Jamie tapped his foot, but Mistress Leggett took no notice of his impatience.
“I praise God I wasn’t born with her sort of beauty,”
Mistress Leggett said as she refilled his cup from the pitcher of ale without asking. He refrained from shaking her as she refilled her own and drank down half of it. “Such rare looks can lead men to a dangerous sort of lust.”
Mistress Leggett wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and shook a thick finger at Jamie. “Then, if she won’t have him, the man will go half mad. And you can bet a pretty penny, he’ll blame her for it. Next thing you know, he’ll be saying she bewitched him.”
“Are you saying you know who is behind the rumors? Who accuses her?” Jamie asked, still hoping she might give him something useful.
She puckered her lips as she pondered his question. “All the men looked at her, so ’tis hard to say. But where I heard the rumor was at the Guild Hall. I’d start there, if I were you.”
God’s beard! Any merchant in London might visit the Guild Hall. Jamie stood to leave.
“ ’A course that won’t help you find her.”
Jamie waited, nerves taut, halfway to the door. “People say she caught wind she was going to be charged and got on a fast ship for France,” Mistress Leggett said. “Must be true, for she was gone when the guard went to arrest her two days ago.”
Jamie returned to Linnet’s house, determined to search every inch of it. Master Woodley wrung his hands and followed on Jamie’s heels, while Jamie searched from room to room.
The clerk cleared his throat as Jamie rifled through
Linnet’s shifts and stockings. “Should you be looking through her… personal things, sir?”
“Goddamn it!” Jamie shouted. “She must have left a clue here somewhere.”
He had looked everywhere—even under the floor-boards—for something, anything, that might tell him where she had gone or who might have taken her.
“Lady Linnet would not leave London without telling me,” Master Woodley said. “She is very good about keeping me informed—unlike her brother, I must say. When she goes, she always provides precise instructions on how I may exchange messages with her.”
Jamie returned to the solar and dropped down onto the window seat amid Linnet’s colorful pillows.Where was she?He held his head in his hands, trying to think.
“Truly, this is most unlike her, Sir James.”
Fear gnawed at his belly, for all evidence suggested Linnet did not leave by her own choice.
Jamie looked up as Martin came into the solar, his young face taut with worry.
“I found nothing in the kitchen,” Martin said. “No hidden letters, nothing out of place.”
Damnation. “Tell me again, Master Woodley, what did she have you looking for regarding her grandfather’s old business?”
“I was following the trail of gold,” Master Woodley answered. “The path his fortune traveled—and through whose hands—all those years ago.”
“What did you find?”
“The trail forked and forked and forked again. No matter which route I took, I came to a stone wall.” He raised a finger. “But the same stone wall, mind you, which is telling.”
“Can you not save time and simply tell me what you know? Lady Linnet may be in danger.”
“All trails led to the Mercer’s Hall. That is the stone wall.”
“That is the oldest and most powerful of the London guilds,” Martin put in.
“I am not a foreigner. I know what the mercer guild is.” Jamie blew out a breath, annoyed with himself for snapping at the two of them.
The old clerk cleared his throat. “The lad is correct. Why do you suppose the mayor is most often a mercer?”
“You cannot mean the mayor of London is behind this shady business with her grandfather,” Jamie said. “I know Mayor Coventry, and I do not believe it.”