The Greatest Lover in All England (9 page)

His hands on the hem of his shirt, he hesitated. Could he resist her if she saw him as a lover? If she wore a woman's clothes, smiled at him with a woman's smile, flirted like a woman in love…

He ripped his shirt off and tossed it aside. The wind nipped with a touch of autumn's chill, but it cooled him.

He was too hot.

Moving forward, he touched her shoulder. “I'm going in,” he told her. “Want to join me?”

She jumped up with a shriek. “Sir Anthony!” She caught her breath. “I didn't hear you approach.”

“I wasn't quiet.” He rotated his shoulders to ease the tension of the past few days and to show off like a peacock strutting for his peahen.

“I must have been in another world.”

As he suspected.

But she wasn't in another world now. With both feet planted—literally and figuratively—in the dirt of Odyssey estate, she stared, wide-eyed, at the broad expanse of chest he displayed. She watched each inhalation with fascination. Her gaze traced each muscle, and he found himself sucking in an already-tight abdomen.

Without ever looking up at his face, she said, “I suppose I should go back to the manor.”

“Why?” He pressed her back down beside the rock, and she sank as if her knees had pudding where the cartilage should be. He allowed himself a triumphant grin as his hands went to the ties of his garters.

In his lifetime, he'd used his charm to get his way and his strength to win his battles. It was gratifying to know he could use his body to enravish a woman—or at least this woman.

“Gracious, look at the sun!”

How she could see the sun when her gaze remained bound to his every movement, he didn't know.

“I promised Sir Danny I would would rehearse my part, and I'm late already. If you'll excuse me…” She half rose.

By God, she wasn't leaving until she'd seen the best part, and so he asked, “I find myself unable to decide—where do women fit in your scheme of life?”

She collapsed back down. “Women?”

“It has occurred to me that you're a young man with no outlet for your natural drives. You haven't vigorously pursued the maids, for which I am grateful. Yet perhaps you would be pleased to have a more intimate acquaintance with the fair sex, without the disturbance of involvement?”

“The disturbance of involvement!” Rosie blurted. “What did you have in mind?”

“A visit to the brothel in London. I have not been there for too many months myself and I have a very experienced lady waiting for me. I feel sure she can find an equally experienced and lovely lady for you. It was in this house that I gained my first knowledge of a woman's secrets, and it was good.” He had vanquished not only the shadows from her eyes, but also the ability to flee. Consternation and anticipation held her as surely as if he'd tied her. “What is wrong, little man? You look as if you have never had a woman before.” He had trouble restraining a shout of laughter at the stark panic on Rosie's face, and in simulated amazement said, “You have never had a woman before!”

Nodding, she agreed vigorously. “You are right! I have never had a woman before!”

“Didn't Sir Danny take you to a whorehouse?”

“I honestly do not believe the thought ever crossed his mind,” choked Rosie.

“Then I'll take you.” He almost felt sorry for her as he peeled off his stockings, but not sorry enough to stop. He had her attention now, her full attention, and he meant to keep it. “I assure you, Tiny Mary runs the finest brothel in London—nay, in all of England.”

“Tiny Mary?” With an astonished half grin, Rosie admitted, “I've been to Tiny Mary's.”

“Have you?” Damn, when had that happened? “That must have been most interesting.”

Her smile disappeared. “Oh, it was.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It made my blood race.”

He didn't want to know. “Well, when I was thirteen, my father paid for the whole night with a hot-blooded Spanish woman.” That much was the truth. “She laid the groundwork I have built on ever since. What pleasured me, what pleasured her, how to build a woman's impatience, how to restrain my own. I have used every means she taught me and I think I can say, without bragging, that my lovers have been well serviced.”

He reminisced for a purpose. He reminisced to construct a picture in her mind, and from her restless reaction, he knew he'd achieved his purpose.

“It was an unforgettable lesson. So it is settled!” He slapped his knee with resolution. “We will visit Tiny Mary's. At once! On the morrow!” He waggled his brows suggestively and wondered how the inventive woman would get out of this.

She didn't disappoint him. “I have no money.”

“I will pay,” he retorted. “I insist. It is an honor to pay for an initiation for our beloved actor.”

Ah, but even this bit of reprisal tasted sweet, and he hopped from one foot to the other as he stripped off his canions, leaving only his brief—very brief—braes. “Are you sure you won't join me in a swim?”

She could barely shake her head and touched the sling of sticks and white linen. “My arm,” she whispered, then dropped her gaze to her hands. Digging her fingers into the dirt, she created a road that wound through the drifts of early-fallen leaves.

The scent of rich humus rose in waves from the earth as it basked in the sun's last foray, and it made him think of the pleasure in planting a seed and seeing it grow. He'd never had that pleasure; coitus interruptus had been effective for him. Would it be effective if Rosie were the woman who moaned beneath him?

The image almost brought him to his knees before her. It would be so easy here in this secluded place to steal her clothes and her defenses and make her his. It would be revenge and pleasure all in one.

But coitus interruptus, he knew, did not always work. Too many babes had been created by couples who never even got to enjoy the ultimate pleasure. Yet if he and Rosie made a babe—a thrill shivered through him—he would have to wed her.

He looked again at her bent head. He noted the motley clothes, the grime around her collar and at her wrists. He remembered how she mixed the high-class English she'd learned as an actress with the lower-class accent of the London streets, and how she occasionally dropped into some obscure dialect from the provinces.

Wed Rosie. A nobody. Worse than nobody, an actress. A woman who dressed as a man. He'd be the laughingstock of London, and a furious Elizabeth
would reclaim his lands with the justifiable comment that he was crazed.

His lands. Everything he'd worked for.

No, he couldn't make a babe with her, and he certainly couldn't wed her.

Besides—he chuckled at his self-deception—if he ever got inside of Rosie, he would never leave.

Her head jerked up at his laughter, and he examined the wide eyes and softly opened mouth. No, with Rosie there'd be no control.

As coyly as a barmaid enticing a customer, he stroked off his braes. “Ahh.” He stretched, every last bare inch of him displayed in the broad sunshine. She blushed beautifully. “How did you find this place?”

Curiosity as well as compulsion raised the question. A jewel hidden on the estate, the waterfall cascaded into a pool deep enough to swim in and clear enough to pick pennies off the sandy bottom. It had taken good instructions and the better part of a day for him to find it the first time, yet she had walked right to it. How did she do it? What instinct carried her through Odyssey Manor and its environs with such foreknowledge? And why did her insight constantly seem to surprise her?

“Rosie?”

“I just”—her gaze examined him above and below—“knew it was here.”

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. She sat; he stood. She gawked; he preened. She wondered; he wanted.

“As you just knew”—he coughed, clearing the lust from his throat—“that my antechamber used to be the master's chamber?”

“The master bedroom. 'Twas a natural mistake to think the master”—her gaze flashed to his in what might have been feminine challenge—“would be big.”

Dumbstruck, he realized that this was the woman she
would be if she were allowed: pert, bawdy, flirtatious, and more desirable than a temptress in the shadows.

“Damn.” With an alacrity he hadn't planned, he walked a straight line into the cold brook. He'd planned to show himself to her, display his wares for the unwilling shopper, but his wares had grown to such a great size, he deemed it likely he would faint from lack of blood to his brain.

Such a shame he needed his brain. “Have you any soap about you?” he asked, as he splashed into the water up to his waist, and waited for its icy embrace to take effect.

She mumbled something, then pulled it from the purse at her waist. “Here.” She tossed it toward the creek and he scrambled to catch it. “Give it back when you're done.”

“You throw like a woman,” he grumbled, lifted the misshapen bar to his nose. It smelled of carnations, and he sank beneath the surface under the effect of its seduction. Such a lady's scent would betray her at once if she used it, but the fact that she carried it revealed much.

So much, in fact, that he swam inside the frigid water until he could break the surface and sing soprano. “I love a bath,” he called, scrupulously regulating the deep tones. “You ought to come in, too. It would rid you of that musty smell.” He scrubbed his hair with the bar of soap and sneaked a glance.

She cautiously sniffed her clothing. “It's a manly smell,” she said stoutly.

“Nonsense,” he answered. “I don't smell. Am I not a man?”

In total control of himself, he stepped up to the edge of the pool, water at his knees, and spread his arms wide. Her gaze fixed, pasted to him like some housewife's concoction.

“You…don't stuff your canions with a sack of beans,” she said.

He leaned his head into the water to rinse the soap from his hair, to hide his grin, and incidentally to give her an uninterrupted view of his backside. When he had his amusement adequately contained, he stood and called, “Give me your cloak as a towel.”

No one answered him.

She was gone, and on the hill where she had been sitting, only a circlet of crushed grass remained. Only the crushed grass, and the memory of her amber eyes, alive with shock, unwanted curiosity, and the beginnings of a woman's awareness.

Sir Danny stood
on the step leading into the wagon that was their home and peered inside the dim, crowded interior. “Rosie?”

“I'm in here.”

“Remain, Ludovic,” Sir Danny instructed, then edged inside. Two short, narrow beds piled with blankets took up most of the room, with a narrow walkway between. Hooks in the walls held props and costumes, and pieces of scaffolding crowded the one available foot of floor space. Rosie sat on her bed, absorbed in some task, and he asked, “Where have you been?”

“There aren't enough beans in my bag.” She picked up another handful of broad beans, awkwardly stuffed them in, then with her uninjured hand exhibited the sack to Sir Danny. “Is that more realistic, do you think?”

Sir Danny looked as puzzled as she'd ever seen him. “What are you talking about?”

Realizing Ludovic stood on the ground just outside, she hesitated. Should she proceed? Should she provoke Sir Danny while his infinitely more dangerous lieutenant listened? But aye, she should, for always before, she knew she could depend on Sir Danny's unerring fatherly instinct. Yet he had been different lately, and she thought that if she baited Sir Danny in vain, Ludovic would provide the added incentive to move, to leave, to proceed with their plan or proceed with their travels. She wanted action, she wanted it now, and she would cold-bloodedly incite Sir Danny to perform or pack up.

Of course, they couldn't return to London. The earl of Essex wouldn't have forgotten them so soon. But they could travel the provinces. With an innocence that should have fooled no one, she said, “You should have told me my man-root was undersized. I'd have taken care of it before.”

Sweat suddenly sheened Sir Danny's brow. “It never occurred to me to discuss…” He glanced over his shoulder at Ludovic, crowding in close. “Why do you think your, uh, man-root is undersized?”

“Tony's is a lot bigger than this.” She jiggled the sack. “But I can't fit any more in.”

Sir Danny took a sudden step forward. “Tony's what?”

“His man-root.”

“I heard you!” Sir Danny snapped.

Behind him, Ludovic growled.

Ludovic's ferocity seemed to recall Sir Danny to himself, and he said, “It's a mistake, Ludovic. Don't make trouble.” Taking a breath, he rubbed his chest like a man calming a fractious horse. “Rosie, you startled
me. For a moment, I thought you had actually seen his man-root, when actually you just observed his canions.”

“Tony took me swimming.”

Sir Danny's cheeks turned maroon, his whole figure inflated like a puffball after a rain, and his shout swamped Ludovic's reaction. “I have never strapped you before, but I will now unless you tell me true—you went swimming with Sir Anthony?”

“It was Tony a few moments ago,” she observed.

“You removed your clothing?”

“I didn't.”

He sighed in relief.

“He did.”

His eyes narrowed. “All of it?”

“All of it.”

Sir Danny slammed his fist into the thin wall. Outside, she heard a litany of foreign curses, and one mighty thump as Ludovic imitated Sir Danny.

She watched with a simmering excitement as Sir Danny paced along the tiny aisle. It wasn't acting that whirled him around the wagon, it was fury, and his honest recoil gave her hope.

Tony's presumption infuriated Sir Danny, but Sir Danny's indecision had infuriated her. Adding fuel to the flame, she said, “On the morrow, Tony says, he'll take me to Tiny Mary's.”

Shaking his injured hand, Sir Danny said, “Tiny Mary's? The madam's? For what?”

“In sooth, for my first experience with a woman.”

“With a woman? He's taking you to swive a woman?”

“That is his intention.”

With a scream of fury, Sir Danny launched another attack on the wall, battering it with both his fists before slamming the door in Ludovic's face. Diving for the trunk under his bed, Sir Danny dragged it out.
Rosie poked a few more beans in the bag and watched curiously as he tossed aside his shedding fur cloak, his scepter covered with bits of broken glass, and wrapped in kersey, his gilt crown. His most precious possessions, these—the props that turned him from a vagabond actor to a king.

But he ignored them as if they were tawdry in his eyes and dug to the bottom.

“What do you seek?” she asked.

“This.” He lifted a yellowed paper from the lining of the trunk.

“And what will you do with it?”

“This.” He grabbed her hand and jerked her toward the door.

The bag spilled beans in a great cascade over the floor, and she cried, “Wait! I'm not ready to perform.”

Stuffing the paper into the gap of his doublet, he inquired, “Do you really think Sir Anthony is going to be looking for your man-root?”

So they
were
going to see Tony. “Well, actually, aye.” Sir Danny jerked open the door and dragged her down the step. “He never seems to look at anything else.”

“Like he's looking for something?” Sir Danny turned to face her so abruptly she bumped into him. “Or nothing?”

She met his fury with a fury of her own. “I don't understand why you're so angry. You told me to behave like a cocky youth, and I've done as you instructed. Tony so strongly believed me to be a cocky youth that he bathed in front of me.”

The cords in Sir Danny's neck stood out, and the skin over them stretched taut. “I'll kill him.”

“Nay.” Ludovic's voice sounded thick as porridge. “
I'll
kill him.”

They had forgotten he stood there, but he looked like some foreign hardwood tree, feet rooted in the soil, soul sucking strength from his anger.

Sir Danny laid claim. “It's my task.”

Ludovic scoffed. “A little man like you against that Tony lecher? Leave him to me.”

Rosie could have groaned at the challenge to Sir Danny's virility.

Taking Ludovic's tunic in his fist, Sir Danny said, “Mayhap you've never heard the old English saying, Ludovic, but let me enlighten you now.” Sir Danny stood on tiptoe and glared into Ludovic's face. “If you stick your man-root where it's not wanted, you'll likely have it shortened. Now”—he gestured widely—“get back to work.”

Ludovic steamed like a kettle on the boil. “I will work as I please.”

Cocky as a miniature rooster, Sir Danny said, “You will work as you please when I am dead.”

Looming over him, Ludovic replied, “That can be arranged.”

Rosie stepped between them and cried, “Blast you both! Stop fighting. You!” She pointed a finger at Ludovic. “Start the troupe packing. One way or the other, we're leaving this place.”

Ludovic hesitated, and she gestured again. With a bow, he went.

“And you!” She pointed at Sir Danny. “Come with me. We have blackmail to perform.”

“Have you been managing me, Rosie?” She didn't answer, and Sir Danny grinned. “Why, I didn't think you had it in you. 'Tis the season for revelations, it seems.” Grabbing her by the wrist, he pulled her across the lawn at a great rate. They almost ran up the steps and into the house. “We must beard Sir Anthony
Rycliffe in his den.” He beckoned a servant. “My good man! Can you tell me where we may find Sir Anthony?”

The servant bowed, a little uncertain. “He's in the study. If you would wait here, I'll get someone to show you.”

He walked toward the end of the long gallery, but Sir Danny sniffed contemptuously. “He'll go guard the silver. Well, I'll not wait for permission to visit my vengeance on that yeaforsooth knave. Come, my dearest.” He tucked Rosie's hand into his arm. “Let us find Sir Anthony ourselves.”

He started toward the opposite end of the gallery, but she stopped him. “The serving lad said the study. The study is here.” She pointed at a tall door set in the paneled wall facing the outside door.

“Nay,” Sir Danny said. “Why would the master put his study where he's bound to get a draft?”

“He likes to know who comes and goes,” she answered, flinging the door wide.

A sarcastic “Enter,” proved they'd found Tony.

She cast one triumphant glance at Sir Danny, then thought,
Just get it over with
. There was nothing here that could harm her, and they couldn't leave until they'd done this, so just get it over with.

“Enter!” Tony called again.

She sailed in—and stopped.

Hiding in the dark desk kneehole, hugging herself and listening while they all searched. “Where's Rosie?
”

“
I don't know. Mayhap she went to London to see the queen
.”

“
Where's Rosie?
”

“
I don't know. Mayhap a fairy kidnapped her and she's dancing under the moon
.”

“
Where's Rosie?
”

Popping out into the candlelight. “Here I am!”

Strong hands lifting her high, a beloved face smiling, a deep voice crying, “Here she is. Here's my girl
.”

“Come on, my girl.” Sir Danny grabbed her arm again as he swept into the room, dragging her forward. Tony sat, pen in hand, behind a desk piled high with correspondence. “Sirrah, we have business to discuss.”

Plain speaking with a vengeance. Sir Danny must be truly angry to so ignore the forms of elegant phrasing, but it wouldn't last. He'd been imagining this scene for months, Rosie knew, writing and rewriting his mental script, trying to assure he had an answer for every possible variation.

He trusted her to do no more than remain silent, and that she willingly did.

Tony leaned back in his carved wood chair and studied them. His clean white shirt and black doublet gave him a Puritan-like appearance, the look of a man wise in the ways of business and wise to the ways of sin.

Sin. Sin such as acting, blackmailing…why did that carving resting on the massive desk look so familiar?

“Do we?” Tony asked.

“Aye, that we do.”

“Do ye wish t' speak t' these folk, Sir Anthony?”

Rosie recognized the rasping voice and turned to see the man with the close-cropped gray hair standing in the doorway. The steward. The man who'd held her down while Tony set her arm, and then sneaked into her nightmares.

“I'll speak to them,” Tony replied. “Shut the door behind you.”

Hal bowed with every appearance of respect, but Rosie shivered. There was something about Hal, something not quite right. His gray hair, his wrinkles, his
expression portrayed an old man bludgeoned by life. But how old was he, really?

Sir Danny joggled her elbow, bringing her attention back to the scene that they must play. “It has come to my attention, sir, that this estate is a grant from Queen Elizabeth.”

Tony nodded in austere agreement. “Queen Elizabeth did indeed grant me this estate.”

The carving beckoned Rosie, begged for attention. She could almost imagine its weight, the wood smoothed to the grain…although it faced Tony, she knew it to be a simple depiction of the Madonna and child, old beyond imagining.

“And all belongings of the Bellot family?” Sir Danny insisted.

“Aye, all belongings of the
extinct
Bellot family.”

At that moment, the drama swept Sir Danny up. His hand dropped away from Rosie's arm, his voice gained depth and expression, and he gestured grandly. “The family is not extinct.”

“So I've been hearing.” Tony rose slowly, his chair scraping the floor as he pushed it back. “Do I have you to thank for those scurrilous rumors?”

“Not rumors, sirrah, but the truth.”

Without volition, Rosie's hand crept across the desk and picked up the knickknack. It wasn't as heavy as she expected, and she used such force to swing it up all eyes focused on her.

Tony observed Rosie. She jumped when she turned the faces to her—the faces of the Madonna and child. He asked, “Do you like it? It was one of Edward Lord Sadler's prized possessions, I am told. Saved from the destruction of an abbey on these lands, and created even before the Normans won this fair isle.”

Sir Danny placed a steadying hand on her shoulder,
but spoke the words of the script. “Young Rosencrantz probably remembers it from his childhood.”

“Ah, now we get to it.” Tony's sharp gaze never left Rosie as she placed the statue on the edge of the desk, then skimmed the surface with the fingertips of her good hand, reading it with the concentration of a blind woman. “What are you saying, Sir Danny?”

Tony, too, seemed to have read the script.

With a dramatic flourish, Sir Danny replied, “I'm saying that—”

Rosie cleared a place at the opposite end of the desk and replaced the carving there. That seemed the right place for it.

“—Rosencrantz is the missing heir.”

“Nay!” In exaggerated dismay, Tony caught his throat with both hands. “Then I will have to leave Odyssey Manor at once so young Rosencrantz can assume his heritage.”

Rosie moved the inkwell, then the sharpened quills. She rearranged a pile of papers and found an old ink-blot. She touched it and looked at her fingers, but no ink stained them. At least, not this time. She adjusted the sealing wax, and looked for the seal which should be in the niche beside it. It wasn't there, and she glanced around. Not on the desk. Kneeling, she searched the floor. Not on the floor.

Where was—

I didn't take it, Dada
.

Dada won't be angry, but you must tell me where it is
.

I didn't take it for keeps
.

Dada needs it. Tell me. Tell me, Rosie
.

“Rosie?” Tony crouched beside her. “Are you ill?”

His face was the wrong face, his time was the wrong time. Was she ill? “Nay.” Maybe. “Nay, I'm well.”