This Towering Passion

by Valerie Sherwood

Lenore nodded without interest. Orange Moll, she knew, was the fruitwoman and queen of the orange girls.

  Soon Lenore had joined the buxom, brawling, good-looking group of young women who hawked their wares in the pit. She made only a fair living selling oranges, for she did not choose to respond in kind to the bawdy remarks the young bucks made to orange girls, and her swift bright smile flashed but seldom.

  “Thinks she’s above us, she does,” said Orange Moll, aggrieved. “I wouldn’t of taken her on except for Killigrew—he asked me.”

  The other girls agreed with Moll. They bawled their wares and shook their hips and flirted their skirts and wore their bodices cut so low they almost exposed breasts as big as juicy oranges. They jeered at Lenore for having been nicknamed “Mistress Chastity,” and one or two tried to trip her in the crush.

  Lenore did her best to ignore them. She was fallen low, but she hoped as best she could to preserve her dignity. Men looked at her with open curiosity as she struggled by them through the crowded pit, calling out her wares. But enough of them bought her oranges that she could live— though she had to move from the Spur into cheaper lodgings—and a bare existence was all she cared for in this period of despondency.

  But as the days passed and she began to eat again, her beauty was restored, and she was soon the wistful target of all eyes as she swayed gracefully through the crowd in the steaming pit, selling China oranges for sixpence apiece. Around her the other orange girls bawled their wares so loudly they obliterated the sounds of the First Music, but Lenore kept her voice low. It was her beauty that made patrons call her over to them. They wanted to fill their eyes with her, and so they bought her oranges.

  In time she might have become an actress again, but. . . at an evening performance she looked up and saw Gilbert again.

  It was a hot night, a special performance, crowded with luminaries. Onstage between acts, the company was performing a lively jig. Lenore had been threading her way carefully through the boisterous crowd in the pit, trying to avoid a noisy quarrel that had broken out between some wild young bucks just in from the West Country and a group of London apprentices that threatened to break into a full-scale riot. Insults and curses flew about, the dancers stomped, the music pounded, and the orange girls tried to bawl their wares above the din.

  Lenore’s attention had been completely absorbed by the brawling that had erupted, and it was a shock to find herself looking directly into Gilbert Marnock’s face.

  She stepped back warily, treading on a booted toe and muttering an apology, scarce heard in the uproar. Gilbert did not speak, but naked hatred leaped out at her from his hard caramel eyes. All the lust with which he had always studied her seemed erased, all remnants of humanity had disappeared from his gaze, and Lenore was shaken by the sheer evil of his glare.

  She turned away, having to clamber over a protruding satin knee, slapped away some impudent pinching fingers, and struggled between two fat gentlemen, almost wedged together at the ends of two bulrush-covered benches. She was tired, she could feel perspiration dripping down her back causing her thin worn dress to stick to her, and the noise was giving her a headache. Last night fighting had broken out in the pit and erupted onto the stage when three half-drunk cavaliers had leaped onto the green baize, pushed aside the actors, and elected to fight it out with swords in full view of the audience. She hoped nothing like that would happen tonight. Some distance away one of the apprentices had leaped to his feet and was calling “To me!” Someone else pulled him down. If only she could sell her oranges and go home . . . She struggled on, ignoring Gilbert’s smouldering glares, selling her oranges where she might, evading as best she could the surreptitious pinches and pats of the young bloods who thought orange girls easy prey.

  Lenore would have done well to keep an eye on Gilbert.

  But she was intent on keeping her ankles from being cut by the big spurs on the gentlemen’s boots—they were so fashionable they were even worn in drawing rooms—and on avoiding the vicinity of the bristling apprentices.

  So she did not see Gilbert get up and push his way through to the little clot of disreputable cavaliers who were the constant companions of Lord Wilsingame, did not see them part to admit Gilbert, did not see Gilbert bend over his lordship and engage him in conversation. At what he said, Lord Wilsingame’s hard face registered first shock, then anger. He turned and spoke to the heavyset gallant who sat next to him, whose name was Bonnifly, and Bonnifly lurched to his feet and stared openly at Lenore’s back until those behind him shouted at him to sit down. A place was hastily made for Gilbert beside Lord Wilsingame, by the simple expedient of pushing an elderly gentleman not of their party, who sat at the end of the bench, off onto the floor. He landed with a yelp, but Bonnifly gave him such a threatening look that he rose and fled through the crowd.

  Lenore would have done well to note all of these things, for the group around Lord Wilsingame were drinking heavily this night, and Lord Wilsingame had been publicly humiliated by Lenore. She could not know that Gilbert, with his hypnotic voice and insinuating manner, was fanning Lord Wilsingame’s erotic interest in Lenore to flame by describing strange, wild delights he’d enjoyed whilst sharing her bed in Oxford. She would have screamed in fury had she heard Gilbert recount the things he had done to her and the wanton passion she had displayed.

  “Can it be true?” wondered Wilsingame. “Our Mistress Chastity a whore?”

  “ Tis true, I swear it,” said Gilbert glibly. “In Oxford all knew of her exploits. In truth,” he added on a lewd note, “in Oxford all knew her!”

  Wilsingame frowned. “Then why so coy with us in London? Answer me that!”

  Gilbert shrugged and took a pinch of snuff from an enamelled box. “Oxford is far from London. Here she could set herself up as a virgin—perhaps to entrap a King. As Nell has done.”

  Wilsingame drummed his fingers on his hard satin-cased thighs. “Then Mistress Lenore should be taught a lesson, it seems to me!”

  “I doubt you can buy her,” warned Gilbert. “She likes to keep up the fiction that she is a virgin.”

  “Buy her? I do not intend to try,” said Wilsingame brutally. “It strikes me that I have been too nice with our Iron Virgin!”

  These were the words Gilbert wanted to hear. He turned with a snicker to mutter some bestiality about Lenore into Wilsingame’s ear. Wilsingame looked astonished. He smote his knee with his fist. “She’ll do that for me, too!” he cried. “Aye, and for all of us!”

  Gilbert sat back, well satisfied. “I doubt me there’s a trick you could mention that Mistress Lenore does not know,” he drawled. “Of amorous delights, she’s a mistress! Though she’d never admit it. . . .”

  “A taste of the whip will spur her memory,” said Wilsingame heavily.

  “Mistress Chastity has always bested you, Wilsingame,” laughed the dissolute de Quincy, turning around from the seat just in front. “Take care that she does not best you this time!”

  “That she will not!” Wilsingame rumbled an oath. “She will be taught a lesson this very night. No, not tonight.” He looked irritable. “Tonight I must bide at home to waylay one who will be crossing London Bridge on the King’s business.”

  Gilbert pricked up his ears. He had been learning London ways, and he now knew that hangers-on like Wilsingame waylaid passing notables whenever possible and urged hospitality upon them—in hopes of gaining a useful friend at Court. “But why not tonight?” he said craftily. “Provide your guest with ripe entertainment—Mistress Lenore herself!”

  Wilsingame brightened. “Why not?” he muttered. “My manservant can watch for him as he crosses the Bridge and bring him in—no need for me to do it. We’ll serve her up like a bird on a platter!”

  “Ah, she’ll not disappoint you,” sighed Gilbert. “Though it may at first take some persuasion to urge her on.”

  “Come with us, Marnock,” urged Wilsingame. “We’ll have sport together.”

  Gilbert laughed, but dodged that neatl
y. “I’d like that, Wilsingame—but alas, I’ve a ripe wench of my own who waits for me at my lodgings. She’ll grow restive if I’m late. But having heard you once fancied Mistress Lenore and that she had palmed herself off on you as a virgin, I thought ’twas only just you be apprised of her true nature. A veritable strumpet! In bed she is devastating!”

  Wilsingame’s heavy-lidded eyes widened enough to emit a lusty sparkle. “She will be put through all of her paces tonight,” he growled. “You can rest assured of it! And I count it a favor that you have brought me this agreeable piece of news, Marnock. My door is always open to you.” Graciously he offered Gilbert his gold snuffbox.

  “Your lordship is too gracious.” Delicately Gilbert took a pinch of snuff and sneezed. “Ah, a good blend!” He looked up to see that the jig was ending and the third act was about to begin. “Well, I’ve seen this play so often I think I’ll take myself off before I start reciting the lines along with the players! Good health, gentlemen!” Wilsingame’s friends nodded affably and Gilbert got up and pushed his way over a tangle of booted feet, past a number of skirts and petticoats which he disarranged in straggling through, and made his way quickly down the long passage and out of the theatre.

  He wanted to be well away from what was about to happen—in case Lenore should ever in future command the interest of the King, for he’d heard about her interview at Whitehall. Then, no matter what she said, no blame could be placed on him—’twould only be the hysterical accusation of a spiteful woman; he, Gilbert, would neatly escape the royal wrath.

  The orange girl, he told himself with vicious emphasis as he rode home in a hackney coach, would not be so crisp and arrogant after tonight!

  CHAPTER 29

  Lenore, quite oblivious to these schemes, struggled through the unruly crowd, handing out an occasional orange, trying to make change—and knew a moment of gratitude when she looked back and saw Gilbert Marnock leaving the theatre. Then someone trod painfully on her foot and she groaned and forgot him.

  But her progress through the pit was being surveyed grimly by Lord Wilsingame, who had lost all interest in the third act of the play—even though onstage a masked devil with a forked stick had just disappeared through a trapdoor in the floor and above the stage a tinseled angel was being flown about movable “clouds,” maneuvered on ropes. Wilsingame drummed his fingers on his satin knee and stared at the lovely orange girl with such a combination of lust and vengefulness as would have chilled her blood had she but seen it—but her attention was elsewhere, on the apprentices who had settled down for the moment but might grow restive again.

  Finally, having set his mind upon the object to be gained, Wilsingame gave thought to how to go about it. He bethought him that this was a play with a loud thunderstorm near the end—and very loud thunder indeed would be produced by the scenekeepers backstage as they rolled great cannon balls over sticks and pounded wooden mustard bowls, whilst others flashed pans of gunpowder and musicians pounded out a rumble on big bass drums. A noisy ending for a noisy play. It occurred to him that the timing of the thunder would suit him perfectly. He leaned over and muttered a few words to the evil cronies with whom he surrounded himself. They laughed as at some great jest, and two of them heaved themselves to their feet amid cries of, “Sit down! Sit!” and wormed their way through the audience and out of the theatre.

  Pleased with himself, Wilsingame sat back and watched the play proceed. He waited till it was near its end, and then when Lenore came weaving through the crush with her oranges, he leaned forward and snapped his fingers.

  “Here—orange girl! To me!”

  Lenore turned at the cry of “orange girl” and frowned slightly when she saw who the speaker was. Wilsingame smiled ingratiatingly.

  “Mistress,” he drawled in a bored tone, “I would buy all your oranges if you would but deliver them to my coach outside.”

  “Quiet!” someone yelled from behind. “And move aside, orange girl—you are obstructing my view of the players!”

  Lenore moved aside a step, but she hesitated. Lord Wilsingame’s unsavory reputation had grown even blacker of late. It was common gossip at the theatre that he bought virgins and that he gathered together groups of his friends and held mass deflowerings. Although wags at the theatre insisted most of the wenches were not virgins at all, but fakes palmed off on him by the knowing madams, most of those who were, ended up as prostitutes in their plush establishments, and it was rumored that two of the unfortunate wenches, ill-used, had died and their bodies had been tossed into the Thames from Wilsingame’s upper windows. Lenore had no reason to doubt these bizarre stories, and gave silent thanks that young Emma had got away from him. But as she sold her oranges she had always been careful to give the unsavory Wilsingame a wide berth. She hated the very look of the man: those heavy-lidded dark eyes always seemed to crawl over her body like reptiles, chilling her very skin.

  Tonight she saw that he sat among his friends—men whose company he was seldom without and who were known to her by reputation. Her uneasy gaze roved over them: de Quincy the swordsman, a dissolute brawler but reputed to be the best blade in London; tall and lean, he had turned to watch, and his narrow green eyes were licking over her body. Flemmons, with a cold reptilian look— a graceful dandy who’d been barred from half the bawdy-houses of London for his manhandling of their bawds; he frowned darkly at her because in better days Mistress Chastity had snubbed him. And Alverdice, a wealthy young lout newly in from York and eager to plumb the depths of depravity, who now considered her eagerly, as if she were an orange herself, ripe for peeling. And perhaps the worst of the lot—Bonnifly, a heavyset monster of a man with reaching fingers whose painful pinches Lenore had endured more than once as she tried to edge by the group who surrounded Wilsingame. Bonnifly was said to have smashed a young actress’s jaw because she resisted his advances, and had been barred from Court. His surly face turned to watch the hesitant orange girl. She thought there’d been two others with Wilsingame, but they seemed to have gone.

  Soberly Lenore considered the arrogant Wilsingame. He hated her, she knew, for having held him up to public ridicule. Still . . . that was some time ago and he’d undoubtedly debauched a number of virgins since then—and she had fallen low; he might consider that she had been punished enough for flaunting him. She did not regret humiliating him. She’d do it again, if she had to.

  An angry bellow came from one of the apprentices. He turned and soundly cuffed the man behind him, yelling that he’d been struck from behind. Someone pulled him off his bench, and a moment later they were rolling among boots and spurs on the floor, locked in combat. There was a rising clamor between the West Countrymen and the apprentices. Lenore knew it was only a matter of time before large-scale fighting erupted—and the last time that had happened, all her oranges had got knocked to the floor and trampled to pulp.

  Wilsingame yawned and deliberately took a pinch of snuff. “Well?” he asked testily, snapping his gold snuffbox shut. “Do I buy your oranges, mistress? Or do I procure them from another?”

  Lenore disliked the idea of going outside at Wilsingame’s behest. But the play had not yet ended, and it was doubtful either Wilsingame or his cronies would leave early— they never did. She was tempted ... all her oranges. Let the apprentices and the West Countrymen fight it out in the pit! Having sold all her oranges, she could go home to her cheap lodgings in Southwark well ahead of the crowd and she could get some sleep—if sleep she could, for her lonely, restless nights were even more tormenting than her days.

  “Give the oranges to my coachman.” Wilsingame thumped the money into her hand as if it were a fact accomplished and turned back to give his rapt attention to the play.

  That gesture of dismissal decided Lenore. Of course she would deliver them to his coach. No need to fear. Wilsingame and his cronies obviously were going to stay in the theatre. No doubt he was entertaining some doxie tonight and wished to favor her with high-priced oranges which she could bite into on the way t
o some other feast.

  Lenore threaded her way out of the audience, where the noise of the combatants was fast drowning out the best efforts of the shouting players, and went swiftly through the long passageway that led out into Vere Street. She knew Wilsingame’s coach by sight—all knew it because it was flaming red with much gilding and the green and gold Wilsingame arms emblazoned on the side. Ah, here it was now, just coming up to the door to wait for Wilsingame, who would be coming out as soon as the play ended—if he could make it through the brawlers. She hurried toward it and reached up toward the coachman with the oranges.

  As he reached down to take them, the door of the coach burst open, and two men jumped out. Lenore recognized them as Taggart and Lymond, the two missing members of the coterie that surrounded Wilsingame.

  She screamed and turned to run, dropping her oranges. The oranges rolled over the cobbles as greyhound-lean Lymond, leaping forward, caught Lenore’s shoulder in a punishing grip and spun her around. She would have lost her footing but that burly Taggart caught her other arm and together they dragged her back to the coach.

  Lenore’s screams might have attracted attention, but just as she opened her mouth the very building behind her began to boom with artificial thunder. As they dragged her to the coach, the warring apprentices and West Countrymen spilled out into the street exchanging blows and shouting curses—and Lymond and Taggart appeared to be rescuing a hysterical lady from the mob. They fairly threw Lenore into the coach, and Lymond promptly sat on her legs, pinning her down effectively while heavyset Taggart held onto her flailing arms.

  Wilsingame had timed the attack exactly right.

  Lenore was not going to give up without a struggle. Even though pinned down, she sank her teeth into Lymond’s lean arm. He let out an angry oath as she bit him, grasped her arms from Taggart, and jerked them behind her so that she writhed in agony and a dark veil of pain descended over her eyes. When her vision cleared, she realized that she was twisted into a half-sitting position on the floor of the coach and surrounded on all sides by booted legs—and shiny spurs. She swung her head around. She stared upward and knew terror. Fearsome Bonnifly had joined Taggart and Lymond, and the heavy-lidded eyes above those loose cruel lips that smiled down at her belonged to Wilsingame himself.