LITMIR.BIZ

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shock and grief, but Frances would always recall seeing excitement in his eyes, even as their father told them the news, his voice cracked with sorrow.

      Edward had left for Cambridge soon afterwards, and Frances had seen little of him, or her three other brothers, since. But now it was clear that he revelled in his status as heir to the Longford estate.

      Her thoughts were disturbed by a movement at the edge of her vision – her old nurse, Ellen, walking slowly over the bridge. She stopped to rub her back, then plodded on, wincing at the pain in her hip. It had grown a good deal worse since Frances had last seen her almost two years before. Ellen had been standing on the threshold of the castle as Frances’s carriage had made its steady progress along the drive a fortnight ago. Frances had felt the bones of Ellen’s shoulders as her nurse had embraced her. She had tried to hide her dismay at the sight of Ellen’s grey hair and pinched, sagging skin. In those two years, she had become an old woman.

      It seemed to Frances as if a lifetime had passed since she had last sat here by the Avon, in the shade of her beloved home. She herself had changed, she knew. How naïve – arrogant, even – she had been when she had first arrived at Whitehall Palace a year after King James’s accession. Despite her mother’s warning, she had made little effort to conceal her skills at healing, as if the herbs could somehow protect her from the evil that pervaded the new king’s court. She had soon learned, to her cost, that they were as nothing against his perverted obsessions or the twisted schemes of his closest adviser.

       Cecil.

      Frances felt the familiar loathing at the thought of the king’s crook-backed minister. He had been a constant, menacing presence throughout her time at court. Even in the privacy of her lodgings, she had felt his eyes upon her. He had conspired in her arrest for witchcraft, had watched, impervious to her screams, as the torturer had searched her body intimately for the Devil’s Mark. She remembered the elation she had felt upon hearing that Tom and his fellow plotters had succeeded: that Cecil had been blown to the heavens, along with the king and his entire parliament. But the news had proved false. Fawkes had been discovered with the gunpowder just hours before the lords assembled in the ancient hall above.

      Frances shook her head as if to dispel the thoughts that she knew would follow. Of Tom, his body racked with pain, being pulled along to his death.

      ‘Wintour looked as pale as a dead man when he mounted the scaffold,’ she had heard someone say as, a few days later, she had hastened through the public rooms of the palace, desperate to avoid the subject that was on everyone’s lips.

      ‘Fear makes cowards of us all,’ another had responded. Frances had rounded on them then, all of the grief she had tried to contain spilling out in her fury.

      ‘Are you well, my lady?’

      Ellen’s brow was creased with concern. She was breathing heavily from the exertion of her walk. Frances gave a weak smile of reassurance. ‘Do not trouble yourself, Ellen. I am quite well, thank you.’

      Her gaze moved to the basket that the older woman had set down upon the grass. ‘Were you able to find the willow bark, and the hyssop?’ she asked.

      Ellen nodded as she sank down next to her. ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘though I searched in the woods a long time. My eyes are not as sharp as they were, so I had to stoop down on my knees.’ She kneaded them as she spoke.

      Frances suppressed her impatience. ‘I am sorry for it, Ellen, but with the herbs you have gathered I will make you a salve to ease your aching limbs.’ She paused. ‘I wish I could have gone myself.’

      Ellen clicked her tongue in disapproval. ‘And risk your secret being discovered?’ she demanded, then gave a sigh and reached over to pat Frances’s hand. ‘You know you must have a care, now that your young knave is starting to show himself.’ Her voice was softer now.

      ‘It might be a girl,’ Frances pointed out.

      Ellen shook her head. ‘Not when you carry the child like that, all at the front.’

      They sat in companionable silence for a few moments. Frances watched as a hawk circled over the woods, dipping down now and again as it sought its prey. How she longed to be among the ancient oaks, to smell the sweet scent of the primroses, which she knew would be in bloom now. Though she cherished her home, it had felt more like a prison this past week. She chided herself for the thought. Her only solace during the long days and nights that followed Tom’s death had been the prospect of returning to Longford. Now she was here, yet the restlessness and misery still hung over her.

      ‘The pain of parting will lessen in time,’ Ellen said, as if reading her thoughts. Frances opened her mouth to reply, but the older woman continued: ‘I do not ask you to name him. I respect your parents’ wishes, and would not vex you by pressing the matter – not for the world. Whatever the reason you have returned here unmarried, yet with child, I will not attempt to discover it. I want only to care for you, when the time comes—’ She broke off, her eyes glistening with tears.

      Frances swallowed her own. She had wept so much these past weeks that she wondered there could be any tears left. But soon she must go in for dinner, and she was determined to avoid her brother’s scorn by concealing her grief.

      ‘Thank you, Ellen,’ she said quietly. ‘You have always been like a mother to me, and I have missed you sorely since we were parted at Whitehall.’

      ‘And I have fretted about you endlessly, my lady,’ the old woman replied, her forehead furrowed with deep lines. ‘The court is a good deal more dangerous since King James took our old queen’s throne. There are many who would rejoice to see him murdered.’

      ‘Hush, Ellen,’ Frances remonstrated, her voice low. ‘You know it is treason to speak of such things.’

      Her old nurse gave an indignant sniff. ‘I hated to think of you in that place, friendless and alone, while plots gathered about the king. When news reached us of the Powder Treason last November, I begged your brother to bring you home. But he would have none of it.’

      Frances gave a sardonic smile. ‘I am sure he did not wish to upset the king by taking away his daughter’s favourite attendant,’ she said quietly. ‘Besides, Ellen, I was neither alone nor friendless. The princess was a kind and loving mistress and, though still a child, an excellent companion. There were others, too.’

      She fell silent, then took the old woman’s hand and smoothed her thumb over the swollen joints. A little marjoram and a few sprigs of rosemary ground with the willow bark Ellen had gathered would make enough paste to ease the discomfort.

      With a sigh, Frances lifted her feet out of the stream and dried them on the grass. ‘I must make shift,’ she said regretfully. ‘The viscount is strict in his hours of dining.’ She could not quite keep the scorn out of her voice as she spoke the title her brother insisted upon using. As the son of the Marchioness of Northampton and heir to Longford Castle, it was his right, she supposed, but to ensure that it was upheld here, in the quiet domesticity of their home, was absurd.

      Edward was already seated at the head of the table – her father’s chair, she noted – when she entered the dining room. She gave a brief curtsy and waited.

      ‘Sister,’ he said, gesturing towards a place halfway along the table. Frances walked slowly to the chair and sat down.

      A selection of dishes was laid out in front of them. Frances breathed in the aroma of capon with orange sauce, baked venison and fried whiting. Each was presented on the silver plates that their parents reserved for distinguished guests. Frances took a sip of the red wine that had been poured into her glass and recognised the fine Burgundy vintage her father usually reserved for their Christmas feast.

      ‘The wine is not to your taste?’ Edward asked, noting his sister’s look of disapproval.

      She forced a smile. ‘On the contrary, brother. It is excellent – surely one of the best in our father’s cellar.’

      Frances saw annoyance in his face as she turned to the dishes in front of her and helped

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