He was dimly aware of Tom as he laid her down on her back across the cushions, hand lifting her skirts, pushing her thighs apart, fingers searching, opening, preparing. Then he freed himself from his breeches and pushed himself inside her. She yielded easily, warm and slippery and welcoming, and though he remained aware of her brother watching, it did not decrease his desire nor the building of his pleasure as he moved in and out, Sarah moaning with her own pleasure underneath him. He would make her his again and erase her brother’s touch with his own. Close to his climax, he chanced to look up and the two men locked eyes. Tom was pleasuring himself as he watched, and the contortion of his face as he came near his own orgasm was the same he had worn at the moment of his death in Nick’s dream. Nick tore his eyes away, confused, but his arousal drove him on, thrusting harder, deeper, wanting now to hurt her for the prisoner she had made of him, the instincts of his dream goading him on. Her moans of pleasure ceased and he could feel her hands against his shoulders trying to push him off and out of her, beating at the muscles, her mouth forming words that he did not hear. But she was pinned beneath him and he did not stop, hands pressing against her legs to force them wider, allowing him deeper. He came, finally, in an explosion of light and heat through his body, and her struggle beneath him stopped as he let her legs go and laid himself down, his weight on hers, her hair against his face, tickling.
When he came back to himself, he rolled away and lay beside her, staring up at the ceiling. He barely understood what had just happened, his desires running out of his control. He had never tried to hurt a woman before, never been watched in the act of coitus, and a sense of falling gripped him, uncontrolled and dangerous. Is this what happened to John, he wondered? Was it this that had driven him mad?
He forced himself to sit up, rearranging himself in his breeches, watching Sarah lower her skirts and make herself decent again. Tom he pointedly ignored. She shifted to sit close to him, her fingers caressing his arm and he realised that after all, she had liked the roughness. She was not the innocent he had thought her to be, her purity corrupted by her brother’s darkness. He found himself wondering how hard her seduction had been, how much she had resisted her brother’s desires. Not much, he guessed sadly, remembering the look that had passed between them, Tom’s hand in hers. Not much. He lifted a hand to stroke her cheek and she leaned up to kiss him again, gentle this time, her lips soft against his.
‘You never needed to bewitch me,’ he murmured. ‘I would have come to you of my own free will.’
‘I wanted to be sure.’
‘And now that you have me, will you keep me?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Of course. I will never let you go.’
He rested his forehead to hers, and knew he was her prisoner.
Later, when they were alone together in the dim warmth of his chamber, she stood at the window looking out into darkness beyond. The clouds were unleashing their load once again, rain driving into the earth and spattering off the roof into the lane below. Nick stood close to her and his eyes were on her face: he was oblivious to what lay outside the glass. He said, ‘What spell did you use to capture me?’
She turned towards him. ‘Does it matter?’
‘You said, “love born of love.” What did you mean?’
She took a deep breath, knowing him well enough to know he would not let it go until she answered.
‘Sarah?’
‘A love spell, is all,’ she evaded, sliding her eyes once more to the blackness outside. The sickle moon was hidden by the rain – she would have liked to be able to see it.
‘Sarah.’ He took the ends of her fingers in his hands and turned her gently to face him. ‘I’ll accept all that you are and all that you have done, you and Tom; I ask only you don’t lie to me.’
‘Some things are better for you not to know,’ she answered with as much gentleness in her voice as she could find. She lifted her hand and stroked the rough cheek.
But as she had known, he would not give up. ‘You lay with Tom to win me?’ he asked.
She sighed and rested her head on his chest. He was warm and strong and good, and she had bound him to her: he deserved to know at least some of the truth. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We lay together.’
She heard the sharp intake of breath – even though he had asked, had guessed at the truth, her answer still shocked him.
‘What did you do?’
‘Nick, enough.’ She tried to laugh.
‘No. I want to know.’
‘You never give up, do you?’
‘No.’
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Then I’ll tell you. We did a rite in the forest in the waning moon.’
‘Dear God!’ he breathed. ‘Like a witch in the stories. Did you ride on broomsticks too? Sup with the Devil?’
‘We walked there,’ she told him. ‘And we have no truck with the Devil. He belongs to your church, not mine.’
‘So …?’
‘That is all.’
She saw him sweep his gaze away and down, trying to imagine it, but she could not tell him the rest of it in all its sacred power and beauty. His forehead creased in pain and the line of his jaw tightened.
‘And did you like it?’ he asked, after a moment, returning his gaze to her face. ‘Was he good?’
She let out a laugh of exasperation. And perhaps of embarrassment too. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I liked it. But it was a rite. It was different from what we do. It was not just about the pleasure of it, the love. There was a purpose.’
‘You would not lie with him otherwise?’
She shook her head to reassure him but her denial was a lie. She had remembered their coupling often, desire burning. She loved Nick as a man, as her master and her lover – she would be his wife in a heartbeat if the Fates allowed – but her brother kindled something else: theirs was a bond of a different kind, forged in knowledge and magic and darkness, ineffable and sacred.
‘And you’ll not lie with him again?’
She tilted her head in evasion.
‘Sarah?’ She heard the hurt in his voice.
‘If I were your wife …’ she whispered.
‘You would be my wife?’
‘Ah, Nick. You know that I love you,’ she said, moving in closer to him, her hands resting on his shoulders, her breasts just touching the leather of his doublet. He lowered his head so that his forehead rested on hers. ‘All I did was only to be with you, like this.’
She felt his hesitation, the doubts that battled with his faith in her, his love. ‘Love me again,’ she breathed, lifting her head to expose her neck to his lips, waiting for his kiss. But it was his hand not his mouth that touched her throat, fingers spread and pressing hard against it, stopping her breath for a seemingly endless moment of fear until his hand slid away gently from her neck to touch her breast, and his teeth found the delicate skin instead, biting hard, allowing her to breathe again.
‘You have made me your slave,’ he said, pressing himself hard against her, her back up against the wall beside the window. ‘But I cannot be without you.’
‘Let us go to bed,’ she murmured, sliding her hands along his arm, disengaging herself. She wanted to slow him down and dampen the conflict in his passion, afraid that something wicked had been woken by the knowledge she had given him and the passions she had stirred with Tom as witness. No man wished to be bound as she had bound him to her, and his hand against her throat had scared her – a reminder of a witch’s fate, the end she had seen for Tom in the shewstone. She must treat him gently and bring him back to the memory of the love they shared together. Taking his hand, she led him to the bed, and slowly, teasingly, as they had done before, she undressed and lay down, arms up to welcome him into them.
They made love again but slowly, tenderly this time, with gentle caresses – fingers, lips, teeth – exploring the hidden places of each other, giving pleasure with the lightest touch. It was beautiful and she wanted it never to end. For all the excitement of the passion
of the afternoon, it was this she loved with Nick, this quiet and tender intimacy. She wished she could be his wife and share this with him all through their life to come.
Afterwards they lay together in the soft, warm bed, Nick on his back, Sarah on her side alongside him propped up on one elbow, fingers of the other hand resting on the firm muscle of his chest. So different from Tom’s slender frame and pale, soft skin, she thought, Nick so much more of a man. She loved the hair that grew in the dip of his chest, trailing down across his belly towards his cock, and her fingers curled themselves around it, teasing it gently.
Nick looked at her and smiled.
‘Am I forgiven?’ she asked. ‘Do you love me still?’
‘I have no choice but to love you,’ he answered. ‘But I would love you regardless, witchcraft or no. And yes, you are forgiven.’
‘I’m glad,’ she said, laying her head on his chest, her hand still caressing his belly, the smooth hollow where his pelvis met his thigh. He stroked her hair and then, leaning over, he blew out the one remaining candle and in the utter darkness they fell into sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
Sound and Fury
The next rehearsal was fraught and angry. John’s madness had rattled them all, his charge of witchcraft hanging in the theatre’s air and leaving shadows that infected the corners of their thoughts. No one spoke of it, wary of lending unnamed powers a voice, but the same thought was shared by them all: ill luck was woven in the fabric of the play, its darkness reaching out beyond the confines of the stage, and every one of them wished they could play something else instead.
The boy, Francis Gage, who had taken John’s place, struggled with his lines. He was still young and green, and though he had shown some skill as Lady Macduff, Lady Macbeth was beyond him, crippled as he was by the fear that his own fate might echo John’s if he gave himself to the role. They watched him try to be John, mimicking the other boy’s inflections, but he was afraid of the passions in the words and, not daring to touch the darkness the role required, the lines fell flat and lifeless. There was no weight in his performance – he was an innocent made to recite words that terrified him.
Halfway through the morning Nick’s patience broke at last. Unable to get beyond their first scene together, the same lines repeating over and over, the same mistakes and no feeling between them, he threw up his hands in exasperation and, to spare the boy’s feelings, walked silently away.
‘I’m so sorry, Master Shakespeare.’ The boy was close to tears. ‘I’ll try harder. I’m so sorry …’
Will patted his shoulder without a word and turned away to follow Nick into the tiring house. The rest of the players said nothing. It was clearly not going to work – less than a week till they played and they had no Lady. The raised voices of Will and Nick drifted out from the tiring house in snatches.
‘What are we going to do?’
‘What can we do?’
Then a silence and low murmurs that the listening company could not catch. Sarah laid down her sewing on the bench beside her and got up, conscious of the eyes of all the watchers as she took the steps up onto the stage, walked across it, and entered the tiring house. Both men swung towards her and she stopped short, made nervous by the anger she could see in them. She waited to be asked to speak, aware of her uninvited intrusion and the gravity of what they were discussing.
‘What is it, Sarah?’ Will spoke in a polite tone that she knew masked a slew of other emotions.
She took a deep breath, conscious that her words might be unwelcome, hesitant to say them. But it was an answer and it could save the play. ‘Tom could play it,’ she managed to say.
The two men looked at each other, unspoken questions hanging between them.
‘There is no one else.’ Will shrugged and turned away with a sigh, and Nick sought out Sarah’s gaze with his own. They met for a heartbeat before she dropped her eyes away from him, disturbed by what she had seen. ‘And someone must do it,’ Will said.
‘Does he have the skill?’ Nick asked.
Will lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘There is no one else,’ he repeated. ‘Without Richard, without John, we are truly short of actors, and someone must play it.’ Then, to Sarah, ‘Is he here?’
She motioned upstairs with her head.
‘Fetch him,’ Will ordered and she hurried past them to the stairs and climbed.
Tom descended reluctantly.
‘Will you do it?’ Will asked. ‘Will you play the Lady?’
She saw her brother’s hesitation, the glance he threw towards Nick, who had turned his back, and the question in his eyes for her. She had known when she suggested it that neither man would like it: they had not spoken to each other since Tom had left them last night, still sprawled and breathless on the rug after making love. Tom was silent and she knew he was waiting for Nick to turn around and give him his permission to play. Long moments passed and all eyes rested on Nick’s back, waiting. Finally, when she thought he would never face them, he wheeled slowly round. His mouth was fierce with tension and his hands were tightly balled, knuckles white.
‘I’ll play if Nick allows it,’ Tom said.
‘It’s not for Nick to decide!’ Will’s fury was plain.
‘Yes, it is,’ Tom said, and his gaze remained on Nick’s face.
Nick swallowed, the muscle in his jaw moving back and forth, fists stretching open and closed. She could see the hatred in his eyes and she slid her gaze away. She should have kept quiet, she thought. His anger would turn to her again for suggesting this, but in spite of everything, she could not let the play fail when a chance remained to save it.
Will looked from one to the other, bewildered by the sudden animosity. Last time he had seen them, walking Sarah home from the Marshalsea, the two men had been friends. He flicked a questioning glance towards Sarah, who gave him an evasive half-smile. There was nothing she could tell him to explain, and he could never know.
The silence lingered. Nick’s eyes came to rest on Sarah, observing her as some unknown thing, a stranger he could not understand. She could see the implicit reproach within the anger: she had made him love her and then turned cruel towards him. At last he turned to Tom.
‘What other choice do we have?’ He shrugged. ‘He can play.’
Will clapped his hands together in relief and strode out of the tiring house to tell the others. Tom followed him, eager to be away from Nick’s hatred. Nick turned to her, brow creased, eyes dark with mistrust of her. She remembered how he used to be when first she fell in love with him, before all of this, when his mouth had been wide in smiles and the light in his eyes had been bright and full of laughter. She had done this to him, she thought. She and Tom between them had taken his happiness.
‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘Why would you suggest Tom do it?’
She shrugged. ‘I wanted to save the play.’
‘But surely …’ He trailed off, arms lifting in incredulous bafflement.
‘There is no one else,’ she said. ‘Alexander, John Lowin – they could do it but they already have their parts. And Tom will be good.’
‘John was good,’ he snarled. ‘John was perfect … until you and your brother …’ He turned away, unwilling to put words to the thoughts.
She stepped towards him with a backward glance at the stage to check they were still alone. ‘We did nothing to John,’ she said, moving close to him. But he would not look at her. She stretched out a tentative hand to his arm, but he shrugged it off and took two steps away from her. She let her arm fall.
‘Your brother has evil in him,’ he breathed. ‘It was his actions that sent John mad, by whatever means he used. He seduced him, corrupted him, pure and simple. And you …’ He turned towards her then, chin tilted in aggression, words spat between his teeth. She stepped back, nervous of him now. They had crossed a line together yesterday and she no longer trusted him not to hurt her. ‘Was it your idea, you and him? Or was it his?’
‘I drea
med of it,’ she whispered quickly. ‘That it would lead me to you.’
Nick lifted his head and let out a laugh that startled her. ‘A dream? Oh dear God. You had a dream.’ He lowered his gaze to her, a wry smile across his face, and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes were beautiful. ‘And when he suggested it for real, did you hesitate?’ he asked. ‘Even for a moment?’
Her eyes filled with tears and she could not stop them, so she turned her face away. ‘Of course I did,’ she replied. Her voice was trembling and she wiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands, but the tears kept coming. ‘But I wanted you so much, and my dreams have always led me truly in the past …’
He shook his head. ‘You foolish, foolish girl,’ he whispered. ‘I would have been yours, and willingly. I would have come to you freely. But now you have trapped me, and though I must love you, I’ll hate you too for the chain you’ve placed around me.’
She was silent. There was no answer to his logic and she did not know how she could undo what she had done. She wiped at her face again. Nick watched her for a moment before he stepped across the boards towards her. She tensed, ready to meet his anger, but instead he placed a finger under her chin and lifted her face to his.
‘Don’t cry,’ he said. ‘I hate it when girls cry.’
She smiled, grateful for the humour, conscious of the wetness of her face, her breath coming unevenly in snatches. He returned the smile and gently wiped the tears away with his fingertips. This was the Nick she knew and loved. The Nick she had wanted. Tender and funny and beautiful. Then he folded his arms around her and drew her in to his chest and held her. They were still standing in their embrace when Tom reappeared through the door.
‘The rehearsal is starting,’ he said.
They moved apart and turned to look at him, his outline tall and narrow in the doorway against the light of the theatre. She remembered him watching them in the heat of their passion and a sliver of shame crept through her.
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