A Murder by Any Name by Suzanne M. Wolfe

Author:Suzanne M. Wolfe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

CHAPTER 12

The Palace of Whitehall

After her examination of the body, Rivkah caught a wherry from Whitehall Stairs. Nick tried to insist on an escort, but she refused.

“I can take care of myself,” she told him.

As Nick handed her down into the boat, she paused and looked up at him.

“Mary’s death is not your fault,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”

Nick shrugged. He could not so easily absolve himself. She squeezed his hand briefly, then stepped into the gently rocking boat. He watched as they pulled away, Rivkah a small, shrouded figure in the stern, cloak wrapped tightly about her, hood up. It seemed to Nick as if he were always watching her leave, and he had to resist an overwhelming impulse to call the boatman back and climb in himself so he could leave the palace behind, this place of intrigue and death. He would have liked nothing better than to stroll along the bank with Rivkah, watching the river come to life in the wintry light, to measure his longer steps to her smaller ones, note how she walked with head erect, eyes taking in her surroundings with a kind of fascination as if she were still amazed by this strange country she and Eli had fetched up in, orphans and exiles, members of a persecuted race. Perhaps that accounted for the quietness of her demeanor when she was in public, her impenetrable reserve and the way she always covered herself from head to toe in a cloak as if to hide from curious eyes. He raised his hand briefly in farewell, but she did not turn around. Soon she was lost to him in the misty murk rising from the river, the only sound the chop of the oars rising and falling until they too fell silent.

An enormous sense of relief that the river now separated her from the killer roaming Whitehall overcame him. And Kat was safe too. But Nick couldn’t shake the vision of Rivkah being literally torn to pieces by a baying mob. He cursed himself for not accompanying her, at the very least sending Hector with her, but she had been adamant.

“I know how to be anonymous,” she had once told him. “I learned that in Salamanca during the persecutions.” Then she had given a smile of such sorrow, it had torn at Nick’s heart. “Haven’t you ever wondered why Eli calls me ‘Mouse’?”

* * *

With great reluctance, Nick turned back to the looming warren of the palace and headed straight for the Queen’s apartments. The only women in danger were the remaining ladies-in-waiting, and he intended to do now what he should have done immediately after Cecily’s body was discovered.

When he was admitted to the Queen’s sitting room, he was surprised to find her gone.

“A meeting with the Dutch ambassador concerning the Puritan communities there,” Codpiece informed him. “Apparently they’re inciting the Puritans here to produce scurrilous pamphlets denouncing the Queen as a Jezebel. Good Queen Bess is even now tearing a strip off the ambassador.

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