Kissing Shakespeare (13 page)

After another minute, Stephen sauntered over and plopped down beside me, still wiping off with the towel. He had put on a clean, sleeveless doublet. “Whoever left the note cannot know the truth about your … origins. I think we may assume that much. So what, then, does it mean?”

“I have no idea.” I stared at the fire, resisting the powerful urge to gaze at him straight on.

“You are still in a foul mood, I see. Will you not even look at me? In truth, I know not what I did wrong.”

Should I tell him? Would he even understand or care? I sucked in a breath. “I don’t like that you’re using me. Even though I agreed to it, it still feels wrong.” And then I did look at him directly. “It really irritates me that despite my telling you over and over I’m a virgin, you still think I sleep around.”

“Well,” he said. “Well.” The second “well” came out more softly than the first. He looked stunned, and after a minute he rose and paced around the room. “Pray forgive me, Olivia,” he said, circling back to face me. “You are a maid, then, and must lose your maidenhead to Shakespeare in this scheme. No wonder you are angry.”

“Well, now you know. So let me do this in my own time and in my own way. Don’t ask me every five minutes what happened between Will and me. I’m committed to this; in a weird sort of way I’m even looking forward to it—sleeping with the greatest writer of all time—but I don’t want you to hassle me about it.”

“
Hassle
. I am not familiar with that word, although I take your meaning. But we do not have forever.” He said it kindly, so I couldn’t be too annoyed.

“Also”—he grimaced when he realized I wasn’t done—“I’d appreciate it if you treated me with a little respect. Like you might treat an Elizabethan girl of your class.”

“What brought this on?”

“Our conversation yesterday. Would you have said those things to a girl of this time and place? And just now, would you have been over there half-naked and washing in front of, say, your betrothed?”

If the reference to his dead fiancée pained him, he hid it well. “Most assuredly not. My betrothed would not be in my chamber. But you are different. You are more worldly—”

“Stephen!”

He plunked back down beside me. “Sorry. ’Tis hard to think of you as belonging to this time. I will, starting now, treat you with the respect you deserve. But we must sometimes speak of the seduction, you know.”

“Of course.”

He eyed me, almost as though he was seeing me in a new light.

“You look passing lovely with your hair arranged thus.”

Oh, puh-leeze
. Was this what he thought I wanted? Phony compliments? I jerked my eyes away from him. “The note. Someone thinks I’m not Olivia Langford. Why do they think so, and what do they intend to do about it?”

“ ’Tis a threat of some kind. But do they mean to expose you?” He leaned forward and ran a hand through his hair. “Who here could mean you harm?”

“My guess would be Jennet. She’s jealous of me and Will. Not that she has anything to be jealous of—yet—but that’s probably not the way she sees it.”

“Isn’t she away at present?”

“She may have returned; we were outside at the games, so how would we have known? But she can’t read, so she couldn’t have written the note, anyway.” We went through the list of other possibilities, but nothing made sense. “Maybe it’s someone we don’t know. A spy,” I said.

“If there is a spy about, he would be after Thomas Cook, not you.”

After tossing ideas around for a few more minutes, we gave up.

“I’ll think on it,” Stephen said, “and you do the same. And be watchful. We may discover something.”

I nodded. “I’ll hide the note somewhere in my room.”

“Nay, we must burn it. Someone else could find it.” He thrust it into the fire and we watched as the flames devoured it.

“I’m going to bed,” I said, rising. “Oh, just so you know: Will kissed me. And I kissed him back.”

“And was it so bad, kissing Master Will?”

“Not at all.” I headed for the door, but Stephen grabbed my hand.

“So you enjoyed it, then?”

I shrugged. “He’s a good kisser.”

Stephen dropped my hand, his eyes dark and unreadable. “Then mayhap seducing him will not be so difficult.”

What could I say to that? Before he had time to utter another word, I fled into the passage, toward the safety of my room.

T
HE WEEK AFTER
E
ASTER
, everyone resumed their usual routines. Will spent his time in the classroom. Jennet returned from her visit home and continued learning how to manage a staff. Occasionally I spotted her trailing through the house in Elizabeth’s wake. From conversations with her at meals, I knew she was also studying the ancient arts of spinning, dyeing, and herbal healing.

Although Stephen and I had been ill at ease with each other since Sunday, he had quit pestering me about how I was getting on with Will. He spent most days with his uncle, riding out to survey fields and learn about enclosure and drainage systems. Sometimes, he went hunting or hawking with the other men, and I wished he’d take me along. Hadn’t Anne Boleyn accompanied King Henry when he’d hunted and hawked? I was sure I remembered that from a movie or a miniseries. I blamed Stephen for my boredom.

So one afternoon I sneaked into Alexander’s library. Thomas studied there every morning, but I knew he took a break after the midday meal. After a few moments of browsing, I discovered that I needed a lesson in reading the print. I could make sense of some of the words, but others completely tripped me up. It might as well have been written in code. Giving up in frustration, I grabbed a translation of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
—at least, that was what I thought it was—to take back to my room. It looked like several volumes from the Ovid section were missing. Probably Thomas or Will had them.

I couldn’t resist looking for the love poetry, even though I wouldn’t be able to read it. I was sure Will would approve if he caught me reading one of the ancient poets. Leaning in as close as I could, I tried to decipher the writing on the spines of the books.

“Ahem.”

Busted!
I spun around fast, making myself dizzy. It was only Will, standing there watching me. Thank God it wasn’t Thomas Cook or, worse yet, Alexander. “Good day to you, Master Will,” I said.

“Well met, Mistress Olivia. You are borrowing a book, I see.”

“Aye. Am I allowed … that is, would my uncle approve?”

He smiled sheepishly. “I’ve a whole stack of them in my chamber. What have you chosen?” He walked toward me, holding out his hand, and I passed the book to him. Before I could answer, he said, “Ovid! My favorite poet.”

“Then I chose well.”

“The
Metamorphoses
. Have you read the stories?”

“Nay. I was hoping you might have time to help me with them.”

“My students are dismissed for the day,” he said. “If you can spare the time, why not begin now?”

“Aye, I do have time.”
You have no idea how much
.

He motioned to a long oak table. It reminded me of the tables in some of our modern libraries, except it had benches instead of chairs. I thought Will would sit across from me, but instead, he plunked down beside me. “What do you know of our esteemed poet?”

“Very little. That is why I need your guidance.”

He propped an elbow on the table and rested his head against his hand, staring suggestively at me. “Did you know much of Ovid’s work is considered wanton and highly erotic?”

Gulp
. “Nay, I did not,” I choked out.

“That is why your brother cautioned me against using the
Amores
or
Ars Amatoria
in my instruction.” He lifted his head and inclined it in my direction, moving a little closer to me. “Mayhap he’s forgotten that the
Metamorphoses
can be just as amorous as Ovid’s other work.”

I played naïve. Easy, since I’d never read
any
Ovid. “Truly?”

“Oh, aye,” he said. “You are coloring, mistress. I am embarrassing you.”

“A little.”

“You look quite lovely with your cheeks pink and your eyes a bit glazed.”

Excuse me, my eyes are not glazed
. He couldn’t even see my eyes, since I wasn’t looking at him. I was staring straight ahead, too self-conscious to look at his face. I was beginning to suspect that Will was a first-class flirt.

His voice came in a low whisper. “May I steal a kiss, Olivia?”

I turned toward him then, and he took that as a yes. Bending down, he pressed his lips to mine and kissed me sweetly. I felt his fingers tangling in my hair, then caressing my scalp.
Ah. I’m kissing Shakespeare, my hero. My idol
. I opened my eyes and looked straight into his gray ones. That shocked me back to reality. Full-blown making out in the library wasn’t appropriate, at least not in this century. I pulled away.

“Ovid. We should begin, sir.”

Will laughed. “Aye.” He practically leaped off the bench and began prowling around the room, all the time lecturing about the great Latin poet. His life, his work, how he got in trouble with the emperor Augustus and was banished to some far-off port city, where he ended up spending the remainder of his life, pretty much a broken man.

“What caused the trouble?” I asked, when I could get a word in.

Will gave me a sensual grin. “The
Ars Amatoria
. The
Art of Love
.” He strode back over to me and brushed his fingers down my cheek. “You see, it is a manual of seduction.”

“Oh.”
I could use a copy
.

“Augustus was attempting moral reforms, and he was not pleased. There was no doubt more to it than that, but the
Ars
played a part in Ovid’s downfall.”

I thought we needed to move on. “Which are your favorites of
these
stories?” I asked, holding up the
Metamorphoses
.

“I am fond of them all.” He let out a sharp breath. “They are not happy stories, yet somehow they please me. The characters make mistakes. They do not choose well, and must suffer the consequences. ’Tis an interesting time to study the human character, is it not?”

“You mean when we are in turmoil over something?”

“Aye. Sometimes we destroy the thing we want the most or love the best.”

A funny little whimper burst out on a rush of breath.
Othello. Lear. Hamlet
. Even some of the comedies. “Will you read me one?”

“I’ll read you the story of Apollo and Daphne, from the first book. Do you know it?”

I shook my head. Of course, I knew they were part of Greek mythology—I just wasn’t sure what part, exactly. This time, Will seated himself across from me. He read and I listened, mesmerized by his voice, the characters, and the simple fact that it was Shakespeare reading to me.

A god named Apollo falls for Daphne, a nymph. She doesn’t love him back; in fact, his declaration of love creeps her out. The more she resists him, the more he wants her. A big turn-on for him, apparently. One day he literally chases her, hoping to get her to change her mind, but instead he scares her senseless.
Proving that guys, even gods, have always been idiots
.

Daphne runs, her glorious hair streaming out behind her. She calls to her father, a river god, to save her, and on the spot he transforms her into a laurel tree. Apollo, when he catches up to her, places his hand on the trunk and feels her heart still beating. He’s crushed.
At least
he
doesn’t have to be a tree for all eternity
.

Will finished, and the room was still. “Couldn’t he see how frightened she was?” I asked.

“He knew it, but was powerless to stop. He let himself believe he could win her, despite all evidence to the contrary.”

“But if he’d just approached her in a reasonable way, maybe she would have changed her mind.”

“Do you not see he was incapable of doing so?”

“He was an idiot. A fool,” I said, maybe a tad too loud.

“Perhaps. But his foolish actions make a powerful story, eh?”

Chasing someone until she’s forced to morph into a tree just seemed downright depressing to me. But I was looking for the happy ending. Will, on some level, was delving into human emotion and laying the groundwork for his future role as the world’s greatest storyteller. I could almost see the pinwheels spinning inside his head. “Read me another,” I said.

So he did. Pyramus and Thisbe, the classical version of
Romeo and Juliet
; and Ceres and Proserpina, featuring another lovesick god who kidnaps the woman he lusts after.

By then it was late afternoon. Bess would be wondering where I was, I knew, since it was time to dress for dinner. “Thank you, Will. This has been most … instructive.”

He gave me his arm and we walked upstairs together. “I hope we can do it again.”

“I would be disappointed if we did not.” I gave him what I hoped was a teasing smile and turned off into my chamber. But he pulled me back, bending over and kissing my fingers. I kept my eyes fixed somewhere above his head, and I sensed rather than heard his soft laugh.