopines strapped to her shoes can add as much as three inches to a woman's height." Lady Appleton stood and began to clear away the goblets and containers of herbs. "Even if Alys had naught to do with Robert's death, she may still know something about his movements during the last eighteen months. Mark told me Robert was here. He may well have stopped in Dover."

"I suppose there is no help for it, then. You must meet Alys face to face."

Another faint smile drifted across Lady Appleton's features. "Thanks to your warning, I will know to watch my step with her. And her feet."

As Jennet helped her mistress carry the heavy kettle into the scullery, she could not help thinking how convenient it would be if Alys were the poisoner. The beginning of an idea came to her as she scrubbed a thin sc.u.m of almond milk off the inside of the iron pot.

"What poison was used to kill Sir Robert?" she asked.

Lady Appleton gave her an odd look. "It is difficult to be certain."

Encouraged by Jennet's interest, she began to discuss the possibilities. Before long, her voice took on what Jennet privately called her lecturing tone. She left off discussing poisonous herbs and spoke instead of how one might determine the cause of a person's death.

"In Italy, doctors are permitted to cut open the bodies of those who have died and study their innards, but such enlightened practices are called barbaric here in England and banned by law."

Jennet's shudder was only partly due to the encroaching chill from the winter night beyond the walls. "There must be other ways-"

"Oh, yes. a.n.a.lysis of symptoms. I observed Robert's last moments and the condition of his body after death. A man might react as Robert did if he were given aconite."

"Is this aconite easy to obtain?" For all her long a.s.sociation with Lady Appleton, Jennet knew little of herbs. In the usual way of things, she did not care to learn more.

"Aconite can be extracted from several plants. One of them, monkshood, grows in my herb garden here at Leigh Abbey, since it also has medicinal value. And aconite is used to kill pests. Many people place cakes made of paste and toasted cheese and powdered monkshood root near rat holes to rid themselves of vermin."

"This monkshood, madam . . .what if Alys were found to be in possession of some of it?"

Lady Appleton went very still. "That signifies nothing unless we can prove she was in London on the day Robert died." Her gaze sharpened, suspicious and probing. "What are you plotting, Jennet?"

Jennet twisted her hands in the towel she'd just used to dry the kettle. "Nothing," she mumbled.

"I think, Jennet," Lady Appleton said in a quiet, uninflected voice, "that it would not be wise for you to accompany me to Dover."

Chapter 14.

With a jaundiced eye, Sir Walter Pendennis surveyed the weathered signboard announcing that the premises up ahead were called the Star with the Long Tail. An unfortunate choice for a name, he thought. Comets always brought bad luck. Not just ill fortune. National disasters. Supernatural plagues. Famines. Droughts.

Leonard Putney doubtless felt he'd survived several such since his marriage to the buxom young woman who'd once been Robert Appleton's mistress. And the fair-haired, full-figured Alys? Was she content with her lot?

He thought not.

Walter had left Leigh Abbey ahead of the others. He wanted time in Dover to ask certain questions, questions he'd as soon Susanna not overhear. She might put on a show of not caring what her husband had done, but it must hurt her to confront the stark reality of his unfaithfulness. Walter wanted to spare her as much as he could.

Susanna had been distressed by meeting Constance. She would find it even more difficult to deal with Alys. There was no help for it, he thought. He'd have to confront her first.