The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(65)
With an inward snap that could almost be heard, Anabel completely and thoroughly lost her temper.
“If this is what ruling is,” she said with controlled venom, “then I want no part of it. Announce whatever you wish. With the decision made, you have no need of me to pretend to flirt with men who are not interested in anything other than power. I shall go to Ludlow. When my body is required to seal this arrangement, you will let me know.”
—
The Courtenay family landed at Portsmouth the first week of August and spent one night at Southsea Castle, where, two years ago, Kit had watched Anabel say goodbye to King Philip for good. It was more of a relief than Kit had expected to set foot on English soil once again, to be surrounded by voices he didn’t have to try to understand. Only then did his body relax and he realized how tense he’d been while in Spain. As they rode out the next morning, he whistled a jaunty tune, earning an answering grin from Pippa.
“Feels good to breathe again,” she said. “You were making me nervous all those weeks in Spain.”
“Me?”
“I kept waiting for you to snap at King Philip every time he asked about Anabel. You were like a dog defending its territory—all laid-back ears and bared teeth.”
“What? I didn’t…” He floundered, then shrugged his shoulders and asked simply, “Was I that obvious?”
“Only if one were looking for it. And King Philip was looking for it, I’m afraid. He might even welcome Anabel’s marriage to Scotland or France as long as it keeps you out of the picture.”
“Well, she’s not going to marry me, so I’d say Spain has nothing to worry about.”
“Spain has plenty to worry about, almost as much as England. Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if King Philip and Queen Elizabeth had never married each other. I doubt the two countries could ever be friends, but perhaps their enmity would be a little less barbed without the personal aspects.”
Kit shrugged. “What might have happened is of no matter. Only what is. Spain and England are on a collision course. The only question is when and how sharply they collide.”
“Not the only question.”
“What else is there?”
“How prepared we are for the collision. War is coming, Kit. Anyone who’s paying attention can see that. All eyes are on Elizabeth and Philip. Anabel is considered little more than a pawn in her parents’ games. But I think…” Pippa’s voice trailed away, and Kit, turning sharply on his horse to see her face, marked the faraway gaze. The one that always gave him chills.
Then Pippa snapped back into the moment. She met her twin’s eyes and said, “Anabel is no one’s pawn. She is not simply a piece on the game board—she is the game. I have seen it.”
Rarely did Pippa speak so plainly. Kit opened his mouth to question her, but his sister urged her horse forward until she was riding next to their mother. Leaving Kit to wonder just how plain Pippa’s visions were.
They spent the second night in Haslemere. News of their arrival had been spurred ahead by faster riders, and they were met along their route the next morning by an anonymous rider carrying a private message from the queen. They encountered him at a hamlet, no more than six houses and a tiny church, and read the message practically on the side of the road.
Kit knew it couldn’t be good—the queen would not go to such trouble merely to welcome them back when they were expected at court shortly—and was relieved when the first part proved simply to be word that they’d found the missing Spanish soldiers in Ireland when they’d marched to the relief of Askeaton.
He wasn’t sure what that meant for Stephen, but there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger to his position.
But it was the last part that made the world collapse inward, two lines that his mother refused to read aloud but mutely passed to her husband and then to the twins.
Anabel has fallen seriously ill with fever. Don’t spread the word, but come straight to Hampton Court.
Kit was allowed to ride ahead with a single guard as fast as he could push, while his parents and Pippa followed at a more reasonable rate. He was glad to have his parents’ agreement to the plan, but he would have gone on without it. It was not possible to hold back when Anabel was ill. Kit had paused just long enough to pull Pippa aside and ask, “What should I know?”
He probably didn’t have to put it to words, for no doubt she could feel his fear as her own, beating through both their bodies like a flood. He couldn’t feel her to the same degree, so he needed her to speak.
She wasn’t as comforting as he’d hoped, nowhere near as certain as she’d been yesterday. “I don’t know, Kit. I think it will be all right, but everything’s…I don’t know. There’s too much in the way.”
The remaining twenty miles to Hampton Court passed in a blur of speed and barely controlled imagination. It wouldn’t be smallpox, would it? The queen had fallen ill with smallpox when Anabel was a baby and nearly died from it. Wouldn’t she have said if it was smallpox? But no—the queen would not have put anything that inflammatory into writing. The government was controlling the flow of information. That was probably what scared him more than anything. If they were controlling information, it was because they didn’t trust people with the truth. Not yet. And that augured ill. The last time information about Anabel had been controlled was when she was held captive at Wynfield Mote two years ago.