Free Murder at Hatfield House by Amanda Carmack Page A

the boxes. All was silent, but Kate knew very well that a price would be paid later.
    Elizabeth pressed the lute into Kate’s hand. “We have little enough left of our mothers,” she said quietly. “We must guard what we can. Take your father to bed now, Kate. Then wait on me in my chamber.”
    Fearing she might burst into tears if she spoke, Kate merely nodded. She would never cry in front of the likes of Braceton.
    “Let me help you,” Penelope said, and together they turned her father back to the house. He seemed to be in shock, sagging against their shoulders, muttering to himself. Kate’s heart ached as they helped him up the stairs and into his bed. What would she do if his mind snapped over this sad business?
    For a long time after Penelope left them and Kate wrapped her father up in their warmest blankets, he merely lay there, staring up at the bed curtains, plucking at the sheets with his callused fingers. Kate was so afraid; she had never seen her father like this. Even in his illness he always tried to be strong for her, her father and friend, her teacher, her only family.
    Yet losing his work so suddenly and brutally, so casually, seemed to have broken something in him. She knew she had to be strong now for them both, but her anger toward Braceton threatened to overwhelm her.
    She did the only thing she knew would calm her. She reached for her lute, the cherished instrument Princess Elizabeth saved, and started singing.
     
Hark! You shadows that in darkness dwell,
Learn to contemn light.
Happy, happy they that in hell feel not the world’s despite . . .
     
    “Eleanor,” her father suddenly said, clearly and calmly, just her mother’s name. “Eleanor.”
    “Nay, Father, ’tis me. Kate,” she said, carefully laying aside the lute and leaning closer to smile at him. “Are you feeling better? Shall I fetch you something to eat?”
    “Kate,” he said, shaking his head as if he was emerging from a dream. If only she could make it a dream for him, erase that terrible afternoon. “I am only weary. You played that song so beautifully. It was one of your mother’s favorites. She would play it for you before you were even born.”
    “I know, Father. I love to play it.” It was the only thing that could take her out of herself, out of the fearful world they lived in now. It was her mother’s gift to her, and she had so nearly lost it.
    “You do look so much like her.” He suddenly reached out to take her hand. “That man has brought evil into this house.”
    Kate swallowed hard. She had heard those words from the madman Payne already that day. “He will soon go, just as all the queen’s men have. There is nothing for him to find here.”
    Matthew shook his head. “He is different somehow. Be careful of him, my Kate. Stay far away from him.”
    “That commandment I can happily obey,” Kate said. She gently took her hand back and tucked the bedclothes closer around him. “Now you must rest, Father. We can start to re-create your Christmas music this evening after supper. I do remember quite a lot of it.”
    “Someone must do something about him,” her father muttered as his eyes drifted shut. “He must be made to leave us alone. . . .”
    *
    “Ah, Kate, there you are.” Elizabeth was pacing the length of the floor in her bedchamber, a book held tightly between her hands but unopened. Her hair was still loose. Penelope and Lady Pope sat in the window seat, watching her in silence. Penelope still looked a bit stunned by all that had happened that day, her blue eyes wide and distant.
    The faint, sour scent of smoke drifted up through the partly opened window.
    “How does your father do?” Elizabeth asked.
    “He is resting now, Your Grace,” Kate said. “I will help him to re-create his music, but he is—we both are—much comforted to still have my mother’s lute. You have our greatest thanks.”
    Elizabeth waved the thanks away, and turned to pace back toward the chairs grouped around