feminine for Crispin’s tastes.
Crispin gave a brief smile. “Yes. Do you know them?”
“Aye. Me cousin used to work for them.”
“Used to?”
“Aye. He says they’re a curious lot. I just girded me courage to ask for work there m’self, even though me cousin Harry warned me not to. A man can’t be too particular when he needs to earn a living.” He was a thin man with a hollowed face, pale hair, a hawk nose, and watery blue eyes. The man pulled his hood down to his brows with long fingers, and stiffly clutched the material closed below his chin.
“And the outcome?”
“I talked to the mistress of the house. She’s a stern one, she is. I don’t know what she thought. I’m to return on the morrow.”
Crispin said nothing. He glanced back at the house. Its proud exterior slowly disappeared behind an encroaching mist, leaving only a hazy gray rectangle with darker rectangles for windows.
The man measured Crispin’s shabby rust-colored coat, patched stockings, and worn boots. “Did they hire you?”
Crispin shivered and drew closer to the flames. He shook his head.
“Gluttonous sot,” muttered the man. “Walcote has more money than Solomon. You can’t take your riches into heaven!” he said to the house, fist raised. He lowered his hand and swiped at the air. “What’s one more servant to him?” He leaned toward Crispin. “They say,” he said softly, “that he only leaves the house to travel out of the country and buy his cloth. But there’s some who say he don’t go nowhere at all. Conjures the stuff in his cellar. It’s devil’s work, that much money.”
“Some men are simply good at what they do.”
The man sniffed and wiped his fingerless glove across his nose. “Well, I ain’t good at much. What are you good at?”
Crispin grinned crookedly. “Oh, a number of things. And none of them pay me enough.”
“Ain’t that God’s truth. And times is hard, ain’t they?” The man rubbed his hands and wrapped his cloak over his chest. “I think we should both forget our troubles for now.” He put out his gloved hand. “The name’s John Hoode. Shall we share a beaker of ale?”
Crispin glanced at the silent house, each door in or out locked tight. He measured the sky. It wouldn’t be nightfall for a few hours. Didn’t trysts usually happen at night?
Maybe the man had information on the Walcotes he could use. He clasped the man’s hand and shook it once. “I
“Well now!” The man motioned for Crispin to follow and they walked a block to the nearest tavern.
They settled in. Crispin pushed back his hood, running his fingers through his damp, black hair. Hoode talked merrily about London and his amusing adventures as a workingman. Crispin let him talk, only half-listening. He studied him with slate gray eyes, sipping slowly of his ale. He didn’t share as much about himself, saying only that he did a variety of jobs to keep food on the table.
“Tell me,” said Crispin, slipping in between the man’s chatter. “What was your impression of Madam Walcote?”
The man slurped from his beaker and frowned. “A pretty thing. Young. Steadfast.”
Crispin drank. Steadfast? Then why should Walcote suspect her?
“Thinking of getting around
Crispin dipped his face in his cup and said little else. He wanted to look at the portrait again but that was impossible in Hoode’s presence. Perhaps he should have questioned Walcote more rigorously as to why he had his suspicions, but Crispin’s personal distaste for this kind of task got the better of him. He shook his head at it. He should know better than that.
What matter could it have been that got Walcote’s hackles up? Was there someone loitering near the house, perhaps? Or did she hire servants who were more comely in appearance than Hoode here?
After almost two hours of nursing a beaker of watery ale and listening to Hoode chatter about this and that, Crispin thanked the man, wished him well, and left the tavern. He sauntered down the chilly street, now black and silver under the indistinct glow of a clouded moon.
He reached the brazier across the avenue from the Walcote gatehouse where he first met Hoode, but the dead fire left only gray ashes swirling at the bottom of the iron cage.
For hours he stood in the darkness. The moon had long gone, making the night seem colder. Finally, a small figure appeared near the gatehouse. If the guard had not brought forth his torch to show her face, Crispin might not have recognized Philippa Walcote, but he saw a flash of brassy gold hair and remembered it from the miniature portrait.
She set out alone along the street, looking back over her shoulder at the house, now dark. Crispin let her get a bowshot away before he ducked his head into his hood and followed.
She walked quickly. The shadows of the narrow lane soon swallowed her slim form, but Crispin’s eyes caught the movement. Distantly, he followed her through a stone archway, slick with mist and stinking of mold. Her footsteps echoed within the structure and Crispin waited until they fell away again before he ventured through. She stepped onto a street that gently curved away from the eye, like a river. Tall shops of several stories or lofts towering over one another lined the street, shoulder to shoulder. Their frames seemed squeezed by proximity and they loured over the avenue in stiff indifference to her flight, closing off the black sky. Doors were bolted and shutters closed against the warm, golden light Crispin could just see peeking through the seams. The damp street was deserted, except for the mysterious woman and her shadow.
She stopped and looked back.
Crispin jammed himself against the wall of a stone house, its rugged surface digging painfully into his back. Barely breathing lest the cloud of breath betray him, he quested a cautious eye past his hood to watch her.
She seemed satisfied that she was alone and turned. She gathered her cloak around herself and stepped along the uneven paving stones and sometimes into the mud.
Crispin took a deep breath, allowed her to turn a corner, and hurried, keeping amid the shadows of the eaves like a rat. He slowed when he approached the corner where she had turned and he clutched the lime-washed timber, peering carefully. He saw the hem of her cloak flick as she scurried, watched her tramp across the bridge over the Fleet Ditch, and grimaced. She was making her way south toward parts of London a lone gentlewoman should not go. Crispin snorted.
She trailed her hand along a wattle fence and stepped up onto a granite paving stone situated before a busy inn. She looked once back behind her before ducking inside. Crispin stopped and watched the door open to admit her. A bright rectangle of light briefly lit the dark street before the door closed again.
A few moments later a candle was lit in an upper window, its light streaming through the cracked shutter. Crispin approached and craned his neck, but the sill was too high.
He stumbled through the inn’s pitch-dark courtyard, searching for a ladder, and found one leaning against the stable door. Carefully, he carried it back to the window and laid it against the wall, just to the side of the closed shutter. He climbed the rungs—stopped with a wince when they creaked—then made it the rest of the way to the top and peered in through the shutter’s cracks.
Philippa Walcote stood facing the window. This time he could see her features clearly. She was, indeed, young and quite beautiful. Her pale skin seemed smooth, almost translucent. Her dark eyes were large under heavy lashes, though they were draped by drowsy lids. He recalled from the miniature that same pert nose and small mouth whose lips were perfectly shaped in two opposing bows. Her hair, redder than in the painting, shone with bright flashes of wheat when the firelight caught it.
Why would a rich woman go to such a low tavern? It seemed a strange place to conduct an affair, if affair it was.
She unhooked the agrafe at her throat that held the cloak in place and tossed the mantle on the bed. Her blue samite dress was decorated with embroidery along the scooped neckline and displayed both her long neck and her high and pronounced breasts, made more conspicuous by the satiny fabric with its shine and shadow.
Crispin almost felt sorry for such a pretty thing, and he wondered why, with Walcote’s many locks, he could
