This Towering Passion

by Valerie Sherwood

  Flora followed her to the stable and offered to help her saddle the gray mare, but Lenore was traveling light. “Sell the saddle and saddlebags and buy Lorena things she needs—I’ll ride bareback, I’ve done so before. And in my room there’s a linen handkerchief beneath the mattress and in it an amethyst ring. ’Twas in the saddlebag of the gray mare that I took from the robber that I stabbed after I’d lamed Snowfire trying to escape him—’tis his horse and his ring, and I’ve no doubt he stole both. But I do not want the crime of stealing the amethyst ring charged against me, too, so keep the ring against a time Lorena needs the money.”

  Flora’s eyes misted over. “You take too little for yourself, Lenore.”

  Lenore’s delicate jaw tightened. “I have made my own troubles, Flora. I will not visit them on my daughter. She deserves more good things than I can give her.”

  She threw her arms about Snowfire’s white neck, buried her face in his silky mane, and whispered a goodbye. He nuzzled her lovingly and whinnied as she led the gray mare from the stable.

  “Take care of Snowfire for me.” Lenore’s voice broke as tears streamed like rain from her tormented violet eyes, “I want Lorena to have him—she’ll love him as I do. And— thank you for everything. Flora.”

  Flora gave her a rough hug. “All will be taken care of,” she said huskily. “You need have no fears for what you leave behind, Lenore.”

  Lenore did not answer. She couldn’t just then. She swung up on the gray mare’s back and skirted the garden and plunged into the trees. She did not look back at the vicarage, for she could not have seen it—the world before her, green and leafy, shimmered with her tears.

  Flora watched her ride away to the east with troubled eyes. She was sure she would never see Lenore again, and her heart ached for the valiant girl to whom beauty had been such a dangerous and deadly gift. At least the bairn would be safe, for she’d care for Lorena tenderly—that much she could do for Jamie and his wild young handfast bride. Sighing, she led Snowfire deep into the trees and left him tethered by a little spring where none would find him. She gave him an encouraging pat as she left—he’d have water here, and she’d come back for him tomorrow.

  When she returned to the vicarage the men who had come for Lenore were waiting for her. She pretended shock at their news, asked endless questions to slow them down, insisted they search the house, and at last told them that Lenore had said she was going to take some cakes to old Mother Greer, who’d been ailing lately—which was strange, now that she came to think of it, for old Mother Greer lived to the south of town and Lenore had ridden her white horse away to the west.

  The two men exchanged significant glances and left quickly, asking her to let them know if Lenore came back. Flora watched grimly as they rode away to the west on the wild-goose chase on which she’d sent them.

  The vicar had come in just in time to hear her last revelation, and he frowned as they disappeared from view. “I doubt me that Mistress Lenore was on her way to see Mother Greer, Flora. They were not on friendly terms.”

  Flora sighed. “She’ll not be back, Robbie. The bairn is ours. ’Twill be up to us to bring her up.”

  The hills and vales around Twainmere were thoroughly searched, but no trace of Lenore was found. When Flora reported next day that Snowfire had limped in from the west, a new furor erupted, for it was assumed Lenore had been thrown. After a while it was believed she might have fallen into Watson’s Gorge, which lay to the west, and that the dangerous whirlpool just before the river disappeared into the mountain might have sucked her body down to whirl forever in dark endless depths.

  It was a fate some of the village women had once wished upon Lenore.

  With Jamie dead and buried and Lenore gone under such evil circumstances—for her flight was considered an admission of guilt—her reputation was any man’s game. Wild were the tales they told of her at the local tavern. Half the men in the village bragged they’d bedded her. Boys so young they’d barely have reached up to her shoulder insisted they’d spent long, wild nights with her; older men winked and muttered stories to each other and guffawed.

  Mollie Paxton came to believe she’d been done out of her sometime lover—Jamie the Scot—by a veritable demon, a murderess at the least and perhaps a witch to boot, who had by sorcery lured Jamie to Worcester to his doom. Married now to Dick Fall and of a garrulous nature, she fanned the gossip to flame.

  Around Twainmere hearths at night they talked of Lenore, enlarging, expanding the tale with each retelling. Children listened round-eyed and then stared surreptitiously at Flora as she walked by carrying baby Lorena.

  Wild young Lenore Frankford with her red dancing shoes and flame-colored hair had become a village legend.

  CHAPTER 23

  Her departure from Twainmere marked a time of terror for Lenore. She felt hunted as a fox is hunted, and at first was afraid to break cover lest some farmer or wandering shepherd report seeing a bright-haired woman and her pursuers start off with a fresh scent. That first day she rode as far as she dared, and when the gray horse was exhausted, spent that first night hiding in a deep copse and weeping for Lorena.

  The next day was uneventful, but toward evening she heard mounted men moving about and sometimes she could hear shouted orders and curses. Hastily she retreated to a grove of beech heavily laced with thorn, where she hid the night. She had no way of knowing whether the men were hunting her (indeed they were not, but sought a rogue who had escaped the gallows in Cirencester), but she dared not take chances. So as soon as it was light she kept the gray mare floundering down the rocks of a narrow winding stream and over rocky places—in case of pursuit by dogs, though she’d heard no hounds baying—until the mare gave her such a reproachful look that Lenore felt pity for her and guided her out upon a soft green hillside, doubtless soon to be used by sheep, and dismounted to let her graze the waving green grass.

  She’d avoided hamlets and taken the twisting sheep trails, and by the next afternoon, when she rode deep into a forest, she was thoroughly lost. On she blundered, seeking a high place that would give her a view of the countryside where she could find her bearings—and came to an abrupt halt at the sound of clashing swords.

  She might have turned and ridden away in panic, but the sound of swordplay was promptly followed by loud laughter and a ribald masculine voice crying, “Nigel, ye do be awkward today—ye’re supposed to run me through! Try again.”

  This startling statement was too much for Lenore’s curiosity. She slid off the mare’s back, slipped her bridle over a dead tree branch, and tiptoed forward to peer between some low-hanging limbs into a small woodland clearing.

  There, ringed about by a small ragged company, who sat or lay at their ease as they watched, two men flailed cheerfully away at each other with swords that flashed bright in the sun. As she watched in amazement, the shorter one cried, “Aha!” and plunged his sword into the chest of the taller.

  With a hoarse cry the taller one fell backward, clutching his chest while the smaller fellow withdrew his sword— amazingly bloodless—and strode away. A moment later the tall one scrambled up.

  “Is that better, Monty?” he asked anxiously, addressing a man whose back was to Lenore.

  “Aye,” was the cool reply. “And ’twill be realistic enough when you have a bladder of sheep’s blood tied beneath your jerkin to soak through and confound the audience!”

  “Nigel had best not strike me too hard,” objected the tall fellow, “for ’tis only a part of that sword that slides into the hilt—slippery with goose grease or no!”

  “I’ll be careful of your timid hide!” roared short Nigel. “Was it not well done, Monty? Was it not?”

  Amid general laughter Lenore relaxed and took a deep, sighing breath, remembering the play she’d attended back in Oxford. These men must be strolling players, rehearsing their lines. And like herself, actors were outside the Lord Protector’s stern law, so she need not fear them.

  “Well done!” she cried a
nd began to applaud.

  All heads turned alertly toward the leafy foliage that concealed her from their view.

  “It seems we have an audience!” cried the man called Monty. “And an appreciative one! Come, show yourself.” Lenore stepped boldly forward into the clearing and for a moment their voices were stilled at the sight of a beautiful woman, come apparently from nowhere into their midst.

  “By the Lord Harry—a maid!” muttered Monty. He came over to her, limping a little, but a courtly figure nonetheless. Tall and thin with a shock of thick white hair that waved to his shoulders, his white beard trimmed to a point, he wore a threadbare red velvet coat with a handful of dirty lace at his throat, flowing knee breeches of tattered olive silk, and a pair of boots that seemed about to depart his legs. But his stride was vigorous, his step firm, and his stance and the look he gave Lenore marked him as one of authority—and admiration. Although he must be more than twice her age, before that admiring gaze Lenore found herself wishing she were not clothed so unattractively in Flora’s made-over gray dress.

  He made her a handsome leg, this old-young man, his wavy hair almost sweeping the grass as he bowed low. “Montmorency Hogue at your service, mistress.”

  “Lenore Frankford,” said Lenore and bit her lip. She should not have given him her right name.

  “How did you find us, mistress? For we thought ourselves well hidden in this glade.”

  “I was not seeking you,” Lenore told him frankly. “I was but passing by when I heard your voices and peered through the branches in time to see that mock duel.”

  “Ah, don’t call it a mock duel,” Montmorency Hogue chided her humorously. “For Alan and Nigel take it as seriously as any-real life contest. As you could see, they’re very desperate about it! We are but a company of strolling players and have not much to offer a lady, but would you share a tankard of cider with me?” He shook his head to warn away those who would have crowded around Lenore and led her a little apart from the others. There he poured a tankard of cider for her and one for himself and set back the keg.

  Lenore accepted hers gratefully. She had had only water to drink since she had left Twainmere, and she was fond of cider.

  Montmorency Hogue dusted off a fallen tree trunk with an elegant gesture—and a threadbare glove—and bade her sit.

  “Whence came you, Mistress Frankford?” he asked with studied casualness that belied the alert look in his green eyes. “And .. . did you chance upon anybody on the way here?”

  That, thought Lenore shrewdly, was what he really wanted to know. She took a sip of cider. “Last night I heard mounted men riding by shouting to one another,” she admitted cautiously.

  Hogue frowned.

  “But I have heard no one today,” she added hastily.

  It was his turn to be shrewd. “These mounted men—did you ask them what they sought?”

  Lenore sat a little straighter. “No. They—they seemed to be going in a different direction.”

  “A different direction ... I see.” He studied her and then he laughed. “I believe it possible they were seeking you, mistress.”

  “Or possibly you,” countered Lenore, her eyes glinting.

  He gave a courtly nod. “Either one. We are wanted for riving an unlawful performance of one of Will Shakespeare’s plays outside Coventry, and we’ve been harried ever since. I know not why a theatrical performance should be counted so great a crime!” He sighed, downed his cider, and rested the tankard on the tree trunk. “And you, mistress?”

  Lenore liked this white-haired man with the young face and keen eyes and genial smile. She took a deep draught of the cider and decided to take him into her confidence. “On the road north from Oxford, robbers attacked us. My friend was killed, the robbers got clean away—and now the law seeks me, for ’tis the general belief that I killed my friend for the money in his pockets.”

  Montmorency Hogue drew in his breath in a long, low whistle. “Methinks, mistress, ye are in worse case than we!”

  Lenore nodded. “I am not sure I can prove my innocence, so I am in flight. Could it be”—she gave him a look of entreaty—“that I could travel with your troupe?”

  His heavy eyebrows elevated. “A woman? But as you can see, we are all men in our troupe. If you have seen any plays, mistress, then you must know that young boys perform the female roles.”

  Lenore looked about her. “I see no one here under thirty.”

  He laughed. “Yes, we are all growing old. ’Tis unfortunate, but there are few new recruits for a poorly paid profession that these days must be performed on the run. There were brave days for us in the old king’s time—I myself have performed at Blackfriars and at the Hope— but the Lord Protector has closed the theaters. Our clothes grow tattered and hardly keep out the winter cold, we can scarce afford feed for the horses that draw our cart, and the men of our company can afford to keep neither wives nor doxies!”

  Lenore flushed. “I am not a doxie,” she said tartly.

  “Nor did I mean to imply it,” said Montmorency Hogue hastily. “But what could you do to earn your keep, mistress? Stitch a fine seam on our worn costumes? For all here must work.”

  “I do not stitch so fine a seam,” admitted Lenore in a rueful voice. “ ’Tis not one of my accomplishments. But I could do your laundry—and there must be a great deal of it, for you are so many.”

  He sighed. “ ’Tis another service we perform for ourselves when we camp along convenient streams and rivers. Poverty makes a man master of many callings.”

  Lenore felt crestfallen, but she comforted herself that she had not really hoped to join them. She rose.

  “I thank you for the cider,” she said. “And I will be on my way.”

  “No, stay a moment.” Montmorency Hogue was considering her thoughtfully. “Could it be you know the way to Cirencester, mistress?”

  “I have been to Cirencester,” admitted Lenore. “Once. To a fair. But now I am quite lost. If I could but climb to the top of a hill and perhaps see where I am—”

  “No matter, I will point out the way. You see, we have been waiting for our advance man all week.”

  “Advance man?”

  “Aye. We have a man who goes ahead of us and prepares the way. He arranges for our lodgings, he finds a place for us to hold the performance, he feels out the land to see if the authorities keep too fierce control and we should shun the place and seek another—and he makes arrangements with one or two good men in the community to let out the word in the right quarters that a theatrical performance is to be held.”

  Lenore gave him a look of surprise, and he said grimly, Did ye think plays were impromptu affairs, mistress? Much careful planning do they take in advance—and now with the law stalking us, even more so. Will Summers is our advance man, and he has been gone these two weeks to Cirencester, where we are to perform Twelfth Night. . . we hope. Will should have been back a week ago, but we have heard naught from him. Our faces are too well known in Cirencester for any of us to go and seek him there, in case aught is amiss. But we would give you money for your food and night’s lodging in Cirencester, and shelter and protection to the next town we visit after Cirencester, if you would go in and see what is keeping Will.”

  “It could be that my face would be known in Cirencester also,” murmured Lenore. “Yet I would do it if—do you perhaps have a costume I could wear? Those who seek me will have a description of what I wear and know the color of my hair.”

  Montmorency Hogue rose. “That I can.” He led her to a high-sided cart. “We cannot afford costumes for the male parts,” he admitted frankly. “We wear our own clothes, whether we play Julius Caesar or King Lear or Hamlet. But for the female parts the men don dresses. We have needle and thread—you can baste one up to fit you. And I think we could find you a black wig.”

  He was pawing through a large wooden chest as he spoke, spilling out laces and tinsel, an orange-plumed hat and a broken fan. He straightened up holding a gown of yellow satin garni
shed in copper lace. It was stained at the hem, but Lenore looked at it wistfully—how beautiful it must have been when new!

  He watched her finger it lovingly. “It would not be wise to wear so bright a gown to Cirencester, mistress,” he chided gently, taking it from her. “This would do better.” He pulled out a costume of widow’s weeds complete with a heavy black veil. “This veil will hide your features well. And this wig—though it may sit a trifle askew until you have gentled it a bit—is yours as well.” He handed her a tousled black wig and a coarse wooden comb. “And when ye return from Cirencester with word of Will Summers, we’ll have a brown wig for ye, and ye can wear the yellow satin then.”

  Lenore knew that was subtle bait to ensure her return, for he could not know that she would keep her promise; with lodging-money in her pocket, she might well continue her journey in the opposite direction. She smiled her thanks, knowing no way to reassure him—but something in her steady eyes managed that very well. He found her a needle and black thread, dug into his pocket, and gave her some coins—she suspected his store of them was meager— and waved his arm at the trees. “Your dressing room!” Lenore retired into cover of the foliage. And when a little later she paraded out before the company in her somber mourning garb—the black gown basted with big stitches so that it outlined her delightful figure—and tossed back the black curls that now fell down over her ears, there was a general round of applause.

  “None would know you, mistress,” approved Montmorency Hogue. “And Will Summers will be easy to remark. He will be laying over at the Ox and Bow, for he was once on friendly terms with the innkeeper’s sister— before she married a man with a less chancy profession. Will is of medium height and very florid—his nose is as red as a cherry. He will be wearing an orange coat, for ’tis the only one he possesses, and he has long stringy hair the color of butter. You might pretend to be his niece seeking him. Will professes to be from Torquay and has many nieces.” He grinned.

  “I will find him,” promised Lenore. Indeed, how could she miss him, she wondered—a man who looked like that? “Is it your wish that I should start out now?” She cast a longing look at the cookfire at the edge of the clearing where two of the company were roasting venison.