Lord of Deception, стр. 15

“I wanted to discuss something with you.”

“Something private?” There was warning in Kirlham’s voice.

“There’s no one about. The servants are having their victuals. But if you insist, I’ll peer over the hedge.”

Kit held his breath as the leaves rustled above him. How would he explain his present position if challenged? He willed himself to blend with the shadows.

“Nothing there. You worry overmuch. Now, you know the new gardener employed by Kate?”

Kit’s blood thrummed in his ears. They were talking about him?

“Aye, what of him?”

“He’s too subservient, yet at the same time more… visible than an undergardener should be.”

“How interesting to hear you say that.” Turning his head slightly, Kit could see Kirlham’s paned leather shoes through the stems of the ancient box plants. The man was close enough to touch. Or skewer with a sword. But there was no evidence to implicate the knight in any plots.

“He has come to my notice on a couple of occasions,” Kirlham continued. “I saw him in an embrace with Kate when I first arrived, although ’twas explained away by her cousin. Then I caught him coming out of Kate’s chamber—again with a seemingly legitimate excuse.”

“I wasn’t thinking about Kate so much as the cousin, Mistress Barchard. I noticed upon the yester how she got left behind, so I eventually went back to seek for her. I found her bird in the mews, and her horse in the stables, and observed the lady herself rush precipitously out of the shed where the new gardener spends his days. I wonder what she can have been about?”

Avery’s words set Kit’s heart thumping. It seemed he wasn’t the only person spying upon Alys.

“Nothing untoward, I trow. She’s not likely to be having a tryst with him—far too apt to judge and find wanting. She considers our Kate dissolute, wicked, shallow, weak-willed—in fact, everything we want the outside world to believe about her. At present, Mistress Barchard’s vocal disapproval is as good a cover as we could have wished for.”

Why would these two men want people to think ill of Mistress Aspinall? There was a riddle here to be solved. Kit prayed the pair would not decide to walk on, out of earshot.

“So, what do you make of her running from the gardener’s shed?” asked Avery.

“Did you see the fellow himself?”

“Nay, I didn’t think to look within. Of course, he might not have been there. Alys may have just wandered in to look at some flowers—I know she’s fond of them.”

“But if he was within, it would be a most singular event. If anything out of the ordinary happens in this house, we should act upon it, especially when we’re so close to our goal.” Kirlham’s foot tapped irritably on the path.

Avery shifted position. “The gardener might be thought a handsome fellow by an impressionable female. Perhaps that’s all there is in the case. I thought Kate was interested in him for a while, but I’m now certain ’tis part of her pretense. Best not interfere with her plans in that direction—I think she enjoys the masque.”

“Might not an amorous liaison between Mistress Barchard and the gardener be a threat?”

“Only to my manhood,” was Avery’s response. “For I had thought to have her knees tremble only for me.”

Kit suddenly wished he was armed with a sword. How dare they speak of her thus? “Ha! I wish you luck with her. I’d rather bed a French trollop than that block of ice. But mayhap you jest?”

The image of Kirlham’s head spitted on a pike flashed into Kit’s mind. He wished the man was guilty of treachery—nothing would please him more than to see the fellow condemned.

“I quite like the woman,” countered Avery. “She has a witty tongue, and I’m sure could flourish in the right society. You know, when the cause is triumphant, I think I might make a project of her.”

Not if I kill you first. No, wait, his fury had made him miss something. Of what cause were they speaking?

“If you insist, Avery. I’m sure there’ll be rewards aplenty when we’re successful, so you’ll be able to keep her in admirable style. There’s nothing like a fat coffer to open a woman’s legs.”

Guffaws of laughter followed this remark, then the two men moved off, leaving Kit staring between the box stalks at the poppies on the other side of the path. He wanted the path colored the same, red with Kirlham’s blood, and Avery’s, too. But hotheadedness would achieve nothing.

Perchance he had found his traitors. But the household was leaving for Norfolk, and he’d promised to be gone by then. How was he to find the evidence he needed to condemn them with so little time left?

As he eased to a sitting position and plucked the clinging cleaver seeds from his shirt, one thought gladdened his heart.

Whatever Mistress Aspinall, Kirlham and Avery were up to, it seemed Alys was not involved. But if she was not a party to their machinations, didn’t that place her in deadly peril?