Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(109)
So Annie, now a teenager, had been with Hubbard for more than half her life. The thought was chilling, and the idea that a six-year-old could corrupt anyone was beyond comprehension, but this story explained both her abject look and the girl’s peculiar name: Annie Undercroft.
“While Fran?oise gets you something to eat, I can show you where you will sleep.” I’d been up to the third floor that morning to inspect the small bed, three-legged stool, and worn chest set aside to hold the witch’s belongings. “I’ll help carry your things.”
“Mistress?” Annie said, confused.
“She brought nothing,” Fran?oise said, casting disapproving looks at the newest member of the household.
“Never mind. She’ll have belongings soon enough.” I smiled at Annie, who looked uncertain.
Fran?oise and I spent the weekend making sure that Annie was clean as a whistle, clothed and shod properly, and that she knew enough basic math to make small purchases for me. To test her I sent her to the nearby apothecary for a penny’s worth of quill pens and half a pound of sealing wax (Philippe was right: Matthew went through office supplies at an alarming pace), and she came back promptly with change to spare.
“He wanted a shilling!” Annie complained. “That wax isn’t even good for candles, is it?”
Pierre took a shine to the girl and made it his business to elicit a rare, sweet smile from Annie whenever he could. He taught her how to play cat’s cradle and volunteered to walk with her on Sunday when Matthew dropped broad hints that he would like us to be alone for a few hours.
“He won’t . . . take advantage of her?” I asked Matthew as he unbuttoned my favorite item of clothing: a sleeveless boy’s jerkin made of fine black wool. I wore it with a set of skirts and a smock when we were at home.
“Pierre? Good Christ no.” Matthew looked amused.
“It’s a fair question.” Mary Sidney had not been much older when she was married off to the highest bidder.
“And I gave you a truthful answer. Pierre doesn’t bed young girls.” His hands stilled after he freed the last button. “This is a pleasant surprise. You’re not wearing a corset.”
“It’s uncomfortable, and I’m blaming it on the baby.”
He lifted the jerkin away from my body with an appreciative sound.
“And he’ll keep other men from bothering her?”
“Can this conversation possibly wait until later?” Matthew said, his exasperation showing. “Given the cold, they won’t be gone for long.”
“You’re very impatient in the bedroom,” I observed, sliding my hands into the neck of his shirt.
“Really?” Matthew arched his aristocratic brows in mock disbelief. “And here I thought the problem was my admirable restraint.”
He spent the next few hours showing me just how limitless his patience could be in an empty house on a Sunday. By the time everybody returned, we were both pleasantly exhausted and in a considerably better frame of mind.
Everything returned to normal on Monday, however. Matthew was distracted and irritable as soon as the first letters arrived at dawn, and he sent his apologies to the Countess of Pembroke when it became clear that the obligations of his many jobs wouldn’t allow him to accompany me to our midday meal.
Mary listened without surprise as I explained the reason for Matthew’s absence, blinked at Annie like a mildly curious owl, and sent her off to the kitchens in the care of Joan. We shared a delicious meal, during which Mary offered detailed accounts of the private lives of everyone within shouting distance of the Blackfriars. After lunch we withdrew to her laboratory with Joan and Annie to assist us.
“And how is your husband, Diana?” the countess asked, rolling up her sleeves, her eyes fixed on the book before her.
“In good health,” I said. This, I had learned, was the Elizabethan equivalent of “Fine.”
“That is welcome news.” Mary turned and stirred something that looked noxious and smelled worse. “Much depends on it, I fear. The queen relies on him more than on any other man in the kingdom except Lord Burghley.”
“I wish his good humor was more reliable. Matthew is mercurial these days. He’s possessive one moment and ignores me as if I were a piece of furniture the next.”
“Men treat their property that way.” She picked up a jug of water. “I am not his property,” I said flatly.
“What you and I know, what the law says, and how Matthew himself feels are three entirely separate issues.”
“They shouldn’t be,” I said quickly, ready to argue the point. Mary silenced me with a gentle, resigned smile.
“You and I have an easier time with our husbands than other women do, Diana. We have our books and the leisure to indulge our passions, thank God. Most do not.” Mary gave everything in her beaker a final stir and decanted the contents into another glass vessel.
I thought of Annie: a mother who’d died alone in a church cellar, an aunt who couldn’t take her in because of her husband’s prejudices, a life that promised little in the way of comfort or hope. “Do you teach your female servants how to read?”
“Certainly,” Mary responded promptly. “They learn to write and reckon, too. Such skills will make them more valuable to a good husband—one who likes to earn money as well as spend it.” She beckoned to Joan, who helped her move the fragile glass bubble full of chemicals to the fire.