Kate Sedley - The Plymouth Cloak

Her eyes widened almost, I could have sworn, with indignation. This was not what she had expected. Then she shrugged. 'I've seen worse men,' she admitted. 'But he was old. He could have been the same age as my father.' I had to suppress a smile at the thought of Philip's outrage had he been able to hear her. But my mirth did not last long.

'He was a fine figure of a man, nevertheless,' I pressed her.

'I've already said, I've seen worse.'

'Did… did he attract you?'

She frowned, seemingly still ignorant of the path along which I was leading her. 'I hardly saw him, only at breakfast and at dinner yesterday. A forward man with a bold eye, but I'm used to that. It doesn't disturb me.'

'Nor the fact that he put his arm about your waist? Nor that your husband was angry?'

Her face clouded at this; a sullen expression which spoke of contempt, but also of fear. Nothing could have told me more plainly that she disliked Edgar and that Janet Overy was right: she was beginning to regret a marriage into which, no doubt, her parents and her own ambition had pushed her, for as bailiff to Sir Peveril Trenowth, Edgar's standing in the community was greater than hers.

'My husband is always angry if another man so much as looks at me.' She shrugged and gave me an upward glance beneath her long, thick lashes. 'I don't know what he'd do if he found you here, a strong, handsome lad like you. Oh, don't fret! He won't return until supper-time.' She stretched herself full-length on the bed, linking her hands behind her head, the upthrust of her breasts beneath the dark green woollen gown full and inviting. She had removed her shoes, and now wriggled her bare toes provocatively. I felt suddenly hot and embarrassed.

It was two years since, at the age when many men are already fathers, I had laid my first girl in the long, lush grasses which border the River Stout, and from then on I had hardly lived like the monk my mother had wished me to be.

There had been girls at fairs, where I had gone to sell my wares, in villages through which I had passed, in towns and cities, and all of them willing and knowledgeable. (I would never force myself on any woman or deflower the innocent.) But there was something about Isobel Warden which made me uncomfortable. She was certainly beautiful, one of the loveliest girls I had ever seen, and with the promise of an even richer beauty as she grew older. But for some reason, it was that which made me uneasy. Had she been less stridently female I might have been attracted to her, but such blatant femininity I found unnerving. Philip, on the other hand, would not have done so, and I decided that there was nothing for it but to put my question bluntly, and to hope that its abruptness shocked her into telling me the truth.

'Did you and Master Underdown have a tryst last night in the woods?'

I don't know what reaction I had expected; self-righteous denial, the furious indignation of guilt, perhaps. What I had not been prepared for was the look of frank amazement which she turned on me, followed by the snapping together of her brows in bewildered curiosity.

'Why do you think that?' she asked me.

'He obviously fell victim to your charms when he saw you at breakfast yesterday, nor did I think you averse to him. He was a man who took what he wanted, and there was no doubt in my mind that he wanted you.'

Isobel gave me a small, superior smile, as one who knew men.

'Not enough to risk another beating from my husband. Master Underdown had sufficient sense to recognize that he was no match for Edgar. Edgar is young, and in a fight that will always give the more youthful participant the edge. And in my life I have met one or two men like your master; men who hold such high opinions of themselves that they consider no woman worth imperilling their precious skins for.' I sat staring at her, chewing my underlip, which is a habit I have when perplexed, as my children are never tired of pointing out to me. I found myself believing her against my will. For one thing, she neither looked nor behaved like a young woman who had witnessed murder done, or who had even stumbled, later, across the body. For another, there was truth in what she said about Philip's character: I could well imagine that he would not have thought any woman worth the risk of humiliation or pain. I accepted his boast that he had had practice enough with jealous husbands, but that was in the past when he was younger and could outwit or outfight them. And yet…

'He could have wished for revenge,' I said. 'Your husband felled him with a single blow, and called down upon his head a rebuke from Master Steward. My… my master would have found that hard to forgive.'

Again she shrugged, the red lips pulled down at the comers. 'That may be, and no doubt, had he lived, he would have taken his revenge in one way or another. A letter of complaint to Sir Peveril or a word in the ear of someone with influence to get Edgar dismissed from his office. But not the risk of seducing his wife. Besides,' she added, anger suddenly informing her voice, 'what makes you so sure that I would have been party to a tryst, supposing he had proposed it?'

'Would you not?' I asked directly.

'No.' Her green eyes, wide and innocent, bereft of all coquetry, met mine in a candid stare. 'He was well-looking enough, I grant you. A handsome man in his time. But there was something about him which I did not like.' She gave a slight shiver. 'Something which repelled me.' She spoke with such sincerity that I was left with very little choice but to believe her. And I understood what she meant about Philip. I, too, had experienced that feeling of repulsion. It was as though he had had some deformity, not of the body but of the soul.

I rubbed a hand across my eyes. 'Do you swear,' I asked at length, 'that you did not meet Master Underdown on the river bank last night? That your husband did not follow? That there was no fight between them which resulted in Master Underdown's death?'

Her eyebrows rose again at this. 'So that's what you were thinking. That Edgar did murder because he was jealous?' She pulled herself into a sitting position and swung her legs off the bed so that she was facing me once more. She leaned forward and placed both her hands in mine. 'I swear to you, by God's Holy Mother, that Master Underdown neither asked me, nor did I accept such a proposal.' Then she slid off the bed, bent her head and planted a kiss full on my lips ….

I dropped her hands, sprang to my feet and withdrew hurriedly to the other side of the room. I could tell by the look on her face that she was unused to having her advances treated like this. In her own way, she was every bit as vain as Philip.

'I must go,' I said, edging towards the door. The room suddenly felt close and fetid; I could not escape quickly enough.

The door swung inwards and Edgar Warden stood on the threshold, his fight hand nursing his left.

'I've driven a nail into my thumb,' he grunted at Isobel. 'Do you have any of that sicklewort salve left that Janet gave you?" He became aware of my presence and turned with an oath to face me. 'What in God's name are you doing here,' he demanded, 'alone with my wife?'

Isobel was swift to take her revenge for my having spurned her. 'He thinks you may be the murderer,' she said.

Edgar Warden stared at me, dumbfounded, the wound in his thumb for the moment forgotten. He also blenched, his weather-beaten skin turning a shade paler than when he had first entered the room.

'Eh?' he spluttered. 'What do you mean? Thinks I may be the murderer? What are you talking about, woman?' Isobel smiled maliciously. 'He thinks you found me last night with Master Underdown and killed him in a fit of jealous rage. When you know,' she added virtuously, 'that I was by your side all through the hours of darkness, as a good wife should be. You woke at least three times and I was always there.'