Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire

Lady Anne sat, her face ashen, staring at Noah Banks who at least had the grace to keep her eyes downcast to her hands folded in her lap. The countess flashed a look at her husband, and noted that he looked as shocked as she felt herself.

“I had not thought it of you,” Lady Anne managed, her eyes once more on Noah.

Noah inclined her head, which could have meant anything. In counterpoint to the Bedfords, she was looking radiant.

“Who is the father?” Lord Bedford said. Noah at last raised her face. It was very calm. “A man I love very much.”

“Patently,” said Bedford, “to have so lost your virtue to him! Who?”

Noah kept her eyes steady on the earl, but she said nothing.

“John Thornton,” said the countess. “It must be. He and Noah have ever had an affection for each—”

“No,” said Noah. “The father of this child is not John Thornton.”

“You have dallied with another?” Lady Anne said.

Noah lowered her face again.

There came the sound of a horse’s hooves outside, although no one in the gallery paid it the least mind.

“You cannot stay here,” said Lady Anne. “My daughters…”

“I have not in the least harmed them,” said Noah. Now, when she raised her face to look Lady Anne directly in the eye, there were two visible patches of colour in her cheeks. “It is not as if I have poisoned them with this pregnancy.”

The earl opened his mouth to speak but was prevented by the arrival of a footman, carrying in his hand a sealed letter.

“My lord,” the footman said, bowing. “This has just arrived. The courier said it was most urgent.”

“It can wait,” said Lady Anne, but the earl, who by this point had the letter in his hand, and had seen the handwriting, waved her to silence.

“No,” he said, “it can’t.” He nodded the footman a dismissal, waited until the man had left the room, then looked at first his wife, then Noah.

His wife’s face was a muddle of confusion and hurt, but the earl was shocked at what he saw on Noah’s face. She was staring at the letter, and there was both wild hope and joy in that face.

A man I love very much, she had said, and the earl felt his chest tighten at the logical connection of that remark and her expression at the sight of this letter in his hand.

But the pregnancy…how? How?

“It comes from Hoogstraeten,” the earl said slowly. “From the king.”

And how much more the king, eh? A bare week ago Cromwell had caught a fever, and died within the day. A bare week ago the earl might have been able to dismiss this letter. Not now.

Never now.

His hands trembling very slightly, Lord Bedford broke the seal and read the contents of the letter slowly.

Twice, to make sure he understood it.

Then he looked back at Noah. “It seems you have a very powerful protector,” he said.

“Husband?” said Lady Anne. “What is it? What does the king wish of us? And what does this have to do with Noah?”

“Charles has a request of us,” he said. “A small one, he says. Two dear friends of his, the Mademoiselles Marguerite Carteret and Catherine Pegge, as well as what children cling to their skirts, are returning to England within the week. They wish to stay in Woburn village—they do not wish to impose on us at the Abbey—and Charles asks that we provide them with a comfortable house. He says the ladies have the means by which to pay us for the privilege.”

“Carteret? And Catherine Pegge?” Lady Anne said. “Aren’t they among—” She broke off suddenly, colouring.

“Among the king’s many and varied mistresses?” Lord Bedford said. “Yes. And the children they bring undoubtedly the king’s many and varied bastards. What these women—” he said that word with a disdainful twist of his lips “—could possibly want to do with Woburn I have little idea save,” again he looked at Noah, “the ladies wish that Mistress Noah Banks stay with them as their companion.”

Noah’s face broke into a broad smile, and in all the years he’d known her, the earl thought he’d never seen her look so joyous.

“Charles writes,” Lord Bedford continued, his words very measured, his eyes never leaving Noah’s face, “that Marguerite and his Kate, as well as Mistress Noah, are highly important to him.” His eyes dropped to the letter, and he read a section of it: “’I would you do this favour for me, my Lord of Bedford, which I shall greatly remember, and much favourably, when circumstances allow’.”

Lady Anne stared at her husband. “He hadn’t heard of Cromwell’s death when he wrote this.”

Bedford checked the date. “No. This predates Cromwell’s death by several days.” Whatever power lay behind any directive Charles asked for before Cromwell’s death was ten times as potent after Cromwell’s death. Charles had not yet been proclaimed king in this land, but Bedford had every expectation that he would be before very much time had passed. The Protectorship had passed to Cromwell’s son Richard, but he was nothing more than a weak seedling grown in the shadow of his father’s strong stem. Richard Cromwell would never be able to hold England together.

Everyone who had any interests at all to protect in England would now be aligning themselves very quietly with the exiled king.

“What is Charles to you, Noah?” Bedford asked.

“A most loved lord and king,” she replied.

“And this…Marguerite Carteret? And Kate Pegge?”

“Women who I love as sisters.”

“Who is the father of your child, Noah? Charles?”

“How can this be, my lord? My king is in exile, many miles distant, and I have never left Woburn in all my years here.”

“Save for accompanying me to Hampstead,” said Lady Anne. “How far gone are you?”

“Three months, my lady.”

“Then that child was conceived at Hampstead!” said Lady Anne.

“But not by our lord king,” said Bedford, “unless he has powers of trickery we are unaware of.”

Noah’s face stayed perfectly expressionless.

Bedford sighed. “I cannot see how we can deny Charles, my sweet,” he said to Lady Anne, “and it does solve a dilemma for us.”

“The house two from the village church stands vacant,” said Lady Anne. She looked at Noah. “You may remove yourself there as soon as these ‘ladies’ Carteret and Pegge arrive.”

The stone hall had vanished, and the girl led the two imps through a bewildering maze of alleys and laneways. Houses and warehouses reared to either side, blocking out the sun, and the three had to pick their way through piles of refuse and worse, the girl delicately holding her nose against the stench.

“Where is this?” asked one of the imps.

“Your new home,” said the girl. “Eventually.”

The imps glanced at each other. “We like it better where we are,” one said.

“You’ll not stay there,” said the girl. “You’ll get your freedom, soon enough. Then…this awaits you.”

“There’s no freedom. You’ve won us,” said an imp.

“True enough,” said the girl. “But what if, besides your loyalty, I earned your love?”

“How?”

“By giving you true freedom,” said the girl. “Now, pay attention. Do you know who I am yet?”

“Our enemy,” said one of the imps, and the girl laughed.

“Oh yes, your enemy indeed. But your liberator as well. I have the power both to trap you and to free you. I have done the first. Do you want the second?”