Jennet ventured cautiously into the dimly lit interior of the shop, inhaling a musty smell that did little to rea.s.sure her about the quality of the herbs and spices the place offered for sale. Sniffing cautiously, she could distinguish the scent of mint, which kept its aroma even after it was dried.

"What lack ye?"

The sharp-voiced question made Jennet jump, for she'd thought herself alone in the shop. The speaker emerged from an inner room, moving slowly and ponderously through the door.

Widow Sparcheforde, Jennet thought, noting the sour expression on her deeply lined face.

Alys's mother was dressed in plain dark wool, the bodice well fitted with rolled shoulder pieces and sewn-in sleeves. She wore a goffered ruff and a crisply starched ap.r.o.n and had a money pouch suspended from her waist. Jennet felt dowdy in comparison.

"Well?" The old woman sounded irritable. "What do you want?"

"I have come to buy spices." Like most of those in his trade, the late Grocer Sparcheforde stocked an a.s.sortment, though he'd also sold sugar, confectionery, crystallized fruits, honey, wax, and herbs.

Suspicion lurked in the widow's eyes as she watched Jennet's movements. She made no effort to wait on her. "If you want aught from a high shelf," she said when she observed Jennet's interest in items stored above her head, "you'll have to wait for it."

"Have you no one to help you here? No one to look out for you?"

"A lazy apprentice. He went off to run an errand for me an hour since. G.o.d only knows where he's got to."

"No family?"

"Oh, aye. An ungrateful daughter."

Jennet smiled to herself. Alys's mother was stooped. She hobbled when she walked. Her hands had the gnarled look of one whose joints had stiffened with age. Jennet permitted herself the uncharitable hope that Alys would one day look just like her mother. 'Twould serve her right. The only fate more just involved her execution for the crime of murdering Sir Robert Appleton.

The subtle offer of a sympathetic ear was all it took to start Goodwife Sparcheforde talking. She seemed to welcome a fresh audience for an account of all her woes. Jennet soon learned, as she'd hoped she might, that young Alys had been trained by her father in the preparation of herbs and spices.

Grocers were not supposed to usurp the work of apothecaries but the two trades did sometimes overlap. Just how much, Jennet wondered, had Alys learned at her father's knee? Enough to select and prepare an effective dose of poison?

"Raised his own herbs, he did," the widow bragged.

Sparcheforde had purchased spices-grains of paradise and cloves and ginger and pepper-but in the last years before his death, he'd also planted an herb garden behind his daughter's inn and saved himself the expense of buying those he could grow.

"What herbs?" Jennet asked.

"Peppermint, spearmint, and thyme." She named a dozen others, too, but not the plant Jennet was looking for. More direct measures seemed called for.

"Monkshood?" she asked.

As soon as the word was uttered, Jennet knew she'd gone too far. Goodwife Sparcheforde's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?" she demanded. "Why do you ask me that?"

"Faith, I am but a simple goodwife like yourself."

But the grocer's widow did not believe her. She realized Jennet did not intend to buy anything, either, since she had put nothing in the wicker basket she'd brought with her. Enraged, Goodwife Sparcheforde heaved herself toward Jennet with a menacing growl that sent the younger woman running into the street.

As she fled, imprecations and curses followed her. Pedestrians paused to look, wondering what was amiss.

Her cheeks flaming with embarra.s.sment, Jennet hastened toward the spot where she'd instructed Lionel to wait for her. From the look of alarm in his eyes as he watched her approach, the old woman was still after her.

"I know who you are," Widow Sparcheforde shouted just as Lionel caught Jennet's arm and hauled her up onto the pillion behind his saddle.

Jennet had to abandon the basket.

It was not a graceful escape, but she was beyond caring. She clung to Lionel's waist as they rode hard for Walgate, burrowing her overheated face into his strong back.

"She knows who you are," Lionel said when they were clear of the town, "and I know who she is." Jennet heard suppressed excitement in his voice... and something more. Deviltry? Antic.i.p.ation? Fear?

"She's Widow Sparcheforde. Naught else." Still winded from her precipitous flight, her words had a breathy quality.

"More than that." Now Lionel sounded like a man h.o.a.rding a delicious secret.

"What more?" Jennet was in no mood for games. Her attempt to help Lady Appleton had not been the resounding success she'd antic.i.p.ated.

"Some folk say she's a witch. And she did curse you, Jennet."

For a moment, Jennet's chest tightened and her breath stopped. Then she sucked in air and rewarded Lionel with what she hoped was a painful pinch, though her fingers closed around more fabric than skin.

"Stop trying to frighten me."

"I tell you true." He sounded almost cheerful at the prospect of her coming misfortune. "That is what they say in Dover and have done for years. Widow Sparcheforde can cast spells. Why, just last month, a man's cow died but two days after he spattered old Mother Sparcheforde with mud. He rode past her at too great a speed. She cursed him for it on the spot. I suppose it must have been a mild curse," Lionel mused, "else he'd be dead now, not just his cow."

"Nonsense," Jennet declared.

That was what Lady Appleton would say.

But on the way home, Jennet ordered Lionel to stop at a farm cottage she knew. When they continued on, they were leading a scrawny old cow. She'd stopped giving milk, and the farmer had intended to slaughter her.

Jennet had a better use for the beast. A precaution only, she a.s.sured herself, just in case Lionel's story was true. She saw no profit in taking unnecessary risks. If the old woman was a witch, then let it be Jennet's animal, not Jennet herself, who suffered the effects of her cursing.

Chapter 17.

The entire household at Leigh Abbey rose early on Sunday to attend morning services in the parish church. Everyone above the age of six walked there through the frigid dawn.

During Susanna's detention in Newgate, Robert had been brought home and buried. There was not an inhabitant for miles around who had not heard that his widow was suspected of poisoning him, and Susanna hoped for some sign of support from her neighbors. After all, her family had lived in this part of Kent for generations and had always been good masters, paying well for services rendered and treating their retainers with fairness. Nearly everyone in the parish depended upon Leigh Abbey in some way.

Instead, she observed subtle evidence that the parishioners believed she was guilty. She resolved to hold her head high and pretend she did not notice.

Jennet was not so restrained. She had to be prevented by brute force from accosting the carpenter's wife when that woman stepped aside in order to avoid any accidental contact between her skirts and those of an accused murderess. The snub was too obvious to be misinterpreted.

"She has no call for such rude behavior," Jennet complained, furious on her mistress's behalf.

"Ignore her. Less said, soonest mended."

But this was not some dispute over who made the best bread. Susanna's neighbors, the honest, hard-working people she had known all her life, believed her capable of killing her husband. Throughout the service, those covert glances which did not condemn her out of hand, surveyed her with morbid curiosity. They were as bad as carrion crows.

Beside her, Jennet fidgeted during a psalm, glared at those around them through the lessons from the Old and New Testaments, and was restrained only by Mark's hand over her fist when whispers during the litany were not sufficiently masked by the coughing of parishioners suffering from catarrh. The words murder and poison herbs were clearly audible.

"Where is their loyalty?" Jennet muttered, but she managed to seethe in silence through the decalogue, epistle, and gospel. The Nicene Creed was read, another psalm sung. Then came the sermon.

Since he owed his living to Leigh Abbey, the preacher chose a subject with no connection whatsoever to Susanna's present troubles. While he railed against the evils of allowing revelers to have free reign during the holiday season and turned that into a diatribe against mummers, players, jugglers, musicians, and other masterless men, her thoughts drifted.

Was there a connection between the Eleanor Cross and Eleanor Lowell? Susanna had met Eleanor for the first time shortly after Rosamond's birth. Unable to contact Robert because he was in Spain on the queen's business, Eleanor had brought the child to Leigh Abbey.

The discovery that Robert had yet another mistress had not surprised Susanna, but she had been shocked to learn there was a child. In all the years they had been married, she had never conceived, and Robert had gotten no other b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, or at least none Susanna knew of. Until Rosamond, she'd a.s.sumed the fault for this lack might lie with him. Rosamond had been proof it was Susanna's failing.

Refusing to dwell on her inadequacy as a wife, Susanna forced her wayward thoughts back to the matter at hand. There were several mysteries surrounding Robert's death. One involved the reason he'd made his way to the cross at Charing. Had he gone there in order to call attention to the mother of his child?

If he had, that did not necessarily mean she had killed him. It might rather indicate that he had gone to see her at some point during the preceding eighteen months. Robert's activities then were still unaccounted for, despite Walter's best efforts to trace them.

Had he spent part of that time with Eleanor and their daughter in Lancashire? Might he even have brought them with him to London? Susanna knew only one certain way to find out. On the morrow, she would leave Kent and journey northward. The answers to many questions might be found at Appleton Manor.

More psalms followed the sermon. An infant was baptized at the font. Susanna paid little mind, scarce aware of her surroundings. Oblivious to the cold bench beneath her, she barely noticed that her feet were icy. Her warm cloak staved off the worst of the shivers.

On the other hand, she mused, the Eleanor Cross might have nothing to do with Eleanor Lowell. The name was not uncommon. The second Lady Madderly had also borne it. She'd been murdered, too, though not by poison. Was that the message Robert had been trying to convey? That someone had murdered him?

It was also possible, she supposed, that he'd not intended to leave a dying clue at all. It could have been sheer happenstance he'd died where he did.

At last, the worship service was over. A glance at Jennet showed her ready to exit the church and do battle on her mistress's behalf.

"Keep your temper under control," Susanna warned her, and steeled herself to do likewise. She expected to face further condemnation, but the first person they encountered outside the church was Nicholas Baldwin, their nearest neighbor.

"Lady Appleton. Well met." Baldwin greeted her with a respectful little bow and a smile, making plain to all who witnessed their meeting that he had no doubts about her innocence.

Nick Baldwin was as solid as one of his own merchant ships. Although he was a London man and a relative newcomer to Kent, he had quickly shown himself to be a generous benefactor of local causes. Susanna expected he'd be made a justice of the peace for the area before much longer.

Walter studied Baldwin with wary eyes, then introduced himself. Odd, Susanna thought. She'd always a.s.sumed it had been Walter who'd provided Baldwin with information about the inhabitants of Leigh Abbey, Walter who'd told him that she, in particular, could be trusted. It was apparent to her now that the two men had not met before. Someday, she thought, she would have to inquire of Nick Baldwin just who had recommended her to him. At present she was preoccupied with more pressing matters.

"I held you well rid of Sir Robert the first time he was reported dead," Baldwin said bluntly. "I have not changed my opinion, but I am sorry for your trouble over this. If I can help in any way, you've only to say the word."

"I ask no more than your continued friendship," Susanna told him, placing one hand on his arm. They'd spent many a pleasant hour together since their first, rather acrimonious encounter. Nick Baldwin had traveled widely, to such exotic places as Muscovy and Persia, and had brought back all manner of souvenirs, including the male cat, Bala, whose long fur and pushed-in face had begun to crop up among the shorter-haired felines in this part of Kent.

Walter took her elbow to ease her away from her neighbor. Startled, Susanna glanced his way in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of an unguarded expression before he carefully blanked it. He'd looked, she thought, as if he'd just bitten down on a sour persimmon.

Bidding Baldwin a fond farewell, she motioned for Jennet and Mark to join her for the walk back to Leigh Abbey. None of the other neighbors, she noted, had chosen to follow the London man's lead. The rest of them seemed to prefer to believe the worst.

"I do think," she murmured as they left the churchyard, "that we will hold afternoon prayers in private in Leigh Abbey's chapel."

Chapter 18.

Jennet fumed all the way home. Disloyal villains! Self-righteous fools! How could anyone know Lady Appleton and think her capable of such a heinous crime?

While she was busy packing for their departure, even when she was playing one last time with her children, Jennet continued to stew about the narrow-minded stupidity of their neighbors.

"Running off to Scotland has begun to have more appeal," she told Mark when he came to fetch her. Lady Appleton wanted to see both of them in her study.

They found her at her writing table, a ledger open before her. Her expression was as somber as Jennet had ever seen it.

She looked first at Mark. "I must leave someone I trust in charge of Leigh Abbey while I am gone. My steward is the most logical choice."

"But, madam-"

She cut short Mark's protest. "What happened at church today may be only the beginning of our troubles. I will not compound them by placing the demesne farm in inexperienced hands. It is only natural that there be a certain... unease about my fate. Creditors will doubtless begin to demand all payments in cash. You are the only one who can make sure the manor continues to run smoothly. I rely upon you to ensure that these accusations against me do not undermine all we have built here."

Mark glanced at Jennet, then away. The previous evening, after her return from Dover, they'd talked far into the night. Lady Appleton was right. Rumors were already flying, in town and countryside alike. Few besides Appleton Manor's loyal house servants wished to be tarred with the same brush now being used to blacken Lady Appleton's good name.

Jennet chewed on her lower lip and fingered the talisman she'd attached to the loop that held her housekeeper's keys. She'd hoped the contents of this little leather pouch would be powerful enough to negate Widow Sparcheforde's curses. It contained wood betony (said to have power against evil spirits), a sprig of rowan (always good to scare away the supernatural), and a bit of Saint-John's-wort (to ward off witches and fairies).

Her bad luck, however, had already begun. The cow she'd bought still lived but Jennet had stabbed her finger on a cloak pin while sorting her mistress's belongings. It throbbed painfully when she twisted her hands together.

And now Lady Appleton meant to leave Mark behind.

"January and February are hard, hungry months in the best of times," she told him, though both Mark and Jennet knew that very well. "This winter has been uncommon cold. There have been problems with foxes raiding the henroosts. Cattle usually fed on leaves, mosses, vines, and young shoots will have to be kept alive on loppings from trees until the snow melts."

"You cannot mean to go to Lancashire alone," Jennet objected and gave Mark a sharp kick to the ankle to encourage him to speak up.

"Others can supervise the work here," he said with satisfactory promptness. "My place is with you, madam."

"Others can, but I want you to do it, Mark. Someone in authority must set folk to their tasks. Woodcutting. Winnowing and grinding of grain. Lambing will soon begin and at Candlemas it will be time to plough, harrow, and spread manure, to set trees and hedges, prune fruit trees, and even sow oats and beans, if the weather permits."

"Who will accompany you, then, madam? It is a long, hard journey to Appleton Manor."

"Sir Walter goes with me. And Fulke. And Bernard Bates."

Her guard dog. Jennet grimaced.

"Not Lionel? If you will not take me," Mark protested, "then he-"

"I need Lionel here." Lady Appleton tapped the ledger again. "He knows my herb garden. He must oversee that work. Sow spike, coriander, and white poppy in the new of February's moon, aniseed and fennel under the full moon, which will occur on the fifteenth day of that month. And beneath the old moon, plant holy thistle, hartshorn, and burnet. Then, in March-"

"Madam," Mark interrupted, "if Lionel is to stay, let him do all. My place-"

"Your place is with your wife and children. Jennet, you will remain behind, as well."

"Oh, no, madam," Jennet protested. "Where you go, I go."

"But your children-"