‘So,’ Phoebe said, ‘one prisoner released and the other retained. Am I still your prisoner, Sir Leo?’
‘Indeed you are, mistress, although I hope you don’t feel like one. Do you?’
‘Deliciously so, I thank you, sir.’
He chuckled, opening the door of the little gazebo that perched like a pepper-pot on the very edge of the lawn where a wooden retaining wall shored up the bank. Round the hexagonal walls, cushions were set on benches below the leaded windows, and a small table in the centre had been laid with a silver coffee-pot and dainty mugs that seemed to complement the rustic setting and Phoebe’s faded blue cambric gown. ‘Then since you are mistress of the house, perhaps you would pour out the coffee. I seem to recall that the last time we were in a similar riverside location, you were not quite so relaxed.’
Frowning, she handed him one of the mugs. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘I’d rather not think about that.’
‘Why, lass? Because of the two halfwits, or because I was there?’
Things had moved on since then, not so long ago in days, but certainly in relationships. She had been on edge, ready to leave Ham House, ready to fly off the handle, and tense with the premonitions of a showdown after Sir Leo’s first approach. In the viewing-platform at Ham, he had gallantly come to her rescue and his touch had remained with her for hours. She knew it could not be the first time he’d pinned a woman’s sleeve, but she would never ask him if it was true that women begged for his favours, as she’d been told. If they did, she could well understand it.
‘Neither,’ she replied. ‘It was because I didn’t want you, of all people, to see that kind of disrespect. You were sure to think I had once allowed it, but I had not. You believed I was promiscuous, and I was not. I simply had friends, men and women, with whom I had easy outspoken relationships, as we do at Court, with music and dancing and…yes…some flirting, too. There was nothing wrong. Noisy, perhaps, but not wrong, and there was no immorality, either. They all knew, even those two halfwits, that I needed a houseful of people to mask the emptiness I felt.’ All this she said to the passing wherries on the river. The people on the ferry might just have been able to see her lips moving.
‘Emptiness, sweet lass? The loss of your family, you mean?’
‘I was only twelve when the plague came to London, and Mrs Overshott would not allow Tim or me near our parents once they became infected. How she survived it I have no idea, but she nursed them until…until the end. As you said, plenty of others suffered in the same way, but not to be allowed to say goodbye is…and to have no place…’ Her voice trailed away, tightened by the memory of loss.
‘Hush, lass. Say no more.’ He came to sit beside her and took her in his arms, cradling her head upon his shoulder. ”Tis a terrible thing indeed. You were a close family?’
‘They were wonderful parents,’ she said, holding his hand over her cheek. ‘I didn’t realise it until I lost them. Then Tim in the following year. Our new home at Mortlake was to have been a safe haven, but when Tim went, it was like a reminder to me that I was supposed to make something of my life, and I had no idea what to do. Friends came to comfort me, and Mrs Overshott was always there for me to turn to, and as I grew older the house became a meeting place, rather like a glorified coffee house, for women as well as men.’
‘And then I opened my big mouth, just to help things along.’
Phoebe sat up, demurely, brushing back her mop of curls and hitching a finger into the neckline that had slipped further than it ought. ‘You were not the only one to comment on my range of friends, Sir Leo, but you can claim to be the first to hurt me. Don’t ask me why.’
‘I don’t need to ask you why,’ he said, softly. ‘I had seen you and I knew you’d seen me at Court, yet I could never get near you and you did your best to make sure I didn’t, fencing yourself in with your parasites.’
‘They were good friends. They were loyal.’
‘Yes, as long as you fed and watered them for nothing.’
‘I needed them.’
‘You needed a man, lass. And you were scared of me.’
‘You had a reputation too, you know. I expect you still do.’
‘Yes, for speaking plainly and truthfully. For treading on toes, like my master. Few Scots are born courtiers. You may blame the King’s grandfather for flooding England with them, but we’re here to stay. You’ll be marrying one.’
‘I don’t think I ever totally agreed to that, did I?’
‘No matter. I shall get an agreement from you before long, mistress.’ His face had moved closer as they quibbled, making her push back against the leaded panes until she could evade him no longer. His mouth brushed over hers, sending ripples of pleasure down to her knees, nudging and lapping at her lips until they parted under his as she closed her eyes.
‘You said,’ she whispered, ‘that you’d not lay a finger on me.’
‘I’m not doing that, wee lass. Am I?’ he murmured.
That time, it was to go no further, though a part of her wished it had. But she had begun to talk to him about herself and her lost family, which in itself was an unusual event. And because Phoebe had mentioned to Mrs Overshott that she might learn to play the lute, and because her brother’s instrument was still at home, it had been brought to Richmond along with her gowns and writing desk. So that evening, in the private garden, Sir Leo gave her a first rudimentary lesson on it, although it took him over an hour to tune its sixteen strings.
She was already proficient on the harpsicord and spinet, but the lute was not an easy instrument to play; after a time, he took it from her and began to accompany himself in a haunting song by Dowland. When he looked up, he saw that she was stifling sobs with her hand over her face.
Putting the lute aside, he drew her again into his embrace, rocking her gently. ‘What is it?’ he whispered. ‘Your brother?’
Mutely, she nodded, making a strangely forlorn sound in her throat.
‘I should have known. Every young lad sings that at some time.’
‘“Come again. Sweet love doth now invite,”’ she whispered. Had he chosen the song on purpose to offer her the chance he was waiting for?
He was close. Close enough to repeat those intimate caresses taken with her consent but without permission. And now, when the barriers had begun to fall, he waited for the signal she didn’t know how to give. Practised in the art of flirtation, she had never gone beyond that, and now in her inexperience she yearned to find out more from the only man she had ever wanted to show her. Her brother’s lute, her brother’s song, the man whose arms were around her, and the memories that had begun to hurt less, becoming sweet and beautiful in one peaceful summer evening soothed her anger. What reason was there to hold back now except how to find the way forwards? Lifting his hand, she closed his fingers into a fist and brought it to her mouth, kissing his knuckles with the lightest touch of her lips. ‘Was my fencing as bad as my lute-playing, Sir Leo?’ she said, coyly.
The question took him by surprise. ‘Och, lass! D’ye want the truth?’
‘No,’ she said, smiling. ‘Not if it’s as bad as that.’
‘I could have been put off easy enough by the lad’s clothes, you know. That was unfair. Affects a man’s concentration.’
‘Serves you right. It was the only advantage I had.’
‘Well,’ he deliberated, ‘your three years’ practice didn’t exactly give you the stamina of a grown man, did it, sweet lass? You’re still as soft as butter. And you don’t think like a fencer either, do you?’ The last words were spoken into her hair as his hand escaped from hers to pull carefully at the laces of her bodice, loosening it as if the mysteries of a woman’s dress were well understood.
It was the blue cambric gown without stays, and she felt the luxurious easing of her breasts as they were freed from constraint beneath her chemise, though never before with this kind of excitement. It was, she thought, as if he were urging her to permit this freedom by doing nothing to stop him,
but by the time his hand had slipped through the unlaced bodice on to the soft warm linen, the very idea of stopping him was already far away, taking her reservations with it.
Burying her face into his shoulder, she trembled as his hand found her breast and held it as though, after all, he needed no permission. She heard his deep voice speaking into her hair, almost harsh with pent-up desire. ‘This is what I wanted to do, lass,’ he said, gently moving his palm across the nipple. ‘This…and this…taking a hand to ye, not a sword. It was the look of ye that made me sae mad. I wanted to tire ye with loving, not with sword-play. I could see your lovely body, and I wanted ye, there and then.’
‘But you cut my button off.’
‘Aye, lass. It was all I could do not to cut your shirt off. I could have.’
‘Brute.’
‘I could be a brute, too. It would be easy, with you. I could have thrown you down on that bed up there and taken what you were offering me.’
‘I was not offering—’
‘No, and you were not saying nay either, were you?’
‘Don’t, Leo.’
‘Don’t what? This…or this?’ Tender and beguiling, his words accompanied the deftness of his fingers as he drew the chemise away to join the wide-open bodice, revealing her nakedness to the fading light and the new stars. ‘Ah, Phoebe! You came within an inch of losing everything except your anger, that time. But I didn’t want you like that, I wanted you like this. Soft in my arms. Trembling for me, not half-dead with fighting, and not afraid of me, as you were.’
With half-closed eyes, she turned her head to watch his hand move over her skin, capturing first one breast and then the other, teasing the buds with his lips, sending hot waves of desire through her body. It was true, she had feared him, the Duke’s man, his scathing tongue, his authority, his experience of women older and more worldly than her. In love with him even then, she had kept him on the edge of her dreams, only reluctantly allowing him in, wanting yet hating, hurt by his dismissal of her as being hardly worth the chase. She had wept, having no means of redress except to show him how wrong he was.
‘Have you kept me waiting long enough now?’ he said, raising his head to look at her. ‘Shall I show you what you’ve been missing?’
‘I wanted to be sure, Leo. I had to be sure. I have too much to lose.’
‘A woman always has more to lose, and I played my hand badly, clumsy devil that I am. You were right to reject me. But I never stopped wanting you, and if I’d been free to go where I would, I’d have come to tell you so and risk being turned away at your door. But now I’ve got you here, sweet Phoebe, and I cannot let you go again. Let me show you how much I love you, dear heart. You’ll not regret it, I swear.’
The hand continued to explore her, insatiable in its fondling, setting her alight, robbing her of thoughts, twisting her body in his arms to follow his caresses, greedily seeking more. ‘You were right on one thing, Leo,’ she said. ‘I would have been an easy conquest for you. I would have laid myself at your feet if you’d snapped your fingers for me. You were the only man I’d ever have given myself to. Even when I was planning revenge, you managed to turn me inside out with one sweep of your hand. And I have a hundred questions to ask that women are supposed to ask at such times, yet I cannot recall even one. Take me to bed. Show me what I have to do. Teach me all you know, Leo.’ Hiding her burning face against his chest, she breathed in the scent of him, dissolving the last of her fears. Her head lifted to seek him again, while the touch of his lips and hands held her senses in a limbo of delight. ‘“Come away. Sweet love doth now invite,”’ she said, quoting the song.
His white teeth caught the last of the dying light. ‘Doth it, indeed?’ he said. Hooking an arm beneath her knees, he lifted her into his arms. ‘Then who am I to resist such an invitation from the woman I’ve loved for sae long?’
As her room slid gently into darkness and the night spread its warmth over them, her took her carefully through every phase of loving, revealing the mysteries of her body that she had known nothing of, that could only be unlocked by a lover’s hand, never by her own. She had not needed to protest her inexperience, for he could tell it was all new to her, the places to be kissed, her wonder at her own responses, her delight in his magnificent body, the growing fierceness of her ardour long before he expected it.
What he could not tell was the way her memory taunted her with the added thrill of being loved, at last, by the very man who had once held her in contempt, even though she now understood the artifice. Winning Sir Leo Hawkynne and having held him off, fought him and bound him to her, and then fallen in love more deeply than before was the stuff of dreams and not to be taken lightly. After his efforts, he deserved her respect, her devotion and her trust, for he was a man of substance, not a lad with his first love.
The moment, when it came, was for Phoebe the peak of all her desires as well as being a gift as great as any she could bestow, one she’d withheld despite many persuasions. It was for her the most natural thing to be close to him along every surface, to have him fit perfectly inside her, smoothly throbbing, making her moan and cry out at the power in him that could possess her so utterly. That was something she’d not been told to expect. That, and his wonderful muscle-bound body, toned and virile, holding her under him with his hair touching her face, his kisses luring her mind, his deep tones whispering of her beauty in words too intimate for daylight, words she received with sighs and smiles and all her senses stormed.
‘I want this to be good for you, sweet lass,’ he breathed into her hair. ‘I want you to remember the first time you gave yourself to me, without shame or resentment, but for love of me. Is there love for me yet, Phoebe Laker? Or shall I have to do more to earn it?’
‘There has always been…ah…love for you, Leo. I was hurt only because I cared deeply what you thought of me. Forgive me. I hated and loved you. Ah…Leo! Something… is hap…happening…’
There was something else that no one had told her of, except with meaninglessly extravagant words too vague to make sense. Her own attempts to speak became cries and inarticulate sounds as his loving swept her on ever faster into a tide of sensation, her hands clinging, raking his back, her mewing gasps suspended on the crest as he arched above her, groaning softly into the tangle of dark ringlets that spread across the pillow. His weight upon her was gentle, like a human blanket that wrapped with tender fingers, rewarding her with breathless kisses and praise for her courage.
‘Don’t go,’ she whispered when her breathing began to settle. ‘Stay there, beloved.’
Leaning upon one elbow, he looked into her eyes, dark and gleaming like deep midnight pools, damp-lashed. ‘Did I hurt ye, sweet lass? Are those tears?’
‘No, Leo. I’m not hurt. Do other women weep at such times? I don’t know. Something happened, and I don’t think I shall ever be the same again. Perhaps this is what it means to become whole.’
‘I’ve waited sae long for this, sweetheart,’ he said, pushing away her tear-drop with the soft heel of his hand. ‘You’re mine now. Wholly mine. Ye’ll be marrying me now, Mistress Laker?’
‘Yes, I’ll be marrying you now, Leo Hawkynne, I thank you.’
Moving out of her, he drew her into his embrace, smoothing her wild hair off her forehead, kissing her damp skin. ‘What a woman,’ he murmured. ‘What a tigress for our bairns.’
The next day, Sir Leo suggested a trip to London. ‘I have my barge ready,’ he said. ‘We could be there by mid-day, if we start early tomorrow.’
‘You wish to go to Court?’
‘No, to the Royal Exchange where your family’s shop was. I know it’s been rebuilt since then, but…’
‘But it’s changed hands now, and I don’t know who the new owner is.’
‘No matter. I thought a pilgrimage might help to lay a few ghosts.’
‘It might. Who knows?’
The heat had become oppressive overnight and the sky was heavy, the breeze off the river strong
er from the south-west, hitting the long graceful barge with rough waves each time the oarsmen pulled into a bend of the river. Each man had served a seven-year apprenticeship and was entitled to wear the uniform of the Thames Watermen with two badges on the sleeve of the pleated coat, one for the Waterman’s Hall and the other for the Duke of Lauderdale, their employer. Rowing strongly with the tide, they came into the Chelsea reach well before noon, the shelter of the buildings making a welcome respite from the continuous blasts of the wind.
Leaving the barge just short of the bridge, Sir Leo summoned a hackney carriage to take them to Cornhill, giving Phoebe a chance to see some parts of the town that had recently been rebuilt, and to compare her memories of ten years ago with the clean new buildings of brick and stone that were growing in their place. The original stone-built shopping place of the Royal Exchange had suffered less than most and had been restored very much along the same lines as before, four sides of stalls and two-storey arcaded shops set around a vast open square.
The crowds of browsers, shoppers and merchants made it difficult to move forwards with any speed, once they had descended from the hackney, and all Phoebe could do was to point out where the goldsmith’s shop had once been, on the ground floor where some of the other jewellers were. Telling him that she didn’t suppose it would go by the name of Laker now, he was undeterred, leading her by the hand through the throng towards a young aproned apprentice yelling a familiar name. ‘Laker’s! Finest gold and silver for your table, earrings for your lady. This way, sirs!’
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