Conspiracy

bread and two jugs of wine, though Francesco forbade his performers from touching the drink before the show. I too abstained, knowing I would need all my senses sharp. Eventually, as we were growing irritable and quarrelsome from boredom, the servants returned to replenish the candles and we heard the sound of conversation carrying along the corridor. Through a gap in the curtain I watched as the guests made their way into the salon. Montpensier’s loud, bluff voice boomed into the room well before him, his laughter swelling like the bass notes of a great sackbut. I shrank back from the curtain when I saw the Duke of Guise enter, unsmiling, his face craggy and impassive in the candlelight. By his side, her white hand resting lightly on his arm, was a thin woman dressed head to foot in black, her face hidden by a black lace veil. I supposed this must be his sister, the Duchess of Montpensier, Fury of the League. From her bearing she appeared remarkably self-contained for someone wracked by grief for a lover, but perhaps that was the most dangerous kind of fury. I could not judge without seeing her eyes.

She took a seat next to her brother and behind them came an older couple: a distinguished-looking man with a concerned frown and extravagant moustaches, his grey hair swept back from a high forehead, and beside him a small woman of about the same age wearing a neat crescent hood and hairnet. Montpensier bounded into my line of sight, unnecessarily fussing about this couple and ushering them to their seats, so that for a moment my view was blocked and it was only when his bulk moved aside that I saw her.

I don’t know what I had expected to feel. She had not changed much in a year, except that her hair had grown long again and she was wearing it unbound down her back under her small hood as if she were a virgin, so that the chestnut and gold streaks caught the candlelight and glowed as if lit from within. She was less gaunt, too, though still slender, her waist neat inside a plain dove-grey bodice, but her cheeks were not so hollow as the last time I had seen her, in England, and her skin was restored to the sheen of youth and vigour. She turned and lifted her head in response to something Montpensier had said, so that I could see her in profile, her throat stretched up, her mouth open in laughter, tawny eyes dancing, and all the rage and rejection of our last meeting surged up to my throat in one great flood of emotion and threatened to burst out in a roar, so that I had to turn away and bite hard on the edge of my hand until the urge had passed. So this was Sophia Underhill, now Mary Gifford, making her way in Paris, firmly ensconced in the world of the Catholic émigrés and doing very nicely out of it, by the look of the jewelled necklace that glittered on her delicate collarbone, despite her avowed hatred of all religion. But then what did I know of her beliefs now? Everything else she had avowed to me had been false; there was no reason to suppose she had kept her integrity in matters of faith.

Montpensier had settled himself next to her like a large, over-friendly dog, solicitous in proffering drinks, sweetmeats, a shawl. Every time he leaned in to speak to her, he rested a meaty hand on her wrist or her shoulder; though I had no right to feel possessive, I bristled at every touch. Sophia kept her composure; she smiled and declined his offerings with impeccable politeness, but I could see the effort of forbearance in her face. As I watched, it occurred to me that I may have jumped to the wrong conclusion about Gilbert Gifford’s words; when he had mentioned a duke pursuing ‘Mary’, perhaps he had not meant Guise after all but Montpensier. The thought gave me some relief; Guise was dangerous to women, but a man like Montpensier would be of no interest to Sophia, with or without his title. I wondered if he had given her the necklace; it was an unlikely adornment for a governess. Though how foolish, I reprimanded myself in anger, how shamefully weak that I am still thinking in those terms, as if even now I were competing for her affections. After everything that had passed between us. I tore my gaze away and breathed hard, eyes fixed on the floor. At a gentle touch on my wrist, I lifted my head to see Isabella looking at me intently with a mixture of curiosity and concern.

‘Are you all right, Bruno?’ she whispered.

I forced a smile. ‘A little tired. That’s all.’

‘Don’t mind him.’ She nodded towards Francesco. ‘He doesn’t want you getting into trouble. These people are no friends to you.’

‘And I don’t want to make trouble for you. When I have found what I came for, I promise I will wait quietly until it is time to go home, and I will not ask for your help again.’

‘But you know we will offer it whenever we can. Now I must get ready – we begin in a few minutes. Good luck.’ She kissed me lightly on the cheek.

‘And to you. No sodomy, mind.’

She made a lewd gesture and poked her tongue out. I waited until Francesco stepped out from behind the curtain to a smattering of applause before slipping silently out of the door and into the dim light of the corridor.

The house was hushed, though far from silent; the Duke’s guests may have been contained in the salon but servants still moved about, quiet and efficient, their footsteps tapping on the old stone floors. From the far reaches of a corridor came the clinking sounds of the meal being cleared away, curt exchanges in low voices. Away from the fire in the salon, the