Tyballis stared into the fire. ‘That’s kind, and thank you. Though since I was told I might freely collect herbs and salad greens and firewood from your garden, I assumed eggs would be free for the taking too.’
‘And no doubt my pullets to pluck and boil whenever you feel inclined?’
‘No, that’s different,’ blushed Tyballis, staring into her lap.
He came and sat on the small stool beside her, looking down at her discomfort. ‘Don’t let me tease you, little one,’ he said softly. ‘You are welcome to the eggs, and the fault was mine for not first checking the stables for any unexpected presence.’ He waited until she looked back up at him, and smiled into her eyes. ‘You did very well during our excursion the other day. I shall be pleased if you’ll accompany me again tomorrow, though to a different house and with a different message. Naturally I’ll explain the plan first. Will you do it, little one?’
She managed to smile. ‘I’d like to. And I apologise as well. If you aren’t embarrassed, then I shouldn’t be either.’
‘You made a point the other day of informing me you’d been married five years,’ Andrew smiled widely. ‘So you’re not a child, for all that you look like one. I’m certainly not the first naked man you’ve ever seen.’
Tyballis stared back down at her toes. She had no intention of telling him how Borin had never undressed in his life, and had simply unfastened his codpiece and braies after he jumped into bed. ‘Do I need to wear the grand clothes again?’ she asked.
‘Certainly. The marks on your face are finally gone, so there’s no need to hide beneath a hood this time. Get Felicia to help you dress, since I doubt you’d allow me to touch you now. But this time your headdress and clothes must be exact and you will need to look the part.’
‘Felicia,’ Tyballis pointed out, ‘will want to know what I’m doing and where the clothes came from.’
Andrew shook his head. ‘She will ask no questions. Her family eats – most of the time – simply because she is discreet. Otherwise she’d be working for the tanners by now, or her family would starve.’
‘Or Mister Spiers would have to get a job for once.’
‘Highly unlikely.’ He grinned, moving back towards the door. ‘Tomorrow morning then, little one. Soon after dawn if you can be ready so early.’
‘I promise,’ Tyballis said. ‘And I’m happy to keep my promises.’
Chapter Twelve
It was shortly after dawn the following morning, and Andrew Cobham was already waiting in the hall by the hearth as she had expected. He turned and looked at her searchingly in the glow of the firelight. Tyballis was impressed, though it seemed he was not. ‘Do you comb your hair with your fingers, child? Come here, and stand still.’ She did as she was told.
The early sun had not reached the western windows but Andrew Cobham’s finery seemed even richer in the fire’s dancing lights. He was dressed not in the shabby and worn velvets of their previous outing, but in black and persimmon silks, the neck and sweeping sleeves trimmed in sleek dark marten. The doublet was very short, pleated and laced in gold thread. Tyballis carefully did not look at his hose and kept her gaze studiously fixed across his right ear as he bent over her, adjusting the folds of her headdress.
‘I tried very hard to dress properly,’ she insisted. ‘Felicia helped and it was her who combed my hair.’ Then Tyballis hesitated, adding in a half-whisper, ‘Felicia thought – she said – I looked – pretty.’
Andrew Cobham entirely ignored this timid plea for approval. He continued to re-pin her headdress and straighten the gauze veil across it. ‘We have roles to fulfil today, child, and they are imperative. I will explain the details as we walk, but the most important thing to remember is that for today, I am Lord Feayton.’
Tyballis decided no one would dare doubt him. She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll remember,’ she said. ‘And who am I?’
‘Lady Feayton,’ he replied, pressing the last pin through the beaded wings of her headdress, and began to arrange the flow of her sleeves. ‘You are my wife. A little young, and probably somewhat cowed, since I am no doubt an arrogant and insensitive husband. I doubt we share more than some fleeting affection, but you are presumably a dutiful companion. Now, hold out your hand.’ She did so, puzzled and more cowed than he supposed. He turned her hand over and took her fingers in his. Then, onto her finger he slipped a ring, huge with amethysts. Tyballis stared at it in amazement. The jewels clustered in four squares along a thick gold band. She clutched her newly glowing hand with the other, staring down at the unaccustomed beauty. Andrew interrupted. ‘It is not to keep, I’m afraid. But I think, for today, my wife should do me justice.’
‘I don’t see why,’ Tyballis said as they walked, ‘we have to be quite so grand, if we’re only going to a horrid little house in Southwark.’
‘We are dressed to impress, not to emulate the standards of our host,’ replied her suddenly appointed husband. ‘We will be meeting a man already well acquainted with the behaviour of his betters, who perfectly understands power and wealth even if he holds neither himself. Those who deal in corruption and treason themselves are always more inclined to be suspicious of the motives of others, but a title tends, absurdly, to reassure. We must convince this creature of our authority. Hence the subterfuge.’
‘I don’t think I could convince anyone of my authority,’ admitted Tyballis.
Andrew Cobham smiled faintly. ‘The authority will be mine. You are simply my ornament, and need only behave as such. You are also my protection.’
‘Protection?’ Tyballis wondered if he had gone quite mad. ‘I don’t think – I mean, I’ve never hit anyone in my life. Except Borin, of course, sometimes in defence, and he wouldn’t feel anything anyway, not even if you hit him with a brick.’
‘A different type of protection, child.’ Andrew’s mouth twitched. ‘I doubt I shall require you to physically defend my honour. But first we need to cross the river for Southwark. Would you prefer to cross by wherry or by bridge?’
London Bridge was busy and the shops had opened. Crammed side by side, they had let down their shutters into counters and opened their doors to the first crowds an hour back. Now business was raucous and squashed, though edging a path between the shoppers was easier for a tall man wearing the clothes of a prince and the expression of a bishop.
Beneath the bridge, the tide ran low. The muddy banks slunk to their shingles and exposed the stark rising foundations of the planks holding back the waters. The wooden quays and their clambering ramshackle steps stood stark in the sludge but the noise below the bridge was as clamorous as that above. The wherrymen were touting for customers. Small boats barged and banged, oars poised and splashed, goods were piled high and travellers balanced in a hurry. A woman, toppled by the next boat’s wake, dropped the half bread roll she was clutching and with a sudden flurry beneath the water’s surface, the floating crumbs were taken by avid invisible mouths.
Despite the multitude of diverting fascinations to either side of her or the sudden wind blowing in from the estuary, Tyballis attempted to keep her head up. Never having previously worn anything grander than a linen cap or a hood, she worried that the sharp breezes would catch her veil. She would have liked to hold her hat on. Andrew forbade it. ‘You will act the lady,’ he reminded her, ‘even here, where we are not known. London breathes gossip, and gossip, not money, oils its cogs. A young woman dressed as fine as a countess but behaving like a seamstress will attract notice whether she is aware of it or not. Her entrance into Southwark’s slums would subsequently be noted, particularly since we have no accompanying retinue. I wish us to be noted for quite different reasons. So, straighten your back, hold your head up and raise your nose in the air to avoid the foul miasma of the river’s stench. Do not scuttle, shuffle or hunch. I refuse to be married to a slouch, or a slattern. Hold gracefully to the crook of my elbow with only your fingertips and do not pinch at my sleeve or mark the silk as if afraid I might abandon you at any moment. With your other hand, you will gently lift the front of your skirts with two fingers at your waist, to avoid dragging your hems in the filth. Do not raise your feet too high at each step. You should appear to be gliding, not trudging, and you should not look as though you are more used to carrying bales of hay or buckets of water on your shoulders. You will not stare at those passing by but will regard them with utter contempt, and you will not gasp at the jewellers’ or haberdashers’ windows. You are neither credulous nor ingenuous. You are a lady, and will remember your dignity.’