“Hey, less of the unworthy, Sir Robert,” boomed Cumberland, putting his arm around Emilia’s waist. “Signor Bonnetti is helping me find good wines from Italy for my household and his delightful wife has been…advising me.”
Carey nodded, cynically wondering how far the advice had gone. He found himself looking at the place just below the modest neckline of her bodice where, a month or two ago, he had bitten her very gently on a summer night in a rose garden. She brushed the place with her hand, which made him smile.
Signora Bonnetti wound her arm into Cumberland’s elbow and looked up at him, smiled back.
“So you do know each other?” Cumberland asked, very smug.
It wouldn’t be the first time he and Cumberland had collided over a woman, but he thought the Earl was making a point here about his romantic notions. And, uncomfortably for him, it was a good one. He wondered exactly how much the fascinating Signora might have told her new lover about Carey’s disastrous plottings at the King of Scotland’s Court. Emilia was watching him carefully, her black eyes full of amusement and something else-he wasn’t sure what.
“Yes,” he said, deciding to push his luck a little, “we met at the King’s Court in Dumfries.”
“Ah,” said Cumberland, “so that was before your unfortunate journey to Ireland and your problems there, my dear.”
Emilia Bonnetti, who must know by now exactly who had caused those potentially lethal problems, laughed a little. “Oh, yes,” she said, “but my lovely Lord of Cumberland save my life, Sir Robert, after my poor husband was forced to leave Ormonde’s Court in such a hurry. My lord gave us passage from Dublin in his ship…”
“The Elizabeth Bonaventure,” Cumberland put in. “You remember her, Carey, we faced the armada in her and I’ve had a new mast fitted…”
“Thank heavens!” said Carey with complete insincerity. Oh God, this complicated everything horribly. Was she looking to get back at him? What had she told Cumberland? What had she told everyone else? The Court was a nest of gossip that made a ladies’ flower-water party look like a collection of Trappist monks. Had any of what she must have been saying got as far as the Queen? Not directly, of course; the Queen was very unlikely to receive an Italian adventuress into her presence, despite the sweet wines.…
Sweet wine. Essex had the farm of sweet wines and he would be looking for a suitable agent to run it for him. What would Essex make of Emilia, Carey wondered.
“How is your husband, Signora?” Carey asked, still sticking to English.
“Well,” she said with a little pout of her lips, “the Irish…’ow you say?…zey drink like ducks but not appreciate good wine and when zey promise to pay, zey lie.”
“Tut,” said Carey.
“So, we are here now. At least ze English like to drink well…And perrrhaps…zey will pay?”
The opening was there, so he took it, simply on general principles, with no idea of where it might lead. And he did owe her something for the trick with the guns. “I wonder if you’ve spoken to my lord of Essex yet, Signora?”
The faintest shadow crossed Emilia’s face, followed by another diamond smile. “Not yet…’e has been very…occupe with the Queen who is verry cross.…To be a mignon is ’ard, no? ‘Oo would do such a thing?”
And she tilted her head in a way which Carey suddenly found annoying. “Mignon” had several loaded meanings on top of the simple translation of “King’s favourite.” In the context of the Scottish Court it meant the King’s catamite. In the context of the English Court and the Queen…
“Indeed,” he agreed blandly.
“You could put in a good word for the Signora, Sir Robert, couldn’t you?” said the ever-helpful Cumberland. “My lord of Essex often speaks of how you saved his bacon with the Queen a year ago in France.”
“If I could get to see him, yes, perhaps,” Carey said. “As he doesn’t know I’m here…”
“You are friends wiz milord Essex?”
Emilia was looking intent, the way she had when they bargained in the summer. Carey couldn’t help himself, he smiled cagily and spread his hands. “He gave me my knighthood in France, Signora, and was my commander when we fought for the King of Navarre. He’s also my second cousin.”
Her lips compressed. For some reason she was furious and Carey wondered why. It’s all right, he wanted to tell her, if you’re not trying to buy guns to sell to the Irish to be used against the Queen’s soldiers, I won’t cheat you. Of course, she might not be after just the farm of sweet wines from Essex; she was likely to be here for quite other reasons as well as the obvious one of espionage.
“M. le depute,” she said to him with a nice curtsey. “We must speak about this when my ’usband is ’ere, as I am only a poor little woman oo knows nossing of money or farms.”
Cumberland laughed, caught her shoulders and gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek.
“I love it when she talks English,” he said to Carey. “It sounds so funny.”
Emilia’s tinkling laugh told Carey a lot more than it seemingly did George Clifford. He didn’t give the Earl of Cumberland much chance against the Earl of Essex if Emilia met the noble lord. From her sideways look at him under her remarkably long lashes, it seemed that she and her complaisant, well-horned husband might be willing to negotiate a fee for the all-important introduction to Essex. Possibly some of that fee could be in-kind…
No, came the sternly righteous part of him. That’s enough. You have to find a way to pay the men for the autumn if the Queen is too ill-humoured to give you your fee. And after what Elizabeth did for you in Scotland!
Could he take the risk of dealing with the Italian spies again? If he could find a way of spreading the responsibility a little as he had not been able to do before, perhaps? If he had some kind of authorisation? Perhaps he could talk to Thomasina again? There would be dancing that evening, another less cautious part of him thought, and perhaps I will dance with Signora Bonnetti again? Perhaps. No more than that, of course, but…
At least Elizabeth won’t be watching, that part of him explained to the stern-faced puritan who came from Walsingham; she’d never find out.…But that was another unexpectedly bleak thought. And she probably would, somehow.
Cumberland had started rubbing noses with Emilia. She laughed again and nipped his nose between her knuckles and he squawked.
“Be’ave, milord,” she said severely. “What will Sir Robert think?”
“I know exactly what he’s thinking, my little darling,” said Cumberland, piratical grin at full force. “Aren’t you, Carey?”
So she’s told him, or he’s guessed, Carey decided philosophically, so probably no chance of even a polite pavane with the Signora. Maybe for the best.
“Indeed, I am, my lord,” he said with diplomatic ruefulness. “So I’d better go and see if my new servingman has made off with my Court suit. My lord…Signora…”
He bowed elaborately to both of them and plodded back through the mud to the horse-crammed kitchen yard of the little cottage that Cumberland had taken over.
There he found that Hughie Tyndale had done quite creditably. All three of the horses were munching away at nosebags, had been untacked and rubbed down and were tied up at the corner of the yard, next to Cumberland’s carthorses and a string of pack ponies.
The packs with Carey’s Court suit and jewels in it had been piled next to the wall and Hughie was squatting watchfully next to them, munching a pennyloaf with some cheese and drinking ale from a jack.
“We’ll stay with my lord Cumberland tonight, Hughie,” Carey said as he pushed between the horses, “Not sure where exactly, but we can hope to be in the dry.”
“Ay, sir.”
“Have you looked at my suit?”
“I had a quick look but Ah couldnae unpack it out here in case o’ the wet, sir.”