Читать книгу The Taming of the Rogue - Amanda McCabe - Страница 11

Anna bent her head over the ledger books spread across her desk, trying to concentrate on the neat rows of numbers tabulating that day’s receipts from the theatre. She usually loved keeping the accounts—in the end, figures always added up to the correct answer. Unlike human life, they were regular and predictable. She understood them.

Tonight, though, the black ink numbers kept blurring before her eyes. Images kept flashing through her mind, bright and vivid, of Robert Alden and that blood on his shoulder. The solemn look in his eyes as he looked up at her, as if he hid ancient and terrible secrets deep inside—secrets he had only allowed her to glimpse for that one moment before he concealed them again.

‘Fie on it all,’ she cursed, and threw down her quill in frustration. Tiny droplets of ink scattered across the page. Of course Robert had secrets. Everyone in their world did. It was a dirty, crowded life, and everyone had to survive any way they could. She saw it every day. No one emerged with clean hands or hearts, least of all those who relied on the theatre for their living. She held enough secrets and regrets of her own—she didn’t need anyone else’s.

Yet something in his eyes had moved her today, quite against her will. Rob Alden was a handsome, merry devil, known to be as quick with a mocking laugh as with his rapier. Today he had looked old and sad, as if he had seen far too much. As if one too many friends had suddenly turned enemy.

Then that glimpse had been gone, and he was hidden again behind his handsome face. But she couldn’t forget that one flashing, sad look.

‘Don’t be such a gaping fool,’ Anna said out loud. She was as bad as that sobbing bawd in her cheap yellow dress, weeping over Rob in the street. There was no time for such nonsense, no time for soft emotions—especially over a rogue who did not deserve them and would only laugh at them. Actors were good at counterfeiting love onstage, and rotten at living it.

She carefully scraped the spilled ink off the vellum and tried to return to the neat columns of figures. Shillings and pounds—that was what she needed to ponder now, what she could understand.

Suddenly the house’s front door, just beyond her sitting room, flew open, and her father stumbled in. Through the door she caught a glimpse of the White Heron across their small garden, the theatre dark and quiet now in the gathering twilight. The afternoon’s revels were long ended by this hour, the crowds gone back to their homes across the river or to more dubious pleasures in the nearby taverns and bawdy houses.

It seemed that was where her father had been, as well. Tom Alwick’s russet wool doublet was buttoned crookedly, his hat set askew on his rumpled grey hair. Even from across the room she could smell the cheap wine.

Anna carefully set aside her pen and closed the account book. Her precious quiet hour was done. There would be no time for reading poetry now, as their usual evening routine began. At least her father, unlike her late husband, was an affable drunk. Tom was more likely to regale her with wild tales before he fell to snoring in front of the fire. Sometimes he would cry for her mother—dead since Anna was a toddler of three, but never forgotten by her father.

Her late husband, Charles Barrett, had used to slap her and break their plate before insisting on his marital rights. So, aye, she much preferred this life here with her father.

‘Anna, my darling one!’ Tom cried, stumbling on the raised threshold of the sitting room. He reached out with one flailing hand to catch his balance, nearly tearing down an expensive painted cloth from the panelled wall.

Anna leaped up from her chair and caught him by the shoulders before he could ruin their furnishings. She knew too well where every farthing came from to pay for their comfortable house. He leaned against her as she led him to the chair by the fire.

‘Are you working again?’ he asked, as he fell back onto the embroidered cushions.

Anna moved her sewing basket away and gently lifted his feet onto a stool as she said, ‘I was going over the receipts for today’s performance. The takings were down a bit, though Lord Edward Hartley took his usual box for the performance.’

‘The Maid’s Dilemma is an old play,’ Tom said. ‘We’ll have rich takings indeed once we open Rob’s new play, I swear it.’

‘If we open it,’ Anna murmured as she tugged off her father’s boots. They were damp and muddy from his lurch through the Southwark streets, and she set them by the fire to dry.

‘What do you mean, my dearest? Rob has never been late delivering a play! And they are always great earners. Audiences love them.’

Of course they were great earners, Anna thought. Women came flocking to see them, hoping for a glimpse of the writer acting onstage himself, and they always paid extra to sit in the upper galleries, rent cushions and buy refreshments.

Anna couldn’t really blame them. His plays were extraordinary, no matter how maddening the man was. They were wondrous tales of the powers and dangers of kingship, of betrayal and love and revenge, and deep, stirring emotions. They were written with beautiful, poetic words rarely heard on the stage, and the audience was always in floods of tears by the end.

Even Anna, who saw plays every week, was always moved by Robert Alden’s words, and the new, wondrous worlds they created. They were worth the trouble he caused.

Usually.

She sat down in the chair across from her father’s. ‘His last play had delays being passed by the Master of the Revels. It was weeks before we had a licence to stage it. He grows careless with his plots.’

Tom waved this away with an airy gesture, and almost toppled out of his chair. ‘Audiences love a bit of controversy. Making them wait only makes them even more excited to see it.’

‘Not if you’ve already paid good coin for a play we can’t use!’

‘All will be well, Anna, I am sure. You’re working too hard of late. It makes you worry too much.’

‘I like the work.’ It kept her busy—and kept her hidden at the same time.

Tom narrowed his eyes as he gave her a sharp look, the wine haze lifted for an instant. ‘You are too young and comely to bury yourself in account books all the time. You should think about suitors again.’

Anna laughed bitterly. ‘One husband was enough, Father.’

‘Charles Barrett was a stupid brute, and I was a fool to let you marry him,’ Thomas said. ‘But not all men are like him.’

Nay—some were like Robert Alden. Too handsome and witty for their own good, or for any woman’s good at all. ‘I am content as I am. Don’t we have a comfortable life here?’

‘My life has certainly been more comfortable since you came back. This house is wonderfully kept, and my profits from the businesses have doubled.’

‘Because I make you invest them instead of spending them all on wine and ale.’

‘Exactly so, my dearest. But I should not be selfish and keep you here.’

‘I told you, I am quite well where I am, Father. I promise. Now, what about some supper? I can send Madge to the tavern for some venison stew, and there is fresh bread …’

‘Oh, I almost forgot!’ Tom cried. ‘I did invite some people to dine with us. They will surely be here at any moment.’

Anna sighed. Of course they would. Her father was always inviting guests for a meal, or a game of cards which usually went on until morning. It was seldom they had a quiet evening alone.

‘Then I will have Madge fetch some extra stew, and perhaps a few pies,’ she said, and went to ring the bell for the maid. At least her father’s guests seldom expected grand fare. ‘Who is coming this evening?’

‘Some of the actors, of course. Spencer and Cartley and Camp, and perhaps one or two of their friends. We need to discuss the new play and the casting.’ Tom paused, never a good sign. ‘And Robert. I may have asked him, as well, when I saw him at the Three Bells earlier.’

‘Robert was at the Three Bells?’ Anna asked in surprise. She would have thought after his adventures of last night he would have eschewed taverns and gone back to his lodgings to collapse.

She should know better. No matter what occurred, he always kept moving. It was almost as if he was one of his own heroic creations.

But she had touched him today, been near to him—looked into his eyes for that one fleeting, vulnerable instant. She knew how warmly human he truly was.

‘I heard there was a bit of a disturbance this morning,’ her father said. ‘But he was writing in his usual corner of the tavern, so all must be well. We can press him about the new play when he arrives.’

Anna braced her palm on the carved fireplace mantel, staring down into the crackling flames. Robert Alden was coming here tonight. She didn’t want to see him again so soon after mending his wound. How could she look at him across her table and keep that secret?

How could she stop herself from reaching out to touch him?

‘Father—’ she began, only to be interrupted by a pounding at the door.

‘I will go,’ Tom said as he tried to push himself out of his chair.

Anna shook her head. ‘Nay, I will go. It seems Madge is otherwise occupied.’

She took a deep breath as she made her way slowly to the door, steeling herself to see Rob again and to remain expressionless. Yet it was not Rob who waited there on the threshold, it was Henry Ennis, another of the actors in Lord Henshaw’s Men.

As he smiled at her and bowed, Anna pushed away that unwanted and unaccountable pang of disappointment and said, ‘Master Ennis. We haven’t seen you at the White Heron in a few days.’

Henry’s smile widened and he reached for her hand to bestow upon her fingers an elaborate salute that made her laugh. Next to Robert, Henry Ennis was the most handsome of the company, slim and angelically blond where Rob was dark as the devil. Henry always seemed to be laughing and cheerful, as open and easy as a fine summer’s day, with no hidden depths or concealed secrets.

Anna always enjoyed being around him. He made her laugh along with him, and forget her duties and worries. He never made her feel flustered or confused, as Rob always did.

Against her own will, she glanced past Henry’s shoulder to the shadowed garden behind him. But no one was there.

‘My beauteous Anna,’ Henry said as she took his arm to lead him into the corridor. ‘It has pained me greatly to be away from you, but as I had no role in the last production I thought it best I travel to the country to visit my family. They have been neglected of late.’

‘Family?’ Anna said in surprise. In their strange, vagabond London life she often forgot the actors might have real families tucked away somewhere. They formed their own bonds among others of their kind, with her father’s house as their temporary hearth.

Did Rob have a family, too? A wife and blue-eyed children, in a cosy village somewhere?

‘My mother and sister in Kent,’ Henry said. ‘I have not seen them in many months.’

‘Then I hope you found them well?’

‘Very well. A bit bored, mayhap—they always long for tales of London.’

Anna gave him a teasing smile. ‘I’m sure they especially long for tales of your London courtships. Does your mother not wish for handsome grandchildren to dandle on her knee?’

Henry laughed ruefully, his handsome face turning faintly pink. ‘Perhaps she does. I should so like …’ His words trailed away and he shook his head, turning away from her.

‘Should so like what, Henry? Come, we are friends! Surely you can talk to me?’

‘I should so like for her to meet you, Anna. She would like you very much, I think,’ he said shyly.

Anna was so shocked by his quiet, serious words that she stopped abruptly in the dining-chamber doorway. Henry wished for her to meet his mother? But surely their friendship was only that—a friendship? Though he was kind and sweet-natured, and so handsome …

She studied him in speculation in the flickering half-light of the smoky candles. Aye, he was handsome, and so earnest as he watched her. Perhaps friends was a fine place to start. Friends was safe and pleasant—not a threat to her calm serenity, the quiet life she had worked so hard to earn and build.

But as she looked at Henry Ennis she saw not his pale grey eyes, glowing with wary hope as he watched her, waiting for—something. She didn’t feel his arm under her hand. She saw Robert’s bright blue eyes mocking her as she bandaged his shoulder, staring deep, deep into her hidden soul and letting her glimpse his for one moment. It was his bare, warm skin she felt.

Anna made herself laugh, and tugged Henry towards the dining chamber. ‘I am not the sort of lady mothers like very much, Henry. And I fear I shall never leave the city now. The country air is far too clean and sweet for me after so long in London.’

Henry seemed to take her hint, and he laughed merrily, as if that instant of seriousness had never been. Perhaps she had merely imagined it. It had been a long, strange day, after all.

‘And my mother will never come to London,’ Henry said. ‘She is quite certain villains lurk on every street corner, ready to cut an unwary throat. So perhaps you will never meet, after all.’

‘Perhaps your mother is right to keep her distance,’ Anna murmured. And far wiser than she was herself, living in the very centre of such a perilous world. But she had no desire to leave; this was her home, the only place she could belong. A quiet country hearth was not for her.

There was another knock at the door, and Anna left Henry at the table with her father so she could hurry and answer it. More of the actors waited for her there, far more than her father claimed to have invited. They greeted her exuberantly, kissing her cheek and lifting her from her feet in fierce hugs, before they dashed into the house looking for food and drink. It seemed her father’s ‘some people’ invited to dine included the whole company, along with their always voracious appetites and endless need for wine.

Anna was accustomed to such evenings. Her father’s hospitality was boundless, and his memory for such practical matters as how much food to serve was non-existent. Anna sent the servants for more dishes and jugs of wine from the tavern, and the evening passed in a swift, happy blur as she made sure everyone was served and there was enough bread and stew.

Finally she was able to collapse by the sitting-room fire with her own goblet of wine. She tucked up her feet on her father’s footstool, listening to the shouts and laughter from supper. Her father would be busy until dawn, and then some of the actors could carry him up to his bed.

Anna reached into her sewing basket for the new volume of poetry she had bought at one of the stalls at St Paul’s churchyard just that day. It was an anonymous sonnet cycle about the deep love of a shepherd for an unreachable goddess he’d once glimpsed at her bath, called Demetrius and Diana. Everyone was reading and talking of it, and she could see why. The words and emotions were beautiful, so filled with raw longing and the sad realisation that such a love was impossible. Life was only what it was—lonely and cold—and there was no escape from that, even through passion.

She lost herself in that world of sun-dappled sylvan glades and passionate desire, that need for another person. The noise from the company, which grew ever louder as the night wore on, vanished, and she knew only the poor shepherd and his impossible love.

‘Why, Mistress Barrett, I see you are a secret romantic,’ a deep, velvet-rough voice suddenly said, dragging her out of her dream world.

The book fell from her hands to clatter onto the stone hearth and she twisted round in her chair. It was Robert who stood there in the sitting room doorway, watching her as she read. He leaned his shoulder on the doorframe, his arms lazily crossed over his chest. A half smile lingered at the corners of his lips, but his eyes were dark and solemn as they studied her.

How long had he been standing there?

‘You startled me,’ she said, hating the way her voice trembled.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ he said.

‘I didn’t even know you were here. I heard no knock at the door.’

‘I have only just arrived. Madge let me in.’ Rob pushed away from the door and moved slowly to her side, loose-limbed and as deceptively lazy as a cat. As Anna watched, tense, he knelt by her chair and picked up the dropped book.

He took her hand in his, very gently, his fingers light on hers, and carefully laid the book on her palm. But he didn’t let go of her. He curled her hand around the leather binding and held his over it.

It was a light caress, cool and gentle, and Anna knew she could draw away whenever she chose. Yet somehow she just—couldn’t. She stared down at their joined hands as if mesmerised.

He stared down at them, too, almost as if he could also feel that shimmering, heated, invisible bond tightening around them, closer and closer. The crackle of the fire, the laughter of the company—it all seemed so far away. There was only Robert and herself here now.

‘Are you enjoying the travails of poor Demetrius the shepherd?’ he asked.

‘Very much,’ she whispered. She stared hard at the book, its brown cover held by their joined hands. She feared what might happen if she looked into his eyes. Would she crack and crumble away, vanishing into him forever?

What spell did he cast over her?

‘The poetry is beautiful,’ she went on. ‘I can see every ray of sunlight, every summer leaf in those woods—I can feel Demetrius’s grief. What a terrible thing it must be to feel like that about another.’

‘How terrible not to feel that way,’ he said. ‘Life is an empty, cold shell without passion.’

Anna laughed. It seemed she was not the only ‘secret romantic.’ ‘Is it better to burn than to freeze? Passion consumes until there is nothing left but ash. Demetrius is miserable because of his desire for Diana.’

‘True. Diana can’t love him back. It isn’t in her nature. But if she could, it would be glorious beyond imagining. It is glorious even without her return, because at least Demetrius knows he can love. He can feel truly alive because of it.’

She smiled and gently laid her free hand against his cheek. The prickle of a day’s growth of beard tickled at her palm. Beneath it his skin was warm and satin-taut. A muscle flexed under her touch. ‘I believe you are the secret romantic, Robert. Do you envy the shepherd, then?’

He grinned up at her, and turned his head to press a quick kiss to the hollow of her palm. ‘In a way I do. He gets to be alive—truly alive—even if it’s only for a moment.’

‘Until that love kills him.’

‘Until then. I see you have peeked ahead at the ending.’

Anna sat back in her chair, finally breaking their hold on each other. But though not touching him, not physically close, she felt bound to him.

‘Are you not alive, then, Robert?’ she asked.

He sat back on the hearth, resting lazily on his elbows as he stretched his legs out before him and crossed his booted feet at the ankles. He had charged that morning’s rumpled, stained shirt for one of his dandyish and expensive doublets of burgundy-red velvet, slashed at the sleeves with black satin and trimmed with shining rows of gold buttons. His boots were fine, soft Spanish leather, polished to a glowing sheen, his breeches of thin, fine-spun wool. A teardrop pearl hung at his ear.

He was dressed to impress someone tonight, and Anna suspected it was not meant to be her.

‘Sometimes I feel I’m already cold in the grave, fair Anna,’ he answered. His tone was light, teasing, but she thought she heard a hard ring beneath it—the tinge of truth. ‘The true, deep feelings of Demetrius are lost to me now. I just counterfeit them onstage.’

‘Aye,’ she murmured. ‘I think I know what you mean.’

His head tilted to the side as he studied her. ‘Do you?’

‘Aye. My life is not one of deep emotions, as the poor shepherd has. It is quiet and calm—cold, some might say. But I prefer its chill to the pain of burning.’

‘Your husband?’ Robert asked, his voice low and steady, as if he didn’t want to frighten her away.

As if Charles Barrett could frighten her now. His black soul was dead and buried. But before that, before they’d made the mistake of marrying and it had all gone so horribly wrong, she had once longed for him. Those feelings had clouded her judgement and led her far astray.

‘I never want that again,’ she said firmly.

‘So you are like Diana now?’ he said. ‘Above the maelstrom of human emotion and desire?’

Anna laughed. ‘I am no virgin goddess.’

Suddenly there was a crashing sound in the corridor, a burst of drunken laughter. Someone bumped into the wall outside, making the painted cloths sway.

Robert held his finger lightly to his lips and rose to his feet.

‘Shh,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s walk in the garden for a time, where they can’t find us.’

‘The garden?’ Anna asked, confused. To be alone with him, in the dark of night, with no one lurking outside the door? It was—tempting.

Too tempting. Who knew what she might do there? She didn’t even seem to know herself when she was with him.

But as he held his hand out to her, she found herself reaching for it.

‘There is a beautiful moon tonight, my Diana,’ he said. ‘And I find I am in no fit mood for company.’

She nodded, and together they tiptoed down the corridor and out of the front door into the night. Once they were outside, the raucous roar of the gathering faded away to a mere distant hum.

The garden that lay between the house and the darkened theatre was quiet and full of shadows from the shifting of the moon’s glow between drifting clouds. A tall stone wall held back the flow of Southwark life beyond—the taverns and bustling brothels, the shouts and shrieks and the clash of steel and fists. It all seemed very far away in that moment.

Anna sat down on a stone bench and tipped her head back to stare at the silvery-pale moon in the blue-black velvet sky. It was nearly full, staring down impassively at the wild human world below.

‘It is lovely,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t look at the sky enough.’

‘Our lives are too frantic to remember such simple joys,’ he answered. He rested his foot on the bench beside her and braced his forearm on his knee—so, so close, but not yet touching.

‘Your life is terribly busy, yes?’ she asked. She held tighter to the cold, solid stone beneath her, to keep away the temptation to lean against him. ‘Writing, acting, dodging demanding theatre owners, assignations with admiring ladies—fights with their husbands …’

Rob laughed. ‘Such a great opinion you have of me, Anna. I would have you know I work hard for my coin every day. And if I choose to enjoy myself when the work is done—well, life is too short not to seek out pleasure.’

Anna smiled up at him. He was so good at seeking out pleasure, it seemed, at drawing out every hidden morsel of joy in their striving, heaving existence. What was that like? What would it feel like to let go of control and duty for one mere moment and just—be?

She feared the cost of that one moment would be too high. But it was tempting, nonetheless, especially when he looked at her like that under the shimmering moonglow.

‘Perhaps we do need to stop and glance at the stars once in a while,’ she said. ‘Lest we forget they are even there at all.’

‘It’s difficult to see them in the city,’ Rob said. He sat down beside her, his shoulder pressed very lightly against hers. He did only that—sat beside her—and yet she was so very aware of the hard, lean line of his body, the heat of his skin on hers through the layers of their clothes, the raw strength of him.

‘I’ve never lived anywhere but London. Not for long anyway,’ Anna said. ‘This is the only sky I know.’

‘When I was a lad I lived in the countryside,’ he said. His voice was quiet in the darkness, as if suddenly he was far away from the garden. Somewhere she couldn’t quite see or follow.

‘Did you?’

‘Aye, and often on summer nights I would slip out of my bed and go running down to the river, where there was only the water and the sky, perfect silence. I would lie down in the tall grass at the riverbank and stare up at the stars, making up tales for myself of other worlds we could not see. Wondrous places beyond the stars.’

Anna was fascinated by this small glimpse of Rob’s past, his hidden self. She had never thought of him as a boy before; he seemed to have just sprung up fully formed onstage, sword in his hand, poetry on his lips.

‘You must have been the despair of your mother, running away like that,’ she said.

He smiled at her, a flash of his usual careless grin, but it swiftly faded. ‘Not at all. My mother died when I was very young. Our aunt then stayed with us for a time, but she cared not what we did as long as we didn’t dirty her nicely scrubbed floors.’

‘Oh,’ Anna said sadly. ‘I am sorry.’

‘For what, fair Anna?’

‘For your losing your mother so young. My own mother died when I was three.’

Rob studied her so carefully she felt a warm blush creeping stealthily into her cheeks. She was very glad of the cover of darkness—the moon was behind the clouds. ‘Do you remember her?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Not very much at all. She would sing to me as I fell asleep at night, and sometimes I think I remember the way her touch felt on my cheek, or the smell of her perfume. My father says she was very beautiful and very gentle, that there could be no lady to compare to her and that is why he never married again.’ Anna laughed. ‘So it seems I inherited little from her, having neither beauty nor gentleness!’

‘I would disagree—about the beauty part, anyway,’ Rob said, his old light flirtatiousness coming back, encroaching on their fleeting moment of intimacy.

‘I am not gentle?’

‘Gentleness is quite overrated. Spirit—that is what a man should always look for in a female.’

Anna thought of the weeping whore in her tattered yellow dress. She had not seemed especially spirited, but then Anna hadn’t seen what had come before the morning quarrel. Maybe the night had been spirited, indeed.

Had it all only been that morning? It seemed like days ago, so very distant from this quiet moment.

And she felt a most unwanted twinge of pleasure that he might think she was spirited—and beautiful. Even though she knew very well it was only a mere flirtatious comment—a toss-away he no doubt said often to many women. But she had long ago lost her youthful spirit. It was buried in the real world.

‘Surely spirit can cause more trouble than it is worth?’ she said sternly. ‘For instance—how is your shoulder tonight?’

He flexed his shoulders as if to test them before answering her. His muscles rippled against the fine fabric of his doublet.

‘Better, I thank you,’ he said. ‘I had a very fine nurse.’

Anna waited to see if he would say more, tell her how he had come to be wounded in the first place, but he did not. A silence fell around them, heavy and soft as the night itself. She let herself lean closer against him, and didn’t even move away when his arm came lightly around her shoulders.

‘Tell me about those worlds you saw beyond the stars,’ she said. ‘Tell me what it felt like to escape there.’

‘Escape?’ he said. She could feel the way he watched her in the night, so steady, so intense, as if he wanted to see all her secrets. ‘What do you want to escape from, Anna?’

Everything, she wanted to say. At least for that one moment she wanted not to be herself, here in her workaday life, her workaday self. She wanted him to be not himself, either. If only they were two strangers, who knew nothing of each other or of what the world held beyond this garden.

‘It’s more what I want to escape to, I think,’ she said. ‘Something beautiful, clean and good. Something peaceful.’

‘Something beautiful?’ he said. ‘Yes. I think I’ve been looking for that all my life.’

Anna felt the sudden gentle brush of his hand against her cheek. His touch was light, and yet it seemed to leave shimmering sparks in its wake across her skin. She reared back, startled, but he didn’t leave her. His palm cupped her cheek, holding her as if she was made of the most fragile porcelain, and she swayed towards him.

Slowly, enticingly, his hand slid down her throat to the ribbon trim of her neckline. He toyed with it lightly between his fingers, his dark gaze following his touch. He didn’t even brush the bare, soft swell of her breast above the unfashionably modest bodice, yet she trembled as if he did. She felt unbearably tense and brittle, as if she would snap if he did not touch her.

‘Why do you always wear grey?’ he asked, twining the bit of ribbon between his fingers.

‘I—I like grey,’ she whispered. ‘‘Tis easy to keep clean.’ And easy to fade into the background. It was a suitable colour for a woman who spent her time hovering behind the scenes.

‘In my star kingdom you would wear white satin and blue velvet, sewn with pearls and embroidered with shining silver thread.’

He stroked one long strand of her hair that had escaped its pins and trailed over her shoulder, tracing the curve of the curl. She felt the heat of his touch against her skin.

‘And you would have ribbons and strands of jewels in your hair.’

Anna laughed unsteadily. ‘That would not be very practical as I went about my tasks. I would be always tripping over the satins and pearls and getting them dirty.’

‘Ah, but in that kingdom you would have no such tasks. You would be queen of all you surveyed, seated on your golden throne as everyone hurried to serve your every whim.’

‘Gold and silver and pearls?’ she said, mesmerised by his touch, his words. ‘La, but I do like the sound of this kingdom of yours.’

He twisted his fingers into her hair and drew her close, so close she could feel his warm breath whisper over her skin. He cradled the back of her head on his palm, holding her to him.

‘You deserve all of that, Anna,’ he said. All hint of his usual teasing manner was gone, and there was only dark seriousness in his words and in the way he watched her. ‘That should be your life, not—this. Not Southwark.’

Anna felt a sharp prickle behind her eyes and was afraid she would cry. She could not do that—not here, not with him! She already felt too open and vulnerable. She tried to turn away but he held on to her, his hand in her hair. His touch didn’t hurt, but he wouldn’t let her go.

‘You know naught of my life,’ she said.

‘I’m a poet, Anna,’ he answered. ‘It is my lot in life to see everything—even that which I would rather not. And I see your sadness.’

‘I am not sad!’ Not if she could help it. Emotions, like sadness and anger and love, only brought trouble. She preferred serenity now.

‘You are, fair Anna.’ He pulled her even closer, until his forehead rested lightly against hers. She closed her eyes, but he was still there—very close. ‘I see that because it calls out to the sadness in me. We both see too much, feel too much. We just don’t want to admit it.’

Nay, she did not! She didn’t want to hear this, know this. She tried to twist away, but Rob suddenly bent his head and kissed the soft, sensitive spot just below her ear. She felt him touch her there with the tip of his tongue.

She gasped at the rush of hot, sizzling sensation. Her hands clutched at the front of his doublet, crushing the fine velvet as she tried to hold on and keep from falling. Her eyes closed and her head fell back as she gave in to the whirling tidepool of her desire. His mouth, open and hot, slid slowly along her neck to bite lightly at the curve of her shoulder.

‘Robert!’ she cried, and his arms closed around her waist to lift her onto his lap as his lips met hers, rough and urgent.

Anna had never felt so weak and strange. Something deep and instinctive, primal, rose up deep inside her, blotting out the world around her so that she knew only him and this moment with him. Only his kiss.

She felt the press of his tongue against her lips and she opened for him. He tasted of wine and mint, of something dark and deep that she craved far too much. She wrapped her hands around the back of his neck, as if she could hold him to her if he tried to leave, and felt the rough silk of his wavy dark hair on her skin.

She heard him moan deep inside his throat as her tongue met his, and the sound made her want him even more—madly so. He was so alive, the most wondrously alive person she had ever known, and she craved the heat and pulse of him. For that one instant he made her feel alive, too—free of her calm, cool, still existence.

He made her feel too much—he frightened her, her feelings frightened her. She was drowning in him.

She tensed, and Rob seemed to sense her sudden flash of fear. He tore his lips from hers, and the clouds suddenly skittered away from the moon. Its silvery light streamed down onto his face, casting it into angular shadows. For a second he was starkly exposed to her, and she saw the horror in his eyes, as if he realised just what he was doing. Whom he was kissing.

Anna felt as if a freezing winter wind washed over her, her passion turned to cold, bitter ashes around her. What was she doing? How could Rob say he saw her, knew her, when in that moment she didn’t even know herself?

She pushed him away, and as his arms slid from her body she forced herself up from his lap. Without him holding her she felt shaky and cold, but she knew she had to get away from him.

If only she could run away from herself, as well.

As she dashed towards the house she heard him call her name, yet she couldn’t stop. She just kept running—past the dining room where her father and his friends still roared with laughter, and up the narrow stairs to her bedchamber. She slammed and bolted the door behind her, as if that could keep out what had happened.

She stumbled past the curtained bed, already turned back for the night by their maid, and went to the window. It was open to let in the night’s breeze, and she could see that garden below, full of shadows and secrets.

Rob wasn’t there any longer. The stone bench was empty. Had he also fled from what had exploded between them?

Somehow she couldn’t imagine Rob Alden fleeing from anything. She didn’t know anyone who ran into danger as he did.

Anna shut the window and sank slowly to the floor, her skirts pooling around her. She pressed her hands to her eyes, blotting out the night. Soon it would be dawn, and a new day’s tasks would be before her. Soon she could lose herself in the busy noise of her life, and this would all be as a dream. A foolish dream.

It had to be.