The Greatest Lover in All England (7 page)

Sir Danny's. And Tony's.

She looked at Tony, noting the intelligence that sharpened his features, then closed her eyes. Maybe if she pretended he wasn't there, he would disappear. Maybe he wouldn't have heard her ramblings, and
maybe he wouldn't remember her disgraceful illness. More important, maybe she could forget that determined expression on his face, so similar to the expression he had worn right before he kissed her.

Hands lifted her and stuffed pillows beneath her head, and she asked, “Sir Danny?”

“Do what Sir Anthony tells you.”

His voice sounded farther away, and her eyes sprang back open. Wretched Sir Danny slid toward the door, leaving her alone. Alone with
him
, just because he thought she was too sick to stay in their paltry, puny gypsy wagon.

“Don't go!”

“I'll be back to see you tomorrow, Rosie. Be good.” It was an admonition for a child. “And don't cry.”

“I never cry!”

Sir Danny shut the door, leaving her with this person who frightened her. Frightened her in every way.

Since the moment she had walked offstage, Tony had behaved with consummate indifference. Yet it seemed that had all changed. Now he observed her with an infectious grin as he lounged back in a chair beside the bed. He'd disposed of his ruff and doublet, and his fine linen shirt gaped at the neck. A sheen of chest gold caught the light of the candles and rippled over skin and muscle.

“It seems we must cleave together,” he said.

She wasn't sure how to respond. The cool stranger of the past days seemed to have vanished, as had the confident seducer she'd first met. In fact, the seducer had vanished so completely, she suspected he would never return—thank God.

“I like your Sir Danny. He's wholly a scamp, isn't he?”

“He has a good heart.”

“Oh, the best.” Tony appeared to be cheerful and
not at all accusatory. “And he loves you as if you were his own. He watches over you, too, for he found us even before I'd finished setting your arm. He's been hovering over you for hours. I tried to tell him sleep was the best thing for you, but as soon as I turned my back, he woke you.”

That meant Tony had been there while she slept, too.

He rubbed his hand through his close cropped hair as if puzzled by her gravity. “He calls you Rosie.”

“It's short for Rosencrantz.”

He nodded solemnly. “I suspected that.”

Realizing how silly she had sounded, she was tempted to respond to the twinkle in his eye. But she resisted. Who was this Sir Anthony Rycliffe, anyway? Was he the dashing lover, or the aloof aristocrat? Or was he this bluff man who, she feared, hid a shrewd intelligence behind a genial facade?

“I would never have thought to give my son such a noble moniker.” He cocked an eyebrow. “You
are
his son?”

“Aye, his son.” She repeated it for emphasis. “His son.”

He tilted his head and frowned. “Odd. I thought you were adopted.”

“Ah.” So he wasn't questioning her gender, only her bloodlines. It seemed safer, for some reason, to claim Sir Danny as her birth father, but hadn't Tony already noted the truth? She tried to remember. Hadn't he made some comment about Sir Danny, how he loved her almost as if she were his own? Confused, in pain, she glanced out the window into the darkness.

Before she could ask, he said, “It's twelve o' the clock. The witching hour.”

He said it with such deep emphasis that she again glanced outside, half expecting to see the devil's countenance leering through the glass.

“It's too bad of me to keep you awake when you should be swinging in the arms of Morpheus. Would you like me to sing you a lullaby and help you on your way?”

Embarrassed, she shook her head.

“Ah, you've heard me sing.”

He surprised a giggle from her, and she clapped her hand over her mouth as if to call it back.

Standing, he began to blow out the candles, then paused. “Sir Danny says you're afraid of the dark.”

Sir Danny said too much. She didn't want Tony to know of her vulnerabilities. She didn't want to
have
any vulnerabilities. “Men aren't afraid.”

“Nay.” Moving about the room, he extinguished all but one light—the night candle that fit on a sconce carved into the great headboard. “Men aren't.”

The fire in the fireplace flickered like dragon's tongues, sucking the light away and transforming it into shadows. The cold, hungry November dark huddled close, and Rosie tugged the covers around her neck.

Tony seemed unaffected by her unease. “My cook, Mistress Child, brought an infusion of willow bark and poppy juice to ease your pain, and she'd take a switch to me if she knew I'd let you suffer.”

Again a giggle burst forth, and Rosie realized she must be more tired than she thought. But the thought of the tall, dignified woman paddling Sir Tony! “That gives me reason not to drink.”

“Wicked,” he approved.

He loomed over her so suddenly she started. The light of the single candle touched his golden hair and turned it to silver. His eyes shone like polished amethyst, and his lips glistened like two smooth stones she'd collected in the brook and treasured ever since. He murmured with concern, like the mother she'd never known, then he chuckled like the father she couldn't quite remember.

Had she expected to see the devil outside?

Foolish woman! The devil was inside the chamber with her, transmuting himself to precious metals, precious memories, precious expectations of a girl who could never grow into a woman.

“Drink this,” he urged.

Above the golden growth of his beard, his cheeks shone like two rosy peaches, perfect in their symmetry. His ears were shaped like two oysters with a coating of pink pearl shell. His breath hinted of mint and lemons, and his fine-meshed skin looked like honey.

“Drink this,” he said again, “and I'll get you some broth. You're looking at me as if you could eat me.”

With a start, she realized it wasn't that Tony was so tempting, it was that she was so hungry. That explained her fascination. That explained why she wanted to lick his skin and see if it tasted as good as it looked.

He placed the cup at her mouth, and the stench struck her just as the liquid lapped at her lips. She tried to jerk back, but he held her neck and she swallowed it all, not because he wanted her to, but to escape his touch.

His touch burned her, like the fire, and again she thought of the devil.

“Awful, isn't it?” he said, and she wondered how he knew.

But he was talking about the potion.

“I'll get you the broth at once. It will help wash the taste away.”

He slipped from the bed and she shivered. Why, if his touch burned, did the absence of it chill her? Was his fire like an addiction, seeking disciples with its beauty?

“How came Sir Danny by his honor?” he asked.

“Honor?” He arrived carrying a steaming bowl, and she focused on his hands, broad-palmed, long-fingered.
He was a big man, yet his hands seemed oversize, capable of charity, but intended for tyranny.

“Sir Danny Plympton,
Esquire
. Who so lauded him?” He leaned his hip on the bed and fed her a spoonful—a big spoonful.

When she could catch her breath, she answered without thought. “He made it up.”

Tony gave a shout of laughter. “Aye, I do like your Sir Danny.”

Another big mouthful, and she wondered if she could wrest the spoon from him. Did he feed himself in such a manner, or was this for the youth she pretended to be?

“How did it come about that he adopted you?”

“I was left alone by the roadside.” Funny. Admitting that—for it was the truth—made her lose her appetite, and she pushed his hand firmly away. “When I was about four.”

“Do you remember?”

Did she remember? Only in her dreams, and those dreams hurt so much. “I remember nothing.”

“Not your parents?”

“You call them parents? What kind of parents would leave a child to starve?”

He seemed to meditate on that question. “What kind of mother would steal a child from his beloved home?”

What did he mean? Dared she ask?

“Sure you're done?” He waved the bowl beneath her nose.

“No more.” No more questions—not for her, not from her.

He didn't hear the meaning beneath her words. “You called Hal
Dada
.”

“Hal?”

“The man who held you while I set the bone.”

Hal? Aye, his name was Hal, and something about
him frightened her. Something she hadn't the strength to face tonight. “I don't remember.”

“Come now. I'd believe you don't remember your parents, but 'twas just a few hours ago that we set the bone. You must remember why you called him
Dada
.”

Maybe she'd never have the strength to explore these mysteries. Maybe she wanted to go to sleep and not wake until she had the strength to fly from this place. “Why don't you ask Hal?”

Tony examined her face, then whisked the bowl away. He puttered about the room while she closed her eyes and wished he would go, because he frightened her, and stay, because she was afraid without him.

“Rosie?”

Just
Rosie
, but when he spoke her name she could almost smell the first rose of spring and see the blush of its blossom. His voice, so close against her ear, enticed her to open her eyes, turn slowly, and look at his face. He watched her, his blue eyes glowing, his lips parted slightly, his tongue just touching the corner of his mouth like a boy intent on a delectable blancmange.

Her own lips parted. She remembered her one lesson in kissing and wanted another. He leaned forward; she leaned forward. He put out his hands; she put out her good hand. He wrapped her fingers around something cold and heavy, and whispered, “I'll give you some privacy to prepare for bed.”

He slipped away and shut the door while she stared stupidly after him. Then she looked down at the gift he'd given her.

A chamber pot. He'd given her a chamber pot.

A chamber pot
! Tony shut the door with a click. He'd given Rosie a chamber pot!

His head thumped back on the solid oak door so hard he winced. Where had the suave seducer of yesteryear fled? The old Tony would have never given a chamber pot to a woman he wanted. But the old Tony had never met a woman like Rosie. A woman who wore a woman's garb and attracted him, then wore a man's garb and attracted him.

He'd always liked women. Loved women. Loved to watch them in their skirts as they minced down the streets. Loved to use his height to peek down their bodices and see what beauties he beheld. Loved to imagine what lay beneath their body-altering stomachers and farthingales. Loved their crimped wigs and
their high-heeled slippers and the charcoal they used on their lashes and the perfumes they smoothed over their limbs. He'd loved them because they behaved like women—women who lived to attract him.

Now he was finding that his appreciation of Rosie wasn't because of the things she did or the things she wore, but was for Rosie herself. Rosie swaggering like a youth. Rosie in pain with a broken arm. Rosie in male clothing.

Why, he'd like her if she wore nothing.

He groaned. He would
love
her if she wore nothing.

And he'd given her a chamber pot as a token of his desire—because he didn't want her to suffer the discomfort of having to ask, of having to eject him from the room so she could use it. What kind of man so thoughtfully provided for a woman?

He thumped his head against the wall, then rubbed the abused flesh with his fingers. Cotzooks, was he becoming that most pitiful of creatures, a sensitive man?

He leaped away from the door as if it were heated and straightened his shoulders. Sensitive? Certainly not! He'd prove it right now. He'd find a few of the men-at-arms, drink too much, laugh too loud, and make vulgar bodily noises. He'd take the best horse in the stable and ride too fast, and then he'd find himself a buxom barmaid, toss her skirts around her ears and—

“I'm going in there.”

“Madam, you are not.”

Lit only by night candles, the short hall carried the conflict to Tony's ears but hid it from his eyes. He strained, looking toward the stairway that led downstairs, but he could see no one. The owners of the voices must be in the stairwell, and the darkness that cloaked them cloaked him also.

“I demand to know why Sir Rycliffe has been in his room all evening.”

Tony recognized the attitude, if not the voice. Lady Honora.

“By what right do you make such a demand?” It was Sir Danny.

“I am Tony's betrothed.” Lady Honora again.

Tony's jaw dropped.

“Really?” Sir Danny sounded thoughtful.

Tony took a step toward the stairwell.

Lady Honora's answer stopped him. “Perhaps I was premature with that announcement. I am to
be
Tony's betrothed.”

Tony staggered back. Lady Honora? Telling a falsehood, getting caught, and admitting it? What was wrong with her?

“You had better make other plans,” Sir Danny said, and he sounded more noble, more scornful than even Lady Honora could.

“What do you mean by that?”

Tony echoed Lady Honora's question. Aye, what did he mean by that?

“Only a fool would betroth herself to Sir Anthony Rycliffe now. And you, madam, are no fool.”

Haughtily, Lady Honora commanded, “Explain yourself.”

Hugging the shadows, Tony advanced, every sense alert.

“Sir Anthony Rycliffe's existence as the queen's favorite is in jeopardy, his claim on his lands exists on her grace only, and rumors of the return of the true heir to Odyssey Manor fly through the nobility.”

Tony froze.

“The return of the true heir?” Lady Honora sounded huffy. “I have heard no such rumor.”

“Perchance you should make some inquiries,” Sir Danny replied. “In a matter of such importance to your future, it would be wise to have all the facts.”

The silence that followed was more eloquent than any words. Lady Honora did not quite believe, perhaps, but she heeded. Tony slipped back as she appeared, holding a single candle. She stopped outside her chamber door and looked back at the place where Sir Danny must be, then went inside and shut the door behind her.

From inside the stairwell, Tony heard a triumphant cackle, then the rhythmic thumping as Sir Danny descended the stairs.

It was a good thing Sir Danny had left, Tony reflected grimly. If he had stayed, Tony would have taken him by his scrawny neck and wrung it until he squawked like a chicken.

Who was this Sir Danny Plympton? Was he truly an actor, as he claimed, or was he a spy for the queen?

Or worse, a spy for the queen's enemies?

Or was he an opportunist of the worst kind, a lowlife who plotted to make a profit from a dead man and his dead daughter?

Tony faced his door, and grinned with his teeth clenched so hard his jaw cracked. Did that explain the woman who occupied his bedchamber? Was she the key to this mystery?

Because if she were, it would behoove him to keep a close eye on young Rosie. Keep a close eye and a restraining hand on the woman who played a man who played a woman…who played an heir?

 

“Tony.”

Tony glanced around the terrace where the breakfast spread lay cooling. The breeze barely ruffled the
white tablecloth in this protected place, the salt and silver glistened in the midmorning sun, and the servants stood with knives and spoons, waiting for the late-rising guests to come and eat.

He'd made a point of ordering a delectable feast as soon as he'd heard Sir Danny's scurrilous exposition about the missing heir. He knew how fast gossip spread, and knew also that Lady Honora would conscientiously take Sir Danny's advice and inquire about any rumors. Yet surely she wouldn't have done so. She wouldn't have had time overnight, and no one else had heard—he hoped.

“Tony.”

He heard it again, a hiss from the bushes. Strolling over, he parted the branches of the prickly holly and saw the tearstained face of one of his many candidates for marriage.

What was her name? Ah, yes. Blanche, the one with the delectable pout and the too-ready smile. “Lady Blanche, what are you doing, skulking there?” He extended his hand. “Come and eat.”

“I can't. We're leaving. I just came to tell you”—her chin wobbled—“I don't believe a word of it. And even if it's true, I'll always love you.”

The hair lifted on the back of Tony's neck. Not already. It couldn't have got around already. “What don't you believe?”

“That story.” She lifted a bit of lace and dabbed her swimming eyes. “About the heir.”

The air seemed thinner suddenly, and he had trouble getting a full breath, but he smiled with all his charm. “The heir?”

“The true heir to Odyssey Manor. I told Daddy it was just a rumor and the queen still loved you—how could she not?—and that even if it were true, I could marry
you and my family could provide for us, but he wouldn't listen.”

She wailed like a babe deprived of its teat while Tony patted her hand and plotted. Plotted with the speed and efficiency of a general faced with a battle that altered even as he observed.

He broke into laughter. Hearty laughter, amused laughter—forced laughter, but Lady Blanche didn't realize that. “Is that old story making the rounds
again?
” Placing his fists on his hips, he roared with laughter—the kind of laughter that attracted attention. The kind of laughter that brought his guests out of hiding to watch and listen. “Who is the heir this time?” He whooped. “My dairymaid? An impoverished noblewoman? Or some bit o' skirt from London who's heard the tale and plans to earn a pound with it?”

Guests began to seep out of the open doors, attracted by food and explanation.

“Good morrow, brother.” Jean greeted him with a kiss on the cheek. “You're jolly this morn.”

“Aye, I've heard my favorite fairy tale.” Surely she'd come to him because she'd heard the murmurs. Grateful for her support, he hugged her heartily. “Again.”

“Good morrow.” Lord Hacker strolled out, stretching and yawning just as if he hadn't been lurking behind the tapestries. “Are you telling fairy tales, Tony?”

“Aye, 'tis the tale of the missing heir. Would you like to hear it?” Tony walked over and picked up a plate. “I've heard it so many times I can recite it by heart.”

Two couples wandered out, followed by a gaggle of Tony's candidates all dressed in traveling clothes. Had all his guests planned to sneak out without a word?

“It
was
a tragedy, Tony.” Jean took a plate, also, and shot an instructive glance at the fascinated servants. They sprang to attention, holding their spoons like sol
diers brandishing muskets. As they dished out eggs and cut ham, she said, “Lord Sadler and his small daughter fled their London town house when a footman fell dead from plague, didn't they?”

“Aye.” Tony presented Lady Cavilham with a plate, a bow, and a smile, and he was relieved to see her unwillingly smile back.

Good. He at least hadn't lost his charm overnight.

He continued, “They left quickly, planning to return here, taking only the essentials in a traveling coach”—he paused dramatically, drawing the rest of the guests outside—“and disappeared, never to be seen alive again.”

“I remember.” An older woman whose face reflected a long life, Lady Caustun-Oaks nodded. “The coach was later found, was it not?”

“Stripped of its accoutrements and without its horses, with the decomposing bodies of Lord Sadler and the little girl's nursemaid inside, and the coachman not far away.” The grim facts wiped all shreds of self-interest from Tony's mind.

The gaggle of young women whimpered.

“I beg your pardon,” he said solemnly. “Such a reflection of our own mortality is not breakfast conversation.”

“Were they murdered?” one girl asked.

“I remember, too,” Jean said, nodding at Lady Caustun-Oaks. “'Twas the plague which killed them, and how anyone had the nerve to go into that den of contagion to steal the luggage, the money, even the jewelry off the bodies, I will never know.”

“The queen was grief-stricken at the loss.” Lady Honora stepped onto the terrace, correct and erect. “Lord Edward was one of her favorite courtiers, and she wanted his ring—the ring she'd given him—to remember him by. But it was gone, gone with the thief who took the rest.”

“May his soul be damned to hell.” Tony meant it in a way he couldn't explain. True, the thief had taken a tragic story and made it into a mystery that would vex Tony for the rest of his life. But more than that, the soldier in him despised anyone who would loot the corpses of the honored dead.

“Did they find the little girl?” It was Lady Blanche, finally drawn out of the bushes and into the conversation by the same gruesome curiosity that held the others.

Tony handed her a plate. “Better eat before your journey, Lady Blanche.” She accepted it with a wavering smile, and he said, “Nay, the child was never found, nor even her body. It was assumed she had wandered off and died.”

Jean shook her head. “'Twas the thief's fault. I knew that child. She adored her father, and he adored her. She would never have left his side, not even when he had died. The thief must have stolen her.”

“Why?” Lady Blanche's big eyes bulged, and she invested the single word with horror.

“Perhaps she wasn't ill, and he took her to sell her into prostitution.” Lord Bothey stepped out the door, glaring at his daughter. “That's what happens to girls who don't obey their fathers.”

Lady Blanche lost color, but Lady Honora drew herself up to her full height. “I obeyed my father when I married, and I might as well have been sold into prostitution.” The company gasped, and Lord Bothey's eyes looked like his daughter's, large and shocked. “So don't try to frighten the girl with that threat, Freddie. It's just your nasty bully tactics.”

“Too true, Father.” Tossing her head, Lady Blanche said, “So I'll stay here.”

“You will not!” her father roared. “We're leaving at once. If the orphan-heir has returned, this upstart Tony
will be out of his estate and I'll be saddled with an indigent son-in-law.”

The company looked from Lord Bothey to Tony, and Tony didn't disappoint them. “Lord Bothey, you're forgetting a few things.”

“Eh?” Knowing he had overstepped his bounds, Lord Bothey turned the color of the scarlet embroidery on his shirt and glared.

“One servant returned alive from London—my steward, Hal. He was left in London to bring back the horses, and he says when Lord Sadler and the child left, the child was ill already. Even if she might have recovered—and we all know how unlikely that is—she couldn't have recovered without someone's care. Her father died, her nursemaid died, the coachman died, and no one would have stolen the girl if she were ill of the plague. No one is that mad, and so the fate of the child is a mystery.” Pausing, he let that sink in, then added, “Our gentle queen was indeed grief-stricken by the loss of Lord Edward, and she ordered a search for him that did not falter for years. For five years, Lord Bothey. The manor was empty for fifteen years in total. Not until Queen Elizabeth's deepest uncertainties had been laid to rest did she remand this property to me. To imagine the existence of an heir is to doubt the wisdom of our queen.”

“I say,” Lord Bothey sputtered. “I say!”

“For that reason”—Tony stepped as close to Lord Bothey as Lord Bothey's unpadded, protruding stomach would allow—“and through no fault of her own, I cannot beg your daughter to be my wife. An upstart such as myself dares not ally himself with a family whose patriarch lacks confidence in the monarchy.”

There was one collective hiss as the company sucked in their breaths, and Lord Bothey turned white. “I
never…I don't lack confidence in our blessed queen! I never mentioned that no woman should sit on the throne of England, that it was against the law of God and man. I never suggested such a thing.”