The Traitor's Daughter Read Online Free Page B

how he had made his living, meager though it was. He could bewitch you with words. He had bewitched Kate from the moment she’d been introduced to him at the playhouse called the Theatre.
    â€œAnd how are you, my love?” he asked. This time his simple sincerity rang through.
    â€œWell. Very well.”
    â€œAnd your lady grandmother?”
    â€œA rock.” Her gratitude to her grandmother was heartfelt. The lady was an island of tolerance in a sea of mistrust. “You will be welcome in her house.”
    â€œWe’ll find our own house soon, I promise.”
    She smiled at him for that.
    The bells of St. Saviour’s chimed the hour. The young man selling crucifixes moved away. Kate watched him go. He was well beyond hearing them now, but still she lowered her voice to a mere whisper. “Owen, we are summoned.”
    It startled him. “Now?”
    â€œNow.”
    He ran a grimy hand over his stubbled chin. “I need to wash. Shave.”
    â€œYou need to eat. ” Fury at his mistreatment shot through her again. “They starved you!”
    He shrugged. “No more than the others.”
    If only he had let her give that wretched deputy more silver! For another few pounds he would have had meat and drink fit for the Masters. But she knew why he had refused. He’d needed to bear the misery, because it was essential that the Catholic inmates accept him as a fellow sufferer. What those inmates did not know, and must never know, was the real reason he had agreed to suffer. In this battle for England, Owen had pledged himself to protect Her Majesty. And so had Kate.
    â€œCome,” she said, “I have a boat waiting.”
    He took her elbow. The squeeze he gave it told her how much he would rather be alone with her than hurrying to a meeting. But he said steadily, “Lead on.”

2
    Enemies of the Queen
    K ate and Owen took the wherry. As they were rowed across the Thames they were so locked in looking at each other she scarcely noticed the river traffic. She had a hundred questions for him, but they could not talk openly in front of the wherryman. Nor could they touch the way they longed to. She felt Owen’s hot impatience to be alone with her, and she could only tell him with her eyes: Soon, my love. She had made Matthew Buckland promise to assign him no more missions until absolutely necessary. A few weeks of peace and quiet would do her husband a world of good. Heaven knew he had earned it.
    â€œGod bless her!” the wherryman blurted. “Look, that’s Her Majesty, yonder!” He nodded westward.
    They looked upriver. The magnificent royal barge was unmistakable even at this distance. The crimson silk banners rippled in the breeze and sunlight gleamed off the dazzling gilt prow and the dozen pairs of oars arcing and dipping. Kate thought it looked like some golden insect gliding over the water. Small craft swarmed around it, with wherry passengers and fishermen alike eager to see Her Majesty up close. The barge was passing Blackfriars where people cheered from the riverbank. More people were rushing out of houses and shops all the way east to the Steelyard, the Baltic merchants’ wharf where a loading crane was noisily at work. Someone there tooted a horn. Kate and Owen shared a smile. The people of England loved their queen and none were more effusive in their affection than Londoners. Cries of “God save Your Majesty!” always rang from the riverbank whenever her barge brought her from Whitehall to dine at some friend’s riverside mansion, or merely to take the cool river air on a sultry summer night while her musicians serenaded her.
    â€œIt’s early for her to be abroad,” Kate said. Everyone with any connection to the court knew that the Queen did not enjoy rising early. On the morning of Kate’s sixteenth birthday her father had presented her to Her Majesty, the start of a busy day for the sovereign, and on the