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She chuckled. “I am soft in my heart for animals, milord, not soft in my head. I have no desire to loose a bear on the citizens of London. And ’tis the dogs that get maimed and killed in the ring.” Her smile faded.
As they approached the congested London Bridge, Greer exhaled long as they were forced to slow. Londoners were busy preparing for the twelve days of Christmas when no work was to be done. The only exceptions were feeding animals and people and providing medical care. All other industry screeched to a halt while people celebrated with feasting and games until Epiphany on the sixth of January.
“If ye could point me toward Whitehall, I can find my way.”
She spoke loudly while walking between people. “After London Bridge, we need to go up Thames Street to Saint Andrews Hill to Luggate Hill to Fleet Street to the Strand, and finally to King Street, which runs right past Whitehall.” She dodged a cart, her lovely face turning his way. “You’ll never find it by nightfall without me. The street signs are not placed.”
“Ye go there often?” The woman was dressed as the average young goodwife, although her gloves looked quite rich.
“My homeisWhitehall.” She smiled, giving him a nod. “You may call me Lady Lucy. My sister and I are ladies to the queen.”
They waited until a cart of buns moved on. “A lady to the queen who releases dogs and cocks,” he said, his mouth close to her ear.
She snapped her eyes to his. “The cocks were not my idea.”
“The young man with red hair and one blue eye and one brown eye with a mole?” Anyone who stood out from others were noticed by the common man. ’Twas why Greer’s pock-marked mother no longer visited the Scottish court.
“They needed someone to search for,” she said, shrugging. “I wasn’t going to let it be Nick. He’s an orphan who loves animals as much as I.” She shifted the puppy in her arms.
“Hopefully the guards won’t find some unlucky lad who fits your description.”
“I sincerely hope not,” she murmured and then glanced up at him, her smile gone. “If they do, I will confess, of course.”
Greer pulled her closer to stop her from running into a ladder. A dark-skinned man balanced on it as he lowered a sign painted with a goose.
“Pardon,” she said and walked around. Her cap came loose, the wind plucking it from her golden hair.
Greer caught it with one hand. “Hold still, and I’ll fix the pins.”
“You know how to fix a lady’s cap with pins?” Her blue eyes stared upward, long lashes framing them.
Greer pushed the second pup into her arms, and the lass balanced it on her other hip.
He glanced to the top of her shiny waves of hair. “My mother has the same type of pins, and I help her secure her cap sometimes.” The lass’s hair was soft, clean, and fragrant.
Wagons rumbled by on the flagstone, horses clopped, and people laughed, stopping any further conversation between them as he finished and took the pup back. Off the bridge, Greer and Lady Lucy made their way up Thames Street until she tugged him to turn with her onto a side street where the steady stream of jostling people diminished. Och, but he missed the wide-open moors of home, flanked by mountains and cut through by crystal-clear streams instead of the brown, stinking Thames.
They turned up another street where laundry hung across. “You’re in London because Lord Moray thinks there’s an assassin who will strike down our queen over Christmastide?” she asked.
“Aye.”
“Are you hunting the assassin?”
“Aye.”
“Is it your job to hunt for assassins?” she asked.
“For the crown of Scotland, aye.”
She trudged forward and shifted the puppy to the other hip. “Can you spot them easily?”
“Nay,” he said. “A clever assassin can be hidden in plain sight with no one the wiser. They gain the trust of advisers and courtiers so that their small actions are overlooked until ’tis too late.”
She stroked her pup, looking sideways at him. “Perhaps you are actually the assassin, sent by the Scottish regent.” Her brows arched upward in question.
“Lord Moray has no reason to see Queen Elizabeth dead. It would only incite treasonous violence by the Catholics who support young King James’s mother, Mary.” Queen Elizabeth had been holding Mary Stuart, once queen of the Scots, prisoner in England for the last five years.
Lady Lucy held the dog close under her chin. “There seem to be whispers of assassins all the time at Whitehall. What makes Lord Moray think this plot is serious enough to send an assassin hunter all the way down from Edinburgh?”
