He hesitated, then relented. ‘Gilbert. Gilbert Gifford.’
I tried to keep my face composed. ‘Pardon me, but your name seems familiar?’
His jaw clenched and I saw his hand tighten around his cup. ‘If you have heard that name, it is probably because of the insults and injustices that have been heaped on my family these past years. The pretender Elizabeth Tudor has made us a byword for disgrace.’
‘Ah. Then your father is…?’
‘John Gifford of Staffordshire, imprisoned in London for recusancy with all his goods forfeit.’
‘That is hard indeed,’ I said.
‘There is worse. Two years ago, my cousin was hanged and quartered at Tyburn.’
‘God have mercy. That is a terrible death. What was his crime?’
‘No crime at all, unless it be a crime to say the Mass and bring the comfort of the sacraments to the faithful.’
‘Ah. He was a secret priest, then.’
‘Aye, and martyred for it. And if that be made treason under English law, why then I say we owe no loyalty to the law of heretics, only to God’s commands.’ He thumped his fist on the table as he spat the words; some of the men by the fire turned with reproachful glares and he subsided, embarrassed. Though he fell silent, anger still burned in his face. He would be a gift to the cause of the English exiles, I thought; a young man so alive with fury and the desire for righteous vengeance was ripe for their purposes. I nodded in sympathy. I did not tell him I had watched his cousin die.
‘And your sister?’
He snapped his attention back to me, puzzled. ‘I have no sister.’
‘Your pardon, I must be mistaken. But I thought there was a Miss Mary Gifford living among the English here in Paris?’
‘You know Mary?’ The high colour that suffused his cheeks betrayed his interest. Poor boy; I feared he would not last long as an agent for the Catholic cause. His every feeling was written on his face as it occurred. Though he was hardly a boy any more; I guessed him to be in his mid-twenties. Perhaps he would learn discretion, if he lived long enough.
‘I have only heard her spoken of as a most accomplished young woman. She is a governess to one of the English families, I believe?’
‘Yes, to the daughters of Sir Thomas Fitzherbert in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. I take lodgings in his house. But she is not my sister. How do you know of her?’
‘We have a mutual acquaintance in Paris. She is some relative of yours, though?’
‘I suppose she must be. But from no branch of the family I ever heard of. I did not even know we had relatives in the West Country. So she must be a very distant cousin, if she is one at all. It gave us much amusement when I first met her at Sir Thomas’s house and we discovered we had the same name.’
‘I imagine it did.’ Sophia most of all, I thought; she had blithely taken the name of the man she once loved, as if she had been married to him, never supposing she might have to explain herself to another Gifford here in Paris. She must have smoothed it over, though; she was always good at talking her way out of trouble. ‘Well, if you wed her, at least she will not have to change her name,’ I said, with a smile, raising my cup in a mock toast.
He spluttered, spraying wine across the table. When he had recovered, he fixed me with an outraged expression. ‘Wed her? What put that in your head? I mean to say, I admire her, who would not, but I have not presumed to think… Besides, how could I wed her,’ he continued, interrupting himself, ‘when I have no estate left and no means to support a wife?’ The bitterness had crept back into his tone. ‘And in any case, she would not look at me now.’
‘Ah. She has another suitor, then?’ Really, the boy was so transparent the Queen of England would not need to make a window into his soul – his face was one giant window already.
‘She affects to spurn him. But women are weak.’ Gifford curled his lip. ‘How can I compete with a French duke? And I must travel to England again before Christmas. I fear he will corrupt her virtue while I am away.’ He took a long gulp of his wine and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
Corrupt her virtue? Was she presenting herself to the Catholics as a pure maid? I almost laughed aloud, but it was choked by a hard bud of anger in my throat at the memory of Guise so smoothly using Sophia to threaten me. Paget too, taunting me with the mention of her and refusing to tell me her new name or how to find her; I had supposed he wanted her for himself, but now it seemed he was only procuring for Guise. I had no proof of this, and perhaps my jealous mind was too quick to leap to conclusions, but I could think of no other French duke who would be so familiar with the household of an English Catholic family. I looked down at my hands gripping the pewter cup and realised I too was in danger of allowing my feelings to show, as if I were a green boy. I finished the wine, stood abruptly and reached for my purse.
‘Listen, my friend – she is said to be a young woman of unusual intelligence. You must trust, then, that she is clever enough not to judge a man’s worth by his titles, or lack of them.’
He gave me a look of such puppyish gratitude I was almost sorry to deceive him. I threw down some coins on the table.
‘And now I must go. Thank you for passing the time with me. When do you go to
