by C. J. Archer
Also in C. J. Archer’s Lord Hawkesbury Series
Her Secret Desire
Scandal’s Mistress
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 by C. J. Archer
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612187150
ISBN-10: 1612187153
To Joe, Samantha, and Declan.
With all my love and gratitude.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
More Sparkling Historical Romance from C. J. Archer!
Acknowledgments
About the Author
CHAPTER 1
London: 1598
“I’m going to prison,” James said.
Rafe Fletcher thought few things could shock him anymore, but it took him a moment to gather his wits. After a seven-year absence, they were not the words of welcome he expected upon his return to the family home.
“Why?” he asked.
James groaned and buried his head in his hands, but didn’t offer any more information. Rafe stretched out his legs and regarded his brother sitting across from him in the small parlor. James was seven years younger, but it might as well have been more. He seemed so childlike with his thin frame and innocent eyes, it was difficult to imagine him doing anything wrong. Assuming he hadn’t broken any laws, there was only one reason why he could end up in jail.
“You’re in debt, aren’t you?”
James looked up. “How did you know?”
Rafe waved a hand, taking in the bare parlor. It was like an empty tomb with only two chairs and one small table. There was nothing in the way of comforts, not even a fire despite the chilly autumn air. It was vastly different from how their mother had kept it. Her embroidered cushions had adorned at least four chairs, a tapestry had hung on one wall, and the rushes had always been clean. James kept no rushes on his floor.
“I don’t suppose you have any money saved to loan me?” James fixed Rafe with a wild-eyed stare. “I would pay you back as soon as possible.”
“Not yet. I’m sorry.” Rafe wished he’d saved the money from his missions and not given it all away in Cambridge.
But then he remembered why he’d given it away, and to whom, and he didn’t regret it at all.
“I’ll be starting a new job in a week and whatever I earn will go to your creditors, as long as I can stay here.”
“Of course!” Relief flooded James’s face. “Thank you. I’m sorry to do this to you. I didn’t want to ask you for money…”
“Why not? We’re family.”
“Barely.”
Rafe sucked in air through his teeth. He deserved that. They were half brothers, their mothers the same but their fathers different, and Rafe had been absent for a long time. He should have come home earlier, as soon as he heard about old Pritchard’s death a year ago. James had been alone since then, struggling to survive on an apprentice’s wage, and before that he’d had only the heavy-fisted Pritchard for company for six years. Without their mother to soothe the old man’s tempers, and without Rafe to protect him, James must have lived on a knife’s edge. It was no wonder he sometimes hated Rafe for escaping.
“What happened to your job?” Rafe asked. “Your last letter said nothing of problems with your apprenticeship.”
James sighed again. “I lost it. Cuxcomb went into debt himself and had to close the shop. Tailoring apprenticeships are hard to come by. Times are difficult. And some consider me unlucky, having lost both my previous masters one way or another.”
Rafe shook his head. Some people were ignorant, superstitious fools. Losing the apprenticeships wasn’t James’s fault. His father’s death, while welcomed by almost everyone who knew him, meant James had needed to find another master, and Cuxcomb’s debts couldn’t be blamed on him.
“I put off my creditors for a while,” James said. “But then they all called in the debts at the same time and I couldn’t pay. I’ve been ordered to go to the Marshalsea prison until the debts are dissolved.”
“It’ll only be for a week.”
“That’ll feel like forever.”
“I know,” Rafe said heavily.
James rubbed his hands through his overlong hair, messing it up. “Is your new job a certainty?”
Rafe hesitated. “Almost.”
“Almost?” James winced. “And how will you pay my debts off immediately upon starting? Your new master would have to be very generous to pay you in advance.”
“I can only ask. And if Lord Liddicoat doesn’t want to advance me some of my wages, then perhaps your creditors will agree to me paying off your debts in installments if I can prove I have secure employment. I won’t let you starve.”
“It’s not the starving I’m worried about, it’s the other prisoners. And the filth, the lice, and sickness. Have you ever been to a prison, Rafe? Have you seen the kind of base people housed in them?”
“They’re not all base,” he said. James didn’t seem to notice his offended tone, which was just as well. Rafe didn’t want his brother asking why he’d been in jail, because that would lead to questions about his activities over the last seven years. He’d told James he was a mercenary, and while that had been true at first, in more recent times he’d taken on a new role with a new master. Innocents like his brother didn’t need to know what that employment entailed, especially now it had ended. Returning to London was the start of a new phase of his life, a fresh beginning. The past was better left buried.
Besides, he’d only been in jail twice and he’d escaped both times after a short stint. It hardly counted.
But his brother had a point. If the prison’s conditions didn’t get to him, the other prisoners might.
“Do you have any friends you could ask for a loan?” Rafe asked.
“One or two,” James mumbled. “Well, just one.”
“That’s better than none. Who?”
“John Croft.”
“The neighbor?” Rafe remembered the Crofts. They were good, respectable people, but Rafe had not had much to do with them in years past, distracted as he was with his own problems. “They have three daughters, don’t they? The eldest married a lord a year or two before I left.”
“Lord Warhurst. Jane, the youngest, is living up in Northumberland with them in the hopes of bettering herself. Lizzy still lives at home.” His voice softened when he said her name and there was a ghost of a smile on his lips.
So Lizzy Croft meant more to James than merely being his neighbor. “I hardly remember her. A shy little thing, wasn’t she? I don’t think she spoke two words to me her entire life.”
“She’s changed. She’s still a sweet-natured girl. Very good and kind. You’ll adore
her, Rafe. Everyone does.”
Such a glowing recommendation. James clearly cared for the girl. “You’re going to marry her, then.”
“One day. There’s an understanding between us. I can’t afford to marry her until my apprenticeship finishes and that’s some years off. If ever,” he added gloomily.
“Then ask her father for a loan to pay your debts.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“He’s an old man now and doesn’t work. He’s still the tiring house manager for Lord Hawkesbury’s Players, but in name only. Lizzy does all the work as his assistant. Her wages support both her parents.”
“But surely the eldest daughter sends them money.”
James shrugged. “I don’t think Lord and Lady Warhurst have much either, what with their own family and their miners to take care of. The Crofts live as I do. If they have money, there is little to show for it.”
Rafe struck Croft off his list, but not his daughter. “Why not see if there is work for you at the players’ tired house?”
“Tiring house.”
“If you can show you’re working, your creditors might give you longer to pay them back.”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps? What do you have against the idea?”
James sighed. “I don’t want to tell Lizzy what’s happened. She might…think less of me as a man. I couldn’t face her pity.”
Bloody hell. Rafe hadn’t expected his brother’s pride to be larger than his fear of prison. “If she loves you, she wouldn’t think less of you for a situation that isn’t your fault.” Love. What did Rafe know about love? It wasn’t a sentiment men like him had the luxury of experiencing.
“Her company is prosperous but I wouldn’t earn much as her assistant.”
“It would be more than what you’re earning now.”
James’s shoulders slumped and he lowered his head. “True.”
“If you want to avoid the Marshalsea, brother, you need to ask her. And believe me, you want to avoid the Marshalsea.”
He straightened. “You’re right, I will, just as soon as she gets home from the playhouse.”
“Glad to see you’ve still got some sense in that head of yours.”
James gave him a withering glare. Rafe rose and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m hungry. Got anything in your pantry?”
“There’s bread, but that’s it I’m afraid.”
Rafe left him to inspect the provisions. He got as far as the kitchen when someone knocked loudly on the front door.
“Lizzy!” he heard James say upon opening it. Rafe smiled. He was curious to meet the middle Croft girl again after all this time. For the life of him, he couldn’t recall what she looked like. It was shameful, really. He’d lived next to the Crofts for twenty-two years before leaving London, but Lizzy was faceless in his memory. He’d not even recalled her name until James mentioned it. Granted she would have been young when he left and he’d been an angry youth with burdens to bear, yet he felt some regret all the same now that she was to be his sister-in-law.
But first he’d leave the lovers alone for a few moments. It would give James a chance to ask her for work, then he’d join them to discuss what to do next.
At least, that was his plan. He abandoned it when Lizzy’s voice rose above James’s. “You have to marry me!” she cried. “And soon.”
Rafe frowned when James didn’t respond immediately. Then he sat down on the stool near the hearth. He wasn’t going in there. His brother needed to sort this out on his own.
“James?” Lizzy prompted when he didn’t answer her. “Did you hear me?”
“I…I…” James stared at her through dull, shadowed eyes that were usually a vibrant blue. “You look tired,” was all he said.
This was his response? “I’ve been rushing about,” she said, touching her hair and wishing she’d taken time to repin it beneath her hat before she left the Rose’s tiring house. She wasn’t sure how proposals of marriage should be given, but perhaps she would have received a better reaction if she’d taken extra care of her appearance.
James had not seemed to care upon seeing her in disarray before, except for the one time a chamber pot had been emptied from a third-floor window onto her head. He’d laughed. She’d been humiliated and stormed home in tears. His laughter had rung in her ears for hours afterward, until he redeemed himself by giving her a square of crisp white lawn to make herself a new pair of cuffs. They’d been thirteen, and he’d probably stolen the fabric from his father’s shop, but she didn’t care. She was just so happy to not be mad at her closest friend anymore.
She stopped fidgeting with her hair and said, “I’m aware women do not usually do the proposing, but time is running out. I’m desperate, James.” She pushed past him and stood in the parlor, waiting for his sudden grin to light up the room and lift her heart.
It did not.
He glanced past her to the door leading to the kitchen area. She turned. There was no one there. Of course there wouldn’t be. James lived alone.
“Lizzy, I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to speak to you about something.”
“One thing at a time. First we discuss marriage. Well? What say you?”
“I say why the sudden urgency?”
“Sudden? There has been an understanding between us for years.”
“Yes, but you’ve never pounded on my door until it almost shattered, then demanded I marry you. So what has changed?” A lock of brown hair tumbled over one eye, making him look younger than his twenty-two years. A flash of dimples would have completed the effect of youth, but he wasn’t smiling.
Lizzy offered up a weak one in the hope he would return it but he merely stared at her from behind the curtain of hair and waited. She drew a deep breath. “Very well. Let me explain. I could lose my position with Lord Hawkesbury’s Players. We all could. The new Master of Revels, Walter Gripp, is going to shut us down. He’s already banned one play and has promised to continue until we are ruined. And if the troupe is ruined, what will I do? Who will employ me at such good wages? What will all my friends do? There isn’t enough work for them here in London.” She was rambling but couldn’t stop herself. She felt hopeless, and Lizzy had not felt hopeless in a long time. Not since she’d grown out of her crippling shyness. “I can do nothing for them, but I can do something for myself. Marry you.”
“I…ah…” He turned away and lowered his head. A few deep breaths later and he looked at her once more. “Lizzy, you’re in a state.” He took her by the elbow and steered her farther into the parlor. “Sit.” He indicated the chair nearest the fireplace, the best position in the house reserved for favored guests. She felt honored, even though the fire wasn’t lit. Perhaps his hesitation was because he wanted to do the proposing. She sat with her hands in her lap in case he wanted to get down on his knees and clasp them.
He didn’t clasp them or get down on his knees. He sat too, not in the nearest chair, but on another far away. Indeed, he didn’t even look her in the eyes at all, but looked again to the door that led to the kitchen, buttery, and pantry, then settled his gaze on the small ruff at her throat.
“Now, explain it again,” he said. “Calmly.”
She bit back the tears pricking her eyes. If she allowed herself to give into them, she could not be the calm woman he wanted. It wasn’t James’s fault that he wasn’t reacting with the appropriate amount of sympathy. He didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation. Very well, she must make him understand.
“Walter Gripp is the new Master of Revels and he hates Roger Style. Not a mild, passing hatred, but a vicious loathing that’s grown deeper over the years.”
James shrugged. “I can see how someone would dislike a pompous prig like Style, but hate is a rather strong word.”
Lizzy spread her fingers in her lap and tried again. “Style stole Gripp’s wife.”
“Roger Style? Not his brother?”
She nodded. “Apparently they were
secretly…you know…while they were both married. When Style’s first wife died, Mistress Gripp left her husband to live with Roger.”
“How did she get a divorce?”
“They didn’t divorce.” Despite old King Henry’s precedent, one had to have a great deal of money and influence to obtain a divorce. “She lived with Roger for a few months, then left him too. Left London altogether apparently. He wed the current Mistress Style a year or so later. But Walter Gripp never forgave him. As far as he’s concerned, his wife was a good woman until Roger corrupted her. He claims Roger seduced her with his wicked theatre ways as he calls it.”
If it wasn’t so awful, she’d laugh. It was impossible to think of Roger as a seducer, let alone the troupe being wicked. They were all respectable men from good families. Most of them anyway.
“Walter Gripp adored his wife by all accounts,” she said. “He’s been trying to hurt Roger ever since. He’s threatened him with lawsuits and even placed his friends in our audiences from time to time to throw rotten fruit and jeer. Once he stormed in and announced he would ruin Roger by destroying the company. He was so angry he was foaming at the mouth and shouting like a madman. It was horrible.”
“I’m sure it was. But if Gripp hates Style so, why doesn’t he just challenge him to a duel?”
“Roger’s too cowardly to agree to one.”
“Run him through with his rapier in a dark laneway then.”
“And be hanged for it? He’s no fool. This way Gripp can ruin the troupe quite legally. Now that he’s the Master of Revels, he can ruin us too.” All new plays had to be read and passed by the Master of Revels before they could be performed. If he deemed a play too offensive or seditious, he could shut a production down. Doing that to every play submitted from Lord Hawkesbury’s Players would cause the company to lose money like a cracked barrel loses wine. They couldn’t keep rerunning old plays—the London theatre crowd demands fresh stories and would quickly grow weary of repeats. “It’s awful. I’m going to lose my job and the only solution I can come up with is to wed you.”