Kissed by Shadows

Author:Jane Feather [Feather, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780786254217
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2003-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Lionel did not immediately return home. He would not deal under his own roof with the letters he carried and always took the most elaborate precautions to protect Luisa from the consequences of her guardian's true loyalties.

He walked through the narrow alleys towards Charing Cross, taking his time, ears and eyes on the alert for the possibility of a follower. Certain he was not being watched he ducked beneath the low lintel of a tavern. A man behind the counter looked up briefly, then without catching Lionel's eye returned to drawing ale for a customer.

Lionel made his way across the floor thick with clotted sawdust towards a narrow staircase at the rear of the taproom. No one appeared to notice him, certainly no one acknowledged him. He climbed the stairs swiftly and entered a small loft under low eaves. It was hot with the trapped stale air of a summer just ending, but he resisted the urge to open the small shuttered casement that looked over the street below.

He threw the heavy bar across the door and lit the stub of a candle on a rickety table that together with a three-legged stool offered the only furniture in the place.

He laid the packet of letters on the table, drawing the candle closer, and bent over them as he untied the string that held them together. He read in silence. War was brewing between France and the Hapsburg empire. The emperor was terrified that if Mary died childless then her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, betrothed to the French dauphin, would be the natural Catholic heir to the English throne. France and England would be united against the Hapsburgs. Lionel's informants had learned that to avoid such an outcome the emperor was prepared in the event of Mary's premature death to support the claims of Elizabeth to the throne. On condition that she marry her sister's childless widower, Philip.

A cynical smile flickered across Lionel's mouth. A papal annulment was easily arranged in the name of political expediency. But would Elizabeth be prepared to accept such an arrangement? She would have to abdicate her own independence, and then accept the Catholic faith. Lionel thought she would have no objection to the latter, the lady was the ultimate pragmatist, but he rather doubted she would accept the former.

It was his task, however, to inform her that in the right circumstances she would have support from an unlikely quarter. That implicit support could only strengthen her hand at present and provide stronger safeguards against the threat of assassination. Once Philip was aware of his father's second-string planning, he could begin to put pressure on Mary to receive Elizabeth at court once more.

But they would probably await the outcome of the queen's pregnancy before making any such move, Lionel decided. In the meantime he would work on Robin of Beaucaire. The man had already established communication with the imprisoned Elizabeth and he would make a sound accomplice . . . once he had accepted that Lionel Ashton was in the right court.

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