The Fatal Fashione by Karen Harper Page A

believe it’s come to this,” Cecil told Elizabeth as they sat in the royal withdrawing room the next morning over mulled wine and partridge pie that had long gone cold. “A young woman, a starcher, of all things, murdered,” he went on, taking some sort of notes—Cecil was always writing something. “A great tragedy and a mighty mystery, I admit, Your Grace, but why not allow the ward constable and the coroner to deal with it?”
    “Because they might not be able to deal with it.” She pushed back her chair and went to look out the window. “Sad to say, some of this country’s constables reason things out on a level with my dear Jenks—’s blood, you know what I mean. Oh, for certain, they inquire of neighbors if anything was noted amiss, but if no one saw the murder directly, they close the books on it. Besides, I just have an inkling that this death might have ramifications.”
    “Are you worried, as Ned suggested, that clues and suspicions might lead straight to your master starcher and her husband?”
    “I don’t know, but I intend to find out. Meg and Jenks may have gotten something out of the hysterical Mistress Hemmings by now, but I intend to pay a visit to the van der Passes’ starch house this morning. At the least, I will observe closely how they react when I give them the news of Hannah’s tragic death.”
    “You could summon them here.”
    “That might alarm them and give them time to hide something. Now that I’ve seen Hannah’s shop, I want a good look at theirs.”
    “Do you intend to search their residence as you did Hannah’s?”
    “A lot of good that did us,” she muttered. On the way back to the palace last night, the queen and Clifford had gone one street behind Hannah’s shop to her small single room, which Ursala had described. They’d found it stripped of whatever garments, personal effects, or money she might have had there. Someone had been in a big rush but had, once again, been clever enough not to leave clues to his or her own identity behind, besides the fact they were dealing with someone obviously dangerous and desperate. Elizabeth meant to have Ned inquire if those neighbors heard or saw anything strange, too.
    “If the van der Passes are to blame,” Cecil said, “I doubt you’d find one thing in their starch house or privy chambers to cast guilt on them.”
    “Yet I keep hoping,” she told him, her voice trembling, “that if we turn over enough rocks—or, in this case, stir up enough starch—a clue will turn up.”
    Frowning, she gazed over the broad Thames as it sprang to life with horse ferries, barges, and wherries plying the white-capped waves. The dawn sky tinted the water a pewter hue, and she thought again of the starch bath that had held poor Hannah.
    Elizabeth knew that she herself could have been killed in her youth, her future obliterated by her Catholic sister, Queen Mary, when she sent her to the Tower for her supposed part in a Protestant rebellion. Through a slit of window, she’d glimpsed the Thames and wished she could escape on it. Mary had wanted to execute—to murder—her. For more than justice’s sake in her realm, Elizabeth felt compelled to discover and punish whoever was guilty of Hannah’s horrible death. Murder was always an immoral act, but murder of a clever, ambitious young woman in her prime was intolerable.
    She turned back and walked toward Cecil, who had become as silent as she. Neither of them had gone to bed last night; he looked normal, but exhaustion drained her. As she glanced down, she saw that, as if from a bird’s-eye view, he’d sketched a huge neck ruff with an open circle in the center, the outer part in sections like a pie cut in wedges.
    “I was fearful I’d see starched ruffs in my sleep,” she admitted, “but they obsess you, too? And why only six sections in it instead of many?”
    “Because, Your Majesty,” he said as he scribbled something else in, “that has oft been the number of guilty