Love on a Midsummer Night (Shakespeare in Love #2) (14 page)

For his part, Pembroke seemed not to notice any of them. Only Titania was acknowledged as she approached them, offering Pembroke her hand to kiss. He obliged like the gentleman he was, smiling at the queen of the evening from beneath his errant lock of hair. But even as he greeted his mistress, Pembroke did not let go of Arabella’s hand.

“You have outdone yourself,” Pembroke said to Titania.

“It has a lovely bucolic flavor, does it not? Perhaps we should have chosen
As
You
Like
It
.”

“Then I would not have the chance to play Oberon,” he said.

“And that would be a great loss to the theater.”

Arabella wondered if Titania was being sarcastic, but then Pembroke laughed, the warm sound filling the clearing where they stood. People from the village turned to listen to their lord’s laughter and they laughed as well, not knowing the joke but happy to have him home.

Arabella looked around at the villagers. In spite of the economic trials that had come to England since the war, the people of Pembroke Village seemed well dressed and well fed. She wondered for the first time if he had helped their businesses and farms flourish. His father would never have bothered. But as Pembroke had told her more than once, he was not his father.

When they sat down, Pembroke kept her hand pressed to the table beneath his own, as if sure she would escape if he let her go. She was beginning to feel stifled by his odd behavior. He would not look at her, but he would not release her either. Surreptitiously, she tried to pull her hand away and failed.

Most of the diners were sitting on benches, but chairs had been brought out of the inn for Pembroke, Titania, and herself. Titania’s actors sat ranged around them like a royal court. Pembroke seemed perfectly at ease with so many theater folk, but Arabella found her natural shyness rising to silence her. She was not used to dealing with people she did not know, much less people as flamboyant as these.

“We are happy to have you here among us, Your Grace,” one man said, his dark hair gleaming against the cream linen of his coat. “It is not every day that actors dine with a duchess.”

Titania tossed back her dark red hair and laughed. “Speak for yourself, Bart.”

The rest of the company laughed with her. Arabella smiled, taking a sip of her cider.

“Madame Titania, I am happy to be here. I have never met a group of actors before. It makes me eager to see the play.”

“Since it will be your first play, we will make it a good one.”

“Your first play?” A different actor, this one young and blond with a gleam of mischief in his eye, raised his glass to her. “A virgin then. I would not have thought it possible.”

Other actors laughed aloud, and a few of the actresses exchanged looks of derision before slanting their eyes at her.

Pembroke tensed, his hand crushing hers against the tablecloth. Arabella felt the color in her face rise. She was not used to being addressed so casually by men she did not know.

Before Pembroke could speak, Titania reprimanded the man. “Cliff, that’s enough out of you. One more word and I’ll banish you to the painting brigade.”

“I apologize, Your Worship. Meant no harm.” He hiccupped.

Arabella forced herself to smile. “No harm done.”

She took a deep breath and found that she was not offended, merely surprised. Perhaps she could make her own way in the world after all. Perhaps she need not hide away in a cottage of her own for the rest of her life. Clearly there were many more types of people in the world than she had ever met. The world seemed to lie before her like a vast expanse behind an open door. She might do anything, be anyone. She might do as she pleased, now that she was free.

It was a heady thought.

Titania spent the rest of the meal doing her best to put her at ease, and Arabella was grateful for the kindness. She never forgot that Titania was Pembroke’s lover. No doubt he would visit her that very night. But even as she fought down her jealousy, Arabella could not look at the confident, beautiful Titania with her vibrant red hair and theatrical gestures without wishing she was more like her. Molly, the name she had been born with, simply did not suit her. Titania seemed much more appropriate.

As the evening wore on, Titania’s indulgence seemed to buy Arabella a measure of acceptance among the actors. Arabella knew she was not beautiful enough to attract their interest, with her pale face and her thin frame, but a few of the men among them nodded and smiled to her as if she were indeed a beauty, though each man kept an eye on Pembroke, careful not to offend him. Arabella almost laughed when she noticed that, for though he was treating her like something he owned, Pembroke had no interest in her.

Though he irritated her by treating her like a piece of his property, she could not help but admire him as Pembroke spoke with ease with all who sat at the table with them. He was as confident and full of life on the village green as he was at his own dining table. This could have been accounted for by the simple fact that he was the Earl of Pembroke, but the respect these people showed seemed to go deeper than that.

Just as the men seemed to respect him, all the women seemed desperate to catch his eye. They did not seem to care about his open relationship with Titania, or for the fact that he had not left Arabella’s side all evening. One particularly insistent woman came up in the middle of the meal, her low-cut gown more like that of a serving wench in a brothel than an actress from London.

“My lord,” the woman said, shouldering Arabella aside as if she were not there. “You have not been to the theater in an age.”

“I was there just last week, Cassie. Perhaps you didn’t notice me.”

“I would notice if you’d been there. I’ve been pining for you.”

Pembroke’s skin colored beneath his tan. Arabella released her annoyance with her next breath, choosing instead to lean back in her chair to watch the show, enjoying his discomfort. She had heard rumors of his great prowess with the ladies, both with countesses and ladies of ill repute, but she had not seen evidence of this charm. She caught Titania’s eye over Pembroke’s shoulder, and the red-haired Cypriot winked in commiseration.

Arabella turned her gaze back to the actress who had captured Pembroke’s attention. Cassie’s gown was a bright yellow, which matched the brassy yellow of her hair. As the flame of a nearby lamp flared, Arabella blinked. Such a color surely did not exist in nature. Perhaps it should not exist anywhere.

Arabella felt her irritation rise as she watched the woman lean in closer to Pembroke, pressing her ample bosom against his arm. “I’m playing a fairy in this production, my lord. Since you are to be my king, perhaps I might help you learn your lines?” Her hand slipped beneath the table, only to be caught in one of Pembroke’s own and brought back into view.

Arabella felt her temper rise like a flash fire, and she swallowed it down. She had never known herself to have a temper in her life, but it seemed that Pembroke brought it out in her.

Fortunately Titania spoke up before Arabella embarrassed herself. “Cassie, you won’t be playing anything in this production if you don’t stop making a cake of yourself. Sit down and mind your place and give his lordship some peace, for the love of God.”

Cassie glared at her producer before simpering once more in Pembroke’s face. “If you have need of me, you have only to call,” she breathed, pressing her bosom against him.

“Thank you, Cassie. I will keep that in mind.”

The woman flounced away, leaving a cloud of cheap perfume behind her. Titania reached for a jug of mead, and Arabella did not protest when she poured a bit of it into her tumbler. “Cassie is a force of nature,” Titania said.

“A gale force wind,” Pembroke agreed.

“Good riddance,” Arabella said.

Titania laughed, and Pembroke looked shocked at her outburst as Arabella hid her face behind her tankard. She drank her mead and felt the sweet heat of it warm her stomach and all her limbs. Though it went down as easily as cider, it seemed to be a bit stronger. Titania watched with a smile as Arabella drank then leaned over to fill her tumbler again.

“Titania,” Pembroke said, a warning note in his voice.

Arabella did not heed that warning but drank deep, enjoying the taste of the sweet mead on her tongue.

“A drop of the elixir of the gods never did anyone any harm,” Titania said mildly.

Arabella kept drinking, a happy tingling coming into her hands and feet. Warmth suffused her, and as she looked over the company, she smiled over them all, her shyness beginning to slip away.

“That’s nothing to do with the gods, that’s honey liquor,” Pembroke said.

Titania only smiled, and Arabella smiled back at her. “Try a bit, Pembroke. It might sweeten your mood,” Arabella said.

Titania laughed when she heard that, passing the jug to Arabella, who filled his empty tankard. “Now we shall all have the elixir of the gods.”

Pembroke did not drink but watched her, a dark light coming into his eyes. Maybe it was simply a trick of the shadows cast by the hanging lamps, but the look made her shiver. Arabella knew that she must speak with him seriously about the past, confront him, and clear the air before she left Derbyshire for good, but she could not seem to keep her mind on that worthy goal. Instead, all she could do was wonder if it would be a sin to ask him to kiss her, their past be damned. If so, she thought it was a sin that she could live with.

She would not be his mistress, of course. She had sworn that, and she meant it. But one more kiss could do little harm.

It might even do her good.

Titania raised her voice so that she might be heard across the green. “This has been a charming evening. Thank you for welcoming us so splendidly to Pembroke Village, my lord. We will do you proud and give you a Midsummer’s Eve that you and yours will never forget.”

A cheer rose from the villagers and the actors raised their voices along with their tankards. Titania nodded, graciously accepting their accolades. Arabella could easily imagine her at the foot of a stage in a great theater, taking bows before her audience, drinking in their applause.

Titania caught her eye and smiled. The woman seemed to feel no rivalry toward her, only open affection. Arabella did not know whether to be touched or insulted. But a rosy glow had come over her since she had finished her two tankards of mead. She smiled on Titania as if she were a long lost sister.

Titania stepped toward her and helped her stand, steadying Arabella as she rose to her feet. The ground suddenly seemed very far away, but she caught her balance quickly with Titania’s hand on her arm.

“My lord, I believe your lady fair will need an escort to see her safe home.”

Arabella looked up at her. “I am not fair.”

Titania touched her cheek. “I think his lordship disagrees.”

“Titania,” Pembroke said, his voice low with warning. His mistress only smiled, letting Arabella go. Pembroke offered his arm and Arabella took it.

“Good night, Madame Titania. I will see to it that he learns his lines.”

“I am glad to hear it. I leave our Oberon in your capable hands.”

Titania bowed, her eyes on Pembroke’s. Some silent communication passed between them that made him frown like thunder as Titania laughed. For once, Arabella did not feel jealous. Wherever he went later that night, whatever he did with Titania in the nights to come, he was with her now. Arabella clung to that thought as tightly as she clung to his arm as he led her toward the carriage.

She thought of the Forest of Arden, and of the king oak where he had once proposed to her. “Might we walk, my lord? It is only two miles and it is such a lovely night.”

“Arabella, you are not quite steady on your feet.”

“I am fine, Pembroke, I assure you.” Arabella drew herself up straight in an effort to convince him, even as the earth seemed to sway beneath her in gentle waves.

Pembroke still hesitated, clearly reluctant to walk into the night with her. Arabella raised her eyes to his. She did not press herself against him as the actress Cassie had, but as she looked at him, he seemed to waver in some contest against himself. She did not know which side of him won.

“All right, Arabella. If you would like to walk, we’ll walk.”

“Thank you, Pembroke.”

Titania overheard their exchange and turned away, smiling. Though Arabella was surrounded by a warm haze of mead-induced relaxation, she took perverse pleasure in the fact that the actress Cassie was glaring at her.

Their Forest of Arden lay between the village and his home, an enchanted place. She had been afraid to walk there in the light of day, to embrace the memories that would come to haunt her and the burden of all her regrets. But all that pain seemed very distant that evening. The warm night air beckoned, and the arching branches of the oaks seemed to wave to her in welcome. Perhaps the combination of the forest and the mead would keep away the pain. Perhaps she could walk into the past and revel in it, if only for an hour. It seemed so little to ask.

She steadied herself on Pembroke’s arm and strolled with him into the shadows of the tree-lined path that led back to Pembroke House, stepping into the forest of her dreams.

Pembroke and Arabella knew the paths along the forest well, for they had traveled them often together the summer they were courting. The summer air was warm, so Arabella allowed her shawl to fall to the crooks of her elbows, leaving her shoulders bare. She would have stripped off her kidskin gloves, but she had not brought a reticule to put them in, so she left them on.

The full moon was rising over the treetops, casting a milky light along their path. Arabella took in deep drafts of the night air, enjoying the freedom of walking in the country unencumbered. The path was lined in columbine and fennel, the scent of those flowers rising to greet her like old friends. She would never have had such freedom in her husband’s house, and after ten years of marriage, she found that she savored it.

It was so surprisingly easy to be in Pembroke’s company, almost like the peace of being alone, but infinitely better. There seemed to be no anger, no recriminations, no bitterness between them now. She knew that she must bring up that pain again and ask him about the letters she had sent. But instead, as they walked in the moonlight, Arabella pretended that they were ten years in the past, that all the years of pain and separation had never happened. She imagined that they had married and now walked this path alone as man and wife.

She knew she was a fool, but the moonlight and the mead beckoned to her, allowing both her worries and her scruples to slide away. Once they arrived again at Pembroke House, she promised herself that she would set such fantasies aside. But for now, she would live as she wished. Though reality waited for her on the other side of this forest, this was a blissful moment, an hour apart, and Arabella meant to relish it, to drink it in without spilling a drop.

She reached out and took Pembroke’s hand. His glove and hers separated them, but she could still feel the steady warmth of his touch.

Pembroke did not look down at her or speak but walked with her in silence. With the clean night air and the motion of her walking, the mead she had drunk began to burn away. She was left with a feeling of warmth and joy, but her senses had returned to her. She was grateful because she did not want to miss one moment of this night.

The spring green of the oaks and hawthorns around them was dimmed in the moonlight, turned to milky blacks and grays. Sunlight brought out the verdant greens of the land around them, but the night, with its scent of jasmine and the occasional swoop of an owl, had beauties of its own.

Arabella stopped beneath a king oak tree, the same great tree where they once had pledged themselves to each other.

She felt the ruby ring beneath the bodice of her gown warm against her flesh. She laid her hand over it, taken back as if by magic to the time in her life when the world lay at her feet, when the man she loved held her hand in his and all the joys of the world seemed possible.

Arabella looked up at Pembroke and saw a shadow of the boy he once had been. It was as if their younger selves had never left that place but had haunted it, suspended in time, caught in the moment before everything between them was shattered into dust.

Pembroke, standing beside her with his hand in hers, seemed to feel it, too.

Arabella looked up into his face, where the boy and the man both lay reflected in his eyes. She had not forgotten that boy. She would never forget. Once she left to build her own quiet life, she would never know another man like him.

She stood beneath the great king oak and wondered if she was bold enough to kiss him twice.

***

Pembroke stared down at Arabella, watching as the wind moved the shadows over her face. Her skin was as milky white as the moonlight that shone on her. He knew that she was flushed from drinking mead and from the walk, though he could not see the pink of her cheeks in that dim light.

He had knelt to her there once, long ago. He almost could not remember that boy, his younger self, who had been so full of plans for the future, so full of hope. It seemed as if that boy had not died, as Pembroke had always thought, killed by disappointment and betrayal and by all the sin that Pembroke had indulged in from that day to this. That boy had lived, waiting for him to return to the foot of the great oak with this woman beside him.

Arabella was the love of his life. Pembroke had always known it, even in the midst of his bitterness. He had always mourned her.

His friends changed mistresses and paramours as often as they changed hats. For years, he had done the same, hoping to set himself free from his obsession with her. But nothing he had ever done had been enough. There was no woman on earth who would ever be able to free him. Arabella was the love he had lost, and he knew, standing with her once more beneath that king oak, that he would never love another.

For the first time in his life, this realization did not bring pain with it. Now that his bitterness was gone, he no longer blamed her for the ruin of his life. But he knew just as well that he could not keep her with him, not in any form. He needed to be free of her. He needed to live without pain. He did not think it possible, but he had to try. And he could not do that standing here in the dark with her, the curve of her lips inviting his kiss.

He knew this, but he did not bundle her out of there. He did not walk away.

Her green gown was transformed into a milky gray, the sheen of her throat bathed in the moonlight. He had sworn that he would not touch her again, but beneath the magic of that tree, all oaths seemed superfluous. He knew he was a fool. Almost desperately, he searched his soul for the bitterness of his regret, for his anger at the loss of all the years of his youth. But he could not find them. All that mattered in that moment was the love he felt for her.

Pembroke fought himself even as he drew her close, his hands on her upper arms. Her flesh was soft, warm beneath his palms in spite of the cooling breeze that rose around them. He moved slowly, giving her ample chance to resist him if she wished, hoping that she would, but Arabella did not pull away.

Her lips were warm under his, as soft as a moth’s wing. She tasted of sweet mead and of the beef pastries they had eaten on the village green. He meant to kiss her only once then let her go. He meant to kiss her in memoriam for the past they shared, in an attempt to say good-bye.

But she did not let him.

***

Arabella felt a powerful warmth rising in her, a reckless desperation that seemed to take over her senses. From somewhere she took in the scent of night-blooming jasmine, its heady perfume filling her mind like a drug, like an enchantment meant to banish fear.

She knew all the reasons she should step back and away from him, all the reasons she should never have touched him to begin with. But she took in the scent of his skin with each breath, the cinnamon she had not eaten in years, because it had always made her think of him.

The past seemed to fall away from her as she kissed him, as if she had really sealed it away when she closed the door of her father’s house for the last time. There, beneath that tree, she felt as if she were under an enchantment, as if in the magic of that moment, she could have anything she wanted. And the only thing she wanted, the only thing she had ever truly wanted, was him.

She pressed herself against him, not as a wanton woman would but as a woman who had waited a long time to be kissed. She opened her arms to him, raising them to clasp his neck. Her fingers wove into his hair, the warmth of her touch making him shiver.

Suddenly as bold as another woman, as bold as the woman she longed to be, Arabella opened her mouth beneath his and ran her tongue along his lips. She felt him try to hold back, and she feared for one horrible moment that he would pull away from her. But then his mouth opened over hers, and she heard him groan as he surrendered.

Pembroke’s tongue plundered the soft, warm recesses of her mouth, driving into her even as he drew her hips close against his so that she could feel the strength of him burn through her clothes and his. She shuddered with sudden need as one of his hands reached up to cup her breast. She felt her need rise through the pores of her skin as he clutched her close, his hands everywhere at once. She felt as if she had been caught in a flash tide, as if the dam of her loneliness had burst, letting in a flood of warmth and light.

She moaned beneath the onslaught of his mouth, pressing closer, shifting against him, her body hungry for something she did not understand. Pembroke knew what she wanted though, and at first he moved as if to draw her down onto the leaves and the moss that grew against the base of the tree. But then he changed direction, moving with her as in a dance until her back was against the king oak, seeming too distracted to bring her body beneath him on the ground.

Instead, he pressed her against the tree, and her shawl fell away. She felt the rough bark dig into her back, snagging the silk of her one good gown. Pembroke’s hands moved over her, and her body cradled him easily, until she could feel the heat of his arousal nestle against the cleft of her thighs. He reached down, drawing her gown up as his hand slid along her leg until it reached her garter. She trembled with desire, and for one heady moment it was as if she stood on the edge of a cliff, ready to leap.

Then he pulled away.

Her body was hot where he had touched her. She could still feel his strength all along her flesh, a heat that she had longed for all her life.

“Make love to me,” she said.

She had nothing left to lose, and she knew it.

Pembroke stared at her, his eyes devouring her body beneath her gown. The cool moonlight filtered in through the branches overhead, no longer casting enchantment but counseling reason. She felt the cool bath of that light on her skin as she watched him fight for control.

“No,” he said. “You are not my mistress. You are not my whore.”

“What I am, what I will be, is my own business. Don’t leave me here with nothing.”

He turned and walked away. For one stunned, horrible moment, she thought that he would leave her where she stood, alone in the dark, with only moonlight and her own humiliation for company. He stopped at the edge of the clearing. No matter what else might be said of him, Pembroke would never leave a woman to walk alone.

“Come with me, Arabella.” He did not look at her but kept his eyes on the path that led back to Pembroke House. “I’m leaving this place, and you are leaving with me. This is madness, and we will leave it here behind us.”

“You’re doing this to punish me,” she said, not moving. “And maybe I deserve it. But haven’t the last ten years been punishment enough?”

He did not answer her. She felt the beginning of tears at the back of her throat, but she would not give in to them. She was cold now in spite of the warm breeze rising from the river, and the king oak dug into her back, giving her courage. She was sick of tears.

“Why did you never write to me?” she asked.

“I do not make it a habit of writing to married women,” he answered.

“I am not just any woman, or so you said. Was that a lie too?”

He turned back to her then, his eyes blazing across the distance between them. He took one step toward her but stopped himself. He stood in a pool of moonlight, and for a moment he really did look like Oberon. He had cast an enchantment on her all those years ago, and she was still trapped in it.

“You never answered my letters,” she said. “The day I was taken to London, I wrote to you. I wrote to your London house, to your father’s house in Derbyshire, even to your club. I never got an answer.”

She could not read his face, for a shuttered look came over him, as if he enclosed a great deal of pain, pain he would not let her see.

“I received no letter from you. Most likely because you never wrote one.”

“And now I am a liar, too?”

“You have always been a liar. You were a liar when you said you loved me. You were a liar when you said you would marry me.”

Arabella felt her tears rising, but she pressed them down. He had not received her letters. Perhaps they had been lost. Perhaps his father had burned them.

She bent down and picked up her shawl. It was light, summer-weight linen embroidered with bluebells and green leaves. She had made the shawl herself one lonely night in winter, sitting by a fire in her husband’s house. She wrapped that shawl around her now, wishing it was heavier, wishing it was armor that might keep out her pain. Though the summer air was warm all around them, she shook as with an ague.

Pembroke did not speak but walked to the path. She forced herself to move and to follow him. He did not touch her again but strode back to his father’s house in silence. She said nothing as she tried to keep up with him, for her mind was one great bruise.

If he would not listen to her, there was nothing left to say.