“He will not be happy.” Queen Anne’s voice was the loudest.
Gwynnie flattened herself into the space behind the door, just as it was pushed wide open.
The queen marched in with her two ladies-in-waiting behind her.
“He must be told. I must see him.”
“Your Highness.” One of the ladies scurried at Anne’s heels, following her into the main chamber. “He has already sent word. He … he…”
“Out with it,” Anne ordered.
“He has no wish to see you. He said as much in his message.”
“I am his wife!” Anne shouted. She picked up a glass vase and threw it across the chamber, where it shattered against the fireplace. As the ladies darted across the room to clear up the shards of glass, Gwynnie took her opportunity to escape.
She stepped out from behind the door and slipped into the corridor. Hastening away, she passed others on the stairwell who were still trying to put the armour back together. Arguments had erupted between the men that had gathered. Some tried to fix the plates together, dismayed when their construction ended up with three legs instead of two.
As Gwynnie reached the front door of the tower, she stepped out, passing a yeoman guard by the doorway. No ordinary yeoman, Emlyn picked up the black lawyer’s robes they had left hooked over a window frame nearby and pulled them over Gwynnie’s gown. Swapping her white coif for the black bonnet, Gwynnie led the way across the cobbles, her mother following behind, both of their heads bowed.
They passed through courtyards and down narrow lanes. Finding a path at the back of the kitchens, they both came to a stop in the shadows, half hidden between old crates and boxes that had been used to carry apples to the kitchens from the orchard in autumn.
“Well?” Emlyn asked, nudging up the red cap of her yeoman’s garb.
Gwynnie held up the leather pouch and grinned. Emlyn reached for it, her eyes widening, but Gwynnie pulled the pouch back.
“You know these are not for us to keep.”
Emlyn blinked, then nodded. “What next?” she asked, her voice rather tart.
“We wait until the feast tonight. When we are certain Fitzroy and Renard are in the great hall, that’s when we plant the jewels in Fitzroy’s rooms.”
“You realise how dangerous this is, do you not? You are no longer pointing the finger at Renard, but at Fitzroy himself! If we are discovered —”
“They’ll hang me anyway if they catch me. By God’s blood —”
“Curb that tongue of yours.”
“Ma!” Gwynnie snapped under her breath. “We have one chance at this. Do you truly wish to back out now?”
“No, of course not.”
Though as they plotted how to gain entry to Fitzroy’s rooms, Gwynnie felt her mother’s eyes lingering on the leather pouch.
CHAPTER 24
Turning the letter back and forth in her grasp, Gwynnie peered through a window in the lawyers’ corridor, toward Donsen Tower, waiting for the signal. In the end, Emlyn had refused to let Gwynnie return to Fitzroy’s chambers. Emlyn instead took her place. Dressed as a lady of the court, she had walked into the tower as if she belonged there, in order to plant the jewels they had taken from Queen Anne’s chamber in Fitzroy’s rooms.
Gwynnie waited for their agreed signal, shifting the lawyer’s bonnet on her head as she peered through the lead-lined glass. At last, a window opened in the tower, far higher than Gwynnie had been expecting, and a hand appeared, waving a white handkerchief in the air.
“It is time,” Gwynnie muttered to herself. Walking down the corridor, she glanced over her shoulder, but no one else was around. She bent swiftly down in front of Tombstone’s door and slipped the letter underneath, then walked on, as if she hadn’t hesitated at all.
Darting through a doorway, she cowered near other lawyers who had gathered in the courtyard. Pulling her bonnet low, she hid her face, listening in on their conversations as she caught a glimpse of Tombstone appearing from his chamber.
Evidently having found her letter, he had hurried out in order to find who had left it. He looked around the courtyard, though his eyes never settled on Gwynnie in her lawyer’s robes.
Tombstone walked past, seeking out another as he held the letter in his hand. Gwynnie was careful to keep to the back of the group of lawyers. None turned to talk to her, and fortunately, because she was so short, Tombstone didn’t even appear to notice she stood there.
Gwynnie dared to lift her head an inch, watching him. He stopped to re-read the letter then stuffed it back into his robes, darting back into the building. Gwynnie allowed herself the smallest of smiles and walked away, heading toward the path at the back of the kitchens where she and Emlyn had agreed to meet.
“Well?” Emlyn asked, appearing at the far end, every bit the fine lady. Her hair was tucked under a French hood, her gown glittering in the sun.
“Did he read the letter?”
“He did.” Gwynnie nodded and leaned against the nearest wall. “I signed the letter from ‘a friend’. I wrote that it was time to catch the true culprit, and if he wished to find out who that was, he should look to who Renard works for. I told him he’d find the evidence for the thefts in Fitzroy’s rooms.”
Gwynnie sat down on a crate beside Emlyn. All that mattered was that Tombstone acted on the tip-off and searched Fitzroy’s rooms. By now, people would know Queen Anne had been robbed. If those same jewels were found in Fitzroy’s chambers, it would be difficult for even a man with his connections to worm his way out of the situation.
“Where did you hide the jewels?” Gwynnie asked.
“In the bible box in his bedchamber. I left the bible discarded on the side too. Let us just hope this lawyer is no great fool, and he acts on the information.”
“Time will tell, I suppose.” Gwynnie stood from the crate. “We need to find somewhere to hide. We cannot keep coming to this lane, and sooner or later, someone will notice a new lady of the court walking around.” She gestured toward her mother.
“We need new disguises,” Emlyn agreed. “I have an idea for that, and a way to get us close to Fitzroy’s chamber too, so we can see what happens next.”
“Stop fidgeting, miting.”
Gwynnie and Emlyn stood in the upstairs corridor of Donsen Tower, wearing new disguises. Emlyn had returned to dressing as a yeoman, but rather than carrying around the ungainly pike, she carried a short staff in front of her and a small blade at her hip.
