To Kiss A Spy Read Online Free PDF Page A

Council.
    Northumberland nodded and moved away from the circle, indicating that Robin should accompany him.
    Pen hastened along the passage to the library, the cone-shaped farthingale that supported her damask skirts swinging from side to side with the speed of her progress. She had taken no precautions this time to ensure a discreet departure from the hall while her mother-in-law was engaged with Robin. She was filled with a sense of recklessness that she knew had something to do with her encounter with Owen d’Arcy. If the Bryanstons discovered her going through family papers, so be it.
    She entered the library, and this time locked the door at her back before opening the cabinet. The ledgers it contained were mostly account books, and she was about to discard them when her hand fell on the ledger for the year 1550. She turned the pages, looking for July, and then for the entries under the day of her son’s birth. The midwives would have received payment. They had all been strangers to her, brought in by Lady Bryanston when Pen had suddenly gone into labor four weeks before her due date.
    Maybe she could get a name from the ledger, some way of contacting some woman other than her mother-in-law who had been present in the chamber on that dreadful day.
    She found the page and stared down at the list of entries. There were names, sums allocated to the names, but no indication of what service the names had performed to warrant payment. Pen’s fingertips prickled as if with pins and needles. Without thinking, she tore out the page, folded it, and slipped it into the small embroidered purse suspended from the fine gold-linked chain she wore at her waist. Then she replaced the ledger, locked the cabinet, and left the library.
    She was alert, her heart pounding against her ribs. Now that she had something to hide, she feared discovery. No one would consult a ledger from two years previously unless they had reason to do so, and she mustn’t arouse the least suspicion.
    She entered the gallery above the hall and noticed immediately that the level of noise was much diminished. She looked down and saw that the hall was rapidly emptying, guests summoning their servants to call for barges, horses, or carriages.
    Princess Mary’s departure would be the signal for the party to break up and Pen saw that the princess and her ladies had indeed left, which meant that the royal barge would be gone from the water steps. Mary disliked late nights since she was up at her prayers well before dawn. She would not have worried about leaving Pen behind, simply assuming that she would remain under her mother-in-law’s roof overnight.
    Pen had no intention of seeking Bryanston hospitality even if it meant she would have to jostle for a place in one of the public barges. The crowd at the water steps would be huge and she could expect to wait for at least an hour before the public conveyances could get close enough to take on passengers.
    Unless Robin was still around. He would escort her home even if he was on horseback and she had to ride pillion behind him. She examined the thinning throng but couldn’t see him, and then she became aware of Miles Bryanston’s upturned countenance from the floor just below. He was looking at her but she couldn’t be certain he either saw her or recognized her. He was well in his cups, his great moon face crimson, the little brown eyes bloodshot and unfocused. She ducked back into the shadows and hastened down the stairs to the hall, hoping he was sufficiently befuddled to have been unaware of her.
    Owen had seen the princess’s departure and noted Pen’s absence from the party. He stood in the small hallway that separated the great hall from the front door, a space designed to keep the frigid outside air at bay. The door stood open now as people crammed the small hall and pressed through the doorway, yelling for servants, huddling in furred cloaks. It was no longer snowing but the ground was covered with ice