by Trish Morey
Her beauty. The sunlight filtered through the trees above her, casting long patterns of shadows on her hair as she carried her hat. She turned her face up to its warmth and a little smile touched her lips. Her whole face softened when she smiled, and for an instant she looked free and content.
She deserved to have that all the time. He wanted to give that to her—to give her all she deserved in life, all she longed for.
She turned to him, her smile fading. ‘You take such good care of your sister.’
Good care? When she shrank from the sight of him because he was a man? ‘I only do what I can. I fear it is not nearly enough.’
‘That can’t be true. You pay for her to have a quiet home, a nurse, fine clothes and the best embroidery silks, while you live over a tavern and write plays for the amusement of the crowds. You see to it she is safe and happy. Most families would have sent her to rot in a madhouse, out of sight and mind.’
‘You would not have done that,’ Rob said. ‘You look after your father with every bit as much care, and more so because you are with him every day. You would never abandon those you love.’
‘Of course I would not. And neither do you, no matter how much you play the rakish, careless actor to the world.’ She looked back to the river. ‘You love your sister.’
‘I love her more than life,’ he said simply, truthfully. He owed his sister for not being there when she needed him. For encouraging her romantic nature with his own poetry. ‘Even as she does not know me now.’
Anna stopped at a shady spot by the turn of the water, and Rob removed his short cloak to spread on the grassy ground for a seat. She put her hat and gloves down beside her and smoothed her skirts over her legs.
Rob lay down on his side next to her, propping himself up on his elbow. They were so close, close enough to touch, yet it felt as if the river flowed between them. He could see her, yearn for her, reach for her, but she couldn’t fully be his. Too many secrets lay between them.
But he feared now that no matter what befell them, nor what she would come to think of him, she was his and always would be. Anna was like no one else he had ever known. She was more beautiful, kinder—more everything. And yet she did not know it.
‘What happened to her?’ Anna asked. ‘You said she was not always thus.’
‘Nay, she was not. Mary is many years younger than me. By the time she arrived my parents had given up hope of more children. She was such a pretty, laughing babe, always into some mischief, and we all adored her. I fear we spoiled and indulged her, and only more so after my mother died. She had a great deal of freedom, and a great imagination.’
Anna smiled down at him. ‘A family trait, I see.’
Rob laughed ruefully. ‘Her imaginings were always more fanciful than mine, more romantic.’
‘More fanciful than running away to join a company of players?’
‘She wanted to fall in love—marry a fine gentleman who would carry her off to Court to meet the Queen. She had dreams of castles and silk gowns, of a man who would always indulge her as we did and whom she could adore in return. I fear I fanned those dreams higher with my own poetry. She was always begging for a fairy story.’
Anna drew her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees as she watched the water wend its way past. ‘Did she find him?’
‘Strangely enough, she did. Have you heard of a family called Carrington?’
She considered for a moment, and shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. But I don’t know all the great families at Court—especially if they have no fondness for the playhouse.’
Rob plucked at the soft grass under his hand. He hated to come to this part of the tale. It sounded like a play—only far too real, with real people as its victims. And it was his fault for living in his dream world and not protecting those he cared for the most.
‘They are not at Court any longer,’ he said. ‘Most of them are dead now. But once they owned the fine estate now possessed by Thomas Sheldon, and they had a son named William who was so handsome and wealthy he was ardently pursued by every maiden in the county.’
‘And this was Mary’s sweetheart?’ Anna asked, drawn into the tale even as she feared the terrible ending she knew was coming.
‘Well may you be astonished. The golden son of a landed family and the daughter of a leather-worker? Such wickedness! Mary and William were clever. They met in such secret even my father did not know of it, and the village gossips had no idea. I was gone on my wanderings with Lord Henshaw’s Men by then, and only heard of what happened after.’ He had abandoned them to their fates. Only now could he try to atone.
Anna bit her lip. ‘What did happen?’
‘My father became ill, and Mary and her swain grew bolder in their meetings. It seemed he declared to her he would marry her, and even gave her a ring,’ Rob said, his voice flat and distant, though she could sense the terrible pain beneath. ‘But there was something he did not tell her—or perhaps he did not even know himself. His father and his elder brother had joined a plot to set Mary of Scotland on the throne and depose Queen Elizabeth.’
‘How terrible!’ Anna cried. She well remembered what had happened to the traitors in the Babington Plot to set Queen Mary on the English throne. The stench had hung over London for days. ‘Treason right here in this peaceful place.’
‘Treason raises its ugly Hydra head everywhere, Anna, and especially where Queen Mary and Spain had greater room to scheme.’ And Spain was not done with scheming, even with its grand Armada destroyed, as Rob knew too well. ‘It destroys the innocent, as well as the guilty.’
‘Innocents like your sister?’
‘Aye, like Mary. She had gone to see her sweetheart when Walsingham’s men raided his family’s house. The tale of what happened then is a confused one, but it can easily be imagined. The servants were beaten and terrorised, Lady Carrington locked up, the house ripped apart in search of hidden priests and treasonous papers. Mary’s suitor hid her in the kitchen before he went to help his family, but she was found.’
Anna’s arms tightened around her legs. ‘They—hurt her? Walsingham’s raiders?’
‘Not them. When she was dragged to the great hall of the house, she saw that her lover was dead. One of the servants who was there that day told me later Mary was hysterical at the sight, screaming and crying, trying to reach him.’ Rob kept his narration carefully quiet and toneless, but the old images still made her heart ache. She could feel the pain so horribly, so clearly. What would she feel like if it was Rob lying there dead?
‘His brother dragged her from William’s body,’ he continued. ‘But he did not release her. He used her as a hostage to shield him as he left the house, shouting that she must be the “traitorous bitch” who had seduced his brother and set Walsingham on them all. Mary wept and protested, fought him, but he dragged her through the fields to a deserted barn where he raped her and cut her face.’
Rob’s fist closed hard on the earth, and his mind clouded with hot blood and fury, as it always did when he remembered the monster who’d hurt Mary. And his own part in it all.
Anna reached out and laid her hand gently over his clenched fist. Her cool touch scattered some of the pain of the old memories, tethered him again to their present moment there under the trees.
‘Was he captured?’ she asked softly.
‘Of course, and carried away to a traitor’s death. But it was too late for Mary. Her mind had snapped and would never be repaired. My father sent for me, and I returned just before he died. He beseeched me to care for Mary, though she shrank from the sight of me as a man. I set her up with Nelly, who had been our nurse when we were children, in that cottage, and went back to London to earn my coin.’
Anna’s fingers curled tighter over his hand. ‘And to work for Walsingham?’
‘Aye.’ Rob rubbed his other hand over his face and rolled to lie on his back. The sky arched overhead, blue and endless, and the curve of Anna’s cheek was kissed by a stray curl of
her dark hair. He reached up to brush that strand back, and his touch skimmed over her warm, soft skin.
‘I told you I worked for Walsingham for money and advancement,’ he said. ‘And I do. I can’t lie about that. But mostly I work for him to bring down men like the traitor who attacked my sister and who would destroy the peace of our country.’
‘Oh, Robert.’ Anna lay down beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘You do like to play the careless cynic, but now you have revealed the truth.’
‘And what might the truth be?’ he asked, doubt heavy in his voice.
‘That you are a defender of women and the weak. A white knight.’ Her hand flattened against his chest, stroking him through the thin linen of his shirt. ‘With armour that is a bit rusty, perhaps …’
‘Rusty?’ He seized her hand and raised it to his lips for a kiss. ‘I am quite ready to defeat all challengers.’
And he was. With her by his side, his secrets safe in her hands, he finally felt he could move ahead. That he could somehow make wrongs right and slay all her dragons. That he could be her protector and her love forever, be worthy of her.
If only he himself was not her greatest dragon of all.
‘I know you are ever ready to charge into battle, Robert,’ she said with a sigh. ‘That is exactly what I’m afraid of.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ANNA sat on her bed, the breeze from the half-open window cool through her light chemise. From the garden below she could hear music and laughter as the other guests of Hart Castle danced in the moonlight. It sounded so light-hearted and merry, as if it all came from another world—the realm of fairies and dreams.
She knew she should go down to them, put on the fine gown spread before the fire and go dancing. But she felt frozen in place, and the silence of her chamber wrapped around her like a comforting blanket.
Her mind kept seeing Mary Alden, with her pretty blue eyes as blank and empty as a summer sky and that scar on her cheek. Lost deep in the maze of her own mind.
And Robert, who loved his sister so very much he had given his life over to protecting innocents like her in the only way he knew how—with his pen and his sword. The servant of the great spider Walsingham.
Anna had thought she had begun to know Rob. Now she saw she knew nothing at all.
‘Masks upon masks,’ she whispered. She slid down from the bed and went to peer out of her window. The gardens were lit up by a multitude of torches, blazing so brightly the night itself was kept away. Everyone danced between them, like a sumptuously coloured glittering serpent, winding round and round.
She smiled to see their merriment, and wished she could revel in that one fleeting moment as they did. She wished she could feel Rob’s arms around her, twirling her until the sky was a blur and all she knew was him.
She wished that life could be as a play, with heroes and villains and romances, a clear line from beginning to end and a happy jig to close all.
‘But make it a comedy, please,’ she said. A tale of disguises revealed, love triumphant, no tragedy or bloody revenge. No more bloodshed.
Her heart ached for Mary Alden, and for Robert. His life was a revenge play, and she feared there was no place in it for her. No place for tenderness and caring. He felt he did not deserve it, when she knew he was the most deserving of all. But it could never be, not now.
She heard the soft click of her door sliding open, and she turned to see Rob standing there. He wore only his breeches and shirt, the soft linen unlaced to reveal his glistening chest. His hair was tousled and he held a book in his hand. And she suddenly knew—he had been standing there waiting for her all the time.
He closed the door and leaned back against it, watching her across the room. ‘You don’t care to dance tonight?’
Anna shook her head. ‘I am tired. It is odd, Robert—I feel as if I have passed a hundred years today, many lifetimes.’
‘I wearied you with the long walk.’
‘Nay. I am not weary, not now. And—and I am more grateful than I can say that you allowed me to meet your sister.’
‘I could have done nothing else after you shared your own secrets with me.’
‘Secrets?’ she asked.
‘About your marriage.’
Anna glanced back down at the party guests, dancing on as if in giddy oblivion. ‘Mine was not a secret so much as a pitiful tale I don’t care to remember.’
‘Then I’m doubly honoured you remembered it with me,’ he said.
She heard Rob move, felt his warmth against her back as he shut the window and silence fell over the chamber.
‘You’ll grow cold there,’ he said. ‘Come, sit by me on the bed for a while.’
He took her hand in his and led her back to the bed. Anna let him help her slide beneath the bedclothes and tuck them round her before he sat beside her against the bolsters. His arm lay lightly over her shoulders and she smiled up at him. Aye—this was what she had waited for. To be with him, alone in the quiet.
‘I’m certainly warm enough now,’ she said. ‘And the walk today was not too far at all.’
‘Mary liked you very much, I could tell,’ he said. ‘You were very gentle with her.’
Anna rested her head on his shoulder with a sigh. ‘That poor, sweet girl. You have made her a safe haven, Robert.’
‘Whether I can keep it safe for her is less certain,’ he muttered. ‘I brought this for you in thanks.’ He laid the book he held on her lap, and its fine red-leather cover glowed in the low firelight.
‘I need no thanks,’ she said. ‘But I’m always willing to accept books.’ She ran her palm over the soft leather and traced the title in raised gilt letters. Demetrius and Diana—the poem she had been reading in London, the tale of the poor shepherd and his impossible love for a goddess.
She opened it, and saw that it was not a printed book but one handwritten on vellum, as if it was the original manuscript especially bound. She knew that writing well; she saw it often on scripts at the White Heron.
‘You are the author of Demetrius and Diana!’ she whispered, astonished. How could he keep that a secret, when it was the most astonishingly wonderful thing she had ever read? ‘Why did you not tell me before?’
Rob shrugged and laid his hand atop hers on the book. His fingers moved like a whispering caress over her skin. ‘My plays are there for all to see, but my poems—they come from somewhere deeper, I think. Somewhere I don’t want everyone to know.’
‘But this work is beautiful! And very popular, too, though no one knows the real author yet,’ Anna protested. ‘The language and images are so vivid and real, and the emotions—This work could bring you great fame if you let it be known. They do say Queen Elizabeth rewards her favoured poets richly.’
‘What would I do with more fame?’ he asked with a laugh. ‘Or with the Queen’s rewards?’
‘Do you never seek a new life, Robert?’ she questioned. She remembered how he had looked as they walked by the river, so happy and carefree. Or perhaps she had only misread that, putting her own secret desires on to him, and he missed the constant movement and upheaval of London. ‘You would miss having everyone hear your words onstage, I’m sure.’
‘My truest words are in here, fairest Anna, for those who care to seek them.’ He tapped lightly at the book’s cover. ‘And now I give them to you.’
‘It is a very fair gift,’ she said. ‘I will use it to remember these days at Hart Castle, the good and bad of them alike.’
He raised her hand and pressed a warm, open-mouthed kiss to the centre of her palm. ‘I hope you only ever remember the good, Anna. You deserve naught but sunshine and laughter all your days.’
She smiled at him, tenderness flooding her heart at the sight of his tousled hair and shadowed eyes. That ice she had built around her heart in the bleak days with her husband had melted entirely away, and she felt only those sunshine wishes.
She laid her other hand against his face, cupping his cheek, and said softly,
‘How dull that would be, with no poetry to fill my hours.’
Rob’s arms came around her and he pulled her against his body as they both rose to their knees in the middle of the bed. His mouth came over hers in a hungry kiss, and she closed her eyes to tumble head-first into that dark, swirling, heated world she always found with him. She had never felt closer to anyone before, bound to him by desire and joy and sadness all tied into one.
She parted her lips in welcome and felt his tongue sweep against hers, tasting her just as she was hungry for him. She met his kiss with equal fervour, full of all the terrible, passionate longing she always felt with him. It was a primeval, overwhelming force she couldn’t deny. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him so close there could be nothing separating them now. She wished she could be even closer, that she could make him entirely her own.
His lips slid to her throat, to the bare skin where her chemise fell away from her shoulder. Gently he urged her back down to the bed and drew the fabric away from her legs, up and up. He kissed her ankle, tracing his tongue over the arch of her foot. It tickled and tingled, and it made her want to laugh and cry out with need all at the same time.
He kissed the soft skin just behind her ankle. He lightly bit at it and traced his mouth up to her knee, the back of her thigh.
‘Robert …’ she whispered.
‘Shh, just lie still,’ he said against her skin. He rose up on his knees between her legs and urged her thighs farther apart as he eased her chemise up to her waist. He used the fabric to draw her closer and softly blew on the damp, sensitive curls above her womanhood.
‘Robert!’ she cried out. The sensation of his breath, his mouth, was almost too much. She arched her hips away but he wouldn’t let her go. And she didn’t really want to get away from him. She wanted to stay with him, just like this, with a desperate need she had never known before.
He leaned closer and kissed her just there. With one hand he held her down to the bed, and with the other he spread the wet folds of her so he could kiss her even more deeply, more intimately. His tongue plunged deep inside her, rough and delicate at the same time, tasting her, pressing at that one rough, sensitive spot. She moaned and twined her fingers in his hair to hold him with her.