The Greatest Lover in All England (15 page)

Remembering the battles she'd seen women wage against rough husbands, against the ravages of soldiers, and against men who considered them less important than dishrags, Rosie had to admit she did know how rare it was. She didn't have to admit she appreciated it, however.

Picking up her needle, Jean straightened the thread. “I've known Tony almost his whole life. When he came to us he was still a babe with a wet nurse, and we had decided—”

“We?”

“My sister Ann, my brother Michael, and I.”

Rosie didn't want to be interested. She didn't want to care, but unbearable curiosity prompted her to say, “Go on.”

“We had decided we weren't going to like him.” Jean placed her stitches prudently, creating a picture in the rough material beneath her hand. “He was my father's bastard, you know, born of a love affair with an aristocratic woman. I thought his whole existence was a slap in my mother's face.”

Rosie's curiosity had been piqued, and she wanted to hear the story, but she didn't have to admit that. “I can't blame you.”

“My mother didn't agree,” Jean rapped out. “She said a baby wasn't responsible for his existence.”

“Oh.” Rosie brushed at a grass stain on her skirt. “So she blamed your father?”

“My mother didn't blame anyone. She had a disease”—Jean cleared her throat—“that seemed to creep over her limbs and waste her muscles. My father loved her, but he was only a man, and when he saw Lady Margaret, he—”

“Created Tony?”

Jean nodded, accepting Rosie's tact with gratitude. “If Mother was hurt, she never let us know, and when
Lady Margaret refused to care for Tony, Mother insisted on taking him into our home. Then when I wouldn't pick him up, she insisted on picking him up. What was I to do? I was afraid she'd hurt herself.”

“So you cared for Tony?”

Affection animated Jean's sharp features, and her face warmed and mellowed. “He was the smartest baby. Did you know he said his first word at nine months? And walked before he got his first tooth. He used to smile up at me and make those big eyes, and I couldn't refuse him anything. I must have carried him everywhere until he got so big I couldn't lift him.”

Rosie pulled her braid over her shoulder and took the ribbon from her hair. With her fingers, she combed through the tresses and frowned at the leaves that fell around her skirt. “You spoiled him.”

“We all did.”

“Surely not the heir, your brother,” Rose said, drawing on her experience of young men. “Young men like to fight and shout and drink, not care for a child.”

“Michael is a special man. Tony adored him then, and adores him now. And Michael, like the rest of us, spoiled Tony until the time he was six. Toward the end, he was the only one who could make my mother laugh, and he called her ‘Mama.'”

Rosie shook her hair, trying to dislodge the last bits of grass. “Your mother died when he was six?”

“Nay. Lady Margaret decided she wanted him when he was six.”

“What?” Again Rosie bounded to her feet. “His mother took him when he was six?”

Jean no longer placed her stitches with care, but stabbed the tapestry as if she could stab Lady Margaret. “Kidnapped him.”

“Why?”

“There was some criticism of her for her coldness in abandoning her child and returning to court. She didn't really care until she married, and her husband, the earl of Drebred, desired that Tony be raised with his other children.”

Rosie didn't understand. She couldn't even begin to comprehend. “Why?”

“I don't know. Because it was the proper thing to do, I suppose, and the earl of Drebred is determined to do all that is proper.” Jean no longer even pretended to embroider. She simply stared at the needlework and recited the facts. “We refused to give Tony up. Our father had the right to him, of course, and they could do nothing, we thought.”

Wrapped up in the tale, Rosie didn't move from her place on the terrace.

“They took him when he was riding on our estate. His horse was new. He'd got it for his birthday, and when the horse returned without him, we thought he'd been thrown. We searched every inch of every acre, twice. Finally, one of the innkeepers on the route to London came to us and said he'd seen a boy who looked like Tony, crying for his mama.”

Rosie couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe that open, cheerful, confident Tony concealed such a disturbance in his past. “Why didn't you demand him back?”

“We did, but while our family is reasonably wealthy and influential, the Spencer family has nothing that could be compared to the Drebred fortune. They're one of the great families of the north.” Jean looked as if she tasted something bitter. “And they're cold as ice.”

A small boy with Tony's face, crying for his mother in a fortress by the Scottish border. It made Rosie ill to think of it. “He didn't stay with them?”

Jean began to sew again. “Until he was eleven.”

“Eleven? Those people kept him until he was eleven?”

“Aye.”

“What happened at eleven?”

Jean leaned over into her basket and shuffled through the array of colored threads. “He ran away and came home.”

“Came home.” Rosie knew about the difficulties of the road better than most, and she asked, “Where is home?”

“In Cornwall.”

Rosie caught Jean's hand, and Jean looked up at her. “He came from the north to your estate in Cornwall?” Jean nodded, and Rosie's voice soared. “At age eleven?” Jean nodded again, and Rosie sat down hard on her stool.

“I hate to think of the journey,” Jean said. “It took him four months, and when he arrived, the servants didn't recognize him. They tried to feed him in the kitchen and send him on his way.”

Rosie knew without asking, but she asked anyway. “Dirty and thin and threadbare?”

“And heartbroken. He'd come all that way for his mama, and his mama—”

Rosie stifled her own cry with her fist.

“I would have thought Lord and Lady Drebred would tell him. God knows they tried everything to break his spirit, but from the few things Tony said, they used Mama as a token against his good behavior.” Jean mimicked a falsetto voice. “‘If you're good, Anthony, we'll let you go visit your beloved mama.' Mama died within a year of Tony's kidnapping. He cried like an infant when he learned the truth, and I've never seen him cry since.”

“Poor Tony.”

“And poor Mama. I trow, to be without him broke her
heart.” Jean licked her thumb, reached out, and wiped at Rosie's face. “You have dirt on your cheek—and tears.”

Something—a noise, a shadow—brought their heads around, and they saw Tony standing in the open doorway. Rosie jumped guiltily; Jean did not.

“Have you come to enjoy the last sunshine before chill winter, brother?”

“I have indeed.” He exited the manor and came to stand so that his shadow fell across Rosie's face.

How much had he heard, she wondered. Did he realize she'd been crying for the pain of his childhood? She didn't think he'd like this—that she knew he'd at one time been young, weak, and hurt.

“I've come out to let my ribs heal and to converse with two of the loveliest women in the world.” He frowned. “But what happened to you, Rosalyn? Why the dirt and hay in your hair?”

So much for her attempt at grooming. “I…fell.”

“You…fell?” he mimicked. “Well, you'll just have to be more careful when you walk in the garden, won't you?”

Rosie's gaze flew to his, and he lifted his eyebrows. He didn't know what she'd been doing. Did he? How could he, when she'd just got back from her meeting with Ludovic? And why should he care, anyway? She'd done nothing wrong.

Oblivious to the undercurrents, Jean said, “You can't expect the girl to act like a lady when she's been living as a lad—and an uncommon lad at that—for all these years. She probably forgot she was wearing skirts.”

“I only wish I could,” Rosie muttered.

“I don't think I'm expecting too much from Rosalyn. Do you, Rosalyn?” Tony smiled as if unaware of Rosie's alarm, when all the time she would wager he knew where she'd been and whom she'd seen. “After
all, Rosalyn is very intelligent and knows right from wrong. Sir Danny taught her that, and she wouldn't want to betray Sir Danny with a heedless indiscretion. It might result in injury to someone she holds dear, and she wouldn't like that at all.”

Jean couldn't be oblivious to
that
intimidation. “Are you holding Sir Danny hostage for Rosie's good behavior?”

“Nay,” Tony denied.

“Good, for I doubt that would be good tactics with Lady Rosalyn.”

Rosie could have cheered at Jean's defense, and Tony's lip protruded in a genuine sulk.

Then Jean stood and gathered her sewing basket. “I always said that whatever Tony wants, Tony gets.”

Rosie's jubilation faded and Tony's sulk became a smirk. “You should listen to my sister, Rosalyn.”

Jean continued, “So earlier today I wondered aloud at the result of the battle of the Titans—meaning you and Lady Honora.”

“I will not marry Lady Honora.” Tony said it as if he'd made the declaration too many times.

“My silly sister Ann said much the same thing, but she also told me I was betting on the wrong fight.”

“Oh?” Tony said frostily.

“She says Lady Rosalyn's the one to watch, and my silly sister Ann often displays good instincts about people.” She smiled at Rosie. “I'm glad we had this chance to talk, Lady Rosalyn.”

Rosie watched Jean leave and wished she could go with her. But something held her in her seat—Tony's hand gripping her arm.

“I want to talk to you,” he said.

“And I want to talk to you,” she answered.

He cocked his head. “Confession time?”

“Indeed, Sir Rycliffe, it is. I have badly misled you, and wish to beg your pardon.”

Tony watched her with a little too much concentration. “Speak, Rosalyn.”

“I told you I would find someone else to teach me to read, but that's ridiculous, a result of misplaced pride.” She hated to apologize, wishing there was some other way to remain close to him, to protect him from whatever might be threatening him. “I'm sorry for rejecting your kind offer, and if it still stands, I would be grateful for your help.”

He flexed his hands, and she watched and wondered what he thought. Did he wish he had his fingers around her neck? Or did he espy the chance to use his hands in other pursuits? Timidly she asked, “What did you wish to discuss with me?”

“We'll talk about that some other time.” Standing, he held out his palm. “So you want to learn to read. Wonderful.” She put her hand in his. “Let's start now with the alphabet.”

Lady Honora leaned
over the rail and watched as Tony and Sir Danny practiced with rapier and dagger on the lawn below the terrace. “He's very handsome, isn't he?”

She seemed to be inquiring of no one except the evening air, but Rosie stood beside her and Rosie couldn't ignore the question, nor the tone of admiration with which Lady Honora asked it. With a sinking sensation, Rosie agreed. “Aye, he is.”

“Such flashing eyes, such beautiful hair.” Lady Honora sighed a long fluttery sigh. “Any woman would feel privileged to be invited to that man's bed.”

Rosie looked at Tony, then looked at Lady Honora and watched as she paid homage to a fine specimen of man. It sheared years from Lady Honora's appearance,
softened the stiffness of her carriage, made her a woman like any other. “So she would.”

“If only he weren't so short.”

Short? “Tony?”

“Nay, foolish child.” Lady Honora laughed deep in her chest, and it almost sounded like a purr. “Sir Danny.”

Rosie set her heel on the hem of her petticoat and stumbled backward, and for the first time in four weeks, since Lady Honora had resolved to teach Rosie the womanly arts, Lady Honora didn't notice her clumsiness. Lady Honora didn't notice anything but Sir Danny, and Rosie couldn't tear her gaze from Lady Honora's enraptured face.

Sir Danny…and Lady Honora? Lady Honora, dowager duchess of Burnham and baroness of Rowse…and Sir Danny Plympton, Esquire? No matter how she tried to say it, it never sounded less than ludicrous.

But it explained a few things. Like having Sir Danny pat her absently on the head when she tried to complain about Tony's hands-on method of teaching.

Like having him tell her that Tony would take care of everything when she expressed her concern about Ludovic's disappearance.

Like his absolute lack of concern for Essex's plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth.

Od's bodkin, that had been one of the reasons they'd come to Odyssey Manor in the first place. They'd come right into the household of the master of the Queen's Guard, so why shouldn't they gain his aid? But Sir Danny mumbled and smirked, and now Rosie knew why.

He was in love. Again. She should have recognized the symptoms.

She flexed her arm, newly removed from the splint, to put strength back into it. She would need that strength. She was now on her own.

 

Sir Danny measured the length of his arm against Tony's, and shook his head. “No wonder you're so good with a sword.” He panted, drawing in deep, exhausted breaths. “You can scratch your knee without bending over.”

Tony laughed and with the back of his hand wiped the sweat from his brow. “Nothing so fine as that.”

“Whew! Such fighting is warm work.” Sheathing the sword and dagger, Sir Danny untied the laces of his doublet and lifted it over his head. “I would that I had your reach. I fear I'll have more need of it than just for acting in sword fight scenes.”

“I fear so, also.” Tony suspected it wasn't just heat that made Sir Danny strip down to his linen shirt. Open at the neck, Sir Danny's almost transparent shirt both hid and displayed the muscles of his chest and arms, teasing the ladies and perhaps whetting their appetites. How ridiculous. How flamboyant.

How clever. Lady Honora hadn't taken her gaze from him.

Slowly, Tony removed his doublet, also, and loosened the lacing at the neck of his fine thin shirt until it opened almost to his waist. Had Rosie noticed? One sly glance proved she hung over the railing, and he strolled casually to Sir Danny's side. “When will you leave?”

“On the morrow.” Sir Danny swung his doublet over the stiff branches of a gorse bush.

Tony placed his doublet beside Sir Danny's. The brilliant colors of the shrub accented the rich blacks and reds of the padded fabrics, and they dangled together as symbols of the unlikely partnership. “I cannot lie. I am grateful for your plan, but I dread the moment you tell Rosie.”

“
I
tell Rosie?” Sir Danny picked up his sword and the tip of it waved in negative exclamation. “I'll just slip away.
You
can tell Rosie.”

“Nay,” Tony said decisively. “She'll take it better coming from you.”

“Nay, nay. She feels unacknowledged affection for you. 'Twill draw you closer together.”

“More likely she will rip off my head.”

“You're not afraid of a woman, are you?”

“Are
you?
”

They drew breath and stared at each other, hostile enough to fight, and they touched blades in salute. Then, moving more slowly than he would in real combat, Tony began the lesson once more. “Touch, break, thrust, break.” He watched his pupil closely. Sir Danny knew more than the just the bare rudiments of fighting with rapier and dagger. He'd had to learn, Tony guessed, to defend his troupe. But Sir Danny knew less than the lords who made swordwork their career, and Tony had tried, these last weeks, to cram Sir Danny with the skill of years of training.

“Watch for the opening! Stab, stab with the dagger, dammit!”

Sir Danny rushed into the gap Tony had left deliberately and stabbed at his heart.

Tony praised the thrust, then said, “I won't allow it. You go to seek death for love of the queen, and you must say good-bye to the woman who considers you her father.”

With a sigh, Sir Danny glanced toward the terrace. “I suppose, but she's going to be angry.”

“There is that chance.”

“Chance?” Sir Danny snorted. “'Tis a certainty. She's always angry when I put myself in danger. This will make her livid.”

“Perhaps I can bring her around after you leave.” Tony grinned in anticipation of a furious, out-of-control Rosie. She was easy to incite, and fun to divert.

“Aye.” Sir Danny's worried face cleared. “She'll have you and probably won't even notice my departure. After all, she's older now, with concerns of her own. She doesn't need her dada for reassurance. Aye, you'll be able to restrain her.”

Sir Danny sounded so apprehensive, Tony asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?” Sir Danny's tale of the earls of Essex and Southampton and their plans for rebellion had come as no surprise. Queen Elizabeth might have temporarily relieved Tony of duties as the master of her guard, but he gathered information from the captain of his men and he knew of the mutterings.

Everyone knew of the mutterings. But did the queen?

Until she found out about this treason and moved to squelch it, the kingdom would be in jeopardy. And Tony couldn't advise her, for she believed him prejudiced against her beloved Essex.

As he was. But a serious situation was rapidly moving toward crisis and, stripped of his power, Tony could do nothing. The queen needed to relent, to allow him to leave his exile and return to his duties before it was too late. For that he needed Sir Danny, and Sir Danny had cheerfully volunteered.

Cheerfully? Nay, enthusiastically.

“Who better than I to go into London and report the nefarious plot to the queen?” Sir Danny held his sword outthrust, curved his arm back, puffed out his chest, raised his chin, and let the wind blow his hair away from his face. “'Tis dangerous, 'tis true. I face a myriad of evil forces allied against me. But I and I alone—”

Tony laid his hand on Sir Danny's arm. “They can't hear you.”

“Sir?”

“The women.” Tony nodded at the terrace. “The pose is alluring, but they're too far away to hear you. I just want to know if you truly think you can get all the way to the queen before Essex seizes you.”

Sir Danny kept the pose, but dropped the rhetoric. “With the help of your letter of safe conduct, I can.”

“Essex won't give a damn about my letter of safe conduct, and he has spies in the court. If you're not wary, you may find yourself several inches taller with the assistance of a helpful torturer. Even if you're not wary…” Tony trailed off. What was he doing, using a common actor as a pawn in this game of power? Essex would smash Sir Danny heedlessly, cruelly, and send his lifeless body to Tony as a warning.

“Sir Anthony.” Sir Danny faced Tony full on and spoke with a candor all the more convincing for its simplicity. “All my life I've been convinced that I would someday fulfill a great destiny. Someday I knew I would be more than a wandering actor. Someday I knew the merit I support within my bosom would find an outlet in some splendid deed. Well, this is it! I feel it! I will save the queen of England, and England herself! Don't try to keep me safe. Don't blame yourself should I die in the undertaking. Know that I bless you for giving me this chance at glory, and mourn me not should I fail.”

“As you wish.” Tony slashed the air with his sword. “But if I've sent you to your death, it's going to be cold in my bed—after Rosie and I are married, I mean.”

Sir Danny studied him with shrewd eyes. “I've heard it's warm in your study right now.”

“In my study?”

“Where you're teaching my Rosie to read. She's
complaining that you reward her successes with an embrace and her failures with a kiss.”

Defensive at once, Tony said, “Well, she doesn't like my kisses…yet.”

“I thought you were England's greatest lover.” Sir Danny's tone made it clear that if Tony were England's greatest lover, he'd succeeded Sir Danny for the honor.

“I am, but Rosie is a most stubborn woman. She resists wooing so stubbornly I'm forced to dim my brilliance and resort to trickery.” Tony waited a beat. “She's loath to allow herself to feel the slightest pleasure, for she fears if she does, all her resistance will crumble.”

“Ah, aye. I've had experience with wenches of that ilk.” Sir Danny kissed his fingers at some long-distant memory. “But when the resistance does crumble, it's magnificent. In sooth, I remained in the bed of that lady so long, I scarcely escaped London with my life.”

“The mayor's wife?” Tony asked.

Sir Danny nodded melodramatically, then slipped his sword under Tony's unready guard and placed the tip at his throat. “However, my exploits differ from yours, for you are trying to seduce the woman I consider my daughter.”

Amazing how one could remain still, not even swallowing, when the shining arc of a blade threatened.

“When I leave, I'm leaving everything in your hands and trusting to your honor. I'm leaving you the letter, and I'm leaving you my Rosie, and if I should survive this operation, I would take it ill to discover you have used and discarded her.”

“Sir Danny—”

“And even if I should die and you should fulfill your duty and wed Rosie, you'll find my shade haunting you should you not cherish her as she so richly deserves.”

Tony didn't mind assuring Sir Danny of his good
intentions, but Sir Anthony Rycliffe did not use women and discard them and he took it ill when so accused. “Rosie will be the wife of my heart and mind, but until she consents to wed me, we'll not indulge in the ultimate pleasure. I'll have no one whispering that my firstborn was a six-months babe and mocking his legitimacy.”

Sir Danny stroked his mustache in puzzlement. “Then why such physical methods of teaching?”

“Rosie's skittish as a colt—unlike most women upon whom I've cast my gaze—and I'm trying to break her to my hand.” Tony experienced a moment of regret for comparing her to a horse. He well knew his own resentment at such treatment, and he was embarrassed when he recalled his own previous demand for a woman as fecund as a mare. “I'll get her accustomed to me gradually, and when she's malleable to my desires, we'll…” Tony broke out in a sweat. When Rosie was malleable to his desires, they'd be lucky to make it to the bed first, much less to the chapel.

Sir Danny seemed to comprehend what Tony didn't say, and surprisingly, he did not take it ill. Withdrawing the sword, he said, “Quite. Do you wish to practice more today?”

Tony eyed him consideringly. Sir Danny would work until he couldn't lift the sword rather than admit his exhaustion, and they'd been practicing for most of the day. “I'm weary. If you don't mind, we'll rest now and give the ladies a chance to say good-bye to you.”

Sir Danny grabbed his doublet before Tony had finished speaking. “I don't mind. I'd like a few words with the Lady Honora tonight, and then on the morrow I'll tell Rosie.”

“On the morrow? Are you mad? Tell her tonight.”

“On the morrow. There's no use worrying the girl unduly tonight”—Sir Danny surmised the objection
hovering on Tony's tongue—“and knowing Rosie, she'd stow away in one of the wagons before the morning.”

“God forbid.” Tony hadn't thought of that. “Tell her on the morrow, then.”

“I've told my troupe to pack up, although I've not told them why we return to London.”

“Whatever will Mistress Child do if she only has to fix three meals a day?” Tony took his doublet also, and considered. Should he put it on? The night breeze blew cold as the sun began to set, but might he not impress Rosie with his body one last time before he dressed for dinner?

“Are you saying my actors eat too much?” Holding his doublet over his shoulder hooked on one finger, Sir Danny sauntered toward the stairs.

“Too much?” Tony followed Sir Danny's example, strutting for his lady while trying to appear oblivious to his own performance. “Let us say, they consume copious amounts.”

“Actors adore a free meal.” Lowering his voice, Sir Danny said, “I wish I could tell you different, but Ludovic hasn't returned.”

Tony stumbled on the stairs. “Nor has he left the estate.”

Sir Danny slowed his ascent. “What have you discovered?”

“The remains of a coney by a fire in our wild wood. A footprint by the stream. And one of the serving women insists she saw a man looking in a window last night.”