“A touch of ague, nothing more. Marriage has cured me. Where are the rest of them?” Matthew glanced around for Kit, George, and Tom.
The Old Lodge’s great hall looked very different in daylight. I had seen it only at night, but this morning the heavy paneling turned out to be shutters, all of which were thrown open. It gave the space an airy feeling, despite the monstrous fireplace on the far wall. It was decorated with bits and pieces of medieval stonework, no doubt rescued by Matthew from the rubble of the abbey that once stood here—the haunting face of a saint, a coat of arms, a Gothic quatrefoil.
“Diana?” Matthew’s amused voice interrupted my examination of the room and its contents. “The others are in the parlor, reading and playing cards. Hal didn’t feel it was right to join them until he had been invited to stay by the lady of the house.”
“The earl must stay, of course, and we can join your friends immediately.” My stomach rumbled.
“Or we could get you something to eat,” he suggested, eyes twinkling. Now that I had met Henry Percy without mishap, Matthew was beginning to relax. “Has anyone fed you, Hal?”
“Pierre and Fran?oise have been attentive as ever,” he reassured us. “Of course, if Mistress Roydon will join me . . .” The earl’s voice trailed off, and his stomach gurgled with mine. The man was as tall as a giraffe. It must take huge quantities of food to keep his body fueled.
“I, too, am fond of a large breakfast, my lord,” I said with a laugh.
“Henry,” the earl corrected me gently, his grin showing off the dimple in his chin.
“Then you must call me Diana. I cannot call the Earl of Northumberland by his first name if he keeps referring to me as ‘Mistress Roydon.’” Fran?oise had been insistent on the need to honor the earl’s high rank.
“Very well, Diana,” Henry said, extending his arm.
He led me across a drafty corridor and into a cozy room with low ceilings. It was snug and inviting, with only a single array of south-facing windows. In spite of its relatively small size, three tables had been wedged into the room, along with stools and benches. A low hum of activity, punctuated by a rattle of pots and pans, told me we were near the kitchens. Someone had tacked a page from an almanac on the wall and a map lay on the central table, one corner held down with a candlestick, the other by a shallow pewter dish filled with fruit. The arrangement looked like a Dutch still life, with its homely detail. I stopped short, dizzied by the scent.
“The quinces.” My fingers reached out to touch them. They looked just as they had in my mind’s eye back in Madison when Matthew had described the Old Lodge.
Henry seemed puzzled by my reaction to an ordinary dish of fruit but was too well bred to comment. We settled ourselves at the table, and a servant added fresh bread along with a platter of grapes and a bowl of apples to the still life before us. It was comforting to see such familiar fare. Henry helped himself, and I followed his example, carefully noting which foods he selected and how much of them he consumed. It was always the little differences that gave strangers away, and I wanted to appear as ordinary as possible. While we filled our plates, Matthew poured himself a glass of wine.
Throughout our meal Henry behaved with unfailing courtesy. He never asked me anything personal, nor did he pry into Matthew’s affairs. Instead he kept us laughing with tales of his dogs, his estates, and his martinet of a mother, all the while providing a steady supply of toasted bread from the fire. He was just beginning an account of moving house in London when a clatter arose in the courtyard. The earl, whose back was to the door, didn’t notice.
“She is impossible! You all warned me, but I didn’t believe anyone could be so ungrateful. After all the riches I’ve poured into her coffers, the least she could do was— Oh.” Our new guest’s broad shoulders filled the doorway, one of them swathed in a cloak as dark as the hair that curled around his splendid feathered hat. “Matthew. Are you ill?”
Henry turned with surprise. “Good day, Walter. Why aren’t you at court?”
I tried to swallow a morsel of toast. Our new arrival was almost certainly the missing member of Matthew’s School of Night, Sir Walter Raleigh.
“Cast out of paradise for want of a position, Hal. And who is this?” Piercing blue eyes settled on me, and teeth gleamed from his dark beard. “Henry Percy, you sly imp. Kit told me you were intent on bedding the fair Arabella. If I’d known your tastes ran to something more mature than a girl of fifteen, I would have yoked you to a lusty widow long ago.”