The Scent of Danger Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Fiona Buckley

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One: One Small Cloud

  Chapter Two: Bygone Sins

  Chapter Three: A Stone in a Still Pond

  Chapter Four: Improbable Coincidence

  Chapter Five: No Escape

  Chapter Six: Indiscretion in High Places

  Chapter Seven: Three Birds: One Stone

  Chapter Eight: Okehampton

  Chapter Nine: A Tankard Six Feet High

  Chapter Ten: Fleeing the Field

  Chapter Eleven: The Art of Selling

  Chapter Twelve: Gathering Strength

  Chapter Thirteen: Following the Scent

  Chapter Fourteen: Unanswered Questions

  Chapter Fifteen: The Wrong Romance

  Chapter Sixteen: Money and Music

  Chapter Seventeen: The Uses of Indiscretion

  Chapter Eighteen: Living Bait

  Chapter Nineteen: Without Hope

  Chapter Twenty: The Midnight Hunt

  Chapter Twenty-One: Chance Met by Moonlight

  Chapter Twenty-Two: A Glimpse in the Distance

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Seeking Evidence

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Strange Contradictions

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Hidden on a Beam

  Chapter Twenty-Six: The Dam Breaks

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Tying Knots

  A selection of recent titles by Fiona Buckley

  The Ursula Blanchard mysteries

  THE ROBSART MYSTERY

  THE DOUBLET AFFAIR

  QUEEN’S RANSOM

  TO RUIN A QUEEN

  QUEEN OF AMBITION

  A PAWN FOR THE QUEEN

  THE FUGITIVE QUEEN

  THE SIREN QUEEN

  QUEEN WITHOUT A CROWN *

  QUEEN’S BOUNTY *

  A RESCUE FOR A QUEEN *

  A TRAITOR’S TEARS *

  A PERILOUS ALLIANCE *

  THE HERETIC’S CREED *

  A DEADLY BETROTHAL *

  THE RELUCTANT ASSASSIN *

  A WEB OF SILK *

  THE SCENT OF DANGER *

  THE SCENT OF DANGER

  Fiona Buckley

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2020

  in Great Britain and the USA by

  Crème de la Crime an imprint of

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2020 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  eBook edition first published in 2020 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2020 by Fiona Buckley.

  The right of Fiona Buckley to be identified

  as the author of this work has been asserted

  in accordance with the Copyright, Designs &

  Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-133-8 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-679-1 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0383-0 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

  are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described

  for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are

  fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk,

  Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  For Anne and Alan, Liz and William, Anne and Ian,The best friends anyone could have.

  ONE

  One Small Cloud

  ‘Why is it,’ I said brightly to Joyce Frost, my twenty-year-old ward, ‘that when there’s just one small cloud in an otherwise clear sky, it insists on covering the sun?’

  ‘It will pass,’ said Joyce prosaically. ‘One can’t expect much sunshine at the beginning of February.’

  ‘But why did that wretched cloud have to go near the sun at all?’ I persisted. ‘There’s the whole sky to choose from and it’s so cold; we long for sunshine! That cloud is positively wilful.’

  ‘It’s moving away now,’ said Joyce patiently, as the cloud drifted on and the sun came out.

  ‘So I see,’ I said shortly. I had only mentioned it for the sake of making light conversation to Joyce and the effort had fallen flat as usual.

  Joyce and her twin sister Jane had become my wards just over three years before. Their mother was dead and their father had lately been imprisoned in the Tower, and although I had been instrumental in sending him there, he had nevertheless, for his own reasons, asked me to take care of his daughters. He had now been released but he was a merchant who would often travel abroad, and the house he and his daughters had once called home was no longer theirs. His girls needed a home and, he felt, a woman’s guidance. He knew well enough that I was justified in what I had done and Jane, sweet-natured and sensible, knew it too but Joyce would not forgive me. She was polite, obedient, prepared to learn from me (I had first met her and her sister when I was engaged to teach them the finer points of embroidery), but I could engender no warmth between us, try as I might.

  I had tried to find her a husband, but so far, my attempts had all failed. Jane had been married very soon after coming to live with me, but Joyce was not impressed by any of the gentlemen to whom I introduced her although they were all personable and young, with prospects. So here she was, beside me at the window of the great hall in my Surrey home of Hawkswood, making dull answers to my attempts at brightness. She was more depressing than any amount of aggravating little clouds.

  I supposed that I ought to be used to it by now but instead it had grown more and more exasperating. How could she keep this campaign of coldness up so long? The twins had come to Hawkswood shortly before Christmas in 1582 and now it was the February of 1586. I turned away from the window, quelling a desire to shout at her: Say that little clouds can’t really be wilful and I’m foolish to imagine that they can, say you hate Hawkswood and detest me and why did your father ever abandon you to me, but say something, anything, with some sort of passion or enthusiasm or LIFE, can’t you? Just stop giving me those flat, dead, ladylike answers that don’t mean anything!

  Instead, I said: ‘I’m having our horses saddled. It’s a good morning for a ride. I dare say Dale is brushing our riding skirts at this very moment.’

  Dale was my waiting woman. Her real name was Frances Brockley, for she was the wife of my manservant Roger Brockley, but I still used her maiden name, out of habit. ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ I said, ‘and change.’

  I would enjoy a ride and I knew that she would, too, though she wouldn’t say so to me. She was fond of her dappled Patches, just as I was fond of my bay geldin
g, Jaunty. I had had Jaunty now for several years and had grown so attached to him that to the amusement of my household, I went to the stable on most evenings to say goodnight to him. I let them laugh. I liked to see him content and comfortable in his stall, his coat glossy with grooming, pulling at his hay rack.

  Joyce said: ‘A ride would be nice,’ in her best polite voice but then added, with just a little more animation: ‘But what about those Withysham accounts that Brockley fetched for you two days ago? Didn’t you say yesterday that you must look at them this morning?’

  Withysham, in Sussex, was my second house. I moved my household there sometimes, though not often. It was in the hands of a competent steward, Robert Hanley, though on principle I sometimes examined the accounts at unexpected moments. I had just done so.

  I had a third property, Evergreens, which had been granted to me because of some work I had done for the queen the previous year. It was just south of Guildford and consisted of a small house and a smallholding. I had however rented it out and its day to day expenses were the business of the tenant and not mine.

  As I led Joyce towards the stairs, I thought to myself that I had plenty of things to think about which had nothing to do with accounts. One, obviously, was Joyce herself. But I also had a problem with the maids.

  Phoebe, my senior maid, was feeling her years and that came hard on Margery, the second maid. Margery was young and brisk but she had already had to take on more work because a very young maid we had formerly had, Lucy, had been so homesick that she finally went back to her parents, while Netta and Tessie, who were both married to grooms of mine and worked as maids in between having their children, now had four children apiece and came only for an hour or two now and then. It wasn’t enough.

  I must find at least two new maids and probably another groom as well, since the senior groom, Arthur Watts, was becoming old before my eyes. Even Adam Wilder, my steward, was visibly ageing. Soon I would have to pension him off – which he would hate – and find a replacement. I had much to do besides the Withysham accounts. I had passed those on to others.

  ‘I changed my mind,’ I said. ‘Wilder and Harry are going through the ledgers. They’re working in the east parlour; there’s plenty of room there to spread out ledgers and notes. Master Dickson says that Harry has no gift for figures but he needs to learn. He’s fourteen already. He is my heir and one day he’ll need such skills.’

  I tried not to sound despondent but I felt it. In the midst of this busy household, I was often lonely. My companion of many years, Mistress Jester, had gone to live with her married daughter in Edinburgh, and Jane, dear Jane, was with her husband – and now her two babies as well – in London. I missed Hugh, my late husband, too, even though he had been gone for many years. I lacked company of my own generation.

  But in the midst of this happy, busy household, I had no right to be despondent. As we started up the stairs, I glanced over the banister to a window that overlooked the courtyard and there was Roger Brockley, who was a groom before he became my manservant, and still helped out in the stables, just leading Jaunty out. Patches was already saddled and waiting in the yard. Upstairs, I could hear Harry’s tutor Peter Dickson, practising his lute. He was musically gifted and was teaching Harry. And – this did make me smile – I could hear Gladys Morgan grumbling.

  Gladys Morgan had no official place at Hawkswood and she was no ornament to it, either. She was old, lame and ill-tempered, with a disgraceful line in curses when she was really roused. She had a nutcracker profile and her few remaining teeth resembled brown fangs. She had attached herself to me, limpet-like, after Brockley and I had rescued her from a charge of witchcraft. Later on, because her imaginative curses had outraged more than one vicar and her skill with medicinal potions had outraged nearly every physician she encountered, we had to rescue her from another and that time we nearly failed.

  Secretly, I sometimes wondered if she really did have mysterious powers, for she sometimes prophesied danger and she was usually right.

  Danger was familiar to me, far more familiar than it usually is to dignified widowed ladies running households in Surrey. In bygone years, needing extra money, I had let myself become an agent for the queen. At first I worked for money; later I learned that though I was illegitimate, I was a half-sister of the queen and from then on I was inexorably bound to her service. I usually took instructions from her principal councillors, who were now her Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham, and her Lord High Treasurer, Sir William Cecil, otherwise Lord Burghley. Their assignments, often presented to me as safe and harmless, had frequently led me into danger. Gladys always seemed to see it coming.

  Though it was true (and I had made a point of telling Gladys so), that I had lately carried out an assignment which led me into no danger at all, and been paid for by the grant of Evergreens. There had been increasing fears that Mary Stuart of Scotland, who was in England, half as a guest and half as a prisoner, had been trying to plot with Philip of Spain with a view to getting the Spanish to invade and put her on Elizabeth’s throne. I had been asked to recruit some new agents, especially in the West Country, which was one of Philip’s likely landing places, should he ever come. I had done so, successfully.

  I hoped now to give up my secret work. I was over fifty. My hair was still dark and my hazel eyes still saw clearly, but I was no longer young. Looking after things at home was more than enough to keep me occupied. Not to mention, safe. The desire for safety had grown on me through the years. Here at Hawkswood I was safe and I had nothing to be depressed about.

  We were halfway up the stairs, when below us, a door opened, releasing a flood of sunlight into the vestibule. Harry’s voice called: ‘Mother!’ and was at once echoed by Wilder calling: ‘Madam!’ I stopped and peered over the banister. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s these accounts from Withysham!’ said Harry excitedly.

  ‘What about them? Wilder?’

  In a solemn voice, as though he were announcing a death, Wilder said: ‘There’s something far wrong with them, madam. Will you come?’

  I looked at Joyce. ‘There goes my ride! But you can have yours. Your horse is ready and Brockley will go with you. Have a pleasant outing.’

  ‘May I not help you look at the Withysham ledgers? I used to help our steward with the accounts at home, when Father was away at sea. In fact, I miss them. They exercise the mind,’ said Joyce.

  In all the three years she had spent with me, except for such minor things as please pass the apple sauce she had literally never asked me for anything before. ‘Of course you may,’ I said warmly. ‘We’ll both go. Harry, make room for us at the table in there and then go and tell Brockley that we’re not riding this morning after all. Then come back.’

  When we were all seated shoulder to shoulder on a bench at the table in the sunlit parlour, with the two Withysham ledgers set out before us, Wilder did some explaining for Joyce’s benefit.

  ‘I expect, Mistress Frost, that you already know that Withysham just has the one small home farm?’ Joyce nodded. ‘This ledger with the blue leather binding is for the farm. This with the red binding is for the house. Madam checks them every quarter but also at occasional unexpected moments in between. This is one of those moments.’

  ‘How does Master Hanley keep his accounts while the ledgers are here with Mistress Stannard?’ Joyce asked.

  ‘He has a second, identical, set,’ Wilder told her.

  Harry, who had just returned at a run from transmitting my orders to Brockley, pushed the farm ledger eagerly towards me and jabbed a forefinger at a recent entry. ‘Mother, look at this order for the farm horses’ oats! And this one!’ He turned back two pages and pointed out another entry. ‘If the horses have really been eating all those oats, they must be jumping out of their skins! Over the fences and over the moon!’

  ‘It’s the same pattern for the three horses that count as household expenses,’ Wilder said. ‘Oats were ordered for them at the
same times. Far in excess of what they need.’ He flicked over pages in the household ledger and showed me. ‘It makes no sense,’ he said.

  ‘No extra horses have been bought?’ Joyce questioned.

  ‘No,’ I told her. ‘I used to keep our stud of trotters at Withysham but as you know, I have moved them here.’ Trotters, the light harness horses with high action and a remarkable turn of speed, were becoming very popular and I had begun a stud, as an extra source of revenue and an extra inheritance for Harry. ‘There are only five horses at Withysham now,’ I said. ‘There’s Hanley’s own cob, and two general purpose animals that draw light carts and are ridden by anyone who needs them. And there are two heavy horses for the Withysham farm, for the plough and the harrow and the heavy carting. That’s all.’

  ‘It isn’t just the oats,’ said Wilder. ‘That extra order for them warned me that something was wrong and as soon as I really looked for trouble – God’s teeth, I found it! New saddles for our two Withysham horses! Madam, when the last three-monthly audit was made, you went to Withysham yourself, with Master Harry and Mistress Frost here. I’m sure you all saw the tackroom. Did any of the horses need new saddles?’

  ‘No, they didn’t,’ said Harry decisively. ‘I looked round the tackroom to see if anything new was needed. I didn’t find anything. All the tack was in good condition.’

  ‘And why so much new linen – these towels and sheets?’ asked Joyce, who was scanning the ledger intently. ‘There was plenty of linen in the house four weeks ago! We didn’t sleep between patched sheets!’

  Joyce was becoming positively animated and she was asking very sensible questions. This pleased me so much that just for a moment, the dubious Withysham accounts seemed no more important than the little cloud that had briefly covered the sun.