Chapter 6: Friday Tarts

I showed him the note at breakfast.

He read it three times, standing at the window in his shirtsleeves.

The coffee in his hand went cold.

"Who brought the box?" he said.

"A kitchen boy. He said it came from the pastry chef."

"Did it?"

"I asked her. She said she'd never seen it."

Lucan turned the scrap of paper over.

The back was blank.

"The writing is thin and slanted," I said. "A lady's hand, or a clerk's."

"It could be anyone."

"There's something else." I put down my fork. "The Friday tarts. I always thought they were ordered by your steward."

"They are. Every Friday, twelve, for my table."

"They're not."

He turned.

"The order slip comes down to the pastry kitchen in a sealed tube," I said.

"There's a wax stamp on it. I've seen it every Friday for a year, and it isn't your steward's."

"Whose is it?"

"A sunburst with a crown over it. Small, in black wax."

All the color went out of his face.

"That's my mother's private seal," he said.

I let that settle.

"She's been feeding me your lemon tarts for a year," he said slowly.

"She never mentioned it. She never sat at my table on a Friday."

"Maybe she wanted you fed."

"Or watched." His jaw went tight. "She ran my father's court for twenty years. She doesn't do anything she can't use."

"Lucan."

"She picked the list, Tilda. She and the Chancellor sat in a room and chose seven women to hand me."

"And now she sends you a dressmaker?"

"That part I can't explain."

"Neither can I." He put the cup down so hard that coffee jumped. "Do not trust the list. Someone knew."

I got up and went around the table and put my arms around his waist from behind.

He stood stiff for a moment.

Then his shoulders dropped, and he turned into me and bent his forehead to mine.