Читать книгу One Night in Paradise - Juliet Landon - Страница 8

T his resolution, nursed by Adorna until she fell asleep, had vanished completely by the time she woke, which meant that the whole argument had to be reconstructed from the beginning in order to establish any reason why Sir Nicholas should have been on her mind in the first place. Which was difficult, in the light of day.

Another disturbing development was that, overnight, Hester had apparently discovered how to smile. Adorna suspected that she must have been practising in front of the mirror, but this newest enchantment showed itself first at breakfast and was then rehearsed at intervals throughout the day so that, by the time the two of them had put the finishing touches to an array of subtleties for the banquet, Adorna was forced to the conclusion that Hester was happy. There was surely no other explanation for it.

Not that Adorna had any objections, as such, to Hester being happy, only a reservation that the reason behind it must mean only one thing. Sir Nicholas. After a year or more, Hester was happy to make contact again.

Even Lady Marion noticed it. ‘She’ll dazzle the men with that smile,’ she said to Adorna. ‘They’ll be writing sonnets to it before the week’s out.’

Adorna stood back to look at the effects of the trailing ivy interlaced with roses hanging in swags across the oak panelling of the great hall. ‘She’s learning more quickly than I thought,’ she said with her head on one side. ‘Is that level with the others?’

‘More or less. I think she ought to have her own maid though, dearest. Perhaps I’ll suggest finding one for her. If she’s going to improve as fast as that, we can’t let her choose one who doesn’t know a farthingale from a martingale, can we?’

Visions of Hester wearing a strap from her chin to her waist to keep her head down caused an undignified halt to the proceedings that lightened Adorna’s heart, if only temporarily. Her mother’s relief at having an extra male guest to partner Hester had grown to far greater heights once she discovered that the two were already acquainted and from then on, no instruction was too detailed to make sure that Hester and Sir Nicholas were to be regarded as a pair. From which it was obvious to Adorna that her father had made very little of the man’s visit to the workshop two days ago. Knowing her parents’ tendency to see potential suitors even before they appeared, Adorna was very relieved by this.

Although they had never regarded Master Peter Fowler as a serious contender for Adorna’s hand, Peter himself did, being one of the first to arrive for the dinner party, bringing a gift for his hostess in the shape of a tiny silver padlock and key. A symbol, he told her, of his protection for her most precious jewel.

Smiling courteously, Adorna said nothing to contradict this, for it was precisely this aspect of Peter’s company that had singled him out from other young men. He was tall and well made, personable, correct, agreeable and utterly dependable, as his job demanded. Protection was not only his profession but also the reason for his attraction, for if Adorna could not be safe with Peter, then who could she be safe with? Naturally, his lapse at the Queen’s hawking party in Richmond Park had been unusual, but Adorna did not blame him for that. Brown-eyed and curly-haired, he offered her a brown satin-clad arm while expertly assessing the security of the pale pink bodice that skimmed the swell of her breasts with a hint of white lace to half-conceal the deepest cleft. A lace pie-frill ruff clung enticingly to her throat.

She laid the tips of her fingers on his arm. ‘Peter,’ she said, ‘I want you to meet our house guest. She’s appallingly shy. Will you talk to her?’

Hester curtsied with lowered eyes while Peter, bowing to the shy black-clad figure, thought the contrast to Adorna could hardly have been greater. Even in black, the dowdiness had been replaced by a beguiling vulnerability to which Peter instantly responded, for Hester’s nut-brown hair under a jewelled velvet band had suffered hours of Maybelle’s ministrations and now, framing her face in a heart-shaped roll, suited her perfectly.

Peter’s response to Adorna’s introduction was even more immediate. ‘Sir William Pickering’s daughter?’ He beamed. ‘Why, mistress, I have admired your late father’s exploits since I was so high—’ he held a hand level with his waist ‘—and I even met him, once. Come, will you speak of him to me?’ His large fingers closed warmly over the trembling ones and Hester was obliged to abandon Adorna’s advice concerning smiles and nods in order to talk of a father she had hardly known. It was good practice, but not exactly what Lady Marion had had in mind.

Sir Thomas’s musicians were by now in full swing high up in the gallery at the far end of the hall. Below them, the guests entered from a porch at one side, adding another layer of sound that rose in waves of laughter and drifted away into the great oaken rafters. Even while she chatted, Adorna could identify the booming stage-voice of Master Burbage, their actor friend, followed by the reed-pipe squeak of Master Thomas Tallis whose wife Joan held him up by one elbow as a stool was placed beneath him. Yet, though she was soon surrounded by friends and acquaintances, Adorna felt the effect of someone’s eyes on the back of her head that pulled her slowly round and drew her away like a netted fish.

Although Sir Nicholas was part of a newly arrived group, he took no part in their conversation but aimed his narrowed eyes towards Adorna, meeting hers as she turned, throwing out a challenge for her to come and welcome him. To refuse would have been too discourteous.

She lifted the golden pomander that swung on a chain at her waist and went forward, unable to withdraw her eyes from his though, even as they met, there was not the smile of welcome she had given to others.

‘Your lady mother bade me welcome,’ he said, softly.

‘Of course,’ said Adorna. ‘She would see no reason to do otherwise.’ Her heart beat loudly under her straight pink bodice, making her breathless.

‘And you, mistress? Do you see a reason to do otherwise?’

‘I see several reasons, sir, but don’t concern yourself with them. It cannot be the first time a woman has taken an aversion to you. But then, perhaps it is.’

He glanced around him as if to find an example, but saw Hester instead. ‘Ah, Cousin Hester. Was it your doing that transformed the lady, or had it already begun? Quite remarkable. She’s learning to speak, too, I see. Well, well.’

Coming from another, she might have smiled at this sarcasm, but a mixture of pride and protection quelled it. ‘I was not aware,’ she said, ‘that you and she knew each other. She tells me that you found the hunting good at Bishops Standing.’

‘Is that all she told you?’

His blunt question made her pause, not knowing how to learn more without betraying her interest. Mercifully, she was prevented from saying anything by the Yeoman of the Ewery’s arrival, whose invitation to dip their fingers into the silver bowl of scented water signalled an end to most conversations. She dried hers on the linen towel and handed it to Sir Nicholas. ‘I am expected to take you to her,’ she said. ‘Will you come, sir?’

‘Gladly,’ he said, smiling. ‘I can hardly wait.’

For some reason, she would have preferred a token show of reluctance, but now there was just time, before the procession to the table, to present Sir Nicholas to Mistress Hester Pickering and to watch like a hawk as his eyes smiled into hers and quickly roamed, approving or amused, over the new image. By this time, the effect of conversation and the warmth of the hall had brought a most becoming flush to Hester’s cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes and, though she kept the latter modestly lowered, the newly darkened lashes made alluring crescents upon her skin. This show of mutual pleasure left no doubt in Adorna’s mind that Lady Marion would be delighted to see how her plan was falling into place so neatly.

Peter took Adorna’s arm to steer her to one side, noting the direction of her interest. ‘I thought you said she was shy,’ he said.

Adorna looked puzzled. ‘Did she tell you of her father, then?’

‘Only a little. She talked of Sir Nicholas, mostly.’

Once again, the conversation was curtailed by the ceremonial observed by every noble household at meal-times, the waiting, the seating, the ritual carving and presenting, by which time there were obligatory gasps of delight at the array of dishes, their colours, variety and decoration. Lady Marion had, for this event, brought out the best silver dishes, bowls and ewers, the great salts, the best spoons and knives, the finest monogrammed linen. On the two-tiered court-cupboard stood the best Venetian glasses, while an army of liveried servers attended diligently to every guest’s needs.

Adorna tried to avoid looking at Hester and Sir Nicholas, but her curiosity got the better of her, her sneaking looks between mouthfuls and words feeding her snippets of information as to Hester’s responsiveness to Sir Nicholas’s attentions. His attention was required from other quarters, too, for the table of over thirty guests was merry and light-hearted, and Sir Nicholas was an excellent conversationalist. Adorna would have been blind not to see how the women, young and old, glowed when he spoke to them, prompting her to recall his uncivil manner as he had hauled her out of the river, his familiarity afterwards, even when he had discovered whose daughter she was.

With renewed assiduity she turned all her attention towards the other end of the table and to her partner, taking what pleasure she could from the safe predictability of Peter’s good manners and to the chatter of her friends, all the while straining to single out the deep cultured voice of Sir Nicholas Rayne. At the end of two courses, they were led into the garden where the double doors of the banqueting house had been thrown open to receive the slow trickle of guests. Here was laid out an astonishing selection of tiny sweet-meats on silver trays, candied fruits, chunks of orange marmalade, sweet wafers and gingerbreads, march-pane and sugar-paste dainties covered with gold leaf. Jellies and syllabubs were served in tiny glasses, and biscuits were placed on wooden roundels, each guest nibbling, exclaiming, and moving outside to admire the formal flower-beds, the view over the friary orchard and the river in the distance.

Purposely, Adorna kept some distance between herself and Sir Nicholas while she spoke to many of the guests, laughing at their jokes and listening to their opinions, never straying far from Peter’s side. From there, she could signal to Sir Nicholas that she had no wish for his company. Her mother, however, had already begun to waver on this point.

She whispered in Adorna’s ear, ‘You didn’t tell me!’

‘Tell you what, Mother?’ Acting total innocence came quite easily to her.

‘That he was so handsome. And distinguished. If I’d understood that he was my lord of Leicester’s deputy, I’d have had him instead of Master Fowler partner you. Is Sir Nicholas the one who helped you out of the river?’

Adorna’s eyes strayed once more to the midnight-blue taffeta doublet, velvet breeches and black silk hose, to his elegant bearing, to the gold buckles and jewels on his swordbelt and scabbard. His hand rested on one hip while with the other he held up his wooden roundel, reversed, from which he read the poem painted on the rim.

‘Lord Elyot’s eldest son,’ her mother continued, ‘I think, dearest, that you ought to be making yourself a little more agreeable to Sir Nicholas. He’s going to be wasted on Cousin Hester.’

‘I’d much rather he played the part you invited him for,’ Adorna replied. ‘Though I think Hester’s wasted on him.’

But Lady Marion was only half-listening. ‘Don’t be difficult, dear. Come along!’ she called to Sir Nicholas’s group. ‘You must sing your roundelays, you know. I think you should be the one to start them off, Sir Nicholas, if you please. Show them how it should be done.’

The idea of having guests to sing for their suppers was not a new one, each one expecting to contribute to the others’ entertainment in some way either by singing or by playing an instrument. At thirteen, Adorna’s youngest brother Adrian usually had to be held back forcibly from being the first to perform, but this time he added his voice to his mother’s. Although Sir Nicholas’s roundelay was short, he made it last longer by singing it several times over to a simple tune of his own devising.

And so my love protesting came, but yet I made her mine.

His voice was true and vibrant, but Adorna refused to watch him perform, not wishing to see who he looked at while he sang. Yet as soon as the applause died down and another guest followed, a whispered comment at her back closed her ears to everything except the exchange of riveting gossip.

‘Pity he doesn’t make them his for longer than three months,’ a man’s voice said, half-laughing. ‘He goes through ’em faster than his master.’

‘Hah! Is that how long the last one was?’

‘Lady Celia. Traverson’s lass. Handsome woman, too, but ditched after three months. Penelope Mount-joy afore that and heaven knows how many afore her. He has ’em queueing up for him.’

‘But he’s only been in his post for a year or so.’

The voice chuckled. ‘Trying out the new mares.’

‘They’re happy to assist, eh?’

‘Aye, but not so happy to be left, apparently. Still, if he’s after old Pickering’s heiress, he’ll probably not find any protesting there.’

The two men joined in the applause though they had not listened to the song, but Adorna’s blood ran cold as she sidled away to the back of the crowd to avoid an invitation to sing, shivering with unease at the sickening words. Even among men it seemed that Sir Nicholas’s reputation as a rake was chuckled over, envied, plotted and predicted, his victims pitied. From the corner of her eye, she identified one of the gossips as her father’s colleague, the Master of the Queen’s Jewels, the other as a superior linen-draper who held a royal warrant.

Ditched after three months? Trying out the new mares? It was as she had suspected; the man had been amusing himself, teasing her to make her respond to him, despite her obvious antagonism. Then he would blithely go on to the next before choosing how, when and where to include Cousin Hester in his schemes, sure that she would defer to his convenience more than any other. For the hundredth time, she heard the woman’s sob echo through the evening, saw again her last slow touch, her hurried departure into oblivion. Her heart ached for the woman’s pain and for Hester, too, who would have no experience of how to deal with a man’s inconstancy, being unused to dalliance and light-hearted love affairs. Hester would not recognise insincerity if it was branded on a man’s forehead.

That much was true, though at that precise moment Hester was having no problems with her own brand of innocence or with other people’s kindness, whether the latter was sincerely meant or not. Dear Adorna and Lady Marion had identified her deficiencies, which were many, and had offered her every assistance to overcome them, and it would be both churlish and unnecessary to deprive them of the pleasure of success. Moreover, the pleasure was not all theirs. She practised her smile once more on a young gentleman who offered her a heart-shaped biscuit and saw how his eyes lit up with pleasure, as Sir Nicholas’s had done.

What a pity Aunt Sarah had not made her aware of such delights, but then, her foster parents were much older than Adorna’s and had had neither the time, experience nor patience to be plunged into parenthood with a ready-made child. They had provided her with an elderly nurse and tutor, shelter and food, a good education and firm discipline and, if she wanted company, there were always the horses. Uncle Samuel was a passionate horse-breeder: Aunt Sarah was not passionate about anything. Passion, she had once told Hester, was a shocking waste of energy.

Hester was satisfied, almost pleased, that Sir Nicholas had noticed the changes enough to compliment her. He had always been most kind, and it was quite obvious that Lady Marion had asked him here especially to put her at her ease. The least she could do in return was to remember what they had told her about smiling, listening and keeping her hands still.

She glanced across the long shadows that now striped the lawn, seeing Adorna talking animatedly to a group of men, her expressions so graceful, her hands and head articulate, her back curving and set firmly against Sir Nicholas from whom she had made no attempt to conceal her indifference. They had scarcely spoken to each other at the tennis court, nor had Adorna joined the ladies who surrounded him, but Hester supposed that the gentlemanly Master Fowler was Adorna’s special friend and that she preferred his company to anyone’s. Which Hester could well understand, though for their sakes she would make herself most agreeable to Sir Nicholas since that was clearly what they wished.

Her aunt and uncle had, naturally, warned her that once she was on her own, there would be fortune-hunters, but her mind was at rest as far as Sir Nicholas was concerned, he having a fortune of his own. Apart from that, if he had ever entertained thoughts along those lines, he had had plenty of chances during the six years or more he had been visiting Uncle Samuel.

The guests were beginning to move back into the house again, Adorna firmly linked to Master Fowler. To Hester a dear gentleman offered his arm, which she daintily laid her hand upon, smiling at him, picking up her skirts over the grass and thinking how much easier this was than she had once believed.

In the great hall, the tables and benches had been cleared to leave a space for the entertainments, and here Hester was happy to watch as sheets of music were handed to those guests who were prepared to perform on viol, flute and lute. Nothing could have been lovelier than when Adorna played a beautiful melody by William Byrd on the virginals, for she was able to sing at the same time in a voice so sweet that the guests were spellbound, making Hester appreciate even more how much she herself had to learn.

There was dancing, too, which had never been Hester’s strongest point, so she remained at one side in the company of yet another gentleman who talked non-stop about his fishing visits to Scotland when she would rather have listened to the music. She did, however, notice how Adorna kept her eyes lowered whenever she went forward to take Sir Nicholas’s hand, and how he looked at her without the smile that he had bestowed upon herself, which seemed to indicate that he was as little interested in Adorna as she appeared to be in him.

Then there was the play, written by seventeen-year-old Seton, Adorna’s brother. He had persuaded some of his friends from the theatre company known as Leicester’s Men to join him in this short and extremely funny performance, made all the funnier because it was entirely unrehearsed. Master Burbage, their leading actor, kept it all together somehow, but even he could not keep his face straight when Adrian, who had begged on his knees for a part, began to ad lib most dangerously, throwing the other characters off track. It brought the house down, the evening to a close, and Hester to the conclusion that, if it got no worse than this, she might begin to get used to dinner parties.

As duty demanded, Adorna stood with the rest of her family to bid each of the guests farewell, promising Master Burbage that she would rectify one glaring omission by attending one of the Leicester’s Men’s performances at their London venue before long. With a quick squeeze of her mother’s hand, she slipped away from the family group, along the passageway leading to the back of the house and out into the walled herb-garden. Here she waited until the calls of farewell had begun to fade. This was another of her refuges, used on this occasion as an escape from Peter who had earlier left her in no doubt that tonight a formal kiss on the knuckles would not be enough. Without seeking to argue about it, Adorna was convinced that anything more than that would be too much. It was better, she had whispered to her mother, if she disappeared and explained tomorrow, if need be. Lady Marion had had experience at making excuses.

It was almost dark, but still she could just see the brick pathway leading through the garden door on to the lawn where the guests had strolled earlier. There was the walkway that led to the banqueting house in the corner, the fountain still tinkling. Distant bursts of laughter and chatter still floated through the open windows, shapes moving in and out of soft candlelight.

Keeping to the shadows, she entered the small room with a feeling of relief that the evening was over, that she had escaped Peter’s personal leave-taking and that the act she had kept up all evening could now be dropped. The banqueting-house floor was still littered with crumbs in the light of a single candle that the servants had left burning, and a heap of wooden roundels, painted side uppermost, lay discarded on the table, their rhymes sung and forgotten. Holding them towards the candle flame, she went through the stack one by one until she found the one she wanted, peering to make out the words and touching them with the tips of her fingers.

‘And so my love protesting came,’ she whispered, reading as she turned it.

‘But yet I made her mine,’ came the reply from the doorway.

She half-leapt in fright, clutching the plate to her bodice and whirling to face him, angered by the intrusion. ‘I came here…’ she began, ready to resume the act. But the lines had already faded from memory, and she could only glare, defensively.

‘I know why you came here.’ Sir Nicholas closed the door quietly behind him. ‘You came here to escape Master Fowler’s attentions, in the first place. Isn’t that so? Poor Adorna. Saddling yourself all evening with him to keep yourself out of my way. Was it worth it, then?’

‘It worked well enough until now, sir!’ she snapped.

‘Tch, tch!’ He shook his handsome head, smiling with his eyes. His hair and the deep blue of his clothes blended into the shadowy room, but could not conceal the width of his shoulders or the deep swell of his chest. Though he made no move towards her, Adorna found his presence disconcerting after a whole evening of trying to avoid him. He held out a hand for the plate. ‘May I?’ he said.

Evading his eyes, she placed it back on the pile. ‘A silly jingle,’ she said. ‘Quite meaningless. I must not be seen with you here alone, Sir Nicholas. We have nothing to say to each other, and my father will—’

Before she could say what her father would do, he had stepped forward a pace and nipped the candle flame with his fingers, plunging the room into darkness except for the lambent glow from a rising moon. At the same time, Adorna’s neat sidesteps towards the door was anticipated by the intimidating bulk of his body. ‘Then we must make sure,’ he said, ‘that we are not seen here alone, mistress. But I cannot agree that we have nothing to say to each other when you said so little to me earlier in the evening. Do you not recall the moments when you could have spoken but chose not to? Shall we reconstruct the dance to ease the flow of conversation?’ In the darkness, he held out his hand.

She had noticed his graceful dancing, but this was a game she did not intend to play, nor was she by any means ready to fall into his flirtatious trap, as she was sure many others had done. Far from queueing up for his attentions, she wanted nothing to do with him, especially after what she had heard that evening. It was time someone taught him a lesson.

Taking up the act where she had left off, she let out an exaggerated sigh and turned away from him to stare out of the same window where, two nights ago, she had watched him kiss a woman in the friary paradise. ‘Sir Nicholas, I have had a busy day and I have little inclination to wake all Richmond with my screams. But I am prepared to do so if it’s the only way to get out of here. Now, please will you go and make your courtesies to my parents and leave me in peace? Others may find your ways diverting, but I don’t.’

In one step, he came to stand close behind her with his knees enveloped in her wide bell-shaped skirts. ‘For one so unmoved by my diverting ways, mistress, you send out some strangely contradicting signals,’ he said, his voice suddenly devoid of his former playfulness. ‘You came in here to seek my—’

‘I did not come in here to seek anything!’ she snarled at him over her shoulder. ‘The poem was one that caught my eye.’

‘I see.’ He allowed the explanation to go unchallenged. ‘So perhaps you came here to remind yourself of something you saw out there. Eh?’

‘I saw noth—’ She bit her words off, remembering that he had seen her. She started again. ‘What I caught the merest glimpse of, Sir Nicholas, in no way concerned me. If you choose to tell my father that you have no lady, that’s entirely your own affair. I care not if you have a different lady for each day of the week. All I ask is that you don’t ever consider me to be one of them.’

‘You may be a marginally better actor than your brothers, Adorna, but I still say that your signals are in a tangle. Shall I tell you why?’

Again, she made a move towards the door, but her skirts hampered her and this time his arm came across her to form a solid barrier. She willed herself to maintain an indifference that had nothing to do with the facts, to make her voice obey her head instead of her heart. It was not easy.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t. If you find my signals conflicting, then you are obviously not reading them correctly, sir. Master Fowler finds them easy enough to understand, and so do other men. When I keep out of their way it means that I do not want their company. Now, what part of that message do you not understand? Shall I put it in French for you? Or Latin?’

Even in the darkness, she could feel the changes that crossed his face, his silence verifying that she had scored at last, checked his cocksureness. For once, he was nonplussed. But it did not last long. ‘You mean it, don’t you?’ he whispered. ‘Do you flee from all men on sight, just for the fun of the ride?’

His temporary unsureness gave her courage. ‘What I do with all men is none of your business, Sir Nicholas. But one thing I will tell you is that any man who compares me to a horse, however delicately, may as well take himself off to the other side of the Christendom. And if you’ve finally understood that I mean what I say, then I shall sleep better at nights. Now, return to your long line of amours, sir. They’ll be awaiting you.’

‘When I’m ready. I find it interesting that you feel able to indulge in equine double-talk when you are looking down at the top of my bonnet, but it’s a different matter when your feet are level with mine, isn’t it? Now, that can mean only one thing.’

His arm still held her back against the wall, but his closeness spelt a dangerous determination, and her act of indifference began to falter as his warmth reached her face and the bare skin below her ruff. She gulped, moistening her mouth.

‘You are obviously about to tell me,’ she whispered, ‘though you must have performed this jaded ritual so many times before.’ She turned her head to one side. ‘Tell me, if you must, and then allow me to go in. I’m getting chilled here.’

It was a blunder she could hardly have bettered, but in one way it prepared her as nothing else would for what he might do. Although there was a part of her that wanted him with a desperate longing, she had never anticipated yielding to a man in the middle of an argument about the exact meaning of her signals. If she herself didn’t know what they meant for certain, how could he, for all his experience? No, this was not the way she wanted to be wooed, not like his other easy conquests; small talk, gropings in the dark, a kiss and a fall like ripened fruit into his lap. She was not like the others.

Before he could take hold of her, she had knocked his hands sideways and rammed one elbow into his doublet, swinging herself away into the darkened room to find the table as a barrier. Caught by the side of her hand, the pile of wooden roundels clattered onto the floor, halting her long enough for Sir Nicholas to reach her again with a soft laugh and an infuriating gentling tone that she was sure he used on restive horses. ‘Steady…steady, my beauty. You’re new to this, aren’t you, eh? I knew it. Scared as a new fill—’

Her hand found its target with a terrifying crack on the side of his head that shocked Adorna far more than him. Never in her life had she done such a thing before, nor had she ever needed to. The success of her assault, however, gave her no real advantage except to reinforce her anger and fear, which Sir Nicholas was already aware of. Even in the dark, he was able to catch both her wrists and pull them to his chest, holding her firmly to him, panicking her by his closeness and by her own unusual helplessness. This was not how she wanted to be wooed, either. She had never thought that fighting might be a part of it.

To fight and twist away was one thing, but a whalebone corset beneath the pink fabric of her bodice was quite another and, though she might have screamed, the breath was not in place before he spoke without a trace of the facetiousness she had dreaded.

‘Adorna…hush now. You’ve got it wrong. Listen to me.’

‘I don’t want to…be here… Let me go!’

‘I cannot let you go.’

‘Words…words!’ she hissed. ‘I’ll not be your latest conquest!’

‘Adorna, what is all this about my conquests, my long line of amours? What is it that you’ve heard? Give me a chance to refute it. I’ll not deny that I enjoy women’s company, but it’s not the way you think.’

‘I don’t think anything!’ She pushed at him, angrily.

‘Yes, you do, or you’d not be so fierce. I’m not trying to force you into a relationship. Did you think I was?’

‘Then what are you doing with my wrists in your hands, sir?’

‘Persuading you to listen to me, for you’ll not listen any other way. There, I’ve released you, see. Now, you can do whatever you wish with your hands while I tell you how lovely you are.’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ she yelped. ‘Tell me that my hair is like the moon’s rays, my mouth is like a rosebud, my eyes are like—’

‘Adorna!’

‘Like two faded periwinkles, my nose…oh…whatever the best noses are like nowadays, but spare me the rest, I beg you. I’ve had all that and more, and you can have nothing to add that I’ve not already—’

Apparently there was something that he could add that, so far, no one else had ever succeeded in doing, something that stopped the flow of scorn as effectively as a gag. She tried to talk through it, but he was no amateur like the one he had identified at the Queen’s picnic, and his was not the kind of kiss that pushed and hoped for the best. Knowing that she would try to avoid him, he caught her head and turned it sideways on to his chest, wedging her there while he cut off the scolding words with a sweet tenderness that dried up her thoughts, too. This, he was telling her, was more potent than words, beyond argument, and totally beyond her experience.

Her hands, now freed, could have torn at him but lay unhelpfully upon his doublet instead, feeling nothing. She had sometimes wondered how a woman was supposed to return a man’s kiss when he was doing all that needed to be done, and now she stopped thinking altogether for, after the first startling invasion of his mouth on hers, her mind closed as effectively as her eyes, and she was swept away into the deepest, darkest, most overpowering sensation she could ever have imagined. And she had imagined, often.

Drunk with the new experience, her mind was slow to adjust and, when he paused, just touching her lips with his, her pretences had deserted her. Without any prompting, her hands knew what to do, reaching up through the darkness to touch his face and to find their own way over his ears and hair that parted under her fingers. Shadows of shattered conscience warned her of some former conflict, some contradiction, but it was too dark to identify them before they fled, and his lips returned to take what, this time, she was yielding up without protest. He was tender, carefully disturbing the surface of her desire until a moan began to rise in her throat.

Then he released her, easing her upright and supporting her in his arms while her head drooped, almost touching his chin. ‘You were saying?’ he whispered, eventually.

She shook her head, saying nothing, thinking nothing.

‘Then will you listen to me awhile?’

‘Another time,’ she whispered. ‘Please? Another time? My father…the servants will be here soon to…’ she peered about her and disengaged herself from his arms ‘…to clear up, to lock the doors.’ Unsteadily, she stepped aside, hearing a loud crack from beneath her skirts. ‘Oh, no!’

Sir Nicholas bent to lift her foot and to retrieve two halves of a roundel, placing them on the table. ‘Can’t be helped,’ he said. ‘Adorna, just one thing before I take you back.’ He took her hand and held it against his chest. ‘Whatever you’ve been hearing of me, and you know how people gossip at Court, don’t allow it to prejudice you against me. If there is no scandal, people will invent it. It’s gossip, Adorna.’

There was nothing she could reply to that except to remove her hand and hope that her cheeks and lips would be cooled by the night air before she entered the house. The last remaining guests were departing as they appeared together, though one who lingered was, to Adorna’s consternation, Master Peter Fowler. He came to greet them with some eagerness, his expression as he looked from one to the other showing that he recognised what Adorna had hoped to conceal.

‘Peter,’ she said, reading his face.

‘There you are!’ Peter said, breezily. ‘Sir Nicholas, I was hoping to catch you, sir.’

‘Me? Whatever for?’

‘I’ve been across to the palace just now. The keys, you know. Bedtime.’ He smiled apologetically. The handing over of the keys of Her Majesty’s chamber at bedtime was a ritual he could not evade. ‘And I’ve been given two messages for you. You’re a popular man, sir.’ His expression, Adorna thought, held a glint of sheer mischief as he came to her side, ready to lead her away. ‘One from his lordship’s man to say that he’d be glad if you’d take a look at the bay stallion again before you retire.’