beside the duty which Walsingham had laid on him, he was rapidly being disabused of any such notion.
The smile his wife gave him in reply was, he noted, as false as Hell, as false as the letters he had received from her over the years. “Indeed, and indeed,” she murmured sweetly, lowering her fan, and showing him the glory of her face, “there is much of which we have to speak.”
“Beginning with honesty.” He made his voice as grim as he dare without causing an open affront. He had no mind for a public altercation with the double-dealing bitch before him. But, oh, how he longed for them to be private together!
“Oh, honesty!” Bess carolled, displaying animation for the first time. “It is a virtue which I prize highly. Like chastity. Another virtue which I am sure, knowing you, that you prize also, my dear husband.”
He heard Charles’s stifled laughter behind him again.
Drew thought of yesterday’s unconfined behaviour of the demure woman before him. “You would give me lessons in it, wife?” he riposted, his voice now dangerous as well as grim.
“Aye, sir. If you think that you need them. My acquaintance with you is not sufficiently lengthy for me to be able to make a judgement on the matter.” She paused, leaned forward and tapped his chest provocatively with her fan. “They say that first impressions are frequently faulty, m’lord! What do you say?”
Drew wanted to say nothing. What he wanted to do was to place the impudent baggage across his knee and give her such a paddling as she would never forget.
But he was hamstrung by the formality of the occasion, and by the fact that so far she was wrongfooting him at every turn, so that he was finding it difficult to gain any verbal advantage over her. Much more of this and Charles would be openly laughing at him—and he could well imagine the smirks of his gentlemen.
Oh, what a fine play this whole wretched business would make with a title along the lines of, The Nymph and the Satyr, or, the Man Who Tried to Seduce His Own Wife. How much he would enjoy this situation if only some other poor fool was in the middle of it, and not himself.
He spoke at last, conscious that he had been silent for some time. He was surprised at how bored and indifferent he sounded. “Why, madam, that is one matter which I would prefer to discuss in private with you. I cannot say how much I look forward to doing so.”
He let his gaze rove around the room, taking in the men standing watching them, more than a little bemused by this byplay, and said, in a low voice which none other but she could hear, “And your youthful escort, madam, who follows you to play with you in the woods, where is he? I see him not here.”
What, was he jealous? This was delightful, was it not? Bess could see that every word she uttered was a dart striking home. He had come to lord it over her, to stress his superiority and by his own wilful and lustful behaviour, and her wicked conduct in not enlightening him as to who she was, she had him at a disadvantage—who should have been at a disadvantage herself.
“Oh, you shall see him soon—when you are introduced to the rest of my servants. In the meantime I have instructed my Council to have ready for you and your Comptrollers all the books and accounts relating to Atherington’s affairs. First, perhaps, we should eat. A feast has been prepared in your honour.”
“So I see, madam.” He was glacial now. “But permit me to correct you. First I should like to be taken to see Sir Braithwaite—to reassure myself as to his condition.”
Aunt Hamilton, who had been listening with increasing agitation to the hostilities being conducted in her presence, took it upon herself to say, “Oh, m’lord, I can assure you that his condition is as was described to you when he first fell ill after his accident. He has not improved.”
Drew’s blue gaze was stern. “I thank you for that reassurance, Lady Hamilton, but I would prefer to see him for myself. My cousin Charles, who is my Chief Comptroller, will accompany me. There is no need for either of you two ladies to do so. Only after I have paid him my respects shall I break bread. Pray order the Steward, Lady Exford, to conduct me to him.”
“Willingly, husband,” Bess said, dipping him a deep curtsey. “I am always yours to command.”
“See that you are, madam, see that you are. I do not care for wilful, forward women who think they know better than their husbands.”
Oh, yes, she had stung him, and seeing his grim face Bess knew that she was going to pay for it. But for the present she had enjoyed herself mightily—and in the end everything had to be paid for. Which was a maxim her father had taught her. What he had been unable to teach her was what form payment might take!
Charles began to speak to his cousin the moment that they were safely out of the Great Parlour and walking towards the main staircase. Drew stopped, took him by the arm and said roughly, “Not now, later. When we are alone. For the present we are to see Sir Braithwaite Hamilton, who, until a few minutes ago, I thought was in charge of my lands here. After that we may talk.”
Sir Braithwaite was, as his wife and niece had said, a helpless invalid. He was incapable of coherent speech, and physically little more active than a baby. He stared affably at Drew and Charles from a great chair placed before a window overlooking the kitchen gardens after his attendant had nudged him and pointed to his visitors. He spoke, but his speech was a babble. Drew thought that by his appearance he was not long for this world, but later the doctor attending him said that he had been of this countenance since his accident.
So, his lady wife had been deceiving him—and by the looks of it—her own Council, ever since Sir Braithwaite had become witless, by not informing him of her uncle’s condition! He was certain that she had never sent him any letter reporting the true facts of it, however much she said to the contrary.
He dismissed the Steward when he reached the bottom of the stairway which led into the entrance hall, and pushed Charles into a room which opened off it.
“Now, Charles, what the devil has been going on here? The man I thought was my Comptroller is a blinking idiot, and my lady wife is not only running the household and the estates, but is riding around the countryside dressed like a milkmaid inviting seduction.”
Charles said, choking with laughter, “Your face, Drew, your face when you saw that the nymph you tried to seduce was your own wife! A beauty, though, a very Helen of Troy. Whyever did you tell me that she was plain?” and he began to laugh helplessly.
Drew grasped his cousin by the shoulders and turned him so that they were face to face, eye to eye. Charles was still trying to control his amusement, whilst Drew was as grim as Hercules about to embark on another of his labours—as Charles told him later.
He hissed at his cousin, “If you laugh, Charles, I shall kill you! That is a promise, not a threat!”
Charles rearranged his face, and said, as solemnly as he could, “What, laugh? I laugh? No, no, I merely choked a little—from surprise, you understand. This is a grave matter, a very grave matter, m’lord.”
“And do not m’lord me, either. Damnation and Hell surround me and every devil with a pitchfork is sticking me with it. How in God’s name was I to know that that wanton nymph in the woods yesterday was my wife? And he I thought her brother—in Hell’s name, who was he? Was she wantoning with him in the greenwood? I can believe anything of her after the way in which she taunted me just now.”
“Most strange,” agreed Charles, his face solemn, but
